Bubonic Plague Spreading Through Madagascar

In outbreak of bubonic plague in Madagascar, officials confirm cases in the country's capital city. Capital Antananarivo has not seen a confirmed case in 10 years, health officials say.
(Photo : Sascha Grabow, Wikipedia, CC)

A bubonic plague outbreak in Madagascar that has seen more than 130 confirmed cases and claimed 47 lives is spreading to the island nation's capital, officials have warned.

Two people in the capital city of Antananarivo have been infected and one of them is not expected to survive, officials announced as health workers initiated a pest control operation in slum areas surrounding the city.

Fleas carrying the plague mostly affect rats, but the bite from a disease-carrying flea can infect people.

In the bubonic form of plague, where there are swellings known as buboes in the lymph nodes, the disease is susceptible to treatment with antibiotics; however, in the pneumonic form of the disease, which affects the lungs, the disease can be communicated from one person to another through coughing.

The disease can kill in just 24 hours.

In areas surrounding the capital, "two hundred households have been disinfected," according to Philemon Tafangy, secretary general of the country's health ministry.

People who had any contact with people with confirmed infections were being given antibiotics in an effort to slow or hopefully halt the spread of the disease, he said.

The United Nations' health agency WHO says there is considerable concern over how effective the pest control effort will be because of a high level of resistance in Madagascar to the usual insecticides targeting fleas.

The huge island country is prone to plague outbreaks, usually at their worst from October to March, although it has been 10 years since a case was diagnosed in the capital, said Christophe Rogier of the island's Institut Pasteur.

"It is possible that the plague continued to survive in Antananarivo for 10 years without touching humans," if the virus remained restricted to the city's rat population, he said. "Rats are a natural reservoir of the plague, and they also survive the plague."

Madagascar has seen an average 500 cases annually since 2009, figures from the International Committee of the Red Cross indicate.

The first cases of the current outbreak were identified in August.

Some form of plague, either bubonic or pneumonic or both, is commonly believed to have been responsible for the Black Death that swept across 14th century Europe, with a death toll of an estimated 25 million people.

Thought to have arisen in central Asia, it moved with traders along the Silk Road westward into the Mediterranean region and then Europe, most likely carried there by fleas on rats that were commonly seen on merchant ships.

Read more: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/21052/20141126/bubonic-plague-spreading-through-madagascar.htm#ixzz3KMuJsqyF

Obama's planned surge against ISIS already in trouble

Depends on requirement U.S. unwilling to meet

TEL AVIV – The U.S.-led Western coalition is planning a major surge of counter-attacks against ISIS in coming weeks, but informed Middle Eastern security officials say the strategy is partly dependent on cooperation from Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The officials note that both countries have asked the U.S. for an understanding that strikes will also target the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in exchange for the Turkish and Saudi cooperation.
The Obama administration seems unlikely to acquiesce to any requests to target Assad’s forces as part of the fight against ISIS.
According to reports, Chuck Hagel’s departure as Defense Secretary may have come amid disagreements over whether to target Assad. Hagel reportedly raised concerns that the U.S. strategy against ISIS did not fully address the issue of the Syrian regime.

Sid Roth interviews Perry Stone about unlocking prophecy with the Old Testament

What 'Emperor' Obama should have said to illegals

An Australian who expresses his optimism in America in his new book, “The American Boomerang: How the World’s Greatest ‘Turnaround’ Nation Will Do It Again,” contends President Obama got it all wrong in his announcement of executive action that effectively grants amnesty to millions of illegal aliens
Nick Adams said in a Fox News interview Obama should have declared: “We are going to determine who comes into this country and the circumstances under which they come” and “if you come to America illegally you will never get to stay.”

“You will never become an American. We will send you home.”
Obama’s plan would give about 4 million illegal aliens work permits and raise the number of low-wage guest workers. He also aims to rewrite federal regulations to help workers win residency, citizenship and voting cards in a process that is expected to ultimately add millions of Democratic Party voters.
Adams said there are millions who want to become Americans “the right way,” and there needs to be a process.
He noted there already is a reported “surge” of immigrants at the U.S. border.
Australia, he said, had the same problem “until a conservative government took over.”
“We had a terrible problem. We had tens of thousands of illegal immigrants coming. On lots and lots of boats. Because we weakened our border protection policy,” he said. “And then a conservative government came in and said, ‘Right. This has got to stop.’
“We are a generous and caring people,” Adams said of his Australia. “But we have laws and things need to happen the right way. So we got tough because we know weakness is provocative and things like amnesty only lead to more and more illegal immigration.”
Adams, himself, is seeking to become an American.
Get your copy of “The American Boomerang: How the World’s Greatest ‘Turnaround’ Nation Will Do It Again” – autographed – from the WND Superstore now!

IRS sued for monitoring U.S. churches

Agency allegedly used atheists to ID 'churches that might have criticized politicians'

In a lawsuit settlement with the atheist Freedom from Religion Foundation, the Internal Revenue Service admitted it had monitored churches for allegedly illegal political activity, but the details never were released because the group withdrew its complaint.

Now, Washington watchdog Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the IRS seeking any records relevant to IRS monitoring of churches and other tax exempt organizations regarding alleged political activity.

The suit requests access to the communications that went on between the IRS and FFRF about the issue.

The atheist organization filed a lawsuit in 2012 alleging the IRS ignored its complaints about the speech of churches that cite the Bible regarding issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

FFRF said the statements violate the law, because the moral issues were being addressed in a political arena.

The atheists also complained of what they called “blatantly political” newspaper ads on the religious and moral issues.

Then, in June, an agreement was reached in which the IRS admitted it had been monitoring churches and other houses of worship for “electioneering and other political activity.”

Judicial Watch said that according to June 27  IRS letter to the Justice Department, the IRS has targeted 99 churches it said merited “high priority examination” for allegedly illegal electioneering activities.

The church-targeting was determined by an IRS ‘Political Activities Referral Committee.”

ISIS puts bull's-eye on other Muslims

'They're trying to target the social fabric and trying to create a sectarian conflict'

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Shiite Iran appears to be the ultimate target of the ISIS effort to create a Sunni caliphate, reports Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State, is enlisting help from Sunni jihadist fighters from neighboring Pakistan’s predominantly Sunni Balush province to step up attacks.
In recent months, Sunni fighters have ambushed Iranian border guards and committed atrocities against hundreds of Shiites, as documented by Human Rights Watch.
As a result, ISIS is turning its conquests into a full-fledged Sunni-Shiite conflict.
The prospect of Iran being in the bulls-eye of ISIS was underscored by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a rare public statement following a recent attempt on his life by the U.S.-led, anti-ISIS coalition.
As WND recently reported, Baghdadi outlined his priorities of first attacking Shiites then Saudi Arabia’s Mecca and Medina, two of Islam’s most revered holy places, and Shiites in Yemen. Following that, he intends to target the Saudi royal family and, only then, the Western “crusaders.”
His emphasis clearly is giving priority to eliminating Shiites wherever they may be. In the lands he’s already conquered in portions of Syria and Iraq, Baghdadi’s fighters have summarily killed all Shiites, often not even giving them a chance to “convert” or pay a tax, as he’s doing with Christians.

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stream of smug, evasive and misleading assurances from both Barack Obama and the CDC that they were totally on top of the Ebola threat – when the truth has been quite the opposite.
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Official bio ties Gruber to crafting of Obamacare

As White House seeks to distance itself from MIT professor

Jonathan Gruber

While the Obama administration has sought to distance itself from MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, WND has found the professor’s official bio at a university project known to be close to the White House boasts that Gruber helped to craft Obamacare.

Gruber’s bio at the Hamilton Project, an economic initiative launched by the Brookings Institution in 2006, reads: “During 2009-2010 he served as a technical consultant to the Obama Administration and worked with both the Administration and Congress to help craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

Obama himself spoke at the 2006 launch of the Hamilton Project, where he stated he had stolen ideas “liberally” from Gruber.

Obama is quite familiar with the Hamilton Project. Not only did he speak at the project’s launch event, some of its experts wound up in his administration.

Hamilton Project Director Peter Richard Orszag served under Obama as director of the Office of Management and Budget, the largest office within the executive branch.

Video recently unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon shows Obama speaking at the 2006 Hamilton Project launch event praising Gruber and other liberal economic policy experts as some of the “brightest minds” in academia.

Islam, anti-Semitism sneak into Tennessee textbooks

A group that combats anti-Semitism is asking the governor of Tennessee to investigate school textbooks not only because of instances of anti-Semitism but also hundreds of inaccuracies, biases and disinformation, including anti-American and anti-Christian content.

The texts are in direct violation of the U.S. and Tennessee Constitutions by “teaching the religious dogmas of one religion,” Islam, charges Laurie Cardoza-Moore, founder of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations.
Her Tennessee group educates media professionals, Christian leaders and Christians around the globe about the dangers of the “new anti-Semitism.”
She is asking Gov. Bill Haslam to do a “full and thorough” review of the work that was done under Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman, who recently quit.
During Huffman’s tenure, not only was the controversial federal-government program Common Core imposed on schools, but the Tennessee Textbook Commission adopted books that were found to contain more than 700 problematic sections.
The organization already has been busy holding textbook publishers accountable for their products’ accuracy.
It was in early 2013 when PJTN launched a campaign to have a Pearson publication, a secondary school social studies text, removed because it promoted anti-Semitic views and a “moral equivalence” between Palestinian terrorism and the government of Israel.
The text was used in a Williamson County school.
The effort is now nationwide, and Cardoza-Moore and been invited to speak in a number of cities. And parents over and over have found objectionable material in their local schools’ programs.
Parents in two Tennessee school districts recently asked PJTN about a presentation being used in their child’s classroom to teach about Islam.
PJTN said the presentation “seemed to be very biased and inaccurate, badly out of date, and had no indication of the author/publisher, although five slides had an attribution of CAIR,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR, founded by the Muslim Brotherhood as a U.S. front, has seen numerous leaders indicted for terrorism and was itself named an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to fund the Palestinian jihadist group Hamas.
See the amazing DVD “Israel Indivisible: The Case for the Ancient Homeland,” which documents the story of Israel and the Jewish people.
PJTN also noted another school in which students were being taught about Nation of Islam Louis Farrakhan’s “egregious” accusations against George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
Materials of that kind promote a subtle but subversive campaign to “rewrite history,” Cardoza-Moore said.
“This type of blatant anti-Semitic, anti-Judeo/Christian and anti-American propaganda and disinformation has no place in our public schools, and it certainly should not be taught to our future leaders. We say we want our children to be able to think critically, but then we provide biased information that is inaccurate,” she said.
For Tennessee, Cardoza-Moore said: “A statewide effort must be launched to remove this type of biased curriculum from our elementary, junior and senior high schools. I want to encourage parents to review their children’s history and geography textbooks and handouts and hold their teachers and school administrations accountable to provide accurate and unbiased curriculum for their students. It is this type of disinformation that historically leads to violence against Jews and will ultimately lead to the downfall of our country.”
Haslam should, she said, work with the legislature to tighten the limits on the selection of curriculum so that it reaches the “highest achievement standards.”

Marine dad banned from school over Islam lessons fights back

 Marine veteran of the Iraq war who refused to retreat when his daughter was forced in a high-school class to affirm “Allah is the same god that is worshiped in Christianity and Judaism” hasn’t given up on his mission.

John Kevin Wood and his wife, Melissa, now are being represented by the Thomas More Law Center in a lawsuit against La Plata High School in Maryland over “Islamic indoctrination” in an 11th grade World History class.
The case drew national attention when John Wood was banned from entering school property after he objected to assignments to affirm statements such as the “Quran is the word of Allah revealed to Muhammad in the same way that Jews and Christians believe the Torah and the Gospels were revealed to Moses and the New Testament writers.”
On Oct. 22, TMLC said, Wood, who had witnessed “the destruction caused in the name of Allah” serving in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, demanded his daughter be given an alternative assignment after discovering she was being forced “to repeat the religious tenets of Islam.”
“She was required to write how the prophet Muhammad was visited by the Angel Gabriel and preached that there is only one true god, who is Allah. The assignment made her write that Mohammad is the messenger of Allah and that the Quran is holy text,” TMLC said.
‘The assignment required her to affirm that ‘Allah is the same god that is worshiped in Christianity and Judaism’ and that the ‘Quran is the word of Allah revealed to Mohammad in the same way that Jews and Christians believe the Torah and the Gospels were revealed to Moses and the New Testament writers.’ The assignment also forced young women such as the Woods’ daughter, to fill in the following sentences: ‘Men are the managers of the affairs of women’ and ‘Righteous women are therefore obedient.’”
John Wood contacted the school, but officials refused to provide another assignment for his daughter, and he refused to allow the “Islamic indoctrination.”
School officials then gave the daughter an “F” for the class and ordered John Wood to stay away from the school.

30,000 missing emails from IRS' Lerner recovered

Up to 30,000 missing emails sent by former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner have been recovered by the IRS inspector general, five months after they were deemed lost forever.

The U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) informed congressional staffers from several committees on Friday that the emails were found among hundreds of “disaster recovery tapes” that were used to back up the IRS email system.
“They just said it took them several weeks and some forensic effort to get these emails off these tapes,” a congressional aide told the Washington Examiner.

OPINION: Cry us a river, Lois Lerner
The IRS, in a statement provided to the Examiner, said the agency and IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is fully cooperating with the investigation.
"As Commissioner Koskinen has stated, the IRS welcomes TIGTA’s independent review and expert forensic analysis." The IRS statement said. "Commissioner Koskinen has said for some time he would be pleased if additional Lois Lerner emails from this time frame could be found."
Committees in the House and Senate are seeking the emails, which they believe could show Lerner was working in concert with Obama administration officials to target conservative and Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status before the 2012 presidential election.
The missing emails extend from 2009 to 2011, a period when Lerner headed the IRS’s exempt-organizations division. The emails were lost when Lerner’s computer crashed, IRS officials said earlier this year.
In June Koskinen told Congress the emails were probably lost for good because the disaster recovery tape holds onto the data for only six months. He said even if the IRS had sought the emails within the six-month period, it would have been a complicated and difficult process to produce them from the tapes.
RELATED: McConnell: Bet on more IRS hearings
The IRS also lost the emails of several other employees who worked under Lerner during that period.
Lerner, who retired from the IRS, has refused to be questioned by Congress.
She provided a statement at a March hearing, but then clammed up, following the advice of her lawyer to avoid self-incrimination.
The House, led by Republicans, voted in May to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress.
RELATED: Lois Lerner: 'I didn't do anything wrong'
Congressional aides said officials from the inspector general’s office said it could take weeks to get the recovered emails off the tape before sending them to lawmakers in Capitol Hill.
In all, investigators from the inspector general’s office combed through 744 disaster recovery tapes. They are not finished looking.
There are 250 million emails on the tapes that will be reviewed. Officials said it is likely they will find missing emails from other IRS officials who worked under Lerner and who said they suffered computer crashes.
RELATED: Republicans pile on criticism of Lerner, Democrats remain silent
Investigators said the emails could include some overlapping information because it is not clear how many of them are duplicates or were already produced by Lerner to the congressional committees.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he chairs will be one of the committees that will examine the emails.
“Though it is unclear whether TIGTA has found all of the missing Lois Lerner e-mails, there may be significant information in this discovery,” Issa told the Examiner. “The Oversight Committee will be looking for information about her mindset and who she was communicating with outside the IRS during a critical period of time when the IRS was targeting conservative groups. This discovery also underscores the lack of cooperation Congress has received from the IRS. The agency first failed to disclose the loss to Congress and then tried to declare Lerner’s e-mails gone and lost forever. Once again it appears the IRS hasn’t been straight with Congress and the American people.”
RELATED: Budget cuts may have spared key IRS emails
Read More at... 

Russia warns US against supplying ‘lethal defensive aid’ to Ukraine

Members of the "Donbass" self-defence battalion attend a ceremony to swear the oath to be officially included into the reserve battalion of the National Guard of Ukraine near Kiev June 23, 2014. (Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko)

Moscow has warned Washington a potential policy shift from supplying Kiev with “non-lethal aid” to “defensive lethal weapons”, mulled as US Vice President visits Ukraine, would be a direct violation of all international agreements.

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that reports of possible deliveries of American “defensive weapons” to Ukraine would be viewed by Russia as a “very serious signal.”

“We heard repeated confirmations from the [US] administration, that it only supplies non-lethal aid to Ukraine. If there is a change of this policy, then we are talking about a serious destabilizing factor which could seriously affect the balance of power in the region,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich cautioned.

Ukrainian army soldiers with an artillery field gun maneuver on the coastline near the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol on October 21, 2014. (AFP Photo/Alexander Khudoteply)

Russian bombers threaten Guam

 

Two Tu-95 Bears circumnavigate Pacific island, site of major U.S. base

Two Russian strategic bombers circled the U.S. island of Guam last week in what U.S. defense officials say is the latest in a series of nuclear provocations by Moscow.

The bombers were identified by air defenses as Tu-95 Bear H nuclear-capable aircraft that circumnavigated the strategic U.S. military outpost on Friday—amid heightened tensions with Moscow regarding a new buildup of Russian forces in and along the border of eastern Ukraine.

“U.S. Pacific Command can confirm that two aircraft circumnavigated Guam on November 13th,” said spokesman  Maj. Christian Devine. “The aircraft were flying safely in international airspace and in accordance with international norms; as such, the decision was made to not intercept them.”

Friday’s flights were the second time in the past two years that Russia conducted unusual long-range bomber missions around the island. Two Tu-95s circled the island on Feb. 12, 2013 and were intercepted by F-15 jets.

The latest bomber flights around the island, located 4,000 miles west of Hawaii, appeared timed to coincide with the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia and come amid new tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

The flights took place a day before President Obama arrived in Brisbane for the summit where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The president told reporters Sunday he had a “businesslike and blunt” exchange with Putin on Ukraine, and urged the Russian leader to “resolve the issue.” Russia’s military forcibly annexed Ukraine’s Crimea and is threatening military action in support of pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The flights also came after Moscow announced plans to conduct long-range strategic bomber flights over the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Nov. 12 that “we have to maintain [Russia's] military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico,” adding that dispatches of bombers would be “part of the drills.”

Shoigu said the flights are “connected to the situation in Ukraine, with the emerging anti-Russia inclinations on the part of NATO and the increasing foreign military presence in the immediate vicinity of our borders.”

Guam is the U.S. military’s most important strategic hub in the Asia Pacific and the key base for the Pentagon’s new “Air Sea Battle” concept that calls for closer coordination of Air Force and Navy forces to counter China.

Report: China nuclear forces significantly expanding

Commission report faults administration for not releasing data on Chinese nuclear forces

 

China’s nuclear forces are expanding and details about the nation’s strategic weapons programs remain hidden by Beijing’s secrecy, according to the annual report of the congressional U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission.

New missiles, missile submarines and multiple-warhead systems will be deployed in the coming years, the report said.

“Despite the uncertainty surrounding China’s stockpiles of nuclear missiles and nuclear warheads, it is clear China’s nuclear forces over the next three to five years will expand considerably and become more lethal and survivable with the fielding of additional road-mobile nuclear missiles; as many as five JIN SSBNs, each of which can carry 12 JL–2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles; and intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs),” the report said.

China’s military also is expected to modernize its silo-based missile forces while hardening its nuclear storage facilities, launch sites and transportation networks against attack.

Additionally, the Chinese are also expanding the “already extensive network of underground facilities,” the report said.

China has a large underground nuclear system of tunnels for storage and production of nuclear weapons and missiles that is estimated to be 3,000 miles in length. It has been referred to as the “Great Underground Wall.”

China also is adding newer road-mobile missiles, including a DF-31B first disclosed by the Free Beacon.

“Unlike the rest of the Second Artillery’s

Intercontinental ballistic missile force, the DF–31 and DF–31A are road mobile, allowing for faster launch times and making them much more difficult for an adversary to locate and attack,” the report said.

“Furthermore, the new missiles use solid fuel instead of liquid fuel, increasing portability and service life while reducing maintenance costs.”

The DF-31A, with a range of nearly 7,000 miles, can hit most of the United States.

A new missile, the DF-41, could be deployed by next year with up to 10 multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicle warheads. Its range of nearly 8,000 miles will allow the missile to target most of the United States.

China’s sea-based nuclear forces are also expanding. China has three Jin-class missile submarines and is adding two more submarines by 2020. The submarine is equipped with the JL-2.

“The JL–2’s range of approximately 4,598 miles gives China the ability to conduct nuclear strikes against Alaska if launched from waters near

China; against Alaska and Hawaii if launched from waters south of Japan; against Alaska, Hawaii, and the western portion of the continental United States if launched from waters west of Hawaii; and against all 50 U.S. states if launched from waters east of Hawaii,” the report said.

The report noted the official Chinese newspaper Global Times reported in November 2013 that Chinese submarine-launched missile attacks against the western United States would kill 5 million to 12 million people through blast effects and subsequent radiation.

The report faulted the Pentagon for not releasing information on China’s nuclear forces since 2006, noting last year that China’s nuclear arsenal consists of between 50 and 75 long-range missiles.

“Estimates of China’s nuclear forces and nuclear capabilities by nongovernmental experts and foreign governments tend to be higher” than U.S. estimates, the report said.

China also has not disclosed data on its nuclear forces as part of a policy of creating “strategic ambiguity,” the report said.

“China’s official pronouncements about its nuclear policies and strategies are short, rare, and vague,” the report said.

The report also questioned China’s announced policy of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. Chinese officials and writings have suggested that the Chinese could in some circumstances carry out a surprise nuclear attacks without being attacked first.

PLA writings have suggested that China might considered an enemy nuclear attack to have occurred if a nuclear strike is imminent or if China assesses that an enemy is threatening the destruction of its nuclear forces with conventional arms.

“For planning purposes, Chinese strategists consider the United States as the principal threat,” the report said. “High-confidence assessments of the numbers of Chinese nuclear capable ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads are not possible due to China’s lack of transparency about its nuclear program.”

This entry was posted in National Security and tagged China, Nuclear Weapons. Bookmark the permalink.

Dems warn backers: Obama could go to prison!

 

 A mass email from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Sunday tried to drum up support by warning President Obama is in danger of impeachment, or even worse, jail time.

The email – with subject line “Impeachment? Prison??? – Sign now, stand with President Obama” – claims Obama “took bold, courageous action this week to fix our nation’s broken immigration system,” but now is “under attack.”

“Republicans think this is their chance to destroy the president,” the email reads. “They’re threatening lawsuits, shutdowns, impeachment? One Republican congressman even suggested President Obama be thrown in jail!”

The DCCC then implores Democrats to show they’re “still standing with President Obama” and “have his back” by signing an online petition.

Former Alaskan GOP Senate Candidate Joe Miller noticed the email and posted it on his blog, “Restoring Liberty”:

Screen capture of email sent from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

“Apparently, members of the president’s party are facing some pretty serious heat over King Obama’s unconstitutional power grab this week,” Miller quipped. “Appeals to the president’s support base seem to be growing in their hysteria.”

Miller continued: “Given the fact that most Americans do not support Obama’s power grab, and even members of his own party disapprove, impeachment should be on the table.

“Regrettably, it’s not,” Miller commented. “Fresh out of overwhelming mid-term victories, the GOP is once again moving tepidly. Even on the issue that arguably provided their margin of success – Obamacare – leadership has stated that a vote on repeal will not even be held.

“So the DCCC’s hysteria over impeachment and jail time is just a fundraising gimmick,” Miller concluded. “They know, as do all Washington insiders, that the ruling class will ensure continuation of the status quo. And absent another Jacksonian or Reagan revolution, we’ll continue our slide into the dustbin of history.”

The mention of jail time, however, wasn’t merely invented.

As WND reported, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., did suggest before Obama’s speech about his executive action on immigration that the president may be about to commit a felony worthy of five years jail time.

He told Slate that with his forthcoming executive actions on immigration, President Obama risked breaking a federal statute “making it a felony to aid, abet or entice a foreigner to illegally enter the U.S.”

Said Brooks: “At some point, you have to evaluate whether the president’s conduct aids or abets, encourages or entices foreigners to unlawfully cross into the United States of America. That has a five-year in-jail penalty associated with it.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/dems-warn-backers-obama-could-go-to-prison/#euPUH7U4yRsg7UD1.99

U.S. Electrical, Financial Networks Mapped for Future Cyber Attacks

 

Nation states preparing cyber strikes against critical infrastructures

Critical U.S. infrastructures are being penetrated by foreign states in preparation for devastating future cyber attacks designed to cripple electrical power, communications and financial networks, the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command told Congress on Thursday.

Adm. Mike Rogers, Cybercom chief and director of the National Security Agency, said foreign states have broken into the networks that control industrial systems for a range of what the U.S. government considers 16 critical infrastructures, ranging from electrical power, water, telecommunications and financial systems.

“We have seen instances where we’re observing intrusions into industrial control systems,” Rogers told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

“What concerns us is that access, that capability, can be used by nation-states, groups or individuals to take down that capability,” he said, noting that hackers believed linked to Iran destroyed 3,000 computers at the Saudi state oil company Aramco.

Cyber Command is tasked with protecting critical infrastructure from attacks by sophisticated hackers, whether from China, Russia, Iran or other states to criminals and hacker groups.

“We clearly are seeing instances where nation-states, groups and individuals are aggressively looking at acquiring that capability,” Rogers said.

“What we think we’re seeing is reconnaissance by many of those actors in an attempt to insure they understand our systems so that they can then, if they choose to, exploit the vulnerabilities within those control systems.”

North Dakota nuclear missile base struggles to recover from scandals

Capt. Robby Modad closes the gate at a launch-control site at Minot Air Force Base. (Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)

By W.J. Hennigan contact the reporter

Minot Air Force Base, marred by scandal, is nation's only nuclear site with both ICBMs and B-52 bombers

Pentagon cites maintenance, morale among serious problems at North Dakota nuclear base

Winter weather can force airmen to spend up to 72 hours underground in launch-control centers

A bitter wind relentlessly whips across acres of frozen prairie at this remote base, where hundreds of airmen and women stay on alert around the clock to do the unthinkable: launch a nuclear attack.
This is the only installation in the nation that hosts both intercontinental ballistic missiles and B-52 bombers, two legs of the so-called nuclear triad with submarines. Yet it has been besieged by scandals and mishaps that have marred its historic role.

Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Monster Data Center

An aerial view of the cooling units at the NSA’s Utah Data Center in Bluffdale,

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would shut off the water spigot to the massive data center operated by the National Security Agency in Bluffdale, Utah. The legislation, proposed by Utah lawmaker Marc Roberts, is due to go to the floor of the Utah House of Representatives early next year, but it was debated in a Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee meeting on Wednesday. The bill, H.B. 161, directs municipalities like Bluffdale to “refuse support to any federal agency which collects electronic data within this state.” 


The NSA brought its Bluffdale data center online about a year ago, taking advantage Utah’s cheap power and a cut-rate deal for millions of gallons of local water, used to cool the 1-million-square-foot building’s servers. Roberts’ bill, however, would prohibit the NSA from negotiating new water deals when its current Bluffdale agreement runs out in 2021.
The law seems like a long-shot to clear legislative hurdles when Utah’s legislature re-convenes next year, but Wednesday’s committee hearing was remarkable, nonetheless, says Nate Carlisle, a reporter with the Salt Lake Tribune who has waged a fight with the NSA and Bluffdale officials to determine how much water the data center is actually using. “What’s noteworthy is no one on the panel said: ‘Hey, wait a minute, we can’t do this,'” he says. “They had some specific concerns about the language of the bill, but there was no outright opposition.”
Utah lawmakers on the committee could have voted to give the bill an “unfavorable” review on the spot, essentially dooming it on the floor, but they didn’t do that.
Instead, they simply listened to testimony on the NSA and Bluffdale’s support of the center. “I just don’t want to subsidize what they’re doing on the back of our citizens,” Carlisle quotes Republican Representative Roger Barrus as saying during the meeting.
Utah has a long history of disputes with the federal government, but this is the first time Carlisle remembers anyone proposing to cut off water to a federal agency. “I think it’s representative of an attitude change in Utah that the bill is even being discussed,” he says.

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Russia has moved Mig-31 interceptors close to Ukrainian border

By David Cenciotti

Russian build-up along the Ukrainian border continues.

According to the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, the Russian Federation is continuing to amass forces at the border, including radar stations and Mig-31 Foxhound combat planes, interceptors capable of a maximum speed of Mach 2.83.

An unspecified amount of Mig-31s based at Perm have been deployed to Millerovo airfield, in the Rostov region, close to the border with Ukraine, a sign that Moscow may be preparing to actively control the airspace over Luhansk Oblast.

The MiG-31 is a two-seater derivative of the MiG-25 in service since 1983. Designed to face U.S. supersonic strategic bombers flying at low altitude (B-1B bomber), the MiG-31 has quite good low-level capabilities and features a radar with look-down-shoot-down capability. Equipped with a HUD (Head-Up Display), the Foxhound is older and less maneuverable than Mig-29 and Su-27, but it is still an amazing interceptor, with a top speed of Mach 2.83 and an operational range of 1,450 km.

Although the production of the Mig-31 ended in the early 1990s, the Foxhound interceptor is being upgraded to extend its operative life up to the 2028 – 2030, until a replacement will be available.

In the meanwhile, the Russian Air Force has plans to base the aircraft at Tiksi airfield, located on Russia’s Arctic Ocean coast.

According to Ukrainian Government, along with Migs and radars, Russian tanks have been reported crossing the border, whereas hundred pieces of military equipment have been deployed by the Russian Federation inside Ukraine.

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Image credit: Dmitriy Pichugin/Wikipedia

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