Politics Random, Random

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Pesach Lattin
@pesach_lattin
Joe Rogan takes back his endorsement of RFK Jr after getting death threats.

This is maga.

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Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1
BREAKING:

Trump's campaign says some of its internal communications have been hacked.

The acknowledgment came after POLITICO began receiving emails from an anonymous account with documents from inside Trump's operation.

The campaign blamed "foreign sources hostile to the United States." https://politico.com/news/2024/08/10/tr ... k-00173503

Mark Jacob
@MarkJacob16
There’s no reason to believe the Trump campaign when it says its internal communications were hacked by “foreign sources.” Team Trump lies every day. You have to wonder whether a damaging leak has occurred and they want to discredit an upcoming news story.

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Fred Wellman
@FPWellman

Probably the first lesson I learned as a young Cadet and then officer was you must train your unit and build SOP's so that no one is irreplaceable. Everyone has a back up. In combat people get wounded or killed and the next in line steps up and carries the mission. The fact that the main person attacking Tim Walz is the CSM that replaced him and then led the unit for over a year before deploying is an indictment of him, not Tim Walz. That's what sets me off about this entire conversation. The minute you leave a unit it's like you didn't exist. That's the system. If this unit couldn't get their (expletive) together over a year after he left that falls on that guy who is actually driving these attacks...not Walz.

Mickey Glick
@MickeyGlick
Yes, and although Walz was eligible for retirement after 20 years, it had to be approved. Had the chain of command deemed him "mission critical", he would not have been allowed to leave at that time.

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Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1
BREAKING:

Trump's campaign says some of its internal communications have been hacked.

The acknowledgment came after POLITICO began receiving emails from an anonymous account with documents from inside Trump's operation.

The campaign blamed "foreign sources hostile to the United States." https://politico.com/news/2024/08/10/tr ... k-00173503

Mark Jacob
@MarkJacob16
There’s no reason to believe the Trump campaign when it says its internal communications were hacked by “foreign sources.” Team Trump lies every day. You have to wonder whether a damaging leak has occurred and they want to discredit an upcoming news story.

A point of information re Politico:

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Trump campaign says it is victim of foreign hack after leak of Vance report
Microsoft discovered evidence that Iranian hackers compromised the email account of a former Trump campaign adviser, a person familiar with the matter says.

By Josh Dawsey, Isaac Arnsdorf, Ellen Nakashima and Shane Harris
August 10, 2024 at 7:18 p.m. EDT

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 by Microsoft on Friday, 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.

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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 due to the sensitivity of the internal matter.

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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.

The sender would not speak on the telephone with a Post reporter but indicated they had access to additional information, including internal campaign emails and documents related to Trump’s court cases.

“Consider me as an anonymous resource who has access to djtfp24 campaign. There are [sic] other stuff too, that I can send you, if this content is in your field of interest,” the sender wrote in an email to the reporter.

“I hope you understand my limitations and my vulnerable position in the campaign,” the sender added.

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In his statement, Cheung referenced reports of that alleged plot: “The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House. Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want.”

Cheung’s statement is a marked change in tone from the 2016 campaign, when Trump repeatedly touted internal Democratic emails and other documents released by WikiLeaks that U.S. officials suspected had been stolen by Russia.

“I love WikiLeaks,” Trump said while campaigning against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in October 2016, after the organization had posted online tens of thousands of emails hacked from the account of Clinton’s campaign chairman.

“This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable,” he said two days later, as the site posted daily troves of internal Clinton campaign emails. “It tells you the inner heart; you gotta read it.”

Thomas Rid, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, called hacks and leaks — similar to what happened in 2016 and to what the Trump campaign has alleged took place with the Vance report — the “white whale” of foreign influence operations. “Close observers in the intelligence community and beyond have long been waiting for another sighting of that elusive beast: potentially highly impactful, deceptive, perhaps with forgeries slipped into genuine leaked material, with real news value, hard to counter,” he said, but added this did not appear to be it.

Devlin Barrett, Joseph Menn, Aaron Schaffer, Chris Dehghanpoor, Sam Oakford and Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ce-report/

[Owendonovan]

Wasn't he asking Russia for help in obtaining Hillary's emails? Is this somehow a problem now?

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JD Vance’s Campaign Won’t Deny That’s Him in Viral Drag Photo

The GOP’s vice presidential pick is a vocal critic of gender affirming care for minors and once opposed federal protections for gay and interracial marriages.
Lily Mae Lazarus
Journalist
Updated Aug. 11, 2024 9:20PM EDT / Published Aug. 11, 2024 6:13PM EDT

An image of JD Vance allegedly dressed as a woman and wearing a blonde wig was posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday. The unconfirmed image quickly picked up steam and began trending under the hashtag #SofaLoren, a reference to the iconic Italian actress Sophia Loren and false claims that the Republican senator had sex with a couch.

A spokesperson for the Republican vice presidential pick did not deny the photo’s authenticity when approached by the Daily Beast, and did not offer any further comment.

The source who surfaced the alleged photo, Travis Whitfill, says the picture was taken by a fellow Yale classmate in 2012, when Vance was attending law school at the university. Whitfill then sent it to podcast host Matt Bernstein, who posted it to X.

“It’s from a group chat of Vance’s fellow classmates and is from a friend of a friend,” he told the Daily Beast. “I believe it was grabbed from Facebook and was taken at a Halloween party.”

Many commenters online connected Vance’s alleged history of cross-dressing with his legislative history—which has long been a point of concern for LGBTQ+ advocacy groups.

The Ohio senator introduced the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which aims to criminalize medical institutions that provide gender-affirming care to minors.

The Republican vice presidential pick also supports measures to limit classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, and labeled critics of so-called “don’t say gay” legislation “groomers.”




https://www.thedailybeast.com/jd-vances ... drag-photo

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Personally I don't care if he's gender fluid or not. I do care that he seems to think that's okay for him but not for anyone outside of his circle of rich friends who got him placed on the ticket.

As a parent I do feel for his children since we've all survived childhood and know how brutal other kids can be. If Mrs. Vance didn't know she knows now.

[dryrunguy]

I wouldn't call that drag. It's appears to be a cisgender straight man wearing a wig with some kind of a necklace as a joke. The shirt appears to be a garden-variety black t-shirt, which would suggest putting on the wig and necklace was a spontaneous decision.

My experience has been that people who wear drag on a regular basis fall everywhere across the entire gender identity and sexual orientation spectrum, though many would probably identify as transgender. This would also have occurred long before he became the JD Vance he is today. This would also have been around the same time he developed a close friendship with a transgender friend, Sofia Nelson, that lasted for years until Vance morphed into the vile JD Vance of today who is now part of a cult.

That said, the optics are certainly bad, and he deserves to be dragged for it. (See what I did there?)

[ti-amie]

I wouldn't call that drag. It's appears to be a cisgender straight man wearing a wig with some kind of a necklace as a joke. The shirt appears to be a garden-variety black t-shirt, which would suggest putting on the wig and necklace was a spontaneous decision.

My experience has been that people who wear drag on a regular basis fall everywhere across the entire gender identity and sexual orientation spectrum, though many would probably identify as transgender. This would also have occurred long before he became the JD Vance he is today. This would also have been around the same time he developed a close friendship with a transgender friend, Sofia Nelson, that lasted for years until Vance morphed into the vile JD Vance of today who is now part of a cult.

That said, the optics are certainly bad, and he deserves to be dragged for it. (See what I did there?)

He's wearing a skirt though...
And it's the hypocrisy of it all.

As for what you did

[dryrunguy]

Oh. This was the only photo I've seen, so I didn't see a skirt. So it wasn't entirely spontaneous. If he was serious about doing drag, though, I think he would have at least shaved his face and had his eyebrows and lashes done.

I don't care what he wore or wears. I care more about who he professes to be. (And the fact I don't think he really believes about 50% of what he says. He's catering to a cult. He's nothing more than a political sex worker--not intended to be an insult to sex workers.)

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Newly Uncovered Project 2025 Training Videos Spark Concern
Published Aug 11, 2024 at 6:57 PM EDT

By Adeola Adeosun
Weekend Night Editor

A cache of previously undisclosed training videos produced for Project 2025, a controversial initiative to prepare right-wing political appointees for a potential conservative presidential administration, has come to light, raising alarm among government watchdogs and Democratic groups.

The revelation comes amid increasing efforts by former President Donald Trump to distance himself from the project and recent leadership changes at The Heritage Foundation, which spearheads Project 2025.

The videos, totaling over 14 hours of content across 23 separate recordings, were obtained by ProPublica on Saturday and documented from an individual with access to the materials. They offer an unprecedented look into the preparations being made by conservative groups to rapidly implement far-reaching policy changes should a Republican candidate win in this year's election.

"Want to know what's in PROJECT 2025's never-before-published training videos to make future Trump appointees 'ready on Day One'? We got 'em. 23 different videos. 14 hours of tape," ProPublica reporter Andy Kroll wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday morning.

Project 2025 has faced intensifying scrutiny in recent weeks following the resignation of its director Paul Dans and attempts by Trump to disavow any connection to the initiative.

In a previous statement to Newsweek, Trump's campaign expressed that they would "greatly welcome" reports of Project 2025's demise, emphasizing that the project has nothing to do with the campaign and should not be associated with the former president in any way.

Newsweek contacted Trump's campaign via email on Sunday for additional comment.

Despite these public distancing efforts, the newly revealed videos suggest that preparations to train a cadre of conservative political appointees remain underway. The recordings coach potential appointees on a wide range of topics, from basic governance procedures to more controversial strategies for advancing conservative policies and battling perceived resistance from career civil servants.

Climate Change Skepticism and Policy Rollbacks

In one video, Bethany Kozma, a former Trump administration official, downplays the severity of climate change and characterizes efforts to combat it as a means of population control. The same video features Katie Sullivan, who served as an acting assistant attorney general under Trump, calling for the elimination of gender adviser positions created by the Biden administration across federal agencies.

These statements align with broader policy goals outlined in Project 2025's extensive "Mandate for Leadership" document, which proposes sweeping changes such as eliminating the Department of Education, cutting Medicaid, and making it easier to fire and replace career civil servants.

The plan also calls for reversing many of the Biden administration's climate policies, rolling back abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, and bringing about changes to education standards.

Trump Administration Alumni Feature Prominently

Despite Trump's recent attempts to create distance between himself and Project 2025, the training videos heavily feature individuals with ties to his administration.

Of the 36 speakers appearing in the recordings, 29 have worked for Trump in some capacity – either on his transition team, in his administration, or on his current reelection campaign.

Lessons Learned and Strategies Shared

Many speakers in the videos acknowledge stumbles during the early days of the Trump administration, particularly regarding staffing and the inexperience of some political appointees. They frame Project 2025's efforts as crucial preparation to avoid similar pitfalls in a future conservative administration.

Rick Dearborn, who helped lead Trump's 2016 transition team, emphasizes the importance of having a database of potential appointees ready, reportedly calling it "a luxury that we didn't have" during the previous transition.

Some of the advice offered in the videos appears to diverge from traditional conservative positions. David Burton, an economic policy expert at The Heritage Foundation, advocates for expanding staffing at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to better scrutinize and potentially limit regulations from other federal agencies.

Navigating a Perceived Hostile Environment

A recurring theme throughout the videos is the notion that conservative appointees should expect to face hostility within the federal government and from mainstream media outlets. Speakers frequently characterize Washington, D.C., as an environment hostile to conservative values and warn of potential persecution.

To counter this perceived hostility, speakers offer various strategies. These include empowering political staff over career civil servants, scrubbing personal social media accounts of potentially controversial content, and focusing media engagement efforts on conservative outlets rather than mainstream news organizations.

Public Opinion and Project Future

According to a Navigator Research poll, Project 2025 has proven to be extremely unpopular with voters, with only 11 percent of those surveyed viewing it favorably.

Following Dans' resignation, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts will now lead Project 2025's efforts. Roberts reportedly stated that the project had accomplished its goals of bringing together conservative organizations to create a unified vision. He noted that the project was set to conclude its policy drafting after the two-party conventions this year, in line with the original timeline established in April 2022.

As the 2024 presidential election approaches, the emergence of these Project 2025 training videos is likely to intensify debate over the potential policy directions and governance approaches of a future Republican administration. While supporters argue the initiative represents necessary preparation, critics view it as a blueprint for radical changes to federal government operations and policies.

The Heritage Foundation and most individuals featured in the videos reportedly did not respond to requests for comment by ProPublica on this story. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign who appears in one of the videos, stated that Agenda 47 is the only official policy agenda from the campaign.

https://www.newsweek.com/newly-uncovere ... rn-1937635

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John-Uh Harris
@johnnarae
Process for going to the Harris/Walz campaign.
-az dems sent out an rsvp link (my irl friend nate shared it w/ me)
-I signed up immediately and got a message we wouldn’t know more until 24-48 hrs before event
-received an email Thurs afternoon 8/8 with location & time

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