SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

HYPOCRITES – FROM LIFEZETTE:   The Clinton Foundation in 2011 employed more women than men but paid them less, on average, according to a salary schedule included in an email released Friday by WikiLeaks.  A foundation employee emailed the payroll schedule to board Chairman Bruce Lindsey and John Podesta, who currently chairs Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. It included then-Chief Operating Office and Chief of Staff Laura Graham’s salary recommendations for 2012 for rank-and-file employees.  The average salary for women and men was close. But men out-earned women, $68,164 to $64,118, on average. The median salary also was higher for men, $55,200 compared with $50,000.  Republicans could never get away with this.

AMERICA TODAY – FROM CBS BOSTON:  NATICK (CBS) — A group of thieves stole over $13,000 in iPhones from the Apple store in the Natick Mall in a “flash mob” robbery.  Natick Police Lt. Cara Rossi said a group of seven teens were only in the store for less than one minute, but were able to steal 19 phones.  In a video, the thieves can be seen cutting the security cords that tethered the iPhones to their displays all at the same time.  They fled the mall on foot, and police were unable to find them.  Lt. Rossi said both male and female thieves were involved, and that they all wore hoodies and hats to help conceal their identities.  Police said they were working with mall security to try to find footage of the group entering or exiting the mall.  Natick Police said they believed the thieves may be connected to a similar theft that took place in Hingham in September.  Obviously organized, which means many people know something.  You may be sure no one is talking.  Let's see if we can find a "progressive" public official who'll condemn this. 

CYBERATTACK – FROM HEATSTREET:  A major denial of service attack occurred this morning against a major U.S. DNS provider, DynDNS, temporarily bringing down websites like Twitter and Reddit.  According to Dyn, the attack began at 7:10 EST, and it took until 9:45 for services to return to normal.  A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is when a group of people send millions of requests into a server, essentially clogging up the piping and preventing legitimate requests from getting through. You don’t need to be a 400-pound hacker to conduct a DDoS attack, as all it takes is an easy-to-use program.  There is substantial concern that this event was a dress rehearsal for something larger.  Cyberattacks are a new form of warfare, and, in severe circumstances, could shut down things like electric grids, airlines, train lines, and hospitals. 

October 21,  2016