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November 2016

Winning the Cyber-War Under Trump By Rachel Ehrenfeld

An overflowing plate of urgently needed new policies to act upon will be waiting on President Donald J. Trump’s desk when he takes office on January 20, 2017. Few are as pressing as the need to lead a new national effort for strengthening our cyber-infrastructure resilience and toughening timing and location infrastructure.

President-elect Trump must make this a national priority and issue his new policy now. He should appoint a central authority that would report directly to him. It should direct, oversee and unite all U.S. efforts to develop, build and use new resilient capabilities and devices that would recognize the dependency of the cyber-infrastructure on accurate timing and location data delivered by the GPS. The Obama Administration’s mostly failed efforts focused on cyber, but paid little if any attention to timing and location services that are necessary for undisrupted cyber-activity.

We must now ensure that policies and definitions of cyber include timing and location services such as GPS. Such definition would help to coordinate the efforts to increase resiliency capabilities that could mitigate harmful effects to our cyber-infrastructure, and the ability to respond to them.

The Trump cyberspace security policy should look beyond just “space-based” assets and GPS. It should be looking at the larger cyber-infrastructure. It should be responsible for developing more resilient devices with access to multiple alternative sources for our nation’s cyber-infrastructure, which is dependent on GPS (Global Positioning System) for precise time and location-based services.

The growing dependency on wireless technology and services and lack of adequate security have led to an escalation in cyber-attacks. Substantial segments of the U.S. economy have already been harmed. State- sponsored hackers, as well as lone actors, were able to steal millions of documents detailing the country’s most critical national security and business secrets. Others have stolen untold amounts of money and disrupted out financial markets activities.

It seems that the rapid pace at which cyber-related architectures and wireless technologies are evolving have apparently presented an insurmountable barrier to most of our technologically challenged policymakers. During his two terms President Obama issued some executive orders on critical infrastructure and cyber-security.m But lacking direction, the executive branch, and its agencies have failed to secure the nation’s cyber-infrastructure. The czars and advisors he appointed to oversee different elements of cyber-security failed because of lack of leadership to coordinate the efforts. Thus the nation’s cyberspace security became increasingly vulnerable.

Only after Wikileaks began releasing the email correspondence between Hillary Clinton and her supporters, which were conducted on her private non-secure server, did Obama issue Presidential Policy Directive 41. Called the United States Cyber Incident Coordination, the directive put the FBI in charge of responding to all cyber-threats. This was necessary, said his homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, “because it’s not always clear whether those responsible for a hacking incident are other countries, terrorists or criminals.” The new directive identified the responsible federal agencies, to “help answer a question heard too often from corporations and citizens alike: In the wake of an attack, who do I call for help?” Ms. Monaco noted that “other agencies will also have significant roles in helping to prevent and mitigate the effect of cyber-intrusions.” These include the Department of Homeland Security and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center. But this will do little to undo the huge damage that was already done to the U.S. economy, military, and its national security.

A cyber-attack or worse, activating an electromagnetic weapon (EMP), by exploding a nuclear device in the atmosphere above parts of the U.S., as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich described, “would totally devastate our entire electrical grid and cyber-communication networks and disable our critical infrastructure. Such an event would destroy our complex, delicate, high-tech society in an instant and throw all of our lives back to an existence equal to that of the Middle Ages. Millions would die in the first week one.” This very real threat of an EMP attack on the U.S. has been debated in Congress, discussed in the media and featured in film. Yet, the Obama Administration failed to prepare adequate measures to mitigate the threat.

To better protect our economy, society, and government, we must immediately expand the current policies into a broader “position, navigation and timing” policy with a central authority and holistic approach for:

(1) overseeing, managing, and prioritizing U.S. efforts, (2) centralizing all research and development of location services, and timing solutions and technology, (3) gathering, maintaining, and adapting, in near real-time, civil user-defined requirements, (4) clearly delineating between government and private sector capabilities and responsibilities for provisioning, (5) clearly placing all forms of harmful interference, data manipulation, equipment vulnerabilities, and capability disruption(s) into the cyber-response planning framework, and (6) leveraging cyber-reporting to include GPS and other forms interference and disruptions.

Legal Foundation Calls on DOJ Civil Rights Div. to Prosecute Mob Attack on Chicago Trump Voter By Debra Heine

A public interest law firm is calling on the Obama Justice Department to prosecute the brutal mob attack against a voter in Chicago, Illinois, on November 8, as a voting rights violation.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group dedicated to election integrity, sent letters to two sections in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division calling for an investigation into the attack as a violation of Section 11 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As reported here at PJ Media, disturbing video footage emerged online last week that shows 49-year-old David Wilcox being beaten and kicked by black thugs as a mob cheered them on. Onlookers cried “he voted for Trump!” “beat his ass!” and “don’t vote Trump!” while Wilcox was getting pummeled and as one of the individuals rooted around the driver’s side of his car.

According to the Public Interest Legal Foundation:

One letter was sent to Chris Herren, the chief of the Voting Section of the Department of Justice. It called for an investigation into the attack as a violation of Section 11 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a law that prohibits intimidation of those who voted for voting. A second letter was sent to Paige Fitzgerald, acting chief of the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division. That letter calls for federal civil rights prosecutions of the perpetrators. Federal law (18 USC 241) prohibits violence against individuals for exercising federal rights. Another statute (18 USC 245) prohibits intimidation or violence against voters for voting.

One letter states, “As you may know, numerous incidents have occurred over the last seven years in circumstances with striking similarities to the incident in Chicago. Yet your Section took no action whatsoever. It is reasonable to conclude, and it is the view of many Americans, that your office has different standards for enforcing the law depending on the nature of the victim and the nature of the perpetrators.”

“The right to participate in an election without fear of being beaten by a mob is one of the most fundamental civil rights,” said J. Christian Adams, President of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. “Americans should not have to fear political violence because they voted for Donald Trump, and this Justice Department needs to start enforcing the law no matter who the victim is.” Adams continued, “elections are free only if they are free from violence.”

Wilcox told the Chicago Tribune that the incident began when a black sedan grazed his vehicle. When he got out to ask for insurance, onlookers taunted him for voting for Trump, which he defended:

The African American at the bus stop said, “yeah, that’s one of those white boy Trump supporters.” And I said, what does that have to do with this accident? I just want to exchange insurance …The next thing I know, the guy said, “don’t worry about it because we’re going to beat his ass.” And then punches were thrown. And the next thing I know, I have five people on me, I fell to the ground, I was kicked in the head … They were in my car stealing all my stuff … I tried going to the car, I got hit some more.

Palestinians: The Message Remains No and No by Khaled Abu Toameh

The position of the two Palestinian leaders, Arafat and Abbas, is deeply rooted in the Palestinian tradition and culture, in which any compromise with Israel is considered an act of high treason. Abbas knows that concessions on his part would result in being spat upon by his people — or killed.

Hence the PA president has in recent years avoided even the pretense of negotiations with Israel, and instead has poured his energies into strong-arming the international community to impose a solution on Israel.

The French would do well to abandon their plan for convening an international conference on peace in the Middle East.

Declaring a Palestinian state in the Security Council only makes them look as if their actual goal is to destroy Israel — and they know it. They would be fooling no one.

Many in Europe, particularly France, seem be aching to do just that — as a “present” to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to show how submissive they can be; to encourage more “business” with Muslim states, and, they might hope, to deter more terrorist attacks.

Actually, if the members of the UN Security Council declare a Palestinian state unilaterally, they are encouraging more terrorist attacks: the terrorists will see that attacks “work” and embark on more of them to help the jihadi takeover of Europe go even faster.

Last week, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas tipped his hand concerning his ultimatum on any revival of the peace process with Israel.

“I’m 81 years old and I’m not going to end my life drooping, making concessions or selling out.”

Turkey Targets Oldest Syriac Orthodox Monastery by Robert Jones

“The Turkish state attacks this sacred site to abuse Assyrians and indirectly convey this message: ‘You will either live as I want you to live or you will leave these lands.” — Tuma Celik, the Turkey representative of the European Syriac Union (ESU) and the editor-in-chief of the Assyrian monthly newspaper, Sabro.

“Latin Catholic churches still have neither a legal personality nor foundation status, making it impossible for them to register property or seek restitution.” — European Commission 2016 Turkey Progress Report.

Muslim extremists often try to blame the violent or repressive acts against non-Muslims on “Muslim grievances.” They claim that because of the “pain” or alleged “injustices,” they are exposed to, they kill or attack other people.

Why do many Muslim extremists often demand more privileges in the West — such as Islamic sharia law courts — but never give indigenous non-Muslims equal rights in their own countries?

If their violence is only for “self-defense,” why are they attacking, enslaving and persecuting the communities that are on the verge of extinction?

And why is the Turkish government attempting to build mosques across five continents while it relentlessly persecutes Christians who have been there for centuries — long before Turks even arrived in the region from the Central Asia?

The European Commission has recently issued its 2016 Turkey Progress Report, which contains serious criticism of the country’s increasingly grave human rights record.

One of the issues that the report has brought to light is the problem that Assyrians (or Syriacs) in Turkey face as a religious minority, such as property rights for the oldest surviving Syriac Orthodox monastery in the world: Mor Gabriel (the monastery of St. Gabriel), located in Mardin province, in southeastern Turkey.

JAIL HOUSE ROCK: EDWARD CLINE

Perhaps they’re already packing their golden parachutes to bail out and ensure themselves a soft landing in the rocky terrain of the real world: Loretta Lynch, the purchasable Attorney General, and FBI Director James Comey, the less-than-puissant fellow who couldn’t make up his mind if Hillary was made for prison stripes or not. They certainly are not going to be in a Trump administration.

During one of the presidential debates, Donald Trump told Clinton “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation…” He then added, “because you’d be in jail.” Hillary countered that she was glad someone like him wasn’t in charge of the laws in the United States.

The “situation” is that, among her other crimes, she was found eminently indictable for having endangered the nation’s security by operating a hackable, freelance server over which she passed and received documents relating to her office as Secretary of State, many marked “confidential” and “secret,” in complete contravention of the rules of the office. FBI Director Comey, however, buggered out of the responsibility for asking the Department of Justice for a warrant. And then:

In late October, Rudy Giuliani, a Donald Trump surrogate and advisor, told Martha MacCallum of Fox News that “a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next two days” was coming from the Trump campaign.[] Giuliani later explained he did not have insider FBI information. Later confirmed by a second law enforcement source, an unnamed government source told Fox News that the email metadata on the computer in question contained “positive hits for state.gov and HRC emails,” however, at the time Comey sent his letter to Congress, the FBI had still not obtained a warrant to review any of the e-mails in question and was not aware of the content of any of the e-mails in question.

On October 28, 2016, less than two weeks before the presidential election, Comey announced in a letter to Congress that the FBI learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s email server and the FBI will take steps to allow investigators to review these emails “to determine whether they contain classified information as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” Director Comey stated in the letter that he was writing the letter to “supplement his previous testimony” before Congress

Harlem Gives President Trump a Chance The black community isn’t despondent or angry. ‘If Trump can go in there and shake things up,’ one man says, ‘I’d like that.’ By Jason L. Riley

This may come as a shock to the political left, but not everyone who opposed Donald Trump is as angry or despondent as the demonstrators who grabbed headlines nationwide over the past week or the pundits who intellectualized the Democratic hissy fit.

On Monday I took a stroll around New York City’s Harlem neighborhood and asked a couple of dozen black residents to respond to the election and subsequent protests. I didn’t come across any Trump voters—or at least any who admitted it—but many told me they had expected Hillary Clinton’s defeat. No one thought it was the end of the world.

“Hillary wasn’t strong enough. She didn’t fight enough,” said a gentleman leaving a drugstore, who introduced himself as Pace. “People saw her as weak and thought she’d be weak in the White House.” He also faulted Mrs. Clinton’s message. “She was talking about what she did in other countries as secretary of state. I can understand the situation around the world, but we live here.” Mr. Trump, in contrast, “was talking about the people who live here—the poor, the veterans.”

When I asked Pace, who retired from a job in dress manufacturing several years ago, if he thought Mr. Trump would ever win him over, he responded: “He said he’d protect Medicare. I can go along with that. He said he’d get rid of the Bloods and the Crips and the gangs—get them out of here. I like that. If he does those two things, he’s my man.”

At a nearby hair salon, the proprietor, a 30-something West African woman who asked me not to use her name, said Mrs. Clinton lost because the country “didn’t want a female president, wasn’t ready for it.” Still, she’s optimistic about a Trump administration. “I think things will be different in a good way. He might surprise us. I don’t think he’s a bad person. It’s just the way he talks. He was real and people like that. I don’t think he’ll do the really crazy things like deporting everybody.”

Derrick, an off-duty police officer, told me that he considers Mr. Trump a con artist who tricked people into voting for him and won’t come through, especially on his promise to bring back manufacturing jobs. “But I’ll give him this,” he said. “She was not talking about securing this country, and that’s what he was talking about. People are watching people get blown up by these terrorists, and they’re scared, and she was talking about an open border. She didn’t emphasize scrutinizing the people who are coming in, and he did.”

Outside a storefront church on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, Bishop Gibson sat staring at his smartphone. He was eager to get some things off his chest when I approached. “First, it doesn’t bother me a bit if Trump is in there or not,” he said. “I don’t lose a minute’s sleep. My president is Jesus.” The bishop told me that some of his congregants were concerned about what the new president would do, but not enough to be demonstrating in the streets. “I don’t understand. You’re protesting, you’re rioting, but did you vote? Some did, but a lot didn’t.”

Bishop Gibson said Mr. Trump’s “law and order” message resonated with Harlemites but that ultimately “the president can’t do much about crime.” It has to start with the communities—churches, families and fathers in particular, he said.

Green Elites, Trumped The planet will benefit if the climate movement is purged of its rottenness. By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

Hysterical, in both senses of the word, is the reaction of greens like Paul Krugman and the Sierra Club to last week’s election. “The planet is in danger,” fretted Tom Steyer, the California hedge funder who spends his billions trying to be popular with green voters.

Uh huh. In fact, the climate will be the last indicator to notice any transition from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. That’s because—as climate warriors were only too happy to point out until a week ago—Mr. Obama’s own commitments weren’t going to make any noticeable dent in a putative CO2 problem.

At most, Mr. Trump’s election will mean solar and wind have to compete more on their merits. So what?

He wants to lift the Obama war on coal—but he won’t stop the epochal replacement of coal by cheap natural gas, with half the greenhouse emissions per BTU.

He probably won’t even try to repeal an egregious taxpayer-funded rebate for wind and solar projects, because red states like this gimme too. But Republican state governments will continue to wind back subsidies that ordinary ratepayers pay through their electric bills so upscale homeowners can indulge themselves with solar.

Even so, the price of solar technology will continue to drop; the lithium-ion revolution will continue to drive efficiency gains in batteries.

Mr. Trump wants to spend on infrastructure, and the federal research establishment, a hotbed of battery enthusiasts, likely will benefit.

In a deregulatory mood, he might well pick up an uncharacteristically useful initiative from the Obama administration. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission quietly is revisiting a scientifically dubious radiation risk standard that drives up the cost of nuclear power. CONTINUE AT SITE

American cry babies : Ruthie Blum

Since last Wednesday, when Donald Trump was officially declared the winner of the U.S. presidential election, college professors across the country have been excusing their students from classes and exams to engage in a form of collective mourning not seen since the bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Psychological services were immediately made available to those young adults, who were old enough to vote for Hillary Clinton but too fragile to accept the victory of a candidate not to their liking.

No wonder these infants in adult bodies — the best and the brightest of the land of the free, whose mommies and daddies are forking out obscene sums for their higher education — had the nerve to take to social media and equate 11/9 with 9/11.

Not all students opted to stay home or stage protests with signs reading “Trump is not my president.” Some actually turned up on campus, to be coddled and embraced by like-minded teachers and administrators concerned for their mutual well-being. Tufts University in Massachusetts, for example, made an arts and crafts center available to students they thought might fare better with finger-painting than with a lecture on the Constitution and Founding Fathers.

The University of Kansas provided therapy dogs for the bereaved campus community. You know, the kind of canines that serve the war-wounded and shell-shocked who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and watched their fellow soldiers being blown to bits, while their peers back home were safe and sound in the halls of Harvard, dissecting the literary works of Bob Dylan.

To make the process of infantilization complete, the University of Michigan offered its devastated students Play-Doh, crayons and coloring books. Perhaps the instructors handing out the clay assuaged the fears of the poor darlings, who reportedly have been running out to stock up on birth control before Trump’s inauguration in January. But, given their behavior, they should probably be hoarding diapers for themselves instead.

SEE VIDEO OF SEN. TOM COTTON ON TRUMP’S PLEDGE TO DUMP THE IRAN DEAL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL73Mh8gb-8

Post-Trump Dispatches from Planet New York Times The Times parodies itself. By Heather Wilhelm

Over the final few weeks of his presidential campaign, at rallies all over the country, President-elect Donald Trump took up a new slogan: “Drain the swamp!” His audience, presumably tired of insider shenanigans from Washington, D.C., ate it up. They chanted the phrase in unison, cheering with relish.

There’s a good reason for this: Most normal, well-adjusted non-Beltway Americans harbor a vigorous and healthy disdain for Washington, D.C. As any well-intentioned visitor to our nation’s capital can tell you, the sights are indeed grand, and the history is inspiring. But sadly, between the trips to the Smithsonian and the National Gallery, one begins to grow rightly suspicious when passing countless upscale bars filled with sometimes-smug 28-year-olds getting hammered on $16 cocktails that were purchased, either directly or indirectly, with your own hard-earned tax dollars.

For most Americans, in other words, a glitzy Washington, D.C., is not a healthy Washington, D.C. A gleaming, prosperous industry town usually makes for a cheerful sight, but not when that “industry” revolves around taking other people’s money — truly mind-boggling amounts of money! — and transforming it into subsidized incompetence, black-hole accounting, and a leading export of sanctimony.

Ah, but never fear. The New York Times sees things differently from flyover America, as it tends to do. After a flurry of post-election stories bemoaning the various potential downsides of President Trump — some legitimate, some not — the storied Gray Lady decided to run with this doozy: “A Newly Vibrant Washington Fears That Trump Will Drain Its Culture.”

One could write a doctoral thesis regarding the multiple-layered ironies within this headline, or merely stare at it and marvel for days. As a bonus, it ran just one day after an equally spectacular headline: “Is Fashion’s Love Affair with Washington Over?” This piece, showing extra chutzpah, earnestly praised Hillary Clinton’s purple and black concession-speech pantsuit, which resembled the getup of a fancy comic-book villain, as “the end of what might have been an extraordinary relationship” between style and our nation’s capital. Okay.

This tone-deaf bonanza should come as no surprise, of course. In the election’s wake, even Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the Times, noted that the paper was profoundly out of touch. “We’ve got to do a much better job of being on the road, out in the country, talking to different kinds of people than we talk to,” he said, “and remind ourselves that New York is not the real world.”

Well, folks, apparently neither is Washington, D.C. Once a staid, boring town plagued by a general sense of malaise, the nation’s capital, at least according to the Times, is now a progressive wonderland. “The administrations of two Bushes and a Clinton in between hardly had an effect on the city,” but thanks to the arrival of the Obamas, the city has undergone “an urban renaissance.”

According to former D.C. mayor Vincent Gray, Obama and his family “brought a level of dynamism that just wasn’t there before.” Among these reported wonders, we read, are SoulCycle, thriving independent bookstores that sell terrible Jonathan Franzen novels, and a bevy of happening 14th Street bars frequented by Obama staffers, with “their barhopping chronicled in the gossip pages.” (Side note: This last item is one of the reasons that the rest of America loves to hate D.C.)