Happy Easter

Senator Rand Paul; A Duty to Preserve the 2nd Amendment

From The Washington Times --

When Congress reconvenes next month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to bring gun control back to the Senate floor. If this occurs, I will oppose any legislation that undermines Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms or their ability to exercise this right without being subject to government surveillance.

Restricting Americans’ ability to purchase firearms readily and freely will do nothing to stop national tragedies such as those that happened in Newtown, Conn., and in Aurora, Colo. It will do much to give criminals and potential killers an unfair advantage by hampering law-abiding citizens’ ability to defend themselves and their families. Potentially on the table are new laws that would outlaw firearms and magazines that hold more than just a handful of rounds, as well as require universal “background checks,” which amount to gun registration. We are also being told that the “assault weapons” ban originally introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein is not happening. We can only hope. But in Washington, D.C., bad ideas often have a strange way of coming up again.

These laws are designed to sound reasonable, but statistics have shown that gun control simply does not work. What constitutes reasonable? If limiting rounds and increasing surveillance were really the solution to curbing gun violence, why should we stop there? Because everyone knows that none of this actually curbs gun violence.

Gun control itself is unreasonable.Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the entire country — and one of the worst gun-crime rates, with more than 500 homicides last year. Compare this to Virginia, where in the past six years, gun sales went up by 73 percent, while violent gun crime fell 24 percent. The types of firearms and clips the left is currently so intent on banning are used in fewer than 2 percent of gun crimes — and how many of those crimes involve registered weapons? Few to none.

For every national tragedy that happens, there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Americans preventing similar killings from happening, thanks to the use of personal firearms. Last June, for example, a 14-year-old Phoenix boy shot an armed intruder who broke into his home while he was baby-sitting his three younger siblings. The children were home alone on a Saturday afternoon when an unrecognized woman rang their doorbell. After the 14-year-old boy refused to open the door, he heard a loud bang, which indicated that someone was trying to break into the house. The boy hurried his younger siblings upstairs and collected a handgun from his parents’ room. When the boy rounded the top of the stairs, there was a man standing in the doorway with a gun pointed at him. The boy shot at the intruder and saved the lives of his three younger siblings.

There have been would-be mass murderers who have walked into schools, churches, shopping malls, movie theaters and other public places who didn’t get very far because, thankfully, an armed citizen was nearby. There have been countless home invasions, armed robberies and other assaults in which lives were saved, thanks to citizens possessing private firearms.These stories are heroic, but they don’t become big headlines. We should all be glad that they don’t become such headlines, thanks to the unsung heroes who prevent them from becoming potential national tragedies.

For these reasons, I will oppose any attempt by President Obama, Mr. Reid or anyone else in Washington who works against Americans’ right to bear arms. Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz have decided to join in this effort.We do this not only because it is right — but because it is our duty as United States senators.

When I stood up for the Fourth and Fifth Amendments during a filibuster a few weeks ago to address drones and executive power, it was not because I was partial to those amendments, important as they are. When I came into office, I took an oath to uphold the Bill of Rights. 

I took an oath to uphold the First Amendment. I took an oath to uphold the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment reads: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It doesn’t say “might be” infringed. Nor does it say “could be” infringed. It read “shall not” be infringed. The current gun-control legislation being proposed unquestionably infringes. For these reasons, I will work diligently to stop any such gun-control legislation. Our Constitution, individual liberty and personal safety depend on it.

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Homeland Security committees.

Why China Is Reading Your Email

From The Wall Street Journal --

Timothy L. Thomas By DAVID FEITH

Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

For several years, Washington has treated China as the Lord Voldemort of geopolitics—the foe who must not be named, lest all economic and diplomatic hell break loose. That policy seemed to be ending in recent weeks, and Timothy Thomas thinks it's about time.

The clearest sign of change came in a March 11 speech by Tom Donilon, President Obama's national security adviser, who condemned "cyber intrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale" and declared that "the international community cannot tolerate such activity from any country." Chinese cyber aggression poses risks "to international trade, to the reputation of Chinese industry and to our overall relations," Mr. Donilon said, and Beijing must stop it.

"Why did we wait so long?" wonders Mr. Thomas as we sit in the U.S. Army's Foreign Military Studies Office, where the 64-year-old retired lieutenant colonel has studied Chinese cyber strategy for two decades. More than enough evidence accumulated long ago, he says, for the U.S. to say to Beijing and its denials of responsibility, "Folks, you don't have a leg to stand on, sorry."

U.S. targets of suspected Chinese cyber attacks include news organizations (this newspaper, the New York Times, Bloomberg), tech firms (Google, GOOG -1.06%Adobe, ADBE +2.00% Yahoo YHOO -0.26% ), multinationals (Coca-Cola,KO +0.55% Dow Chemical DOW +0.19% ), defense contractors (Lockheed Martin,LMT +2.17% Northrop Grumman NOC +0.36% ), federal departments (Homeland Security, State, Energy, Commerce), senior officials (Hillary Clinton, Adm. Mike Mullen), nuclear-weapons labs (Los Alamos, Oak Ridge) and just about every other node of American commerce, infrastructure or authority. Identities of confidential sources, hide-outs of human-rights dissidents, negotiation strategies of major corporations, classified avionics of the F-35 fighter jet, the ins and outs of America's power grid: Hackers probe for all this, extracting secrets and possibly laying groundwork for acts of sabotage.

China's aggression has so far persisted, Mr. Thomas says, because "it makes perfect sense to them." The U.S. has difficulty defending its cyber systems, the relatively new realm of cyber isn't subject to international norms, and years of intrusions have provoked little American response. "I think they're willing to take the risk right now because they believe that we can't do anything to them," he says. "You have to change the playing field for them, and if you don't, they're not going to change. They're going to continue to rip off every bit of information they can."

Hence the promise of Washington's apparent shift in policy. "There's something going on," Mr. Thomas says, and the Donilon speech was only one part. This month's more significant news, he argues, was the announcement that the U.S. military's Cyber Command (founded in 2009) would for the first time develop and field 13 offensive cyber-warfare teams. The Chinese "now know we are ready to go on the offense. There's something that's been put in place that I think is going to change their view."

Not that he expects Beijing to back down lightly. On the contrary, Mr. Thomas points to the literature of the People's Liberation Army to demonstrate that China's cyber strategy has deep—even ancient—roots.

The essence of China's thinking about cyber warfare is the concept of shi, he says, first introduced in Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" about 2,500 years ago. The concept's English translation is debated, but Mr. Thomas subscribes to the rendering of Chinese Gen. Tao Hanzhang, who defines shi as "the strategically advantageous posture before a battle."

"When I do reconnaissance activities of your [cyber] system," Mr. Thomas explains of China's thinking, "I'm looking for your vulnerabilities. I'm establishing a strategic advantage that enables me to 'win victory before the first battle' "—another classic concept, this one from the "36 Stratagems" of Chinese lore. "I've established the playing field. I have 'prepped the battlefield,' to put it in the U.S. lexicon."

Or, as Chinese Gen. Dai Qingmin wrote in his 2002 book, "Direct Information Warfare": "Computer network reconnaissance is the prerequisite for seizing victory in warfare. It helps to choose opportune moments, places and measures for attack." Says Mr. Thomas: "He's telling you right there—10 years ago—that if we're going to win, we have to do recon."

A 1999 book by two Chinese colonels put it more aggressively (albeit in a sentence as verbose as it is apocalyptic): "If the attacking side secretly musters large amounts of capital without the enemy nations being aware of this at all and launches a sneak attack against its financial markets," wrote Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, "then, after causing a financial crisis, buries a computer virus and hacker detachment in the opponent's computer system in advance, while at the same time carrying out a network attack against the enemy so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network, and mass media network are completely paralyzed, this will cause the enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis." No kidding.

This vision from 1999 reads like an outline of the report published last month by Mandiant, a private-security firm, about "Unit 61398," a Shanghai-based Chinese military team that since 2006 has mounted cyber assaults to steal terabytes of codes and other information from U.S. assets. Among the targets of Unit 61398 was Telvent Canada, which provides remote-access software for more than 60% of the oil and gas pipelines in North America and Latin America.

Unit 61398 is said to engage in "spearphishing," whereby would-be cyber intruders send emails with links and attachments that, if clicked, install malware on target computers. Lesser hackers might spearphish while posing as Nigerian princes, but Unit 61398 developed sophisticated ways, including colloquial language, to mimic corporate and governmental interoffice emails.

Spearphishing, too, draws on traditional Chinese stratagems: "The Chinese strive to impel opponents to follow a line of reasoning that they (the Chinese) craft," Mr. Thomas wrote in 2007. With this kind of asymmetric approach, he says, "anybody can become an unsuspecting accomplice."

In this context Mr. Thomas mentions a cartoon published last year in Army magazine in which one Chinese general says to another: "To hell with 'The Art of War,' I say we hack into their infrastructure." Good for a chuckle, perhaps, but Mr. Thomas warns against taking the message seriously. China's hacking is in fact "a manifestation of 'The Art of War,' " he says, and if the U.S. military doesn't realize that, it "can make mistakes. . . . You have to stay with their line of thought if you're going to try to think like them."

"Boy," he later laments, "we need a lot more Chinese speakers in this country"—a point underscored by the fact that he isn't one himself. He reads Chinese military texts in translation, some published by the U.S. government's Open Source Center and some he has found himself. He stumbled upon Gen. Dai's "Direct Information Warfare" on a trip several years ago to Shanghai, when an associate led him (and an interpreter) to an unmarked military bookstore on the top floor of a building on the outskirts of town. "I could tell when I walked in that the people behind the cash register were stunned I was there," he recalls. In public bookstores, he says, material addressing Chinese national security is often marked "not for foreign sale" on the inside cover.

The Ohio native does speak Russian, having focused most of his military service (from West Point graduation in 1973 until 1993) on the Soviet Union. That language skill still comes in handy, and not just because Russia is suspected of having carried out cyber assaults against Estonia in 2007 and Georgia in 2008.

Look at the Mandiant report's map of Chinese cyber intrusions (at least those tied to Unit 61398): Russia is untouched. "That's a huge area. . . . I really would wonder why they're after South Africa, the U.A.E. and Singapore but not Russia. And Luxembourg. They went after Luxembourg but not Russia?" Together with Iran, he argues, China and Russia make up "not the axis of evil but the axis of cyber."

So what is to be done? Security firms are working to harden networks against hackers, and members of Congress are promoting legislation to let the government work more closely with Internet service providers without opening up the companies to lawsuits or infringing on civil liberties. Washington could challenge Chinese cyber espionage with targeted economic sanctions. Meanwhile, there is much talk about establishing international standards for cyber space, but it is unclear what that would mean—which probably explains why top officials in Washington and Beijing have both endorsed the idea.

None of this seems promising to Mr. Thomas, who stresses building deterrence through offensive capabilities, such as the 13 new teams at U.S. Cyber Command. The implication is that the best defense is a good offense.

And doesn't that suggest, in turn, that the U.S. and China are headed toward a dynamic of mutually assured cyber destruction? "It seems like it," he says.

It's heartening to hear, then, that Chinese military literature isn't uniformly aggressive toward America. This includes writings about the "China Dream," which posits that China will overtake the U.S. economically and militarily by midcentury—and which has been adopted as the signature cause of new President Xi Jinping.

"They give you both versions," says Mr. Thomas. "They give you a model that says, 'There will be no way we'll ever fight [the U.S.], we'll work on cooperation.' A chapter later, 'There could be a time where if pushed hard enough, we'll have to do something and there will be a battle.' "

But what about the argument that the U.S. is shedding crocodile tears? America (and Israel) were almost certainly behind the most successful known cyber attack to date: the Stuxnet virus that impeded Iran's uranium-enrichment program. There might be some comfort in knowing that the U.S. is doing unto China what China is doing unto the U.S., says Mr. Thomas, but "we don't seem as intrusive as the other side." That is illustrated especially, he says, by China's state-sponsored commercial espionage. He frequently hears complaints from U.S. firms dealing with Chinese counterparts who know their secrets, adding that "I don't think people really get the security briefing of just how invasive it is."

Then there's the argument that all this is overblown because no cyber attack has ever killed anyone. Mr. Thomas responds, somewhat impatiently: "If I had access to your bank account, would you worry? If I had access to your home security system, would you worry? If I have access to the pipes coming into your house? Not just your security system but your gas, your electric—and you're the Pentagon?"

He adds: "Maybe nobody's been killed yet, but I don't want you having the ability to hold me hostage. I don't want that. I don't want you to be able to blackmail me at any point in time that you want." He cites the Chinese colonels' vision, back in 1999, of "social panic" and "street riots." "I wonder what would happen if none of us could withdraw money out of our banks. I watched the Russians when the crash came and they stood in line and . . . they had nothing."

Mr. Feith is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.

Fed's Fund Vital Study on Snail Sex & Duck Penises - Cleveland Air Show & White House Tours still Canceled over Lack of Funds

As we face sequester cuts that have Rep. Marcia Fudge (OH-11) of Cleveland and her fellow Democrats screaming as if the world will end, the unemployed, under-employed, or low-paid American worker can still take solace in knowing some important programs & studies funded under President Obama's Stimulus and Continuous Resolution funding will remain in place.

The federally funded National Science Foundation (NSF), being described as, "good stewards of taxpayer dollars," and a future investment that plays into the big picture role of our economic success by NSF Spokesperson Debbie Wing, has recently funded and continued the funding on two of these "important" programs.....

From CNS News --

The National Science Foundation awarded a grant for $876,752 to the University of Iowa to study whether there is any benefit to sex among New Zealand mud snails and whether that explains why any organism has sex.

So far, the grant has paid out $502,357, according to NSF, and could pay out the full $880,000 between now and 2015. (More...)

And looking towards gathering crucial economic insight for future generations, Yale University has been busy at work on an important NSF funded study of their own....

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $384,949 grant to Yale University for a study on “Sexual Conflict, Social Behavior and the Evolution of Waterfowl Genitalia”, according to the recovery.gov website.

Many duck penises are cork-screw shaped and some scientists believe this is because of a form of evolution known as "sexual conflict". According to the NSF grant abstract the study shows that age, environment and breeding changes can impact the penis length of certain ducks.... (More...)

Unfortunately, due to the funding for important economic studies like the ones above and the belt tightening sacrifices we must make under the Sequester, White House tours and the Cleveland Air Show are still cancelled.

Another Part of Obamacare Ready to Get the Axe

From Tea Party Patriots --

Another piece of Obamacare may soon be on the trash heap of history:

Medical-device companies scored a political victory when the Senate voted in a non-binding resolution to repeal a new device tax, and now they are turning their attention to the House, especially U.S. Representative Ed Markey.

The 2.3 percent tax went into effect in January and is supposed to help offset the costs of implementing President Obama’s landmark health reform law. But the device industry argues that it would cost Massachusetts’ largest companies more than $411 million a year, according to a new analysis by the Pioneer Institute that will be released in April, just before the first payment is due.

The Senate voted 79-20 to repeal the tax Thursday evening in a bipartisan budget amendment in a non-binding resolution. Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and William “Mo” Cowan signed on to the repeal, following a flurry of last-minute lobbying from Massachusetts medical device makers of New England Democrats.

Rep. Markey voted against repeal of the tax last year, but says he opposes the tax on principle. The problem? Keeping Obamacare funded:

Markey says he has not signed onto the current bill because it does not specify how the repeal would be paid for.

“I am concerned about the impact that the device tax could have on the medical device industry and job creation in Massachusetts,” Markey said. “I opposed the inclusion of this tax in the House health care reform bill. I would support repealing the tax, as long as the revenue replacing it does not impact middle-class families or their health care benefits.”

With clear bipartisan support for repeal, there’s a good chance the tax will be overturned. However, two top Democrats – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) voted against repeal, which means a fight may still be ahead. On the other hand, the 1099 tax in Obamacare was overturned some time ago, giving precedence to elimination of a tax created in the health care law.

Given that the Senate amendment is non-binding, it has no force of law. But it is a good sign that an overwhelming majority of the Senate is expressing an opinion against this tax, which means legislation has a good chance of passing in the future.

The Food Stamp President & The Dependency Class

The below story shows participation in the "Food Stamp" program (SNAP) has increased by 70% since President Obama has taken office.

While President Obama's failed policies that actually increased unemployment and extended the economic crisis we have faced since he took office are the cause of this increase in Food Stamps, this increase was also due to President Obama continuing the progressive agenda of the left and his fulfilling of a campaign promise to fundamentally transform us as a country.

The other part of the equation for an increase in the Food Stamp program was because President Obama, in his desire to transform our country, purposely increased the enrollment by allowing higher income earning Americans to sign up for food stamp program (SNAP) --  thus creating and increasing the new "Dependency Class" of American citizen's...

From The Washington Times -- (Emphasis Added)

Enrollment in the food stamp program — officially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — has soared by 70 percent in the years since President Obama first took office, a new report finds.

The government said the recession ended in 2009, The Wall Street Journal reports, but enrollment in the food stamp program didn’t wane, as would be expected in an improving economy. Since 2008, it’s been on a steady rise, The Journal reports.

A record 47.8 million people participate in the program, as of December 2012 — a figure that translates into a 70 percent rise since 2008, The Journal says. Why?

Despite government claims, the job market is still lagging. The poverty rate is on the rise, The Journal says. And federal laws passed under former President Clinton and further under Mr. Obama are actually driving the enrollment rate higher. Those laws allow for those with higher incomes to take food stamps — the logic being that helping people before they reach crisis financial level will actually stimulate the economy, The Journal says.

The news for the future is more of the same.

Economists predict that food stamp enrollment will continue to rise in the coming year. Then, enrollment will start to drop, but slowly and only slightly, The Journal says.

Cleveland Air Show Cancelled

SEQUESTRATION OR PETTINESS?

A few days ago, The Plain Dealer reported that 

The Cleveland National Air Show has become a victim of the "sequester," as federal budget cuts that took effect at the beginning of the month have forced the cancellation of the annual Labor Day event.

Organizers of the air show issued a news release today announcing its cancellation. It's the first time the air show won't be held in Cleveland since its first event in 1964, said air show spokeswoman Kim Dell.

“After considering the effect this will have on programming, attendance and the financial viability of producing a 2013 event, the Executive Committee of Cleveland National Air Show Inc. Board of Trustees made the decision to cancel this year’s Air Show," Chuck Newcomb, executive director of the show, said in the news release. "Though regrettable, this action is viewed to be in the long term best interest of the Air Show, the City of Cleveland and the valued fans that annually attend the event.”

"It was not an easy decision for the board to make," Dell said."It's a very big deal."The air show attracts 60,000 to 100,000 visitors to Burke Lakefront Airport. It has an annual economic impact of $7.1 million.

Federal budget cuts forced the grounding of air show staples such as the Air Force Thunderbirds and the Army's Golden Knights jump team. Those losses played a huge role in the board's decision, Dell said.

Federal budget cuts? Well, only discretionary spending, and then not much.  The New York Times reported that "recklessly cutting discretionary spending does little to address America’s long-term debt crisis — which is supposedly why we pushed ourselves into the sequester in the first place."

Sequestration was President Obama's idea. So he is cutting discretionary spending on programs that visibly benefit the public, such as White House Tours, The Thunderbirds and The Blue Angels. 

Among the discretionary budget items NOT cut:

• $250 million in aid to Egypt  
• $500 million to Palestine
• Obama's golf outings including his round with Tiger Woods last month @ $80,000 just for security
• Biden's one night hotel stay in Paris @ $585,000 
• Biden's one night hotel stay in London @ $460,000
• Obama's two daughters' spring vacation in the Bahamas, not likely to be less than their holiday last year in Mexico  @ $115,500

So, no Air Show for Cleveland this coming Labor Day weekend. What a petty administration.