This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Hondo

  • Some Clintoon Email May Be “Too Damaging” to Release

    Well, we have yet another bit of “good news” about Ms. Clintoon’s “private email server” and its security issues.

    Another batch of Clintoon “private” emails were scheduled to be publicly released by State this past Friday. However, that won’t be all of them.

    Why? First, State says they recently uncovered a previously unknown stash of several thousand emails that need review. Second, the recent snowstorm on the East Coast also delayed the review process.

    But it now also appears that the public may never see some number of emails stored on that unauthorized and poorly-secured privately-owned server.

    Why not, you ask? It appears that the Intelligence Community has determined that some of those emails are potentially so damaging they cannot be publicly released at all – not even in redacted form. It rather goes without saying that information that sensitive and highly classified is never allowed to be stored on an unauthorized, poorly-secured, and privately-owned and operated email server.

    Fox News published an article recently with more details concerning this latest development. It’s IMO certainly worth reading.

    And remember: these emails were stored on a server that – per former SECDEF and CIA Director Gates – was likely accessed by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian intelligence.

    At the risk of repeating myself: great. Just freaking great.

    Someone really should do time for this. Serious time.

  • The White Rabbit Mourns

    Paul Kantner, the Jefferson Airplane’s co-founder, has died.  He was 74.

    The Fox News obit is IMO a good one.   It’s worth a look if you were a fan.

    Politically, IMO the man was out to lunch.  But he and his compadres nonetheless made some powerful music.

    RIP, Mr. Kantner.

  • Misiewicz Pleads Guilty In GDMA Scandal

    CDR Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz has pleaded guilty in Federal court to two felonies in conjunction with the Glenn Defense Marine Asia, Ltd (hereafter “GDMA”) bribery scandal.  The two felonies were conspiracy to commit bribery and bribery of a public official.

    Prior to the scandal, Misiewicz had been selected for promotion to Captain.  Now he faces up to 20 years in Federal prison.  A sentencing hearing is scheduled for 29 April.

    Another Naval officer involved – LCDR Todd Malaki – has also recently pleaded guilty.  He’s scheduled to be sentenced today.  He faces a maximum possible sentence of 5 years in prison.

    In the GDMA scandal, the CEO of GDMA – “Fat Leonard” Francis –  provided numerous expensive gifts to various Navy personnel in exchange for advance information regarding Navy port calls and/or the diversion of Navy ships to specific ports.  This in turn allowed GDMA to overcharge the US Government approximately $20 million for services performed in conjunction with those port calls.

    At present, only one of the GDMA conspirators is fighting charges; the rest have pleaded guilty.  A partial list of those involved from about a year ago can be found here.  However, it is known to be incomplete, as Malaki is not listed there.

    The matter remains under investigation.  More arrests are possible.

    Personally, I hope every one of the US personnel involved – civilian or military – gets absolutely nailed to the wall at sentencing. These individuals were all in positions of public trust and abused them badly. IMO they deserve a looong time to contemplate their misdeeds.

  • There Are Charities – and Then There Are Charities

    Many vets like to help others in need.  Donating to charities that provide services to vets in need is one way to do that.

    But as is always the case, there are veterans’ charities . . . and then there are veterans’ charities.  They’re not all equally good regarding “bang for the buck” – if you define “bang for the buck” as the proportion of donated funds that actually get spent on helping veterans.

    Some veterans’ charities are quite good in that respect.  According to CBS News, the DAV Charitable Service Trust spends 96% of its funds on veterans. Fisher House is also good (91%).

    Wounded Warrior Project?  Um, not so much.  CBS News says the actual figure for WWP is around 60%.  (WWP claims 80% – but per CBS, they do so by including shipping/postage costs, the cost of selected promotional items, and the cost of direct response advertising.  Remove those overhead items and the fraction falls to around 60%.)

    They apparently like to party, though.  In 2014, WWP spent over $26 million on “conferences, conventions, and meetings”. That’s up from a bit over $1.74M in 2010 for “meetings and events”.

    One 2014 annual meeting alone – for about 500 WWP staffers, held at what appears to be a very nice resort in Colorado Springs – cost roughly $3M.  Sounds to me like the people at the VA who plan conferences must have given them a few pointers.

    WWP also seems to pay their top employees well, too.  As in nearly $500k in 2014 salary for their CEO.

    And did I already mention that WWP gave an organization that defends higher spending by charities for fundraising, overhead, and executive salaries a grant of $150,000 last year?  I didn’t mention that yet?  Well, according to CBS – they did.

    Current WWP CEO Steven Nardizzi took over in 2009.  Per CBS News, “Former employees say spending has skyrocketed since Steven Nardizzi took over as CEO in 2009.  Many point to the 2014 annual meeting at a luxury resort in Colorado Springs as typical of his style.”

    CBS News is doing a multi-part report on WWP this week.  Part 1 may be found here; part 2 may be found here; part 3, here.  (I have no idea if CBS plans more parts to the series, so monitoring their web site might be worth your time for the next few days.)  The articles are eye-opening – and to me, rather disturbing.

    I can say with certainty that until WWP cleans up their act, they won’t see a penny from me.   But that’s just me.  I can’t speak for others on this issue.

     

    Edited to add:  a belated footnote – a comment on an earlier article by longtime readernbcguy54ACTUAL  tipped me to the the first CBS story in the series.  My apologies for not giving him that credit earlier.

  • Not All Great Americans Are Famous

    Today, we have a somewhat different kind of “feel good story”.  And FWIW:  you might want to have a tissue handy while you read this.

    Ms. Bridget Stevens is a military spouse.  Her husband is a member of the National Guard; he’s currently deployed OCONUS.

    Recently, her furnace broke down.  This left Ms. Stevens and her two children without heat.

    She called a local shop, Betlyn Heating and Cooling.  The owner, Mr. Paul Betlyn, attempted to talk her through getting the furnace restarted.  When that failed, he came out and fixed the furnace.

    So far, nothing out of the ordinary.  But what happened next is a bit unusual.

    Mr. Betlyn gave Ms. Stevens a “deployment discount” since her husband was deployed.  Instead of the normal roughly $150 that the repairs would have cost, Mr Betlyn charged her . . .  one dollar.

    He then told her that the $1 charge was a joke – and to thank her husband for his service.

    I’m serious.  The linked story has more details, and is IMO certainly worth reading.

    Well done, Mr. Betlyn.  Your head – and heart – are certainly in the right place.

    Thank you, sir.  If I’m ever within your service area and need HVAC repairs, I think I know who’s getting my business.

  • Another Day, . . .

    . . . another report of a new Clintoon “private email server” security issue.  And like yesterday, this one is “Big (Effing) Deal” bad, too.

    How bad?  Well, I’ll just provide a link or two to explain that.  Here’s the first link, identifying yet another type of highly classified material that’s reportedly been found on Clintoon’s unauthorized, inadequately-secured “private email server”.  It rather goes without saying that this newly-identified type of classified information was not authorized to be stored there either.

    Now, here’s the second link to publicly-available IC documentation briefly describing that type of information.  The need for extreme protection for this type of information should be obvious to anyone with 3 or more working brain cells.

    Oh, and here’s another little bit of “good news”.  Former SECDEF and CIA Director Robert Gates believes there’s a very good chance that Clintoon’s server was accessed by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian intelligence .  So anything that was there . . . is very likely no longer exactly a secret.

    Geez.  First unauthorized TS-SCI info is found stored on Clintoon’s inadequately-secured “private server”.  Next, unauthorized SAP info.   Now this.

    And all of the information stored there has likely been divulged to Russia, China, and Iran.  Great.  Just freaking great.

    Damn, what’s going to be found next on that effectively unsecured “private” server – Pentagon OPLANs?  The design specifications and blueprints for a US nuclear warhead?  At this point, given what we’ve seen found so far I’m not sure I’d be shocked even by that.

    IMO multiple people should end up doing serious time for this fiasco.  There’s simply no excuse for this degree of negligence – or deliberate disregard for the law – when handling these types of classified information.

  • A Clintoon SAP Story

    “Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends . . . .”  Well, at least it seems sometimes as if this one will persist forever.

    Still, maybe not.  Remember the argument a few weeks ago, when the Clintoon camp tried to “pooh-pooh” two emails found on her poorly-secured “private email server” that contained top secret information, calling them the result of a “disagreement” over the proper classification or claiming that they “weren’t classified at the time”?  The IC came on record and flatly stated that was not the case, and that the materials in question were indeed top secret.

    Well, it looks as if there was a bit more to it than that.

    It seems as if the Intelligence Community IG office did a comprehensive review of the issue, apparently between November and earlier this month. And it’s considerably worse than they first let on.

    Bottom line: dozens of classified emails were on that ineffectively-secured and unauthorized “private” server.  And at least some of those emails apparently contained information that was not only top secret, but which was also SAP (special access program) material from the Intelligence Community.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, this linked Wikipedia article provides a decent overview of what a special access program is and why one would exist.

    If you’re thinking, “That’s bad” – yeah, that’s bad.  Really bad.  As in “Big (Freaking) Deal” bad, to quote the current VP.

    Something like this is simply NOT supposed to happen.  Period.

    The material here is so highly controlled that some members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – the Senate committee which oversees operations of the State Department – were not authorized access to this information without receiving additional security briefings and signing additional nondisclosure agreements specifically relating to the material.  This was true even though those same individuals were previously cleared for access to all other materials publicly acknowledged as being found on Clintoon’s unauthorized “private” server.

    The linked articles are quite informative – and disturbing as hell.  IMO they’re worth your time to read.

    IMO, a number of people should be going to jail for this.  At this point it appears obvious that this was not merely the result of some “honest mistake” in handling classified information.

    18 USC 793(f) and (g), anyone?  Sure looks like it to me.

  • More IRS IT Data “Issues”

    To paraphrase a great man: “Well, there they go again.” And this time, while it indeed involves the IRS and their IT operations it doesn’t involve screwing with conservative nonprofit groups.

    Some time ago, the IRS entered into a questionable $2.2 million contract with a law firm. The law firm was to assist with IRS audit activities – but had little experience in handling IRS audit data, and was very expensive ($1000/hour billing rate). The contract was bad enough to draw Congressional interest – and could well have been both unnecessary and contrary to Federal law, which appears to restrict performance of IRS audit functions to government employees.

    The matter apparently became the subject of some form of litigation or investigation. As a result, a Federal judge ordered the IRS to preserve the hard drive used on the personal PC of the IRS’s former director of transfer pricing operations at the IRS Large Business and International Division– and individual named Samuel Maruca. Mr. Maruca (or one of his subordinates) apparently oversaw or influenced the contract in question.

    Do I really need to tell you what happened?

    Yeah, you guessed it. Contrary to the judge’s order, the IRS wiped the drive – last April, well after the judge had ordered it preserved.

    To me, it seems this means either the IRS’s IT folks are spectacularly incompetent – or someone is deliberately trying to hide something.  I can’t see any other plausible explanation for a drive ordered preserved by a Federal judge being wiped after it had been ordered preserved.

    But maybe that’s just me.  Feel free to draw your own conclusions regarding why the IRS did this.

    Oh, did I mention that this had happened before?  In March 2014, the IRS deleted “hundreds” of backup tapes containing an estimated 24,000 emails from Lois Lerner – after they’d been subpoenaed by Congress.

    But remember: this is the “most transparent Administration in history”.  So we’ll shortly be getting a simple, straightforward explanation regarding what happened here  – right?

    Yeah, right.  If you believe that . . . please come talk to me about buying this bridge.  I’ll make ya a great deal on it.