Soweto..

 

This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robben Island,” Biden told a crowd during a campaign event in Columbia, S.C. on Feb. 11, when Bernie Sanders was still a threat.

The only problem was it didn’t happen.

“It’s a lie,” liberal commentator Mehdi Hasan said in a March video in which he also said Biden was in cognitive decline. “He didn’t misspeak. He didn’t misremember. It wasn’t a gaffe. It was a lie and a really bad one.”

The story was also denounced by independent fact-checkers like Politifact and the Washington Post — which gave the “ridiculous claim” four Pinnocchios. Biden ultimately came clean on CNN two weeks later.

Stutter...

 On age and health, Biden appears to be in a gray area, although some facts are undeniable. The day Biden takes office (if he wins), he would be the oldest man ever to serve as president. 

An astonishing 32 years ago, he barely survived a horrid double aneurysm in his brain. Most people experience small manifestations of cognitive decline as they age.

A lot of experienced journalists who should know better have recklessly thrown around the word “dementia” to describe what appears to be a growing number of verbal miscues by Biden.    That’s not fair without a medical diagnosis. 

But even for a stutterer, Biden in recent months seems to be making increasing numbers of misstatements that seem completely unrelated to any speech defect.

Tear...

Portland Police said in a statement on Sunday that they declared a riot "due to the violent conduct of the large group creating a grave risk of public alarm." The crowd began to disperse as police issued a public service announcement. 

Federal officers deployed tear gas once again on Saturday night as fencing was torn down around the federal courthouse, where officers and protesters have clashed before. The fencing around the courthouse had come down Friday night, was repaired and replaced on Saturday and then torn down again.

 Federal agents have been deployed to protect federal monuments and buildings in cities such as Portland, Seattle and others. The federal courthouse in Portland is also under their jurisdiction.   

Fish...

 

Deep Fake...

 

It can happen to you.

For those who may be tempted to think that sextortion only happens to people who do risky things like “sexting,” think again. Sextortion is a crime that can happen to anyone, regardless of age, gender or behavior.

There are several reasons why this threat is getting worse.

Top on the list is a new technology that allows for realistic face-swapping in videos. Known as “Deepfakes,” these videos (enabled by online tools like FakeApp) are becoming popular on the web, and we’ve already seen this technology used to create a number of fake pornographic videos that replaced the faces of adult actors with those of Hollywood stars. 

The potential for abuse here is huge, and it is only a matter of time before Deepfakes are used for teenage cyber-bullying, harassment and cyber-stalking.

For those criminals it is an easy thing to do, blackmaile someone with deep fake images.

 Just a thought.

 

Sen. Kamala Harris, who was announced as presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, once said that she believed women who accused Biden of inappropriate touching.

“I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it,” the California senator told reporters in April 2019.

Biden had been accused by a number of women of inappropriate touching and kissing, including by a Nevada politician who said he came up behind her at a 2014 campaign stop and kissed her on the back of her head.

“He’s going to have to make that decision for himself,” Harris said when asked if Biden, who hadn’t announced a presidential bid at the point, should still run. “I wouldn’t tell him what to do.”

Biden released a video addressing the allegations at the time, in which he said, “Social norms are changing. I understand that, and I’ve heard what these women are saying. Politics to me has always been about making connections, but I will be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future. 

Authoritarianism...

When I think of Kamala Harris, a comment about her by an African American voter in Michigan sticks: "She's fake. She's phony. She's not one of us. She built a political career by over-prosecuting Black kids," Brandi Neal, an employee at Detroit City Hall, told Politico.

That sentiment may explain why Senator Harris' presidential campaign was a short ride.

Several primary rivals like Bernie Sanders outlasted her because their authenticity was perceived to be far greater. But winning the vote of one person - Joe Biden, in this case - was easier than winning the millions of votes necessary to be the nominee herself.

The Biden camp thinks it is sitting on a lead so it took the safest route - a basically vetted person who will neither help nor hurt the Democratic campaign.

Most research shows that VP choices rarely make a difference. Harris probably won't, either. Her home state is safely Democratic. Her primary campaign shows she's not a great fundraiser. Her politics - liberal with more than a hint of authoritarianism (think of her attempts to get Donald Trump banned from Twitter) sprinkled in for good measure - fit well on a national ticket trending hard towards both.       Scott Jennings.

Nigh...

 

 

Sex-tortion...

 

A number of people targeted by bitcoin sextortion scams in 2020 has increased rapidly. According to an analysis by British security company Sophos, millions of people recently received sextortion scam emails in the week it analyzed.

“In fact, the number was probably more like tens or even hundreds of millions,” Sophos senior threat analyst Paul Ducklin wrote, adding that some people received between two and five different varieties of this scam. He explained, “The scams exploited global botnets on compromised PCs to dispatch millions of spam emails to recipients around the world,” elaborating

However, Ducklin advised that these passwords are often old ones you used before in the past. “In truth, the passwords sent out in these scams have typically been dredged up from old data breaches,” he opined. “Although the password you see may have been your password once, the crooks didn’t get it from your computer recently.”