Category: US Politics

The United States is preparing a “crackdown on Beijing,” after it was discovered that the recent Marriott data breach was perpetrated by Chinese hackers, according to a report.

“The cyberattack on the Marriott hotel chain that collected personal details of roughly 500 million guests was part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering effort that also hacked health insurers and the security clearance files of millions more Americans,” reported the New York Times, citing two people “briefed on the investigation.”

“The hackers, they said, are suspected of working on behalf of the Ministry of State Security, the country’s Communist-controlled civilian spy agency,” the Times explained, adding, that the “Trump administration also plans to declassify intelligence reports to reveal Chinese efforts dating to at least 2014 to build a database containing names of executives and American government officials with security clearances.”

The New York Times also reported that the “discovery comes as the Trump administration is planning actions targeting China’s trade, cyber and economic policies, perhaps within days,” and added that the United States may “make it harder for Chinese companies to obtain critical components for telecommunications equipment,” in response to the hack.

A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied reports that China had anything to do with the hack, claiming, “China firmly opposes all forms of cyberattack and cracks down on it in accordance with the law… If offered evidence, the relevant Chinese departments will carry out investigations according to the law.”

The Marriott breach, which was discovered in November, affected hundreds of millions of guests that had used the company’s Starwood reservation system.  According to Breitbart News’ reporting on the incident:

Following a company-wide database assessment, Marriott concluded on November 19 the breach occurred on Starwood’s network and that unauthorized activity has taken place on its servers since 2014, which included duplicating and encrypting data.

“The company has not finished identifying duplicate information in the database, but believes it contains information on up to approximately 500 million guests who made a reservation at a Starwood property,” the Bethesda, Maryland-based company said in a statement.

Breitbart News will follow this story as it unfolds.

WASHINGTON, DC — China is by far the most active economic espionage offender in the United States today, often pilfering or attempting to steal U.S. firepower and the fruits of American brainpower, experts and national security officials told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

During a hearing titled “China’s Non-Traditional Espionage Against the United States: The Threat and Potential Policy Responses,” John Demers, the assistant attorney general for the national security division at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed via written testimony:

We cannot tolerate a nation that steals our firepower and the fruits of our brainpower. And this is just what China is doing to achieve its development goals. While China aspires to be a leading nation, it does not act like one. China is instead pursuing its goals through malign behaviors that exploit features of a free-market economy and an open society like ours. … From 2011-2018, more than 90 percent of the Department’s cases alleging economic espionage by or to benefit a state involve China, and more than two-thirds of the Department’s theft of trade secrets cases have had a nexus to China.

Currently, DOJ is dealing with “three pending cases against former U.S. intelligence officers who are alleged to have spied for China—which is an unprecedented number,” Demers declared.

Echoing the DOJ official, Peter Harrell from the Center for a New American Security think-tank noted in his written testimony:

China is by far the most active practitioner of economic espionage today. While it is challenging to accurately estimate the costs of such espionage, in 2017 the U.S. China IP Commission estimated that the total cost of China’s theft of IP, which also includes more prosaic forms of IP theft like piracy and counterfeiting, costs the U.S. economy at least $225 billion annually and possibly as much as $600 billion.

China’s cyber espionage capabilities have exceeded the U.S. government’s ability to defend against the threat, a top U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official conceded.

In his prepared remarks, Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS, said:

Our adversaries’ capabilities online are outpacing our stove-piped defenses. Specifically, there has been a critical gap in cross-sector, cross-government coordination on critical infrastructure security and resilience. Working together with the private sector and other government partners, we are taking collective action to strengthen cross-sector, cross-government coordination against malicious cyber actors.

Krebs identified China as one of the top cyber espionage rivals facing the United States, along with Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

One of the witnesses noted that China had integrated civilian and military efforts in the pursuit of intelligence.

China’s “military is also likely to help secure business information,” Dean Cheng from the Heritage Foundation think-tank testified, adding, “In the realm of computer network operations, the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] quite clearly expects to operate closely with non-military and even non-governmental forces.”

“PLA cyber units appear to operate specifically in conjunction with other parts of the Chinese government, especially those parts responsible for various aspects of information security,” he added.

Despite the ongoing threats, the U.S. government is not fully aware of what technology is leaving the United States, James Mulvenon from SOS International, LLC testified, adding:

While Chinese cyber threats and clandestine spying against the United States dominate the public discourse, a far more serious and insidious threat is posed by China’s informal or ‘extralegal’ transfers of US technology. Operating under the radar, these quiet diversions of US technical know-how are carried out by groups and individuals in the US, whose support for China erodes America’s technological edge and ability to compete in international markets.

…

Regardless of whether these informal transfers of US technology are legal (or illegal), the real danger lies in the fact that US regulators have no visibility into what leaves our country; whether it is owned by or merely accessible to these agents; and whether the technology is or should be under export restriction or protected to maintain our competitiveness.

The witnesses told the Senate panel the U.S. needs a whole of government approach in collaboration with the private sector to combat Chinese efforts to subvert U.S. economic and national security.

Harrell urged Congress to consider “hack back” measures.

“‘Hacking back’ proposals would need to be carefully tailored to mitigate potential unintended consequences and to protect innocent parties, and the risks need to be carefully evaluated. That said, I recommend that Congress carefully consider “hacking back” proposals that would enable U.S. companies to take a broader range of active measures to defend themselves against cyber espionage and other cyber attacks,” he said.

The State of California may begin taxing text messages if a new proposal from state regulators is approved.

The San Jose Mercury News Mercury News reports that the California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on the proposal to add a surcharge to text messages next month.

The surcharge would reportedly be used to fund services to provide cell phone access to the poor — just as surcharges on land lines once did, Fortune magazine notes. As phone calls have declined, so have revenues.

Fortune adds (original link):

So California’s PUC is exploring its options and, as texts share infrastructure with voice calls — even if the medium is different — it estimates it could raise $44.5 million a year with the change. Applied retroactively it could amount to a bill of more than $220 million for California consumers.

In response, the telecoms industry is filing complaints arguing that texting is an email-like “information service” and should be exempt from PPP.

The Federal Communications Commission is considering the issue on Wednesday. But Fortune notes that the tax may arrive too late to make a difference, as smartphone users are increasingly turning to services like WhatsApp and Snapchat as an alternative to text messages.

Californians are already struggling to deal with higher gas taxes, passed last year and upheld by a referendum last month in which the state’s Democrats allegedly manipulated the title of the ballot initiative to confuse voters. The measure, which would have repealed the new gas tax, the state told voters that Proposition 6 “Eliminates Certain Road Repair and Transportation Funding” rather than “Repeals Gas Tax.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Photo: file

President Trump clearly shocked House speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer yesterday with his televising of the Oval Office sit-down over his demand for $5 billion in funding for border security, including funding of critical mileage for his border wall.  Knowing well that Pelosi had already vowed publicly that “transparency and openness” would characterize the Democrat-run House starting next month, her plaintive request to speak in private scored points for Trump and revealed her hypocrisy before any substance at all was considered.

The remarkable body language during the meeting tells the story of Trump’s dominance.  Here is the full video of the press gaggle, via Grabien:

That was merely the first of three traps Trump had prepared for the Democrats’ congressional leadership.

Trump’s second trap is his bold declaration of ownership of any “government shutdown.”  Democrats have convinced themselves that what is called a “shutdown,” but really means furloughing non-essential federal workers, is a tragedy, a scar on the nation’s psyche.  The fact that federal workers are now a major and solid constituency for Democrats skews their perception of the public’s concern.  Aside from canceling sleigh rides in national parks and other such photo drama, the fact is that life goes on well for nearly all Americans during the furlough.  They learn that there are a lot of non-essential government workers.

After multiple shutdowns, including the last one that bore the label “Schumer Shutdown” and was quickly conceded by the Democrats, the public is no longer afraid of non-essential services (roughly 25% of the government) being temporarily suspended.

Chuck Schumer took the bait on the second trap, and after the Oval Office meeting, he employed triumphantly the term “Trump Shutdown” as if he had won a victory through Trump’s surrender.  Thus fortified, he is more likely to take Trump’s dare and refuse funding for adequate border security and metaphorically throw Bre’r Trump into the briar patch.

The third trap is maneuvering the Senate Democrats into standing for open borders, or at least ineffective border security.  The current House of Representatives will pass the funding.  It is the Senate, where a 60-vote filibuster could be employed, that would be the obstacle.

Never forget that Trump was the most successful producer of reality television in the history of the medium.  He understands drama and a story arc.  Chuck Schumer leading a Senate filibuster right before Christmas to stymie border protection is exactly the story Trump wants the nation’s TV-viewers to absorb.   

He is immeasurably aided in crafting his third trap narrative by the Democrats’ acceptance of and belief in the narratives peddled by their allies in the mainstream media.  Just as they believe that the voters share their own horror over a “partial government shutdown,” they also believe their own rhetoric about a wall being “immoral” (Pelosi) or “wasteful” (Schumer).

But the arrival of the Central American caravan and the reaction of Tijuana’s political leadership and citizens have changed the game.  The “race card” (more properly, the “ethnicity card” for Hispanics) no longer trumps (pun intentional) the hand being played by Trump.  It is obvious that a substantial portion of the populace of Central America would like to enter the United States and take advantage of our free schooling for their children; food stamps; the refundable tax credit (which doesn’t refund taxes, but sends a check to poor families who file tax returns without owing any taxes); Section 8 housing; and, when their kids are ready for college, race preferences.

Trump knows he would win in the court of public opinion, by making the point that the Democrats want to let more illegals into the country, and that failure to reinforce the border will mean more caravans, more terrorists, and more welfare clients entering our country.

President Trump clearly shocked House speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer yesterday with his televising of the Oval Office sit-down over his demand for $5 billion in funding for border security, including funding of critical mileage for his border wall.  Knowing well that Pelosi had already vowed publicly that “transparency and openness” would characterize the Democrat-run House starting next month, her plaintive request to speak in private scored points for Trump and revealed her hypocrisy before any substance at all was considered.

The remarkable body language during the meeting tells the story of Trump’s dominance.  Here is the full video of the press gaggle, via Grabien:

That was merely the first of three traps Trump had prepared for the Democrats’ congressional leadership.

Trump’s second trap is his bold declaration of ownership of any “government shutdown.”  Democrats have convinced themselves that what is called a “shutdown,” but really means furloughing non-essential federal workers, is a tragedy, a scar on the nation’s psyche.  The fact that federal workers are now a major and solid constituency for Democrats skews their perception of the public’s concern.  Aside from canceling sleigh rides in national parks and other such photo drama, the fact is that life goes on well for nearly all Americans during the furlough.  They learn that there are a lot of non-essential government workers.

After multiple shutdowns, including the last one that bore the label “Schumer Shutdown” and was quickly conceded by the Democrats, the public is no longer afraid of non-essential services (roughly 25% of the government) being temporarily suspended.

Chuck Schumer took the bait on the second trap, and after the Oval Office meeting, he employed triumphantly the term “Trump Shutdown” as if he had won a victory through Trump’s surrender.  Thus fortified, he is more likely to take Trump’s dare and refuse funding for adequate border security and metaphorically throw Bre’r Trump into the briar patch.

The third trap is maneuvering the Senate Democrats into standing for open borders, or at least ineffective border security.  The current House of Representatives will pass the funding.  It is the Senate, where a 60-vote filibuster could be employed, that would be the obstacle.

Never forget that Trump was the most successful producer of reality television in the history of the medium.  He understands drama and a story arc.  Chuck Schumer leading a Senate filibuster right before Christmas to stymie border protection is exactly the story Trump wants the nation’s TV-viewers to absorb.   

He is immeasurably aided in crafting his third trap narrative by the Democrats’ acceptance of and belief in the narratives peddled by their allies in the mainstream media.  Just as they believe that the voters share their own horror over a “partial government shutdown,” they also believe their own rhetoric about a wall being “immoral” (Pelosi) or “wasteful” (Schumer).

But the arrival of the Central American caravan and the reaction of Tijuana’s political leadership and citizens have changed the game.  The “race card” (more properly, the “ethnicity card” for Hispanics) no longer trumps (pun intentional) the hand being played by Trump.  It is obvious that a substantial portion of the populace of Central America would like to enter the United States and take advantage of our free schooling for their children; food stamps; the refundable tax credit (which doesn’t refund taxes, but sends a check to poor families who file tax returns without owing any taxes); Section 8 housing; and, when their kids are ready for college, race preferences.

Trump knows he would win in the court of public opinion, by making the point that the Democrats want to let more illegals into the country, and that failure to reinforce the border will mean more caravans, more terrorists, and more welfare clients entering our country.

Veteran actor William Shatner tore into “myopic censorship club members” on social media this week, who’ve been calling for the Christmas classic song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to be taken off the air.

Captain Kirk scoffed at CBC radio’s decision to ban the Christmas song, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” a song that many radical leftists now claim is a “rape song,” TheWrap reported. The famed Star Trek star is no right-winger, mind you, but he is a proponent of freedom, and he does not suffer liberal Twitter ninnies well.
William Shatner, who never misses an opportunity to remind fans he is Canadian, not an American, was quite unhappy that the Canadian radio system was going to ban the song. His tweet was unequivocal in support of the song penned in 1944.

“Call in to CBC radio all day and get them to play ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ over and over until midnight!” Shatner said.

Call in to CBC radio all day and get them to play “Baby It’s Cold Outside” over and over until midnight! 😝😈 pic.twitter.com/qrRwAHOwYX

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 11, 2018

Unsurprisingly, the T.J. Hooker star immediately began tangling with fans over the song, slamming the “myopic glasses” through which people have been viewing the holiday ditty.

Not every fan lined up against Shatner because of the song. For instance, one wondered if Bill couldn’t find something “more important to rally for.”

Shatner begged to differ.

“I would think that censorship of classics because certain ‘types’ need to judge things through their own 2018 myopic glasses and demand they be stricken from history is important,” Shatner responded. “Or is this 1984 only 34 years too late?”

I would think that censorship of classics because certain “types” need to judge things through their own 2018 myopic glasses and demand they be stricken from history is important. Or is this 1984 only 34 years too late? https://t.co/sU4JgIA80i

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 11, 2018

Some fans thought Bill was joking to get a rise out of people. The “Rocketman” singer was quick to disabuse them of that notion.

I’m not, actually. 🙄 https://t.co/CzdP0cKIcB

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 11, 2018

Shatner also slammed the “Myopia Censorship Club” lined up against the song:

🙌🏻 I’d still call and request the song be played just to stick it to the Myopia Censorship Club members! 😏 https://t.co/5s8pRZaw92

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 11, 2018

Shatner continued to criticize fans upset over the classic Christmas tune needling them for loving rap music but agitating against “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

“Have you watched the original choreography, myopic Peter or are you one of those who needs to take the lyrics & extrapolate worst case? You must clutch your pearls over rap music,” Shatner tweeted.

Have you watched the original choreography, myopic Peter or are you one of those who needs to take the lyrics & extrapolate worst case? You must clutch your pearls over rap music. 😂 Here’s the original choreography from 1949: https://t.co/bYvhvJg8Zt https://t.co/Jr4FNJccUs

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 11, 2018

Shatner added that the choreography to the song is “the interpretation of the lyrics from the timeframe when it was written (1940’s).”

The choreography is the interpretation of the lyrics from the timeframe when it was written(1940’s.) If 2018 prudes want to interpret the lyrics as something else; the problem obviously lies in their own minds not in the original lyrics. https://t.co/vXWJiw9M4X

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 11, 2018

Eventually, CBC Radio rescinded its ban on the 1940s song after reacting to a backlash against the decision to stop playing it.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.

The following is the most important exchange during Tuesday’s televised Oval Office meeting between President Trump, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

THE PRESIDENT: Chuck, did you want to say something?

SENATE MINORITY LEADER SCHUMER: Yeah. Here’s what I want to say: We have a lot of disagreements here. The Washington Post today gave you a whole lot of Pinocchios because they say you constantly misstate how much the wall is — how much of the wall is built and how much is there.

Trump then laughed at the notion that the far-left Washington Post, whose disgraced fact checkers are some of the most dishonest and partisan hacks not employed by CNN, are legitimate.

But none of that is the point.

The point is that the very first thing Schumer said during this meeting, the key message he wanted to send, is that Trump is weak on the border and lying about it.

Think about that

No seriously, think about that.

I’ll wait.

As the 17-minute made-for-TV spectacle progressed, Trump boldly pledged to shut down part of the government — the part we can all live without that should be closed permanently anyway — if he does not receive adequate border security funding. Meaning, he would not sign on to continue funding the government.

All of this was a calculated set up on Trump’s part, and a successful one.

Pelosi had no idea she was being set up, which is why, like a prim schoolmarm always caught off guard, she chose to lecture Trump about the legislative process.

Schumer, though, is nobody’s stupe, and knew exactly what Trump was up to.

This is what Trump knows… Between now and Election Day 2020, there will be an organized effort to separate Trump from his base, and the best way to do that is to make Trump look weak on border security, and the best way to do that is for leftists to continue to organize and fund illegal immigration, especially through these caravans.

Trump can see the future and he knows it is going to be plagued with an orchestrated and well-funded campaign to create border chaos, to make him look feckless.

But what he did yesterday was flip the script. Here’s more:

THE PRESIDENT: Because when you look at these numbers of the effectiveness of our border security, and when you look at the job that we’re doing with our military —

SENATE MINORITY LEADER SCHUMER: You just said it is effective.

THE PRESIDENT: Can I tell you something?

SENATE MINORITY LEADER SCHUMER: Yeah, you just said it’s effective.

THE PRESIDENT: These are only areas where you have the walls.

SENATE MINORITY LEADER SCHUMER: We want to do this —

THE PRESIDENT: Where you have walls, Chuck, it’s effective. Where you don’t have walls, it is not effective.

HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE PELOSI: Wait a second. Let’s call a halt to this.

SENATE MINORITY LEADER SCHUMER: Yeah.

HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE PELOSI: Let’s call a halt to this. We’ve come in here as the first branch of government: Article I, the legislative branch. We’re coming in, in good faith, to negotiate with you about how we can keep the government open.

A little later:

SENATE MINORITY LEADER SCHUMER: You’re bragging about what has been done.

THE PRESIDENT: By us.

SENATE MINORITY LEADER SCHUMER: We want to do the same thing we did last year, this year. That’s our proposal. If it’s good then, it’s good now, and it won’t shut down the government.

THE PRESIDENT: Chuck, we can build a much bigger section with more money.

In front of the whole world, on film, you have Trump demanding more border security, which includes his wall, you have Trump promising to shut down part of the government if he does not get the security requested…

You also have the two top Democrats in the country saying that what we have now is good enough.

Behind all of this are those leftists eager to organize and fund as much border chaos as possible.

Finally, you have voters, the American people, who now see border security as a national priority, second only to the economy.

Basically, now that Trump has America’s two top Democrats on video opposing additional border security, he can hang every incident — every caravan, every criminal act committed by an illegal, all the chaos, drug overdoses, rock throwing, and whatever else we are in store for over the next two years, around the neck of the Democrat Party.

This is a huge win for Trump, and there is no way he can lose. If Illegal immigration decreases, he takes the credit for his pro-active policies, and Democrats cannot claim he failed on his biggest issue.

If illegal immigration continues to surge, he can go to the Oval Office videotape for proof that Democrats are to blame.

Using border security, he will also be able to mercilessly pound away at whoever the left-wing extremist is Democrats choose to run against him in 2020.

Democrats and their media allies are trying to gaslight voters into believing illegal immigration is not a priority. They want those of us who believe it is to feel alone, outnumbered, and wondering if we are racists. This is all propaganda, and Trump is not falling for it.

Trump’s televised meeting was the first round of the 2020 presidential campaign, and Trump not only won that round, he did the body work that will pay off in the all-important later rounds.

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

BY: Haris Alic Follow
@realHarisAlic

December 12, 2018 1:07 pm

Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has yet to take the speaker’s gavel of the U.S. House of Representatives, but Democrats are already laboring to make it easier to dismantle the achievements of the Trump presidency.

The incoming chairman of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.), confirmed to colleagues on Wednesday that he would not honor the three-fifths supermajority requirement to raise income taxes, as reported by The Washington Post.

McGovern’s decision overturns a rule implemented under outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) that mandated a three-fifths majority approve any proposed hike to the income tax.

The change comes after a standoff between Pelosi and her moderate allies in the Democratic conference, such as incoming Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal (Mass.), and younger, more progressive members like Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.).

In November Pelosi and Neal initially proposed keeping the three-fifths supermajority rule for income tax increases “on the lowest-earning 80 percent of taxpayers.” That notion, however, met stern opposition from Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives because it would severely constrain the ability of House Democrats to find new revenue sources to fund measures like universal health care and free college tuition.

A number of progressive organizations that had been strong allies of Pelosi and the Democratic leadership broke ranks on the issue and sided with the progressive politicians. MoveOn, which spent more than $27 million this election cycle bolstering Democrats up and down the ballot, called Pelosi’s proposal a “staggeringly bad idea.” The organization made the announcement shortly after endorsing Pelosi’s return to the speakership.

In response to the rule change, Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, lambasted Democrats on Wednesday for prioritizing “more government” over the economic interests of the “middle class.”

“It’s barely gotten any attention, but Nancy Pelosi just made it easier for House Dems to raise taxes on everyone,” McDaniel wrote on Twitter. “Not on the wealthy. Everyone.”