RUTHFULLY YOURS

While attention is still focused on mistakes made in Parkland, Florida, another attack is unfolding in Austin as we speak. Three package bombs left on doorsteps have authorities scrambling to end a murder spree.

Reuters reports that, on Monday, a 17-year-old boy was killed and a woman injured after a package containing a bomb was opened. Another similar blast occurred later in the day.

Austin police said there is no clear motive for the two attacks, however they do believe the bombs are linked to a March 2 package bomb explosion that killed a man. Both homes targeted had black residents, but police were not able to ascribe racial motivations.

“We cannot rule out that hate crime is at the core of this, but we are not saying that that is the cause,” Reuters reports Austin Police Chief Brian Manley as saying during a news conference. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Obama years did much to undermine the identity and inherent conservatism of the U.S. armed forces. In addition to budget cuts and indifference about the broader mission, Obama and his deputies spent a lot of energy trying to transform its culture, particularly to relieve the military of its alleged sexism. The message was plain: the military’s primary mission would be facilitating social change. Directives to make the military more diverse, particularly for women, were promulgated from on high and gladly endorsed by an officer corps whose first imperative is career advancement. As in other respected institutions—higher education, police departments, business—when equality becomes an organizing principle, it renders excellence and ability secondary.

The cultural transformation appears to have been pretty successful, because these attempts to push women into the combat arms continue, even though Donald Trump is now president. Sadly, the president, and his well respected Defense Secretary James Mattis, have shown little interest in arresting and reversing the direction of this radical change.

Most dramatically, the United States Marine Corps recently has opened up all jobs, including infantry, armor, and artillery, to women. They have also set a goal of having 25 percent of the recruits be women.

In terms of both ability and interest, these goals are misguided. Men and women are quite simply different. Men, particularly young men, are faster, stronger, more aggressive, and more capable of meeting the higher physical standards of the military’s combat arms than women. Before gender integration certain physical standards prevailed. These standards allowed resilience and enhanced ability throughout the entire organization, whose job is physically demanding in spite of the advent of high technology weapons.

In deference to the physically demanding reality of combat, most proponents have suggested that standards should not be reduced and that so long as women meet these standards, they should be allowed to try. This is wrong, naïve even, for at least two reasons that recent experiences should make plain.

Far from being “isolated” events, calls for jihad against all non-Muslims began in the US several decades ago.

It would be a mistake to view the hate preached against Jews differently from the hate preached against other non-Muslims. Both are sanctioned by the Quran and the hadiths. It is this hate against anyone “other” — and that is still taken to heart by many Muslims — that drives Islamic terrorism against the West.

Muslim supremacists are apparently acceptable; white supremacists are not.

Yes, other religious books are also filled with hate verses, but as the author Bruce Bawer points out, many “Muslims still live by them.”

In December 2017, four imams — at mosques in North Carolina, New Jersey and Texas — called for killing Jews. Two of the imams quoted from a hadith that says:

“The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him”.

Two other imams, respectively, asked Allah “to destroy the Zionists and their allies, and those who assist them” and “to wreak vengeance upon the plundering oppressors”.

Prior to these December calls, in July 2017, two imams in California (Riverside and Davis) also called for killing Jews. One imam quoted the hadith above. He later apologized, claiming that “The last thing that I would do is intentionally hurt anyone, Muslim, Jewish or otherwise. It is not in my heart”.

It may not be in his heart, but it was in his mouth, and it is in the Quran and the hadiths, which are filled[1] with supremacist and violent references not only to Jews, but to all non-Muslims.

A growing number of fashion runways and department stores promote the hijab as the latest “chic” thing to wear, a “fashionable identity symbol.” The buying power of fast-growing Muslim communities in the West is being used by Islamist to entice designers to present the “latest trend” with models who wear “covered-up clothes, heads in the swathing scarves.”

The power of the Islamist purse, supported by politically correct media and progressive identity propaganda, also helps to promote the hijab at many workplaces, even those with strict dress code banning any religious symbol.
The hijab is forbidden throughout the air travel industry (except in Saudi Arabia; Iran; and Aceh, Indonesia). Nonetheless, it has become a powerful tool for shakedowns by Islamist groups masquerading as “civil rights” activists in Europe and the United States.

Such Islamist groups are using lawfare to intimidate and extort Western industries, institutions, and private companies. Their objective is clear: force acceptance of Islamic customs, even though they contradict secular, globally accepted industry standards and corporate policies. These groups have been targeting U.S. aviation and aerospace firms.

Taking advantage of Western democratic systems, well-funded entities such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) are constantly attempting to impose Islamic religious values and practices on the West, severely undermining freedom of speech and intimidating citizens. Consequently, people fearing backlash and false accusations often choose to not speak up, even when their own safety is imperiled. Lawfare has proven to be a useful weapon.

Broward County, Florida, is on everyone’s lips in the United States. What was just another American community has been launched into the spotlight as the location of the latest mass-casualty school shooting. Yet, Broward County, which is just north of Miama and includes Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood, has a sinister, and seemingly forgotten, relationship with Islam and terrorism.

A 2002 article in Florida’s The Ledger makes the case that Broward County is a hotbed for terrorists. Several terror plots have been discovered in the county, mosques are well attended, and then there’s the connection to the 9/11 hijackers:

Jose Padilla, accused of conspiring to explode a “dirty bomb” in the United States, worked at a suburban Taco Bell and discovered Islam here.

Two young Pakistani immigrants from nearby Hollywood allegedly hatched a plan to attack South Florida power plants and a National Guard Armory.

And several of the Sept. 11 hijackers roamed the area’s libraries, gyms and beachfront motels.

They all made their home — at least temporarily — in South Florida’s Broward County, leading some to wonder if this growing suburban and tourist area north of Miami has become a common destination for would-be terrorists.

The 16-year-old article went into detail about all of the cases which occurred in just the nine months leading up to the report, which included the 9/11 terror attack. Seven of the 19 men responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on that fateful day spent time in Broward County: “Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi went to a Hollywood bar the week before the attacks and played video golf.”

At the time, a 21-year-old computer tech, Safraz Jehaludi, was charged with threats to blow up the White House and a nearby power plant. Forty-year-old Adham Hassoun had also been arrested on an immigration violation and attended the same mosque in Fort Lauderdale as Padilla mentioned above.

The South Florida Muslim community, noted as Arabs on government census, showed a 70% increase over 10 years, bringing the population to 11,000 — and that was back in 2002. The report added:

Observers say the county’s growth and diversity have added a layer of anonymity for potential wrongdoers. Recent census figures show Broward County’s population grew nearly 30 percent during the past decade to more than 1.6 million.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Eleven Marines were affected by an unknown substance apparently released when an envelope was opened today at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall outside D.C.

The Marine Corps said that “an envelope was received around 3:30 p.m., on the Marine Corps side of the base.”

“Shortly after receiving the letter, 11 people started to feel ill and caused the evacuation of the building,” the statement said. “After the evaluation of 11 people, three were transported in stable condition for further medical evaluations.”

The Corps said Joint Base Police Department officials were working with local HAZMAT teams, and NCIS and the FBI were investigating. The building “was screened and cleared, and the letter was removed.”

ABC7 reported that the eight people who weren’t taken to a hospital for further evaluation reported symptoms such as itching and nasal irritation. The FBI took the envelope to Quantico for testing after field tests didn’t reveal any nefarious substances, CNN reported, adding that the text of the letter “contained derogatory, at times unintelligible and ranting language, and was addressed to a commanding officer at the base.” Investigators were probing whether the sender had any connection to the base.

A couple of years back, The White House issued a document “Strengthening the Federal Cybersecurity Workforce”that highlights a framework necessary to best recruit, train, and maintain a skilled Federal cybersecurity workforce.

Those elements included:

1) Expanding the Cybersecurity Workforce through Education and Training;

2) Recruiting the Nation’s Best Cyber Talent for Federal Service;

3) Retaining and Develop Highly Skilled Talent; and

4) Identifying Cybersecurity Workforce needs.

The document provided a good suggestions to improve the Federal cybersecurity workforce. There are a variety of additional ways to consider to better enable the precepts of the framework.

To expand the cybersecurity workforce, cultivation and training of a next generation of technicians and SMEs must be a priority. The cyber-threat risk environment is growing exponentially every day and there has not been enough resources dedicated to keeping up with governments cybersecurity requirements.

An investment in developing talent from economically depressed areas is a programmatic solution to consider. An investment in training those in economically depressed areas in an accelerated cybersecurity curriculum — combined with real-world experience through internships and fellowships — would yield high dividends. At the same time.it would bolster the nation’s pipeline for skilled digital workers.

Is there any agency in American law enforcement actually doing its job? Today in Wired:

Passports, like any physical ID, can be altered and forged. That’s partly why for the last 11 years the United States has put RFID chips in the back panel of its passports, creating so-called e-Passports. The chip stores your passport information — like name, date of birth, passport number, your photo, and even a biometric identifier — for quick, machine-readable border checks. And while e-Passports also store a cryptographic signature to prevent tampering or forgeries, it turns out that despite having over a decade to do so, US Customs and Border Protection hasn’t deployed the software needed to actually verify it.
0

This means that since as far back as 2006, a skilled hacker could alter the data on an e-Passport chip — like the name, photo, or expiration date — without fear that signature verification would alert a border agent to the changes. That could theoretically be enough to slip into countries that allow all-electronic border checks, or even to get past a border patrol agent into the US.

In a “WTF?” letter, Senators Wyden and McCaskill report that the relevant federal staff “lacks the technical capabilities to verify e-passport chips.”

All in, national-security spending is damn near $1 trillion a year. The average annual federal compensation package is somewhere north of $120,000 per worker. And we can’t even properly manage passport control.

Any response by public authorities to do something in response to the killings in Parkland, Fla., must first come to grips with why established security measures failed on so many levels. Explain the failures by the FBI and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, so that the new solutions don’t fail, too.

On Jan. 5, someone familiar with Nikolas Cruz had the presence of mind to call the FBI’s Public Access Line to say she feared he might “get into a school and shoot the place up.” That tip wasn’t forwarded to the FBI’s office in Miami. Two other recent callers to the Broward police—which got 23 calls about Cruz’s behavior back to 2008—also warned he could become a school shooter.

Here are the official explanations.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions: “I have ordered the deputy attorney general to conduct an immediate review.” FBI Director Christopher Wray : “I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter, as well as reviewing our processes.”

FBI Special Agent Robert Lasky: “We will conduct an in-depth review.” Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel : “This isn’t science fiction. We aren’t allowed to arrest on what a person thinks about on pre-crimes.”

Florida already has a law, the Baker Act, permitting forced hospitalization for psychiatric examination. In 2016 mental-health workers were called to the high school to determine if Cruz should be hospitalized. They concluded he was stable. NBC reported that the Florida Department of Children and Families investigation of Cruz was “closed with no indicators to support the allegations of inadequate supervision or medical neglect.”

Finally, the armed sheriff’s deputy assigned to protect the high school failed to confront the shooter, instead staying outside the building.

Now come new solutions. Senator John Cornyn’s legislation would fix the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which has existed since 1998 but works poorly. Florida Governor Rick Scott wants to raise the legal age for purchasing a gun to 21. President Trump on Thursday tweeted his to-do list: comprehensive background checks with an emphasis on mental health, raising the gun-purchase age and banning bump stocks.