For the foreign defense contractor, stealing U.S. Navy secrets turned out to be a breeze. All it took was a little cash, a few cheap gifts‐and a willing sailor.
Daniel Layug, an enlisted sailor with a weakness for electronic bling, was an easy mark. Over a three-year period, he repeatedly downloaded classified documents and other sensitive information about Navy operations in Asia, and handed it over for a low, low price, according to federal court records.
On Thursday, in U.S. District Court in San Diego, Layug became the first person to be sentenced in an epic corruption investigation
#1
On Thursday, in U.S. District Court in San Diego, Layug became the first person to be sentenced in an epic corruption investigation
So he'll go to the Fed on Metropolitan Ave in Leavenworth rather than the USDB on Fort Leavenworth. (BTW, there's a states men's and women's prison in the town as well. Don't have to worry about downturns in 'business'.)
#2
Likely U.S.D.C. due to that system's experience with this sort of thing, his legal talent figuring he'd get a better deal than going through a court-martial, and possibly because he agreed to 'cooperate' to get some bigger fish.
[REUTERS] The leading edge of a monster snowstorm arrived on Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C., threatening to dump as many as 30 inches (76 cm) of powder on parts of the Middle Atlantic region and bring record accumulations to the U.S. capital.
After days of planning by emergency officials and a scramble by residents to stock up on supplies, the blizzard got underway in the nation's capital at about 1 p.m. The storm, expected to end late on Saturday afternoon, could leave 2 to 2.5 feet (61 to 76 cm) on the ground and bring winds of 30 to 50 mph (48 to 80 kph), according to the National Weather Service.
The western suburbs of the capital were expecting up to 3 feet of snow. In Virginia, the National Guard planned to bring in up to 300 troops to deal with emergencies.
"I want to be very clear with everybody. This is a major storm," Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said as the nation's capital braced for what could turn out to be one of the worst storms in its history.
"This has life-and-death implications and all the residents of the District of Columbia should treat it that way."
The Weather Channel said more than 85 million people in at least 20 states were covered by either a blizzard warning, winter storm watch, winter storm warning, winter weather advisory, or freezing rain advisory.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/23/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"blizzard threatens to bury U.S. capital"
Promises, promises.
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/23/2016 0:49 Comments ||
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#2
WaPo has let down its paywall for public safety reasons, so I'm doing a bit of reading online there.
3-ft of snow is rare, but not 'Life & Death'. 50-mph winds along with that are not fun, however. Drifting does create temporary issues.
Of course we do know how to dress, what to pack in our vehicles if we get stranded and have pretty good removal equipment. The farther north ones goes, the size and quantity of the equipment increases. Some county and municipal removal operators from remote areas in the Lake Superior snow belt are allowed to keep their plows at home so that there is no delay for them 'getting to work'.
On the other hand, I was in DC once during what we'd call a 'dusting' and the whole place shut down.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
01/23/2016 9:22 Comments ||
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#4
DC gets a bad rep. Remember that DC gets folks from all 50 states and from around the world. It just takes a few idiots to abandon cars to snarl a road. That being said, there is some humor in the snow gods painting a big "X" on Washington.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
01/23/2016 9:36 Comments ||
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#6
Prolonged power failures in urban areas during winter are a "life & death" issue.
Areas of US where winter usually hits hard do have an "adapt & gitter done" attitude. A friend's elderly father-in-law developed some heart problem out in the middle of nowhere & needed to go to a hospital with more advance tech than the local place could provide. That whole part of the state had temporarily become a no-fly zone, all the highways were "closed" although not formally blocked. The local authorities organized an expedition just for him, 2 snow plows side by side, going ahead of the ambulance, plowing a path through a nighttime snow storm 70 miles along county, state & ultimately interstate to get him to a tertiary care facility. He made it. That sort of thing would have been unthinkable in most parts of the USA.
#8
I forgot to mention this other aspect of "life & death" from big snowstorms: Building may and have in the past collapsed and killed their occupants, due to extreme snow loads on roofs. 28 Jan 1922, 98 killed, 133 injured in the collapse of the Knickerbocker Theater in DC, due to extreme recent snowfall. Rescue efforts were severely impeded since nearby streets were almost impassable.
This just in at WaPo:
Roof collapse displaces 750 people in Gaithersburg
Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) said 750 people are being evacuated from Potomac Oaks Condominium in Gaithersburg after the roof collapsed on a building that stored the housing units’ heating equipment.
Leggett said the residents were being moved to Bohrer Park, a recreation center in Gaithersburg.
[REUTERS] The Mexican government is speeding up efforts to extradite notorious drug boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States after his recapture earlier this month, President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Friday.
Guzman was caught in early January after six months on the run following a spectacular prison break through a tunnel in his cell floor, embarrassing Pena Nieto and his government.
"The order the Attorney General's office has is to speed up its work to ensure this highly dangerous criminal is extradited as soon as possible," Pena Nieto told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... Guzman's lawyers are working to block his extradition.
While on the run, Guzman met secretly with Hollywood A-list actor Sean Penn at a jungle hideout - a move the Mexican government says was "essential" to his capture. Good idea. You keep an eye on a rich lowlife like Sean Penn, eventually you'll run into a caudillo or a drug lord or both.
Penn has rejected the Mexican government's claim, accusing officials of deliberately trying to put him in the crosshairs of Guzman's feared Sinaloa cartel.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/23/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Poor Sean Penn - just trying to set up a regular delivery schedule with his dealer and the narcs track him & bust the guy; now no drugs & he's a revenge target.
#2
It's a reboot of "Fast Times At Ridegemont High":
When he interviews a notorious Mexican drug lord for the school paper, Spicoli inadvertently leads the federales to El Queso Grande's hideout. Hilarity and bloodshed ensue as ruthless narco-hitmen, intent on revenge, hunt the hapless stoner and his hot Mexican actress sidekick.
[REUTERS] At least two people were killed in a school shooting in a remote area of Saskatchewan, Canada, on Friday and a suspect is in jug, the Star Phoenix newspaper reported, citing local aboriginal chief Teddy Clark.
Canadian police declined to confirm to Rooters that there was a shooting at the La Loche school, but said they were on scene for a serious incident in the district, which is about 600 km (375 miles) from the central city of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan province.
La Loche Acting Mayor Kevin Janvier said that police confirmed to him that one person was in jug, the Canadian Press reported.
"I'm not 100 percent sure what's actually happened but it started at home and ended at the school," Janvier said.
Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada, which has stricter gun laws than the United States. In the country's worst school shooting, 14 college students were killed at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique in 1989.
A hospital nurse said a number of people were being treated for gunshot wounds, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. The La Loche Health Centre and Hospital declined to comment when contacted by Rooters.
La Loche Grade 10 student Noel Desjarlais told the CBC that he heard multiple shots fired at the school.
"I ran outside the school," Desjarlais said. "There was lots of screaming, there was about six, seven shots before I got outside. I believe there was more shots by the time I did get out."
A cellphone video taken by one resident and broadcast by the CBC showed students walking away from the school through the snow-covered ground and emergency personal moving in.
La Loche Community School is a pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 school, which houses about 900 students in two buildings.
There was an emergency at the building that houses grades 7 to 12, the school district's Facebook page said. Both that building and the elementary school were put on lockdown.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall issued a statement on the shooting but it did not contain details.
"Words cannot express my shock and sorrow at the horrific events today in La Loche. My thoughts and prayers are with all the victims, their families and friends and all the people of the community," the statement said.
The Times of Israel adds:
Five people were killed and two others seriously maimed Friday in a shooting at a high school in Canada's western plains province of Saskatchewan, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
A young man shot up around 1:00 pm (1900 GMT) at the school in La Loche, a mainly aboriginal community in the northern part of the province. The suspect was in jug, Trudeau said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/23/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Latest reports say 4 dead, including the mayor's daughter and 2 brothers of the suspect. nationalpost.com: "The annual suicide rate in the surrounding Keewatin Yatthe Regional Health Authority averages 43.4 suicide deaths per 100,000 people—more than triple the provincial average."
#2
Al Ahram adds that the killer murdered his two younger brothers at home, then walked to school and shot it up, killing a teacher and a student or an assistant, and sending others to the hospital. Plus this background:
Among Canada's provinces, Saskatchewan had the highest rate of police-reported family violence in 2014, double the national rate of 243 incidents per 100,000 people, according to a Statistics Canada report on Thursday.
Unemployment runs above 20 percent in the area but three-quarters of working-age people are classified as retired or not looking for work, according to 2011 government figures. Residents say the real unemployment rate is above 50 percent.
In 2014, a teacher expressed concern about violence at the La Loche school, noting that a student who had tried to stab her was put back in her classroom after serving his sentence, and another attacked her at her home.
"That student got 10 months," Janice Wilson told the CBC of the student who tried to stab her in class. "And when he was released he was returned to the school and was put in my classroom."
[NEWS.INVESTORS] Declining business and rising expenses are not exactly a recipe for long-term business success, but that is exactly what's going on at the U.S. Postal Service right now, the Government Accountability Office told a congressional panel on Thursday. We used to get maybe a letter a week from the postman while I was growing up, back when Caesar was a PFC. The postman wore a sun helmet in the summer, and he walked his route with a big leather bag on his shoulder. He worked for the government, though I believe they were on a separate pay scale. Delivering mail was a service provided by the government. Ben Franklin was the first Postmaster General, so if it was good enough for them way back then it would have been good enough for me now. You don't run a government service for a profit, though I suppose the Navy could capture quite a few container ships before they started an actual war.
The GAO found that the volume of mail, particularly First Class, continues to drop as people increasingly migrate to texts and email, paying bills online and going paper-free for bank statements and the like. What we get as mail now would mostly be classified as "spam" if it came electronically. First class mail rates are high, and the last time I looked they were so unstable that they don't put the actual price on the stamp. Bulk rates are supposed to be supported by the first class rates, but nobody writes letters anymore. I don't think they even teach Palmer handwriting anymore, so letters are a lost art.
But it also noted, "Key USPS expenses continue to grow." The expenses include raises for unionized workers that will add almost $1.1 billion in costs this year. I have an opinion about government unions. This is a family publication, so I'll bite my lip instead.
As a result, the USPS won't be able to fund its retiree and pension programs as it's required to do. Last year, for example, it paid only $6.7 billion toward those programs instead of the $12.6 billion required. But they're not paying out at half rate. So where's the difference come from?
Lori Rectanus, a GAO director, put the USPS's actions in context, telling politicians, "Many private-sector companies took far-reaching measures to cut costs when the demand of their central product and services declined." UPS and Fedex are somehow ticking along. I dunno about DHS and Purolator. You could cut residential mail delivery from six days a week to every other day, three days a week, and no one would notice the difference. Most of us do our finances electronically, no one writes letters as you said, and I can wait a day to get my spam junk mail. You'd save a few shekels right there in delivery and sorting costs.
But the USPS, incredibly, has "no new major cost savings initiatives planned." Postal executives say that "statutory, contractual, regulatory and political restrictions" hem the USPS in. So it's a corporation with no freedom of action because they're micromanaged by the government...
There's no question that there's blame all around. Still, the situation is obviously unsustainable, and the risk is that taxpayers will end up bailing out the Postal Service without getting needed reforms in place. That cannot be allowed to happen. Expect it to happen.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/23/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Unions in government jobs is essentially treason. They hold the government hostage to their demands which in turn provide more and more fat on the government pig. Disband all unions for government employees and hold any attempt to unionize them as treason.
#2
Yes, I too remember the sun helmets, well kept uniforms, leather bags, and friendly faces. Their names were Ben, Gene, and Donnie. They were was the same guys who coached the Little League team, marched in the color guard on Decoration Day, and flipped pancakes at the Legion. Affirmative Action has changed much of that, and attitudes as well. Ben, Gene, and Donnie are long gone now, but if it's all the same to you I'll gladly remember them and their service to their nation and a small community.
#4
The SCOTUS mandatory union dues case is due late Spring. If they overturn mandatory dues, gubbamint unions are dead - it seems likely.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/23/2016 9:29 Comments ||
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#5
Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power...
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
It's one of the few functions actually specified in the constitution (not to be confused with DoE, EPA, NPR, et al - NB none of which are self supporting). If you want to get lot of Americans off of do nothing welfare, dump the unions, and get back to hand delivery. They can walk in the summer sun with the helmets and the winter muck in heavy cover but they'll understand where that money comes from for all that "Free Stuff, Free Stuff, Free Stuff".
#7
I haven't had mail delivery since Tuesday. They claim their 4-wheel drive vehicles won't make it through the same snow my Smart car does.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/23/2016 14:35 Comments ||
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#8
Well, technically the "neither rain, nor sleet,.." motto was not originally the PO's, rather lifted by an architect from the description of royal Persian messengers who tacked it on to a PO building (in NY IIRC) sometime about a hundred years ago. Guilt by association?
#9
Eliminate Franking priv.
Raise bulk rate to letter rate.
Both of these should massively reduce sorting and delivery time.
I currently glance at my mail and throw %75 before looking closely. These are tax write offs for advertisers, and excuses for dodgy non-profits to be non-profit and in final analysis paid for by us taxpayers who don't want them. Make Work!
Killing it would save trees, landfills and home owners time. I say do it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NEWS.INVESTORS] Declining business and rising expenses are not exactly a recipe for long-term business success, but that is exactly what's going on at the U.S. Postal Service right now, the Government Accountability Office told a congressional panel on Thursday.
