nickelbagminaj:

itzthebombdotcom:

humansofnewyork:

“When is the time you felt most broken?”
“I first ran for Congress in 1999, and I got beat. I just got whooped. I had been in the state legislature for a long time, I was in the minority party, I wasn’t getting a lot done, and I was away from my family and putting a lot of strain on Michelle. Then for me to run and lose that bad, I was thinking maybe this isn’t what I was cut out to do. I was forty years old, and I’d invested a lot of time and effort into something that didn’t seem to be working. But the thing that got me through that moment, and any other time that I’ve felt stuck, is to remind myself that it’s about the work. Because if you’re worrying about yourself—if you’re thinking: ‘Am I succeeding? Am I in the right position? Am I being appreciated?’ — then you’re going to end up feeling frustrated and stuck. But if you can keep it about the work, you’ll always have a path. There’s always something to be done.”

Changed my life

I needed this

fpmolina:

calmmanning:

“So perhaps it just speaks to the heartiness of women, that put on
your boots and put your hat on and get out, slog through the mess that
is out there.” – Senator Lisa Murkowski (R – AK)

On January 26, 2016, two days after a large blizzard in DC, something was different in the US Senate. No men showed up. For the first time ever, the entire present Senate staff was female. (video)

O

“Actually, a Hydra conspiracy would be less disturbing”: a national security reading list

shinelikethunder:

wintercyan:

shinelikethunder:

I did not deliberately set out to make my past few months’ nonfiction reading into a rec list for a more in-depth look at the political issues addressed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Honest. (Mostly honest. The Paperclip book might’ve caught my eye in part because of the shoutout in Cap 2.) But one of the reasons I fell in love with the movie was the great big middle finger it gave the American national-security complex… and then when I was tumbling ever further down the nonfiction rabbit hole and things started sounding eerily familiar, I realized, duh, the scriptwriters for TWS were probably reading a lot of the same books I was.

I don’t make any claim that this is an exhaustive list. As noted, it’s a straight-up list of books I’ve picked up recently, so I have no doubt there are other relevant ones I’m missing. But it’s a pretty solid overview. So without further ado, I give you: the “Actually, a Hydra conspiracy would be less disturbing” national security reading list.

Jane Mayer – The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.

Tom Engelhardt – Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Dana Priest and William Arkin – Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State.

Annie Jacobsen – Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America.

More detailed writeups and a bit of a rant under the read-more link. (Gist of the rant: The best and scariest thing about Cap 2 is that the most disturbing things about SHIELD/Hydra are 100% based in fact.)

Keep reading

For those with an interest in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I’d add Mark Mazzetti’s The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth to this list.

Coming back to this list, I’d also like to add Bruce Schneier’s Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World. Schneier is no paranoid crank or partisan hack; he’s been a well known, widely respected computer security expert since the mid-late 90s, and he has a knack for distilling very technical issues down to the essentials of what it all means and why it matters. He’s also a reliably lucid voice on broader issues of security, risk, fear, the establishment of trust, and the foundations of civil society.

I’m telling you all this because the apocalyptic wasteland described in this book, which will make you want to flush your phone down the toilet and never drive or take public transit anywhere ever again, is actually a pretty restrained take on the situation from a guy who knows what he’s talking about and understands the needs, stakes, and motivations of all parties involved.

(Notably, Schneier does not encourage you to flush your phone down the toilet, or up stakes and move to a bunker in Montana. Part of his point is that if seeing the very tip of the data-exploitation iceberg makes you feel like you have to, something is horribly out of whack and there’s no actual reason Certain Parties need to be given unfettered, unsupervised access to every single thing they ask for.)

Zola’s algorithm is already out there, more versions of it than anyone knows how to count, ticking away in the cloud. To paraphrase a different Schneier quote, it’s bad civic hygiene to sit around waiting for someone to decide that building death helicarriers out of it would be a great way to keep the world safe.

hey here’s some facts about the DNC leak

esteefee:

digoxin-purpurea:

1. The DNC reported a hack of its emails by a Russian server a month ago.

2. A cybersecurity company agreed with the identification of the hacker as Russian and noted that one of the hacking groups involved was operated by the Russian military intelligence service.

In mid-June the company announced that the intruders appeared to include a group it had previously identified by the name “Cozy Bear” or “APT 29” and been inside the committee’s servers for a year. A second group, “Fancy Bear,” also called “APT 28,” came into the system in April. It appears to be operated by the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence service, according to federal investigators and private cybersecurity firms.

3. From the same article: Pro-Putin Russian hackers have been a thorn in the side of American cybersecurity for years now.

The first group is particularly well known to the F.B.I.’s counterintelligence unit, the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies. It was identified by federal investigators as the likely culprit behind years of intrusions into the State Department and White House unclassified computer system.

4. Wikileaks, along with publishing the emails, published unredacted credit card numbers, passport numbers, social security numbers, and home addresses of hundreds of Democratic donors. They called this “not an error.” This is known as doxxing, and it is illegal in US jurisdictions.

Doxing is always illegal, whether it is done against a federal employee, a state employee, or a regular person. There are federal and state laws that specifically address doxing government employees. With regular citizens, doxing falls under various state criminal laws, such as stalking, cyberstalking, harassment, threats, and other such laws, depending on the state. Since these doxing threats and activities are made on the internet, the law of any state may be invoked, though most often an investigator will look to the state in which the person making the threat is located, if this is known, or the state in which the victim is situated. A state prosecutor can only prosecute violations of the laws of his or her own state, and of acts that extend into their state. When acts are on the internet, they extend into all the states.
Misinformation was spread that doxing is legal. I am not sure how or why anyone fell for that misinformation. Surely, people must understand instinctively, even if they were misled about the law, that if they are threatening someone or putting them at risk, or tormenting or harassing the other on the internet, that this must be illegal. Common sense would tell you that bullying or jeopardizing another would be illegal in some way. So yes, doxing is illegal, no matter who the target.

5. Wikileaks has offered support to the racist, sexist agitator and Trump supporter Milo Yiannopoulos after his ban from Twitter for inciting hate mobs. This support was not merely a tweet or two extending a hand: it was an offer to build an entire new social network fine-tuned to Yiannopoulos’ needs.

6. Milo is a vocal Trump supporter and headlined an event at the RNC.

7. Wikileaks is run by Julian Assange, an accused rapist, who has for years taken a paycheck from Russia Today, the English-language propaganda arm of the Kremlin.

8. Trump, blacklisted as he is from borrowing form most US banks, has enticed mostly investors from Russia to prop up his floundering enterprises.

After his bankruptcy and business failures roughly a decade ago Trump has had an increasingly difficult time finding sources of capital for new investments. As I noted above, Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks with the exception of Deutschebank, which is of course a foreign bank with a major US presence. He has steadied and rebuilt his financial empire with a heavy reliance on capital from Russia. At a minimum the Trump organization is receiving lots of investment capital from people close to Vladimir Putin.

9. Trump is pro-Putin to the point where he would not defend other NATO member nations against Russian attacks.

10. Trump’s right hand man, Paul Manafort, was for almost a decade an advisor to Viktor Yanukovych, the ousted president of Ukraine who now lives in exile in Russia and is a major Putin ally. Trump’s other top staffers tend towards supporting the Russian government/elite in various ways.

11. There is nothing in the DNC emails that indicates breaking of any laws.

12. Bernie Sanders only declared himself a Democrat this election cycle. The DNC was not obligated to support him, and yet they did – there are emails where staffers complain about bending over backwards for the Sanders campaign. There’s also an email from the Sanders campaign demanding a private jet to be paid for by the DNC after Bernie had reached the point where it was mathematically impossible for him to win the nomination. (They also called Lin-Manuel Miranda a baby for not doing a fundraiser on his off day, which is frankly hilarious.)

12c. Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic nomination by 3,775,437 votes. He lost badly among registerd Democrats, black Democrats, and Latino Democrats. If the DNC is incompetent enough not to secure their servers against hackers, they are sure as shit not capable of stealing nearly four million votes.

13. Hillary Clinton does not have mind-control powers and is not responsible for every single word typed in a private DNC email server.

14. The release of the emails was timed for when Trump would have a large amount of goodwill – the “convention bump,” as noted in several large-scale polls by reputable organizations – and before the Democrats/Hillary would have a chance to respond to the bump at their own convention.

15. Trump has engaged in much worse political ratfucking of his same-party opponents than the DNC did in its emails, in public, and it is widely known that the RNC has been attempting to sabotage him for months.

16. It ain’t like Putin hasn’t done shit like this before. He killed a journalist with plutonium. I could go on about what he does inside his country, but I’m not super familiar with it, and frankly "sitting head of state ordered the assassination of a journalist in exile by means of nuclear material" is fucked up enough.

Conclusions that can be reasonably drawn from these facts:

1. Wikileaks, whatever its intentions in the past, is not a neutral whistleblower and cannot be, given the money their founder draws from the Russian government.

2. The DNC did not engage in any political ratfuckery beyond what is normal for any and especially this cycle, nor did they break any laws.

3. Wikileaks is not a progressive actor, given its support for both Milo Yiannopoulos and Vladimir Putin.

4. The hackers sat on the material for more than a month, and the reveal of the documents was timed to hurt Hillary Clinton and buck up Trump.

Other conclusions that can be drawn:

1. Trump and Putin colluded somehow on this hack job.

2. Putin wants Trump in the White House because Trump has, among other things, publicly stated that he will not defend NATO states bordering Russia if Russia invades, and is willing to sponsor illegal activity to make this happen.

Conclusions the FBI has drawn:

The FBI is publicly saying that they suspect the Russian government did this. Several unnamed US officials suspect this was “a deliberate attempt to influence the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, according to five individuals familiar with the investigation of the breach.”

(Also, on that note – the DNC is not gonna accuse a foreign state of trying to influence the election via cyberterrorism without some cold hard proof. That’s not an accusation you throw around lightly, especially when you represent one of the two largest parties in America.)

TL;DR

Debbie Wasserman Schultz complaining about an independent tanking her anointed candidate should not make you mourn the death of American democracy. What should be making you furious – and terrified, honestly – is that a foreign state, led by an autocrat with a history of human rights abuses, has used a “pro-transparency” organization to achieve its goal in installing a malleable strongman and has committed cyberterrorism in the process.

Please don’t vote third party this election. Please.

this bears repeating, because it’s both terrifying and transparently evil. They have a lot of money invested in Trump, after all, and they’d like to see the payoff:
The
FBI is publicly saying that they suspect the Russian government did
this. Several unnamed US officials suspect this was “a deliberate
attempt to influence the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump,
according to five individuals familiar with the investigation of the
breach.”

micdotcom:

the-movemnt:

Dear Donald Trump,

I’m a firm believer that politics should be kept out of our military and that our military should be kept out of politics. However, over the last week, a line was crossed not just between politics and our military but between personal ideology and human decency.

You recently told a crowd of your supporters, upon receiving a replica Purple Heart, that you’d, “always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.”

Mr. Trump, I’m not a campaign manager. I can’t tell you how to run this race. But I say this as someone who knows you. I’ve met you before and you seemed as though you genuinely cared about my service and sacrifice. I wonder which version is the real you.

I am a proud post-9/11 U.S. Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient. When I first joined the military, like many other service members, I had dreams of serving valiantly and one day receiving many military accolades in service of our great nation.

In April 2003, the humvee I was driving outside of Karbala, Iraq, ran over a roadside bomb. The passengers were immediately ejected as a result of the blast, but I was trapped inside the burning vehicle for five minutes. I can tell you without equivocation that the one award I did not want to receive was a Purple Heart, but I got one anyway. And I’ll tell you now, I didn’t get mine the easy way.

I came home to my mother with third-degree burns over 33% of my body. I have had 30-plus surgeries to repair the skin grafts and tissue expanders since 2003. I came home a Purple Heart recipient, but my mother knew that we were only a few heartbeats away from giving her a new designation — a Gold Star.

So far you seem to have denigrated a prisoner of war, disparaged a four-star general who devoted his life to service, and disrespected the faith and the grief of a Gold Star family. Any one of these actions alone would otherwise disqualify a person auditioning for the role of our commander in chief.

I cannot understand why you have continually attempted to dishonor the memory of Army Captain Humayun Khan. You have repeatedly attempted to link him and his family to radical Islamic terrorism by even bringing their names up in the same sentence.

You say that you support our military, but your actions tell a different story. You assert that you have made sacrifices on par with the Khan family. I must ask you; do you truly understand the fundamental difference between investments and sacrifice?

Your reaction to his family’s emotional statement has shown me two things: First, you have a difficult time picking your battles. In the military, this is an important lesson that soldiers learn. You attended a military academy in your childhood and you are a businessman, so I know you understand this strategy.

If your response to this family had simply been to acknowledge their ultimate sacrifice and to say that as Americans, they are constitutionally entitled to their opinions, that would have been enough. You chose a different tactic. You chose to stay in the news cycle with your increasingly outrageous statements of condemnation of a family who, by all accounts, should absolutely be off limits.

How can we trust our military in the hands of a commander in chief who we can’t even trust to comfort the parents of a fallen soldier?

Second, your reaction also tells me that since you have difficulty dealing with the opinions of a private citizen of this country, you will almost certainly have a harder time in the world of global politics.

My 4-year-old daughter has a better sense of human empathy around this subject. When I take her to the park and other children stare at the scars that cover my face and arms, she takes my hand and encourages me to talk to those young children and explain why I look the way I look.

My hope is that your actions and words do not continue to erode our civil discourse. I pray that good people in this country continue to be shocked by your rhetoric because that means they agree that your words and actions have no place in society, much less in the Oval Office.

You have stated that all press is good press. It’s an interesting strategy that has thus far worked for you. But this, the memory of our fallen soldiers, their families, former POWs, and the proud recipients of the Purple Heart honor. This is not the position from which you should be getting your press. This is off-limits.

Please remember that the people you are speaking about, our brave men and women of the armed forces make up less than 1% of the population. However, if you become commander in chief, they will be the people who are going to fight for you regardless of personal politics. These are the people who will defend you. These are their families you are talking about. These are not the people you want to continue to carry out your petty grievances and personal attacks with.

I respectfully suggest you get a primer on the word sacrifice, as well as a lesson in human decency.

– J.R. Martinez (x) | follow @the-movemnt

it’s long, but please read this

parentheticalaside:

Omg this anecdote about Nancy Pelosi in a story about how awful Paul Ryan is [ETA: Oops, forgot to include the source. Here it is.] is the most amazing thing:

Nancy Pelosi is famously hard to interview, and was never a favorite among reporters the way Ryan is. But she was a far more effective speaker.

The example that always comes to mind to me is one that Tom Perriello, a Democrat who served one term in the House from a very red district in Virginia from 2009 to 2011 (and is now running for governor) told Ezra Klein back in December 2010. Perriello was weighing whether to vote for the DREAM Act, which would legalize the status of undocumented immigrants who arrived as children. “There was the whole question of whether the Senate would support it,” he told Klein. “And I didn’t want to do this if it was just going to die in the Senate.”

Then the lobbying started. “I got a call from [Education Secretary] Arne Duncan, and he began telling me about the individual anecdotes of guys that he worked with in Chicago who needed this legislation,” Perriello recalled. “There were strong Latino organizing networks that began moving, and someone I went to second grade with called and was like, ‘Tom, you might not vote for the DREAM Act? I know we haven’t talked in 32 years, but…’ A few of my friends from college started to call. Several people contacted colleagues I’d had in past jobs, so now they’re writing me. ‘Dude, I haven’t been following this, but I’ve heard from six people today that I have to call you about the DREAM Act. …’”

This is how Pelosi whipped votes. She got the administration involved, she got outside groups involved, she got random figures from Congress members’ pasts involved. She was really, really good at it. And it all happened quietly, without anyone watching or applauding.

I’ve noticed over the years that people hate Nancy Pelosi. I wondered for a while why people hated Nancy Pelosi. They never gave any concrete reasons, but they had this thread of near-violent rage in their voices whenever they spoke about her. Then I realized that all these people were men. And it clicked.

Biden says he’s ‘the most qualified person in the country’ to be president

breakthecitysky:

jeffthehardway:

“I am a gaffe machine, but my God what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can’t tell the truth,” Biden said.

As an outsider I would say he is the only chance the Democrats have at soundly beating the Republicans and Trump.

Even Bruce Springsteen has said as much. Though he figures Trump will get re-elected because there are no strong Democrat candidates.

Y’all know how hard I stan for this man. I love Joe Biden. He’s a tremendous public servant who has done real good for this country.

He should not run for president.

That long and distinguished legislative career that predates his time as our favorite vice president slash Uncle Joe carries a lot of baggage that I don’t think he wants opened up. I don’t want it opened up. I mean, the Anita Hill testimony, y’all.

Yes people change. I believe he has learned and evolved and I celebrate that. But we have to invest in new leadership.

I am profoundly grateful for him. This country is better because of him. He is doing great work in the private sector and that’s where he should stay.

This. ^

Biden says he’s ‘the most qualified person in the country’ to be president

theotherguysride:

random2908:

Saw this shared on FB. It covers counter-arguments for a lot of the most common pro-gun points you’ll see people raise. Long read, but very helpful.

This is amazing. Thank you dude for doing all this work.

One on Friday

breakthecitysky:

I keep wiggling at it, this memory, like a loose tooth or a hole where the tooth used to be, turning it over in my head. The fall of ‘98, working in the White House Press Office during what was an extraordinary difficult time. I was there during the last days of McCurry before Joe Lockhardt took over. McCurry would talk later about staying out of senior staff meetings where conversations were being held about That Intern, what happened, how to respond. He kept himself out of the room so he could stand at that podium and honestly answer “I don’t know” if asked.

I remember the last day, the little cramped hallway before the door from the West Wing that goes out to the OEOB. I remember the advice freely given that I’d carry with me through the next two decades of comms and public affairs work: At the end of the day, all you have is your credibility. Your integrity. Your name. If you sell that, if you give it away, if at the end of the day you have nothing. Hold onto it, even when it’s hard.

What’s good, Sarah Huckabee Sanders?