The USA's FBI was embarrassed by Apple.

April 9, 2016

The federal court fight between (click here) Apple and the FBI over iPhone encryption might be on hold for a while, but that doesn't mean each side isn't still trying to make it appear that its stand is the right one. The latest salvo was delivered by FBI Director James Comey.

"We are all people trying to do the right thing," Comey said April 6, concluding a speech at the Kenyon Center for the Study of American Democracy at Kenyon College. (Side note: Comey's son attends school there.)...

Where are the monies awarded to developers to come up with a unique hardware and software that will bring about better security for the government?

Where is the money? Where is the technology? It should have been done long ago before trillions were spent on a worthless jet fighter called the F-35 Strike Fighter that can't even protect its pilot, yet alone a country.

Ah, but, oops is so much more profitable.

Where is a Congress that actually cares about the country rather than their personal politics?

I am sure Director Comey can provide the needed wish list to Congress. 

THIS IS NOT A JOKE. THE COUNTRY HEARS MORE ABOUT EMAILS THAN THEY HEAR ABOUT THE DEFUNCT F-35 PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

August 24, 2016
By Anthony Capaccio

A week after the Air Force (click here) declared its version of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet ready for limited combat operations, the Pentagon’s top tester warned that the U.S. military’s costliest weapons program is still riddled with deficiencies.

We are not going to kill pilots or risk the country's security because Lockheed-Martin's CEO wants a bonus!

“In fact the program is actually not on a path toward success but instead on a path toward failing to deliver” the aircraft’s full capabilities, “for which the Department is paying almost $400 billion by the scheduled end” of its development in 2018, Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s director of operational testing, said in an Aug. 9 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

“Achieving full combat capability with the Joint Strike Fighter is at substantial risk” of not occurring before development is supposed to end and realistic combat testing begins, he said of the F-35....

Chaffetz is practicing politics and is absolutely not concerned about the USA's national security. Absolutely NOTHING has come out of millions of US $$$ being spent on his vigilantism. NOTHING! While the USA's Air Force budget descends into hell over a jet the Chinese played with when they were bored!

Chaffetz is not qualified to rewrite the FBI director's testimony. Millions more $$$ US to be spent on Republican politics.

There is much Congress can do from the testimony of FBI Director Comey, including standardizing the type of hardware providing the best security for government use. 

AGAIN.

This is the first White House to use cyber as a means of conducting government business. There were no regulations providing for the best hardware and software. Congress has the obligation to provide guidance to the security for the federal government. The day President Obama was inaugurated there was a struggle with the national security officials regarding the use of his Blackberry. 

With over seven years of experience regarding the technology and national security, the Congress can pass legislation as a guide to the hardware used by the USA government. As a matter of fact, Congress should provide funding to establish a state of the art technology without going to commercially available telecommunications. After seven years of experience it seems all too obvious the USA needs to develop it's own unique hardware and software to insure the best possible protections for the country.

Bozos coming forward as an expert in such development and only screws it up is a reason to arrest and try for fraud. Any contractor should not be Russian or Chinese nationals.

Chaffetz is an idiot. He didn't know the information he wanted from those subpoenaed to testify was classified? And he should be the one to say what of the Clinton emails is classified or not? I don't think so.

Chairman Comey made testimony and that is all that is needed. Chaffetz is pathetic. When is Colorado going to send real Congresspersons to DC?

September 12, 2016
By Richard Lardner

..."As far as I can tell, (click here) the only 'emergency' is that the election is less than two months away," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., dismissing the "emergency" hearing late on a Monday.
Chaffetz issued the subpoena to Jason Herring, the acting assistant director for congressional affairs. Herring and six other Obama administration officials appeared before the committee to discuss the investigative files. The witnesses on several occasions said they could not answer the questions from lawmakers in an open forum.

The committee later voted to hold the remainder of the hearing in closed session....

Trump is chasing one voter at a time. Extremists welcome.

February 13, 2016

By Asher Schechter

While we were all distracted by Hillary Clinton’s health, (click here) the Trump campaign said something about Israel and the Palestinians that should have us all very worried....

...Leave it to Trump’s camp to endorse an incendiary, nonsensical piece of demagoguery, and then double down on it with shockingly farcical Nazi analogies.

This argument is, of course, ludicrous for many reasons, but let’s focus on two: First, it makes no sense. Flawed as it may be, the two-state solution at least has some logic to it. Friedman’s (and by assertion, the Trump campaign’s) vision does not. No one – certainly not Netanyahu and (probably) not Friedman – is suggesting that settlers become Palestinian citizens who pay taxes to Palestine and abide by its laws, as the Palestinians citizens of Israel do. Presumably, settlements should be allowed to function as Israeli enclaves within the hypothetical Palestinian state? How is that supposed to work?

Secondly, it’s preposterous to claim that Palestinian refugees, descendants of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled during Israel’s War of Independence (talk about ethnic cleansing)  bear no connection to Israel (née Palestine), while at the same time standing up for the rights of American-born Jews who became settlers to live in their “ancestral homeland.”

But logic, reason, or factual accuracy matter very little to Trump and his people. The point of their support for Netanyahu’s latest statement wasn’t part of a coherent plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but a clear attempt at pandering to right-wing, pro-Israel voters (including the 60,000 eligible American voters who live in West Bank settlements and whose votes they seek). 

In the last few weeks, Trump’s supporters in Israel have been working very hard to get the GOP nominee a majority of Israel’s 200,000-plus eligible American votes. In the last month alone the Israeli pro-Trump campaign opened four campaign offices across Israel, including one in a West Bank settlement – a first for a U.S. presidential nominee. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign and its Israeli supporters have been ramping up the pro-settlement rhetoric.

It’s classic Trump behavior: entice the far-right crowd by espousing the most incendiary rhetoric imaginable (“Judenrein” as Israel-Palestine’s “Mexicans are rapists”), and then present outlandish fringe ideas as if they were serious and well-thought-out policy plans....              

The family has been called to the former president's bedside. He is in an induced coma after surgery.

It sounds like it was a blood clot after surgery. 

September 14, 2016

By Judith Siegel-Itzkovitch, Geere Fay Cashman and Tovah Lazaroff

News of his falling ill aroused much concern, (click here) with calls from all over the country and the world.

Former president Shimon Peres was in critical condition and fighting for his life at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer after suffering a severe stroke Tuesday night.

The veteran 93 year old politician had just last week undergone placement of a cardiac pacemaker at the hospital and was discharged in good condition. He returned to the hospital for a checkup, but suddenly, suffered a stroke....

Wind energy is a benefit for every citizen in Iowa.

Iowa leads the country in wind energy with bipartisan support in their legislator. It is shameful the entire southeast has ignored winds benefits. Shameful! The regressive political paradigm of the southeast has to end!

September 8, 2016

A $3.6 billion wind energy project (click here) recently approved by the Iowa Utilities Board is just one more example of the real benefits federal wind production tax credits are bringing to Iowa.

Not only will Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy’s Wind XI farm be the largest renewable energy project in the state to date, company officials expect it to be fully funded by the credits, which Congress extended last year after considerable debate.

Another $1 billion wind project proposed by Alliant Energy also would reap the benefits of the credits, should the Iowa Utilities Board approve it.

But the real winners are Iowans who already benefit from a large share of low-cost electricity generated by wind power — 31 percent at last count, more than any other state can boast. And we can credit around 7,000 jobs in our state to wind and affiliated industries, according to State Economic Development Director Debi Durham.

Research at our universities supports and enhances the industry, and educational trade programs prepare technicians to care for the sky-high machines.

Landowners directly benefit from the extra income turbines provide, and counties reap the rewards of additional property taxes.

In short, wind is good for Iowa and for the country’s energy future....

A Tea Party Republican is running as a Democrat?

I hope the DNC is not planning to spend money on this election.

September 12, 2016

By Jennifer Fitch

Chambersburg, Pa. — Four Franklin County (Pa.) Republican Committee members, (click here) including the vice chairman, resigned their positions Monday, reflecting the party divide related to Pennsylvania's 9th Congressional District race.

Tea-party backed Art Halvorson is running as the Democratic nominee to unseat eight-term incumbent Bill Shuster in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Both candidates are registered Republicans who squared off in the primary election. Shuster obtained the most votes in his own party, but Halvorson won enough write-in votes from Democrats to appear as the Democratic nominee on ballots Nov. 8 in the 12-county district....                  

Wall Street is a direct threat to human longevity.

Add to the chemical profile, greenhouse gases!

September 12, 2016
By Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH

Industry-sponsored nutrition research, (click here) like that of research sponsored by the tobacco, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries, almost invariably produces results that confirm the benefits or lack of harm of the sponsor’s products, even when independently sponsored research comes to opposite conclusions. Although considerable evidence demonstrates that those industries deliberately influenced the design, results, and interpretation of the studies they paid for, much less is known about the influence of food-company sponsorship on nutrition research. Typically, the disclosure statements of sponsored nutrition studies state that the funder had no role in their design, conduct, interpretation, writing, or publication. Without a “smoking gun” it is difficult to prove otherwise.

In this issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, Kearns and colleagues report on having found a smoking gun. From a deep dive into archival documents from the 1950s and 1960s, they have produced compelling evidence that a sugar trade association not only paid for but also initiated and influenced research expressly to exonerate sugar as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD). Although studies at that time indicated a relationship between high-sugar diets and CHD risk, the sugar association preferred scientists and policymakers to focus on the role of dietary fat and cholesterol. The association paid the equivalent of more than $48 000 in today’s dollars to 3 nutrition professors—at Harvard no less—to publish a research review that would refute evidence linking sugars to CHD.

The sponsored review appeared in 2 parts in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967. Its authors acknowledged support from the industry-funded Nutrition Foundation, but they did not mention the sugar association’s specific funding of their review. Their first article demonstrates a close correlation between sugar and fat “consumption” (actually amounts in the food supply) and mortality in 14 countries (Figure). To minimize the association with sugar, the authors seem to have cherry-picked existing data. Despite their having previously published studies linking both fats and sugars to CHD risk, their review gave far more credence to studies implicating saturated fat than it did to those implicating sugars....

Close Epidemiological Correlations Between Sugar and Saturated Fat “Consumption” and Mortality in 14 Countries


Investors and stockholders should be held responsible for profits at any cost. In addition, class action lawsuits are needed.

These are human rights abuses no differently than weather related deaths with the climate crisis. 

Local economies win the USA's steadfast growth and income increases.

Americans cannot afford to change horses in midstream, we have to complete our work.

September 13, 2016

By Don Lee

Steady job growth (click here) and the biggest earnings boost on record helped sharply lower the nation's poverty level last year and finally provided relief to the long-running problem of stagnant incomes.

In its annual report on income and poverty, the Census Bureau said Tuesday that the share of people in the U.S. living in poverty dropped to 13.5% in 2015, marking one of the biggest annual declines in decades.

That was down from 14.8% in the prior year, but still considerably higher than the 12.3% poverty rate in 2006, the year before the Great Recession began, and the 40-year low of 11.3% in the year 2000....

We, as a country, have come a long way from the global economic collapse of 2008. We need to finish the job.

2015 Income and poverty census report (click here)

There are definitely Republicans that benefit at the election box by racists and bigots. I am quite sure Mr. Pence has benefited from his two faced statements.

Pence will not denounce the KKK. In the 1920s the KKK ruled the government in Indiana. There is still an element in Indiana that while not organized into a political party still brings brevity to the Indiana Republican party.

The Republican Party caters to racist as an electorate base. Indiana has a denser population than other states.

It is notable that Donald Trump's attacks on Hillary Clinton increased the gap to Libertarian candidate Governor Gary Johnson. He may not have the 15 percent for the debates.

September 13, 2016
By Theodore Schleifer

Washington - Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence (click here) blasted Hillary Clinton Monday for her comment referring to "half" of Donald Trump's supporters as belonging to a "basket of deplorables."
But Pence declined to categorize Trump backer -- and white nationalist -- David Duke as "deplorable."

Exactly. Why call a bigot a bigot when the elect box of the Republican Party is served by bigots?

"I'm not in the name-calling business," Pence told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, while at the same time repeating Trump's disavowal of Duke's support.

"We don't want his support and we don't want the support of the people who think like him," he said.

Clinton jumped on Pence's response, tweeting: "If you won't say the KKK is deplorable, you have no business running the country."

It is very easy to concentrate comments on David Duke, he could not care less about the insults. He knows the personal attacks on him deflects insults on the electorate of bigots and racists. The answer from the Trump camp that they denounce David Duke as deplorable is easy to do, but, they never ever call racists and bigots deplorable and risk their support at the ballot box. 

Are all the confederate flags removed from the American landscape, except for museums?

The political density is still there to tap by Republicans.

July 31, 2016

Charleston, SC The South Carolina Secessionist Party (click here) is making plans for something it’s calling “Operation Retaliation.”

The Post and Courier of Charleston reported Sunday that Chairman James Bessenger says the party is looking for help securing large Confederate battle flags that it can display along major interstates and in cities and towns.

Bessenger says his organization is looking for land on which to fly the flags around the state and has gotten several offers.

Earlier this month, several hundred people gathered at a rally and temporarily raised a Confederate flag at the State House. The event marked the one-year anniversary of the day the Confederate battle flag was furled and sent to a museum.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article92980272.html#storylink=cpy