[Victory Girls] The Washington Post recently wrote a story on the Imran Awan IT scandal plaguing Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Rep. Andre Carson, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. The Post concluded that even though massive amounts of data were accessed and moved around, this entire kerfuffle doesn’t rise to the level of espionage. In other words, Nothing To See Here. Move Along. Oh REALLY?
Sorry Charlie ....errr WaPo! Your long winded attempt to gloss over the facts and realities of what Imran, his wife Hina Alvi, and the rest of that merry band has done might curry favor with the Democrats, but won’t win kudos elsewhere. Especially since the the blame has shifted to pointing the finger at the lax IT security protocols within Congress.
The WaPo ignores the very problematic wire transfers, glosses over the strange equipment purchases, excuses the fact that family members overlapped their job duties against the rules, and completely ignores the fact that $100,000 was sent by a known Hezbollah sympathizer to the Awans. According to the Post, the $283,000 wired to Pakistan was to pay for his father’s funeral! That’s one helluva send off!
Yes, this is definitely more than just a bit of bank fraud.
While the WaPo spins on behalf of it’s Democrat buddies, let’s take a closer look at those massive amounts of data transfer shall we? We are, as reported by Daily Caller’s Luke Rosiak, looking at TERABITS of data! Imran and his crew accessed the House server 5,700 times and funneled tons of data off the server. 5,7000 times! Yet the excuse that the WaPo is helping promote?
#1
A lot of needles could have been hidden in a terabyte sized data haystack that Awan barfed into the congressional it infrastructure.
There could have been infected pictures or documents that exploited subtle vulnerabilities of OS & application software that Awan installed in PCs.
It would be the computer equivalent of a binary weapon. The data and the software would look ok to the casual observer and be harmless until they were brought together.
Also, a LOT of data can be steganographically hidden in a terabyte blob. When the blob was retransmitted to Awan's sensitive stolen data could have been hidden well enough not to trigger any automated security system sniffing outgoing traffic.
The reasonable assumption should be that whatever deep dark secret was stored on these PCs is in the possession of the ISI, the Chinese and the Norks.
[LATimes] In February 2013, Americans watched in horror as a disgruntled former Los Angeles police officer, Christopher Dorner, terrorized Southern California. Over nine days, Dorner killed four people and wounded three others during a mass manhunt.
As police investigated, they wondered why nearby residents weren’t reporting the shots. It turned out that, in an effort to conceal his murders, Dorner was using a silencer, which distorts the sound of gunfire and masks the muzzle flash of a gun. (Silencers do not completely silence gunfire, as some Hollywood movies would have you believe.) In expert hands, say SEAL Team Six, silencers have been used to help covertly take down the likes of Osama bin Laden. But in the hands of criminals, like Christopher Dorner, they pose a serious threat to law enforcement and the communities they serve. Silencers, like everything else government regulated, are not in widespread, or even general use by the criminal class. And as the writer said, the gun shots are not completely silenced. A trained man, which Kops certainly are, will take no more than two shots to locate a sniper using a suppressor. Less for someone in the open.
Now Congress is trying to sneak a measure into an unrelated bill that would make it easier for criminals to obtain this special equipment. The bill, the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act, which will soon be voted on in the House of Representatives, would roll back an 80-year-old law that carefully regulates the sale of silencers.
Shortly after 1930, when 307 law enforcement officers were killed in a single year, Congress passed the National Firearms Act (NFA) to help regulate some of our nation’s most dangerous weapons, including machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. The bill also required gun owners to register their silencers, which has helped keep them in the hands of law-abiding gun owners and out of criminal activity.
The SHARE Act would gut the existing regulatory system, making gun silencers readily available without a background check.
The process for purchasing a silencer is relatively simple. Today, gun owners with a clean criminal record can get a silencer with less paperwork than buying a refrigerator, according to the makers of silencers. Background checks and fees. Not what a free individual should have to go through to possess a firearm accessory.
If passed, the SHARE Act would gut the existing regulatory system, making silencers readily available without a background check through unlicensed sales at gun shows and on the Internet. The NFA should be repealed in its entirety as it is and has been used as a gross violation of civil liberties.
The SHARE Act would also make it harder for civilians and law enforcement to locate active shooters. Silencers degrade the effectiveness of gunshot detection technology that cities including San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego have deployed to reduce violence. When bullets start flying, seconds count. That’s why it’s so important for bystanders and law enforcement to be able to determine where they are coming from. This bill will only make it harder. The writer wants readers to believe that only criminals and evildoers would use suppressors.
Perhaps even worse, the SHARE Act includes language that would allow the transfer of silencers across state lines and their sale to individuals as young as 18. Dealers would not have to report multiple purchases to law enforcement, even though multiple-sale reports are the primary intelligence tool that federal law enforcement uses to identify firearms trafficking organizations. People trafficking in large numbers of firearms crossing state lines are not getting their firearms from gun shops. It is just logic. This is a massive hole in the writer's logic. If I were to get into gun running, the last place I would go for product for resale would be gun shops. I would buy stolen or smuggled firearms for resale.
There are only two groups who will benefit from the deregulation of silencers: those who wish to inflict harm on our communities, and the corporate gun lobby, which stands to make a fortune. Making purchasers of suppressors criminals before a crime has been committed.
Now that President Obama is no longer in office and gun sales have plummeted, gun lobbyists have been forced to look for new ways to generate revenue. With the average silencer costing about $1,000, it’s not hard to see their motives. They’ve even teamed up with Donald Trump Jr. in the hopes that more silencers will help get “little kids into the game.” Yes, he actually said that. This bill isn’t about public safety or sportsmanship; it’s about profit. Uhh. Gun sales have not plummeted. Prices have. I can show my work, too. Also, if gun sales have plummeted, according to the writer, what makes him think suppressor sales would replace them? I always have said that the general public, within six months of this bill being signed into law, will 1) Realize that having a suppressor comes with its own unique problems, and may well not be worth the $1k price tag, and 2) Realize that all the effort expended to deregulate a firearms accessory could have been put to better use deregulating the firearms transfer scheme we have now. I would hate to be a congressman of either party when that happens.
The bill isn’t just bad policy, it’s bad politics, too. A new poll of 2018 voters in California swing districts found that an overwhelming majority — 76%, including 65% of Trump voters — are opposed to deregulating silencers. They are joined by law enforcement officials and gun-safety advocates across the country who believe that deregulating silencers would hurt public safety. A state with the most draconian gun laws inside the borders of the USA.
Although there’s far more gun violence than Americans on either side of the aisle would like, the fate of this bill will be decided by Republicans in places like California. (Republicans in red states will vote in lockstep.) Seven Golden State Republicans currently represent districts won by Hillary Clinton. Voters in those districts don’t share the extreme views of the gun lobby’s leaders. They simply want reasonable policy that makes California communities safer.
In politics, elected officials are often faced with decisions that require them to choose between political expediency and the public interest. This is not one of those times. When it comes to deregulating silencers, the smart thing politically is to do the right thing.
Peter Ambler is executive director of Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun violence prevention organization founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
#2
Silencers are totes quiet, even negative decibals, quieting everything in their vicinity. I know, cuz I saw it on the TeeVee
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/29/2017 7:46 Comments ||
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#3
They aren't silencers. They are suppressors. Only knock down the noise by some 22-30Db. Basically think of wearing ear plugs. Still noisy as fuck for most firearms.
Now, mix a suppressor with a subsonic round, different story. Isn't like Hollystupid where you just get a pppphhhffft. Still makes noise from the shot and the mechanical action of the pistol. But you definitely don't hear it as far. Trade off is power loss so you got to get close and may have to use multiple rounds to drop your target.
[WAPO] In selling President Trump’s tax plan, his aides have resorted to making strikingly misleading statements to defend it.
At the moment, there are few details about the tax plan, only broad strokes. That makes it easier for the administration to make big claims as analysts scramble to try to make sense of the plan’s possible impact. That will be much harder once an actual tax bill is written and the details can be analyzed in depth.
In the meantime, we have a pair of Four-Pinocchio claims that are worth highlighting.
#4
If Trump can get the Economy humming the dogs yapping at his heals will become irrelevant and they all know it. A proper tax plan is a big way towards making that happen.
#5
Under other administrations they'd make noises but actually go along with it as they could then have loop-hole give-aways to donors for another decade or two before they had to repeat again.
[CNN] Fresh off his insurgent candidate's big win in Alabama, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is making clear he is seeking retribution against fellow Republican campaign operatives who work against him.
CNN gets it wrong again. It's not "retribution" it's a President Trump 'road show.' Steve Bannon wasn't fired, he was deployed to the field where he can make the greatest positive impact for the administration.
[DAWN] THE point about the terrorist archetype is that there is no terrorist archetype. In his recent article in these pages (Sept 10), Amir Rana pointed out that Lion of Islam tendencies are common in all segments of society, irrespective of socioeconomic or educational backgrounds.
Now, pundits, babus bureaucrats and media commentators offer multiple explanations for the waves of terrorism in which we are embroiled. There is an assumption that there are political objectives, or ’causes’, involved. These violent killers are the products of poverty, of brainwashing, of fanatical religiosity, of the desire to go to heaven, of hatred for the American presence in Afghanistan, of the injustices done to ’the Moslem world’. And so on and so forth. And, therefore, if only this ... or that ... or the other ... is done, all the violence will end.
For those grasping at such conceptual straws, it is necessary to suggest that, even if everything were to be happily resolved, from Paleostine to Kashmire, and all grievances, real or imagined, removed so that utopias of prosperity are ushered in, these butchers would still find reason to continue plying their gruesome trade. At bottom, these orgies of violence have little to do with ’causes’.
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Posted by: Fred ||
09/29/2017 00:00 ||
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#4
Finally, let us understand that it is not enough to fight set-piece battles in the mountains. The zombies in our cities and villages must be disarmed and deprogrammed and their destroyed humanity restored. Or else they must be eliminated.
[PJMedia] We are living in amazing times, astonishing times, times I wouldn’t have believed possible as little as a year ago.
There is this Jorge Luis Borges story, where the old gods are returning to Earth, but upon their arrival, it is found that they have lost the ability to speak. Instead, when they open their mouths, they caw or roar, or make other bestial sounds. The populace, disgusted, turns away from them and refuses to worship them. I don’t remember precisely (it’s been years since I read them), but I think in the end the "gods" get utterly destroyed.
That’s what’s been happening to the left this last year.
...Part of what led to the dominance of the left in all the "gatekeeping" places, including publishing, the arts, education, and to a large extent government, was two things: their ability to project intelligence and calm; and the ruthlessness to not only not hire anyone who wasn’t a fellow-traveler, but also to kick out everyone who disagreed with them as soon as they could.
The second led to, by a ruthless and slow process, getting rid of everyone who wasn’t first at least social-democrat, then socialist, and finally outright communist from most of the fields the left captured. (And if one is to believe Robert A. Heinlein, the process was completed with the Democratic Party back in the forties.)
The first led to their holding that power, because not only did they have control of the mass media, and really, all forms of cultural communication, but they could project the calm and gentle impression of being the sane ones.
...Which is how we've come to where we’re now, with the left in control of all the cultural high ground and being able to declare, at will, that so and so is excommunicated or unworthy.
...And then this amazing thing happened (try this one easy trick!) -- something we’d predicted much earlier, and which frankly we’d despaired would come to pass: for whatever reason, the left’s dominance of the heights of culture failed them in a national election.
Perhaps it was that Donald Trump is such a dark horse; perhaps it is that Hillary Clinton is such an unappetizing, corrupt candidate; perhaps it was the new media dominance revealing the crazy face of the left; perhaps it was the fact that the left had decided to fight the strangest battles, such as who got to pee where; perhaps it was a combination of all of these.
All I know is that the minute Donald Trump was elected, the left lost whatever shred of sanity that had let them hold on to "normal appearing" speech and attitudes.
...Who would have thought the election of a rather conventional, traditional NYC Democrat could achieve this?
In one year they’ve destroyed much of what took them close to a hundred years to achieve.
They still look ‐ with a few exceptions ‐ like American upper-class, polished, well-mannered individuals. But the things that come out of their mouths cannot in any way be mistaken for "normal."
The "old gods" have returned. But they’ve forgotten human speech. And the humans are noticing. Their speech still sounds normal to themselves. They have no clue what comes next.
[Right Scoop] Well that escalated quickly. Now we have entire schools being suspended for protesting.
Now, in this case, they didn’t protest during the national anthem, they did it afterward.
But the school ain’t messin’ around:
When a group of students from Victory Preparatory Academy in Commerce City sat for their school’s pledge, administrators reportedly made the call to send all high school students home for the day.
School officials confirmed Thursday they sent parents notifications after sending home all 120 students in grades 9 through 12 for the day.
Students say they were brought to the school’s auditorium after they sat through the school’s daily pledge to protest what they call a lack of school spirit and a lack of opportunity. After they were brought to the auditorium, administrators sent them home.
"It was a peaceful protest," said Victor Sanchez, a student at the high school who said the students feel their voices have not been heard. "That was the point ‐ to be heard. We want to make a difference."
The school’s pledge follows the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, which the students did stand and recite.
A nation of professional protesters that isn’t trained to do anything else...
#3
Commerce, CO Demographics: Hispanic or Latino of any race are 46.8% of the population.
The median income for a household in the city was $33,680, and the median income for a family was $37,279
Uh huh
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/29/2017 9:27 Comments ||
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#4
Principal Me "I have heard your protests and in response I insist each student write a 10 pages essay on one of the recent incidences of police shootings with details from the incident itself to the trial and aftermath."
Let them study about thugs keeping a community down, police trying to keep the peace, and false narratives that burned those communities rather than just headlines and memes.
#6
Or do to them what happened to me when I got a five day suspension senior year - you can't make up any missed tests. That would cure this shit in one week. I failed US Government that quarter and came very close to fucking myself out of admission to UNH.
(I'm so old I remember when schools taught classes about the US Government!)
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
