Posts Tagged ‘SCOTT PELLEY’
ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BC NEWS, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DIVERSITY EQUITY AND INCLUSION (DEI), DONALD TRUMP, EDWARD R. MURROW, FASCISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, GEORGE ORWELL, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JOSEPH GOEBBELS, JOURNALISM, MARTIN LUTHER KING, MAYA ANGELOU, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNIVERSITIES, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, VOTING RIGHTS ACT, WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, WINSTON CHURCHILL, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 19, 2025 at 12:10 am
On May 19, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley delivered a commencement address to graduating students at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Much of it noted ominous moves toward dictatorship by President Donald J. Trump—whose name went unmentioned.
Among those moves:
- Making truth-seekers live in fear
- Attacking universities
- Attacking journalists
- Attacking law firms that stand up for the rights of others
And his counsel: “The country needs you, and it needs you today.”
* * * * *
Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power.
First, make the truth seekers live in fear.
Sue the journalists. For nothing.
Then, move to destroy law firms that stand up for the rights of others.
With that done, power can rewrite history. With grotesque, false narratives, they can make heroes criminals and criminals heroes.
And they can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. “Diversity” is now described as “illegal.” “Equity” is to be shunned. “Inclusion” is a dirty word.
This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this. George Orwell – who we met on the street in London – in 1949, he warned of what he called “new speak.” He understood that ignorance works for power.
George Orwell
But it is ignorance that you have repudiated every single day here at Wake Forest University.
Who are you? I think we know.
In 1962, the year after Dr. King’s letter –1964 – the Civil Rights Act is passed. And the year after that – 1965 – the Voting Rights Act is passed. Now today both of those are under attack.
But can the truth win? My friends, nothing else does.
It may be a long road, but the truth is coming.
Did you hear the other phrase in the declaration that was signed by President Wente and Provost Gillespie? “Without fear.”
That does not mean there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s an affirmation that you know who you are. That you know what you stand for. And that you know in the end – the long end – the Constitution will defend you even in the face of fearsome times.
In the words of one of your former Wake Forest professors:
“You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies.
You may tread me into the very dirt, but like dust, I’ll rise.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise.
Into a daybreak that’s wonderfully clear, I rise.
Bringing the gifts my ancestors gave me, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.
I rise.
I rise.”
The poet Maya Angelou taught at Wake Forest. She saw the fear that power sought to impose, yet in her famous phrase, she still knew why the caged bird sings.
Maya Angelou
York College ISLGP, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This university, old and wise, has seen worse. It has overcome existential threats before to our country. You are not alone. A legion has gone before you. And now it is the Class of 2025 that is called in another extreme time.
Will you permit me another word of advice?
Do not settle. You only get one pass at this. This world is going to tell you no a thousand times, but listen to the song in your heart. If they can’t hear it, that’s on them and not on you.
In the 1980s, I was rejected by CBS News over and over and over again over the years. They told me at one point, “Please stop applying.” They really did. And at the time, I thought “What’s wrong with these people?”
They couldn’t hear the song in my heart. Maybe they were smarter. Every time I was rejected, I got better. Maybe that was the plan. But I finally made them hear the music in my heart.
You only lose if you quit. Do not settle.
What is the meaning of life?
Who are you?
You are the educated. You are the compassionate. You are the fierce defenders of democracy, the seekers of truth, the vanguards against ignorance.
You are millions strong across our land. You might be sorry that you were picked by history for this role. But maybe that was the plan. Hard times are going to make you better and stronger.
In a few minutes, when that diploma hits your hand, it’s not a piece of paper you’re holding. We’re handing you a baton. Run with it.
Why am I here today? I’m 50 years farther down the trail than you are, and I have doubled back this morning to tell you the one thing I have learned from Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Nadia Murad and Samer Attar and a thousand others:
In a moment like this, when our country is in peril, don’t ask the meaning of life. Life is asking, “What’s the meaning of you?”
With great admiration for your achievements and with confidence that you will rise to this occasion, I thank you very humbly for the honor of being with you.
Thank you very much.
ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BC NEWS, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DIVERSITY EQUITY AND INCLUSION (DEI), DONALD TRUMP, EDWARD R. MURROW, FASCISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, GEORGE ORWELL, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JOSEPH GOEBBELS, JOURNALISM, MARTIN LUTHER KING, MAYA ANGELOU, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNIVERSITIES, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, VOTING RIGHTS ACT, WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, WINSTON CHURCHILL, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 18, 2025 at 12:12 am
On May 19, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley delivered a commencement address to graduating students at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Much of it noted ominous moves toward dictatorship by President Donald J. Trump—whose name went unmentioned.
And his counsel: “The country needs you, and it needs you today.”
* * * * *
The Wake Forest Class of 1861 did not choose their time of calling. The Class of 1941 did not choose. The Class of 1968 did not choose. History chose them. And now history is calling you, the Class of 2025.
You may not feel prepared, but you are. You are not descended of fearful people. You brought your values to school with you and now Wake Forest has trained you to seek the truth, to find the meaning of life.
Let me tell you briefly about three people I have recently met who discovered the meaning of their lives in moments of crisis not unlike what we have today.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, spent his entire career as an entertainer on television. His first elected office was president of Ukraine. And three years ago, the Russian army came at him from three directions. He had a decision to make. And so he reached for the most lethal weapon in the Ukrainian arsenal: his cell phone.
He walked out of front of the presidential offices in Kyiv and made a video selfie. He told his people, “I’m still here and your army is still here, and we are going to fight.” He galvanized 44 million people instantly. Today, three years later, he is all that stands between a murderous dictator in Russia and the rest of free Europe.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
I asked him, “Where did that come from?” And he said, “Well, you look in the mirror and you ask, ‘Who are you’”?
Nadia Murad, a woman whom we at 60 Minutes found in a refugee camp in Iraq. Her family was murdered by ISIS and she had been sold for money into slavery. We convinced her to tell her story on 60 Minutes, which she did and she found her voice.
Then she began to write, and then she began to speak about the crimes that women suffer in war. And a few years later, this young woman who we had found in a refugee camp won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Who are you?
Finally, Dr. Samer Attar, an orthopedic surgeon in Chicago and a professor of surgery at Northwestern who volunteers to do surgery in war zones. In Gaza. In Ukraine. To save lives of innocent people by using whatever meager supplies he has at hand.
I asked him, “Where does this come from?” He told me, “It’s not much, but it beats burying your head in fear and ignorance.”
Who are you?
What is the meaning of life?
Today, great universities are threatened with ruin. So what did President Wente and Provost Gillespie do? They spoke out. They joined other institutions signing the call for constructive engagement, a declaration of the relationship between government and higher education.
It reads in part, “Institutions of higher education share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.”
Who are you? What does this make Wake Forest in this moment? Well, I think we know.
Did you hear that phrase in the Declaration? “Pursuit of truth?” Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power.
First, make the truth seekers live in fear.
Sue the journalists. For nothing.
Then send masked agents to abduct a college student, a writer of her college paper who wrote an editorial supporting Palestinian rights, and send her to a prison in Louisiana and charge her with nothing.
Then, move to destroy law firms that stand up for the rights of others.
With that done, power can rewrite history. With grotesque, false narratives, they can make heroes criminals and criminals heroes.
And they can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. “Diversity” is now described as “illegal.” “Equity” is to be shunned. “Inclusion” is a dirty word.
This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this. George Orwell – who we met on the street in London – in 1949, he warned of what he called “new speak.” He understood that ignorance works for power.
But it is ignorance that you have repudiated every single day here at Wake Forest University.
Who are you? I think we know.
Can just speaking the truth actually work? Well, consider this day. This day. May 19. May 19, 1963. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was published for the first time.
In that letter, Dr. King says, “The first thing that has to be done in the pursuit of justice is collecting the facts.” Power was telling him in a jail cell, “Do not speak the truth because power will crush you.”
But consider that just months before that letter was published, Wake Forest University became the first major private institution of higher education in the South to integrate.
ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BC NEWS, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DIVERSITY EQUITY AND INCLUSION (DEI), DONALD TRUMP, EDWARD R. MURROW, FASCISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, GEORGE ORWELL, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JOSEPH GOEBBELS, JOURNALISM, MARTIN LUTHER KING, MAYA ANGELOU, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNIVERSITIES, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, VOTING RIGHTS ACT, WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, WINSTON CHURCHILL, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 17, 2025 at 12:10 am
On May 19, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley delivered a commencement address to graduating students at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Much of it noted ominous moves toward dictatorship by President Donald J. Trump—whose name went unmentioned.
Among those moves:
- Making truth-seekers live in fear
- Attacking universities
- Attacking journalists
- Attacking law firms that stand up for the rights of others
At the outset of his address, Pelley declared: “I fear there are some people in the audience who don’t want to hear what I have to say today.”
Scott Pelley
CBS News, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
And he was right: Trump’s fanatical followers hated this public denunciation of such attacks on democratic institutions by their Dear Leader.
“This self-important, sermonizing propagandist is what passes for a legacy media ‘journalist,’” wrote the Western Lensman X on X.
“Pompous CBS journalist Scott Pelley closed his commencement address at Wake Forest by telling graduates they ‘are the fierce defenders of democracy, the seekers of truth,’ and ‘the vanguard against ignorance’ that’s taken over the country (i.e. Trump),” wrote Curtis Houck, managing editor of the right-wing site NewsBusters.
“His speech at Wake Forest graduation was a national disgrace in my opinion. He is not informed and talks only for the liberals… this makes me want to hurl,” wrote a third MAGAt.
“Does he hate half the country as much as he hates President Trump?” asked Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner.
“He never mentions anything about the 76 million people who voted for Trump as being valuable and loved in the country. He goes after the man they voted for.”
During World War II, Nazi leaders like Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, hurled insults at British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Among these: “Warmonger” (for resisting Hitler’s conquest of Europe) and “drunkard” (based on his well-known love of whiskey and brandy).
Such insults, however, did not impair Churchill’s leadership—nor win the war for Germany.
SPEECH BY CBS CORRESPONDENT SCOTT PELLEY AT WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY AT WINSTON-SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA ON MAY 19, 2025
You know, if we were in London, we might be walking past Portman Square on a beautiful spring day. We would encounter the headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation, a nearly 100-year-old building from which Edward R. Murrow, the original CBS News correspondent, stood on the roof and broadcast back to America word of the falling bombs of fascism that fell on that free city month after month.
Edward R. Murrow
If we walk a little bit further past the BBC, we will encounter another hero in the fight against fascism, George Orwell. He’d be standing there, frozen in bronze with his words carved in the side of a building: “If liberty means anything at all, it means something worth saying that some people don’t want to hear.”
I fear there are some people in the audience who don’t want to hear what I have to say today. But I appreciate your forbearance in this small act of liberty.
I’m a reporter so I won’t bury the lead. Your country needs you.
The country that has given you so much is calling you, the Class of 2025. The country needs you, and it needs you today.
As a reporter, I have learned to respect opinions. Reasonable people can differ about the life of our country. America works well when we listen to those with whom we disagree and when we listen and when we have common ground and we compromise.
And one thing we can all agree on – one thing at least – is that America is at her best when everyone is included.
To move forward, we debate, not demonize. We discuss, not destroy. But in this moment – this moment, this morning – our sacred rule of law is under attack.
Journalism is under attack.
Universities are under attack.
Freedom of speech is under attack.
An insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts. The fear to speak.
In America?
If our government is – in Lincoln’s words – “of the people, by the people and for the people” – then why are we afraid to speak?
The Wake Forest Class of 1861 did not choose their time of calling. The Class of 1941 did not choose. The Class of 1968 did not choose. History chose them. And now history is calling you, the Class of 2025.
You may not feel prepared, but you are. You are not descended of fearful people. You brought your values to school with you and now Wake Forest has trained you to seek the truth, to find the meaning of life.
Let me tell you briefly about three people I have recently met who discovered the meaning of their lives in moments of crisis not unlike what we have today.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, spent his entire career as an entertainer on television. His first elected office was president of Ukraine. And three years ago, the Russian army came at him from three directions. He had a decision to make. And so he reached for the most lethal weapon in the Ukrainian arsenal: his cell phone.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 60 MINUTES, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KREBS, CIA, CNN, CRIMINALITY, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELECTION SECURITY, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HACKING, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JOE BIDEN, Kamala Harris, MEDIA MATTERS, MICROSOFT, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPULAR VOTE, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIME MAGAZINE, TIME MAGAZINIE’S PERSON OF THE YEAR, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 29, 2025 at 12:14 am
As a result of the vast increase in election security, President Donald Trump failed to get the help he expected from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
The result: He lost the 2020 Presidential election.
Thus, Joe Biden won the popular vote by 81,268,924 to 74,216,154 for Trump—and the Electoral College by 306 to 232.
Two days later, Trump claimed: “And this is a case where they’re trying to steal an election, they’re trying to rig an election.”
Chris Krebs was the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And the man most responsible for ensuring election security.
Chris Krebs
On November 12, to counter the growing chorus of lies from Trump and his Right-wing allies, he put out the following statement:
“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
Too cowardly to confront Krebs, Trump fired him by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet more lies:
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.
“Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”
Donald Trump
Asked by “60 Minutes'” Scott Pelley if he was surprised to be fired, Krebs replied: “I don’t know if I was necessarily surprised. It’s not how I wanted to go out. The thing that upsets me the most about that is I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my team.
“And I’d worked with them for three and a half years, in the trenches. Building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage. And I love that team. And I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, so that’s what I’m most upset about.”
Krebs was no dyed-in-the-wool Democrat but a lifelong Republican. He gave up a lucrative job as Microsoft’s head of cybersecurity policy to join the Trump administration. He wanted to serve his country by creating a dedicated cybersecurity agency for the first time.
Still, he had his reservations about taking the job. As he told the Financial Times: “The flaws of this man [Trump] were obvious to everybody that was willing to pay attention. [But] to do your job, you have to be able to compartmentalize. I was willing to do that.
“Over time, it eats away at you. It eats away at you, the other parts of the department that were doing stuff that just seemed so inhumane. I was never involved in any of those policy conversations.”
On April 9, 2025, re-elected President Donald Trump issued a “Memorandum For the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies.” Its second paragraph read in part:
“Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is a significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority. Krebs’ misconduct involved the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic.”
In short: Krebs prevented Russia from interfering with the 2020 Presidential election and dared warn Americans about the dangers of COVID-19.
Trump had counted on Russian interference and repeatedly lied about the dangers of COVID while promoting quack “cures” such as shining UV light up a patient’s anus.
Trump’s accusing lies continued in the Memorandum:
“Krebs, through CISA, promoted the censorship of election information, including known risks associated with certain voting practices.
“Similarly, Krebs, through CISA, falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”
Trump then ordered:
- “I hereby direct the heads of executive department and agencies (agencies) to immediately take steps consistent with existing law to revoke any active security clearance held by Christopher Krebs.
- “I further direct the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and all other relevant agencies to immediately take all action as necessary and consistent with existing law to suspend any active security clearances held by individuals at entities associated with Krebs.
- “I further direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with any other agency head, to take all appropriate action to review Krebs’ activities as a Government employee, including his leadership of CISA.”
Clearly, Trump seeks to find any plausibly legal excuse to destroy the man who dared come between him and his Russian backers in 2020—and who contradicted his lies about COVID and the election.
Two key goals of Project 2025-–which Trump supported, while claiming he didn’t–were:
- The DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House; and
- The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Americans are about to discover what it meant to live in Joseph Stalin’s Russia—where truth was punished and lies were rewarded.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 60 MINUTES, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KREBS, CIA, CNN, CRIMINALITY, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELECTION SECURITY, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HACKING, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JOE BIDEN, Kamala Harris, MEDIA MATTERS, MICROSOFT, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPULAR VOTE, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIME MAGAZINE, TIME MAGAZINIE’S PERSON OF THE YEAR, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 28, 2025 at 12:05 am
TIME’s Person of the Year for 2020 proved to be two people: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
On the surface, choosing Biden and Harris made sense: “Joe Biden was elected President of the United States in the midst of an existential debate over what reality we inhabit. Perhaps the only thing Americans agree on right now is that the future of the country is at stake, even as they fiercely disagree about why.”
As for the shared legacy of Biden and Harris: “If Donald Trump was a force for disruption and division over the past four years, Biden and Harris show where the nation is heading: a blend of ethnicities, lived experiences and worldviews that must find a way forward together if the American experiment is to survive.”
Yet a lesser-known but far more consequential choice for “Person of the Year” would have been Chris Krebs.
Because, without Chris Krebs, there would not have been a Biden Presidency.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote—65,853,514 to 62,984,828 for Trump. But in the United States, what counts in Presidential elections is the Electoral College vote.
And there Trump won: 304 to 227.
What put him over the top in the Electoral College was the help he got from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Putin had good reason to assist Trump: Putin wanted the United States to ditch the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which has preserved Western Europe from Russian aggression since World War II. And Trump had often attacked America’s funding of NATO as a drain on the American economy.
As for Trump, he wanted something from Putin: He wanted to be President. For this, Putin could supply monies, Internet trolls to confuse voters with falsified news, and even the hacking of key voting centers.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And the point man for this was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by DHS.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. As he explained to Scott Pelley during a “60 Minutes” interview aired on November 29, 2020:
“So we spent something on the order of three and a half years of gaming out every possible scenario for how a foreign actor could interfere with an election. Countless, countless scenarios.”
Krebs’ to-do list included paper ballots:
“Paper ballots give you the ability to audit, to go back and check the tape and make sure that you got the count right. And that’s really one of the keys to success for a secure 2020 election. Ninety-five percent of the ballots cast in the 2020 election had a paper record associated with it. Compared to 2016, about 82%.
“That gives you the ability to prove that there was no malicious algorithm or hacked software that adjusted the tally of the vote, and just look at what happened in Georgia. Georgia has machines that tabulate the vote. They then held a hand recount and the outcome was consistent with the machine vote.”
Krebs’ duties included:
- Sharing intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
At his command lay the resources of a series of powerful Federal investigative agencies:
“We had the Department of Defense Cyber Command. We had the National Security Agency. We had the FBI. We had the Secret Service. We also had representatives from the Election Assistance Commission, which is the federal independent agency that supports the actual administration of elections.
“We had representatives from some of the election equipment vendors. And they’re critical because they’re the ones out there that know what’s going on on the ground if there’s any sort of issue with some of their systems. And we had representatives from state and local governments.”
Misinformation led CISA to create a new “Rumor Control” website ahead of the 2020 election. Its main goal was to debunk rumors surrounding the 2020 election that had been spreading throughout the country.
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Donald Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 60 MINUTES, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KREBS, CIA, CNN, CRIMINALITY, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELECTION SECURITY, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HACKING, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JOE BIDEN, Kamala Harris, MEDIA MATTERS, MICROSOFT, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPULAR VOTE, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIME MAGAZINE, TIME MAGAZINIE’S PERSON OF THE YEAR, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 18, 2022 at 12:13 am
As a result of the vast increase in election security, President Donald Trump failed to get the help he expected from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
The result: He lost the 2020 Presidential election.
Thus, Joe Biden won the popular vote by 81,268,924 to 74,216,154 for Trump—and the Electoral College by 306 to 232.
Two days later, Trump claimed: “And this is a case where they’re trying to steal an election, they’re trying to rig an election.”
Chris Krebs was the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And the man most responsible for ensuring election security.
Chris Krebs
On November 12, to counter the growing chorus of lies from Trump and his Right-wing allies, he put out the following statement:
“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
Too cowardly to confront Krebs, Trump fired him by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet another lie:
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.
“Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”
Donald Trump
Asked by “60 Minutes'” Scott Pelley if he was surprised to be fired, Krebs replied: “I don’t know if I was necessarily surprised. It’s not how I wanted to go out. The thing that upsets me the most about that is I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my team.
“And I’d worked with them for three and a half years, in the trenches. Building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage. And I love that team. And I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, so that’s what I’m most upset about.”
Krebs was no dyed-in-the-wool Democrat but a life-long Republican. He gave up a lucrative job as Microsoft’s head of cybersecurity policy to join the Trump administration. He wanted to serve his country by creating a dedicated cybersecurity agency for the first time.
Still, he had his reservations about taking the job. As he told the Financial Times: “The flaws of this man [Trump] were obvious to everybody that was willing to pay attention. [But] to do your job, you have to be able to compartmentalize. I was willing to do that.
“Over time, it eats away at you. It eats away at you, the other parts of the department that were doing stuff that just seemed so inhumane. I was never involved in any of those policy conversations.”
By January 6, 2021, Trump had exhausted his legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
From November 3 to December 14, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.
Of these attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 election, Krebs told Pelley:
“It was upsetting because what I saw was an apparent attempt to undermine confidence in the election, to confuse people, to scare people. It’s not me, it’s not just CISA. It’s the tens of thousands of election workers out there that had been working nonstop, 18-hour days, for months.
“They’re getting death threats for trying to carry out one of our core democratic institutions, an election. And that was, again, to me, a press conference that I just– it didn’t make sense. What it was actively doing was undermining democracy. And that’s dangerous.”
On January 6, the United States Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence presiding, met to certify states’ Electoral College results of the 2020 election.
That morning, Trump urged Pence to flip the results of the election to give him a win.
Pence replied that he lacked the power to overturn those results.
At noon, Trump appeared at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park south of the White House fence. A stage had been set up for him to address tens of thousands of his supporters, who eagerly awaited him.
Trump ordered them to march on the Capitol building to express their anger at his loss—and thus intimidate Congressional officials to reject the results.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.
The “Jolly Roger” meets Donald Trump
Three hours passed before the mob was dispersed and order was restored.
Yet for all the terrible drama of that day, the true hero of the moment went unrecognized.
By depriving Trump of Russian help, Chris Krebs had ensured a victory for democracy.
On the evening of January 6, the House and Senate met again to count the Electoral Votes.
And as expected, the two bodies pronounced Joseph Biden the winner—bringing an end to Donald Trump’s reign of criminality and treason.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 60 MINUTES, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KREBS, CIA, CNN, CRIMINALITY, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELECTION SECURITY, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HACKING, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JOE BIDEN, Kamala Harris, MEDIA MATTERS, MICROSOFT, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPULAR VOTE, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIME MAGAZINE, TIME MAGAZINIE’S PERSON OF THE YEAR, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 17, 2022 at 12:10 am
TIME’s Person of the Year for 2020 proved to be two people: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
On the surface, choosing Biden and Harris made sense: “Joe Biden was elected President of the United States in the midst of an existential debate over what reality we inhabit. Perhaps the only thing Americans agree on right now is that the future of the country is at stake, even as they fiercely disagree about why.”
As for the shared legacy of Biden and Harris: “If Donald Trump was a force for disruption and division over the past four years, Biden and Harris show where the nation is heading: a blend of ethnicities, lived experiences and worldviews that must find a way forward together if the American experiment is to survive.”
Yet a lesser-known but far more consequential choice for “Person of the Year” would have been Chris Krebs.
Because, without Chris Krebs, there would not now be a Biden Presidency.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote—65,853,514 to 62,984,828 for Trump. But in the United States, what counts in Presidential elections is the Electoral College vote.
And there Trump won: 304 to 227.
What put him over the top in the Electoral College was the help he got from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Putin had good reason to assist Trump: Putin wanted the United States to ditch the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which has preserved Western Europe from Russian aggression since World War II. And Trump had often attacked America’s funding of NATO as a drain on the American economy.
As for Trump, he wanted something from Putin: He wanted to be President. For this, Putin could supply monies, Internet trolls to confuse voters with falsified news, and even the hacking of key voting centers.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And the point man for this was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by DHS.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. As he explained to Scott Pelley during a “60 Minutes” interview aired on November 29, 2020:
“So we spent something on the order of three and a half years of gaming out every possible scenario for how a foreign actor could interfere with an election. Countless, countless scenarios.”
Krebs’ to-do list included paper ballots:
“Paper ballots give you the ability to audit, to go back and check the tape and make sure that you got the count right. And that’s really one of the keys to success for a secure 2020 election. Ninety-five percent of the ballots cast in the 2020 election had a paper record associated with it. Compared to 2016, about 82%.
“That gives you the ability to prove that there was no malicious algorithm or hacked software that adjusted the tally of the vote, and just look at what happened in Georgia. Georgia has machines that tabulate the vote. They then held a hand recount and the outcome was consistent with the machine vote.”
Krebs’ duties included:
- Sharing intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
At his command lay the resources of a series of powerful Federal investigative agencies:
“We had the Department of Defense Cyber Command. We had the National Security Agency. We had the FBI. We had the Secret Service. We also had representatives from the Election Assistance Commission, which is the federal independent agency that supports the actual administration of elections.
“We had representatives from some of the election equipment vendors. And they’re critical because they’re the ones out there that know what’s going on on the ground if there’s any sort of issue with some of their systems. And we had representatives from state and local governments.”
Misinformation led CISA to create a new “Rumor Control” website ahead of the 2020 election. Its main goal was to debunk rumors surrounding the 2020 election that had been spreading throughout the country.
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Donald Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 60 MINUTES, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KREBS, CIA, CNN, CRIMINALITY, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELECTION SECURITY, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HACKING, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JOE BIDEN, Kamala Harris, MEDIA MATTERS, MICROSOFT, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPULAR VOTE, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIME MAGAZINE, TIME MAGAZINIE’S PERSON OF THE YEAR, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 18, 2022 at 12:14 am
As a result of the vast increase in election security, President Donald Trump failed to get the help he expected from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
The result: He lost the 2020 Presidential election.
Thus, Joe Biden won the popular vote by 81,268,924 to 74,216,154 for Trump—and the Electoral College by 306 to 232.
Two days later, Trump claimed: “And this is a case where they’re trying to steal an election, they’re trying to rig an election.”
Chris Krebs was the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And the man most responsible for ensuring election security.
Chris Krebs
On November 12, to counter the growing chorus of lies from Trump and his Right-wing allies, he put out the following statement:
“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
Too cowardly to confront Krebs, Trump fired him by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet another lie:
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.
“Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”
Donald Trump
Asked by “60 Minutes'” Scott Pelley if he was surprised to be fired, Krebs replied: “I don’t know if I was necessarily surprised. It’s not how I wanted to go out. The thing that upsets me the most about that is I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my team.
“And I’d worked with them for three and a half years, in the trenches. Building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage. And I love that team. And I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, so that’s what I’m most upset about.”
Krebs was no dyed-in-the-wool Democrat but a life-long Republican. He gave up a lucrative job as Microsoft’s head of cybersecurity policy to join the Trump administration. He wanted to serve his country by creating a dedicated cybersecurity agency for the first time.
Still, he had his reservations about taking the job. As he told the Financial Times: “The flaws of this man [Trump] were obvious to everybody that was willing to pay attention. [But] to do your job, you have to be able to compartmentalize. I was willing to do that.
“Over time, it eats away at you. It eats away at you, the other parts of the department that were doing stuff that just seemed so inhumane. I was never involved in any of those policy conversations.”
By January 6, 2021, Trump had exhausted his legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
From November 3 to December 14, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.
Of these attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 election, Krebs told Pelley:
“It was upsetting because what I saw was an apparent attempt to undermine confidence in the election, to confuse people, to scare people. It’s not me, it’s not just CISA. It’s the tens of thousands of election workers out there that had been working nonstop, 18-hour days, for months.
“They’re getting death threats for trying to carry out one of our core democratic institutions, an election. And that was, again, to me, a press conference that I just– it didn’t make sense. What it was actively doing was undermining democracy. And that’s dangerous.”
On January 6, the United States Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence presiding, met to certify states’ Electoral College results of the 2020 election.
That morning, Trump urged Pence to flip the results of the election to give him a win.
Pence replied that he lacked the power to overturn those results.
At noon, Trump appeared at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park south of the White House fence. A stage had been set up for him to address tens of thousands of his supporters, who eagerly awaited him.
Trump ordered them to march on the Capitol building to express their anger at his loss—and thus intimidate Congressional officials to reject the results.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.
The “Jolly Roger” meets Donald Trump
Three hours passed before the mob was dispersed and order was restored.
Yet for all the terrible drama of that day, the true hero of the moment went unrecognized.
By depriving Trump of Russian help, Chris Krebs had ensured a victory for democracy.
On the evening of January 6, the House and Senate met again to count the Electoral Votes.
And as expected, the two bodies pronounced Joseph Biden the winner—bringing an end to Donald Trump’s reign of criminality and treason.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 60 MINUTES, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KREBS, CIA, CNN, CRIMINALITY, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELECTION SECURITY, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HACKING, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JOE BIDEN, Kamala Harris, MEDIA MATTERS, MICROSOFT, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPULAR VOTE, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIME MAGAZINE, TIME MAGAZINIE’S PERSON OF THE YEAR, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 17, 2022 at 12:15 am
“TIME’s Person of the Year over the course of nearly a century has been a measuring stick for where the world is and where it’s going. But how to make sense of 2020, a year without measure? A year marked by multiple crises, all at once, all over the world: A once-in-a-century plague. Brutal racial injustice. Glaring inequality. Apocalyptic wildfires. Democracy under fire.”
Thus opens the web page advertising TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” choice of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
On the surface, choosing Biden and Harris makes sense: “Joe Biden was elected President of the United States in the midst of an existential debate over what reality we inhabit. Perhaps the only thing Americans agree on right now is that the future of the country is at stake, even as they fiercely disagree about why.”
As for the shared legacy of Biden and Harris: “If Donald Trump was a force for disruption and division over the past four years, Biden and Harris show where the nation is heading: a blend of ethnicities, lived experiences and worldviews that must find a way forward together if the American experiment is to survive.”
Yet a lesser-known but far more consequential choice for “Person of the Year” would have been Chris Krebs.
Because, without Chris Krebs, there would not now be a Biden Presidency.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda had played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote—65,853,514 to 62,984,828 for Trump. But in the United States, what counts in Presidential elections is the Electoral College vote. And there Trump won: 304 to 227.
What put him over the top in the Electoral College was the help he got from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And the point man for this was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by DHS.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. As he explained to Scott Pelley during a “60 Minutes” interview aired on November 29, 2020:
“So we spent something on the order of three and a half years of gaming out every possible scenario for how a foreign actor could interfere with an election. Countless, countless scenarios.”
Krebs’ to-do list included paper ballots:
“Paper ballots give you the ability to audit, to go back and check the tape and make sure that you got the count right. And that’s really one of the keys to success for a secure 2020 election. Ninety-five percent of the ballots cast in the 2020 election had a paper record associated with it. Compared to 2016, about 82%.
“That gives you the ability to prove that there was no malicious algorithm or hacked software that adjusted the tally of the vote, and just look at what happened in Georgia. Georgia has machines that tabulate the vote. They then held a hand recount and the outcome was consistent with the machine vote.”
Krebs’ duties included:
- Sharing intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
At his command lay the resources of a series of powerful Federal investigative agencies:
“We had the Department of Defense Cyber Command. We had the National Security Agency. We had the FBI. We had the Secret Service. We also had representatives from the Election Assistance Commission, which is the federal independent agency that supports the actual administration of elections.
“We had representatives from some of the election equipment vendors. And they’re critical because they’re the ones out there that know what’s going on on the ground if there’s any sort of issue with some of their systems. And we had representatives from state and local governments.”
Misinformation led CISA to create a new “Rumor Control” website ahead of the 2020 election. Its main goal was to debunk rumors surrounding the 2020 election that had been spreading throughout the country.
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Donald Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 60 MINUTES, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KREBS, CIA, CNN, CRIMINALITY, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELECTION SECURITY, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HACKING, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JOE BIDEN, Kamala Harris, MEDIA MATTERS, MICROSOFT, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPULAR VOTE, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TIME MAGAZINE, TIME MAGAZINIE’S PERSON OF THE YEAR, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 27, 2021 at 12:19 am
As a result of the vast increase in election security, President Donald Trump failed to get the help he expected from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
The result: He lost the 2020 Presidential election.
Thus, Joe Biden won the popular vote by 81,268,924 to 74,216,154 for Trump—and the Electoral College by 306 to 232.
Two days later, Trump claimed: “And this is a case where they’re trying to steal an election, they’re trying to rig an election.”
Chris Krebs was the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And the man most responsible for ensuring election security.
Chris Krebs
On November 12, to counter the growing chorus of lies from Trump and his Right-wing allies, he put out the following statement:
“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
Too cowardly to confront Krebs, Trump fired him by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet another lie:
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.
“Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”
Donald Trump
Asked by “60 Minutes'” Scott Pelley if he was surprised to be fired, Krebs replied: “I don’t know if I was necessarily surprised. It’s not how I wanted to go out. The thing that upsets me the most about that is I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my team.
“And I’d worked with them for three and a half years, in the trenches. Building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage. And I love that team. And I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, so that’s what I’m most upset about.”
Krebs was no dyed-in-the-wool Democrat but a life-long Republican. He gave up a lucrative job as Microsoft’s head of cybersecurity policy to join the Trump administration. He wanted to serve his country by creating a dedicated cybersecurity agency for the first time.
Still, he had his reservations about taking the job. As he told the Financial Times: “The flaws of this man [Trump] were obvious to everybody that was willing to pay attention. [But] to do your job, you have to be able to compartmentalize. I was willing to do that.
“Over time, it eats away at you. It eats away at you, the other parts of the department that were doing stuff that just seemed so inhumane. I was never involved in any of those policy conversations.”
By January 6, 2021, Trump had exhausted his legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
From November 3 to December 14, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.
Of these attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 election, Krebs told Pelley:
“It was upsetting because what I saw was an apparent attempt to undermine confidence in the election, to confuse people, to scare people. It’s not me, it’s not just CISA. It’s the tens of thousands of election workers out there that had been working nonstop, 18-hour days, for months.
“They’re getting death threats for trying to carry out one of our core democratic institutions, an election. And that was, again, to me, a press conference that I just– it didn’t make sense. What it was actively doing was undermining democracy. And that’s dangerous.”
On January 6, the United States Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence presiding, met to certify states’ Electoral College results of the 2020 election.
That morning, Trump urged Pence to flip the results of the election to give him a win.
Pence replied that he lacked the power to overturn those results.
At noon, Trump appeared at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park south of the White House fence. A stage had been set up for him to address tens of thousands of his supporters, who eagerly awaited him.
Trump ordered them to march on the Capitol building to express their anger at his loss—and thus intimidate Congressional officials to reject the results.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.
The “Jolly Roger” meets Donald Trump
Three hours passed before the mob was dispersed and order was restored.
Yet for all the terrible drama of that day, the true hero of the moment went unrecognized.
By depriving Trump of Russian help, Chris Krebs had ensured a victory for democracy.
On the evening of January 6, the House and Senate met again to count the Electoral Votes.
And as expected, the two bodies pronounced Joseph Biden the winner—bringing an end to Donald Trump’s reign of criminality and treason.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BC NEWS, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DIVERSITY EQUITY AND INCLUSION (DEI), DONALD TRUMP, EDWARD R. MURROW, FASCISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, GEORGE ORWELL, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JOSEPH GOEBBELS, JOURNALISM, MARTIN LUTHER KING, MAYA ANGELOU, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SCOTT PELLEY, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNIVERSITIES, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, VOTING RIGHTS ACT, WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, WINSTON CHURCHILL, WORLD WAR 11, X
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 19, 2025 at 12:10 amOn May 19, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley delivered a commencement address to graduating students at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Much of it noted ominous moves toward dictatorship by President Donald J. Trump—whose name went unmentioned.
Among those moves:
And his counsel: “The country needs you, and it needs you today.”
* * * * *
Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power.
First, make the truth seekers live in fear.
Sue the journalists. For nothing.
Then, move to destroy law firms that stand up for the rights of others.
With that done, power can rewrite history. With grotesque, false narratives, they can make heroes criminals and criminals heroes.
And they can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. “Diversity” is now described as “illegal.” “Equity” is to be shunned. “Inclusion” is a dirty word.
This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this. George Orwell – who we met on the street in London – in 1949, he warned of what he called “new speak.” He understood that ignorance works for power.
George Orwell
But it is ignorance that you have repudiated every single day here at Wake Forest University.
Who are you? I think we know.
In 1962, the year after Dr. King’s letter –1964 – the Civil Rights Act is passed. And the year after that – 1965 – the Voting Rights Act is passed. Now today both of those are under attack.
But can the truth win? My friends, nothing else does.
It may be a long road, but the truth is coming.
Did you hear the other phrase in the declaration that was signed by President Wente and Provost Gillespie? “Without fear.”
That does not mean there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s an affirmation that you know who you are. That you know what you stand for. And that you know in the end – the long end – the Constitution will defend you even in the face of fearsome times.
In the words of one of your former Wake Forest professors:
“You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies.
You may tread me into the very dirt, but like dust, I’ll rise.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise.
Into a daybreak that’s wonderfully clear, I rise.
Bringing the gifts my ancestors gave me, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.
I rise.
I rise.”
The poet Maya Angelou taught at Wake Forest. She saw the fear that power sought to impose, yet in her famous phrase, she still knew why the caged bird sings.
Maya Angelou
York College ISLGP, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This university, old and wise, has seen worse. It has overcome existential threats before to our country. You are not alone. A legion has gone before you. And now it is the Class of 2025 that is called in another extreme time.
Will you permit me another word of advice?
Do not settle. You only get one pass at this. This world is going to tell you no a thousand times, but listen to the song in your heart. If they can’t hear it, that’s on them and not on you.
In the 1980s, I was rejected by CBS News over and over and over again over the years. They told me at one point, “Please stop applying.” They really did. And at the time, I thought “What’s wrong with these people?”
They couldn’t hear the song in my heart. Maybe they were smarter. Every time I was rejected, I got better. Maybe that was the plan. But I finally made them hear the music in my heart.
You only lose if you quit. Do not settle.
What is the meaning of life?
Who are you?
You are the educated. You are the compassionate. You are the fierce defenders of democracy, the seekers of truth, the vanguards against ignorance.
You are millions strong across our land. You might be sorry that you were picked by history for this role. But maybe that was the plan. Hard times are going to make you better and stronger.
In a few minutes, when that diploma hits your hand, it’s not a piece of paper you’re holding. We’re handing you a baton. Run with it.
Why am I here today? I’m 50 years farther down the trail than you are, and I have doubled back this morning to tell you the one thing I have learned from Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Nadia Murad and Samer Attar and a thousand others:
In a moment like this, when our country is in peril, don’t ask the meaning of life. Life is asking, “What’s the meaning of you?”
With great admiration for your achievements and with confidence that you will rise to this occasion, I thank you very humbly for the honor of being with you.
Thank you very much.
Share this: