Free Republic

One of the world’s foremost experts on counter-threat intelligence within the cybersecurity industry, who blew the whistle on vulnerabilities in airplane technology systems in a series of recent Fox News reports, has become the target of an FBI investigation himself. Chris Roberts of the Colorado-based One World Labs, a security intelligence firm that identifies risks before they're exploited, said two FBI agents and two uniformed police officers pulled him off a United Airlines Boeing 737-800 commercial flight Wednesday night just after it landed in Syracuse, and spent the next four hours questioning him about cyberhacking of planes. The FBI interrogation...

Precision weapons and networked targeting have helped maintain America’s military superiority for decades. But technology marches on. New defense exporters are joining the global game with advanced and well-priced offerings, creating potential threats to the U.S. and its allies, and weakening Western influence. The Pentagon has a plan to cope with these evolving threats, but is it enough? To understand what’s happening, consider the global automotive industry. South Korea’s Hyundai Motors became a serious global competitor by leveraging the rapid diffusion of technology, an initial edge in cheap labor, and a “good enough” product for value buyers. Their success wasn’t...

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) - Nearly 20 Republican White House prospects will court presidential primary voters in New Hampshire this weekend at a state GOP meeting in Nashua. It's the first gathering of its kind in the first-in-the-nation primary state this year and offers no shortage of intriguing storylines as Republican contenders across the political spectrum deliver speeches, answer questions and work to stand out in the crowd. Five things we'll be watching for: [SNIP] Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, will be in New Hampshire as well to make sure Republicans don't get a free pass. [SNIP]

A community group aligned with Democrats is spearheading a rally near Gov. Scott Walker's home in Wauwatosa Monday afternoon to protest the goveror's proposed cuts to education budgets. The rally is planned for 4:30 p.m. at the Juneau Park Play Field, 6500 W. Mount Vernon Ave., with a "possible march to Governor Walker's Wauwatosa home," according to a news release from Wisconsin Jobs Now, which is part of the Schools & Communities United coalition.

MATTHEW BOYLE15 Apr 2015Washington, DC254 What Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus calls former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s “fake and phony” populism apparently knows no bounds. In Iowa this week — in her first event as a presidential candidate — Clinton hammered CEOs. “There’s something wrong when CEOs make 300 times more than the typical worker. There’s something wrong when American workers keep getting more productive, as they have, and as I just saw a few minutes ago is very possible because of education and skills training, but that productivity is not matched in...

.......As Brendan Nyhan at the New York Times explained in February, this sort of thing is called “issue-trespassing,” where one party attempts to co-opt an advantage of the other by pretending to care about something nobody thinks they care about. In this case, the GOP seemed to be admitting that their reputation as the party of the 1 percent wasn’t helpful to their cause, so they decided to try to shift the blame to President Obama. Nyhan points out that data suggests this rarely ever works, because people rely on party stereotypes no matter how hard those parties try to...

Sixteen out of the 28 EU countries want the bloc to label products from Judea and Samaria in an economic attack on the Jewish state, diplomatic sources told AFP Thursday, confirming a Haaretz report. The plan was first mooted in 2012, but the 16 member states told EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini it was now time to press ahead as part of efforts to force Israel to divide in a “two state solution.” The 16 include Britain, France, Spain and Italy but not Germany. […] … (A) senior Israeli diplomat told the EU “labeling products from Judea and Samaria...

The granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, of the multi-national media empire Hearst Corporation, and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) are launching a campaign that demands Cosmopolitan Magazine be displayed behind blinders or in an opaque wrapper and not sold to minors. Victoria Hearst, who is also the founder and president of Praise Him Ministries in Montrose, Colorado, and Dawn Hawkins, executive director of NCOSE, will be joined by child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist and author Dr. Miriam Grossman on Wednesday, April 22 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to launch their new campaign titled “Cosmo Harms...

HOUSTON – Oil field services firm Schlumberger announced Thursday it plans to ax another 11,000 workers, kicking off what could be a second major wave of layoffs across the oil industry. The move will bring Schlumberger’s layoffs up to 20,000 employees, roughly 15 percent of its workforce, since it began paring back its payroll earlier this year to cope with low oil prices. The nine-month oil slump has cost the energy industry more than 120,000 jobs so far, according to oil field staffing firm Swift Worldwide Resources. Oil equipment companies have been forced to fine-tune their workforce as they promise...

The chairman of the House committee that handles aviation legislation has acknowledged he has a private, personal relationship with an airline industry lobbyist. Rep. Bill Shuster is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The Pennsylvania Republican acknowledged his relationship with Shelley Rubino in a statement Thursday but said she doesn’t lobby him. Rubino works for Airlines for America, a trade association for major U.S. airlines. …

A confession: Many years ago, I was an ultra-left liberal, a Marxist, in fact. As a newly minted attorney at law in New York, I joined the ACLU and volunteered serve as one of their lawyers. About six weeks later, they asked me to represent an American Nazi accused of inciting to riot. I refused. They were mightily put off, horrified in fact. They remonstrated. “But he has a right to counsel.” I said, “Maybe so, but he doesn’t have a right to me. I’m protected by the Thirteenth Amendment.” (The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary...

‘Business meetings, elegant suits, lace stockings, garter belts, hold-ups, stiletto heels. If only my colleagues, clients or boss knew that at night I enjoy my hobby of being a hooker.’ Her online advert advises that she is a native Dutch blonde who is a ‘high-class nymphomaniac and prostitute’. She describes her greatest passion as ‘raunchy kinky sex with wild strangers and naughty men’. Quote, a Dutch magazine, reported that van der Waal had a ‘supervisory’ role at her country’s central bank while specialising in sadomasochism in her spare time. After the magazine broke the story, the bank confirmed it had...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-10/citi-economist-says-it-might-be-time-to-abolish-cash

Shares of Angie's List (ANGI) were gaining 9.6% to $6.16 Wednesday after the online local business review company announced CEO William Oesterle will step down and raised its EBITDA guidance.

MILWAUKEE —A new Marquette University Law School poll finds Hillary Clinton leading a possible presidential matchup against Gov. Scott Walker. However, Walker leads Republicans in the presidential race. Forty percent support a Walker run while 10 percent favor Rand Paul, 8 percent for Jeb Bush, and 6 percent each for Chris Christie and Ted Cruz. The poll finds that among Wisconsin voters, Clinton leads Walker 52 percent to 40 percent. The poll also showed that Walker's approval rating in the state has slipped. The most recent poll showed a 41 percent approval rating, compared to 49 percent in October. Looking...

According to The Winston-Salem Journal, Wake Forest University professor and MSNBC weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry and her husband James Perry owe the Internal Revenue Service $70,000 in delinquent taxes. A notice filed this month in the Forsyth County Hall of Justice indicates the IRS has placed a lien on the Perrys. More from the Journal report:

The leaders of Congress’s tax-writing committees reached agreement Thursday on legislation to give President Obama “fast track” authority to negotiate an ambitious trade accord with 11 other Pacific nations, beginning what is sure to be one of the toughest legislative battles of his last 19 months in office. The “trade promotion authority” bill — likely to be unveiled Thursday afternoon — would give Congress the power to vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership once it is completed, but would deny lawmakers the chance to amend what would be the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement. Senator Orrin...

GRANDVILLE, Mich. (WWJ) – A west Michigan business owner claims he’s been the target of death threats after he announced he won’t serve gays. Brian Klawiter, who owns Dieseltec Automotive Repair in Grandville, posted a message on his business’ Facebook page saying that he is a Christian, and that his company does not welcome “immoral behavior” — including homosexuality. “Our rights as conservative Americans are being squashed more and more everyday. Apparently if you are white (or close to it), you have a job, go to church, and own a gun… That translates into racists, privileged, bigot, conspiracy theorist.

The blistering drought that has Californians timing their showers, driving dirty cars and staring at brown lawns and empty swimming pools is a “man-made disaster,” according to critics, who say the Golden State’s misguided environmental policies allow much-needed freshwater to flow straight into the Pacific. In an average year, California gets enough snow and rain to put 200 million acres under a foot of water, but environmental opposition to dams over the last several decades has allowed the majority of the freshwater to flow into the ocean, even as the state’s population exploded to nearly 40 million people. ~snip~ “This...

Was TWA Flight 800 shot out of the sky? As a former pilot, that is a question I get asked about all the time. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but let’s be clear: Yes. I say it was. And I believe the FBI covered it up. LOOK BACK: REPORTING THE CRASH OF TWA FLIGHT 800 ON JULY 17, 1996 There are many reasons to disbelieve the official explanation of what happened to TWA 800 almost 19 years ago, on July 17, 1996, off the South Shore of Long Island. There’s hardly an airline pilot among the hundreds I know who buys...