Bill would preserve C-130 Hercules, give troops a 1.7 percent raise and put Iran on notice. President Obama threatens veto; Senate takes up measure next week.
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Political Punch
Conservative Politics, Political Commentary from Sunny South Florida
May
19
House approves $643 billion defense package
May
18
Jeremiah Wright: “Hillary Clinton Paid Black Preachers To Come After Me”
I don’t doubt it, behind those pastel colored pant suits is a ruthless politician. HT: JJ
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May
18
‘Demonizing China’
Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, who was President Obama’s initial candidate to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech this week that the Pentagons’ new battle concept is “demonizing China.”
Cartwright also revealed that the recent $487 billion in defense cuts was planned long ago, and he said that at least an additional $250 billion in cuts will be made, on top of a possible automatic cut of as much as $600 billion later this year.
Cartwright, who lost out in the race for chairman of the Joint Chiefs amid criticism over his personal life, said the military will be forced to change strategy or “hollow out.”
On the Pentagon’s new Asia battle concept, which is designed to counter China’s high tech weapons, Cartwright said during the speech in Virginia Beach: “Air Sea Battle is demonizing China, and that is not in anybody’s best interest. And we’re pivoting to the Pacific. It’s really a poor choice of words.”
The comments were made during the U.S. Naval Institute’s annual Joint Warfighting Conference on Tuesday.
U.S. officials have said the Air Sea Battle Concept is covertly directed at China and that its ideas can be applied to other states with high-tech arms such as Iran.
However, Obama administration policymakers approved the new concept last fall with the secret provision that U.S. officials who discuss it state publicly that the concept is not solely directed at China.
Air Sea Battle grew out of the failure of the military to adequately coordinate air and naval forces during Pentagon war games over the past 10 years.
The games showed that U.S. forces would be defeated in a future conflict by China’s use of anti-satellite missiles and lasers, anti-aircraft carrier ballistic missiles, cyber warfare capabilities, and other high-tech arms.
Pro-China officials in government have opposed that new battle concept—which calls for building up forces with new aircraft, strike capabilities, and regional alliances—as turning China into an enemy.
Conservatives in the military and policy communities argue that China’s military and Communist Party leaders are engaged in a covert strategic nuclear and conventional forces buildup designed to force the United States to abandon its alliances and military presence in Asia.
Cartwright, during his tenure as vice chairman, clashed repeatedly with then-Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen over how to respond to China’s military buildup and also over U.S. military policy in Afghanistan.
On U.S. missile defenses in Europe, Cartwright also adopted a soft-line policy view. He said that, like the Air Sea Battle Concept with China, U.S. plans for phased missile defenses in Europe have upset the Russians because the later phases will be capable of countering Russian long-range missiles.
The Russians are worried “about our ability to reach and touch one of their ICBMs and disrupt the balance of power,” he said.
On deploying the advanced SM-3 Block 2b in-ground interceptors that will be able to knock out any long-range missile, Cartwright said, “Maybe we shouldn’t [deploy], I don’t know. But I think we have to find a solution.”
Russia has demanded legally binding restrictions on U.S. missile defenses in Europe that so far the Obama administration has rejected.
However, statements by President Obama to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Seoul in March indicate the president is prepared to make concessions on missile defenses if he is reelected in November.
On the decline of U.S. defense spending, Cartwright warned that the size of U.S. military units—ground forces, air wings, and naval formations—has continued to decrease in size but not always in ability to use lethal firepower.
Under the current cuts, the military is being stretched, and Cartwright has recently heard of shortages.
“At some point you have to change the strategy or hollow the force,” he said. “And left to our own devices, we would normally hollow the force.”
Cartwright also criticized the administration’s use of the term “pivot” to Asia because he believes it falsely signals U.S. allies in other parts of the world that the United States is disengaging.
“It’s really a poor choice of words unfortunately because basically the rest of the world interprets that as you’re turning your back on them and disengaging, and that’s not our intent,” he said.
Cartwright, a former jet pilot, also criticized the Pentagon for continuing to focus on developing manned aircraft, which he said are being limited by human capabilities.
By contrast, unmanned aircraft are cheaper to operate, can be stored with fewer costs in peacetime, and operate 24 hours a day, far beyond the limits of human pilots in cockpits.
Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, said Cartwright’s comments indicate he was the wrong person for the chairman’s job.
“The nation is fortunate in the extreme that Gen. Cartwright’s personal indiscretions precluded him from being chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Gaffney said.
“His recommendations on these issues and so many others bespeak a lack of judgment and responsibility at a time when both are needed more than ever in the Pentagon and Washington.”
Cartwright ran afoul of many Marine Corps senior officers after he left his wife for another woman.
His first wife, Sandee Cartwright, had told associates of the general that she was prepared to go public in identifying personal indiscretions.
May
18
Feds Considering Allowing DVD-Encryption Cracking
Photo: ToastyKen/Flickr
LOS ANGELES — Federal regulators considered testimony Wednesday here at UCLA on whether to allow citizens and filmmakers to legally crack DVD encryption meant to protect them from being copied.
Filmmakers, video mixers and others have petitioned the U.S. Copyright Office for the ability to continue to use DVD decryption tools to copy short clips of DVDs from motion pictures to put into their own films. The issue isn’t whether they have a fair-use right to the material, but whether they can utilize decrypting tools to make the best reproduction for filmmaking purposes.
Another proposal for the first time calls for the public at large to be authorized to make copies of their own DVDs without breaching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which makes it unlawful to circumvent encryption technologies in items that you buy.
Earlier in the day, here at UCLA Law School, regulators held a hearing as part of its deliberations over whether it will continue to allow Americans to jailbreak their mobile phones, and whether they will expand that right to cover tablets and videogame consoles. Jailbreaking and rooting are techniques used to get past manufacturer-installed roadblocks that prevent users from having full control over their devices.
Every three years, the U.S. Copyright Office entertains requests to create temporary loopholes in the law that outlaws the circumvention of encryption technologies. The afternoon public hearing largely focused on the s0-called CSS that must be cracked to make a copy of a DVD. All DMCA exemptions, which are proposed by the public, expire in three years and must be reauthorized by the Copyright Office.
Clarissa Weirick, the general counsel of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment, testified against all the decryption measures.
“If we didn’t have access controls, there might be the same kind of mass piracy we’ve seen with unprotected music,” Weirick said about the copying of DVDs, a proposal put forth by digital rights group Public Knowledge, which did not attend the hearing.
Weirick, a representative from Fox and the major motion picture studios under the Motion Picture Association of America opposed all the measures proposed in the afternoon public hearing, which included about 2 dozen members of the public in attendance.
They said that there is no need to grant the public the right to make copies of their DVDs because the studios are streaming and selling movies online now, and that the public does not own the movies they buy on DVDs. They own the license to play it on a DVD, they argued.
And when it comes to cracking encryption to make snippets out of films to be put in new films, the industry opposed reauthorizing the cracking of the DVD encryption for that purpose. The industry testified that filmmakers instead can use screen-capturing software or they can license the clips from the studios.
Filmmakers oppose that because of the poor quality of screen-capture reproduction.
(Screen-capturing does not crack encryption because it copies what is shown on a computer screen.)
Filmmaker Laurence Thrush testified that screen-capturing software turns clips into “mush.”
“The fabric of reality is very important to these projects,” he testified.
Jonathan McIntosh, a remix artist, was also asking the regulators to allow him to bypass circumvention that prevents the copying of streamed movies, so that he may use the best picture quality available of the snippets he places in his own films. Doing so, he said, helps “to engage in a healthy public debate.”
He said he has a “zero budget” when it comes to paying for a license, some of which carry clauses that forbid filmmakers from disparaging the movie.
Maria Pallante, the register of copyrights, wondered aloud:
“But I think we’ve heard the market is changing rapidly. Licensing options are changing. Conceivably even with a budget of zero, permission might be possible,” she said.
Corynne McSherry, the intellectual property coordinator with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Pallante and other top-ranking lawyers in the U.S. Copyright Office here that granting the exemptions at issue is “not going to help pirates,” so they must be granted.
Exemptions are allotted by the Copyright Office if regulators are convinced consumers are “adversely affected in their ability to make non-infringing use due to the prohibition on circumvention.”
Approved exemptions by the Copyright Office must be also be sanctioned by the Librarian of Congress, currently James Billington. Regulators are not expected to make any approvals until later this year, at a date not yet disclosed.
May
18
Cell Doors ‘Incapable of Locking’ at Giant Afghan Jail
Detainees at Afghanistan's largest U.S.-built prison were able to literally kick through their poorly constructed cells, according to a new Pentagon report. Photo: Defense Department Inspector General
The detention facility that the U.S. built in Afghanistan is state-of-the-art. Except for all of the faulty hinges on the cell doors. Or the locks that are, in the words of a new report from the Defense Department’s inspector general, “incapable of locking either manually or electronically.” Or the construction that’s deemed “not up to the standard suitable for a detention facility.”
The worst part? U.S. military commanders have known about these flaws since the prison opened its doors.
Built in 2009, the Detention Facility in Parwan is a sprawling campus of 14 buildings, capable of housing — once a planned expansion is completed — some 2,000 detainees. The U.S. spent $60 million to construct it, to demonstrate the professionalization of detention operations after years of scandals in Iraq and Afghanistan. What the U.S. military didn’t reveal was that it has known from the start that the building has serious engineering flaws — flaws that lead to security liabilities. And all of this was the result of lackadaisical oversight of contractors hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The magnetic sensors and electronic locks on the “access doors” that prevent detainees from traveling between cell blocks, are “defective” and had to be removed, according to a report the Defense Department’s inspector general released on Thursday. That removal caused the electronic systems integrating and remotely controlling the doors to be “ineffective.”
“The integration system was supposed to monitor the status of all doors with electronic locks and magnetic sensors, thereby electronically monitoring the status of all detainees entering and exiting the secured areas,” the inspector general found. “The lack of a final functional test on the building integration system was considered a deficiency when the building was accepted. However, [Pentagon inspector general] engineers noted during their inspection in July 2010 that the integration system was still not functioning. Instead of ensuring that the doors had magnetic sensors and locks so that the Integration System would work properly, a soldier was required to stand and guard the door, as a means of securing the rooms.”
Senior U.S. military officers tour the detention facility in Parwan, April 2012. Photo: U.S. Army
The doors themselves are shoddily built, too. The hinges on them were “incorrect,” according to the inspector general. “The poorly constructed cell doors allowed detainees to damage the doors easily by repeated kicking,” the report states. There are also problems with the fire-prevention and sewage systems that the inspector general says pose a “health and safety risk” to detainees.
The damage was not limited to minor areas of the prison, either. “The construction quality was not up to the standard suitable for a detention facility,” the report concludes, “and … the quality of construction of greatest interest was the areas where the detainees spent most of their time such as detention cells and the recreation yard.”
No detainee appears to have escaped as a result of the construction woes. But that may be a matter of time. Afghan detainees have been able to literally tunnel out of another prison in the country — twice. And while the leadership of the prison reports that it doesn’t have problems with the cells anymore, other construction problems with the prison persist: “The access doors
are still in disrepair and will be replaced as soon as new prison grade doors arrive in
theater from the United States.”Except that the U.S. won’t run the Parwan prison for much longer. The Afghans signed a deal with NATO in March to take control of it by September. That means Afghan troops, less capable on average than their U.S. counterparts, will soon be in charge of hundreds of detainees in a giant prison with chronic security vulnerabilities.
That prison isn’t in an isolated area. It’s on the outskirts of Bagram airfield, one of the U.S.’ major bases, housing over 10,000 U.S. troops. Bagram is about an hour’s drive from the capital city of Kabul.
The Army basically pled nolo contendere to the Pentagon inspector general. While picking at nits, a senior Army Corps of Engineers official wrote to the inspector general on April 2 that his department “concurs with all but one” of the recommendations in the report — some of which are as simple as urging “continuous oversight” on the facility.
These days, Parwan is infamous for being the site where U.S. troops accidentally burned Korans, a February debacle that caused days of countrywide rioting. Needless to say, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. I took a tour of the detention facility in August 2010, and officials boasted of the sophisticated security systems that would allow guards to humanely and firmly monitor and control detainee activity.
But this is the legacy that a decade’s worth of U.S. detention operations will leave in Afghanistan: locks that don’t lock. And across Afghanistan, even as U.S. troops withdraw from the country, the U.S. is still building jails.
May
18
Radio Update: Blame Johnson and Nixon for Federal Budget Crisis
Listen to the latest edition of The Rasmussen Report with noted pollster Scott Rasmussen. Stations interested in adding “The Rasmussen Report” features to their lineup should contact Willis Damalt at the WOR Radio Network at 212-798-8376 or via email at wdamalt@worradionet.com.
May
18
More Americans See Better Economic Future Under Romney Than Obama
Gallup Editor in-Chief Frank Newport reveals that 55% of Americans say the economy would be better four years from now if Mitt Romney is president, compared with 46% saying it would be better under President Obama.
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May
18
A ‘Fact Checking Error’–Again, and Again, and Again…
Miriam Goderich, who helped edit a 1991 booklet for Barack Obama’s then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which erroneously stated that Obama had been born in Kenya, has issued a press release–first reported by her own client at Political Wire:
“You’re undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time. There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”
Political Wire is run by Taegan Goddard, a client of Goderich’s agency, Dystel & Goderich.
Goderich’s statement fails to explain why the “fact checking error” persisted for sixteen years, through at least three different versions of Jane Dystel’s website, and through at least four different versions of Obama’s biography.
It persisted, in fact, more than two years after Obama became a United States Senator, and until after Obama had declared his campaign for the presidency in 2007.
In addition to the 1991 biography above (#1), here, via archive.org, is a screen shot of Obama’s biography (#2) on the Dystel.com website in June 1998, in which the text has been updated but the birthplace error has been repeated:
Here, again via archive.org, is a screen shot of Obama’s updated biography on the Dystel & Goderich website in February 2005 (#3), updated to reflect the fact that Obama had become a U.S. Senator–but not corrected as regards his birthplace:
And here, once again via archive.org, is a screen shot of Obama’s biography on the updated Dystel & Goderich website in April 2007 (#4), revealing that the text had been modified slightly–but the birthplace had not:
Breitbart News attempted to contact Goderich and senior partner Jane Dystel several times over several days prior to publishing our original story. They chose not to respond.
The real mystery is not where Obama was born–which has long been settled–but why Goddard failed to ask her agent a single relevant follow-up question about how the ‘fact checking error’ occurred in the first place.
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May
18
House Republicans say emails link green energy loans to White House
Rep. Jim Jordan says Solyndra was tip of the iceberg in a sea of taxpayer risk — hardly the "one bad apple" as characterized by the Obama administration.
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