Russian Hackers Steal Democratic National Committee's Opposition Research On Trump

[From article]
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.
The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC’s system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts.
The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
A Russian Embassy spokesman said he had no knowledge of such intrusions.
[. . .]



The intrusions are an example of Russia’s interest in the U.S. political system and its desire to understand the policies, strengths and weaknesses of a potential future president — much as American spies gather similar information on foreign candidates and leaders.
The depth of the penetration reflects the skill and determination of the United States’ top cyber adversary as Russia goes after strategic targets, from the White House and State Department to political campaign organizations.
[. . .]
“It’s the job of every foreign intelligence service to collect intelligence against their adversaries,” said Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm called in to handle the DNC breach and a former head of the FBI’s cyber division. He noted that it is extremely difficult for a civilian organization to protect itself from a skilled and determined state such as Russia.
“We’re perceived as an adversary of Russia,” he said. “Their job when they wake up every day is to gather intelligence against the policies, practices and strategies of the U.S. government. There are a variety of ways. [Hacking] is one of the more valuable because it gives you a treasure trove of information.”
[. . .]



Trump has not been a politician for very long, so foreign agencies are playing catch-up, analysts say.
“The purpose of such intelligence gathering is to understand the target’s proclivities,” said Robert Deitz, former senior councillor to the CIA director and a former general counsel at the National Security Agency. “Trump’s foreign investments, for example, would be relevant to understanding how he would deal with countries where he has those investments” should he be elected, Deitz said. “They may provide tips for understanding his style of negotiating. In short, this sort of intelligence could be used by Russia, for example, to indicate where it can get away with foreign adventurism.”
[. . .]
Within 24 hours, CrowdStrike had installed software on the DNC’s computers so that it could analyze data that could indicate who had gained access, when and how.
The firm identified two separate hacker groups, both working for the Russian government, that had infiltrated the network, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder and chief technology officer. The firm had analyzed other breaches by both groups over the past two years.
One group, which CrowdStrike had dubbed Cozy Bear, had gained access last summer and was monitoring the DNC’s email and chat communications, Alperovitch said.
The other, which the firm had named Fancy Bear, broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files, Henry said. And they had access to the computers of the entire research staff — an average of about several dozen on any given day.
The computers contained research going back years on Trump. “It’s a huge job” to dig into the dealings of somebody who has never run for office before, Dacey said.
CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC employees with “spearphishing” emails. These are communications that appear legitimate — often made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted — but that contain links or attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access to a computer. “But we don’t have hard evidence,” Alperovitch said.
The two groups did not appear to be working together, Alperovitch said. Fancy Bear is believed to work for the GRU, or Russia’s military intelligence service, he said. CrowdStrike is less sure of whom Cozy Bear works for but thinks it might be the Federal Security Service or FSB, the country’s powerful security agency, which was once headed by Putin.
[. . .]



The two groups have hacked government agencies, tech companies, defense contractors, energy and manufacturing firms, and universities in the United States, Canada and Europe as well as in Asia, he said.
Cozy Bear, for instance, compromised the unclassified email systems of the White House, State Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2014, Alperovitch said.
“This is a sophisticated foreign intelligence service with a lot of time, a lot of resources, and is interested in targeting the U.S. political system,” Henry said. He said the DNC was not engaged in a fair fight. “You’ve got ordinary citizens who are doing hand-to-hand combat with trained military officers,” he said. “And that’s an untenable situation.”
The firm has installed special software on every computer and server in the network to detect any efforts by the Russian cyberspies to break in again. “When they get kicked out of the system,” Henry predicted, “they’re going to try to come back in.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html

Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump
By Ellen Nakashima

June 14, 2016 at 11:30 AM

Solution to Divided Population Is Not to Unify Them. Solution Is To Teach Respect and Tolerance For Other Views

The proposed solution to polarization of the population is not to force conformity. Disagreeing may be extreme. But respect and tolerance for dissenting views makes for robust, exciting, interesting and thought provoking debate. Few Americans have ever been challenged with opposing arguments. Fewer were taught to respect people who disagree with them. Encouraging dissent is what leads to truth. 

[From article]
The narrative builds upon the all too apparent fact that there is great discontent and polarization inside the country. No one contests this conclusion. However, the framing of the narrative is turning everything upside down.
The narrative presents the scenario of two poles. The first pole is made up of those who are well-off, successful, and educated. They live in healthy families, and in good neighborhoods with excellent schools, which isolates and buffers them from the rest of America.
[. . .]
On the other side is an underclass composed of those who are poor, uneducated, and neglected. They live in broken families, and in poor neighborhoods with horrible schools. They are joined by blue-collar workers who have lost jobs to immigrants and outsourcing to places like China. They live on the margins of society and are isolated from the other pole.
The two sides share little in common save an increasing animosity. This never-the-twain-shall-meet narrative can be found in Charles Murray’s compelling book, Coming Apart, or in Robert Putnam’s Our Kids. Pundits and columnists repeat and echo versions of this portrayal in diverse media.
[. . .]
The proposed narrative to explain the present electoral cycle would not be based on the battle of the haves versus the have-nots. Rather it holds there is a universal moral crisis that is devastating all society. It is not just polarizing but shattering the nation and its economy into a thousand pieces.
[. . .]
Both groupings see their families being destroyed through divorce and general breakdown. All share in the immoral movies, fashions, drugs, and promiscuity that recognize no class and ravage a social fiber where people no longer pray. Structures across the board are crumbling whether they be governments, families, institutions, or customs.
[. . .]
The narrative that should govern the debate should be one of unity, not division. It should be directed at the moral problems of this universal crisis, not against fellow Americans. The surviving ramparts of the nation’s moral establishment should be fortified, not torn down. People need to return to God as the center of our lives, not the federal government. These are the issues that few dare to mention in the present political circus, but they lie deep within the souls of so many Americans who grieve for the nation.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/who_is_framing_the_narrative_in_the_political_debate.html

March 7, 2016
Who Is Framing the Narrative in the Political Debate?
By John Horvat II

European People Organize Against Middle East Muslim Migrant Invasion

Determined: Festerling poses in front of a statue of Martin Luther in Dresden. She cited his 1521 statement, 'here I stand. God help me. I can do no other.'

[From article]
The most powerful woman in far-Right Germany has made an extraordinary call for the public to ‘forget about decency’ and fight the ‘sex-jihad’ she claims is being waged against Western women.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Tatjana Festerling, 51, the second-in-command of the anti-Islam group Pegida, said ‘political correctness’ was putting women and gay men at risk of assault.
In a vicious attack on Muslim migrants and the political elite, she said: ‘Germany is like an open-air psychiatric ward with the mental illness of political correctness.
'We don’t have time for decency any more. If we don’t grab our pitchforks and fight the Islamisation of Europe, we are lost.'
Her comments, in a video for MailOnline, will cause concern that a resurgent far-Right is exploiting migration to whip up racist hatred.
[. . .]
Accompanied by a bodyguard at a cafe in central Dresden, Festerling told MailOnline:
’Pegida are the only ones who don’t care about being politically correct. We just don’t care. We have no scruples and no fear.
‘We are on the rise all over the world, regaining territory that was lost to political correctness.
‘The Muslim headscarf should be banned, and radical mosques should be closed. We need to make life uncomfortable for them.
'Migrants should be forced to register at police stations, and ultimately we need to look at deportation. If they keep crossing the border and you can't arrest them, shoot them.'
Germany’s ‘refugees welcome culture’ is like a cult, she said, with anti-migrant voices being suppressed by an out-of-touch political elite. She continued:
In peaceful times, we Germans like to be decent and behave nicely to foreigners. But in times like these, we need to forget about decency.
'F*** decency. This fight against Islamisation is the last battle.’
Her inflammatory remarks followed a week in which Pegida – a German acronym for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West – led demonstrations across the globe, a number of which turned violent.
Experts fear that the escalation in rhetoric marks a 'gear-shift' on the far-Right, raising fears of further unrest around the continent.
‘People are on the verge of panic about mass immigration, and Pegida is trying to capitalise on that,’ said Vidhya Ramalingam, a Fellow at the German Institute on Radicalisation and De-Radicalisation Studies (GIRDS).
‘It’s a very dangerous moment, because when people feel out of control they resort to violence.’
Festerling went on to compare the Left’s supportive attitude towards migrants to ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.
‘Even as the migrants are committing sex-jihad against women and homosexual men, the Leftists are offering them roses,’ she said.
‘They care more about young Muslim men than they do about their own women. They are infatuated with their own abusers.’
[. . .]
The Islamisation of Europe was ‘already underway’, she added, with churches being forced to remove crucifixes, pork being banned in kindergartens, Sharia police roaming the streets, and the whole of western Germany run as a ‘caliphate’.
'Islam is a twisted ideology,' she claimed.
As fears about immigrants have become more mainstream, there has been a noticeable escalation in Pegida’s belligerence.
[. . .]
Experts fear that this represents 'a new sense of self-confidence' on the far-Right in the wake of the immigrant sex attacks.
Like many far-Right movements, Pegida has been beset by infighting. Last year, a number of senior members lost their nerve and left the group, with one apologising to Muslims in a video message.
Yet its aggressive stance towards the government and migrants strikes a chord with an increasing number of disenfranchised Germans, particularly white men, who are driving the resurgence of the far-Right across the continent.
Launched in October 2014 to oppose ‘the Islamisation of Europe’, Pegida has expanded into other countries, including Austria, Belgium, Holland and Britain, though some of the numbers may be small.
In Dresden, where the group was founded, it regularly attracts up to 5,000 supporters to its Monday night rallies.


Rally: A Pegida demonstration in Dresden, where up to 5,000 people gather every week on Mondays.

Last week, the group staged demonstrations around the world under the monicker ‘Fortress Europe’.
Demonstrations took place as far afield as Australia, and 200 Pegida supporters led by Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League (EDL), marched silently in Birmingham.
Festerling herself took part in a rally in Warsaw, where she launched the Polish branch of Pegida in front of a 2,000-strong crowd,
[. . .]
There are many patriotic people in Poland.’
Her latest comments will infuriate people who refuse to buy in to fears about mass migration - and those who fear the far-Right is exploiting migration to whip up hatred.
At the same time, however, they are designed to appeal to a growing unease among mainstream voters who are not connected to the far-Right.
According to Germany’s Federal Office of Migration and Refugees, 476,649 people sought asylum in 2015. And the numbers appear to be rising: in January alone, there were more than 50,000.
Political conditions in Germany mean that those with concerns about mass migration have little representation in parliament.
The pro-migrant Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is governing over a coalition that includes the Social Democrats, Germany’s second-largest party. Other parties, such as the Greens, share her ‘open door’ stance.
Merkel is widely blamed for the current crisis. At Pegida rallies in Germany, placards depicting her in a hijab, with the caption ‘take your Muslims and get lost’, are commonplace.
[. . .]
In recent months, Pegida has pledged to form a legitimate political party; put a stop to a tax that funds German state media; launch legal action against the federal government; publish weekly ‘Pegidaleaks’ online to uncover corruption in State institutions; and lead a boycott of the economy every Wednesday.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3443786/Forget-decency-fight-sex-jihad-Femme-fatale-extremist-Pegida-group-accuses-Muslims-targeting-Western-women-gay-men-calls-public-grab-pitchforks.html

EXCLUSIVE: 'Forget decency, fight the sex jihad!' The moment the most powerful woman in far-Right Pegida launches vicious attack on Muslim migrants, telling the public to 'grab your pitchforks and protect Europe'
Tatjana Festerling, Pegida's deputy, claims western Germany is 'caliphate'
Far-right activist rants that Muslims are 'twisted' in hate-filled interview
MailOnline video of the 51-year-old shows extent of her extremist views
Festerling calls on ordinary people to fight the 'Islamisation' of Europe
Says migrants should be forced to register at police stations on arrival
Those crossing the border illegally should be arrested or shot, she said
Comes after Pegida led demos around world, some of which turned violent
Video rant exposes far-Right views that are gaining currency in Germany
For more on Germany's migrant crisis visit www.dailymail.co.uk/germany
By Jake Wallis Simons In Dresden, Germany
Published: 03:43 EST, 15 February 2016 | Updated: 05:30 EST, 15 February 2016

Massachusetts Joins 25 Other States Opposing More Syrian Migrants

[From article]
Now, 25 Republican governors – and one Democrat too – have said they don't want Syrian refugees in their states, as President Obama recommitted the U.S. to take a portion of this population fleeing from ISIS.
[. . .]
However, Republican governors from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas and Wisconsin said they would postpone programs to bring in Syrian refugees, or they're against the idea entirely, according to the Associated Press.
Governors of these states have said no to Syrian refugees
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Georgia
Florida
Idaho
Indiana
Illinois
Iowa
Kansas
Louisiana
Maine
Massachusetts
Michigan
Mississippi
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Jersey
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Wisconsin
Additionally, CNN reported that Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nebraska, Ohio and Tennessee are also on the list.
Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina were added by USA Today.
Presidential candidate Chris Christie, indicating that New Jersey also isn't on board, and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez also said she opposed the administration's plan.
New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan was the first Democrat to express support for stopping the flow of Syrian refugees into her state.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3320882/Obama-insists-America-continue-accept-Syrian-refugees-Republican-led-states-line-refuse-entry.html

Now 25 Republican governors - and one Democrat too - say they don't want to accept Syrian refugees as President Obama recommits the United States to 'do its part'
President Obama said the United States needed to 'step up and do its part' admitting refugees from Syria
He said that the issue of refugees and terrorism should not be equated in the aftermath of the Paris attacks
A handful of Republican governors have publicly pronounced that their states would not accept Syrians
Obama made a swipe at those GOP leaders - asking them to be more like President George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11
By NIKKI SCHWAB, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 12:45 EST, 16 November 2015 | UPDATED: 23:36 EST, 16 November 2015

Almost 200 Generals Oppose Iran Deal; 35 Support It

[From article]
President Obama last week trumpeted that he was able to find 36 retired flag officers who supported his agreement to "give diplomacy a chance." The media explained away this paltry number of signers by saying that "retired brass avoid firm positions on Iranian nuke deal."
Four to five volunteers from around the country in less than a week got 190 generals and admirals to sign a letter that urges Congress to reject the JCPOA because "this agreement will enable Iran to become far more dangerous, render the Mideast still more unstable and introduce new threats to American interests as well as our allies."
[. . .]
And the opposition is not limited to these 190. The names keep pouring in, asking,

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/08/190_generals_and_admirals_sign_letter_to_congress_reject_the_defective_iran_deal_.html

August 27, 2015
190 generals and admirals sign letter to Congress: Reject the defective Iran deal
By Carol Greenwald

Rise of Intolerance in Obama-Holder America

[From article]
Explaining later why Bork needed to be cast as the devil, anti-Bork activist Ann Lewis acknowledged that an open debate “would have deep and thoughtful discussions about the Constitution, and then we would lose.” Hence, Kennedy’s outrageous claim that in Bork’s America, “women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters.”
New York Times columnist Joe Nocera wrote, “The line from Bork to today’s ugly politics is a straight one.” Toxic political discourse is now standard, as dissenters are isolated, scorned and even silenced. To paraphrase George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” these days it’s hard to tell man from pig.
[. . .]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears less esteemed by the Obama administration than Iran’s “Death to America”-spewing Ayatollah — and is persona non grata at the White House for doubting the emerging Iranian nuclear deal.
To oppose the coerced participation of service providers in same-sex weddings is deemed anti-gay, the label attached to former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich who lost his job last year for believing that marriage is between a man and a woman.
[. . .]
As a columnist, I’m a target for vilification that attempts to escort contrarians from polite society. I’ve been branded a bigot for applying Abraham Lincoln’s “absence of malice” vision to our culture’s civil wars; an extremist and warmonger for asking, “Why coexist with a mortal Iranian threat?” and an elitist leech for decrying our economy’s uneven playing field, warped by cronyism. For breaking with “settled science” orthodoxy, pitchforked prosecutors urged my editors to censor me.
[. . .]
Though jeopardized, the open, diverse and vibrant society we’ve become is the source of America’s creativity, prosperity, generosity … and decency. We’re still the greatest continuing experiment in human history, founded on the unique idea that people from different places with differing backgrounds and values could forge a civilized and free nation. It’s an idea that all Americans have a responsibility to sustain.

http://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/16016489-113/sturm-our-era-of-reputational-beheadings

Melanie Sturm
Think Again
April 23, 2015

Christians Need To Recognize Threats and Fight Them

[From article]
Christianity is under attack in America, and it’s losing. Meanwhile, the Church is, in general, sitting out the fight and hoping the problem goes away.
Hope is not a strategy. It’s time to act.
Since its inception, the United States has been a predominantly Christian nation, though open-minded and founded on religious tolerance. Our sense of personal freedom and tolerance, backed by a thoroughly Judeo-Christian worldview, has contributed mightily to this nation’s greatness. That worldview, and the Christian faith behind it, is being whittled away by the media, our popular culture, and a newly emboldened “activist atheist” movement. The pace of that whittling has accelerated over the last decade.
[. . .]
a confident-feeling activist atheist community is working to reinforce the notion that anyone who turns to religion (especially Christianity) is an intellectual weakling who believes in fairy tales. Consider the latest ad campaign by American Atheists. The net result of all this is a rising number of people who consider themselves atheist or agnostic.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/01/christianity_is_losing_in_america.html

January 14, 2015
Christianity Is Losing in America
By Craig Dunkley

Opposition To Paradigm Changes Is From Vested Scientific Interests

[From article]
Stephen Schneider, a highly regarded climate scientist explained the need to lie for justice to Discover magazine:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people, we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. … Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.
[. . .]
Lomborg wrote the hugely-influential-and-therefore-despised book The Skeptical Environmentalist. An honest and by all accounts decent man and academic, Lomborg was a former hard-green environmentalist. In 1997, he set out, with the aid of some students, to disprove the work of Julian Simon, the environmental optimist. Unfortunately for Lomborg, it turned out the dragon he set out to slay was on the right side.
[. . .]
Galileo’s greatest and most-enduring enemies were not the orthodox clerics of the Church, but his fellow scientists. This was not a case of a superstitious, bureaucratic Church snuffing the light of reason. It was a case of petty and jealous men trying to use the Church to kneecap a whistleblower. If Galileo’s way of things won the day, a lot of people would have looked like fools and, possibly, lost their jobs. And, this had less to do with Copernicanism or heliocentricity than with the fact that Galileo represented the introduction of mathematics into the world of physics. Needless, to say, if you were a physicist who didn’t know jack about math and, all of a sudden, this guy was going to make math a requirement, you’d be bummed.
[. . .]
In 1597, Galileo wrote a letter to Kepler admitting that he believed Copernicus had it right, but he was afraid to admit it publicly for fear of being ridiculed by Aristotelian scientists — not persecuted by closed-minded clerics.
[. . .]
you cannot call the Galileo affair a battle between the Church and science when “science” — in its heart and ambition — was harsher on Galileo than the Church was.
[. . .]
more scientists probably have been stopped from pursuing research because “of defiance of conventional wisdom in America since World War II with its accompanying bureaucratization and politicization of science than existed in the whole of the world in Galileo’s day.”
[. . .]
Today, such institutions and associations are deeply invested in massive political and economic arrangements which require that Lomborg be wrong, if he is scientifically right.
Ultimately, the proper way to view the Galileo episode is not of a religious orthodoxy persecuting a martyr to scientific truth, but the forces of scientific orthodoxy using the state to punish a whistleblower.
[. . .]
The more-important word in the phrase “scientific community” is not scientific but community, because it is that word which reminds us that scientists are humans. And — surprise — humans are creatures of ego, jealously, and vindictiveness. Galileo himself was an egotist of the first order, which is one reason so many scientists despised him. But by shifting the blame for what happened to Galileo away from the scientific community and onto the Church, scientists — and in a sense the entire secular establishment — have absolved themselves of any culpability. This is not only unfair to the Church; it’s very, very dangerous for science, because it perpetuates a myth that the “sophisticated mind” is immune to inquisitorial zeal.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/205503/starry-enviro/jonah-goldberg

JANUARY 13, 2003 8:45 AM
Starry Enviro?
The cases of Björn Lomborg and Galileo.
By Jonah Goldberg

Updated: Uber Exec Suggests Oppo Research On Journalists, Spins Privacy Concerns

Posted November 18, 2014 9:31 PM ET; Last updated November 19, 2014 4:29 PM ET




[From article]
remarks by Uber Senior Vice President Emil Michael on Friday night as he spoke of his desire to spend $1 million to dig up information on “your personal lives, your families,” referring to journalists who write critically about the company, according to a report published Monday night by Buzzfeed. The same story said a different Uber executive once had examined the private travel records of a Buzzfeed reporter during an e-mail exchange about an article without seeking permission to access the data.
That combination of vindictiveness and willingness to tap into user information provoked outrage Tuesday on social-media sites, spawning the hashtag “#ubergate” on Twitter. Critics recounted a series of Uber privacy missteps, including a 2012 blog post in which a company official analyzed anonymous ridership data in Washington and several other cities in an attempt to determine the frequency of overnight sexual liaisons by customers — which Uber dubbed “Rides of Glory.”
[. . .]
Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union said that while he was a graduate student — and before he worked for the ACLU — an official with a major technology company once threatened him while he was working to publicize a privacy problem with its service, which collected extensive personal information on users. “If you keep doing this stuff,” the official said, according to Soghoian, “they will dig up stuff on you and try to destroy you.”
[. . .]
Ron Linton, chairman of the D.C. Taxicab Commission, which has battled with Uber over a range of issues, says the company uses data to gain a competitive advantage over traditional cab drivers. “The greater part of their business plan is that they’re going to amass the greatest database of consumer habits that the world has ever seen,” he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/uber-executive-stirs-up-privacy-controversy/2014/11/18/d0607836-6f61-11e4-ad12-3734c461eab6_story.html

Uber executive stirs up privacy controversy
By Craig Timberg, Nancy Scola and Andrea Peterson
November 18, 2014 at 9:20 PM

* * *

[From article]
A senior executive at Uber suggested that the company should consider hiring a team of opposition researchers to dig up dirt on its critics in the media — and specifically to spread details of the personal life of a female journalist who has criticized the company.
The executive, Emil Michael, made the comments in a conversation he later said he believed was off the record. In a statement through Uber Monday evening, he said he regretted them and that they didn’t reflect his or the company’s views.
[. . .]
Over dinner, he outlined the notion of spending “a million dollars” to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. That team could, he said, help Uber fight back against the press — they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine.
[. . .]
Then he returned to the opposition research plan. Uber’s dirt-diggers, Michael said, could expose Lacy. They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life.
Michael at no point suggested that Uber has actually hired opposition researchers, or that it plans to. He cast it as something that would make sense, that the company would be justified in doing.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/uber-executive-suggests-digging-up-dirt-on-journalists

Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt On Journalists
Senior vice president Emil Michael floated making critics’ personal lives fair game. Michael apologized Monday for the remarks.
posted on Nov. 17, 2014, at 8:57 p.m.
Ben Smith

Massachusetts Sheriff Organizes Nationally To Oppose Immigration Amnesty

Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson of Bristol County, Mass

[From article]
Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson of Bristol County, Mass., sent a letter to organize a meeting of sheriffs in Washington, D.C., on December 10, two days before the existing government-funding bill expires, to meet with congressmen and encourage them to take action to secure the border.
“Never before in our nation’s history has it been so important for the American sheriffs to stand united and speak with one voice to secure our nation’s borders,” Hodgson wrote. “Senator Jeff Sessions, Senator David Vitter and other members of Congress have agreed to join us at the Capitol to demand immediate action to secure our borders as the first step in achieving legitimate immigration reform in the future. Several sheriffs have agreed to work in a spirit of cooperation to assist in recruiting at least 200 sheriffs to travel to Washington, D.C. for this historic meeting and press conference with members of Congress.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/392410/sheriffs-plan-massive-gathering-washington-oppose-executive-amnesty-ryan-lovelace

Sheriffs Plan Massive Gathering in Washington to Oppose Executive Amnesty
By Ryan Lovelace
November 10, 2014 9:34 AM

In Addition, Hagel Won Questionable Election

http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/did-hagel-fix-vote-to-win-senate-seat/

ON CAPITOL HILL
DID HAGEL RIG VOTE TO WIN SENATE SEAT?
Details revealed in magazine profile on alleged GOP plan to steal election
Bob Unruh
February 14, 2013

Five Reasons To Oppose Same Sex Marriage

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/02/17/five_reasons_to_oppose_gay_marriage

Five Reasons to Oppose Gay Marriage
John Hawkins
February 17, 2012
TownHall.com

The End of Dissent?


the poisonous, partisan gridlock

he proclaimed that his "rival in this race is not other candidates. It's cynicism."

invidious descriptions of political opponents were bad for civic health and distracted us from the fact that "we are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

his communications staff spent the year demonizing Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Fox News. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called opponents of their health proposals "un-American." Last weekend, Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse insisted that Senate opposition is being driven in part by "Aryan support groups."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/postpartisan_not_QORXnLsb2ZS4aVx1WJSGmM#ixzz0bDVC2s92

'Postpartisan' Not
Prez a failure on own terms
Jonah Goldberg
New York Post
Last Updated: 5:16 AM, December 26, 2009
Posted: 12:36 AM, December 26, 2009

Feigning Opposition


"There are a whole series of parliamentary maneuvers that could be used by Republican senators to stop [the health care] bill."

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/12/12/fight/

Fight.
Posted by Erick Erickson
RedState.com
Saturday, December 12th at 12:25PM EST