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Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Obama calls on journalists to hold themselves and candidates to higher standard
If that was their standard practice... Barry would never have become president!
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WASHINGTON
President Obama on Monday again bemoaned the political environment surrounding the presidential elections and called on journalists to hold candidates and themselves to a higher standard.
"I know I'm not the only one who may be more than a little dismayed about what's happening on the campaign trail right now -- the divisive and often vulgar rhetoric that's aimed at everybody but often is focused on the vulnerable or women or minorities," he said.
Some may be more to blame than others, the president said, but all of us are responsible for reversing it.
Mr. Obama spoke at the presentation of the Toner Prize, named for Robin Toner, the first woman to be national political correspondent for The New York Times. During her nearly 25 years there, Toner covered five presidential campaigns. She passed away in 2008.
The president said the number one question he gets when traveling the world is "What is happening in America?" He said it's because people abroad understand America is the place where you "can't afford completely crazy politics," and they care about the most powerful nation on earth functioning effectively.
"We are all invested in making this system work. We are all responsible for its success, and it's not just for the United States that this matters, it matters for the planet," Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Obama returned from his trip to Cuba last week and recalled the news conference he held jointly with Cuban President Raul Castro. He described the event as remarkable as the two leaders were forced to answer tough questions that were televised to Cubans, and the world.
"I don't know exactly what it will mean for Cuba's future," he said. "I think it made a big difference to the Cuban people. I can't think of a better example of why a free press is so vital to freedom."
Obama called on the broadcast networks and producers to give reporters room to follow their instincts and dig deeper. He said Toner proved that something can be substantive and interesting. He said elections to her were not a horse race, or about scoring the most political points, but were about issues.
"A job well done is about more than just handing someone a microphone. It's to probe and to question and to dig deeper and to demand more," the president said. "The electorate would be better served if that happened. It would be better served if billions of dollars in free media came with serious accountability, especially when politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they cannot keep."
He says he understands there are pressures "to feed the beast" with more gossipy, softer stories, but that leads to consumers failing to understand the world as well as they should, which has consequences for the country.
The point of politics, the president said, is not just the amassing of power - it's what you do with the power that's been lent to you.
The Toner Prize was awarded to ProPublica's Alec MacGillis for stories on campaign finance, lobbying and other influences on politics and governance.
In case you thought these scumbags couldn't get any worse
ISIS reportedly planning attack targeting Jewish children in Turkey
Terrorists from the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) have advanced plans to murder Jewish children in Turkey, targeting kindergartens, schools and youth centres, Sky News can reveal.
Information on what intelligence officials are describing as an "imminent" attack was obtained from six operatives from the "Caliphate" who were arrested in the southern city of Gaziantep over the last week.
The most likely target of an attack is Istanbul's synagogue in Beyoglu, which also has a community centre and a school attached to it.
"In light of these circumstances, extraordinary security measures are being taken above and beyond the high alert level already in place by the Turkish police, as well as vigilance within the Jewish community," an intelligence source told Sky News. "Undercover and other covert counter-terror measures are being implemented around the clock.
"This is a more than credible threat. This is an active plot," the source added.
The series of threats and the specific targeting of Jewish children follow the deadly attack in Istanbul on March 19 when five people were killed by a suicide bomber, including four Israelis, and the murder of another 35 in Brussels last week.
An intelligence report seen by Sky News said: "The so-called Islamic State is believed to be behind both sets of attacks and the organisation continues in determined efforts to perpetrate further attacks in Turkey and elsewhere."
The latest intelligence has emerged as spy agencies struggle to co-ordinate their response to the scale of the threat that is now perceived to exist across Europe.
Turkey has absorbed close to three million refugees and there is strong evidence that several members of the Paris and Brussels cell, who have European origins, had travelled to Syria for training and then been smuggled back, hidden in the waves of refugees seeking safety in Europe.
Now it is coming under increasing terrorist pressure from ISIS and Kurdish separatists.
The threat against Jewish targets, intelligence sources said, was the best information gathered on an imminent attack.
"We don't know when it's scheduled for. It could be in the next 24 hours or next few days," the source said.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Hillary Clinton's email problem apparently started with her BlackBerry 'addiction'
Starting to wonder when this will occur.
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The FBI is scheduling interviews with Hillary Clinton's senior aides when she was secretary of state, signaling that the Justice Department's inquiries into Clinton's use of a private email server is "moving into its final phases," the Los Angeles Timesreports. The FBI has reportedly concluded its background work and needs to speak with Clinton's inner circle, and perhaps Clinton herself, to figure out what the Clinton team was thinking. And while Clinton "faces little risk of being prosecuted," the Times reports, the email flap will "continue to dog Clinton's presidential campaign" and "could cause some political heartburn when the aides are questioned."
(Setting us up for the wrist slap?)
It turns out "Clinton's email problems began in her first days as secretary of state," The Washington Post reports in a long look at what, in fact, Clinton and her team appeared to be thinking. Clinton didn't use a desktop computer and wanted to continue using her BlackBerry, but the diplomatic security corps did not want her to use it in her secure office suite, known as Mahogany Row, out of concern that it could be hacked and used as a listening device, The Post said, citing Clinton's trove of released emails and dozens of interviews:
On Feb. 17, 2009, less than a month into Clinton's tenure, the issue came to a head. Department security, intelligence and technology specialists, along with five officials from the National Security Agency, gathered in a Mahogany Row conference room. They explained the risks to Cheryl Mills, Clinton's chief of staff, while also seeking "mitigation options" that would accommodate Clinton's wishes. "The issue here is one of personal comfort," one of the participants in that meeting, Donald Reid, the department's senior coordinator for security infrastructure, wrote afterward in an email that described Clinton's inner circle of advisers as "dedicated [BlackBerry] addicts." [The Washington Post]
In an email Reid sent five days before the meeting, he indicated that the NSA had signaled they would not set Clinton up with a secure "BlackBerry-like" device, because it would be expensive and "not too user friendly," adding: "Each time we asked the question 'What was the solution for POTUS?' we were politely told to shut up and color." You can read the entire deep dig into the origins of Clinton's email scandal at The Washington Post. Peter Weber
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Wolves slaughter 19 elk in 'sport killing'
Must have contracted the ISIS virus.
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Nineteen elk, mostly calves, were found dead several days ago at a feeding ground near Bondurant, a town southeast of Jackson, said John Lund of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. A contractor delivering feed to the herd discovered the dead animals.
"There is a significant concern among wildlife managers," he said, noting that there are no reports of wolves attacking humans. "Our concern is big game."
But there's nothing the state agency can do, he said. Wolves are federally protected and managed.
In 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service planned to take wolves off the endangered list and turn over management of the animals to Wyoming, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department website. That would have allowed state-regulated hunting of wolves.
But a federal judge ruled in 2014 that wolves remain under federal control and be relisted as an endangered species.
The federal agency could kill wolves that are attacking livestock but not wildlife, said Mike Jiminez, the wildlife service's Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf coordinator, according to the Casper Star Tribune.
Wolves, once nearly extinct, were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department website. The number of wolves grew and spread across the region.
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