How Russia Pulled Off the Biggest Election Hack in U.S. History

This is pretty intense, although for all the claims of Russia cyber-spying and hacking, I've yet to see what I consider rock-hard evidence. It's all technical and circumstantial. It's weird, frankly.

See Esquire, "Russia Hackers to Blame for Wikileaks Emails - Proof Vladmir Putin Was Behind the Clinton Email Hack."

Just read it at the link:

How Russia Pulled Off the Biggest Election Hack in U.S. Historyhttps://t.co/lsZlUq46EQ pic.twitter.com/WZ74Gs2eTL

— Tyler Coates (@tylercoates) October 20, 2016

Hillary's Hacked Emails Present Grim Picture of the Woman Who's Supposed to Be Our Savior

This is awesome.

I'm surprised USA Today even published this letter.

See, "Don’t blame the hackers, blame the perpetrators: Your Say":

Let me start by saying both candidates are horrid and flawed. I cannot believe, as Americans, this is the best we can do to represent both parties in an election. Be that as it may, I agree with your comment saying that “if you fear something will become public, don’t do it” in the editorial “What WikiLeaks hack says about Clinton.” However, to bemoan the Russian government as seeking to damage democracy is going a bit far. I am not a Donald Trump fan but I am thankful that Russia (or whoever) hacked these emails and has exposed Hillary Clinton as the sneaky, conniving, lying person she is. Just as I am glad The New York Times exposed Trump.

People do not regret their crimes unless they’re caught, and this is what it’s all about. The Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s staff got caught and they’re embarrassed by it. If this is influencing the election by exposing the ever elusive truth, then I am all for it.

We all know we can’t get the truth from our news media. It’s a shame it has to come from another country. That is why this election is so contentious this year. Americans are tired of Washington and career politicians like the Clintons. This has allowed a candidate like Trump to become the voice of Americans. And his supporters will ignore anything thrown at them and stand by his side. If anything, it strengthens their resolve.

Maybe if the news media would do an honest job of reporting the truth, other parties/countries wouldn’t have to step in and do it for us. The American public has been duped by both candidates and the news media.

Doug Burns
Arcanum, Ohio

Pamela Anderson Visited Exiled WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange at Ecuadorian Embassy in London (PHOTOS)

Well, this is interesting.

At London's Daily Mail, "Pamela Anderson visits WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London ... laden down with snacks and a copy of Vivienne Westwood's new book."

RELATED: At the Independent U.K., "Vivienne Westwood blasts Hillary Clinton as 'evil': I wouldn't vote for Trump or Clinton - they are all the same."

Oh, I can see why Pamela Anderson's carrying along her book.

The Press Buries Hillary Clinton’s Sins

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ:

If average voters turned on the TV for five minutes this week, chances are they know that Donald Trump made lewd remarks a decade ago and now stands accused of groping women.

But even if average voters had the TV on 24/7, they still probably haven’t heard the news about Hillary Clinton: That the nation now has proof of pretty much everything she has been accused of.

It comes from hacked emails dumped by WikiLeaks, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, and accounts from FBI insiders. The media has almost uniformly ignored the flurry of bombshells, preferring to devote its front pages to the Trump story. So let’s review what amounts to a devastating case against a Clinton presidency.

Start with a June 2015 email to Clinton staffers from Erika Rottenberg, the former general counsel of LinkedIn. Ms. Rottenberg wrote that none of the attorneys in her circle of friends “can understand how it was viewed as ok/secure/appropriate to use a private server for secure documents AND why further Hillary took it upon herself to review them and delete documents.” She added: “It smacks of acting above the law and it smacks of the type of thing I’ve either gotten discovery sanctions for, fired people for, etc.”

A few months later, in a September 2015 email, a Clinton confidante fretted that Mrs. Clinton was too bullheaded to acknowledge she’d done wrong. “Everyone wants her to apologize,” wrote Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress. “And she should. Apologies are like her Achilles’ heel.”

Clinton staffers debated how to evade a congressional subpoena of Mrs. Clinton’s emails—three weeks before a technician deleted them. The campaign later employed a focus group to see if it could fool Americans into thinking the email scandal was part of the Benghazi investigation (they are separate) and lay it all off as a Republican plot.

A senior FBI official involved with the Clinton investigation told Fox News this week that the “vast majority” of career agents and prosecutors working the case “felt she should be prosecuted” and that giving her a pass was “a top-down decision.”

The Obama administration—the federal government, supported by tax dollars—was working as an extension of the Clinton campaign. The State Department coordinated with her staff in responding to the email scandal, and the Justice Department kept her team informed about developments in the court case.

Worse, Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, as documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show, took special care of donors to the Clinton Foundation. In a series of 2010 emails, a senior aide to Mrs. Clinton asked a foundation official to let her know which groups offering assistance with the Haitian earthquake relief were “FOB” (Friends of Bill) or “WJC VIPs” (William Jefferson Clinton VIPs). Those who made the cut appear to have been teed up for contracts. Those who weren’t? Routed to a standard government website.

The leaks show that the foundation was indeed the nexus of influence and money. The head of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Ira Magaziner, suggested in a 2011 email that Bill Clinton call Sheikh Mohammed of Saudi Arabia to thank him for offering the use of a plane. In response, a top Clinton Foundation official wrote: “Unless Sheikh Mo has sent us a $6 million check, this sounds crazy to do.”

The entire progressive apparatus—the Clinton campaign and boosters at the Center for American Progress—appears to view voters as stupid and tiresome, segregated into groups that must either be cajoled into support or demeaned into silence. We read that Republicans are attracted to Catholicism’s “severely backwards gender relations” and only join the faith to “sound sophisticated”; that Democratic leaders such as Bill Richardson are “needy Latinos”; that Bernie Sanders supporters are “self-righteous”; that the only people who watch Miss America “are from the confederacy”; and that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is “a terrorist.”

The leaks also show that the press is in Mrs. Clinton’s pocket. Donna Brazile, a former Clinton staffer and a TV pundit, sent the exact wording of a coming CNN town hall question to the campaign in advance of the event. Other media allowed the Clinton camp to veto which quotes they used from interviews, worked to maximize her press events and offered campaign advice.

Mrs. Clinton has been exposed to have no core, to be someone who constantly changes her position to maximize political gain...

And unless something changes in the next couple of weeks, Americans are about to elect this woman president.

But keep reading, in any case.

Obama Justice Department Helped Hillary Clinton Avoid Political Fallout from Private Emails

This kind of coordination between the regime in power and the party's imminent presidential nominee is what you'd expect in a one-party dictatorship. And here we are, the entire political system, up in arms about politically incorrect lewd comments from 11 years ago.

The American democracy's barely functioning. Indeed, if it wasn't for an anti-American organization, WikiLeaks, we'd have likely never known about the true scale of depraved corruption among Hillary Clinton, the Obama regime, the Democrats, and the insidious left-wing party press.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Emails Show Hillary Clinton Campaign’s Response to Fallout":

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton’s political team sought to contain any potential fallout over her use of a private email server by communicating with government agencies, enlisting help of congressional allies and managing public statements, newly released emails show.

Hacked emails belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta were posted by the website WikiLeaks this week, showing her staff candidly debating the tone and substance of responses to media after the 2015 disclosure of her use of a private email server while leading the State Department during President Barack Obama’s first term.

In several electronic exchanges, Mrs. Clinton’s staff appeared to be in communication with government officials about the email issue. One campaign official is shown telling colleagues about a coming procedural step, which was part of the public record, that he suggests he learned from Justice Department officials.

In another case, an attorney for Mrs. Clinton appeared to know the contents of a State Department document release concerning speeches by former President Bill Clinton before it was made public.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign hasn’t confirmed or denied the authenticity of the email trove posted by WikiLeaks, but a campaign spokesman said the release of apparently stolen internal communications showcases Russian attempts to interfere in the U.S. election on behalf of Mrs. Clinton’s Republican rival, Donald Trump. U.S. intelligence agencies have publicly accused Russia of directing hacks and leaks aimed at top Democratic Party officials, but they haven’t reached a conclusion in the specific breach of Mr. Podesta’s emails.

“The timing shows you that even Putin knows Trump had a bad weekend and a bad debate. The only remaining question is why Donald Trump continues to make apologies for the Russians,” said campaign spokesman Glen Caplin. The campaign declined to comment further.

Campaign spokesman Brian Fallon, who worked at Justice before joining the campaign in 2015, is shown in the emails to be giving a heads up about a preliminary hearing in a lawsuit brought by a Vice News reporter against the State Department. Justice Department attorneys were representing their colleagues at State in the matter. The information provided to Mr. Fallon was in the court’s docket.

“DOJ folks inform me there is a status hearing in this case this morning, so we could have a window into the judge’s thinking about this proposed production schedule as quickly as today,” Mr. Fallon wrote to his colleagues on the campaign.

The Clinton attorney, Heather Samuelson, is shown providing a detailed accounting of Bill Clinton speeches discussed in documents that were to be released by State. She also reported how much the former president, who commanded six-figure sums for his speaking engagements, was paid.

“There is one request where speaking fee would have been paid by Turkish govt—WJC’s office declined this,” Ms. Samuelson wrote, referring to Mr. Clinton. “And one speaking engagement with fee from Canadian government, which he did do.”

Ms. Samuelson didn’t immediately return a request for comment...

Well, of course Ms. Samuelson's unavailable for comment! This is an authoritarian regime we're talking about. They're completely unaccountable.

But keep reading.

Things are coming to a head in this country. A Trump win or not, things are gonna blow. Mark my words. Things are going to erupt around here. People will only take the abuse for so long. We're beyond the tipping point now. We're going to explode.

Bombshell: WikiLeaks Claims Release of Hillary Clinton's Wall Street Speeches

She attacked Bernie Sanders' supporters as a "basket of losers."

She sure has a lot of despised baskets of Americans. This is the real scandal, not Donald Trump's "lewd" locker room chatter.

#Wikileaks: Hillary Calls Bernie Supporters & Millennials “Bucket of Losers” in Goldman Sachs Speech. #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/wevCMbLis8

— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) October 8, 2016

RELEASE: The Podesta Emails #HillaryClinton #Podesta #imWithHer https://t.co/pjX9tmfINt pic.twitter.com/kDTVFYHih7

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016

Hillary Clinton paid speach own goals internal reseach #PodestaEmails https://t.co/8k8I3sHcIN and https://t.co/2kL8e8fz5W pic.twitter.com/bzS0b3w86M

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016

Hillary Clinton's #Syria No Fly Zone will require 'boots on ground' #Turkey #ISIS #PodestaEmails https://t.co/vLCEmYH6HZ pic.twitter.com/skl8OHZeUF

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016

#PodestaEmails: Sanders once wrote that women fantasize about "being raped by three men simultaneously." https://t.co/HqY3q9Dc6I pic.twitter.com/YXqdpwXJpp

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016

Secret paid Clinton speech: "You need to have a public position and a private position on policy" #PodestaEmails https://t.co/iAy8zjDnSn pic.twitter.com/tXwoZJ0O8N

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016

Clinton secret paid speech to bank: "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders," https://t.co/5G8cSAQxJx pic.twitter.com/Nm1U9Ycq9F

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016

Hillary Clinton. The #PodestaEmails https://t.co/pjX9tmfINt pic.twitter.com/zfKKT7W9Wh

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 8, 2016

The #PodestaEmails Part 1: https://t.co/pjX9tmfINt pic.twitter.com/A0yr1GZJAe

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 8, 2016

RELEASE: Hillary Clinton Goldman Sachs paid speech transcript excerpts 2013 & 2014 #PodestaEmails https://t.co/QKOqtwFgwM pic.twitter.com/Z6S4FeCrWR

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016

Robby Mook: "it's a little troubling" that meeting of Clinton Foundation was held at Goldman Sachs HQ https://t.co/bdcuNtWGLR

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 8, 2016

At WSJ, "WikiLeaks Claims Clinton Speech Text":

The organization WikiLeaks on Friday released what it claimed to be Clinton campaign email correspondence revealing excerpts from paid speeches that Hillary Clinton gave in recent years, before her presidential bid.

A Clinton campaign spokesman declined to verify whether the documents are authentic.

The emails appear to show Mrs. Clinton taking a tone in private that is more favorable to free trade and to banks than she has often taken on the campaign trail. The emails also suggest she was aware of security concerns regarding electronic devices, which could feed into criticism that Mrs. Clinton was careless with national secrets when she was secretary of state.

The release marks the latest time WikiLeaks has inserted itself into this year’s presidential campaign, and it came the same day the U.S. intelligence community accused the Russian government of trying to interfere in the U.S. elections by purposefully leaking emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee and other entities. The intelligence agencies alleged the hacks were directed by the most senior officials in the Russian government, with WikiLeaks one of the entities whose methods are consistent with those of a Russia-directed effort.

“Earlier today the U.S. government removed any reasonable doubt that the Kremlin has weaponized WikiLeaks to meddle in our election and benefit Donald Trump’s candidacy,” said Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin in a statement. “We are not going to confirm the authenticity of stolen documents released by [WikiLeaks founder] Julian Assange who has made no secret of his desire to damage Hillary Clinton.”

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, whose emails were WikiLeaks’s primary target, sent several tweets on the subject late Friday.

“I’m not happy about being hacked by the Russians in their quest to throw the election to Donald Trump,” he wrote. “Don’t have time to figure out which docs are real and which are faked.” He added that the organization’s claim on its website that he owns the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm headed by his brother, Tony, was “completely false.”

Some of the documents in the most recent WikiLeaks release are similar in their design to documents released in recent days by DCLeaks.com, another entity that the U.S. intelligence community says has published documents stolen by the Russian government. The documents have proven difficult to authenticate.

In the two years between her time at the State Department and her presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton earned millions on the paid speech circuit, including $4.1 million from financial institutions, according to financial disclosures. This became an issue during Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic primary campaign when Sen. Bernie Sanders called for her to release the speech transcripts, particularly for speeches she gave to major financial firms. At the time, Mrs. Clinton said she would “look into” releasing the transcripts but hasn’t provided them.

This past January, the WikiLeaks documents suggest, Clinton campaign research director Tony Carrk emailed excerpts of Mrs. Clinton’s speeches to senior campaign officials, including Mr. Podesta and communications director Jennifer Palmieri, calling them the “flags from HRC’s paid speeches.”

Mr. Carrk said he had obtained the transcripts from “HWA,” an apparent reference to the Harry Walker Agency, which arranged Mrs. Clinton’s paid speeches after she left the State Department in 2013.

“I put some highlights below,” Mr. Carrk wrote. “There is a lot of policy positions that we should give an extra scrub with Policy.”

The more than 80 pages of transcript excerpts appear to have been broken down by a campaign official into sections titled “Awkward,” “Benghazi,” “Email,” and “Helping Corporations,” among others.

The excerpts appear to show Mrs. Clinton taking a more friendly attitude toward financial firms than she does on the campaign trail. At a 2013 speech at a Goldman Sachs event, she is shown lamenting that in Washington, “There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives.” In another speech at a Goldman event, she told the room, “You are the smartest people.”

At another Goldman Sachs speech, discussing how to avoid another financial crisis, she said the “politicizing” of the financial crisis could have been avoided with greater transparency, and told the bankers, “You guys help us figure it out and let’s make sure that we do it right this time.” A year later, at a speech paid for by Deutsche Bank, she said that some element of financial reform “really has to come from the industry itself.”

On the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton has issued a suite of proposals aimed at curbing some Wall Street risk-taking and holding more individuals accountable for misconduct...

More.

Trump's Lewd Talk Sparks Uproar

The left's hypocrisy is to be expected. I mean, it's just par for the course.

Following-up from last night, "Donald Trump Apologizes (VIDEO)."

At WSJ, "Donald Trump's Lewd Comments About Women Spark Uproar":

Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign was in damage control late Friday after a decade-old recording emerged in which he speaks in crude sexual terms about women.

Mr. Trump quickly apologized for the comments, which included talk about grabbing and kissing women, saying they were “foolish.” But the recording drew blunt rebukes from both the Republican Party’s top elected official and the head of the GOP and didn’t sit well with some of Mr. Trump’s evangelical supporters.

“I pledge to be a better man tomorrow and will never, ever let you down,” Mr. Trump said in a video statement posted on his Facebook page after midnight EDT on Saturday.

Mr. Trump said he regretted saying the things captured in the recording. “I was wrong and I apologize,” he said.

He then switched his focus to former President Bill Clinton, the husband of his rival, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who he said “has actually abused women.”

“We will discuss this more in the coming days,” he said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said he was “sickened” by the recording and uninvited Mr. Trump to a campaign event in his state scheduled for Saturday. Mr. Trump said in a statement that he would send his running mate, Mike Pence, in his place, and instead spend the day in debate preparations.

In the 2005 recording, Mr. Trump said: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.…

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.…Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” Mr. Trump added.

Mr. Trump also referred to a married woman whom he said he tried to seduce: “I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and f—her.…”

“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Mr. Trump said in the recording. “Then, all of a sudden, I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

“No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever,” said Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in a written statement.

Before the evening was out, Mr. Trump had drawn the opprobrium of other Republicans, including former GOP presidential rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, several GOP senators running for re-election, and former GOP presidential nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney.

Still, few Republicans pulled support from Mr. Trump. Those who did were a trio of Utah politicians: Gov. Gary Herbert and U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz withdrew their endorsements while former Gov. John Huntsman called on the nominee to quit the race.

Two other Republican congressmen who hadn’t supported Trump—Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado—called on Mr. Trump to quit the race. So did Rob Engstrom, the political director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “There is no GOP nominee for president in 2016,” Mr. Engstrom posted on Twitter. “Fundamentally offensive and unqualified.”

Ralph Reed, the founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, dismissed the recording as an ancillary issue for religious voters in the election.

“People of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defend religious freedom, defund Planned Parenthood and oppose the Iran nuclear deal,” Mr. Reed said Friday. “A 10-year-old audio of a private conversation with a television talk-show host ranks very low on their hierarchy of concerns.”

Ralph Reed hits the nail on the head, but there's no denying this episode could cause real damage to Trump's campaign. The Democrats smell blood in the water. Last week it was taxes. This week it's lewd comments. It's an extremely well-coordinated campaign to distract the voters from Hillary Clinton's manifest disqualifications for the office. It's actually depressing that it's come to this, but then it's American politics in the culture of reality television, social media, and coarsening progressive collectivism.

I'm not offended by Trump's words because I'm a grown woman who knows how men talk when I'm not around.

— Bree :) (@BreeSrsly) October 8, 2016

Told my wife I've said so-called "lewd" comments in the past. I can't think of any good old boy friends who haven't. https://t.co/Y46EXdGhgT

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 8, 2016

All orchestrated. Hypocrisy overload. Media complicit. Wikileaks avoidance. Clinton corruption. Post-American. China elated.

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) October 8, 2016

Keys To Power Are Given Gleefully EVEN To Criminals/Murderers Like Hillary AS LONG AS You Are A Good Globalist Puppet #BillyBush #TrumpTapes pic.twitter.com/RPNfdGoAtL

— Deplorable Me 😎🌵 (@LeahR77) October 8, 2016

Everyone knew Trump was bad boy before he ran. What you're seeing is a joint DNC/RNC/MSM effort to stop someone they don't own#TrumpTapes

— Jared Wyand 🇺🇸 (@JaredWyand) October 8, 2016

Hillary Clinton Considered Drone Strike on Julian Assange?

Well, how's Hillary gonna take the guy out with a drone?

He doesn't go anywhere. She'd have to take out the entire Ecuadoran embassy in London.

But hey, it's what folks are talking about.

At the Toronto Sun, "Hillary Clinton suggested taking out Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with drone: Report."

Actually, this was back when she was secretary of state. That's when she'd have been in a position to act on such rants, and that's also why you can understand Assange's assassination fears. Governments kill people for reasons of state, and the Obama administration's been more Machiavellian than most.

Go right to True Pundit, "Under Intense Pressure to Silence WikiLeaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Proposed Drone Strike on Julian Assange."

I'm no expert but wanting to "drone" Assange isn't exactly #LoveTrumpsHate @HillaryClinton Evil dictator much?💣 #MeanGirls pic.twitter.com/z7sKx7RQ6i

— Black Women 4 Trump (@TallahForTrump) October 3, 2016

Julian Assange Assassination Concerns?

I thought something was funny when I saw this tweet from the Washington Examiner:

Report: WikiLeaks founder won't make announcement because of "security concerns" https://t.co/kPOJ7XTxAH pic.twitter.com/b2qSMAGlt2

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 2, 2016

Since when has #WikiLeaks been worried about "security concerns"? Something's funny about this. https://t.co/FRBZTBuQlk

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 2, 2016

So, it turns out the WikiLeaks folks were worried about an assassination attempt in Julian Assange? Well, sounds like a significant security concern alright. But how legit?

At Heat Street:

UPDATE: Julian Assange of Wikileaks To Appear by Video Tomorrow Due to Apparent Assassination Concerns https://t.co/6SFiUQQa77

— Deplorable Observer (@PrivateName11) October 4, 2016

WikiLeaks Trying to Hack Donald Trump's Tax Returns (VIDEO)

Julian Assange confirms he's trying to hack Donald Trump's tax returns, on Bill Maher's show.

Watch, at CNN, "Wikileaks: We are working on hacking Trump's taxes: Julian Assange told Bill Maher in an interview that Wikileaks is working on hacking into Donald Trump's tax returns. The Republican nominee has refused to release the returns, despite multiple requests from reporters."

At the clip, Scottie Nell Hughes notes that they wouldn't be hacking into Trump's files, they'd be hacking into the IRS.

Assange is wanted in Sweden anyway, and would likely be extradited here. I think a lot of folks think WikiLeaks just broke onto the scene the last couple years. But Assange and his cyber-terrorists tried to demonize and discredit the U.S. back in 2010.

These are bad people. Don't kid yourself about them. They're genuinely evil.

Shame on Bill Maher for giving him a platform.

Julian Assange: More #WikiLeaks Material on Hillary Campaign to Come (VIDEO)

At Blazing Cat Fur.

And Assange interviewed at CNN:

The Case for Paper Ballots

The voting machines in Irvine print a paper copy of your electronic ballot before you press "vote." In theory, the paper record would be used to substantiate voters' intentions in the case of fraud allegations. I like it, although who's to say those paper rolls don't get incinerated at just about the same time one of the candidates cries foul. (Around here, it'd be Republicans alleging voter fraud against the local Democrat Party machine, heh.)

But See Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today, "After DNC hack, the case for paper ballots. Are paper ballots really a superior technology to voting machines? Absolutely" (via Instapundit):

Somebody — probably, though not certainly, Vladimir Putin’s intelligence apparatus — has hacked the Democratic Committee’s email servers and released some of what it found via the Wikileaks site.  As Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith notes, this is something new:  Although meddling in foreign elections is old stuff for intelligence agencies (including our own), this sort of email release is unprecedented.

As disruptive as the DNC email release has been, there’s room for something much worse:  A foreign government could hack voting machines, shut down election computers, or delete or alter voter registration information, turning Election Day into a snarled mess and calling the results into question regardless of who wins.

Worse yet, hackers are already working on this.

Voting systems rely on trust. Voters have to trust that their own vote is recorded and counted accurately; they also have to trust that the overall count is accurate, and that only eligible voters are allowed to vote. (When an ineligible voter casts a vote, it cancels out the vote of a legitimate voter every bit as much as if his or her ballot had simply been shredded.)

The problem is that electronic systems — much less the Internet-based systems that some people are talking about moving to — can’t possibly provide that degree of reliability. They’re too easy to hack, and alterations are too easy to conceal. If the powers-that-be can’t protect confidential emails, or government employees’ security information, then they can’t guarantee the sanctity of voting systems...

Boy, that would be a mess. A very nasty mess.

Keep reading.

Julian Assange Timed WikiLeaks Release to Harm Hillary Clinton (VIDEO)

Of course he did.

Assange is interviewed at Democracy Now! below.

And see the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Assange Timed WikiLeaks Release of Democratic Emails to Harm Hillary Clinton":

WASHINGTON — Six weeks before the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks published an archive of hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of the Democratic convention, the organization's founder, Julian Assange, foreshadowed the release — and made it clear that he hoped to harm Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the presidency.

Assange's remarks in a June 12 interview underscored that for all the drama of the discord that the disclosures have sown among supporters of Bernie Sanders — and of the unproven speculation that the Russian government provided the hacked data to WikiLeaks in order to help Donald Trump — the disclosures are also the latest chapter in the long-running tale of Assange's battles with the Obama administration.

In the interview, Assange told a British television host, Robert Peston of the ITV network, that his organization had obtained "emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication," which he pronounced "great." He also suggested that he not only opposed her candidacy on policy grounds but also saw her as a personal foe.

At one point, Peston said: "Plainly, what you are saying, what you are publishing, hurts Hillary Clinton. Would you prefer Trump to be president?"

Assange replied that what Trump would do as president was "completely unpredictable." By contrast, he thought it was predictable that Clinton would wield power in two ways he found problematic.

First, citing his "personal perspective," Assange accused Clinton of having been among those pushing to indict him after WikiLeaks disseminated a quarter of a million diplomatic cables during her tenure as secretary of state.

"We do see her as a bit of a problem for freedom of the press more generally," Assange said.

(The cables, along with archives of military documents, were leaked by Pvt. Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence. WikiLeaks also provided the documents to news outlets, including The New York Times. Despite a criminal investigation into Assange, he has not been charged; the status of that investigation is murky.)

In addition, Assange criticized Clinton for pushing to intervene in Libya in 2011 when Moammar Gadhafi was cracking down on Arab Spring protesters; he said that the result of the NATO air war was Libya's collapse into anarchy, enabling the Islamic State to flourish.

"She has a long history of being a liberal war hawk, and we presume she is going to proceed" with that approach if elected president, he said.

In February, Assange said in an essay that a vote for Clinton to become president amounted to "a vote for endless, stupid war."

Efforts to reach Assange for comment were unsuccessful, and a Clinton campaign spokesman did not respond to an inquiry. In November 2010, when WikiLeaks and its media partners began publishing the cables, Clinton strongly condemned it...

More.

WikiLeaks Dismantling of #DNC is Clear Attack by Putin on Clinton

Following-up from yesterday, "Is Donald Trump a Vladimir Putin Plant?"

From John Schindler, at the New York Observer:

EXCLUSIVE: Inside the Kremlin's covert operation via Wikileaks to destroy Hillary + the DNC & elect Donald Trump.https://t.co/ezoTER1v3D

— John Schindler (@20committee) July 25, 2016

The recent Wikileaks dump of 20,000 emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee has caused political sensation and scandal on a grand scale. These internal communications reveal nothing flattering about the DNC or Hillary Clinton, who is set to be anointed as the Democrats’ presidential nominee at their party convention in Philadelphia that gets underway with fanfare today.

Wikileaks has thrown an ugly wrench into Hillary’s coronation. DNC emails reveal a Clinton campaign that’s shady and dishonest, not to mention corrupt. Its secret dealings with Hillary’s opponents—whether Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump—have been distasteful and possibly illegal. To say this is an unflattering portrayal of Team Clinton is like saying the Titanic had issues with ice.

The ramifications of this massive leak are already serious. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the embattled DNC chair, has been forced to tender her resignation in advance of the party conclave in Philadelphia, while Senator Sanders, who’s been revealed as the target of much aggressive DNC attention during the Democratic primary campaign, stated he was “not shocked but I’m disappointed” by the Wikileaks revelations. The Democrats are anything but united now as they prepare to take on Donald Trump and the Republicans.

On the eve of the four-day Democratic convention extravaganza, this data-dump could not have been timed better to damage Hillary and her efforts to move back into the White House this November. Although it’s doubtful that leaked RNC internal emails would make any more pleasant a read for the public, Clinton will emerge from this tarred with the indelible brush of corruption and collusion with her party’s leadership to fix the Democratic presidential nomination.

Wikileaks has delivered as promised on its public threats of damaging Team Clinton with hacked emails. Although the DNC can’t deny that many of the leaked messages appear authentic—they wouldn’t have forced the chair’s resignation if they were fake, obviously—there remains the important question of how the vaunted “privacy organization” got its hands on them.

It turns out there’s hardly any mystery there. It’s no secret that the DNC was recently subject to a major hack, one which independent cybersecurity experts easily assessed as being the work of Russian intelligence through previously known cut-outs. One of them, called COZY BEAR or APT 29, has used spear-phishing to gain illegal access to many private networks in the West, as well as the White House, the State Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. Another hacking group involved in the attack on the DNC, called FANCY BEAR or APT 28, is a well-known Russian front, as I’ve previously profiled.

These bears didn’t make much efforts to hide their DNC hack—in one case leaving behind a Russian name in Cyrillic as a signature—and Kremlin attribution has been confirmed by independent analysis by a second cybersecurity firm.

The answer then is simple: Russian hackers working for the Kremlin cyber-pilfered the DNC then passed the purloined data, including thousands of unflattering emails, to Wikileaks, which has shown them to the world...

I'm getting a little more sold on the idea that Russia's behind the hack, although not so much that Trump's a Putin plant.

But keep reading.

Cybersecurity Subplot Implicates Russia in Democrat Party Email Hacking Scandal

More on the DNC leaks, a surprisingly tantalizing story of intrigue, at the New York Times.

I'm skeptical, of course. It seems pretty opportunistic for the media to pin this all on Russia, when the world is full of hackers, and frankly China's now considered our biggest cybersecurity enemy.

But what can you do? This fits the meme that Donald Trump is the Putinian candidate.

Democratic leaders and cyberspecialists in the U.S. wonder if Vladimir Putin is meddling in the election https://t.co/tJhvWIMqSF

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 25, 2016

Researchers conclude two Russian intelligence agencies hacked the DNC/s emails and passed them to @wikileaks. https://t.co/mwo3ZtBPBv

— Steven Lee Myers (@stevenleemyers) July 25, 2016

Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Resign Following Explosive Email Leaks

At Heat Street, "DNC Boss Debbie Wasserman Schultz Resigns After Wikileaks Reveals She Burned Bernie Sanders."

And from Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "WASSERMAN SCHULTZ OUT AS DNC LEADER AFTER CONVENTION."

ADDED: At CNN:

#Breaking: DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz says she will step down https://t.co/J0PJ0m2nUG https://t.co/DhTP65GFlU

— CNN (@CNN) July 24, 2016

Politico's Ken Vogel Had Agreement with DNC to Approve Hillary Clinto Stories in Advance

Some folks were accusing Twitter of suppressing #DNCLeaks stories on the platform last night, and you can see why.

These WikiLeaks hacks are devastating.

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "JUST THINK OF THEM AS DEMOCRAT OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES AND YOU WON’T BE FAR WRONG: Leaked emails reveal Politico reporter made ‘agreement’ to send advanced Clinton story to DNC..."

Hey @kenvogel, I think he shared it @RichardGrenell pic.twitter.com/xY5gnmKEwS

— #JeSuisJuive (@lamblock) July 22, 2016

WikiLeaks Trove Plunges Democrats Into Crisis on Eve of Convention

Heh.

Here's more on the story, via WikiLeaks:

WikiLeaks trove plunges Democrats into crisis on eve of Convention https://t.co/pqWuWfFQckhttps://t.co/kpFxYDoNyX

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 23, 2016

Leaked Docs Show How DNC Used Foul Language to Insult Fox News Staff While Praising Rachel Maddow, MSNBC

I really should be blogging this #DNCLeaks story more aggressively. I'm gobsmacked at the utter MSM partisanship and corruption.

Until then, at Heat Street:

The embarrassing Wikileaks document dump of the Democratic National Committee’s private emails reveal how its communications staff derided journalists from news organizations they perceived as unfriendly. At the same time, the DNC was cooperating with friendlier journalists—doling out talking points and pre-approving articles in what appears to be a breach of journalistic ethics.

Much of the DNC’s private bile was reserved for Fox News.

“Is there a Fuck You emoji?” Communications Director Luis Miranda wrote a colleague who forwarded him FoxNews.com freelance reporter Fred Lucas’ questions about Donald Trump bringing up Bill Clinton’s dalliances.

DNC Press Assistant Rachel Palermo then replied: “hahahahahahhahahaha”.

Lucas politely e-mailed the DNC again three days later asking, “I hoped the DNC could weigh in one the appropriateness of Trump attacking along these lines? I would really appreciate any response you have. Thanks very much.”

Palermo then e-mailed Miranda and Deputy Communications Director Mark Paustenbach: “The asshole from fox e-mailed us again. I did some research and there’s still no ‘fuck you’ emoji, unfortunately.”

See what I mean?

Still more.

Hacked Democrat Emails Reveal Plan for Hillary Clinton Attacks on Bernie Sanders' Religion

Wow!

Bernie's Jewish!

At the Intercept, "New Leak: Top DNC Official Wanted to Use Bernie Sanders's Religious Beliefs Against Him" (via Memeorandum):

"[Sanders] had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage," the CFO of the DNC wrote in a leaked email. https://t.co/z261ZcKrK4

— The Intercept (@theintercept) July 22, 2016

AMONG THE NEARLY 20,000 internal emails from the Democratic National Committee, released Friday by Wikileaks and presumably provided by the hacker “Guccifer 2.0,” is a May 2016 message from DNC CFO Brad Marshall. In it, he suggested that the party should “get someone to ask” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about his religious beliefs.

From:MARSHALL@dnc.org To: MirandaL@dnc.org, PaustenbachM@dnc.org, DaceyA@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-05 03:31 Subject: No shit It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.

The email was sent to DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda and Deputy Communications Director Mark Paustenbach. It’s unclear who the “someone” in this message could be — though a member of the press seems like a safe bet. A request for comment sent to Marshall was not immediately returned.

More at the link.

The DNC is denying the email was discussing Bernie's belief.

Right.