Bill Maher was back Friday night and didn’t disappoint, hosting a lively panel with CNN’s Laura Coates and conservative commentator Buck Sexton. Those two had their duels, but let’s start at the end because this month was the anniversary of the barbaric October 7 attacks, where thousands of Hamas operatives invaded southern Israel, engaging in a savage campaign of torture, rape, and murder against innocent Israelis. For normal people, it was shocking and warranted the war in Gaza that’s ongoing. For Gen Z and the rest of the Left, it’s the Palestinians and their terrorist trash society that are the real victims. Not that it needs to be said, but no one feels bad for you when you start a war you can’t win and then get your ass kicked as a result.
The HBO host couldn’t take the pro-Hamas nonsense anymore; having railed against it for months, he directed all his fire on upcoming singer Chappell Roan, who, like most in Gen Z, is hardcore in their support for radical Islamic terrorism. They think Israel is a colonizing nation, a historically illiterate position that’s as absurd as folks who think dinosaur bones are fictitious or that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. The ‘Israelis are colonizers’ folks remind me of the ‘birds aren’t real’ clowns. Maher aptly notes that taking this position is like saying the Native Americans are colonizers—it’s stupid.
As he’s done so well in the past, Maher lists the people Roan and her posse are aligning with, which are Hamas, The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, ISIS, and Hezbollah. All of which form the “terrorist mafia,” whose cottage industry is the subjugation and abuse of women. Roan and her ilk would be hurled off rooftops if they tried to be themselves in Gaza. Backing them and bashing Israel takes the attention away from their gender apartheid.
Wake up, kids. You’re the real advocates of genocide. Every single one of these terrorists wants to kill all the Jews. They’re the Nazis without the panzer divisions.
Yet, before he teed that up, Maher, Sexton, and Coates all discussed the state of the 2024 race and its issues, including how Kamala Harris isn’t looking good in the race's final weeks. She’s raised over a billion and cannot break away from Trump within a margin that would suggest she’s winning. Coates predictably said that one of the barriers is that she’s a woman of color.
No, Ms. Coates; Kamala’s grossly unqualified and fails miserably to grasp the issues facing working voters. Also, she made a great point about why men, in general, are fleeing the Democratic Party in droves. Another layer is that people don’t like being lectured to, which is what liberals do all the time. Even Barack Obama, who said at the Democratic National Convention this summer that we shouldn’t shame people based on political differences, did just that in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by taking a swipe at black men for not backing Kamala’s candidacy with enthusiasm.
What has she done to earn their support, Barry?
The bad news keeps piling up for Kamala Harris. Riding a wave of astroturfed enthusiasm in August, there was some thought the vice president could build a comfortable lead against Donald Trump. That hope is now a distant memory, and the latest polling data is an outright disaster for Harris.
For the entire cycle, her best poll has been ABC News/Ipsos, which has consistently shown her with around a six-point lead against Trump. That margin is now down to two points.
Trump Jumps Four Points in Yahoo/YouGov Poll Since Vance-Walz Debate
It'd be one thing if Rasmussen, Emerson, or even Times/Sienna showed a two-point race. For this specific poll to show that is an earthquake, given how heavily it has favored Harris since she announced. A four-point swing toward Trump simply can't be ignored. For all the anecdotal evidence that the vice president has had a really bad month, this puts data to that idea.
That's not the only indicator, though. The new NBC News poll, which has also leaned heavily toward Harris throughout the cycle, shows the race tied. That's a five-point swing toward the former president in the last month.
The other numbers in the poll aren't any better for Harris. Her favorable rating has fully collapsed.
Not only has Harris dropped significantly, wiping out all the "joy" her campaign was previously feeling, but Trump saw a rise in how voters perceive him. That is awful news for the vice president with only three weeks to go until election day.
I'm not going to speak too soon because things could change. The popular vote is also simply an indicator to suggest voter trends. With that said, it's getting harder and harder to imagine an event that changes the current status quo. What are they going to do? Charge Trump with a crime and convict him? That's already been done, and no one cares. Harris is also becoming baked into the political cake. What's she going do to change perceptions with voters already voting?
If this is going to be the status quo until the final bell, and it looks like it will be, then Trump has to be the favorite to win the election. There's no other way to describe the situation.
Maybe not everyone bothered to listen to Mark Levin
I want to post some graphics he showed.
(DPST/Newscom)
For as long as law enforcement has sought a way to monitor people's conversations—though they'd only do so with a court order, we're supposed to believe—privacy experts have warned that building backdoors into communications systems to ease government snooping is dangerous. A recent Chinese incursion into U.S. internet providers using infrastructure created to allow police easy wiretap access offers evidence, and not for the first time, that weakening security for anybody weakens it for everybody.
Musk Says Cybercab to Cost Under $30,000
"A cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of U.S. broadband providers, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests," The Wall Street Journal reported last week. "For months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful U.S. requests for communications data."
Among the companies breached by the hacker group, dubbed "Salt Typhoon" by investigators, are Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies. The group is just one of several linked to the Chinese government that has targeted data and communications systems in the West.
While the Journal report doesn't specify, Joe Mullin and Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) believe the wiretap-ready systems penetrated by the Chinese hackers were "likely created to facilitate smooth compliance with wrong-headed laws like CALEA." CALEA, known in full as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, dates back to 1994 and "forced telephone companies to redesign their network architectures to make it easier for law enforcement to wiretap digital telephone calls," according to an EFF guide to the law. A decade later it was expanded to encompass internet service providers, who were targeted by Salt Typhoon.
"That's right," comment Mullin and Cohn. "The path for law enforcement access set up by these companies was apparently compromised and used by China-backed hackers."
This isn't the first time that CALEA-mandated wiretapping backdoors have been exploited by hackers. As computer security expert Nicholas Weaver pointed out for Lawfare in 2015, "any phone switch sold in the US must include the ability to efficiently tap a large number of calls. And since the US represents such a major market, this means virtually every phone switch sold worldwide contains 'lawful intercept' functionality."
Two decades ago, that mandatory wiretapping capability was subverted by hackers targeting Vodafone Greece. They intercepted phone conversations of the country's prime minister and high political, law enforcement, and military officials, among others.
Which is to say that nobody appears to have learned anything between the 2004 hacking of government-mandated wiretapping capabilities at a Greek telecom and the 2024 hacking of government-mandated wiretapping capabilities at U.S. internet service providers. Well, unless we're counting the Chinese hackers. They seem to have learned quite a bit from the earlier experience.
It should be needless to say, but let's say it anyway: this was all predictable and preventable.
"The problem with backdoors is known—any alternate channel devoted to access by one party will undoubtedly be discovered, accessed, and abused by another," David Ruiz of the internet security firm Malwarebytes Labs wrote in 2019. He noted that cybersecurity researchers had been making that argument for years. They've been repeating themselves for years because their warnings appear to fall on deaf ears.
Even some believers in backdoors on specific devices concede that building wiretapping into whole communications systems is too dangerous to contemplate. A 2019 paper from the Carnegie Endowment for Peace's Encryption Working Group thought "some forms of access to encrypted information, such as access to data at rest on mobile phones, should be further discussed," but cautioned that compromising the security of what it called "data in motion" (communications networks) "would create a massive target for criminal and foreign intelligence adversaries."
Such foreign intelligence adversaries, for instance, as hackers sponsored by the Chinese government to penetrate U.S. internet firms.
So, just how dangerous was the Salt Typhoon hack?
"The widespread compromise is considered a potentially catastrophic security breach," adds The Wall Street Journal. "It appeared to be geared toward intelligence collection."
China's state-sponsored hackers are continuously targeting U.S. infrastructure, including water-treatment facilities and the electricity grid. They've also penetrated pipeline systems. "The PRC's targeting of our critical infrastructure is both broad and unrelenting," FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in April, referring to the People's Republic of China.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency cautionsthat "PRC state-sponsored cyber actors are seeking to pre-position themselves on information technology (IT) networks for disruptive or destructive cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the United States."
And yes, the U.S. government is probably returning the favor by hacking systems in China and elsewhere. But that will be cold comfort if the lights go out here because the feds essentially rolled out the red carpet for foreign infiltration of American networks.
The debate over information security has raged for years with people like Edward Snowden pointing out that law enforcement agencies can't be trusted with access to our communications, or to abide by the rules that theoretically define when and how they can snoop. Now we know that they aren't competent custodians of wiretapping systems that privacy advocates warned were open invitations to bad actors.
Salt Typhoon may have done enormous damage to American security by penetrating internet systems relied on by private individuals, businesses, utilities, and government agencies. If it leads to the end of government-mandated backdoors that offer easy access to hackers, some good could come of this.
Supporters of Donald Trump have been camped out for hours in anticipation of his Coachella rally on Saturday. Yet, there could have been mayhem in Southern California, as an armed man was arrested in what law enforcement is calling an assassination attempt. Yet, Trump campaign officials are saying that it wasn't. The individual reportedly tried to gain access using a fake VIP pass on Saturday. He was arrested outside the perimeter of the event. No one was injured (via KTLA):
A man was arrested outside of a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump in Southern California, and multiple guns were illegally in his possession, according to authorities.
The arrest took place at a checkpoint at the intersection of Avenue 52 and Celebration Drive in Coachella at 4:59 p.m. on Saturday, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said. The rally was scheduled to start at 5 p.m.
The driver of a black SUV, who was later identified as 49-year-old Vem Miller of Las Vegas, was found to be in illegal possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun, and a high-capacity magazine.
Miller was then taken into custody and booked at the John J. Benoit Detention Center on suspicion of possession of a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine.
According to the Riverside County Inmate Information System, Miller was released from the detention center Sunday on $5,000 bail.
The Sheriff’s Office said the incident had no impact on the safety of rally attendees or former President Trump.
Third Trump assassination attempt thwarted when armed man arrested outside Coachella rally, sheriff says https://t.co/IpVUbrxcDk pic.twitter.com/Yq7GLjjSB3
— New York Post (@nypost) October 13, 2024
With Democrats and the liberal media engaging in a relentless propaganda campaign, flooding the airwaves with absolute nonsense about Trump and the danger he poses to our democracy, it's not shocking that it's led to two assassination attempts within 65 days. Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 and dodged another attempt by Ryan Wesley Routh on September 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Routh camped out at Trump International Golf Club for 12 hours, armed with a scoped rifle and a GoPro. Vem Miller just joined the Club of Psychos.
***
UPDATE: The sheriff says one thing, while the Trump campaign says another.
UPDATE II: Statement from Riverside County Sheriff's Office:
On Saturday, October 12, 2024, at 4:59 p.m., deputies assigned to former President Donald Trump’s rally in the Coachella Valley contacted the driver of a black SUV at a checkpoint at the intersection of Avenue 52 and Celebration Drive. The male driver, identified as Vem Miller, a 49-year-old resident of Las Vegas, was found to be illegally in possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun, and a high-capacity magazine. Miller was taken into custody without incident and later booked at the John J. Benoit Detention Center for possession of a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine. This incident did not impact the safety of former President Trump or attendees of the event.
Anyone with information on this case is encouraged to call Deputy Coronado at the Palm Desert Sheriff’s Station by calling (760) 836–1600.
As an Israeli retaliation for Iran's massive ballistic missile strike looms, the Biden White House has decided to deploy a six-launcher battery of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles to shore up Israel's air defenses, and at least 96 US soldiers will man the missile battery.
The Biden administration is planning to send an advanced antimissile system to Israel along with American troops to operate it, moving to bolster its top Middle East ally’s defenses, U.S. officials said Sunday.
The deployment of the Thaad system, a ground-based interceptor designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, would mark a significant step in American efforts to directly protect Israel against an enemy attack by putting U.S. soldiers on the ground.
The move comes as U.S. and Israeli officials have been holding talks on a planned strike on Iran. U.S. officials have urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government not to target Iran’s oil facilities and nuclear sites.
THAAD was developed as part of the ballistic missile defense program and has proven itself effective against Iranian-designed missiles. THAAD can counter short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats and is the only U.S. system designed to intercept targets outside and inside the atmosphere.
Some have portrayed this as a sign that Israel has run short of missile interceptors and the US is filling the gap. I think that position is indefensible. A single battery signals that the intent is to provide terminal defense to a relatively small number of point targets...like perhaps Tel Aviv and Israel's nuclear deterrent. If Israel were on the verge of running out of missiles, there would have been a flow of NASAMS, Patriot, and THAAD at the battalion level, along with a command and control element, into Israel.
This is a surprising move from a White House that gets a case of the Hershey squirts if someone breathes the word "escalation."
In previous Iranian attacks on Israel, US aircraft and warships have engaged Iranian cruise missiles and drones but only in international airspace. This deployment not only places American soldiers in Israel as the region slides, inexorably, in my view, toward a regional war that has the possibility of going nuclear; see Israel Hammering Iran's Proxy Armies Sends a Clear Message to Tehran That the Rules Have Changed, it marks the beginning of positive rather than incidental participation in the brewing war.
