Adm. Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command, spoke at a Wall Street Journal forum on Tuesday, and much of the focus of his discussion with WSJ Deputy Editor-in-Chief Rebecca Blumenstein was about joining government and business to fight the scourge of cyber crime. The number of hackers is "so large and diverse" that it's difficult to identify the perpetrators, he said, but roughly two-thirds of them are criminals looking to earn money from stealing personal information, and the remaining third are state-sponsored hackers.
But Blumenstein also asked Rogers about WikiLeaks, and the slow and steady leak of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's gmail account. "There shouldn't be any doubts in anybody's mind: This was not something that was done casually, this was not something that was done by chance, this was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily," Rogers said. "This was a conscious effort by a nation state to attempt to achieve a specific effect."
"A conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect" NSA chief on WikiLeaks https://t.co/kvmrTyVE30 #WSJCEOCouncil pic.twitter.com/AT2pxK2ROR
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 15, 2016
The "nation state" in question is almost certainly Russia, which the U.S. intelligence community blames for the political hacking and distribution of internal Democratic emails throughout the campaign, evidently aimed at harming Clinton and by extension helping Donald Trump. James Bell, who used to work for WikiLeaks, notes just how unusual Rogers' statement is:
To repeat: the *serving* head of the NSA just publicly said a "nation state" intervened in the election of the next president he'll serve. https://t.co/WjFpCCkmXD
— James Ball (@jamesrbuk) November 15, 2016
By the time WikiLeaks started dribbling out the mostly mundane Podesta emails, any mention of Clinton and emails generated unflattering headlines. Russia and WikiLeaks were not responsible for Clinton using a private server as secretary of state, of course, nor did they force FBI Director James Comey to step into the campaign 11 days before Election Day, and again nine days after that. Clinton said the second intervention, where Comey said two days before the vote that there was nothing incriminating in the emails after all, damaged her campaign more than the earlier letter to Congress. Peter Weber
Judge Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nominator wasn't very popular before Christine Blasey Ford's allegation that he tried to rape her in high school in the early 1980s. Now, half of all voters oppose his confirmation while only 40 percent want him elevated to the highest court, according to a new Fox News poll. (In the previous Fox News poll, Aug. 19-21, voters were split, 46 percent opposing, 45 percent in favor.) The 50 percent opposition is the worst number for a Supreme Court nominee in Fox News polling dating back to 2005.
More voters believe Ford, 36 percent, than Kavanaugh, 30 percent, with 34 percent unsure who to believe, the poll found. There is a significant gender gap: Women believe Ford over Kavanaugh by 10 percentage points, and suburban women by 17 points, but men also believe Ford over Kavanaugh by a narrow 1 point. There's also a predictable partisan split, and a stark divide by education level: Voters with college educations believe Ford by a 14-point margin and those without a degree believe Kavanaugh by 17 points.
Support for Kavanaugh has dropped across the board, Fox News' pollsters found: 12 points among independents, 11 points among suburban women, 5 points among men, 4 points among Republicans, 10 points among voters under 45, and 11 points among voters in counties where the 2016 margin between President Trump and Hillary Clinton was 10 points or less.
Democratic polling firm Anderson Robbins Research and GOP pollsters Shaw & Company Research jointly conducted the Fox News poll Sept. 16-19, contacting 1,003 registered voters by phone. The poll has an overall margin of sampling error of ±3 points, and ±4 points for items related to Ford's allegations, polled Sept. 17-19. Peter Weber
Scrabble just got a little easier, with the addition of 300 new words to the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.
Merriam-Webster is releasing the sixth edition of the dictionary on Monday, with emoji, facepalm, ew, OK, twerk, sheeple, sriracha, and yowza among the new words. Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large at Merriam-Webster, told The Guardian "OK is something Scrabble players have been waiting for, for a long time. Basically two- and three-letter words are the lifeblood of the game."
Another game-changer is qapik, a unit of currency in Azerbaijan. "Every time there's a word with q and no u, it's a big deal," Sokolowski said. "Most of these are obscure." Merriam-Webster updates the official dictionary every four to eight years, and this time, the lexiconographers checked with the North American Scrabble Players Association on the words they thought should be included. Catherine Garcia
Cody Wilson, whose controversial company sells blueprints for 3D-printed firearms, was booked into Harris County Jail in Houston on Sunday and is being held on $150,000 bond on charges that he had sex with a 16-year-old girl in Austin, the U.S. Marshals Service says. Police in Austin say Wilson, 30, fled to Taiwan after being tipped off by a friend of the girl that police were investigating the incident. He was arrested in Taiwan on Friday. "We are glad that Cody is back in Texas again where we can work with him on his case," Wilson's lawyer Samy Khalil said Sunday night. "That’s our focus right now."
Police say Wilson paid the underage girl $500 for sex after meeting her on the website SugarDaddyMeet. If convicted of sexual assault, Wilson would, among other things, be barred from possessing firearms. Peter Weber
They don't call Bob Williams of Long Grove, Iowa, the "Candy Man" for nothing.
Every day, the 94-year-old retired high school teacher and World War II veteran passes out Hershey's chocolate bars to people he meets around town. He got the idea 15 years ago, after reading in the newspaper about random acts of kindness and paying it forward. He has always eaten half a chocolate bar every day, and started buying a few extra to hand out to people he comes across during the day. Over the last 15 years, Williams has given out more than 6,000 candy bars. "You'd think I'd given them keys to a new car," he told the Des Moines Register. "Honest to God, these people were thunderstruck."
Williams keeps his refrigerator stocked with the candy bars and also buys two cases a week. His wife of 69 years, Mary Elizabeth, died six years ago, and he visits her memorial bench every day, where he always hands out a chocolate. Over the years, just three people have declined his gift, he told the Register. "One was a little girl in the store with her dad," he said. "On the way out, I complimented her father for training her right — to suspect old men." Catherine Garcia
On Sunday evening, just as The New Yorker published an article by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer with a second allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Democratic lawyer Michael Avenatti said on Twitter he represents a third "woman with credible information regarding Judge Kavanaugh and Mark Judge," Kavanaugh's high school friend and alleged witness to what Christine Blasey Ford says was an attempted rape in the early 1980s. Avenatti dropped some clues about the ugly and salacious nature of the allegations on Twitter and said he has "specific evidence" that Kavanaugh and Judge "would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs" for sex in high school. He did not provide any proof.
Avenatti told Politico he represents a group of individuals who can corroborate allegations involving Kavanaugh and Judge, but he would describe just one of his clients as a victim. "I represent multiple clients, they are witnesses" to events "not out of character from what Dr. Ford said," Avenatti told Politico. "They went to schools in the same general areas. These house parties were widely attended." Kavanaugh and Judge have denied or said they have no recollection of specific allegations and general sexual misconduct.
Does Avenatti really have the goods? For what it's worth, he kicked things off with a pre-emptive warning: "I do not bluff. I deliver." Which, whatever you think of Avenatti, he mostly has in the showdown between his client Stormy Daniels and President Trump and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. Peter Weber
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's high school friend, Mark Judge, has said he "can't recall" boys ever "rough-housing" with girls when they were teenagers, but a former college girlfriend of Judge's tells The New Yorker that's not what he told her.
Kavanaugh and Judge attended Georgetown Prep in Montgomery County, Maryland, in the 1980s. Christine Blasey Ford says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers, and that Judge was in the room, encouraging Kavanaugh but also telling him to "stop." Kavanaugh has denied the allegations and Judge, a conservative writer, told The New Yorker he has "no recollection" of this. He was more abrasive when interviewed by The Weekly Standard, calling the accusation "just absolutely nuts." When asked, he said he remembered "rough-housing with guys. I don't remember any of that stuff going on with girls."
Elizabeth Rasor, who was in a relationship with Judge for three years at Catholic University, told The New Yorker he'd shared "a very different story" about the culture at Georgetown Prep. "I can't stand by and watch him lie," she said, adding that he once ashamedly described how he and several other boys took turns having sex with a woman who was drunk. He appeared to think this was a consensual experience, Rasor said, but did not tell her who else was involved and she does not know if Kavanaugh was there. Judge's attorney said he "categorically denies" the incident took place.
Another woman who attended high school in the 1980s in Montgomery County told Ford's lawyers and The New Yorker that she would see boys, including Georgetown Prep students, engaging in sexual misconduct at area house parties. The woman, who requested anonymity, told The New Yorker that the boys would get girls "blind drunk" off a grain alcohol–Hawaiian Punch concoction, then try to take advantage of them. "It was disgusting," she said. "They treated women like meat." Catherine Garcia
In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent Sunday night, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked for an "immediate postponement of any further proceedings" regarding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
On Sunday, The New Yorker published an article where Deborah Ramirez, a classmate from Yale University, said while they were at a party freshman year, Kavanaugh exposed himself and thrust his penis in her face. Earlier this month, Christine Blasey Ford, a professor in California, accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault while they were both teenagers. Ford is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
In her letter, Feinstein, the committee's ranking Democrat, also asked that "the newest allegations of sexual misconduct be referred to the FBI for investigation, and that you join our request for the White House to direct the FBI to investigate the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford as well as these new claims." Should the White House not ask the FBI to launch an investigation, then the Senate Judiciary Committee "must subpoena all relevant witnesses," Feinstein added. "It is time to set politics aside. We must ensure that a thorough and fair investigation is conducted before moving forward." Catherine Garcia
