Monthly Archives: November 2014

Another Cyber Threat

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…and an empty solution.

[NSA Director and Commander, US Cyber Command Admiral Michael] Rogers said he believed China along with “one or two” other countries had the capability to successfully launch a cyber-attack that could shut down the electric grid in parts of the United States.

And

US adversaries are performing electronic “reconnaissance” on a regular basis so that they can be in a position to attack the industrial control systems that run everything from chemical facilities to water treatment plants.

We’ve known the PRC, Russia, and have been hacking into a broad variety of our computer systems for some years. Rogers is correct that “if the US remains on the defensive, it would be a ‘losing strategy.'”

However, his insistence that

agreeing to an international code, a sort of “laws of law” in the cyber realm, is urgent[]

is wrong. These three nations are not going to honor any restrictions on their war fighting behaviors. Nor will any other nation that develops such a capability and then uses it.

What’s urgent is that we improve our defensive capability so that we can block—and preempt—further cyber recce runs and any attack. What’s urgent is that we develop our offensive cyber and physical capabilities so that we can fight a total cyber war, in conjunction with a physical response, to the total destruction of our attacker(s)’ ability to attack us again, much less continue its present attack.

Anything less is just selling us down the river.

Another Response to a Desire for Freedom

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[Spain] Attorney General Eduardo Torres-Dulce charged Artur Mas and two other local officials with four crimes each, including contempt of court and misappropriation of funds, saying they had defied a court order by allowing the Nov 9 vote, in which 2.3 million people participated and more than 80% favored independence.

The Region in question, of which Mas is President and the “other officials” are his Vice President and Education Minister, is Catalonia, an erstwhile prosperous Autonomous Community of Spain, a nationality—so designated by the Spanish Statute of Autonomy. Catalonia consists of the four provinces Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona, and it sits in the northeast of Spain, hard against the Pyrenees and the Med.

The reason its prosperity is erstwhile is because it’s been bankrolling the rest of Spain’s regions and provinces as the latter deal with the Panic of 2008 and the six years of aftermath by spending profligately in the finest European (and becoming American) tradition. It’s Catalan-earned money that’s being used, little of it is coming back to the Catalans, and they’re tired of it.

Eighty per cent tired.

But wanting independence, rather than mere autonomy, wanting to be out from under Madrid’s thumb now is a crime. According to Madrid.

A Tax Implication of Obama’s Immigration

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Via The Daily Caller comes this ugly thought. Illegal aliens, under President Barack Obama’s immigration diktat, will get work permits and be eligible for social security payments in their dotage. They’ll also be required to pay taxes, including their Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. Never mind that their employers’ cost of labor just went up because they’ll no longer be able to avoid paying their own payroll taxes on those workers (to be clear, they should have been paying all along, but since they were breaking the law hiring these folks, they could hardly be expected to give themselves up by paying up).

Here’s the kicker, though. The number of illegal alien families living under the Federal Poverty Guideline is roughly double the number for the nation at large. Thus,

…asked if the illegals would get annual payments under the Earned Income Tax Credit program[,]

“They are subject to our tax law,” [Cecilia Munoz, White House Domestic Policy Council Director] said….

And for other welfare benefits, now that they’ll be in the system, at least for as long as Obama’s illegal diktat lasts.

Congress over the next Two Years

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This is what our newly elected Congress needs to do over the next two years.

  • Re-pass the 40 jobs bills which Senator Harry Reid (D, NV) suppressed, without changing a word. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. President Barack Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Repeal the ACA and Dodd-Frank. Do these with roll call votes, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Repeal various parts of ACA, Dodd-Frank, one by one. Do each with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Repeal most of the EPA’s regulations, particularly the ones impacting coal, oil, natural gas, and how private lands can be used. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Pass tax reform with lowered personal, business rates, closed loopholes and subsidies. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Pass budgets each year that fully fund the Federal government without funding the ACA or Dodd-Frank remnants and severely restricting funding for the EPA and the Labor Department and its political arm, the NLRB. Do this with roll call votes, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them. Make clear how the obstructionist President prefers to shut off government altogether in his temper tantrum if he can’t have his way.
  • Pass border control legislation. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.
  • Pass immigration entry reform legislation contingent on a decently secured border, but don’t wait on border security to pass this. The contingency will allow this reform to be passed this session. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.
  • Pass legislation vis-à-vis existing illegal aliens contingent on a decently secured border and entry reform, but don’t wait on those to pass this. The contingency will allow this reform to be passed this session. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.
  • Seriously restrict regulation delegation authority. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.

Our Congress needs to do this against a backdrop of House—and now Senate—hearings into Fast and Furious, IRS, Benghazi, VA, Secret Service failures, immigration lawlessness, NSA snooping, Iran’s nuclear weapons program, DoJ stonewalling of those investigations. Both chambers need to pursue these investigations and associated hearings with zeal, but they shouldn’t be in attack dog mode.

Our Congress needs to take action on the findings of the House Select Committee on Benghazi chaired by Congressman Trey Gowdy (R, SC).

This adds up to a full slate of activities for the 114th Congress.

All cases—legislation and investigative hearings—have two purposes. The first, and foremost, purpose is to get government out of the way of our economy so we can regain our prosperity and to learn and expose the truth of what’s been going on during the Obama administration so that those…failures…can be corrected. The secondary purpose is to keep the Obama administration’s failures of policy and of behavior in the public’s eye.

Don’t waste time on an impeachment effort. They don’t have the votes to convict in the Senate, but the effort will let the NLMSM change the subject away from the Obama administration failures. Of course, the NLMSM might well attempt simply to spike the stories about the legislation and the investigations and hearings, like they did Jonathan Gruber’s truth-telling and most of them did Obama’s immigration “reform” speech last night. But it’ll be a hard thing to spike for two years.

This will be the most effective way of demonstrating the distinction between Conservatives and Democrats/Progressives, of showing what Conservatives stand for and work to achieve compared to what the Democrats/Progressives stand against and work to block. It will give Americans a choice in 2016: a President of little experience and no accomplishment—Hillary Clinton channeling one aspect of Barack Obama—a President bent on Progressive, Big Government policies without regard to the law or the American people—Elizabeth Warren channeling another aspect of Barack Obama—versus a Conservative President, bent on reducing government’s intrusion into Americans’ lives and shrinking government’s interference with Americans’ economy.

This will shape the elections of 2016.