monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

And you should explain this to that gunga fellow.

I read it; I just don't take you that seriously.

Dealing with this mess, let alone beginning to extricate ourselves from it

...the idea of HRC running again is ridiculous. That just makes you look out of touch.

"Some poor bastard" is a regionalism; I shouldn't have expected you to know that, sorry.

The "dismantling" of the DOJ and CIA is of less consequence to ordinary people than serious infrastructural deficit....

SAN FRANCISCO — A group affiliated with the Russian government created phony versions of six websites — including some related to public policy and to the U.S. Senate — with the apparent goal of hacking into the computers of people who were tricked into visiting, according to Microsoft, which said Monday night that it discovered and disabled the fake sites.

The effort by the notorious APT28 hacking group, which has been publicly linked to a Russian intelligence agency and actively interfered in the 2016 presidential election, underscores the aggressive role Russian operatives are playing ahead of the midterm congressional elections in the United States. U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that the November vote is a major focus for interference efforts. Microsoft said the sites were created over the past several months but did not go into more specifics.

Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit, which is responsible for the company’s response to email phishing schemes, took the lead role in finding and disabling the sites, and the company is launching an effort to provide expanded cybersecurity protection for campaigns and election agencies that use Microsoft products.

Among those targeted were the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank active in investigations of corruption in Russia, and the International Republican Institute (IRI), a nonprofit group that promotes democracy worldwide. Three other fake sites were crafted to appear as though they were affiliated with the Senate, and one nonpolitical site spoofed Microsoft’s own online products.

The Senate did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Monday.

Microsoft said Monday that it had found no evidence that the fake sites it recently discovered were used in attacks, but fake sites can carry malware that automatically loads onto the computers of unsuspecting visitors. Hackers often send out deceptive “spear-phishing” emails to trick people into visiting sites that appear to be authentic but in fact allow the attackers to penetrate and gain control of computers that log on, allowing the theft of emails, documents, contact lists and other information.

“This apparent spear-phishing attempt against the International Republican Institute and other organizations is consistent with the campaign of meddling that the Kremlin has waged against organizations that support democracy and human rights,” said Daniel Twining, IRI’s president, who put blame on Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. “It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict and fear among those who criticize Mr. Putin’s authoritarian regime.”

The move by Microsoft is the latest effort by Silicon Valley to address Russian threats to the coming election more aggressively than the technology industry did in 2016, when many woke up to the seriousness and sophistication of disinformation efforts only after Americans had voted. Companies and U.S. officials have vowed to work together more closely this year. Facebook recently disclosed that the company had taken down 32 fake accounts and pages that were tied to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian disinformation operation active before and after the 2016 election.

After discovering the sites recently, Microsoft said, it sought to obtain a court order to transfer the domain names to its own servers, a legal tactic that the company’s security division has used a dozen times since 2016 to disable 84 websites created by APT28, which also is sometimes called Strontium or Fancy Bear. APT28, a unit under the Russian military intelligence agency GRU, specializes in information warfare or hacking and disinformation operations. “APT” refers to “advanced persistent threat” in cybersecurity circles.

The court order, executed last week, effectively allowed Microsoft to shut down the sites and to research them more fully. Microsoft has used the legal tactic to go after botnets, or malicious networks of automated accounts, since at least 2010.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said in an interview that the company had been tracking the Russian-government-backed group for two years but had decided to speak publicly about the company’s efforts for the first time because of a growing sense of urgency and an uptick in Russian activity ahead of the midterms.

“You can’t really bring people together in a democratic society unless we share information about what’s going on,” Smith told The Washington Post. “When there are facts that are clear as day, for those of us who operate inside companies, increasingly we feel it’s an imperative for us to share this more broadly with the public.”

He said that the technology industry was seeking to become more transparent with the public. The company previously had announced that two political candidates had been subjected to spear-phishing attacks.

Installing malicious software on phony websites is a popular method for hacking into computers and resembles the tactic used in the attack on John Podesta, the campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton, who received a fake security-warning email that linked to a phony site created by Russians. His stolen emails were released publicly in the final weeks of the presidential election and caused embarrassment for their blunt assessments of various matters. Cybersecurity researchers have blamed the hack of Podesta’s email on APT28.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in July indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers, accusing them of hacking the Democratic National Committee, also in 2016.

Microsoft did not explicitly blame the Russian intelligence agency for the attack announced Monday but it did cite Russia’s government and named APT28 and its pseudonyms, Strontium and Fancy Bear.

The Hudson Institute said that it, like many Washington institutions, had been the subject of previous cyberattacks. David Tell, the group’s director of public affairs, said that the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative, which frequently reports on corruption in Russia, may have made the conservative think tank a target. Tell also noted that Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, speaking at the Hudson Institute in July, called Russia “the most aggressive foreign” actor in seeking to divide Americans, which could have drawn the attention of APT28. “This kind of stuff does happen. It’s happened to us before,” Tell said. “It doesn’t surprise me that bad actors in nondemocratic states would want to mess with us.”

The phony websites, which were registered with major web-hosting companies, were at my-iri.org, hudsonorg-my-sharepoint.com, senate.group, adfs-senate.services, adfs-senate.email and office365-onedrive.com, according to Microsoft. Their discovery underscores the central role that American tech companies, which frequently have been criticized for hosting Russian disinformation on their platforms, can play in ferreting it out.

Eric Rosenbach, former Pentagon chief of staff and now co-director of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, applauded Microsoft for quickly announcing its discoveries. He said that companies sometimes can act in ways that governmental agencies cannot because of legal and ethical restrictions.

“The tech sector needs to play a role in protecting elections and protecting campaigns,” Rosenbach said. “The tech sector will have visibility on some of these things that the [National Security Agency] never could and never should.”

Microsoft also said Monday it was launching an initiative to provide enhanced cybersecurity protections free to candidates and campaign offices at the federal, state and local level that use its Office 365 software, as well as think tanks and political organizations the company believes are under attack.

“For many decades, people in democratic societies saw these as fundamentally tools that were more likely to bring information to people living in authoritarian countries, and we didn’t really worry about these kinds of technologies causing risks to a democratic society,” Smith said. “What we’re seeing now, with email and voting systems and social media, is [the technologies] creating an asymmetric risk for democratic societies.”

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, is trying to help a South Carolina business that could be hurt by the White House's trade policies.

Mulvaney, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina, has asked administration officials to protect Element Electronics, a television assembly plant in his old district that has said it will close because of tariffs.

In an attempt to get more favorable trade deals for the United States, Trump is imposing and proposing tariffs on a wide variety of imported parts and supplies needed to make domestic goods. Element says new tariffs on a television part made in China would threaten its existence.

An official with the White House Office of Management and Budget would not comment on Mulvaney's advocacy for Element, saying the office "do(es) not comment on internal deliberative processes."

But South Carolina State Sen. Mike Fanning, a Democrat who represents Fairfield County where Element is headquartered, said Mulvaney's involvement is well known.

"I know that he is actively pleading on our behalf, because people we've talked to in D.C., they say, 'Yes, yes, yes, we've already heard this from Mick Mulvaney,'" said Fanning said.

He spoke to Mulvaney by phone Aug, after Element became the first South Carolina business to announce it would close because of tariffs.

"Mick has been an advocate from Day One," said Rep. Ralph Norman, the Republican elected to represent South Carolina's 5th Congressional District after Mulvaney was confirmed to run the budget office last year. "He was trying to get (tariff) exclusions well ahead of the announcement. He was trying to get the White House to take a look at it, at least look at it."

Fanning said a coalition of South Carolina elected officials plans to file an appeal with the U.S. Department of Commerce Tuesday. The petition –– to be co-signed by Fanning, Norman, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster and Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott –– will ask the administration exclude a specific television assembly components from being subjected to new tariffs.

Element has said the component, made only in China, will soon become too expensive to import, and unless it is exempted from the tariff the plant will have to fire 126 employees by early October.

Mulvaney, who is interim director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is unlikely to sign the petition, but he has been fighting a similar fight on Element's behalf.

Mulvaney acknowledges that he has concerns about some of Trump's tactics for encouraging better trade deals with China, Mexico, Canada and the European Union. This is perhaps the first time, however, that Mulvaney has sought to lobby for a state interest from his position of power in Washington.

Since becoming budget director in February 2017, Mulvaney has either been reluctant or unable to intervene on behalf of parochial interests, even those he championed as a member of Congress. Former associates have grumbled about his inability to help steer more money toward the Charleston Harbor deepening project, or protect a plutonium reprocessing initiative in Aiken from threats of cancellation.

Element Electronics, however, is personal to Mulvaney. The plant announced it would break ground in Winnsboro, S.C., in 2013, when Mulvaney was a second-term congressman. He was not responsible for Element's arrival –– Gov. Nikki Haley, who is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, took credit for recruiting the plant –– but he did eventually become close friends with Element President Michael O'Shaughnessy.

Element officials were not reachable for comment.

O'Shaughnessy was lobbying Mulvaney to fight for certain tariff exemptions that would help Element in 2016, months before the presidential election.

At the time, Mulvaney told Reuters that he faced hurdles in convincing colleagues on Capitol Hill that the exclusions wouldn't be tantamount to "earmarks" –– the much-maligned, and now forbidden, practice of including money for members' pet projects in legislation.

"Element makes clear the real world implications of these trade deals we have signed," Mulvaney said. He supports a "review" of the North American Free Trade Agreement, another priority of Trump's.

Federal Election Commission reports show that O'Shaughnessy contributed $5,400 to Mulvaney's congressional campaign account in 2016.

Mulvaney could be lobbying not just for a friend, but also in support of his beleaguered home turf. Element's impending closing is the latest in a series of blows to the 5th District's economy.

Last summer, plans to build two nuclear reactors were scrapped, putting 5,000 people out of work. Fairfield County's last textile mill also closed, eliminating 200 jobs.

With the November midterm elections 89 days away, President Donald Trump has yet to sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump's legal team has suggested the timing of the midterms could affect the investigation.

Trump's lawyer Rudy Giulianitold Fox News on Wednesday that if the special counsel's investigation is not completed by September, then there would be a "very, very serious violation of Justice Department rules," because Mueller "shouldn't be conducting one of these investigations in the 60-day period."

That's false -- there is no such rule.

There are, in fact, long-standing customs at the Justice Department requiring caution around elections, but the breadth is widely misconstrued.

What's the general policy?

Under long-standing Justice Department custom, prosecutors are generally advised to avoid public disclosure of investigative steps involving a candidate for office or related to election matters within 60 days of an election.

To that end, attorneys general have issued memos over the years surrounding election "sensitivities," prohibiting the selection of the "timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election."

The last memo on the topic issued by Attorney General Loretta Lynch in 2016 states: "politics must play no role in the decisions of federal investigators or prosecutors regarding any investigations or criminal charges. Law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party."

This policy would apply to the special counsel, as Justice Department regulations stipulate Mueller's team must comply with "the rules, regulations, procedures, practices and policies of the Department of Justice."

But is the 60-day custom a firm rule?

No. In fact, as the Justice Department's internal watchdog recently noted in a report about the 2016 election: "The 60-Day Rule is not written or described in any Department policy or regulation. Nevertheless, high-ranking Department and FBI officials acknowledged the existence of a general practice that informs Department decisions."

Ray Hulser, former section chief of the department's Public Integrity Section who now serves as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division, told the Department of Justice Inspector General's Office that while working on one of the Election Year Sensitivities memos, "they considered codifying the substance of the 60-Day Rule, but that they rejected that approach as unworkable."

"Hulser told OIG that a prosecutor should look to the needs of the case and significant investigative steps should be taken 'when the case is ready, not earlier or later,' " according to the inspector general's report. "He said that there is not any such specific rule, and there never has been, but that there is a general admonition that politics should play no role in investigative decisions."

The controversy over former FBI Director James Comey's public announcements concerning the investigation of Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information before the 2016 presidential election highlighted the stakes involved in such decisions.

Even though Trump isn't on the ballot in November, Mueller may still adhere to the general custom of avoiding publicly revealing investigative steps near election time that could wait. But there is no firm rule preventing him from filing charges or taking other action if it cannot wait until after the election.

So how does this affect Mueller's work?

Contrary to Giuliani's assertion to Fox, Mueller is free to keep investigating beyond Sept. 7 -- 60 days before the midterms -- but is supposed to avoid doing anything overt, according to Justice Department custom.

"This long-standing policy is clear on its face," says Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Justice Department's deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. "Of course it does not require an investigation to be terminated. Indeed, there are many examples of investigations that continued during and through elections."

And more to the point -- unlike the now-lapsed statute that created independent counsels, Mueller is being supervised by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein under different regulations that provide oversight.

Under those regulations, Rosenstein "may request that the Special Counsel provide an explanation for any investigative or prosecutorial step" and may reject any action if he concludes it is "inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices."

Bottom line: Mueller's authority is not unbounded -- but the rule Giuliani asserted does not exist.

Unlike the trillion dollar budget deficits that occurred during the Obama administration that were temporary and largely the result of the Great Recession, the Trump deficits that will soon reach and exceed $1 trillion are permanent and will only get worse in the years ahead.

The Trump deficits are the result of changes in federal spending and revenue that will continue to be in place until some president and Congress decide to reverse them, that is, to increase taxes and make cuts to popular programs.

Not only has there been little appetite to do that, many in Congress and the Trump administration seem to be hellbent on ignoring the deficit and national debt and increasing spending and reducing revenue even further.

Russian attempts to launch cyber-attacks against US conservative groups have been thwarted, Microsoft says.

The software company said Russian hackers had tried to steal data from political organisations, including the International Republican Institute and the Hudson Institute think tanks.

But they had been thwarted when its security staff had won control of six net domains mimicking their websites.

Microsoft said the Fancy Bear hacking group had been behind the attacks.

"We're concerned that these and other attempts pose security threats to a broadening array of groups connected with both American political parties in the run-up to the 2018 elections," Microsoft said in its blog detailing its work.

The thwarted attack was likely the start of a "spear phishing" campaign, said Microsoft. This would involve tricking people into visiting the mimicked domains allowing the Fancy Bear group to see and steal login information that people use.

As well as the two think-tanks, the domains seized were associated with several Senate offices and services. One domain sought to mimic Microsoft's Office 365 online service.

The New York Times suggested that the two think tanks were targeted because they were former supporters of President Trump but were now foes who had called for more sanctions to be imposed on Russia.

The International Republican Institute's directors include Senator John McCain and General HR McMaster who was replaced earlier this year as the White House national security adviser.

IRI president Daniel Twining told the Times that the attacks were consistent with the "campaign of meddling" the Kremlin is known to have indulged in.

In its blog, Microsoft president Brad Smith said it had grabbed dodgy domains 12 times in two years to shut down 84 websites associated with Fancy Bear.

It said that, so far, it had no evidence that the domains had been used in any attacks.

Microsoft added that the attack activity seen around the domains "mirrors" what it saw in 2016 in the US and during the 2017 election in France.

Microsoft's action comes soon after the US charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking computer networks used by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

Russia has consistently denied meddling in the elections or mounting any cyber-attacks on US institutions.

Just more phishing attempts. Happens all the time.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Tuesday it welcomed statements by U.S. President Donald Trump indicating a desire to cooperate with Russia, but that it would welcome concrete steps to improve relations more.

Trump told Reuters on Monday he would only consider lifting sanctions against Russia if it were to do something positive for the United States, for instance in Syria or in Ukraine.

Trump has repeatedly said he would like better ties with Moscow, but despite meeting President Vladimir Putin last month, relations have come under further strain as Washington announced new sanctions.

“We of course welcome statements that affirm a readiness to cooperate, but we would welcome even more some kind of concrete actions,” Peskov said.

Peskov said the Kremlin would like to hear more details from the United States on any proposed cooperation in Syria and Ukraine, and that Kiev should also take positive steps.

“We need to be specific about what is expected from Russia in terms of Ukraine, and why nothing is expected from the Ukrainian authorities,” he said.