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.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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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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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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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Judge Sentences Man To Wear ‘I AM A BULLY’ Sign

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A man accused of harassing a neighbor and her disabled children for the past 15 years sat at a street corner Sunday morning with a sign declaring he’s a bully, a requirement of his sentence.

Municipal Court Judge Gayle Williams-Byers ordered 62-year-old Edmond Aviv to display the sign for five hours Sunday. It says: “I AM A BULLY! I pick on children that are disabled, and I am intolerant of those that are different from myself. My actions do not reflect an appreciation for the diverse South Euclid community that I live in.”

The Northeast Ohio Media Group reported (https://bit.ly/1ieU3sA ) that Aviv arrived at the corner just before 9 a.m., placing the hand-lettered cardboard sign next to him as he sat in a chair. Within a couple of minutes, a passing motorist honked a car horn.

Court records show Aviv pleaded no contest in February to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. His attorney didn’t return a telephone call for comment.

Aviv has feuded with his neighbor Sandra Prugh for the past 15 years, court records show. The most recent case stemmed from Aviv being annoyed at the smell coming from Prugh’s dryer vent when she did laundry, according to court records. In retaliation, Aviv hooked up kerosene to a fan, which blew the smell onto Pugh’s property, the records said.

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News Flash: General Bundy Defeats the FedCoats at Bunkerville!

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Photo Credit: Natural News

Photo Credit: Natural News

History was made today! The People vs. BLM: Liberty defeats govt. tyranny as feds release all cattle at Bundy Ranch

By Mike Adams.

Breaking news: The BLM, now in a full retreat against the Citizens of the United States of America, has announced a stand down and has begun releasing the Bundy family’s cattle from the BLM’s “bovine concentration camps.”

This has just been confirmed by the Bundy family on their Facebook page. Also, here’s a breaking video showing the cattle being released.

A tense standoff had taken place for several hours, where armed citizens of the United States of America — many on horseback — drew a literal line in the sand and refused to back down until BLM released the cattle.

The photo below — one of the most iconic photos of recent American history — shows armed American citizens in a standoff with BLM thugs (in the white SUVs) who engaged in the felony theft of the Bundy family cattle and committed numerous felony assaults on American citizens.

As you can see in the photo, a brigade of armed Americans — many waving American flags — blockaded the road at a strategic roadway point. BLM, a tyrannical police state gang conducting illegal, illegitimate operations, earlier ordered the FAA to ban all civilian flights over the region in an effort to enforce a media blackout (possibly in preparation for an armed assault on the protesters).

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jim Urquhart

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jim Urquhart

Victory for Cliven Bundy, Nevada rancher who challenged feds

By Robby Soave.

Citing safety concerns, federal agents are withdrawing from the Nevada cattle ranch where they had engaged in a week-long showdown with Cliven Bundy, a 67-year-old rancher who claimed the federal government had no right to tax and regulate property his family has owned since 1880.

The Bureau of Land Management had dispatcher agents, helicopters and four-wheelers to remove several hundred of Bundy’s cattle that they claimed were encroaching on federal lands–and may have posed a threat to an endangered tortoise habitat. A BLM spokesperson also claimed that Bundy owed over $1 million dollars in fines that he accrued since the early 1990s.

Bundy and his family challenged BLM’s authority to “manage my ranch out of business,” he said, according to ABC News.

Federal policies had starved out all the other cattle ranchers in the area, and Bundy saw his dispute with BLM as a challenge to destructive federal power.

Read more from this story HERE.

In Case You Missed It…GOP Lawmaker Suggests Eric Holder Should ‘Be In Jail’ — to His Face!

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

By Brendan Bordelon.

…Farenthold’s turn for questions came towards the end of a contentious hearing. The lawmaker explained that he would not exercise his right to question the witness as a protest against Holder’s refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents related to the IRS’ Tea Party targeting investigation.

“I’m committed to maintaining the constitutional balance of power and the authority this branch, this legislative branch, has,” Farenthold said. “And I just don’t think it’s appropriate that Mr. Holder be here.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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eric_holder1177Eric Holder explodes at GOP rep: ‘You don’t want to go there, buddy!’

By Caroline May.

In the midst of questions about the Justice Department’s failure to divulge documents about the Holy Land Foundation terror funding trial, Gohmert made a side comment about how the House of Representatives found Holder in contempt in 2012 for refusing to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal.

“I realize that contempt is not a big deal to our attorney general, but it is important that we have proper oversight,” Gohmert said.

“You don’t want to go there, buddy! You don’t want to go there, okay,” Holder shot back.

Read more from this story HERE.