Dear MAGA: Open Topic 20181205

PBS Frontline has uploaded their interview with Brad Parscale:

Our former host has a post on it with a good discussion that follows.
Half the commenters said that Parscale took the interviewer to the cleaners. The other half said that Parscale gave the game away about Facebook and advertising there. In any event, Parscale will need to come up with a new strategy for 2020, of which he is no doubt aware.
At the end, Parscale made a disparaging remark about MSM which left the interviewer shocked. A woman on the production team can be heard to say, ‘Stop the interview’.
Someone Over There said that he did not do very well with his mid-terms strategy and cited a CBS News article from the end of October. The CTH commenter said that Parscale came across as being unlikeable on CBS This Morning. Anyway, for what it’s worth, Parscale was aware of suburban women for the mid-terms, as he mentioned them:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-not-on-the-ballot-in-2018-his-campaign-manager-parscale-says/
I have not yet watched the Frontline interview.
Parscale was happy with the result:

French high school students set fire to their schools:
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/04/pictures-students-set-fires-block-over-100-high-schools-france-protests/
‘A young protester, who did not want to be identified, criticised the French president, saying “Macron may finally understand that he can not fuck us over, that we have a voice, that we have things to say, that you cannot play with our future,” before being interrupted and choked by a thick cloud of tear gas.’

chojun looks back in history at the debt. I, too, wondered at the time about Alan Greenspan’s comment nearly 30 years ago:
‘chojun says:
December 4, 2018 at 3:43 pm
‘Put simply, Globalism is Socialism or communism-lite implemented on a global scale. “Free Trade” (as implemented) is redistribution of wealth on a global inter-macro economic scale.
‘Note how in the 90’s Alan Greenspan was concerned about paying off the National Debt “too quickly”. Now why on earth would anyone ever be concerned about paying off debt too quickly? What if that debt was never designed to be paid back, and that it in effect was a redistribution of wealth resulting in a permanent tribute paid to its global benefactors by american taxpayers?
‘What you need to know about globalism can be summed up by one point – the United States was never intended to be a member of Oil Producing Economic Countries (OPEC) when we have enough energy reserves here to dwarf almost all of the rest of the world.’

National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) reveals that they were hacked before the mid-terms, way back in April:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/04/politics/nrcc-hack-midterms/index.html
‘The revelation of the hack comes weeks after House Republicans lost their majority and saw Democrats pick up close to 40 seats in the House. In a sign of how serious the committee believed the hack to be, they brought on the law firm Covington and Burling to handle the issue, as well as Mercury Public Affairs to deal with the public relations around the intrusion.
‘After the NRCC was alerted to the hack, top officials then informed CrowdStrike, a Republican official said, the cybersecurity firm that helped Democrats expel the Russians from their computer systems in 2016, and later shared information with the FBI as it investigated the election-season hacks.
‘Ian Prior, a spokesman for the committee, said Tuesday that they were hacked “by an unknown entity.”
“The NRCC can confirm that it was the victim of a cyber intrusion by an unknown entity,” said Prior. “The cybersecurity of the Committee’s data is paramount, and upon learning of the intrusion, the NRCC immediately launched an internal investigation and notified the FBI, which is now investigating the matter.”
‘”To protect the integrity of that investigation, the NRCC will offer no further comment on the incident,” he added.’
The NYT also has an article on it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/us/politics/national-republican-congressional-committee-hack.html
‘In this case, senior House Republicans, including Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin; Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader; and Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the majority whip, were not aware of the breach until Politico reporters contacted them, a person familiar with the investigation said.
‘The person said that the techniques used by the hacker or hackers suggested that the breach was carried out by “a sophisticated actor.” The chief evidence was the lengths to which the hacker or hackers went to cover their tracks, another person familiar with the investigation said. “It was not a very broad or big hack,” that person added, “but it was skillful.”
‘That alone would suggest that the hackers might be state sponsored, or at least experienced. But often it is difficult to tell whom hackers are working for, and state-sponsored hackers often go to considerable lengths to hide that information.’
POLITICO first discovered the breach:
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/04/exclusive-emails-of-top-nrcc-officials-stolen-in-major-2018-hack-1043309
‘The email accounts of four senior aides at the National Republican Congressional Committee were surveilled for several months, the party officials said. The intrusion was detected in April by an NRCC vendor, who alerted the committee and its cybersecurity contractor. An internal investigation was initiated, and the FBI was alerted to the attack, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the incident …
‘Committee officials said they decided to withhold the information because they were intent on conducting their own investigation and feared that revealing the hack would compromise efforts to find the culprit …
‘The hack became a major source of consternation within the committee as the midterm campaign unfolded. The NRCC brought on the prominent Washington law firm Covington & Burling as well as Mercury Public Affairs to oversee the response to the hack. The NRCC paid the two firms hundreds of thousands of dollars to help respond to the intrusion. The committee’s chief legal counsel, Chris Winkelman, devoted many hours to dealing with the matter.
‘Party officials would not say when the hack began or who was behind it, although they privately believe it was a foreign agent because of the nature of the attack.
‘Donor information was not compromised during the intrusion, the party officials said.
‘“The NRCC can confirm that it was the victim of a cyber intrusion by an unknown entity. The cybersecurity of the Committee’s data is paramount, and upon learning of the intrusion, the NRCC immediately launched an internal investigation and notified the FBI, which is now investigating the matter,” said Ian Prior, a vice president at Mercury.
‘Prior, a former Justice Department official and NRCC operative, has been working with the committee to deal with the matter.’

Whistleblower Nate Cain is optimistic. Great tweets: