HOW HILLARY WRECKED THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S DIGITAL INFORMATION SYSTEM

HOW HILLARY WRECKED THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S DIGITAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
Paul Mirengoff, Powerline

Hillary Clinton’s disregard for cyber-security at the State Department, and hence for the national security, is manifest from her use of a private email server. But the wreckage Clinton left behind in State’s main digital information security office arguably demonstrates her disregard even more starkly, and probably posed an even greater threat to national security.

Richard Pollock of the Daily Caller provides the details. He cites scathing audits issued by the State Department’s former acting IG, Harold Geisel, a hand-picked Clintonista. During Hillary’s tenure, Geisel issued eight reports warning about worsening problems and growing security weaknesses within the Bureau of Information Resource Management (IRM). One of Geisel’s reports, issued not long after Clinton left the State Department, was so damning that the IRM became the butt of caustic comments throughout the IT world, according to Pollock.

In 2013, Geisel’s successor, Steve Linick, issued a “management alert” to State Department leadership, warning that IRM’s security deficiencies persisted. “The department has yet to report externally on or correct many of the existing significant deficiencies, thereby leading to continuing undue risk in the management of information,” Linick said.

The IRM was established by Colin Powell after the 9/11 Commission highlighted the failure of key government agencies to exchange anti-terrorist intelligence. Powell and his successor, Condeleeza Rice, built the IRM to ensure secure communications among all U.S. embassies and consulates.

The IRM became the central hub for all of the State Department’s IT communications systems. As Geisel explained in one of his reports, IRM “personnel are responsible for the management and oversight of the department’s information systems, which includes the department’s unclassified and classified networks” and “handles all aspects of information security for the department’s intelligence systems.”

The need to maintain the security of the IRM could not be more obvious. Geisel warned that “the weakened security controls could adversely affect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and information systems” used by U.S. officials around the world. Yet, according to multiple IG reports, Clinton allowed the IRM to degenerate into an office without a mission or strategy. And even after being alerted to the problem, she failed to get it fixed.

The IRM’s deterioration isn’t unrelated to the Clinton email scandal. As Pollock points out, Clinton put Bryan Pagliano, her 2008 presidential campaign IT director, in the IRM in early 2009 as a “strategic advisor” who reported to the department’s deputy chief information officer. Pagliano had no prior national security experience and apparently lacked a national security clearance.

The IRM scandal also brings to mind Benghazi. In that case, Clinton failed to respond to repeated warnings about the deterioration of security at U.S. embassies in the region. In this instance, she failed to respond to repeated warnings about the deterioration of a vital information network.

Clinton likes to talk about being “ready.” But she wasn’t ready to be Secretary of State and she certainly isn’t ready to the President of the United States.

Whither Israel?

Whither Israel?

Col Mike walker, USMC (retired)

All,

 

The concept that a vacuum will not be filled by bad actors, the overriding premise of this Administration's Middle East policy of American withdrawal, has ended in abject failure.

 

I am not speaking to the refugee crisis in Europe, although that is a tragedy of epic proportions.

 

I am not talking of the ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Middle East, even granting it is a crime against humanity if ever there was one.

 

I am not speaking to defeat snatched from the jaws of victory in Iraq; the greatest squandering of blood and treasure in the history of this nation since Vietnam.

 

I am not speaking to the Administration's claim of "success" in Yemen which has become a failed state overrun by terrorists.

 

Nor am I speaking to the nonexistent rise of Libya's "democratic impulses" once claimed by the President.

 

The Islamic Republic is my target.

 

Not only will the new accord with Iran end like the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea: An enemy with nuclear weapon, but we are now down the darkest road since 1939.

 

Unlike North Korea where a repugnant state emerged into mature nuclear theater where every other state was under a nuclear umbrella superior to that of North Korea, in the Middle East we are introducing an aggressive nuclear power into an immature free fire zone.

 

But it is far worse than that.

 

This administration has quit the Middle East for all intents and purposes and ceded control to the most warlike coalition to hold power there in over a millennium.

 

If things remain unchecked then the rise of the Putin-Assad-Khoemeni cabal can only end in one of two scenarios:

 

(1) A likely global thermonuclear conflict to prevent a second holocaust being visited upon the people of Israel.

 

or 

 

(2) The passive acceptance of a second holocaust followed by a belated global war once it becomes clear that Jews were not the only people on the list.

 

May God have mercy on us all.

Mike

Mabus: The Big Mouthed SecNav

Raymond Edwin "Ray" Mabus, Jr. is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who has served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy since 2009 and was appointed by Barry.

Mabus: The Big Mouthed SecNav

Col Mike walker, USMC (retired)

All,

Mabus is acting like a pompous jerk, a remark I have never made in regards to a senior official in the chain of command.

Deciding to agree or disagree, accept or reject the report on women in Marine Corps combat arms is his prerogative as is the final decision. Marines will obey orders either way on this issue.

What is unacceptable are his unprofessional remarks demeaning the integrity of the Marine Corps and serving Marines without a shred of evidence to back up his asinine remarks. 

That is conduct unbecoming and puts an unneeded stain on the honor of the post he holds.

Unless and until he uses that same big mouth to apologize for those remarks then screw him and the horse he rode in on.

Semper Fi,

Mike

CENSUS: ECONOMY IS GOING NOWHERE

CENSUS: ECONOMY IS GOING NOWHERE
John Hinderaker, Powerline

The Census Bureau released its income and poverty numbers for 2014 today. The poverty rate was up slightly and median family income, inflation-adjusted, was down slightly, but both numbers were essentially flat. U.S. News goes out on a limb:

The numbers may explain some of the political furor going on in the country, said Lawrence Mishel, president and CEO of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “Anyone wondering why people in this country are feeling so ornery need look no further than this report,” Mishel said. “Wages have been broadly stagnant for a dozen years and median household income peaked in 1999.”

Yes, Bernie Sanders and the rest of the Democratic presidential field are running against the bad effects of the policies they advocated and, in Sanders’ case, voted for. I found this interesting:

Asian households had the highest median income in the United States at $74,300 in 2014. The median income for non-Hispanic white households was $60,300, for black households $35,400 and Hispanic households $42,500. The median income for white households decreased by 1.7 percent between 2013 and 2014, while there was no statistically significant change for black, Asian, and Hispanic households.

One more reason why the Democrats’ half-hearted efforts to win back the white middle class are doomed.

I think it is bizarre that so little attention has been paid to the fact that Asians’ incomes have considerably outstripped whites’. The Asian-American population is now approaching 20 million, and their household incomes are now 23% higher than whites’, on the average. This is a rather stunning statistic. Why is so little attention paid to this income “gap”? Is it the result of discrimination against whites? If not, what could the cause possibly be?

I think the reason for the media’s silence on these numbers is that there is no good way to fit them into the narrative.

A Contrarian View: Blame the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Europe on Europe

A Contrarian View: Blame the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Europe on Europe
Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

For me, the current Syrian refugee problem roiling Europe is a replay of the events following the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

In the 1990s, the Europeans could not understand the underlying causes of the Balkan conflicts (anything outside an economic-driven analysis was beyond their ken) and therefore they had no possibility of coming to grips with a viable solution.  

In the end, they adopted a low-risk "Gee I hope things get better" approach.

Things did not get better.

After repeated failures by Europe and Europe in tandem with the UN, the endless slaughter and human tragedies finally drew in the United States under the aegis of NATO and the war ended. I know of what I write as I found myself as the third consecutive generation of my family to don a uniform, pick up a rifle and head over to Europe to fix one of their messes.

Fast forward twenty or so years and we have Syria. Once again, Europe proved itself to be hopelessly befuddled as to how to proceed. In the end they adopted a low-risk "Gee I hope things get better" approach.

Things did not get better and now it is time for Europe to take responsibility for their collective failure.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Another great city. How would you like to live there?

Teaching History in America

Teaching History in America
Email response by Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

Harry,

Thanks for the Wall Street Journal post below.

The teaching of U.S. History over the last century has evolved from "cheerleading" (George Washington never told a lie, etc) to "warts and all" history to (borrowing Jeane Kirkpartick's phrase) "Hate America First" history. 

I have always been beholden to "warts and all" history as seeking truth over advocacy - no matter how imperfectly - always lands one in a superior ethical and moral position.

The problem facing secondary history education in America today is not simply the shameful influence of the dishonest "Hate America First" advocates.

Another major problem is that World History is largely stuck in the "cheerleading" teaching era.

Students (falsely) assume that World History books are objective and truthful (i.e. they are getting a "warts and all" presentation).

In reality, the historical "warts" of other places are buried or often outright eliminated while American historical "warts" are placed at the center of the instruction.

For example, did you know that the country that imported the greatest number of slaves from Africa was Brazil? It was simple geography: short sea trips to an eager market meant greater profits for the slave traders.

As a result, American students cannot but conclude that the United States is terribly lacking and inferior to other nations and cultures.

This teaching wrong does a tremendous disservice to the students as there is not a place on earth that does not possess a rich expanse of historical "warts."

When World History is truthfully presented with its "warts" on display in equal measure, a clearer understanding of U.S. History is inescapable.

That failure combined with the "Hate America First" dishonesty is what makes teaching secondary history in America a less than ideal undertaking.

Mike

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 The College Board’s about-face on U.S. history is a significant political event.

 

By DANIEL HENNINGER   WSJ Aug. 26, 2015 

In this summer of agitated discontent for American conservatives, we can report a victory for them, assuming that is still permitted.

Last year, the College Board, the nonprofit corporation that controls all the high-school Advanced Placement courses and exams, published new guidelines for the AP U.S. history test. They read like a left-wing dream. Obsession with identity, gender, class, crimes against the American Indian and the sins of capitalism suffused the proposed guidelines for teachers of AP American history.

As of a few weeks ago, that tilt in the guidelines has vanished. The College Board’s rewritten 2015 teaching guidelines are almost a model of political fair-mindedness. This isn’t just an about-face. It is an important political event.

 

The earlier guidelines characterized the discovery of America as mostly the story of Europeans bringing pestilence, destructive plants and cultural obliteration to American Indians. The new guidelines put it this way: “Mutual misunderstandings between Europeans and Native Americans often defined the early years of interaction and trade as each group sought to make sense of the other. Over time, Europeans and Native Americans adopted some useful aspects of each other’s culture.”

 

Opinion Journal Video Wonder Land Columnist Dan Henninger on why the nonprofit revised its Advanced Placement History exam for high-school students. Photo credit: Associated Press. The previous, neo-Marxist guidelines said, “Students should be able to explain how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history, with special attention given to the formation of gender, class, racial, and ethnic identities.” That has been removed. The revised guidelines have plenty about “identity” but nothing worth mounting a Super PAC to battle.

 

Also new: “The effort for American independence was energized by colonial leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, as well as by popular movements that included the political activism of laborers, artisans, and women.” The earlier version never suggested the existence of Franklin—or Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison or anyone resembling a Founding Father. Now they’re back. Even the Federalist Papers were fished out of the memory hole.

 

Most incredible of all, the private enterprise system is, as they say, reimagined as a force for good: “As the price of many goods decreased, workers’ real wages increased, providing new access to a variety of goods and services.” There’s an idea that has fallen out of favor the past six years.

 

The final sentence of my June 11 column on the previous guidelines, “Bye, Bye, American History,” said: “The College Board promises that what it produces next month will be ‘balanced.’ We await the event.”

 

The College Board delivered on its promise. The new guidelines, which convey an understanding of American history to thousands of high-school students, are about as balanced as one could hope for. The framework itself, on the College Board website inside the AP tab, is worth a look.

 

What happened?

 

To Bernie-Sanders progressives, what happened was a sellout. For ThinkProgress.org, “College Board Caves to Conservative Pressure.”

 

What really happened was the resurrection of an American idea the left wants to extinguish—federalism. Some states began to push back. Legislative opposition to the guidelines formed in Georgia, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Nebraska, Tennessee, Colorado and Texas.

 

Stanley Kurtz, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has argued that the College Board was concerned that its lucrative nationwide testing franchise would be at risk if states began to replace it with their own courses. I think he’s right.

 

What remains, however, is that the College Board, after somehow thinking it could produce a politically tendentious document that would have established “identity politics” as the official narrative of U.S. history, ended up with a set of guidelines that deftly straddles the political center.

 

This is a significant event. It marks an important turn in the American culture wars that exploded at the Republican convention in 1992 with the religious right, a movement that faded but whose sense of political alienation has remained alive, whether in the original tea-party groups or today with voters adopting the improbable Donald Trump.

 

What these disaffected people have held in common is the sense that their animating beliefs in—if one may say so—God and country were not merely being opposed but were being rolled completely off the table by institutions—“Washington,” the courts, a College Board—over which they had no apparent control.

 

They were not wrong.

 

The original AP U.S. history guidelines were a case study in the left’s irrepressible impulse, here or elsewhere, to always go too far. The left always said it just wanted “to be heard.” They were, but it was never enough. The goal was to make the American center-right simply shut up. Now, with campus trigger-warnings and microagression manias, the left is telling liberals to shut up too. They rule, and you do. Ask the Little Sisters of the Poor.

 

Guess what? In a country of 319 million “diverse” people, that is really a hard political goal to lock down, no matter how many institutions are captured.

 

Is the country polarized? How could it not be? Is there a solution? Take a look at how the AP U.S. history mess was handled. Someone rewrote those guidelines into a reasonable political accommodation. It is not impossible.

 

Write to henninger@wsj.com.