* Bo-Katan recognizing Fett's voice and saying she's heard it a thousand times ... love me a @TheCloneWars reference
* Koska and Fett going for their flamethrowers at the same time was funny
* Phase 3 dark trooper: nice EU nod
* Loved boarding sequence. Great choreography & teamwork.
* Dark troopers were suitably tough for Mando to defeat. Felt like they had real power.
* Gideon was a good villain — loved his confident, no-nonsense style.
* Mando vs. Bo-Katan really seemed possible there. S3?
* My heart leapt when I saw the X-wing. Instantly knew. "One X-wing? Great, we're saved." 😶
* LUKE MF-ING SKYWALKER!!!!!!!!
* Luke cutting through droids like butter was perfect — exactly what I'd expect from this era's Luke. No malice, just mission. Entry montage was perfect.
I know this is controversial but I actually thought the CGI was great. I genuinely thought it might be a young actor with some makeup and hair work. It worked for me!
I didn't get creepy vibes, it didn't dampen the emotional tone of the subsequent scene — it just worked for me.
* Mando taking off his helmet so Grogu finally see his dad's face...Grogu reaching up to touch it...😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
* Mando shows a level of tenderness that would have been **unimaginable** in S1E1. Believable character progression. Genuinely sweet!
* R2-D2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not even kidding that seeing him made me as happy as seeing Luke. He is just the best.
* Grogu and R2 totally go way back, right? Spinoff??
* What's next for Mando—the character and the series? Do we see Grogu again? Does Mando just go back to hunting?
Interesting choice to end the episode with a teaser for this new show. Why not give the actual episode its own coda somewhere?
Anywhere, I'm sure I'll enjoy this show, though mostly for the lore, since I still need to be convinced to care about Fett himself. Fennec helps tho.
Biden is answering press questions now and just talked SolarWinds.
"The Defense Department won't even brief us on many things. ... I know of nothing that suggests it's under control."
"We need international rules of the road on cybersecurity."
"The question of the damage done remains to be determined," Biden said of SolarWinds.
The hackers "can be assured that we will respond and probably respond in kind," he said. "There are many options which I will not discuss now."
"I promise you, there will be a response."
"It may take billions of dollars to secure our cyberspace," Biden says when asked about the practical implications of running a govt whose weaknesses remain unknown. "It may take a great deal to get it done."
New Biden statement on SolarWinds cyber campaign: "I have instructed my team to learn as much as we can about this breach ... my administration will make cybersecurity a top priority ... and we will make dealing with this breach a top priority from the moment we take office."
Biden promises to "elevate cybersecurity as an imperative across the government," with better private-sector ties, more infrastructure and personnel funding, & improved deterrence in partnership with allies.
"I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation."
Biden's statement is both very vague and the most he's said about cyber.
Nothing about:
* If he thinks "defend forward" is working
* How his deterrence plan will differ from what Trump agencies did
* How he'll treat espionage vs. destructive attacks
* How he'll "elevate" cyber
Chairman Johnson, kicking things off, says, “Much of the [fraud] suspicion comes from a lack of understanding of how everything works.”
Johnson: Voting technology “should not be connected to the internet, but we found some do have the capability of being connected, and there are allegations that some were.”
Johnson: To figure out if any voting machines were compromised in this election, “computer science experts must be given the opportunity to examine these allegations.”
NSC mtg of Cyber Response Group yielded some progress — govt has a list of hacked agencies, tho more could emerge — but officials still don't know what hackers stole.
"We are in very, very early days," official said, "and there's a sense that...the news is going to get worse."
The NSC CRG, following an Obama-era directive, established a Unified Coordination Group to streamline agencies' crisis collaboration.
"We're declaring this a significant cyber event," U.S. official said, using term reserved for crises such as NotPetya.
This is a big loss for CISA, which hired Masterson in 2018 after House Speaker Paul Ryan blocked his reappointment to the Election Assistance Commission.
Election officials widely praised Masterson for helping improve the relationship between them and the federal government.
.@mastersonmv confirms to me that he is leaving CISA, as first reported by @dnvolz.
Masterson, a senior cyber adviser working on election security at CISA, is leaving to join @stanfordio.
"I will be working on documenting what worked and didn’t work around election security and figuring out where we go from here on disinformation," Masterson tells me.