Barack Obama Lets NSA Keep Some Internet Security Flaws Secret

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

Stepping into a heated debate within the nation’s intelligence agencies, President Barack Obama has decided that when the National Security Agency discovers major flaws in Internet security, it should – in most circumstances – reveal them to assure that they will be fixed, rather than keep mum so that the flaws can be used in espionage or cyberattacks, senior administration officials said Saturday.

But Obama carved a broad exception for “a clear national security or law enforcement need,” the officials said, a loophole that is likely to allow the NSA to continue to exploit security flaws both to crack encryption on the Internet and to design cyberweapons.

The White House has never publicly detailed Obama’s decision, which he made in January as he began a three-month review of recommendations by a presidential advisory committee on what to do in response to recent disclosures about the National Security Agency.

But elements of the decision became evident Friday, when the White House denied that it had any prior knowledge of the Heartbleed bug, a newly known hole in Internet security that sent Americans scrambling last week to change their online passwords. The White House statement said that when such flaws are discovered, there is now a “bias” in the government to share that knowledge with computer and software manufacturers so a remedy can be created and distributed to industry and consumers.

Caitlin Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the review of the recommendations was now complete, and it had resulted in a “reinvigorated” process to weigh the value of disclosure when a security flaw is discovered, against the value of keeping the discovery secret for later use by the intelligence community.

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Muslim Brotherhood Launches Own U.S. Political Party

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Photo Credit: Anuradha Sengupta

Photo Credit: Anuradha Sengupta

With an eye toward the 2016 election, the radical Muslim Brotherhood has built the framework for a political party in America that seeks to turn Muslims into an Islamist voting bloc.

‘Muslim voters have the potential to be swing voters in 2016,” said Nihad Awad in launching the benign-sounding U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, whose membership reads like a Who’s Who of Brotherhood front groups.

“We are aiming to bring more participation from the Muslim community.”

USCMO also aims to elect Islamists in Washington, with the ultimate objective of “institutionalizing policies” favorable to Islamists — that is, Shariah law.

This development bears careful monitoring in light of the U.S. Brotherhood’s recently exposed goal to wage a “civilization jihad” against America that explicitly calls for infiltrating the U.S. political system and “destroying (it) from within.”

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Judges: ‘Law Provides Executive No Authority’ to Cut Drug Sentences As Holder Did

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Photo Credit: AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite

Two federal judges on the U.S. Sentencing Commission said Thursday that Attorney General Eric Holder stepped “outside the legal system” and exceeded the authority of the executive branch by sending “improper instruction” to federal prosecutors to reduce drug sentences before they were officially approved by either the commission or Congress.

“I have been surprised at the attorney general’s steps taken to proceed with this reduction outside of the legal system set up and established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984,” Judge Ricardo Hinojosa, the commission’s vice chair, said during a public hearing in the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington.

“As you all know, the commission in the act is given the authority to promulgate and amend guidelines on a yearly basis. And in the act itself, Congress has preserved its right to reject any potential promulgation of, or amendment to, any guidelines made by the commission itself after the commission has acted.

“Meaning that if Congress does not reject a guideline amendment, it will not go into effect until November 1st of this year if we vote in favor of this amendment.,” said Hinojosa, who is also the chief judge of the Southern District of Texas.

“When the attorney general testified before us, he failed to mention that the night before, at around 11 pm, the department had ordered all of the assistant U.S. attorneys across the country to (and it’s not clear to me whether it was supposed to be not oppose or to argue for, in fact the U.S. attorneys in front of my court have said they’ve been asked to argue for) the two-level reduction in all drug trafficking cases before the commission has acted and before Congress has had the opportunity to vote its disapproval of the commission’s actions, if Congress is so inclined, which is certainly the right that they have preserved for themselves in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984,” Hinojosa said.

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MSNBC’s Harris-Perry: ‘Is Eric Holder The Obama We Had Been Hoping For?’

By Mike Miller.

During her MSNBC show on Saturday, after Melissa Harris-Perry said that Barack Obama’s “accomplishments” might not be recognized “for a decade or so,” she rattled off a string of “accomplishments” by Attorney General Eric Holder:

Shortening prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders, suing Texas and North Carolina over their respective voter ID laws, issuing a directive expanding government recognition of same sex marriage.

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7 Babies Found Dead in Utah Home; Woman Arrested

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Photo Credit: Pleasant Grove Utah Police

Photo Credit: Pleasant Grove Utah Police

A woman has been arrested on six counts of murder after authorities found the bodies of seven infants packed into separate cardboard boxes at a home in Utah, police said.

Police arrested Megan Huntsman, 39, of Pleasant Grove, on Saturday following a gruesome discovery at a residence formerly occupied by the woman who they say moved out in 2011.

Officers responding to a phone call from a family member who is currently living at the Pleasant Grove residence arrived at the home to find the first baby which “appeared to be a full term,” according to a police statement.

“A family member was cleaning out the garage and came across a box that looked suspicious. Upon opening the box they found the infant inside,” Capt. Michael Roberts of the Pleasant Grove Police Department told ABC News.

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5 Democratic Senators Facing Uphill Battles for Reelection

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Photo Credit: Thinkstock

Photo Credit: Thinkstock

With Congressional elections growing closer, some Senators will be facing a more difficult road to reelection than others. Incumbency is often an advantage, but after the year we’ve had, some will be struggling to get the votes they need. Democrats historically have struggled in midterm elections, something President Barack Obama pointed out in early March, reminding Democrats in Congress of how much they have riding on the election. In the Democratic party, there are five that stand out more than the rest as having their work cut out for them. Let’s take a look at the specific political challenges headed for to this group.

1. Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska)

Senator Begich is likely feeling especially blue in his red state this year, with increasing pressure from Republicans hoping to exploit voters’ frustration with President Obama and Congress’ inactivity as a whole. He said, according to The Washington Post, that he doesn’t “care to have [Obama] campaign for” him. As a result, Begich — like many other Democrats — is putting some distance between himself, his party, and the Obama administration. His ad campaigns use rhetoric like “standing up to the Washington Bureaucracy,” and “Begich has fought to cut wasteful spending and government red tape,” revealing the extent to which frustration with Congress is influencing many Democrats’ campaign strategies. His ads also focus on his father, his family history in the state, oil drilling successes, and anti-Koch brother sentiment.

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Trump: Politicians ‘All Bull—-, All Talk’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Billionaire Donald Trump framed himself as a job-creating anti-politician in a preview of his potential 2016 presidential pitch to a crowd of conservatives in New Hampshire Saturday.

Speaking at the New Hampshire Freedom Summit, a gathering of conservative activists and figures organized by Americans for Prosperity and Citizens United, Trump told the crowd that “we need somebody who’s gonna get things done, and politicians are all talk and no action.”

“All talk, it’s all bull—-,” he added. “It’s all talk, and it’s no action.”

In contrast, he touted his work improving an ice-skating rink in New York City’s Central Park and defended himself against what he said were erroneous reports that he had filed for bankruptcy. He also told the crowd that America needs “somebody that’s going to make the great deals for this country.”

“We need to make our country rich again,” Trump said.

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White House: Nah, We Don’t Want to Meet With Victims of Fort Hood

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford was shot 7 times by Nidal Hasan in the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood. He and other survivors wanted to have a conversation with President Obama presumably to let him know firsthand of their experience with violence at the military base.

Speaking to a victim of a tragedy in order to better understand how it could have been prevented with some more common sense solutions seems like something the president would be interested in, right?

Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough wrote: “We forwarded your letter to the Departments of Justice and Defense, who are leading the government’s efforts to ensure the victims of the 2009 shooting receive the justice and benefits they deserve. Unfortunately, we were unable to meet your specific request for a meeting with the president.”


ABC US News | ABC Business News

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Comrade Carney And The Case Of The Disembodied Digit

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Photos from the home of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney that accompany a Washingtonian magazine puff piece this week have caused a bit of a stir online after enterprising reporters and bloggers had a closer look. Take a look at the first one:

jaycarne1

First of all, what kind of family are they feeding there? That’s enough food for a small platoon. I see three people in that picture. Three people evidently preparing to go into hibernation.

But secondly, and more interestingly, check out the posters in the background.

posters

Yes, as reported by Business Insider, those are old Soviet propaganda posters. One of the posters encourages men to join the Soviet army, and the other encourages women to take the jobs vacated by the men who have joined the Soviet army…

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At the Core — Human Nature vs. the Test

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Photo Credit: Newscom

Photo Credit: Newscom

Common Core – the phrase sets off a mental picture of a multitude of hungry mouths all trying to nibble off of a shriveled apple, nothing much left but cellulose and seeds. Unfortunately, that’s an apt description. I am, like all conservatives, and like many educators, appalled and concerned about this new wrinkle in our rumpled educational wardrobe. I’m concerned about its uniformity, when our pupils, our communities, our cultures are so diverse. I’m concerned about the secretive, manipulative manner in which this was developed and dispersed. I’m annoyed to see commercials trying to sell it like it was a new brand of toothpaste. I’m scared of the probability of our schools being used even more heavily as bastions of propaganda. But my main concern is that it is based on a demonstrably faulty assumption – that you can change student learning from the top down. You can’t.

This program is entirely test-driven. Now, who can argue against “standards” — the current terminology? Is it not true that we should be able to tell whether or not schools are doing their job? Of course, but no one says clearly what that job is, so the test itself becomes the definition:

What is an educated person?

One who can pass the test.

What’s in the test?

Whatever can be tested.Therefore anything that can’t be measured on a multiple-choice bubble sheet, isn’t education. Ta dum!

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Marines, Army Prepare Women for Combat

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Photo Credit: Marines / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Marines / Creative Commons

The military is taking steps to prepare women for combat roles in 2016.

The Marine Corps announced that it would give young female lieutenants who wash out of the grueling Infantry Officer Course a second shot, same as their male counterparts.

The Army is conducting a study to test just how fit a soldier has to be to engage in combat. The study involves 60 women and 100 men.

CBS News reported on both developments last week.

The Marine Corps announcement came after Marine 2nd Lt. Sage Santangelo took the Infantry Officer Court and wrote about her experience last month in an op-ed in The Washington Post. She didn’t make it past the first day and blamed the Marine Corps for a dual standard that sets up women to flunk the course.

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