04/26/18

The Power of Narrative Politics

By: Peter Gunn | New Zeal

The other day I was speaking with a 19-year-old young lady who is a neo-gun control believer. As a High School Senior, she was naturally horrified by the events of Parkland high school and, and as one would expect, these events hit close to home for her. In this conversation, she invoked “Trayvon Martin” and “Michael Brown” and my heart just sank. I wanted to scream “They died in the commission of FELONIES! They are NOT VICTIMS!” Both of the investigations in those cases were heavily and unreasonably biased against the defenders from the get-go and STILL the evidence of self-defense was obvious and undeniable. Behold the power of The Narrative.

As folks on the opposite side from the Liberal/Progressive point of view, I think we absolutely fail to understand the true power of Narrative Politics. In order to influence a population using Narrative Politics, you must craft the story that will lead the audience to the conclusion you WANT them to draw, regardless of truth, by making them FEEL a certain way about the subject. Any information that does not agree with The Narrative must be squelched. This is a nearly daily occurrence in the American “Mainstream” Media.

Trayvon Martin is a prime example of how Narrative Politics works; Instead of starting with a crime and following the evidence to lead to the truth, whatever it would be, The Left/Progressives started by publicly creating the Narrative of the case and working backwards. The Narrative was that Trayvon Martin was an innocent teenager, who went out to buy some Skittles and encountered hateful armed ~~white~~ Racist George Zimmerman a self-appointed vigilante who murdered the poor child in cold blood solely because Trayvon was black and wearing a hoodie. I crossed out “white” above because when The Narrative first aired, no one knew what George Zimmerman looked like. If we were honest with ourselves, we would admit that that his name sounds like an older white man which is what happened at the time. When it was revealed that Zimmerman was Hispanic, there was a pause for about a day and half while The Narrative people regrouped. This was not going to be a “White on Black” murder….it was “minority on minority” which doesn’t serve The Narrative. Some clever soul in the Left/Progressive camp saved the day by claiming Zimmerman was a “White Hispanic”. While the term did exist before this use, it very effectively got The Narrative back up and running! The Villain was a WHITE (Hispanic), the emphasis on the former over the latter when said out loud. It worked like a charm. How many celebrities did we see wearing Hoodies and holding up “Justice for Trayvon” signs?

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04/26/18

‘Operation GhostSecret’: North Korea Is Intensifying A Global Cyberattack

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

The North Koreans were involved in a suspected widespread cyberattack last month that hit Turkish banks. The attack was much broader in scope than at first thought and the data theft has hit 17 countries, including the United States and Australia. Other countries include the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, China and Russia, among other countries. They stole information on critical infrastructure, telecommunications and entertainment organizations, researchers say.

“The campaign is extremely complicated, leveraging a number of implants to steal information from infected systems and is intricately designed to evade detection and deceive forensic investigators,” McAfee wrote in a report. The group uses hacking tools that are associated with the cyber espionage group Hidden Cobra — the name that the US government uses to describe North Korea’s state-sponsored hackers.

The campaign is called Operation GhostSecret by cyber researcher McAfee. North Korean hackers have evolved beyond their traditional focus on military secrets and cyber provocations. They have expanded their net to include sensitive information from a wide range of industries. That info includes critical infrastructure, telecommunications, healthcare, higher education and other data troves. McAfee, which released the report on Wednesday, didn’t name the affected organizations, but said most of the attacks were in the Asia-Pacific region. The hack occurred between March 14th through March 26th.

McAfee says that the attack is ongoing and active. It’s also very hard to tell exactly what was taken. Files could have been deleted, stolen or they could have studied various networks for future attacks. “They’re in your network. They’re learning about you, understanding how you operate,” said Raj Samani, McAfee’s chief scientist.

Employees watch electronic boards monitoring possible cyberattacks at the Korea Internet & Security Agency in Seoul, South Korea, in May last year. PHOTO: YUN DONG-JIN/YONHAP/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The harder that North Korea is hit with sanctions, the more dangerous their cyberwarriors get. They are definitely targeting infrastructure systems and stealing money, according to cybersecurity specialists who track the regime’s behavior. The more menacing tactics are amplified by Pyongyang’s improving coding skills and swift mobilization, these people say. Because North Korea is already isolated politically, they are unafraid of repercussions for their actions.

McAfee doesn’t officially identify nation-state cyber units as culprits. But in their report they say they have a “high confidence” that Operation GhostSecret is the work of a North Korea-linked hacking operative known as Lazarus, based on similarities in malware and infrastructure. Lazarus was to blame for last year’s WannaCry ransomware attack and the 2014 Sony Pictures hack. North Korea has denied involvement in those attacks, but the evidence of the source of the attack is solid.

In early March, McAfee identified cyberattacks on Turkish financial institutions and government groups that deployed a “Bankshot” implant that embedded malicious files in Microsoft Word documents sent to victims via an email attachment. Computers were infected if users downloaded the attachment. That was just the first stage of the attack however. The broader assault grew beyond the Bankshot implant and used other types of malware. McAfee researchers classified the various malware under a single operation because of similarities in coding and capability, as well as the attack’s timing.

One of the additional tactics was a variant of a wiper tool that had a more than 80% similarity to the one used in the Sony Pictures hack, said Christiaan Beek, McAfee’s senior principal engineer. The updated wiper tool, which can delete files on infected computers, wasn’t a direct copy of the prior version, but rather a new, hybrid variant, McAfee said. Another malware implant, observed broadly with Operation GhostSecret, helped cover the hackers’ digital footprints with encryptions, McAfee stated. They are saying that North Korea is carrying out attacks with impunity.

In January, researchers from the US cybersecurity firm Recorded Future said a hacking campaign targeting the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinlink employed the same malware used in the Sony and WannaCry attacks. The attack was attributed to the Lazarus group, which has been conducting operations since at least 2009, when it launched an attack on US and South Korean websites by infecting them with a virus known as MyDoom. For those out there that want to dig into the technical facts, here is a link to McAfee.

The truth of the matter is we have been involved in a world war on the cyber battlefield for some time now. North Korea is increasing their attacks and are not to be trusted in the least. But don’t forget the Chinese, Russians and Iranians are also all attacking the US and each other. Looks like a world war to me.

04/26/18

Voters Overwhelmingly Support Draining The Swamp

By: Jim Simpson | The Daily Caller

A majority of Americans have concerns about what has come to be known as the DC “Swamp,” and these concerns are shared by both Democrats and Republicans, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The poll was commissioned by the Ear to the Ground Listening Project and was conducted by McLaughlin Associates, which surveyed 1,000 likely voters.

A second McLaughlin poll published at Breitbart on Wednesday found that most believe the Mueller investigation is bogus and would like to see it ended. Democrats appear to already know this, and are toning down their rhetoric on “Trump/Russia collusion” because voters aren’t buying it.

A man holds up a “Drain the Swamp in Washington DC” sign as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attends a campaign event on the tarmac of the airport in Kinston, North Carolina, October 26 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

According to the Listening Project poll, 60 percent of all voters and 74 percent of Republicans believe it is important to drain “the Swamp.” Only 6 percent of voters and 5 percent of Republicans believe draining the Swamp is unimportant.

According to the poll, almost half of Americans (46 percent) blame the GOP for allowing the Swamp to survive. This includes 41 percent of conservatives, 44 percent of moderates and 50 percent of independents. Only 17 percent believe the GOP is helping to drain the Swamp. Fifty-three percent also believe that DC politicians are not worried about the loss of freedoms average voters fear, according to the poll.

Most people, including moderates and liberals, believe lobbyists, GOP members and bureaucrats are the ones most to blame for keeping the Swamp alive. Trump voters and conservatives place the most blame with the media, Democrat leadership and lobbyists.

On Trump campaign promises, however, results are somewhat different. A small plurality, 34 percent, believe Democrats are to blame for Trump not meeting his campaign promises, 33 percent blame Trump, 27 percent blame the GOP and only 17 percent blame the Swamp. Meanwhile, only 9 percent of conservatives trust GOP candidates to keep their word once elected, while 52 percent of liberals trust their Democratic candidate.

The poll gauged other views on current issues as well. For example, 55 percent of Americans frown upon jurisdictions implementing so-called “sanctuary” policies that defy federal efforts to arrest criminal aliens. Thirty-seven percent strongly oppose such policies. In total, only 37 percent support sanctuary polices, and only 21 percent strongly.

Most notably, 80 percent of all voters believe, “…that the American traditions of freedom and individual rights are being threatened by growing social movements, public bullying and increasing political violence.” Only 14 percent disagree.

The Breitbart poll focused on American attitudes regarding the investigation into Trump/Russia collusion being carried out by former FBI Director Robert Mueller. The poll found that a majority of Americans, by a margin of 51 to 33 percent, believe that Mueller has not found any “real evidence of corruption by the president.” Americans also believe the investigation has “overstepped its purpose” and are losing their patience with it.

In discussing this poll on Wednesday’s radio show, Rush Limbaugh zeroed in on that 51 to 33 percent statistic. He observed that Democrats were starting to realize that voter patience was running out with Mueller.

“I think it dovetails with the internal polling by the Democrat Party,” Limbaugh said. “We’ve been chronicling with you for the past week how Democrats are urging candidates to get off of this, to stop talking about it, and it had to be because their internal polling numbers on this are so bad.”

The news cycle continues to report each step in the probe blow-by-blow. But despite widespread Democrat boasting of an anticipated “blue wave” in the midterm election, according to this poll, Democrats only enjoy a 0.3 percent advantage over Republicans in a generic ballot, which is within the margin of error.

Polling “likely voters” is the least biased and most accurate method of polling, but because it requires more work than a “random sample” of adults. A disproportionate number of women and young people respond when a poll is conducted by random sample, and those groups tend to be more liberal, even among independents. Because it is random, the sample could also include illegal aliens.

Sometimes that bias is significant. For example, an Economist poll cited in my study queried 570 Democrats and only 360 Republicans, a 58 percent difference. Overall, the 7 polls cited in that study contained an average of 29 percent more Democrats than Republicans. It is thus not surprising that so many presidential polls were so far off in their predictions of the 2016 election. This latest Ear to the Ground poll suffers no such sampling bias.

The Ear to the Ground Listening Project describes itself as “a collaboration between individuals in the academic, market research, and public policy arenas seeking to understand and reflect the voice of the American people through the tools of market research.”

04/26/18

N. Korea Shuts Down Nuclear Site Because It Collapsed

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

And not because of some talks going on with South Korea. Much has been televised and written with regard to the talks going on with North Korea, the nuclear and missile program, normalizing relations with the South and introducing a peace agreement. Further, as we learned Mike Pompeo, the CIA Director met with the North Korean regime over Easter in an effort to determine some real truths and to gauge Kim Jung un with just how real all the reports are.

So, while we are told that missile tests and nuclear tests have been suspended, perhaps we know the reason why. Nuclear fallout.

About 200 people are feared dead in North Korea after underground tunnels at a nuclear test site that was feared to be unstable reportedly collapsed, crushing 100 people in the initial cave-in and 100 others when the tunnels again gave way on top of rescuers.

The collapse at the Punggye-ri test site on Oct. 10 occurred while people were doing construction on the underground tunnel, Japan’s Asahi TV reported, citing a source in North Korea. The television station also said North Korea’s sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3 most likely caused the tunnel to crumble and created serious damage in the region.

Mike Pompeo is a master with his poker face and his classified report on the meeting must be a doozy.

North Korea’s mountain nuclear test site has collapsed, putting China and other nearby nations at unprecedented risk of radioactive exposure, two separate groups of Chinese scientists studying the issue have confirmed.

The collapse after five nuclear blasts may be why North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared on Friday that he would freeze the hermit state’s nuclear and missile tests and shut down the site, one researcher said.

The last five of Pyongyang’s six nuclear tests have all been carried out under Mount Mantap at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Korea’s northwest.

Chinese scientists warn North Korea about disaster threat at nuclear test site

One group of researchers found that the most recent blast tore open a hole in the mountain, which then collapsed upon itself. A second group concluded that the breakdown created a “chimney” that could allow radioactive fallout from the blast zone below to rise into the air.

A research team led by Wen Lianxing, a geologist with the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, concluded that the collapse occurred following the detonation last autumn of North Korea’s most powerful thermal nuclear warhead in a tunnel about 700 metres (2,296 feet) below the mountain’s peak.

The test turned the mountain into fragile fragments, the researchers found.

The mountain’s collapse, and the prospect of radioactive exposure in the aftermath, confirms a series of exclusive reports by the South China Morning Post on China’s fears that Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test had caused a fallout leak.

Radioactive dust could escape through holes or cracks in the damaged mountain, the scientists said.

“It is necessary to continue monitoring possible leaks of radioactive materials caused by the collapse incident,” Wen’s team said in the statement.

The findings will be published on the website of the peer-reviewed journal, Geophysical Research Letters, likely next month.

North Korea saw the mountain as an ideal location for underground nuclear experiments because of its elevation – it stood more than 2,100 metres (6,888 feet) above sea level – and its terrain of thick, gentle slopes that seemed capable of resisting structural damage.

North Korea suspends nuclear and missile tests

The mountain’s surface had shown no visible damage after four underground nuclear tests before 2017.

But the 100-kilotonne bomb that went off on September 3 vaporised surrounding rocks with unprecedented heat and opened a space that was up to 200 metres (656 feet) in diameter, according to a statement posted on the Wen team’s website on Monday.

As shock waves tore through and loosened more rocks, a large section of the mountain’s ridge, less than half a kilometre (0.3 mile) from the peak, slipped down into the empty pocket created by the blast, leaving a scar visible in satellite images.

Wen concluded that the mountain had collapsed after analysing data collected from nearly 2,000 seismic stations.

Three small earthquakes that hit nearby regions in the wake of the collapse added credence to his conclusion, suggesting the test site had lost its geological stability.

Another research team led by Liu Junqing at the Jilin Earthquake Agency with the China Earthquake Administration in Changchun reached similar conclusions to the Wen team.

The “rock collapse … was for the first time documented in North Korea’s test site,” Liu’s team wrote in a paper published last month in Geophysical Research Letters.

The breakdown not only took off part of the mountain’s summit but also created a “chimney” that could allow fallout to rise from the blast centre into the air, they said.

North Korea nuclear test site has signs of ‘Tired Mountain Syndrome’ after five blasts

Zhao Lianfeng, a researcher with the Institute of Earth Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said the two studies supported a consensus among scientists that “the site was wrecked” beyond repair.

“Their findings are in agreement to our observations,” he said.

“Different teams using different data have come up with similar conclusions,” Zhao said. “The only difference was in some technical details. This is the best guess that can be made by the world outside.”

Speculation grew that North Korea’s site was in trouble when Lee Doh-sik, the top North Korean geologist, visited Zhao’s institute about two weeks after the test and met privately with senior Chinese government geologists.

US reveals how its forces would secure North Korea’s nuclear sites

Although the purpose of Lee’s visit was not disclosed, two days later Pyongyang announced it would no longer conduct land-based nuclear tests.

Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based scholar who follows North Korea’s nuclear programme, said it was highly likely that Pyongyang had received a stark warning from Beijing.

Are North Korean quakes signs of instability at nuclear test site?

“The test was not only destabilising the site but increasing the risk of eruption of the Changbai Mountain,” a large, active volcano at China-Korean border, said Hu, who asked that his university affiliation not be disclosed for this article because of the topic’s sensitivity.

The mountain’s collapse has likely dealt a huge blow to North Korea’s nuclear programme, Hu said.

Hit by crippling international economic sanctions over its nuclear ambitions, the country might lack sufficient resources to soon resume testing at a new site, he said.

North Korea told its people Kim Jong-un visited China, but didn’t mention denuclearisation

“But there are other sites suitable for testing,” Hu said. “They must be closely monitored.”

Guo Qiuju, a Peking University professor who has belonged to a panel that has advised the Chinese government on emergency responses to radioactive hazards, said that if fallout escaped through cracks, it could be carried by wind over the Chinese border.

“So far we have not detected an abnormal increase of radioactivity levels,” Guo said. “But we will continue to monitor the surrounding region with a large [amount] of highly sensitive equipment and analyse the data in state-of-the-art laboratories.” More details here.