The hacking intrusion into U.S. federal agencies has expanded to the Energy Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration, added to breaches at the State, Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security departments along with the National Institutes of Health. Other areas are electrical grid and telecommunications companies. Tracking shows the entry through a think tank’s email service by Russians although Russia denies doing it. The thousands of affected private companies, some in sensitive industries, had uploaded software patches with malware by Russia’s foreign intelligence service, SVR, which collected and deployed authentic system credentials. Purging hacks and restoring security in deeply penetrated networks can take months. The Defense Department’s IT nerve center, DISA, may also be compromised although the network shows “no evidence of compromise.”
President-elect Joe Biden said he is working to learn about the breaches and will work with allies to put costs on the responsible parties.
Microsoft, a customer of the problematic SolarWinds infecting thousands of private and public entities, has identified 40 infiltrated companies, government agencies, and think tanks—almost half of them private technology firms and many in the security industry. President Brad Smith said “that number should rise substantially.” SolarWinds may not be the only source of infection; foreign spies may use other infected software for access.
Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) has remained silent about the hacking, and heads of most agencies connected to the event—Defense, State, Justice, national intelligence director, and CIA—were not present at his Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. No formal intelligence briefing has been scheduled at the White House since early October. The government did not admit the ongoing cyber espionage until Wednesday night. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said it was “stunning” to have no response from DDT. In 2017, DDT had announced a possible joint Cyber Security unit with Russia. Under DDT, Cabinet meetings have focused on his personal bragging, criticisms, and solicitations of praise from participants as a showcase for the press. Since he was inaugurated, DDT has had 25 Cabinet meetings, an average of one every eight weeks. The one on Wednesday may be his last one.
In the conservative Bulwark, Jonathan Last wrote:
“In 45 tweets this week (so far) the president has not said a single word about the record deaths from COVID. Or economic stimulus. Or the Russian hack. Not. One. Word. Instead, it is an endless litany of complaints, self-aggrandizement, and conspiracy theorizing.
“We have never seen a dereliction of duty at this scale from an American president. With citizens dying by the thousands every single day and the federal government being raided by the intelligence services belonging to his good friend, he pouts and rages and tweets and tries to overturn a free and fair election in order to break our democratic republic.
“There is no precedent for this. No historical analog to help us understand the scale of destruction and the level of irresponsibility, stupidity, and derangement.
“At least not in American history.”
Dutch prosecutors claim a security researcher hacked DDT’s Twitter account that uses the “password maga2020!” The White House and Twitter deny the possibility of the October event. DDT has admitted at least one breach of his personal Twitter account. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin may feel secure about attacking the U.S. cyber infrastructure because DDT never fights back against him; DDT even fired the three top officials of the agency to protect the U.S. against cyber espionage.
While DDT ponders a permanent residence in the White House, VP Mike Pence, who has no home outside public housing, plans to skip town for a while after he performs his duty of replacing DDT and himself on January 6. The purported trip includes Poland, Bahrain, and Israel—a favorite spot for evangelicals.
About the COVID-19 vaccine, there’s good and bad news. The good news is that a second vaccine, one from Moderna, has passed a panel almost unanimously with only one abstention. FDA will most likely give it emergency authorization in the next few days. The second vaccine has advantages over the first one because it can be stored at a higher temperature for a longer period of time.
The bad news comes from the lack of vaccine shipments because the government hasn’t given any directions. States have been notified of drastic cuts in numbers of dosages for next week, not from production issues but from lack of shipment instructions. Again, DDT seems unable to negotiate the vaccine doses to be distributed across the nation. For example, Illinois’ allotment is cut in half, and Florida’s shipments are “on hold” after its allocation disappeared in the federal online tracking system used to coordinate vaccine distribution. Washington is receiving 40 percent less than the state had been told. Pfizer cannot understand why the administration doesn’t immediately distribute all the vaccine being produced. The number of doses had already been dropped by at least 75 percent before the latest glitch. Although vials with the vaccine may contain more than the promised five doses, the companion kits shipped by the government lack spare syringes for the excess.
In another CDC problem, its text message program to track side effects of the vaccine uses only English. The v-safe program to follow up with people given the vaccine will have a Spanish version “fairly shortly,” but CDC has no timeline for a translation or for simplified Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. Fact sheets for the first set of healthcare workers are still only in English. Non-English speakers are traditionally underserved by the health care system, and the lack of language-appropriate materials makes the situation worse.
Biden had said the government lacked specific distribution plans. HHS Secretary disagreed, saying, “That’s just nonsense.” Biden was correct.
Almost all states plan to immediately use the vaccine, but Tennessee plans to store (hoard?) 5,000 doses of Moderna, 5 percent of its allotment, “in case of spoilage” despite a federal backup supply for that purpose. State health officials maintain they want to be more equitable by waiting for larger number of doses to ensure no one is favored. Tennessee ranks second in the nation for new cases per capita and has no mask mandate.
DDT tweeted, “get your vaccine everyone,” but the quantity of vaccine is currently sufficient for under ten percent of the population. There is also no public information program. People are already being vaccinated, but DDT’s administration is still developing its $250 million campaign to persuade people to take part. HHS’ Michael Caputo plan went off the rails after he investigated if the participating celebrities supported DDT with contractors investigating confirmed or suspected political leanings. Caputo went on medical leave for three months with no replacement.
A PR campaign may be difficult because of DDT’s attitude about the coronavirus. A Houston critical care doctor at the United Memorial Medical Center reported that over half the nurses in his unit refuse to take the vaccine for political reasons.
HHS science adviser Paul Alexander, who has no science expertise, wrote his supervisor Michael Caputo on July 4, “We want them infected.” He wanted to expose all young people and middle-aged adults with no conditions to COVID-19 to develop the mythical “herd immunity.” Alexander repeated his appeal later in July to others, including FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and eight other senior officials. A few days later, Alexander recommended leaving colleges open to infect students and sent his “herd immunity” request to CDC Director Robert Redfield, probably with DDT’s approval.
Senior DDT officials, including HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and DDT’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany frequently denied DDT supported herd immunity while he spoke positively about it since Dr. Scott Atlas edged Dr. Anthony Fauci off the White House coronavirus task force. Alexander was forced out of the HHS. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the coronavirus subcommittee chair, said the documents “show a pernicious pattern of political interference by Administration officials.” He added:
“As the virus spread through the country, these officials callously wrote, ‘who cares’ and ‘we want them infected. They privately admitted they ‘always knew’ the President’s policies would cause a ‘rise’ in cases, and they plotted to blame the spread of the virus on career scientists.”
Alexander’s July 3 email to HHS top communications officials:
“So the bottom line is if it is more infectiouness [sic] now, the issue is who caresIf it is causing more cases in young, my word is who cares…as long as we make sensible decisions, and protect the elderely [sic] and nursing homes…”
Kyle McGowan, DDT’s former CDC chief of staff who left last summer, talked about how DDT watered down CDC’s agency and delayed the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports. He said it will “take years to undo” the damage from DDT’s administration. In addition to Alexander’s demand to get rid of evidence, the anti-science White House suffocated CDC’s voice, meddled in its messages, and siphoned off its budget. Kellyanne Conway changed guidelines on choirs and communion in faith communities, and Ivanka Trump revised guidelines on schools. McGowan said:
“Every time that the science clashed with the messaging, messaging won.”
Fox’s Tucker Carlson declared the U.S. had no Thanksgiving surge in COVID-19 cases after people ignored guidelines with travel, large gatherings, no masks, and lack of social distancing. Check out the growing daily numbers, Mr. Carlson: December 17, 2020 – 231,269 infections and 3,278 deaths. At this rate, the current total of 17,627,070 cases will hit 20 million before the end of the year, and the number of deaths of 317,929 (probably far more) will climb to 350,000 by the new year.
Thirty-three more days until Joe Biden’s inauguration.