Military Planning To Spend Billions On New Air Force One

This as Obama criminals, Congress traitors conspire to cut Social Security, Medicare, Veterans benefits while thousands of homeless, jobless Americans starve and die on the streets of what was once the most prosperous country in the world  

MILITARY.COM
03/30/2015

The Pentagon is considering spending billions of dollars on three new Boeing 747s to use as Air Force One, the aircraft that shuttles the United States president.

Nothing but the best for King Obama

According to CBS News, the current Air Force One fleet is getting old, and the U.S. military says it’s time for a new generation to carry future commanders in chief.

"We've got a pretty good size team working on it," said Air Force Col. Amy McCain, who is in charge of ordering the new Air Force One, according to the station.

McCain's team has grown to 80 people from 20 in the past year. The team is expected to swell to 100 shortly.

Budget paperwork shows the military requested from Congress $102 million this year to buy the planes, with the numbers growing to more than $3 billion over the next five years. 

Those numbers do not include the final three years of the project, CBS reported.

"My plane is bigger than yours now… bitch."

Questions linger as to whether taxpayers can afford to buy a new presidential plane.

"… and as for the peasant taxpayers, homeless Veterans and Seniors along with their silly complaints, let them eat cat food."

"The current airplane was fielded in 1991," McCain said. "It's the only 747-200 left in the United States that is flying."

"So it costs a lot more time and money to keep that airplane flying than it used to. It's actually cheaper in the long run to replace it."

"The top priority is an affordable aircraft that will meet the presidential requirements," McCain said. 

"We're buying up to three. It depends on all the availability of having two airplanes available for the president at any one time."

The Air Force expects to ink its first contract with Boeing sometime in 2015 for the next Air Force One, and wants to have the new 747s flying the president in 2023.

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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Autofill Error Leads To Disclosure Of World Leaders' Personal Data

Chickens come home to roost for dictators that have promoted and implemented open-ended spying on world populations - tyrants get well deserved taste of their own medicine    

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
By Jessica Mendoza
03/31/2015

Personal details of world leaders present at November’s G20 Summit held in Brisbane were inadvertently leaked to organizers of the Asian Cup by the Australian immigration department, highlighting global security concerns linked to cyber attacks and personal data disclosures

Be careful what you autofill.

Personal details of world leaders at last November’s G20 Summit in Brisbane were accidentally sent to organizers of the Asian Cup football tournament by the Australian immigration department through the use of Outlook's autofill function, The Guardian reported Monday.

While the leak was inadvertent and deemed ultimately low-risk, the breach highlights data security concerns that have become a global issue as businesses, educational institutions, and other organizations proved vulnerable over the last few years to both cyber attacks and accidental personal data disclosures – some of which could have been easily prevented.

The G20 breach involved information on 31 international leaders, including United States president Barack Obama, Russian president Vladimir Putin, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese president Xi Jinping, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, and British prime minister David Cameron, according to The Guardian.

Dictators get a healthy dose of privacy breach; how does it feel now?

Names, dates of birth, titles, passport numbers, and visa grant numbers were among the data disclosed after an immigration employee “failed to check that the autofill function in Microsoft Outlook had entered the correct person’s details into the email ‘To’ field,” an officer in Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection wrote in an email, dated Nov.7, 2014, to the office of the nation’s privacy commissioner.

Not amused: Vladimir Putin

“The cause of the breach was human error,” according to the letter.

Security researchers have warned of the potential dangers of autofill, a setting that lets a browser or app use stored data to automatically fill out forms, because when combined with the human tendency to err, the consequences of such convenience can range from embarrassing to dire.

In 2012, The Boston Globe’s Peter Post blogged about a woman who was fired for missending an email that contained disparaging comments about her boss…to her boss. 

Two years earlier, a UK police officer sent a file containing thousands of confidential criminal records checks to a local journalist, whose email had been saved after it was used to submit previous Freedom of Information requests.

The use of autofill can also make certain stored information vulnerable to attack, as occurred with the Safari browser in 2010. 

Google warns users: “It's important that you use Autofill only on websites you trust, as certain websites might try to capture your information in hidden or hard-to-see fields.”

“AutoFill is a feature that requires exchanging some security and privacy in favor of convenience,” tech analyst Tony Bradley wrote for PCWorld in 2010.

A quick way to avoid potential trouble is to disable the feature on browsers: Google Chrome has it under the “Passwords and forms” in its advanced settings options, whileFirefox has it in its “Privacy” panel.

There are also middle-ground options: iPad and iPhone users, for instance, can limit autofill to contact information while disabling the use of names and passwords.

The best advice is, however, is to exercise care and good judgment.

“I am not suggesting that everyone abandon AutoFill and go back to tediously typing in the same information every time the need arises,” Mr. Bradley wrote. “I am, however, advocating that IT admins and users in general understand that the same features that provide convenience for the user also make it more convenient for an attacker to breach or compromise the data stored there.”

A related but separate issue that the Australian immigration department is facing in the G20 leak is its decision not to disclose the breach to the world leaders involved, reasoning that the unauthorized recipient had immediately deleted the message and emptied his deleted items folder, and that “the risks of the breach are considered very low."

The decision has led opposition leaders to call for an explanation from government officials, especially as debates around online security legislation take center stage in Australia.

“Only last week the government was calling on the Australian people to trust them with their online data,” one senator told The Guardian, “and now we find out they have disclosed the details of our world leaders."

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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Morning Muster : Vets Sue VA Over Informal Claims Changes; Lawmakers Call For More Gulf War Illness Research Funding

The VA is in deep trouble now, and had better recognise it; "Gulf War Syndrome" needs to be assigned decisive, descriptive name change to reflect what it actually is rather than bogus, misleading label that distracts and downplays the killing condition now afflicting thousands of Veterans  

VETERANS BENEFITS GUIDE DAILY
03/31/2015

Five veterans groups are suing for the end of a new Veterans Affairs program that dismantles informal claims, reports Military.com’s Bryant Jordan. VA estimates the program will affect about half of its benefits claims. See our press release about the issue here.

NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) suits

Both Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate signed letters calling for funding for the Gulf War Illness Research Program, reports 91outcomes. The effort was led by Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tennessee, Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minnesota, and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, and is key because recent research has shown both possible markers for Gulf War illness, as well as progress on potential treatments. The Senate letter is here, and the House letter is here. 

For background on recent research, head here.

In the meantime, the Federal Register announced the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses will meet April 20 and 21 in Washington. 

This group has pushed for much of the new research, as well as funding for it, all while VA has fought to take away the board’s autonomy. The board was created after a Congressional inquiry found VA was incapable of conducting good, fair research on its own and focuses, instead, on telling the veterans their ailments were psychosomatic.

About 10 years after the 1991 Gulf War, the United States admitted it had inadvertently exposed thousands of troops to nerve gas when it blew up munitions, but when one battalion commander, Col. John Gingrich, radioed in to find out why his troops were sick, he was told it was the heat, reports Barbara Koeppel for Newsweek. 

Unmentioned in the article: Gingrich later served as VA’s former chief of staff.

A veteran at the Tomah VA medical facility described feeling like a zombie after he was prescribed pain medication at three times the recommended doses, reports The Associated Press’s Dana Ferguson. 

The vet said he would have liked to try other therapies, but Tomah did not offer them and he could not afford to pay for them on his own.

VA officials say kits designed to protect against narcotics overdoses have saved 41 lives, reports Military Times’ Patricia Kime.

Today, Tomah whistleblowers are expected to testify veterans received dangerous amounts of opiates at the medical center, reports the LaCrosse Tribune’s Chris Hubbuch.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, has introduced legislation that would help veterans who had been sexually assaulted in the military gain benefits, reports The Hill’s Jordain Carney. Because victims of sexual assault don’t always report the assault, it can be hard to prove a traumatic event caused mental health issues. (Bergmann & Moore often works with vets who have faced military sexual trauma and who have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.) While a diagnosis, as well as behavioral history, can be used to gain benefits without an official report, Tester’s bill would allow a veteran’s testimony of an assault, if there is no evidence to the contrary, to establish an assault occurred.

A new study shows student vets who deny or minimalize their combat experiences tend to have a harder time with anxiety and depression than do those who seek help through counseling of from family members, reports Psychcentral’s Traci Pedersen.

Another new study found vets with PTSD may face higher rates of heart disease, reports Pharmacy Times’ Meghan Ross. 

Morning Muster is curious if those outcomes change if, like in the previous study, veterans seek help.

People in Pennsylvania need not prove they are veterans to receive a vet’s designation on their driver’s licenses, reports Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Melissa Daniels. (The same is true in Washington.) About 140,000 people have veteran status on their Pennsylvania licenses.

The Recorder’s Diane Broncaccio talks to Jonathan Shay, author of “Achilles in Vietnam,” about the “moral injury” involved with post-traumatic stress. Shay’s book beautifully tells how the reactions of soldiers in the wars of antiquity are the same as what today’s service members face.

Some veterans face hardships as VA mistakenly offers assistance, rescinds it and forces vets to pay back VA’s mistakes with their monthly benefits checks, reports the Modesto Bee’s Ken Carlson.

The Defense Department is still considering expanding online exchange privileges to honorably discharged veterans, reports Military Times’ Karen Jowers.

Military Times’ Andrew deGrandpre continues his saga about Task Force Violent, a Marine unit accused of killing civilians but later found innocent—long after the unit’s reputation had been permanently damaged.

ALS in Disabled Veterans Linked to Gulf War Illness

The Washington Post featured 21 winners of the Military Photographer of the Year contest.

Bergmann & Moore, LLC, is a national law firm dedicated to serving the needs of veterans in compensation claims before and against the Department of Veterans Affairs. The firm’s partners are former VA attorneys who are very familiar with the VA system. Bergmann & Moore handles all kinds of cases, but has a concentration in claims involving PTSD, military sexual trauma, Gulf War illness and complex medical issues, such as brain cancer or degenerative issues, veterans exposed to Agent Orange often face. For more information, to submit news or to sign up for an email version of this blog, contact Kelly Kennedy at kkennedy@vetlawyers.com.

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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Forcing ''Fallacy Of The Future'' Thinking On Iran Is Dangerous

This entire debacle nothing more than a diversion from real events transpiring; bogus "deadlines" are contrived solely for MSM fodder and to add spectacle to meaningless, transparent "negotiations" overseen by irrelevant Kerry and grandstanding Western "leadership"  

WORLD NEWS
By Dallas Darling
03/30/2015

What should really concern the world is not the nations that might someday develop nuclear weapons but the nations which already have nuclear weapons, including the only country that has ever used such instruments of terror and mass destruction. 

Scientists of stupid: Kerry and Nutcase Netanyahu

Instead, the P5+1 (United States, Britain, Germany, France, Russia and China) is alleging that Iran's nuclear enrichment program will lead to the development of nuclear warheads. But to assert something without proof, or accuse a nation of future wrongdoing without evidence, is a fallacy. Since the future has not yet occurred, it is also morally wrong and deceptive to socially engineer people to fear the future at the expense of more current and dangerous realities. Indeed, and unlike present certainties, the laws of probability will always contain an infinite number of unknown possibilities and unpredictable outcomes.

The Fallacy of the Future, or assuming foreknowledge of a specific set of events before they occur, also distorts the observers' perceptions. 

By assuming to know the foreseeable future, participants become dispassionately detached from real-time happenings. Choices which might seem insignificant at the present time may easily be dismissed, yet eventually evolve into great importance. 

In addition, an all-knowing and hypothetical mentality is arrogant. It is mental impunity, allowing for inconsequential actions and the implementation of any-means-necessary policies. The P5+1 treaty with Iran is a complex event. 

Unlike a simple one, it consists of millions of historical variables, arising out of many interdependent components interacting in nonlinear ways.(1)

Reducing it to simplistic types of thinking, like the Fallacy of the Future, is wrong and dangerous. 

What is known and what are certain realities, however, is that following the attacks against the United States on 9/11 Iran collectively mourned the loss of life and joined the United States in its War On Terror. In contrast, when the U.S. destroyed IR Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing 295 innocent people, many Americans rejoiced while government leaders refused to issue an apology. 

And even though the U.S. has for decades treated Iran as an enemy, Iran still proposes the recognition of Israel as part of a two-state solution in exchange for mutual respect, enhanced security, and access to full transparency in developing its peaceful nuclear technologies. 

What is also clearly evident is that Iran has been a stabilizing force in Southwest Asia, including Iraq. Its republic is continually evolving into a democratic and pluralistic Islamic society.

Another reality is the ongoing correspondences between Iran's Supreme Religious Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Barack Obama. 

Despite sixty-years of U.S. abuses against the Iranian people-militarily occupying Iran and then later encouraging Iraq to invade Iran-Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not only issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons but suggested potential cooperation in fighting the Islamic State. 

President Hassan Rouhani has reiterated that Iran is not wanting to pursue nuclear enrichment in developing a bomb, and that nuclear weapons have never kept a nation safe but instead made the world a more dangerous place. 

Again, the U.S. is the only nation that has used nuclear weapons. Could it be projecting its own pathological past guilt and futuristic aims onto Iran? 

The inability to admit wrongs while fearing the future is the greatest danger.

In a New Year's message to the people of Iran, Obama declared that "this year represented the best opportunity in decades to pursue a different relationship." 

But will the best opportunity in pursuing a different relationship continue to be imaginary and speculative scenarios? 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry claimed that it was his desire to move toward a political framework as soon as possible. 

But will the move toward a more correct political framework consist of the Logic of the Present versus the Fallacy of Future? 

It is difficult enough to try and know the infinitude of things that have happened in the past, let alone an infinitude of predictions that can never be known about the future. 

Why, then, make insulting and dystopian predictions about Iran unless there are ulterior motives or clandestine states involved which want to sabotage the treaty?(2)

Sadly, with another implausible deadline only days away, the most real-time and dangerous one has repeatedly gone unnoticed: the P5+1's (including Israel's) continual maintenance of massive nuclear weaponry.

Dallas Darling (darling@wn.com)

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Readingon Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some NationsAbove God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-DayImperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context ofJohn's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.

(1) Watts, Duncan J. Everything Is Obvious: How Common Sense Fails Us. New York, New York: Random HousePublishers, 2011., p. 149.

(2) www.antiwar.com. "Netanyahu Vows to Sabotage IranNuclear Deal," by Jason Ditz. February 8, 2015.

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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