Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Democrats are back in array!

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

It’s a doggy dog world.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Sunday Morning Open Thread: TFG Campaign Claims It Was Hacked

Sunday Morning Open Thread: TFG Campaign Claims It Was Hacked

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This post is in: , , ,

If it actually happened — I’m agnostic, given the Trump campaign’s standard of veracity — my bet would be divided between a disgruntled staffer looking to shine up their resume in advance of an expected November firing, and some desperate jeenyus inside the Mar-A-Largo mafia hoping for a Behold the violence inherent in the system! sympathy bump. Which they just might garner from the sniffier members of Our Failed Serious Media… but not so much, I’m thinking, from the rest of us.

And just in time for the Sunday shows!…

The Washington Post‘s more skeptical report – “Trump campaign says it is victim of foreign hack after leak of Vance report” [gift link]:

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said on Saturday that it has been the victim of a foreign hack, after the campaign received questions from news organizations about a lengthy vetting document on vice-presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) sent to the outlets.

“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement.

Cheung pointed to a report released Friday by Microsoft in which the company said it had discovered evidence that Iranian hackers had tried to break into the email account of a “high-ranking official” on a U.S. presidential campaign in June.

The company did not publicly identify the campaign or confirm whether it believed the hack had been successful. A person familiar with Microsoft’s work confirmed that the report’s reference was to the Trump campaign…

People familiar with the matter said the campaign separately concluded earlier this summer its email system had been breached but did not disclose it publicly or to law enforcement. The people said some officials were told to take more protective measures on their email accounts. At the time, campaign officials communicated to others that they weren’t sure who hacked the emails. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the internal matter…

On Thursday, The Washington Post was also sent a 271-page document about Vance from a sender who called himself Robert and used an AOL email account. Dated Feb. 23 and labeled “privileged & confidential,” the document highlighted potential political vulnerabilities for the first-term senator. Two people familiar with the document confirmed it was authentic and was commissioned by the campaign from Brand Woodward, a law firm that represents a number of prominent Trump advisers in investigations by state and federal authorities.

The document drew from publicly available information, including past news reports and interviews with the senator. The campaign commissioned several reports of other candidates, too, the advisers said…

Reader Interactions

207Comments

  1. 1.

    Ramalama

    TRUMP DIRT.

    Yuk

     

    edit: I must go out and buy a lottery ticket (‘all dressed’) as it seems I am the furstest commenter.

  8. 8.

    Leto

    I think the most interesting fact from this is that the Secret Service name for JV is “Lay-Z-Boy”…

  10. 10.

    ron

    For what it is worth, Christopher Krebs believes it is real. if you still have a Twitter account you can look it up there.

  11. 11.

    EarthWindFire

    Big mystery how a guy with boxes of classified documents in his john manages to get hacked. Yuge.

  12. 12.

    Ken

    Based solely on what I want to be true, I think this is Trump’s way of setting up to jettison Vance.

  13. 13.

    Kay

    I think we were told by media in 2016 that the providence of the material and the motive of the hacker didn’t matter – just that it was verifiable. So they verified this but withheld it from the public.

    No standards at all. Who are they kidding with this.

    Meanwhile, in the well run campaign:

    Dylan Wells

    @dylanewells

    Aug 9

    The Harris campaign invited more than two dozen Arizona content creators and microinfluencers to today’s event in Glendale, ranging from food creators to nail techs. 

  15. 15.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Ken:

    That was the first thought I had as well.

    Also, I’m steamed about the VASTLY different manner in which the national press is handling this as opposed to BUTTERYMAILS!!!!!!!!!!

  16. 16.

    K-Mo

    @Leto:
    “It could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people,” he said during the first presidential debate. “It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”

    cnn.com/cnn/2016/09/27/politics/dnc-cyberattack-400-pound-hackers

  17. 17.

    Kay

    I don’t have a lot of faith in the FBI, unfortunately, so I don’t know who did what or why.

    But I think media should use The Clinton Rules consistently and if they’re not (and it’s already clear they’re not) they do owe an explanation to the public on what makes this hack different from the prior one.

  18. 18.

    MattF

    The joke here is that Democrats don’t need to steal stuff from the Trump campaign. We just need to watch and point and laugh.

  21. 21.

    Sid

    Biden needs to speak to how troubled he is by this and- in the interest of bipartisanship & comity- offer to have the NSA track down the source of the hack/leak immediately.

  23. 23.

    sdhays

    @twbrandt: One of the things she highlights is that the campaign didn’t contact the FBI when it discovered it was hacked. Um, what?

    But now that it seems that documents related to Trump’s myriad of legal cases may be involved, that makes more sense. Not good sense, but more sense.

    I also wonder if that’s why the media (other than being in the tank for Trump) is more careful this time – these documents are involved in ongoing legal cases and they are worried about the Court being mad at them? IANAL, so this is pure speculation on my part.

  25. 25.

    TBone

    Provenance.  Will we ever see anything besides furballs hacked up to try for more victimhood news coverage?  Magic Eightball 😆 says “Try again.”

  26. 26.

    Leto

    Another difference between 2016 and now, is that this time the information that was hacked from the RNC is being released. I think people forget that the RNC was hacked in 2016 as well, but that information was never released. Maybe it’s the difference in who did the hacking? Russia versus Iran. Russia had the interest in keeping that material for further blackmail/influence purposes, versus Iran who’s looking to damage/cause chaos?

    Also not surprised they were hacked considering how Trumpov will never pay for anything, and all the RNC money is going to his legal fees. Leaves nothing for basic campaign stuff like field offices, GOTV efforts, and IT security… dopes.

  27. 27.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: I guess foreign hackers are a possibility, but I think an insider leak is the likelier explaination. Those prople hate each other.

  29. 29.

    Marleedog

    Who is Christopher Krebs? A Republican “hack?”

     

    Where is e f goldman when we need him?

  30. 30.

    Kay

    So what’s in the emails they’re sitting on? I thought the public had a right to know?

    All we’re going to get is what the Trump campaign said and vague warnings from officials. Useless.

  31. 31.

    sdhays

    @Leto: Another difference is Wikileaks. Wikileaks just dumped shit on the internet, so if you don’t read it in Politico or wherever, it’s still “out there” to be read. That gave the “reputable” orgs cover for doing what they wanted to do anyway. But this “hacker” is sending shit “responsibly” to news orgs themselves, so it’s their decision on whether to release information or not.

    Why is the “hacker” doing it this way rather than making it widely available and daring the news orgs not to publish?

  34. 34.

    Suzanne

    @Geminid: Agree. Marcy Wheeler leans toward thinking it’s real at this point, and I generally trust her….. but I will hold INTERNAL SABOTAGE as a strong possibility. Occam’s Razor and all that.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    We were also told Trump rallies were newsworthy and that’s why they’re always covered by media.

    200k people watched the livestream of the Harris rally yesterday. That’s newsworthy, certainly.

    Maybe they need actual, enforceable ethics rules instead of “we pull rules out of our ass depending on our personal preference”.

  36. 36.

    Leto

    @sdhays: @Kay: I think this is pointing out the fact that Politico is now the National Inquirer of political coverage. They’re doing catch and kill “journalism”. If Politico has had the oppo research on JV Lay-Z-Boy, why haven’t they reported on it? Are they going to report on this tranche of info? So far the answers are no, and it’s akin to the National Inquirer.

    Treat them as such.

  37. 37.

    Falling Diphthong

    @SalterWobchak:

    As if we needed another exemplar for how the media has its thumb on the scale.

    In that, it is helpful as an example that is quick and easy to understand. No inside baseball. You just need to be old enough to remember 2016.

    “But his emails.”

  38. 38.

    RandomMonster

    Garland should start an investigation into email/server improprieties and have an announcement days before the election.

  39. 39.

    Leto

    @Kay:

    Maybe they need actual, enforceable ethics rules instead of “we pull rules out of our ass depending on our personal preference”.

    Listen, they’re just following the lead of the Supreme Court. If it’s good enough for them…

  42. 42.

    Jeffro

    @Kay:So what’s in the emails they’re sitting on? I thought the public had a right to know?

    I believe there’s a risotto recipe or two in there.  Could the snooze media be bothered to ask about that, at least?

  43. 43.

    Birdie

    For all the justifiable upset here at media double standards, the thing I find depressing is the acquaintances that still send me NYT or WaPo gift links. Reading and discussing these unbalanced and un-self-aware sources is still an in-group signifier for many, many people.

  45. 45.

    rodwell

    The JV Vance vetting material is dated Feb 23.  Per the report is just a compilation of his public statements with no contributions from Vance.  There probably similar material on other potential VP candidates.  Those have not been released.  It only proved that the campaign was beginning to look at the weird one for VP back in February.  I read Marcy’s post and if this law office was hacked a foreign entity, they would be looking for the classified documents in the TFCG document case.  I can see why the law office did not report it because it would expose them to serious liability.

  49. 49.

    3Sice

    Runs out to Jackson Hole to kiss ass for jet fuel, and mention in passing the VP slot is still available…

    This drops.

  50. 50.

    Layer8Problem

    @rodwell:  Hmm, dated February 23, which was close before the big takeover of the Republican National Committee by the TFG grift management team.

  51. 51.

    sdhays

    @Leto: That’s Politico, sure. But what’s the explanation for the Washington Post? They’ve reportedly received the documents too.

  52. 52.

    Jeffro

    OT but hey lookee here – all kinds of good stuff from our favorite mainstream legacy snooze media publication thingys:

    Harris is beating trump by transcending him

    Choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate reinforces the move away from clichés about “coastal politics” and “cultural elites.” Instead, she wants to fight on specific, practical measures government can take to improve lives, from family leave to expansions of health coverage. Both Harris and Walz are speaking a soothing and — to pick up on Democrats’ favorite virtue these days — joyful language of patriotism and national unity.

    You could tell the Trump campaign was thrown off by the Walz pick when the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, attacked the camo-wearing, gun-owning, small-town Midwestern schoolteacher as a “San Francisco-style liberal”

    Biden made trump look bigger.  Harris makes trump look small

    Harris has been able to do what Biden could or would not: fight — and win — the battle for attention. She had help, to be sure. Online meme-makers who found viral gold in an anecdote about coconuts. Charli XCX’s “kamala IS brat.”
    But much of it is strategy and talent. Harris holds the camera like no politician since Barack Obama. And while Harris’s campaign is largely composed of Biden’s staffers but the tenor has changed. Gone is the grave, stentorian tone of Biden’s news releases. Harris’s communications are playful, mocking, confident, even mean. Trump is “old” and “feeble”; JD Vance is “creepy.” Her campaign wants to be talked about and knows how to get people talking. It is trying to do something Democrats have treated as beneath them for years: win news cycles.
    The result is that Trump is starved for the resource he craves most: attention. As is often the case when he loses control of the headlines, he’s making loonier and more self-destructive arguments — that “nobody knew” Harris was Black, that his crowds stretch past 100,000 people, that Biden has changed his mind and wants to wrench the nomination back from Harris.

    and more of this please – I don’t even care if it only lasts one election: To Save Conservatism, I’m Voting For Harris

    I’m going to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 and — ironically enough — I’m doing it in part to try to save conservatism.
    Here’s what I mean.
    Since the day Donald Trump came down that escalator in 2015, the MAGA movement has been engaged in a long-running, slow-rolling ideological and characterological transformation of the Republican Party. At each step, it has pushed Republicans further and further away from Reaganite conservatism. It has divorced Republican voters from any major consideration of character in leadership and all the while it has labeled people who resisted the change as “traitors.”
    What allegiance do you owe a party, a movement or a politician when it or they fundamentally change their ideology and ethos?

    …only one party has nominated a man who was indicted for his role in the criminal scheme to steal an American election, a scheme that culminated in a violent political riot. Only one party nominated a man who began the first rally of his 2024 campaign with a song by violent insurrectionists. He played “Justice for All,” a bastardized version of the national anthem by a group called the J6 Prison Choir. The song features the “Star-Spangled Banner” interspersed with excerpts of Trump reading the Pledge of Allegiance.
    It’s not just Trump’s lies that are contagious, but his cruelty as well, and that cruelty is embedding itself deeply within one of Trump’s most loyal constituencies, conservative evangelicals. It is difficult to overstate the viciousness and intolerance of MAGA Christians against their political foes. There are many churches and Christian leaders who are now more culturally Trumpian than culturally Christian. Trump is changing the church.

    good stuff!

    I’m almost tempted to turn on the Sunday news shows.

    wait…no I’m not…

  54. 54.

    TBone

    @Leto: I watched several excellent movies yesterday and last night, and her singing in Florence Foster Jenkins roused a disgusted hubby from his mid afternoon nap, loudly complaining 😆

  56. 56.

    Leto

    @sdhays: Who’s their new editor? Rupert Murdoch lackey? And a lot of that guy’s lackeys? There’s a pattern emerging, and it’s why a lot of us are dropping their subs to these places.

  57. 57.

    VeniceRiley

    Janet Johnson says:

    So hacked emails are bad, unless they’re Hillary’s.

     

    Rallies should be covered, unless they’re Kamala’s.

     

    Misspeaking is nbd, unless Joe Biden does it.

     

    Insults are funny, unless they’re done by a Democrat.

     

    Do I have the rules right?

  58. 58.

    Leto

    @TBone: that was such a good movie! Absolutely not complaining about any of the ones they broadcast, as they were all just excellent.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @rodwell:

    Sorry, but Wheeler has no idea what kind of firewall the law firm has. She’s using the word “firewall” to describe Trump hires having dual roles. She then makes a huge leap to “the hackers were looking for classified documents”.
    She just piles assumption on assumption in that post.

  61. 61.

    sdhays

    @Leto: That’s the publisher. He’s also under criminal investigation now in the UK for covering up crimes when he was at a Murdoch rag. The WP editor, who had been from the AP, resigned. And I’m not sure who’s the editor there now. It was going to be a Murdoch crony, but he was forced to back out.

    What’s weird to me is that, supposedly, Iran is shopping this shit around to “reputable” media rather than just shopping it around to less-than-reputable media that hate Trump or just dumping it on the dark web. That certainly lends more credence to the internal leak theory.

  62. 62.

    3Sice

    Now take a look, there’s no tears in their eyes
    They won’t take it from just any guy, what can you do (there they go again)
    You see them walkin’ on down the street (there they go again)
    Look at all your friends they’re gonna meet (there they go again)

  63. 63.

    TBone

    @TBone:

    The poet William Meredith wrote that a Jenkins recital “was never exactly an aesthetic experience, or only to the degree that an early Christian among the lions provided aesthetic experience; it was chiefly immolatory, and Madame Jenkins was always eaten, in the end.”

    Leopards and faces!

  64. 64.

    cmorenc

    While we’re contributing to the talk buzz about the internal Trump documents, we’re taking focus away from the real prize, Trump’s intimate connection with the hugely unpopular project 2025.  Also, that’s the real point of Vance’s attack on Waltz’s military record – to draw media attention away from Dobbs, Project 2025, the huge $$$ chits outsiders who are keeping Trump from financially crashing into insolvency are laying down if he wins election, etc.

    Team Trump are trying to throw up a massive cloud of chaotic distractions, and this email leak (insofar as actually revealing anything substantive) are intended as massive distractions to draw media attention away from Harris.  They want us to loudly chase rabbits down holes instead of keeping the focus on the prize.

  65. 65.

    Layer8Problem

    @rikyrah:  I could see a hacker or hackers using an @aol.com account as a front just for the irony value.  Or it’s my dad, who still has one.  Yes, I know, and I’ve tried to get him to change it just for appearance’s sake, but it’s like asking James Monroe to stop wearing knee breeches and three-cornered hats in the 1820s.  Not gonna happen.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    Supposedly the emails with the leaked documents came from someone named Robert, which doesn’t sound Iranian to me at all.

  67. 67.

    artem1s

    Given that TCF’s operations are usually shit and he hires all the best people, I have no problems believing they got hacked. Given that TCF tried to interfere with the orderly transfer of power, has kept classified documents stored in his bathroom and is known to have shown them to foreign nationals, I have no problem believing the intelligence community has been monitoring his communications non-stop since J6 – if not before. Actually we know the IC was monitoring Russian mobsters who had a server in Trump Towers back in 2016 since they told the dumbass when they started giving him national security briefings that he shouldn’t be calling the Russian mob on an unsecured phone anymore now that he was the GOP nominee.
    I have no problem believing Iran or China or Russia or the Sauds have hacked the campaign servers and personal email accounts of everyone who took a call or text or ever communicated with TCF and have been since 2016 (if not before). Anyone with any sense would assume it’s ongoing and take care to try to keep hackers away from sensitive info about what their campaign is doing.
    Whether or not the MSM has treated both campaigns unfairly with their coverage of hacking is completely immaterial. And the Harris campaign and the President and DOJ should in no way bring this up when discussing this hack.
    Stop whinging about the bad refs. The MSM will never admit that the only reason we know about Hillary’s emails is because Anonymous couldn’t find her emails when they hacked the State Departments servers. The way her private emails were handled were never a threat to national security.
    Donald Trump is a threat to national security. He has been since Putin bought and paid for him when he could no longer get legal loans to run his cons. His campaign took foreign money during his last campaign and is probably doing the same again. That’s what the MSM should be discussing (we know they won’t). It’s what the DOJ should be discussing. It’s what the intelligence community should be discussing.
    If Biden mention this at all, they should reassure the nation by talking about what measures have been taken to keep US classified materials and information secure. Same for Harris.
    Let TCF shout to the world that the GOP isn’t capable of keeping their campaign info safe. I for one, can’t believe they even confirmed this hack except that it just another grievance for TCF to whinge about. It makes them look really really bad. We don’t need to see their oppo report on JV. We know he’s a weirdo. It’s bad for the GOP no matter what was hacked or leaked to the media.

  68. 68.

    TBone

    The rumpy neighbors have just put up campaign signs, including Dotard signage.

    I’m plotting my next move, which involves my glow-in-the-dark, 7′ tall Gritty inflatable.  I need some really great Harris Walz slogans to scrawl on large signs go with him.

    Grrrrrrr.  IT’S ON!

  72. 72.

    scav

    No no no no no, dears, you weren’t necessarily hacked, you are hacks.  It’s tricky, I will admit.  OK, , , I’ll admit as well you can be both.  How very meta.

  78. 78.

    Leto

    @sdhays: Yeah, that’s definitely a good working theory. I think the combination of “Why aren’t they publishing the material” and “Why are they covering it differently now” are really the two things that matter. Yeah, we’ll want to know who did the leaking (internal/external) but the bigger story/take away are the two questions above.

  79. 79.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    And Trump appears to have had a bad habit of commingling personal and business affairs, which seems to have extended to classified documentation, so someone looking for an intelligence windfall might think of targeting the RNC IT systems as a low-risk high-reward attack.

    As for the Iranians versus the Russians? Putin obviously has his preferences between Trump and Harris, given Trump’s proclivities and debts, while the Iranian mullahs probably don’t see a damn’s worth of difference between them, from Iran’s perspective.

  80. 80.

    Baud

    By the end of the week, the media will be more concerned about this hack than they have been about the highly classified information that Trump stored in his bathroom.

  83. 83.

    Layer8Problem

    @cmorenc:  So they’re gonna say and do stupid shit and we’re gonna stop being joyful and positive and calling them “weird” and actually actively trying to win the election?  Sounds diabolical, in a cunning plan fashion.

    I’ve never been partial to the notion that TFG is a fiendish idiot-savant reality-distortion genius, doing stupid things because that makes the cameras and microphones turn to him.  I think he’s just stupid and his stupid actions appeal to the stupid, as well as to people rationalizing that he’s actually crazy like a fox and these goofy things must be smart, because he’s a Real Estate Geeenyus, because of TV Show.

  85. 85.

    sdhays

    @artem1s: I absolutely think the “bad refs” should be berated at any given opportunity because otherwise, they’ll never get better. And people who don’t pay much attention won’t even know the “refs” suck. Or, at least, some people think they suck, so don’t just swallow whatever they say.

    But I agree that the Harris campaign doesn’t need to touch this at all.

  88. 88.

    MomSense

    I’m skeptical about the hacking claim.  They may be trying to create doubt about negative information about them that is coming to light.
    I’ll need credible verification from an independent expert / governmental agency before I believe anything he says.

  91. 91.

    waspuppet

    Your occasional reminder that despite Trump lying about it, the RNC was in fact hacked in 2016. The emails have never been released, and the Republican Party has openly and explicitly supported Russia over this country ever since. I’m sure that’s a totally harmless coincidence.

     

    PS On one hand F Steven Cheung, but on the other hand he wouldn’t even think about trying to bully our wealthy media class into not publishing this material if he didn’t think it had a good chance of working. Which it does.

  93. 93.

    artem1s

    At each step, it has pushed Republicans further and further away from Reaganite conservatism. It has divorced Republican voters from any major consideration of character in leadership and all the while it has labeled people who resisted the change as “traitors.”
    What allegiance do you owe a party, a movement or a politician when it or they fundamentally change their ideology and ethos?

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Sorry buddy. TCF only let the racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic cat out of the bag. If anything the Orange Dumpster Fire brought out the true nature of the Raygun-it/Bush/NeoCon arm of the GOP.

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

    @TBone:

    🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗

    When I was a little girl, all I wanted was a man who looked like Cary Grant the moment he was about to go remarry Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story. I can still remember the moment that took my breath away.

  96. 96.

    gene108

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    while the Iranian mullahs probably don’t see a damn’s worth of difference between them, from Iran’s perspective.

    Trump ordered the assassination of a high ranking Iranian official.

    Iran wants more than just to interfere with Trump’s election chances.

  97. 97.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @sdhays:

    But what’s the explanation for the Washington Post?

    Another example of the herd mentality that dominates how our Failed Corporate Political Media Corpse handles news like this.  Sigh.

  98. 98.

    sdhays

    @Baud: Heck, they may care more about it than which (and how many) California politicians Trump confused himself with when relating a story that no one ever wanted to know about.

  101. 101.

    waspuppet

    @Layer8Problem: Our advanced politics knowers also insist that he must have a cunning strategy because they don’t want to admit that someone that actually stupid could have been (sort of) elected president. They don’t want to admit that that could happen in this country on what they consider their watch.

  102. 102.

    rodwell

    @Kay: Yes, Marcy post has alot of assumptions and I should not make them also.  Although it would be interesting what the campaign knew about Vance in February, but they decided to formally vet him and selected him.

  104. 104.

    TBone

    @rikyrah: awwww 💜 that’s why these old films are treasures!

    my IRL first name may be partially the result of that movie.  I always love where they’re talking and Kate says “I’m such an unholy mess of a girl…”

    What a great classic!

    PS my brother looks a bit like Cary Grant and has the same attitude!

  107. 107.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Layer8Problem:

    I can’t remember who said this, and I’m paraphrasing but it was to the effect:

    “Trump is dumber than you think.”

    He’s proven that time and time again.

  113. 113.

    Eolirin

    @MomSense: There does seem to be some external evidence that Iran hacked his campaign. What there isn’t any evidence of is that the leaks have anything to do with the hack, at least directly.

  114. 114.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @TBone:

    We drove early yesterday afternoon up to friends in a burb halfway between Denver and Boulder.  Still in Denver but on I-25, some bubba in a big pickemuptruck with a gas grill strapped to the back blew past everyone in the left lane his TFG flag flapping on display.  It’s been 4 years since I’ve seen that and yeah, there’s been a core group here that we’d routinely see in 20-21 doing that.

    Then in the burb in the neighborhood of our friend, there was the usual big-assed TFG sign out front, also the first we’ve seen.

    Not that we see a ton of support given where we are but it’s previously been there, defiant even.  We’ll see if that ramps up in Sep-Oct.

  117. 117.

    M31

    I do wonder if they’ll try to dump Vance (he’ll do it “voluntarily”, of course) and stick in someone else.

    Someone with Trump’s ear (hahahahahah see what I did there) will whisper to him that it will take all the attention away from the DNC, and also that he’ll get all the RFK Jr. voters (see? add up the Trump + RFK votes and it’s more than Harris’s), and BINGO, night 3 of the DNC Trump will announce it.

    And you thought we’d reached peak pointing and laughing?

  118. 118.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Another Scott: My first email account was AOL. When I first began thinking about getting one I told a couple younger friends about it while sitting around a campfire. They fell out of their chairs they were laughing so hard. One of them said, “I can see it now: Crustyoldbastard.com!”

    And that was my email handle for years.

  128. 128.

    Matt McIrvin

    @M31: A Trump-RFK Jr. ticket is exactly the kind of thing a galaxy-brained opinion columnist would come up with as a winner after looking at a bunch of charts and graphs.

  129. 129.

    Mike E

    Women’s basketball gold medal match is a slog, European murder ball is a rude awakening for the US players.

  131. 131.

    Starfish

    @Marleedog: He was Trump’s director of cybersecurity until he got fired for contradicting Trump and saying there was no election fraud. He also gets confused with Brian Krebs who writes the Krebs on Security website

    The cybersecurity people are an odd bunch and a little all over the place politically.

  133. 133.

    eclare

    @Mike E:

    I think that there is some sort of magnetic dome over the US net causing balls to bounce out.  Call it the “reverse Steph Curry” phenomenon.

  134. 134.

    lowtechcyclist

    @M31: ​
     

    And you thought we’d reached peak pointing and laughing?

    First they’d have to reach peak self-owning, and that may be as impossible as peak wingnut.

  135. 135.

    cmorenc

    @Layer8Problem: It’s crucial we recognize that Trump/Vance’s tactical response to the rock-star positive initial trajectory of Harris-Waltz is to begin tossing out shiny distractions for the media and voters to focus on instead.  The object is to draw coverage into a smoke cloud rather than substance.  Note that we have learned nothing substantive whatever from the purported “Trump campaign hack”, and the huge amount of time they have succeeded in redirecting media coverage into focusing on “Waltz’s military record”.

  137. 137.

    sixthdoctor

    Just pasting for the joy of it.

    Shockingly, J.D. Vance is currently bombing his interview with Dana Bash on CNN’s State of the Union. Like… oh my goodness, we’re only five minutes into this, and he’s flailing. It’s bad. And Dana Bash appears to have no patience for nonsense this Sunday morning.
    — Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) August 11, 2024

  138. 138.

    M31

    @Matt McIrvin: Have any of our galaxy-brained pundits suggested that Trump dump Vance and then have an open mini-primary and get some true celebrities (Denis Miller, Ted Nugent, Andrew Tate from his Romanian prison cell) to judge? The candidates would include Joe Manchin, Steve Bannon (gotta get that felon vote!), that crazy Jewish guy that looks like Goebbels, can’t remember his name because who cares, that crazy Republican black guy whose name I can’t remember because who cares, and that weird seatsniffing Cybertruck guy, that would show everyone that only the GOP is inclusive.

    Matt Yglesias says, “now that’s a move that shows true wisdom”

  139. 139.

    dm

    No one has speculated about Kelly Anne Conway yet?

    She’s already talked about Vance (she opposed the pick), and has seemed disaffected for a while. When I heard that the cache included material on Vance, she was my first suspect.

    If the law firm was discussing classified material on their internal e-mail, they’re in trouble. Not reporting a hack to the FBI possibly including classified material is even bigger trouble. But I doubt they had copies of the material in their offices and on their network, they likely only had access to a SCIF somewhere where the material was stored.

  141. 141.

    3Sice

    @Matt McIrvin:

    At this point potential replacements are cranks and crackpots bearing $25 gift cards.

    No semi-sane Republican is going to trade a safe seat for immolation with orange julius.

  142. 142.

    Kay

    @rodwell:

    I feel like using “firewall” in that way is almost Greenwaldian.
    I’m also wary of how all roads seem to lead back to Wheeler’s specific area – she’s using names she knows to lead to conclusions that make me uncomfortable. A is connected to C so therefore B.
    I think she should wait for more. It’s narrative setting, IMO. The same thing major media do.

  143. 143.

    cmorenc

    @sixthdoctor: The objective of the Vance appearances is to distract attention onto GOP memes about Harris/Walz, not to change minds or make him likeable to anyone not already inclined to so regard him.  And distract coverage away from Dobbs and Project 2025.

    Yes, Vance is not exactly projecting warm-and-fuzzy attractiveness in the face of Bash’s questioning.  But he is succeeding in distracting to political conversation onto his chosen memes.

  144. 144.

    sdhays

    @M31: You know Trump is going to be susceptible to the idea of swapping out JV because that’s what Biden did and Trump will think it will all just work the same. Campaign staff probably have run interference between him and anyone who might suggest it since he’s going to find it very attractive.

  146. 146.

    Geminid

    @Doug R: The US hit General Solemeini as he was leaving the Baghdad airport. Solemeini was a revered figure within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and that is a powerful institution which acts in areas besides the strictly military.

    My understanding is that Mike Pompeo and John Bolton have extra security protection because of their role in Solemeini’s death. They may need protection indefinitely; the IRGC is in no hurry but they’re not forgetting this matter either.

  147. 147.

    Mike E

    @eclare: US women’s soccer showed bounce back from getting pushed around, kept their heads and succeeded in their team concept… US men’s basketball certainly were awash in egos and did the same. The women know they have to grind it out, hopefully they find that gear (and patience).

  148. 148.

    M31

    @sdhays: oh yeah, the double whammy of a guaranteed media frenzy (that’s true) and Trump’s brain going “well the Dems got a huge bump when Biden dropped out so I’ll get a huge bump when Vance drops out” (that’s questionable)

    Still, probably not, unless Trump can convince himself that it’s someone else’s fault. HAHAHAHA actually that’s his most reliable trait, so who knows.

  149. 149.

    sdhays

    @dm: Yeah, I really don’t follow the jump to the hack potentially compromising national security. But potentially compromising some of Trump’s criminal cases seems possible.

  152. 152.

    Another Scott

    Tim Walz
    @Tim_Walz
    10h

    Don’t believe Donald Trump when he plays dumb about Project 2025.

    I coached football long enough to know that, when somebody draws up a playbook, they plan on using it.

    [ 45 s video ]

    Aug 11, 2024 · 3:35 AM UTC

    We’re not going back!

    Simple, clear, direct, compelling, and the audience is participating. Very well done.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  153. 153.

    Barbara

    Until proven otherwise, why wouldn’t this be seen as a leak rather than a “hack”? I define “hack” as an intrusion into a closed system by a person who is not an authorized user — either by stealing, guessing or somehow bypassing password or multifactor authentication protocols.  There are a lot of people who have access to documents in a law firm environment.  Good systems keep track of everyone who accesses — even if just to read — the document, but if, say, a secretary is working on edits at the request of someone else there isn’t much to keep him or her from taking screen shots with a phone.

    My employer won’t let me take screen shots of my email app on my phone.  When I tried to take screen shots of downloadable tickets to transfer them to my photo gallery so I don’t need connectivity to access them, I couldn’t do it from my work email.  Kind of aggravating, but understandable, however, nothing stops you from taking a screen shot from an external phone, heck, with so many remote work arrangements, you could use someone else’s phone to do it.  It’s cumbersome but it’s not hard.

    And that’s assuming security is strong, that people don’t let third parties know their passwords or adhere to strong security protocols. If you have followed the ChangeHealth saga, the company finally admitted that the intrusion occurred because one of their older legacy products — no doubt being used by only a few customers who have resisted migrating to a newer product — lacked multifactor authentication.

  154. 154.

    Ebony

    @Layer8Problem: why should he change his email address for appearance sake. AIL was a pioneer in information technology. Judging someone for using AOL is weirdly judgemental.

  156. 156.

    noncarborundum

    @Baud: And I’m convinced that the nice lady named Debby who called me the other day about the expiration of my Windows license grew up in the U.S., despite her strong south Asian accent.

  157. 157.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sdhays: But of course that’s not what Biden did. But what Biden actually did is a thing that is outside of any universe of thought that narcissist Donald Trump can possibly inhabit.

  159. 159.

    Barbara

    @Layer8Problem: Since I actually do use AOL mail for my personal account — after Verizon sold their email platform to AOL — I am not sure why using AOL versus hotmail or Gmail says much of anything about someone.

    I personally think any disclosure like this is presumptively a leak not a “hack” because so many people have authorized access to documents and it’s easy if a little awkward to bypass security checks by taking screen shots with an external phone. A secretary making edits could do it.  A proofreader or cite checker could do it. I bet many of these staff members now work from home.

  161. 161.

    3Sice

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The carcass would draw too much of the media spotlight. Pence was really the perfect VP pick for him, and he had to go and ruin that by trying to kill him.

  162. 162.

    Ken

    @Matt McIrvin: Trump/Dead Bear Carcass

    Can’t see it. Trump would never pick someone more popular than him, and by now surely he’s heard that women would choose the bear.

  164. 164.

    Geminid

    @sixthdoctor: I happened to come across a Wall Street Journal copy from July 20. That was the Saturday after the Republican convention, and there was long op-ed by Peggy Noonan.

    Noonan was impressed by what she thought was the Republicans’ new seriousness and unity. Read now, the piece is pretty funny, especially the passages on J.D. Vance. One read:

       Why did Mr. Trump pick Mr. Vance? For intellectual heft? Sure– he’s policy focused and fluent.

    But Noonan outdid herself with this one:

       Mr. Vance is 39 years old and about to ignite imaginations. Everything feels open.

  165. 165.

    Eolirin

    @Barbara: Microsoft has identified an Iranian based hack on someone related to one of the campaigns, and there’s reporting, albeit anonymously sourced, that it was the Trump campaign.

    But the leak and the hack aren’t necessarily related, especially directly.

  166. 166.

    Barbara

    @Eolirin: I am not knowledgeable enough to know how or even if one can identify a “successful” versus an “attempted” hack.  Or maybe they are just focused on the fact that they have documented an attempt from an Iranian source.

    However, any significant law firm has to assume that there are dozens if not more attempted hacks on a daily basis.  And, as you say, both things can be true — a system was successfully penetrated by unauthorized users and someone within leaked information.

    ETA: It also feels like this is just a Side B version of the actual hit that played so much havoc with the Clinton campaign.  Which, of course, Trump crowed about and publicly encouraged.  When I hear about hacks, my default reaction is that it was carelessness — not that it wasn’t wrong of someone to make the intrusion, just that it was likely avoidable.  I do know of situations where hacks were so sophisticated that it was understood that ONLY a foreign government could have perpetrated it.  But I doubt that is the case for most intrusions.

  167. 167.

    SatanicPanic

    @Geminid: hahahahaha

    Who is the audience for these old hacks? There was a George Will column a few weeks back complaining about Joe Biden being a public figure for too long. Like, shut up George you’ve been a pundit since Biden’s first senate term.

  168. 168.

    Starfish

    @Ebony: AOL brought about eternal September.

    The internet was a niche thing in academic environments. Every September, new people would go to college and do clueless things like forward pyramid schemes, memes, and spam.

    AOL opened access to everyone, and it was eternally September when a relative who had not been on the internet before forwarded you some email from a Nigerian prince or whatever.

    Everyone would also get their floppies and CDs in the mail. AOL was ubiquitous.

    The combination of the ubiquity and eternal September led to the disdain for AOL.

  169. 169.

    Starfish

    @Barbara: Don’t use hotmail either.

    Hotmail was recycling email addresses at some point, and it was a security risk when someone was assigned an email address you used to have.

  170. 170.

    Another Scott

    @Starfish:

    Jack E. Smith ⚖️
    @7Veritas4
    2h

    Sources are saying the aol hacker was in the process of downloading the entire Trump campaign database, but their grandkid accidentally picked up the phone and cut off the dial-up modem connection.

    Aug 11, 2024 · 12:11 PM UTC

    Heh.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  171. 171.

    Starfish

    @Another Scott: 😂

    For some reason, when I was an undergrad, the engineering dorm had the worst internet connection, and we were dialing up to the rest of the university network. It was so sad.

  172. 172.

    Layer8Problem

    @Ebony:  I’m afraid Information Technology people are a cruel and judgemental lot, given to wearing t-shirts saying “I Read Your Email” and things like that.

  174. 174.

    Barbara

    @Starfish: I was defrauded when someone set up a fake Gmail address with my name.  They used it buy merchandise with stolen credit card information.  When I called the vendor they basically said nanny nanny boo boo when I asked them whether they didn’t consider it to be strange that someone bought a gift card for a person with the same name as the name on the credit card.  To this day I won’t shop with that vendor.  I will note that when I informed Wayfair of a fraudulent purchase they were incredibly responsive, canceled the purchase immediately and deleted the account that made the purchase.  Of course I still had to cancel the card, but they took it seriously and made sure it didn’t happen again on their system.

    I learned about the purchase when Wayfair texted me to confirm the delivery information.

  175. 175.

    jonas

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: I live in a pretty red/Trumpy area of rural upstate NY and I saw a brief uptick in Trump swag, flags, etc. after the July debate when everyone assumed Biden was toast and Trump would cruise to victory (including one lovely old rusted-out pickup with a hoist in the back and Democratic donkey hanging from a noose). A little bolder, but still nothing compared to 2016 or 2020 when it seemed like people were practically wrapping their homes in Trump-branded Tyvek.  The past few weeks, however, I’m not seeing it much anymore. There’s even some Harris/Walz swag emerging on a few people’s lawns, etc. I have no doubt Trump will still win this district, but his voters are, shall we say, a bit *shyer* these days than they were just a few weeks ago.

  177. 177.

    Baud

    Jesus. I’m glad I’m not actually watching the women’s basketball final. Just watching the score is giving me palpitations.

  179. 179.

    Barbara

    @Baud: ​I turned it off to conserve mental energy. However, it looks like it is tied. In the first half, France was basically fouling on every American possession, and one of their best players had three fouls before the end of the first period. You can’t play a whole game like that.

    ETA: I am still agog at the women’s marathon, which I do plan to watch at least some of later.  Hassan Sifan won a bronze in the 5000 last Monday, she won a bronze in the 10,000 race less then 48 hours ago, and she won a gold medal in the Marathon and set a new Olympic record doing so, in a sprint to the finish!  I think Sifan’s is the single most amazing performance of the entire games.  She also won three medals in Tokyo — 1500, 5000, and 10,000.

  181. 181.

    Layer8Problem

    @Layer8Problem:  Also, I once worked for an outfit in AOL’s stable, many, many years ago.  Thought highly of themselves, they did.  Sic transit gloria, and all that.  My low opinion of the marque is not just from classist yocks or ageism.

  182. 182.

    Starfish

    @Barbara: Wayfair has been an amazing online retailer.

    One time I tried to buy something from Urban Outfitters online, and when I went to check out, I was seeing stuff that I did not put in my basket with another buyer’s contact information. Somehow, the software was written in a way that two people could end up with the same shopping cart and could see each other’s personal information. I called the company, and they did not seem to care about this serious bug so I called the other shopper and asked if they could see my stuff too. They could. I quit trying to shop.

  186. 186.

    Starfish

    @TBone: “What can be unburdened by what has been” -> This is a Harris catchphrase that seems relevant to Gritty.

    “Mind your own damn business” -> This is a Walz catchphrase, but I am not sure that it is relevant to the Gritty universe.

    “Weird” -> Highly relevant to Gritty AND the election.

  189. 189.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Jeffro:

    I’m going to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 and — ironically enough — I’m doing it in part to try to save conservatism.

    I see that was David French in the FTFNYT. For reasons unknown they started sending me his column in email. I read a few, he seems like a sane person.

    I am proud to have cancelled my subscription. I suppose the email will stop.

  190. 190.

    CliosFanBoy

    that guy in the green shirt looks like he’s about to pull a gun on someone in a case of road rage.

  191. 191.

    Ramalama

    @TBone: To a person, every Quebecer has asked me, when learning I was an American, or already knew, why nobody had shot You Know Who already. Varying political points of view, everybody’s asked me. Then after the shooting, people started asking me if I think there will be another.

    All this to say that even though Celine has lived in Vegas so long that she’s got an airplane hangar filled with shoes (could not possibly move back to Quebec with all that)…….. she did swear in her weird movie using a Quebec-specific swear word. Which makes me wonder when she’s going to get on board and sue little Donny two shmoops for rights infringement of using her song, and also because surely she could be thinking what the fancy banker down the street thinks, the journalist from Montreal thinks, what everybody here had been thinking (and therefore not a fan of his).

  192. 192.

    CliosFanBoy

    My wife ordered two small end tables from Wayfair, but found the directions to put them together confusing (I did too).  But I did not know she’d call to complain to Wayfair. As she was on the phone with them, I sat down and put them together sans directions.  She came back and told me we’d gotten our money back and we didn’t have to return them, so we’d given them away. Too late!!!  So, we got two free end tables.

  196. 196.

    John S.

    @sixthdoctor:

    Dana Bash appears to have no patience for nonsense this Sunday morning.

    I don’t know what interview they were watching, but I saw the same useless Dana Bash allowing JD to gish gallop a bunch of bullshit with very little pushback.

  198. 198.

    Shalimar

    @Barbara: Using AOL shouldn’t signify anything now.  What is left of it is owned by the same company that owns Yahoo, so there is no difference now between an AOL or Yahoo email address.

    20 years ago when AOL was still spamming their startup discs everywhere, AOL was a sign that someone was still using AOL’s service as a portal to access the broader internet, long after dial-up competitors like Compuserve were out of business.  It signified someone with very little computer knowledge.  Which isn’t a bad thing, everyone has to start somewhere, and shouldn’t have been made fun of like it was.

  199. 199.

    Ruckus

    @Layer8Problem:

    I’ve never been partial to the notion that TFG is a fiendish idiot-savant reality-distortion genius,

    Good, because he isn’t even close to that. He is an overly pompous jackass who inherited a bunch of money and wasted every dime of it because he is an overly pompous jackass.

  201. 201.

    Jinchi

    No report about the Trump foreign data hack should be written without reminding Americans what Trump was asking for when he said “Russia, if you’re listening…” during a campaign press conference.

  204. 204.

    Jinchi

    @3Sice: No semi-sane Republican is going to trade a safe seat for immolation with orange julius

    Every Republican in national  politics would jump at the chance to become Trump’s whipping boy. There are no sane Republicans.

  205. 205.

    Ruckus

    @sdhays:

    Always, always, always look who OWNS the paper. That is the person that makes the decisions. They may hire someone to make them but they also own the process as well as the presses and the newsprint. If they want something printed – it gets printed. And the opposite is just as true.

  206. 206.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:

    shitforbrains has always been his worst press content provider. He’s too stupid to understand that his mouth is his own worst supporter.

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