NSA Chief says that Donald Trump STILL has not directed them to protect the country from the Russian cyber threat.

WATCH: NSA Director Rogers on Russian cyberattacks: "I believe that President Putin has clearly come to the conclusion there's little price to pay here, and that therefore I can continue this activity." pic.twitter.com/3c5gGLvrAS

— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 27, 2018

Courtesy of CNN: 

US Cyber Command chief Adm. Mike Rogers told lawmakers on Tuesday that he has not been granted the authority by President Donald Trump to disrupt Russian election hacking operations where they originate. 

Asked by Democratic Sen. Jack Reed if he has been directed by the President, through the defense secretary, to confront Russian cyber operators, Rogers said "no I have not" but noted that he has tried to work within the authority he maintains as a commander.

While he did not agree with Reed's characterization that the US has been "sitting back and waiting," Rogers admitted that it is fair to say that "we have not opted to engage in some of the same behaviors we are seeing" with regards to Russia. 

"It has not changed the calculus or the behavior on behalf of the Russians," Rogers said about the US response to Russia's cyber threat to date. 

"They have not paid a price that is sufficient to change their behavior," he added.

In other words we have not adopted any of the same aggressive tactics that Sweden utilized recently, and let's keep in mind that WE were actually attacked and the outcome of our last election possibly altered.

I am going to say it again, and I might actually say it every day until somebody listens, the ONLY reason the leader of our country would not to take steps to protect ourselves from foreign interference is because that interference is beneficial to the leader of our country.

And once again for the slow kids, THAT IS TREASON!

Same Russian hackers from the 2016 election are now targeting companies involved with developing military technology.

Courtesy of the AP: 

Russian cyberspies pursuing the secrets of military drones and other sensitive U.S. defense technology tricked key contract workers into exposing their email to theft, an Associated Press investigation has found. 

What ultimately may have been stolen is uncertain, but the hackers clearly exploited a national vulnerability in cybersecurity: poorly protected email and barely any direct notification to victims. 

The hackers known as Fancy Bear, who also intruded in the U.S. election, went after at least 87 people working on militarized drones, missiles, rockets, stealth fighter jets, cloud-computing platforms or other sensitive activities, the AP found. 

Employees at both small companies and defense giants like Lockheed Martin Corp., Raytheon Co., Boeing Co., Airbus Group and General Atomics were targeted by the hackers. A handful of people in Fancy Bear’s sights also worked for trade groups, contractors in U.S.-allied countries or on corporate boards. 

“The programs that they appear to target and the people who work on those programs are some of the most forward-leaning, advanced technologies,” said Charles Sowell, a former senior adviser to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who reviewed the list of names for the AP. “And if those programs are compromised in any way, then our competitive advantage and our defense is compromised.”

But remember we don't need to implement further sanctions against Russia because "sanctions on specific entities or individuals will not need to be imposed because the legislation is, in fact, serving as a deterrent."

I guess somebody need to inform Fancy Bear of that "fact."

We are so fucked.

DHS head of cyber security says that the Russians DID penetrate voter registration rolls in several states.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

The U.S. official in charge of protecting American elections from hacking says the Russians successfully penetrated the voter registration rolls of several U.S. states prior to the 2016 presidential election. 

In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said she couldn't talk about classified information publicly, but in 2016, "We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated." 

Jeh Johnson, who was DHS secretary during the Russian intrusions, said, "2016 was a wake-up call and now it's incumbent upon states and the Feds to do something about it before our democracy is attacked again.

"We were able to determine that the scanning and probing of voter registration databases was coming from the Russian government." 

NBC News reported in Sept. 2016 that more than 20 states had been targeted by the Russians.

Of course this reporting is followed up by the disclaimer that there is no evidence that the Russians altered the voting rolls in any way, but I am having a harder and harder time buying that.

First off why would the Russians work so hard to penetrate these voter rolls and then simply leave them untouched?

Secondly how do we know they were not altered since these are the main data bases? Is there a hard copy of these voter's names, compiled before the hacks, that these lists can be compared against?

Clearly the Russians were desperate to defeat Hillary Clinton and to put Donald Trump into the White House, and since he entered that building he has done nothing but undermine our democracy, sabotage our government, and attack the free press.

In other words he is doing precisely as Putin has commanded.

And here we sit doing nothing to prevent it. 

Donald Trump's advisers are now warning him about the looming possibility of impeachment.

New: WH releases pics of Trump's #HurricaneHarvery briefing today. Trump alone at Camp David. Everyone else w @VP Pence in WH Situation Room pic.twitter.com/Q9g49pbywC

— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) August 27, 2017

(Just a tweet demonstrating how isolated Trump is now from those who are supposed to be working with him.)

Courtesy of Newsweek:

Donald Trump's presidency already has been one of the most controversial in U.S. history, and its ending could be just as action-packed and unpredictable as his first seven months in office. 

As the 45th president deals with his stalled agenda, his sinking approval ratings and the investigations into his presidential campaign's ties to Russia, White House advisers have reportedly been warning Trump about his potential political doom: the exhaustive impeachment process that could result in his removal from the Oval Office. And he isn’t doing himself many favors.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have become a subject of Trump's daily Twitter storms, with the president repeatedly denouncing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the GOP's continued failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He has also warned others to fall in line and help pass his campaign promises or face the wrath of his 140 characters.

His actions could spell disaster for Trump if special counsel Robert Mueller determines that his presidential campaign colluded with the Kremlin, or that the president attempted to obstruct justice at any point throughout his short tenure in politics. Either situation would swiftly encourage more Democrats to push for his impeachment—and if Trump doesn't have enough Republican allies, he could be ousted.

Several White House advisers have spoken with the president about his possible impeachment, and about how overcoming such proceedings would require friendships with the elected officials responsible for deciding whether he should remain in office.

Of course Trump is currently ignoring the advice of those warning him that he needs to stop pushing everybody away. Instead he just keeps right on pushing.

And this is being illustrated right now by a number of recent firings, and even more resignations.

Courtesy of The Hill:

A pair of top State Department officials, including the lead envoy to the United Nations, have announced they will leave their posts, Foreign Policy reported on Sunday. 

Tracey Ann Jacobson, a career foreign service officer responsible for overseeing U.S. policy at international organizations including the U.N., told her staff on Friday that she will continue in her post until early October but did not specify why she was leaving, a U.S. official told Foreign Policy. 

Also on Friday, William Rivington Brownfield, the U.S. assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, told his department that he would leave by the end of September, according to the report.

And that is by no means the only folks currently jumping ship.

Courtesy of Fortune:

A quarter of the members of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, whose purview includes national cybersecurity, have resigned. In a group resignation letter, they cited both specific shortfalls in the administration’s approach to cybersecurity, and broader concerns that Trump and his administration have undermined the “moral infrastructure” of the U.S.

That is seven members gone from a 27 member council whose focus is protecting us from cyber attacks by those who want to steal our information, blackmail powerful Americans, or shape our politics.

Exactly the kinds of people we should NOT be losing.

So to sum up Trump is currently losing support among Washington Republicans, and also losing members of his administration, at an amazing rate.

And this at a time when he most needs people to stay on his team, and to expand the size of that team.

However those are the drawbacks of being an arrogant, egotistical, toxic POS.

Instead of people rushing to help you in your time of need, they are perfectly content to sit back at a distance and gleefully watch as you crash and burn.

The government has just lost four of its top cyber security officials. Gee, what great timing.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:  

Four senior cybersecurity officials are stepping down from their US government positions, raising concerns that an exodus of top leaders may make the federal government more vulnerable to hacking. 

Two of those resigning – Sean Kelley, the chief information security officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, and Richard Staropoli, the chief information officer for the Department of Homeland Security – had been in their jobs for just a few months. 

The other two, Rob Foster, the Navy's chief information officer, and Dave DeVries, the director of information security and privacy at the Office of Personnel Management, are departing agencies for which computer security is a top priority. DeVries assumed his job shortly after the OPM suffered the largest known cyberattack in federal government history, and Foster had served in similar positions at the Department of Health and Human Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Ann Dunkin, the CIO of the EPA under President Barack Obama who was asked to leave by Trump’s transition team and now holds the same title for Santa Clara County, California, told BuzzFeed News that four executives leaving in such a short time raised red flags. 

“There appears to be a concerted effort to remove the career CIOs who were there during the Obama administration,” Dunkin said. “During the last week we’ve seen four go? That smells.”

Though the four departing officials gave a variety of reasons for their decision to leave, one source suggested that it was likely due to frustration that multiple key positions within the agency were being left vacant.

This is troubling for one very important reason.

Donald Trump has suggested that Vladimir Putin would not have wanted him to win the election because he plans to build up the military.

But the facts are that Putin could not care less that Trump is wasting taxpayer money on bullets, bombs, and ships.

Putin's latest attack against America could never have been repelled by military aircraft or a regiment of soldiers. To stop those Russian hackers our government needed more highly trained and experienced cyber security experts.

So THIS agency is key to protecting us from the next attempts to hack our government agencies, political parties, or polling stations.

Which should make everybody wonder why increasing the spending and making sure it is fully staffed is not priority one for this administration.

Though sadly once again I think we already know the answer to that question.