Homeland Security: “An Entirely New Phase”
December 6th, 2015The whole ISIS mess originates with U.S. activities in Iraq (which, even the mainstream hive mind admits had nothing to do with 9/11), and now, “We have moved to an entirely new phase in the global terrorist threat.”
Via: Reuters:
U.S. officials, faced with an evolving threat of deadly attacks by homegrown extremists, are rethinking their strategy on battling domestic terror after Wednesday’s assault that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., the New York Times reported on Saturday.
The United States should beef up airline security by increasing agents in overseas airports, bolster standards for visa waiver programs, and improve communications between officials and Muslim communities to help locate threats, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told the Times.
“We have moved to an entirely new phase in the global terrorist threat and in our homeland security efforts,” Johnson told the newspaper in an interview. Terrorists have “in effect outsourced attempts to attack our homeland. We’ve seen this not just here but in other places. This requires a whole new approach, in my view.”
72 Department of Homeland Security Employees On Terrorist Watchlist; 95% Failure to Find Weapons at Airports
December 6th, 2015Your what hurts?
Via: WGBH:
Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector General did—of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security. The director had to resign because of that. Then we went further and did and eight-airport investigation. We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the department of homeland security screening process at major airports. They had a 95 percent failure rate. We had folks—this was a testing exercise, so we had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate.
Google Wants to Patent a Blood-Sucking Smartwatch
December 5th, 2015Via: Gizmodo:
Just when you thought our data-driven lifestyles were getting a little weird, Google wants to make it creepy. The company just filed a patent application for a “needle-free blood draw” device that can be implanted in a wearable.
Car Turns Driver in for Hit-and-Run
December 4th, 2015Via: WPBF:
A Port St. Lucie woman is under arrest in connection with a hit-and-run.
Police responded to a hit-and-run in the 500 block of Northwest Prima Vista Boulevard on Monday afternoon.
The victim, Anna Preston, said she was struck from behind by a black vehicle that took off. Preston was taken to the hospital with back injuries.
Around the same time, police dispatch got an automated call from a vehicle emergency system stating the owner of a Ford vehicle was involved in a crash and to press zero to speak with the occupants of the vehicle.
The person in the vehicle, Cathy Bernstein, told dispatch there had been no accident, that someone pulled out in front of her and that she was going home. She said she had not been drinking and didn’t know why her vehicle had called for help.
Police went to Bernsteins’s home on Northwest Foxworth Avenue and saw that her vehicle had extensive front-end damage and silver paint from Preston’s vehicle on it. Bernstein’s airbag had also been deployed.
Pentagon Task Force: We Want Villas and Flat-Screen TVs in Afghanistan
December 3rd, 2015Via: ProPublica:
The requirements were clear: Villas with no less than queen beds, flat-screen TVs of no less than 27 inches, meals of at least three stars, and round-the-clock bodyguards.
Sounds more like a celebrity rider than a description of Afghanistan accommodations for U.S. government employees. But that’s what the Pentagon’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations requested — at a cost of $150 million, according to a letter released today by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.
The high-end demands add to a string of recent controversies involving the now-defunct task force. Last month SIGAR reported that the task force spent $43 million on a gas station that should have cost about $500,000 and had no customers regardless. There are also allegations the Pentagon has retaliated against a task force whistleblower as well on-going criminal investigations. And a standoff between SIGAR and Pentagon officials over access to documents that has gotten the attention of Congress.
Google Increasing Staff in Makani Energy Kites Division
December 2nd, 2015Via: Business Insider:
GoogleX is ramping up recruiting at Makani, hinting that the ambitious project to create “energy kites” that generate cheap wind power is moving closer to reality.
In the past few months, Google has posted more than 30 Makani job openings, and a recent posting on the company’s LinkedIn page boasts that the team is “growing rapidly.”
The division has said that its experimental technology can produce 50% more energy with 90% less materials than traditional wind turbines.
The 16 most recent postings on Google’s hardware engineering careers page advertise positions at Makani, including electrical engineer of avionics hardware, aerodynamicist, and offshore wind program manager.
Other postions hint that the project could be moving closer to releasing a real product. For example, Makani is looking for a sales engineer, to be the “customer-facing expert on Makani’s revolutionary new wind power technology as it’s presented to customers for the first time.”
Google acquired Makani in 2013, after investing $15 million in the startup several years before. It joined Google’s moonshot lab, Google X, and has remained within X even as Google segmented itself into stand-alone divisions under parent company Alphabet earlier this year.
San Bernardino Shooting
December 2nd, 2015Update: San Bernardino Shooting Investigated as ‘Act of Terrorism’
—
Via: KABC:
Police said up to 14 people were killed when one or more gunmen opened fire at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino Wednesday. At least one suspect was killed in a dramatic shootout.
WATCH: Live coverage of the active-shooting situation in San Bernardino
A second suspect’s body was pulled out of a bullet-riddled SUV. Police have not yet confirmed that the suspects were related to the shooting at the Inland Regional Center, but they had earlier said that the gunmen may have fled in a dark SUV.
A massive police presence was seen in the area, and surrounding streets have been shut down due to the gun battle.
Russia Says It Has Proof Turkey Involved in Islamic State Oil Trade
December 2nd, 2015Via: Reuters:
Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday it had proof that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his family were benefiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from Islamic State-held territory in Syria and Iraq.
Moscow and Ankara have been locked in a war of words since last week when a Turkish air force jet shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian-Turkish border, the most serious incident between Russia and a NATO state in half a century.
Erdogan responded by saying no one had the right to “slander” Turkey by accusing it of buying oil from Islamic State, and that he would stand down if such allegations were proven to be true. But speaking during a visit to Qatar, he also said he did not want relations with Moscow to worsen further.
At a briefing in Moscow, defense ministry officials displayed satellite images which they said showed columns of tanker trucks loading with oil at installations controlled by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and then crossing the border into neighboring Turkey.
The officials did not specify what direct evidence they had of the involvement of Erdogan and his family, an allegation that the Turkish president has vehemently denied.
Alabama: Dothan Police Planted Drugs on Young Black Men For Years, DA Complicit
December 2nd, 2015Via: Henry County Report:
The Alabama Justice Project has obtained documents that reveal a Dothan Police Department’s Internal Affairs investigation was covered up by the district attorney. A group of up to a dozen police officers on a specialized narcotics team were found to have planted drugs and weapons on young black men for years. They were supervised at the time by Lt. Steve Parrish, current Dothan Police Chief, and Sgt. Andy Hughes, current Director of Homeland Security for the State of Alabama. All of the officers reportedly were members of a Neoconfederate organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center labels “racial extremists.” The group has advocated for blacks to return to Africa, published that the civil rights movement is really a Jewish conspiracy, and that blacks have lower IQ’s . Both Parrish and Hughes held leadership positions in the group and are pictured above holding a confederate battle flag at one of the club’s secret meetings.
The documents shared reveal that the internal affairs investigation was covered up to protect the aforementioned officers’ law enforcement careers and keep them from being criminally prosecuted.
Several long term Dothan law enforcement officers, all part of an original group that initiated the investigation, believe the public has a right to know that the Dothan Police Department, and District Attorney Doug Valeska, targeted young black men by planting drugs and weapons on them over a decade. Most of the young men were prosecuted, many sentenced to prison, and some are still in prison. Many of the officers involved were subsequently promoted and are in leadership positions in law enforcement.
U.S. Total Debt Soars By $674 Billion In November
December 2nd, 2015Via: ZeroHedge:
When the US reached a debt ceiling deal in the beginning of November, it was common knowledge that there would be a debt accrual “catch up” to make up for lost time when the US was operating under emergency measures to avoid breach of the debt ceiling. And sure enough, when the accurate total debt number was released on November 2, this was indeed the case, when we learned that the US had added some $339 billion in debt during the “emergency measures” period.
However, what is unclear is how in the remaining 4 weeks of November, the US managed to add another $335 billion in total debt, bringing the total increase for the month of November to a whopping $674 billion, and total US debt to a record $18.827 trillion.
