Defense Secretary Hagel to DoD: Furloughs to Last Through At Least Next Year, Will Likely Get Worse

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Photo Credit: APThe audience gasped in surprise and gave a few low whistles as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered the news that furloughs, which have forced a 20 percent pay cut on most of the military’s civilian workforce, probably will continue next year, and it might get worse.

“Those are the facts of life,” Hagel told about 300 Defense Department employees, most of them middle-aged civilians, last week at an Air Force reception hall on a military base in Charleston.

Future layoffs also are possible for the department’s civilian workforce of more than 800,000 employees, Hagel said, if Congress fails to stem the cuts in the next budget year, which starts Oct. 1.

On the heels of the department’s first furlough day, and in three days of visits with members of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, Hagel played the unenviable role of messenger to a frustrated and fearful workforce coping with the inevitability of a spending squeeze at the end of more than a decade of constant and costly war.

The fiscal crunch also lays bare the politically unpopular, if perhaps necessary, need to bring runaway military costs in line with most of the rest of the American public that has struggled economically for years.

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Potential Primary Challenger to McConnell Courting Conservative Groups

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Photo Credit: APKentucky investment executive Matt Bevin has met with some of the nation’s top conservative groups ahead of an expected GOP primary challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, sources told POLITICO.

Bevin, a partner in the Louisville-based hedge fund Waycross Partners, has not publicly confirmed that he will run against McConnell. But an entity dubbed “Matt Bevin for Senate” has reserved airtime in multiple Kentucky TV markets starting this week, and spokespeople for Bevin and McConnell traded on-record barbs last Friday.

In the run-up to his anticipated campaign, Bevin has spoken with leaders of at least three national right-leaning advocacy groups: the widely feared Club for Growth, the Jim DeMint-founded Senate Conservatives Fund and the Madison Project, a small-government group chaired by former Kansas Rep. Jim Ryun.

Those organizations aren’t yet commenting on Bevin, given that he hasn’t declared his campaign.

While the all-but-announced McConnell challenger is believed to be wealthy enough to commit some personal resources to the race, it’s not clear whether he can – or will – fully self-fund a campaign. A key test of his viability may be whether conservative outside groups are willing to give him back-up on the airwaves.

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Marshals Lose Track of Encrypted Radios Worth Millions, Endanger Security of Federal Judges, Witnesses, Others

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Photo Credit: ReutersThe U.S. Marshals Service has lost track of at least 2,000 encrypted two-way radios and other communication devices valued at millions of dollars, according to internal agency documents, creating what some within the agency view as a security risk for federal judges, endangered witnesses and others.

The problem, which stretches back years, was laid out in detail to agency officials at least as early as 2011, when the Marshals were deploying new versions of the radios they use to securely communicate in the field. Agency leaders continued to have difficulty tracking their equipment even after they were warned about the problems by an internal technology office, according to the documents, which were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Some Marshals officials told The Wall Street Journal that besides the wasted money and resources, the inventory problems raise the possibility that criminals could get their hands on radios and listen to them to learn details of security or law-enforcement operations. Such radios are a key communications tool of U.S. Marshals.

USMS spokesman Drew Wade said the agency believes “this issue is in large part attributable to poor record keeping as a result of an older property-management system, as opposed to equipment being lost.”

The Marshals Service guards judges and federal courthouses, and it runs the Witness Security Program, which provides new identities and security to witnesses or their families at risk of being killed. The Marshals also seek to apprehend fugitives.

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Courageous CEO Discloses that the Secret FISA Court Ordered His ISP to Install Black Box to Copy Data

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Photo Credit: FlickrIn the wake of the Snowden revelations, this courageous CEO of a small Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Utah decided to go public with what one of the US’s secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts ordered him to do. The CEO is outraged over this apparent violation of the Bill of Rights. Here’s part of his statement:

[The federal agents] came in and showed me papers. It was a court order from the FISC (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) for the intercept, with the agent’s name… and the court’s information. I think it was three or four pages of text. They wouldn’t let met me copy them. They let me take notes in regards to technical aspects of what they wanted to do…

It was open ended. I called six months into it and said, “How long is this going to go on?” and they said, “I don’t know.” I went on for nine months. If it were still there, I would have probably smashed it by now. There have been no [related] arrests that I have heard of…

These programs that violate the Bill of Rights can continue because people can’t go out and say, “This is my experience, this is what happened to me, and I don’t think it is right”…

We run a Tor node, in some ways as an affirmation of our belief that there are legitimate reasons for being anonymous on the internet. That is where the majority of requests come in from these days. Some illegal traffic comes in through Tor node and we get a federal request through the FBI or DOJ (Department of Justice). I respond to them and say that this is a Tor node [and therefore inaccessible, even to the ISP]; that is usually the end of it. They realize what that is, and it is a dead end.

I am in a little bit of a different situation than large companies. I don’t have a board of directors to answer to. A number of [larger] companies are getting paid for the information. If you go establish a tap on Google’s network, they will charge X amount per month. Usually the government pays it. It isn’t worth it to me to do that kind of wholesale monitoring at any price, and lot of companies disagree with that, because it is a financial issue for them. [They say] if it is worth this much profit, let’s go for it. The return for standing up for people’s constitutional rights and privacy is much greater and more satisfying.

Congressional Black Caucus Now Lining Up Behind Jesse Jackson’s “Boycott Florida for Trayvon” Campaign

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Photo Credit: david_shankboneA number of House Democrats are lining up behind the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s threat for an economic boycott of Florida following the not-guilty verdict in the death of Trayvon Martin.

The lawmakers, all members of the Congressional Black Caucus, are fierce critics of the process that led to George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the fatal shooting last year of the Florida teenager. Exerting pressure on Florida’s economy as Jackson is suggesting, they said, could help overturn the state’s controversial stand-your-ground laws that many contend contributed to the tragedy.

“That’s probably the best strategy, because people understand dollars and cents,” Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) said Friday. “And they understand, if there’s a significant drop-off in revenues – at conventions, at Disney World and Universal Studios – that that will get the attention of the powerful.”

Clay said he’d like to see “a multi-pronged strategy” that includes legislation, “getting laws overturned by courts, as well as an economic boycott.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson echoed that message. The Mississippi Democrat called the verdict “a travesty” that “does not speak well for this country,” and said he would “absolutely” support an economic boycott of the state.

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Protesters Around the Country Call for Fed’s Prosecution of Zimmerman, But Leading Dem Says not so Fast

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Photo Credit: werthmediaProtesters call for federal civil rights lawsuit in Trayvon Martin case

By Elise Viebeck. Protesters around the country on Saturday are calling on the Obama administration to prosecute George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, on civil rights grounds.

The demonstrations come after President Obama downplayed the possibility that Attorney General Eric Holder would take the case, calling it an issue for “state and local” law enforcement.

Martin’s parents were scheduled to lead protests in New York and Miami in partnership with the Reverend Al Sharpton, who said demonstrations would take place in more than 100 U.S. cities.

For days, activists have rallied around the goal of a Justice Department (DOJ) suit against Zimmerman, who was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in Sanford, Fla.

Zimmerman’s attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense, but many have alleged that racial bias was a factor in Martin’s killing. The 17-year-old was unarmed at the time he died. Read more from this story HERE.

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Leading Dem casts doubt on possible DOJ charges against Zimmerman

By Elise Viebeck. A leading House Democrat questioned Friday whether the Justice Department (DOJ) has the evidence to mount a civil rights case against George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of killing an unarmed black teenager in Florida.

Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a television interview that “it seems unlikely” Attorney General Eric Holder would file discrimination charges against Zimmerman…

“I haven’t heard that they could show that there was anything with regard to race involved,” Waxman told C-SPAN’s Newsmakers program.

“There was a boy and this fellow Zimmerman thought he was up to no good and they got into a fight. Read more from this story HERE.

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Whether Feds Prosecute Zimmerman or Not, Little Obama Can Do to Rollback ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws

By Ben Goad and Julian Hattem. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have little if any power to compel states to dial back “stand your ground” laws the two have criticized in the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

While the Justice Department may review the case and could seek civil rights charges against Zimmerman, experts say the federal government has little recourse with the stand your ground laws themselves.

“There’s little the Department of Justice can do,” UCLA law professor Adam Winkler told The Hill.

“States are allowed to have their own criminal laws, including self-defense laws,” Winker said. “DOJ may be able to pursue civil rights charges in individual cases, but it has no authority to overturn state laws.”

The stand your ground laws in two dozen states around the country have come under national scrutiny in the wake of last week’s acquittal of Zimmerman, a volunteer neighborhood watchman, in Martin’s shooting death.
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George Zimmerman and Barack Obama Share Same Disapproval Rating

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Former neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman is viewed favorably by 32 percent of the American public, according to a new Rasmussen poll.

32 percent of American adults view Zimmerman favorably, while 48 percent view him unfavorably, according to the poll.

Zimmerman was acquitted this month in the shooting death of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, but his case remains a lightning rod in the public discourse. Though just 34 percent of the public actually disagreed with Zimmerman’s not-guilty verdict, according to a previous Rasmussen poll, the 29-year old watchman remains a polarizing national figure…

NBA legend Charles Barkley has been one of the few public figures anywhere near Zimmerman’s side during the frenzy, saying, “I agree with the verdict.”

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Sequestration Destroying Naval Readiness

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Photo Credit: APDefense budget cuts have reduced the number of Navy forces that would respond to an emergency in the Persian Gulf and the Western Pacific, the chief of naval operations said.

“A year ago I would tell you we had three [aircraft] carrier strike groups and three amphibious ready groups ready to surge. And if there were a contingency, that we had to take on a large operation, the surge force would be a concern,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert told reporters at the Pentagon…

Until this year, the Navy had maintained two carrier groups in the Gulf. Only one is maintained there now because of spending cuts known as sequestration that will require the Pentagon to trim its spending by $500 billion over the next 10 years.

After sequestration kicked into effect, the Navy withdrew all combat ships from its Southern Command, curtailed training and deployments, halted restoration and modernization projects, and minimized base operations.

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Sen. Ted Cruz: Obama has a “Consistent Disregard for the Bill of Rights”

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Photo Credit: CNNPresident Barack Obama’s suggestion that state “Stand your Ground” laws should be examined after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin could amount to an assault on the right of Americans to own guns, Sen. Ted Cruz said in Iowa Friday.

Speaking after addressing a Republican group, Cruz told reporters he hadn’t yet watched Obama’s remarks. But when asked to respond to Obama’s call for a review of laws in individual states, Cruz responded by saying the president was trampling on constitutionally guaranteed rights.

“It is not surprising that the president uses, it seems, every opportunity that he can to go after our Second Amendment right to bear arms,” the Texas Republican said. “This president and this administration has a consistent disregard for the Bill of Rights.”

For example, Cruz said the Obama administration was violating free speech guarantees by “restricting the rights of our servicemen and women to share their faith and not be gagged,” and that the use of drones raised other constitutional questions.

Obama on Friday made his first public comments about the acquittal of George Zimmerman last week in Martin’s shooting death in 2012.

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Fake Boston Marathon Victim Who Allegedly Received $500K from Victims’ Fund Captured

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Photo Credit: APNew York woman has been caught after using fake hospital records to pose as a Boston Marathon bombing victim with a brain injury and fraudulently collected nearly half a million dollars from the fund for victims.

Audrea Gause, 26, was arrested in her hometown of Troy, New York on Friday on a Massachusetts fugitive warrant charging her with larceny.

Gause submitted a claim to the fund last month, including several pages of false medical records indicating she was treated at hospitals in Boston and in New York for a traumatic brain injury suffered in the bombings, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

She received a $480,000 check from the fund, created to help victims of the April 15 attacks that killed three people and wounded more than 260.

Coakley said the claim alleged that Gause sustained a brain injury from the bombing and experienced long-term memory loss, impaired speech, and loss of some motor function that would require future surgery.

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