President Obama wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday, outlining the need for increased cyber-defense, and his administration’s proposal to earmark $19 billion to overhaul government IT systems and address cyber threats. It’s about time. There were a couple of great lines: It is no secret that too often government IT is like … Continue reading The Obama Administration’s Cyber-Defense Funding Proposal
From The New York Times:
At a conservative conference earlier in the year, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, ridiculed the 2016 Democratic field as “a rerun of ‘The Golden Girls,’ ” referring to Mrs. Clinton and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is 70.
When it comes to Syria, the Obama administration is in a quandary. It has thus far provided more than $650 million in non-lethal aid to the Syrian rebels, but has also notably shied away from providing actual weaponry or logistical support. The result is a dangerous quagmire where the rebels have enough support to continue fighting, but not enough force to consistently repel government troops or inflict a blow strong enough to halt the mounting slaughter. Continue reading “Sitting on the Syrian Fence”
Two recent actions by the White House provide an interesting study in the expansion of executive power.
The first instance is a Federal judge’s decision that the legal reasoning behind the May 2011 drone strike that killed Anwar Al-Awlaki – an American citizen and member of Al-Qaeda – need not be released by the Justice Department. In what she called “a veritable Catch-22,” Judge Colleen McMahon noted that a combination of Constitutional contortions and executive precedent have rendered the Freedom of Information Act petition filed by The New York Times and the ACLU ineffectual. The judge skeptically quoted Attorney General Eric Holder’s assertion that assassinations like that of Al-Awlaki are befitting of “due process,” though not “judicial process.”
Silicon Spatula 