Alaska's Election Nightmare

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo: Rick Bowmer/AP

Photo: Rick Bowmer/AP

[Thousands of voters have used] Alaska’s first-in-the-nation internet voting system. And according to internet security experts, including the former top cybersecurity official for the Department of Homeland Security, that system is a security nightmare that threatens to put control of the U.S. Congress in the hands of foreign or domestic hackers.

Any registered Alaska voter can obtain an electronic ballot, mark it on their computers using a web-based interface, save the ballot as a PDF, and return it to their county elections department through what the state calls “a dedicated secure data center behind a layer of redundant firewalls under constant physical and application monitoring to ensure the security of the system, voter privacy, and election integrity.”

That sounds great, but even the state acknowledges in an online disclaimer that things could go awry, warning that “when returning the ballot through the secure online voting solution, your are voluntarily waving [sic] your right to a secret ballot and are assuming the risk that a faulty transmission may occur.”

That disclaimer is a pre-emptive admission of failure, says Bruce McConnell, who served until 2013 as the top cybersecurity officer for DHS. “They admit that they are not taking responsibility for the validity of the system,” McConnell told The Intercept. “They’re saying, ‘Your vote may be counted correctly, incorrectly, or may not be counted at all, and we are not taking any responsibility for that.’ That kind of disclaimer would be unacceptable if you saw it on the wall of a polling place.”

In 2012, Alaska became the first state to permit internet balloting for all voters, and no problems were reported during the system’s first deployment. But there weren’t any high-profile races then, and Alaska wasn’t an electoral factor in the presidential race.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sharyl Attkisson Just Released a Creepy Video of Her Computer That Will Likely Send Chills Down Your Spine

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: CBS News via YouTube

Photo Credit: CBS News via YouTube

Former CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson — who claims the government hacked her computer, TV and phone while she reported on the Benghazi terror attack — has released a new video showing what could be evidence of the government taking over her computer.

“That very night, with [White House spokesman Eric] Schultz, [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with [Thomas] Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line in a split second: it’s gone, gone, gone,” Attkisson writes in her book.

In the book, Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, Attkisson explains the difficulties she faced while trying to get at the truth of exactly what happened on the night of September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, where four American diplomats died, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.

Read more from this story HERE.

Beware a Wounded Obama

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP / Alex Brandon

Photo Credit: AP / Alex Brandon

No matter what the exact outcome of Tuesday’s elections, there is little doubt that President Obama will come out of it wounded.

Whether or not Republicans take over the Senate, they will certainly gain seats. Even if Democrats manage to eke out a victory that maintains narrow control of the chamber, it will only be because their candidates in close races did everything they could to distance themselves from Obama.

Either way, Obama will be a lame duck president. Voters will have rebuked him and his policies. He won’t have the ability to pass major legislation, and the focus of the political world will quickly turn to candidates vying to replace him.

But being a lame duck president isn’t the same as being without power. On issues including healthcare, environmental policy, immigration, and national security, Obama has already displayed a willingness to bypass Congress to pursue his goals.

If there were anything holding him back up to this point, it was either that he was facing re-election or he was somewhat hesitant to weaken Democratic chances in an election year that would determine the composition of Congress during his last two years in office.

Read more from this story HERE.

Murkowski Highlights Climate Change In Alaska

/13 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren / AP

Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren / AP

On election night in a hotel ballroom in Anchorage, Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski picked up a chair and waved it over her head.

“I am the chairmaaaaaaaaaaan!” she shouted.

The Republican takeover Tuesday night puts Murkowski in charge of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. That’s great news for Alaska, which is always eager for the feds to allow more oil drilling up here. But what does her chairmanship mean for the other side of that coin — global warming?

At that same election-night party, Murkowski said she takes climate change seriously.

“I come from a state where we see a warming. We’re seeing it with increased water temperatures; we’re seeing it with ice that is thinner; we’re seeing it with migratory patterns that are changing,” she said. “So I look at this and I say this is something that we must address.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Monster Storm to Hit Alaska: May Be Biggest in Recorded History

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Satellite / NASA

Photo Credit: Satellite / NASA

A powerful storm is slated to move over the Bering Sea this weekend, possibly becoming one of the most intense storms to ever impact the region.

The former Super Typhoon Nuri is forecast to track northward into the Bering Sea, located in between Alaska and Russia, on Friday, losing its tropical characteristics as it does so.

At this point, the system will undergo rapid intensification, producing howling winds as the central pressure plummets to near record levels.

Due to the massive size of the storm, impacts can be felt hundreds of miles away from the storm’s center through much of the weekend.

Large waves and hurricane-force winds are expected to be the highest impacts with waves in some areas topping 45 feet Friday night and into Saturday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Top Obama Aide: 'We're in For a 'S**t Storm If We Lose the Senate

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Wynton Hall.

A top Obama aide says if pollsters’ projections of a GOP Senate takeover hold up on Election Day Tuesday, President Barack Obama and his administration are in for a world of hurt.

“We know we’re in for a s**t storm if we lose the Senate. You have to gird yourself mentally ’cause you are going to come out on the other end,” a “top Obama aide”told Politico Magazine.

The aide added, “But, you hit bottom, and then you have the Obama comeback story.”

Politico says such a comeback, however, is unlikely.

Read more from this story HERE.

__________________________________________________

Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

Holder sends poll watchers to 18 states

By Ben Kamisar.

The Department of Justice plans to send federal monitors to 18 states to watch for discrimination against voters.

Monitors will head to Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

“One of the Justice Department’s most sacred responsibilities is ensuring access to the ballot box for every eligible American,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a video message on the department’s website.

“I want the American people to know that the Justice Department will stand vigilant — working in a fair and nonpartisan manner to ensure that every voter can cast his or her ballot free of intimidation, discrimination or obstruction,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

__________________________________________________

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Math is forbidding for Democrats in struggle for Senate

By David A. Fahrenthold, Katie Zezima and Paul Kane.

On the last day of the 2014 campaign, Democrats knew they were in trouble.

Long ago, the party had given up hope of winning back the House in Tuesday’s midterm elections. By Monday, it had skipped ahead to winning the post-election blame game. “House Democrats have succeeded on every measure within our control,” the party’s House campaign committee announced preemptively in the early afternoon.

And at the end of a bitter and massively expensive campaign, it appeared the Senate might be slipping from Democrats’ grasp as well.

In all, there are 13 states where Senate seats might change from one party to the other. Republicans need to win nine of them to attain a 51-seat majority in the Senate for the first time since 2007. On Monday, Republicans seem to be leading, by a lot or by a little, in eight of those races.

If the GOP wins all those eight, they will need just one more win — one of the toss-up races in Alaska and Kansas, or perhaps the runoff race that’s expected in Louisiana.

Read more from this story HERE.

States Ditch Electronic Voting Machines

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

By Cory Bennett.

States have abandoned electronic voting machines in droves, ensuring that most voters will be casting their ballots by hand on Election Day.

With many electronic voting machines more than a decade old, and states lacking the funding to repair or replace them, officials have opted to return to the pencil-and-paper voting that the new technology was supposed to replace.

Nearly 70 percent of voters will be casting ballots by hand on Tuesday, according to Pamela Smith, president of election watchdog Verified Voting.

“Paper, even though it sounds kind of old school, it actually has properties that serve the elections really well,” Smith said.

It’s an outcome few would have predicted after the 2000 election, when the battle over “hanging chads” in the Florida recount spurred a massive, $3 billion federal investment in electronic voting machines.

Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________________

Voter-ID backer catches Dems in the act

By Drew Zahn.

In the debate over requiring photo identification to vote, advocates claim it will help prevent voter fraud, while opponents dismiss fraud as too infrequent to justify such laws.

So imagine the surprise of a North Carolina Republican and voter-ID proponent when he reportedly caught the attorney suing the state to overturn its voter-ID rules violating election law.

Molotov Mitchell, also a WND video columnist, is running as the GOP nominee for North Carolina State Senate District 16 against incumbent Democrat Josh Stein. Stein’s father, Adam Stein, is part of a team of attorneys suing the state to overturn its voter-ID law, set to go into effect in 2016.

A new video released by Mitchell purports to show a polling place with signs clearly marked forbidding the distribution of election materials, but a photo reveals Adam Stein well beyond the signs handing out voter guides.

“Two Republican candidates were there witnessing him handing out those flyers,” Mitchell told WND. “A Senate candidate, Mary Lopez Carter, took the picture because she saw him standing there handing out voter guides. She didn’t know it was Adam Stein until her husband asked the guy his name and then [Stein] started bragging about his son, Josh.

Read more from this story HERE.

Bombshell Memo: Dem Senator Jeanne Shaheen Conspired With Lois Lerner

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was principally involved in a plot with Lois Lerner and President Barack Obama’s political appointee at the IRS to lead a program of harassment against conservative nonprofit groups during the 2012 election, according to letters exclusively obtained by The Daily Caller.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) did not want to publicly release 2012 correspondences exchanged between the IRS and Jeanne Shaheen at her personal Washington office: the agency delayed releasing the information to a major conservative super PAC multiple times, even threatening to see the super PAC in court, according to emails.

“The IRS is aware of the current public interest in this issue,” IRS chief counsel William J. Wilkins, a White House visitor described by insiders as “The President’s Man at the IRS,” personally wrote in a hand-stamped memo to “Senator Shaheen” on official Department of the Treasury letterhead on April 25, 2012.

The memo, obtained by TheDC, briefed the Democratic senator about a coordinated IRS-Treasury Department plot to target political activity by nonprofit 501(c)(4) groups. The plot was operating out of Lois Lerner’s Tax Exempt Government Entities Division.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mom Blames Daughter's Paralysis on Flu Shot (+video)

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Carol E. Davis / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Carol E. Davis / Creative Commons

A Florida woman says her daughter became paralyzed after getting a routine flu shot.

Carla Grivna says her child was happy and healthy until getting the flu shot just before the Thanksgiving Day holiday last year. Three days later, however, her daughter Marysue could not move or talk, Grivna said. The child is now a bedridden 10-year-old diagnosed with a rare viral infection of the brain called Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis, or ADEM. Carla Grivna believes what happened is directly tied to the flu shot.

“The doctors won’t confirm it or deny it,” the mother told “Fox & Friends” Sunday. “Her father Steven and I are certain, due to all of our research, that this was what caused Marysue’s condition. She was a happy, healthy, running and playing 9-year-old then this happened.”

Grivna added: “There was no underlying condition. I mean so many tests at the hospital to try and find something else that could have caused it and they could not find anything.”

Marysue’s father has to carry her to get around.

Read more from this story HERE.

Americans Now Agree: Guns Make Homes Safer

/9 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Bang! For the first time, a growing — and already substantial — majority of Americans now believe having a gun in the home makes it a safer place to live.

Put that in your chamber and cock it.

Gallup, which has been surveying the politically volatile question for a generation, announced this morning a new poll revealing that nearly two-out-of-three Americans (63%) now say having a firearm there makes a home safer.

That’s nearly twice the number who said that just before 9/11.

And the explosion of support has come across all political boundaries. Back in the fall of 2000, barely a third thought that (35%), while a majority (51%) said guns made homes more dangerous.

But the number who say guns increase home safety has been steadily increasing while the number who see them as increasing danger has been steadily declining — from 35% in 2000 to 42% four years later to 47% in 2006 and now a jump all the way up to 63%.

Read more from this story HERE.