MILWAUKEE, WI – The Common Council for the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin decided that they wanted to pass on a $9.7 million federal grant that would have brought thirty additional police officers over the next three years. The grant would have provided for all expenses for the additional officers, but required the agency to maintain those positions after the three years. Members of the city approached members of the council over the past few months while the matter was being debated. There were several that wanted the increased police presence, and of course, those who were against it. Those who were in support of the move, could see the landscape in terms of rising crime rates, the homicide rate, for example, that is the highest it has been since the 1990’s. They also notice that the agency will only have roughly 1,680 officers by the end of next year, almost 200 fewer than four years ago. (Read more.)

BREAKING! You want to see this: Data science experts scrutinize the vote tallies and data from election night across the state of Arizona. Included is the raw data feed for this state, should you like to follow along and review for yourself.

BREAKING! The Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, have evidence that hackers accessed their networks as part of an extensive espionage operation that has affected at least half a dozen federal agencies, officials directly familiar with the matter said. On Thursday, DOE and NNSA officials began coordinating notifications about the breach to their congressional oversight bodies after being briefed by Rocky Campione, the chief information officer at DOE. They found suspicious activity in networks belonging to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories in New Mexico and Washington, the Office of Secure Transportation and the Richland Field Office of the DOE. The hackers have been able to do more damage at FERC than the other agencies, the officials said, but did not elaborate. (Read more.)

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

Police Officer Jason Shuping

Concord Police Department, North Carolina

EOW: Wednesday, December 16, 2020 💙 #RIP

Robert Burck, better known as the "Naked Cowboy", falls during a nor'easter storm snowfall in Manhattan, New York City, December 17, 2020. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

HO HO HO: Santa Claus braced the 2020 Nor’easter to bring some holiday cheer to Long Island. 🎅🏻

Homeland Security: Hacking campaign poses 'grave risk' to all levels of government, private sector.

A devastating cyber attack believed to be tied to Russia continues to pose a "grave risk" to government networks and the private sector, according to an ominous warning issued Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security.

The bulletin from DHS' Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), represented the most striking assessment yet of a cascading threat to federal, state and local networks.

"CISA has determined that this threat poses a grave risk to the federal government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations," the bulletin stated.

"This... actor has demonstrated patience, operational security, and complex trade-craft in these intrusions," CISA said of the hackers, adding that the ongoing effort to eliminate the threat would "will be highly complex and challenging."

Networks at the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the country's nuclear weapons stockpile, also may have been compromised according to reports by the Washington Post and Politico.

The attacks, which have targeted major branches of the U.S. government, has put an untold number of Americans, agencies and government secrets at risk of compromise.

The attackers penetrated federal computer systems through a popular piece of server software offered through a company called SolarWinds.

The threat apparently came from the same cyberespionage campaign that has afflicted cybersecurity firm FireEye, foreign governments and major corporations.

The system is used by hundreds of thousands of organizations globally, including most Fortune 500 companies and multiple U.S. federal agencies, which will now be scrambling to patch up their networks.

The attackers planted malware in computer networks after using what FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia has called “a novel combination of techniques not witnessed by us or our partners in the past.”

In its alert Thursday, CISA said that is "likely" that full scope of the campaign remains unclear as additional intrusions "have not yet been discovered."

"Due to the nature of this pattern of adversary activity—and the targeting of key personnel, incident response staff, and IT email accounts—discussion of findings... should be considered very sensitive, and should be protected by operational security measures," the CISA said.

The agency also indicated that some of the intrusions may have occurred as early as March.

Late Wednesday, the FBI, in a joint statement with CISA and the Director of National Intelligence, called the attack "a developing situation."

"While we continue to work to understand the full extent of this campaign, we know this compromise has affected networks within the federal government," the agencies said.

President-elect Joe Biden said Thursday that his transition team had been briefed on what he described on what "appears to be a massive cybersecurity breach affecting potentially thousands of victims."

"There’s a lot we don’t yet know, but what we do know is a matter of great concern," Biden said in a statement.

Tom Bossert, a former homeland security adviser to President Donald Trump, said the "magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate."

"The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months," Bossert said in column published in the New York Times, adding that Russian intelligence officials have likely gained "administrative control over the networks it considered priority targets."

"For those targets, the hackers will have long ago moved past their entry point, covered their tracks and gained what experts call 'persistent access,' meaning the ability to infiltrate and control networks in a way that is hard to detect or remove."

Bossert said it could take years to learn the depth of the damage.

A firefighter stands on a water tank during fire in a scrap metal recycling plant of Deacero company in Guadalupe, on the outskirts of Monterrey, Mexico. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

A Spirit airplane slid off the taxiway Thursday morning at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Ni injuries reported.

A nativity scene display designed by local greengrocer Francesco Orazio is seen over the water surface of Venice's lagoon by Burano island, ahead of Christmas, in Venice, Italy. . REUTERS/Manuel Silvestri

Meanwhile, in Seattle. Squatters claiming to be standing in solidarity with the homeless at Cal Anderson Park have just taken over this yellow house at 1106 E. Denny Way in Seattle. They’re laying out demands at 4pm during a press conference.

Leftists like to compare Trump to Hitler and other dictators that have killed millions. What the hell are Americans learning in school?

Meanwhile, in NYC!