Blog

03/23/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Is Kim Jong Responsible for one of the Biggest Bank Heist in History?!

The man behind the biggest bank heist in history may have been Kim Jong Un.

Federal prosecutors are preparing to finger North Korea for orchestrating the theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last year, according to a report.

The Justice Department is zeroing in on Chinese thieves under the direction of North Korea, with charges that they hacked Bangladesh’s central bank and swiped millions from its account held at the New York Fed, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The money was then transferred to banks in the Philippines and laundered through casinos, according to the reported allegations. While some of it has been recovered, much of it is still lost to prosecutors.

The hackers reportedly pulled off the heist by exploiting shoddy controls at the Bangladesh bank, the New York Fed and SWIFT, a money-transferring system that has come under attack by hackers the world over.

It’s unclear whether the Justice Department will file charges against North Korean officials, according to the WSJ report.

Spokepersons for Justice and the New York Fed didn’t return requests for comment.

http://nypost.com/2017/03/22/kim-jong-un-may-be-behind-biggest-bank-heist-in-history/

03/23/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Pelosi Insults Intelligence Committee Chairman

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hammered the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee on Thursday, saying Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is simply a “stooge” for President Trump who can’t be trusted to lead an unbiased investigation into ties between Russia and the White House.

Pelosi said Nunes “acted outside the circle of respect” for his responsibility as Intelligence chairman when he went Wednesday to the press and the president with new information surrounding the panel’s probe into Russian hacking of the 2016 election and possible surveillance of Trump’s team — without telling the other members of the committee.

“By being a stooge of the president of the United States,” Pelosi charged, “he has demonstrated very clearly that there is no way there can be an impartial investigation under his leadership on that committee.”

Pelosi, who has called for months for an outside independent investigation of the Russian hacking and influence campaign, said Nunes’s actions only accentuate the need for Congress to create such a panel.

“Chairman Nunes is deeply compromised, and he cannot possibly lead an honest investigation,” she charged.

Nunes grabbed headlines Wednesday when he called a hasty press conference to announce what he characterized as “alarming” revelations that U.S. spy agencies, “on numerous occasions,” collected “incidental” information about members of Trump’s transition team as part of foreign surveillance operations.

The details gathered about those transition members had “little or no apparent foreign intelligence value,” Nunes said, and the information was “widely disseminated in a foreign intelligence report.”

Nunes stopped just short of accusing the Obama administration of spying on Trump — “I guess it all depends on one’s definition of spying,” he said — but he said he’s “alarmed” by what he’s seen.

After the unusual press conference in the Capitol, Nunes went to the White House to brief Trump on the findings. Trump, for his part, said he felt partially vindicated for claims he made earlier in the month that former President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower.

Democrats, particularly those on the Intelligence panel, slammed Nunes as having taken a bipartisan investigation in a markedly partisan direction.

“Chairman Nunes can either lead this committee to pursue the truth or choose to serve as an advocate for President Trump,” said Rep. Joaquín Castro, a Texas Democrat who sits on the committee.

Pelosi on Thursday said Nunes’s actions won’t cause the Democrats to stop participating in the committee’s Russia probe.

“I’m just talking about him. The Democrats are fully prepared to be unbiased,” she said.

But Pelosi suggested Nunes had acted at the direction of Trump, and she was quick to note that the California Republican was himself a member of Trump’s transition team — a history that raises “questions about [his] impartiality,” she said.

“I don’t know if that was a cry for help. Or let me out of here, or what that was,” Pelosi said. “But it was highly unusual, outside the accepted behavior of a chairman of an Intelligence, or any, committee.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/325449-pelosi-intel-chairman-a-stooge-of-the-president

03/23/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Living the American Dream?

Detroit was once known as a city where a working-class family could afford to own a home. Now it’s a city of renters.

Just 49 percent of Motor City households were homeowners in 2015, down from 55 percent in 2009 and the lowest percentage in more than 50 years. Detroit isn’t alone, of course: The rate of U.S. home ownership fell steadily for a decade as the foreclosure crisis turned millions of owners into renters and tight housing markets made it hard for renters to buy homes. Demographic shifts—millennials (finally) moving out of their parents basements, for instance, or a rising Hispanic population—further fed the renter pool.

Fifty-two of the 100 largest U.S. cities were majority-renter in 2015, according to U.S. Census Bureau data compiled for Bloomberg by real estate brokerage Redfin. Twenty-one of those cities have shifted to renter-domination since 2009. These include such hot housing markets as Denver and San Diego and lukewarm locales, such as Detroit and Baltimore, better known for vacant homes than residential development.

While U.S. home ownership ticked up in the second half of 2016, there are reasons to think the trend toward renting will continue. A 2015 report from the Urban Institute predicted that rentership would keep rising through 2030, thanks to demographic trends that include aging baby boomers who downsize into rentals.

In the shorter term, housing market dynamics will also play a role. Fewer than 1 million homes were on the market in the first quarter of 2017, the lowest number since Trulia began recording inventory data in 2012. The shortage makes it harder for renters to buy. Meanwhile, rental landlords, including large Wall Street players and mom-and-pop investors, continue to plow cash into single-family homes.

Those shifts are likely to present new challenges for cities unequipped to handle high rental populations. Detroit Future City, a nonprofit that highlighted Detroit’s shift in a report earlier this month, argues that the city needs an intentional strategy for dealing with the rising population of such households.

That could include providing new protections for renters or creating resources to help landlords keep properties in good repair. On a grander scale, the Center for Budget Policy & Priorities, a Washington-based research institute, published a proposal this month calling for a new tax credit for low-wage workers, seniors, and people for disabilities.

Most low-income families don’t rent by choice, said Nela Richardson, chief economist at Redfin. And plenty of higher-income households rent because they can’t afford to buy. “We don’t have enough affordable supply in either rental or for-sale markets,” said Richardson, adding that cities interested in promoting renter-friendly policies can rethink their zoning policies to encourage more construction.

At an even more basic level, city leaders should check old assumptions about the role renter households play in their communities, said Andrew Jakabovics, vice president for policy development at Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable housing nonprofit.

Homeowners have traditionally been regarded as more engaged, with more at stake in the long-term prospects of their neighborhood, Jakabovics said. That view can unfairly shortchange renters.

“It goes a long way just to make sure you’re valuing renters and making sure voices are heard when it’s time to allocate resources to schools or parks or transit lines,” he said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-23/renters-now-rule-half-of-u-s-cities

03/22/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Trump is Sending Congress to Space

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed legislation Tuesday adding human exploration of Mars to NASA’s mission. Could sending Congress into space be next?

Flanked at an Oval Office bill-signing ceremony by astronauts and lawmakers, Trump observed that being an astronaut is a “pretty tough job.” He said he wasn’t sure he’d want it and, among lawmakers he put the question to, Sen. Ted Cruz said he wouldn’t want to be a space traveler, either.

But Cruz, R-Texas, offered up a tantalizing suggestion. “You could send Congress to space,” he said to laughter, including from the president.

Trump, who faces a crucial House vote later this week on legislation long promised by Republicans to overhaul the Obama-era Affordable Care Act health law, readily agreed. The health care bill is facing resistance from some conservative members of the party.

“What a great idea that could be,” Trump said, before turning back to the space exploration measure sponsored by Cruz and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

The new law authorizes $19.5 billion in spending for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the budget year that began Oct. 1. Cruz said the authorization bill is the first for the space agency in seven years, and he called it a “terrific” achievement.

Trump last week sent Congress a budget proposal that seeks $19.1 billion in spending authorization for the agency next year.

“For almost six decades, NASA’s work has inspired millions and millions of Americans to imagine distant worlds and a better future right here on earth,” Trump said. “I’m delighted to sign this bill. It’s been a long time since a bill like this has been signed, reaffirming our commitment to the core mission of NASA: human space exploration, space science and technology.”

The measure amends current law to add human exploration of the red planet as a goal for the agency. It supports use of the International Space Station through at least 2024, along with private sector companies partnering with NASA to deliver cargo and experiments, among other steps.

After signing the bill, Trump invited several lawmakers to comment, starting with Cruz. When Trump invited Vice President Mike Pence to speak, he suggested that Nelson be allowed to say a few words. Nelson traveled into space when he was in the House.

“He’s a Democrat. I wasn’t going to let him speak,” Trump quipped, to laughter. Nelson ultimately got a chance to briefly praise his bill.

Pence also announced that Trump plans to re-launch the National Space Council, with Pence as chairman, to coordinate U.S. space policy. The council was authorized by law in 1988, near the end of the Reagan administration, but ceased to operate soon after Bill Clinton took office in January 1993.

—

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

—

This story has been corrected to show that authorization is for the 2017 budget year, instead of 2018.

03/22/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Idiots Gang Rape a 15 year-old on Facebook Live!

CHICAGO (AP) — The mother of a 15-year-old girl who authorities say was sexually assaulted in an attack streamed live on Facebook said Wednesday that her daughter has received online threats since it happened and that neighborhood kids have been joking about it and harassing her family.

The woman was reunited with her daughter on Tuesday, two days after the girl went missing and a day after police learned of the attack. She said her daughter is staying with a relative and is scared to come home, and that she shares that fear.

“This is just disturbing and to think the kids think it is funny,” the mother, 32, told The Associated Press. The AP isn’t naming her to protect the identity of her daughter.

She said that since the attack, people have threatened on Facebook that “they are going to get her” daughter and that neighborhood children have been laughing about the incident and ringing the family’s doorbell looking for the girl. She said she’s shocked by the callousness people have shown since the attack, which was viewed live by about 40 people on Facebook Live – none of whom reported it to the police.

“I can’t stay here,” she said of Lawndale, the West Side neighborhood where her family lives. “I have other kids, too. I let them walk to school and now I have to take them.”

Police said Wednesday that they hadn’t arrested anyone in the attack, which involved five or six men or boys. A police spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, said the girl knows at least one of her attackers and that investigators are making good progress identifying those involved.

Police only learned of the attack on Monday afternoon, the day after the girl went missing. Her mother went to a Lawndale police station and filled out a missing person report, then spotted the head of the city’s police department, Superintendent Eddie Johnson, outside the station and approached him. She told him her daughter had been missing since Sunday and showed him screen grab photos of the assault that friends of her daughter had sent her.

Guglielmi said Johnson immediately ordered detectives to investigate and the department asked Facebook to take down the video, which it did.

Andrew Holmes, a local activist, said a friend of the girl’s mother called him Monday asking if he could help find the video online and get it to the police, which he did. He said to him, the video showed that the girl was frightened and trying to get away.

“You could see where she was fearful. … You could see the look of fear and where she is resisting, pushing back,” he told the AP. “It looked like … she was in total shock.”

Holmes said the video shows someone pulling the girl to a bed as she struggled to get away. He said he was struck by the indifference of the others who were there.

“Other individuals were there standing around and talking and someone says, ‘Cut the lights off,'” he said, adding that the lights kept going on and off during the video, which was several minutes long.

The mother said her daughter was still terrified after police found her.

“She went to the hospital, but she was so scared she didn’t want anybody to touch her,” the mother said. She said her daughter had bruising on her neck but she was told of no other significant bruises or cuts by the doctors.

The mother said she thinks the attack happened Sunday night, and that she learned of it from friends of her daughter who saw the video, recognized her daughter, a high school freshman, as a basketball player they know, and called her, the mom.

“They couldn’t send me the video so they sent screen shots,” she said.

A spokeswoman for Facebook, Andrea Saul, declined to comment on the girl’s case, specifically, but she said the company takes its “responsibility to keep people safe on Facebook very seriously.”

“Crimes like this are hideous and we do not allow that kind of content on Facebook,” she said.

The video marks at least the second time in recent months that the Chicago Police Department has investigated an apparent attack that was streamed live on Facebook. In January, four people were arrested after a cellphone footage showed them allegedly taunting and beating a mentally disabled man.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SEXUAL_ASSAULT_FACEBOOK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-21-10-16-59

03/22/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

There is no Leadership for Democrats

The Democratic Party has a leadership vacuum at the top, with many registered voters eager to see someone who is not currently on the scene become the party’s standard-bearer in 2020, according to a new Harvard-Harris Poll survey provided exclusively to The Hill.

When registered voters were asked whom they view as the leader of the Democratic Party, 40 percent said it has no leader.

Fifteen percent named former President Obama as the party’s leader. Twelve percent said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has gone out of his way not to join the Democratic Party despite running for the its presidential nomination last year.

Eleven percent view Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as the party’s leader, and 10 percent answered with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.

On the question of who should be a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, Sanders led the field, at 14 percent, followed by former first lady Michelle Obama at 11 percent, Warren at 9 percent, Clinton at 8 percent, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo each at 4 percent, and television personality Oprah Winfrey and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) each at 3 percent.

Forty-five percent said they want to see someone not on the list of possible candidates in the survey.

“There is a vacuum now in the Democratic Party in terms of leadership and a 2020 candidate, so it’s the Democrats who might have a raft of candidates next time, especially if the voters are searching for someone new,” said Harvard-Harris co-director Mark Penn.

When Clinton was taken out of the list of potential 2020 candidates, Sanders’s support went up to 18 percent, followed by Michelle Obama at 14 percent and Warren at 10 percent. No other candidate received more than 4 percent support, and 44 percent of respondents said they want someone not on the list.

“Michelle Obama has some potential as a future candidate if she was interested in politics,” Penn said.

Barack Obama has said his wife “will never run for office,” though she remains hugely popular among Democrats.

The party is in the midst of a full-scale rebuilding project after the 2016 elections, in which it lost control of the White House and failed to win majorities in either the House or Senate.

Democratic ranks have also faced serious defeats at the state level, where the party has lost about 1,000 legislative seats since Obama took office. Republicans control 69 of 99 legislative chambers across the country and 33 of 50 governor mansions.

Democrats took the first step in setting a new path forward last month when former Obama administration Labor Secretary Tom Perez defeated Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a Sanders acolyte, to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Still, the party lacks a consensus leader at a time when there are deep and lingering divisions between grassroots liberals and mainstream establishment Democrats.

The partisan breakdown of the Harvard-Harris survey is 37 percent Democratic, 30 percent Republican, 28 percent independent and 5 percent other.

When only Democrats are taken into account, the figures shift slightly.

Thirty-five percent of Democrats said their party has no leader. Sixteen percent picked Barack Obama or Warren as the leader, followed by Sanders at 14 percent and Clinton at 8 percent.

Twenty-five percent of Democrats said they want someone not on the poll’s list of possibilities to be their presidential candidate in 2020. Twenty percent said Sanders should be the nominee, followed by Michelle Obama at 17 percent, Warren at 15 percent, Clinton at 10 percent, Cuomo and Booker each at 4 percent, Winfrey at 3 percent and Cuban at 2 percent.

Overall, 40 percent of respondents had a favorable view of the Democratic Party, compared with 60 percent who viewed it negatively. Republicans were seen similarly, 41 percent favorable to 59 percent unfavorable.

But Republicans had a far more positive view of their own party, with 79 percent saying they had a favorable view of the GOP. Only 65 percent of Democrats had a favorable view of their own party.

Among all the registered voters surveyed, 46 percent said the Democratic Party is becoming more liberal, 43 percent said it is staying the same, and 11 percent said it is moving to the right. A majority of Democrats, 56 percent, said the party is staying the same, while 30 percent said it is becoming more liberal and 14 said it is becoming more conservative.

Forty-nine percent of all those surveyed said the GOP is becoming more conservative, while 36 percent said it is staying the same and 16 percent said it is becoming more liberal. Among just Republicans, 43 percent said their party is staying the same, 39 percent said it is becoming more conservative, and 19 said it is becoming more liberal.

The Harvard-Harris survey of 2,092 registered voters was conducted online between March 14 and 16.

The Hill will be working with Harvard-Harris throughout 2017. Full poll results will be posted online later this week.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/324903-for-democrats-no-clear-leader

Blog

Footer