Radio America Online News Bureau

News & Politics

Trump’s Dizzying DACA Move, Soft on Iran Sanctions, White House vs. ESPN

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to President Trump making a deal with Democratic leaders to enact DACA into law in exchange for “massive border security” that has yet to be defined.  They also sigh as the Trump administration continues sanctions relief for Iran in conjunction with the nuclear deal it still hasn’t scrapped.  And they slam the White House for suggesting ESPN anchor Jemele Hill ought to fired for tweeting that Trump is a white supremacist while also blasting Hill and ESPN for their aggressively extreme politics.

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‘You Will Be Looking Over Your Shoulder for the Rest of Your Life’

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The revelation of a massive data breach at credit giant Equifax is a a textbook example of poor protection and even worse public relations, but a leading cyber security expert says it leaves tens of millions of people vulnerable to fraud and identity theft for the rest of their lives.

Equifax is one of the three major institutions by which consumers check their credit scores and have their credit reviewed by third parties.  In recent days, it admitted a months-long data breach may have compromised as many as 143 million people.  The breach included hugely sensitive information, including consumers’ Social Security numbers.

Cyber Scout Founder and CEO Adam Levin says these breaches usually happen the same way.

“Apparently there was a vulnerability in software that they were using.  They created a gap in their web security.  As a result, the bad guys got in, crawled around for a few months and had access to a staggering amount of information,” said Levin, who is also author of “Swiped: How to Protect Yourself in A World Full of Scammers, Phishers and Identity Thieves.”

Equifax responded by apologizing for the “disappointing event.”

“This isn’t a disappointing event.  This is an outrageous event,  It is a completely embarrassing event.  It is a dangerous event,” said Levin.

Levin says if the breach only dealt with credit card or bank account information, the damage would be manageable.  He says the compromising of Social Security numbers is potentially disastrous.

“When you’re dealing with a Social Security number, this is forever.  The Social Security administration will almost never agree to change someone’s Social Security number.  So if your Social Security number is on a database that is compromised, you will be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life,” said Levin.

A bad actor having your Social Security number can make you vulnerable to new account fraud, medical identity theft, tax fraud, child identity theft, and criminal identity theft.  He says criminals using your information can make you a criminal in the eyes of the law.

“That’s where someone using your information commits a crime and the trail of bread crumbs leads back to you.  And you’re driving down the street.  You’re pulled over to the side of the road by law enforcement for a busted tail light.  All of a sudden your car is surrounded by guys with guns.  You’re thrown on the ground, handcuffed and hauled off, in some cases in front of your wife and kids,” said Levin.

He says someone making money while using your Social Security number could easily lead to a nightmare with the IRS.

“For example, someone gets your Social Security number, gets employment in your name by using your Social Security number.  The income from that job is reported to your Social Security number.  So all of a sudden, the IRS is on your tail, saying that you woefully under-reported your income,” said Levin.

He says the potential for financial wreckage in the wake of Equifax breach is huge.

“These are just some of the ramifications of something like this, and this impacts our entire society,” said Levin.

So how can companies and individuals stay ahead of the hackers?  Levin says it requires a new mindset.

“Technology is not the solution to security.  You have to create an environment, a culture of privacy and security within an organization.  Everybody’s got to buy into it.  Everybody has got to be at the top of their game,” said Levin.

“Every minute of every hour of every day, hackers are doing everything they can to constantly assault every database we have looking for the mother lode.  And this time, of all times, they really hit it,” said Levin.

Levin advises everyone to protect their data using what he calls the three M’s: minimizing the risk in the first place, monitoring your data and protection methods constantly, and managing the damage when a breach does occur.  He says cyber security leaders must be in a constant state of training to keep up with threats and observe any internal vulnerabilities.

“People need to be monitoring systems.  They need to be looking for vulnerabilities.  They need to patch those vulnerabilities immediately.  They need to be monitoring their vendors.  In the world we live in, you are your vendor.  If something goes wrong with a vendor that leads back to you or data that you have something to do with, it becomes your liability and your problem,” said Levin.

Levin also advises IT professionals to keep a constant eye out for the outflow of data from their systems.

“You need to have systems that monitor data exfiltration.  Is an unusual amount of information leaving your system or can you see someone crawling around your system and what can you do about it?,” said Levin.

“Data needs to be encrypted.  Security needs to be layered, so that even if someone gets into one level of a company, they can’t necessarily get into the most sensitive information held by the database of that company,” said Levin.

Levin is also shaking his head over what he calls a “clumsy” response from Equifax.  In addition to the massive breach being called a “disappointing event,” he says a website hastily arranged to provide information to consumers was flawed to the point of being flagged as a phishing scam and Equifax offered a free year of credit monitoring only if the consumer agreed not to join any class-action lawsuits.

That condition has since been withdrawn, but Levin still sees a year’s worth of free protection as a paltry offer.

“For the institution that basically exposed your data to come back with a program saying, ‘Hey, don’t worry about it, we’re going to take care of you for a year.  Things are good.’  You’re looking at them like, ‘Are you out of your mind?'” said Levin.

For individuals, Levin strongly recommends several steps, including tough passwords, making sure you don’t offer data to anyone who calls you but only when you contact an institution.  He also endorses two-factor authentication, meaning you are notified by a bank or other institution and must submit a correct code to allow any transaction to proceed.

He also urges everyone to keep close track of their credit score to notice any sudden changes and to enroll in any monitoring program, whether at your job or anywhere else where your personal data is on file.

“Check with your insurance agent, your financial services rep, and the HR department where you work.  Say, ‘Do you have a program to help me through an identity incident?  Am I in it?  If not, what do I need to do to get in it?  Is it free or what’s it going to cost?'” said Levin.

“I guarantee that whatever it costs is incredibly reasonable, compared to the pain that you’ll suffer by becoming a victim of one of these kinds of scams that relate to identity theft,” said Levin.

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Dems’ Single Payer Deception, Hillary’s Clear Delusion, Illegals OK to Vote

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome the political debate to come as more and more Democrats enthusiastically endorse full government control of our health care and point out Americans sour on the idea quickly when they learn even a little bit about what single-payer really means.  They also kick back and watch the public implosion of Hillary Clinton, most recently featuring her refusal to offer “absolution” to women who didn’t vote for her and contending George Orwell’s message was to trust our government and media.  And they react to College Park, Maryland, officials voting to allow illegal immigrants to vote in local elections.

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McInerney Sizes up War 16 Years After 9/11

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On Monday, Americans observed a solemn remembrance of the lives lost in the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but retired U.S. Air Force Lt. General Tom McInerney says victory will be tough to achieve unless the U.S. gets serious about specifically identifying the enemy as radical Islam and getting Muslim leaders to publicly condemn the perpetrators.

“We still have not identified the threat’s ideology, that is radical Islam.  Until you do that, you can’t defeat the threat,” said McInerney, who rose to the number three position in the U.S. Air Force and also served as vice commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe.

He says President Trump did identity the ideology correctly on the campaign trail but has not been nearly as bold since taking office.

“We do not use the term ‘radical Islam’ very much in this administration.  I’m a little disappointed in the Trump administration because the president was using it quite a bit and then has since restricted his use of the term,” said McInerney.

Another reason he can’t call the war a success is the volatile state of the entire Middle East.

“Now you have the Middle East.  It’s the most unstable it has ever been in its history, so that’s why I’m not giving us high marks for being successful,” said McInerney.

Another major priority after 9/11 was the state of American intelligence capabilities.  Here again, McInerney sees disappointment compared to what was possible.

“They haven’t identified these threats.  They haven’t articulated the issues.  Our special ops are good at getting high-value targets, so our intelligence people are doing a good job with all of our censors, etc.  But we haven’t bundled it in the proper way, so our leaders can properly express the threat and the ideology I talked about earlier,” said McInerney.

So how can the U.S. prosecution of the war become more effective?  McInerney says it all starts with prominent Muslims clearly and frequently denouncing terrorism.

“The only people that can really defeat radical Islam are the Muslims themselves.  So we need fatwas out of Mecca and Medina.  We need Arab leadership to declare those radical Islamists to be unholy warriors and that they will forever live in damnation for attacking the West,” said McInerney.

McInerney says critical mistakes from both George W. Bush and Barack Obama made the fight more difficult.  He says Bush’s decision, through Amb. L. Paul Bremer, to disband the Iraqi army after toppling Saddam Hussein was a major error that only teed up experienced fighters to be part of the subsequent insurgency.

He says Obama’s decision to withdraw all U.S. forces in 2011 then created the vacuum that fostered the rise of ISIS.

McInerney says to pursue stability now requires a concerted confrontation of Iran.

“We cannot have the mullahs running wild over there.  They’re developing ICBM’s and nuclear weapons covertly.  We cannot accept that,” said McInerney.

He calls the Iran nuclear deal another major mistake by the Obama administration and says extensive collaboration with allies in the region will be need to to neutralize Iran.

“We need to take care of Iran, because they are the most destabilizing group in the Middle East.  They are driving a lot of this (radical Islam-inspired terrorism),” said McInerney.

McInerney also asserts that 2016 campaign tactics are hampering our ability to work with Russia, which is a key player in any effort to stabilize the region.

“The Russian collusion was always a deceptive move by the Democratic Party to shield the wrongdoings that the Democrats under Obama did, with the unmasking, with a whole host of other things – Hillary Clinton’s emails, which was a violation of the Espionage Act,” said McInerney.

So now our relationship with Russia is tense.  If we’re going to solve the problems over there, we need to be working with the Russians.  All those things coupled together can bring the stability we need, but we must replace the current Iranian regime,” said McInerney.

Since 9/11, terrorist attacks in the West feature fewer grand, sweeping plots and many are carried out by individuals or small cells.  McInerney says our intelligence efforts should be able to sniff out these plots much better because we know where to look for the potential terrorists.

“When you look at the incidents we’ve had in Europe and the United States, it always goes back to the mosques.  We have not taken the appropriate actions to infiltrate them and to get rid of the bad ones,” said McInerney.

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Haley Wins Again, Politicians Not A Panacea, Frivolous Fashion Week

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley for leading another round of sanctions aimed at North Korea in response to another nuclear test.  They also groan as the Democrat running for governor in Virginia implies that voting her him will give kids there a better chance for success and Jim slams any politician who promises that electing them will solve everyone’s problems.  And they discuss Jim Carrey’s on-air castigation of New York Fashion Week as meaningless, leading Jim to reveal tales of how the recent National Review cruise shared the ship with a lot of people connected to this superficial event.

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‘It’s Whack Job Economics’

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Five Senate Democrats are now publicly endorsing a government-run, single-payer health care system in a sign the party is quickly rallying to that goal, however the idea promises to be a financial and regulatory nightmare that should compel Republicans to revisit the issue and get it right before the 2018 elections.

On Tuesday, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, announced he would support the “Medicare for All” legislation sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.

“It’s time to simplify health care and lower patients’ costs, and embrace Medicare for All,” said Merkley, who is now the fifth Senate Democrat to join the cause publicly.  In addition to Sanders, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., are all co-sponsoring the bill.

In addition, roughly half the House Democrats are on board with the idea.

Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Robert Moffit says the Democrats are making their moves now because Republicans failed to get their health care reforms passed in the Senate.

“The immediate reason is the abject failure of Senate Republicans – and it’s the Senate’s fault here – to enact a health care reform bill to repeal and at least partially replace Obamacare,” said Moffit.

“It has created a major health policy vacuum, so the liberals in Congress and elsewhere are ready to fill it, and they’re preparing now for a total government takeover of health care, which is a single-payer system,” said Moffit.

But while touting “Medicare for All” and health care as a right, Moffit says Americans should not miss what is really at stake here.

“What they are proposing is nothing short of a government monopoly over the financing and the delivery of health care,” said Moffit.  “Ultimately what this means is that politicians will be in direct charge of health policy.”

He says Democrats in 2017 are making the exact opposite promise that President Obama made in 2009 and 2010, only this time they would actually keep it.

“When Obama promised he would not take away your plan, that turned out to be false, especially if you were in the individual market.  Here the Democrats in the Senate – Warren, Sanders, Sen. Merkley, John Conyers in the House – they are telling you they are going to take away your health plan,” said Moffit.

With Medicare already in deep debt and staring at $33-44 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities, Moffit says adding the rest of the nation to the program would require a major wallop to the wallets of taxpayers.

He says California is an important test case.  The state senate there has approved a single-payer plan that would result in a a spending hike of anywhere from 53-110 percent.

“Frankly, it’s whack job economics.  The Senate legislative analysts themselves say that this will require a 15 percent payroll tax,” said Moffit.

Moffit also took aim at Merkley’s assertion that having Medicare for everyone would somehow simplify the health care system.  He says the story of Medicare shows exactly the opposite.

“I think that Merkley is living in an alternative universe.  Anyone who has had to deal with Medicare, members of the medical profession are very familiar with it.  Medicare today is governed by tens of thousands of pages of rules, regulations, and guidelines and medical paperwork is eating up more and more of the time and energy and effort of physicians,” said Moffit.

“If you think that Medicare is a model of administrative efficiency or that Medicare is somehow simple, you’ve got to have rocks in your head.  you’re living on another planet.  Medicare is the Godzilla of government regulation,” said Moffit.

“It imposes enormous administrative costs on doctors, hospitals, clinics, and home health agencies, who have to bear the real costs of complying with Medicare’s regulatory systems,” said Moffit.

Moffit says this is also another clear signal of how far Democrats have moved to the left.

“They’re consumed by identity politics.  They’re eager to impose political correctness as part of an aggressive, counter-cultural agenda.  Now their economic agenda boils down to heavier taxation, higher spending, larger government programs, and even greater government control over our personal lives.  Frankly, if they want to have that debate, I’m ready to go,” said Moffit.

He says the key to foiling a complete government takeover of health care is for Republicans to roll up their sleeves and do health care legislation right this time.  He says failure is not an option.

“This is not an optional matter.  The individual market in the United States is in crisis.  They have no options here.  It’s not a question of what the hell they want to do, pardon me.  They have got to do their job.  If they don’t do their job, millions of Americans get hurt, especially the millions of middle class Americans who today do not get any subsidies whatsoever,” said Moffit.

“Congress has got to get its act together.  They have no choice,” he added.

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Hillary Blames Constitution, ‘Shoot Irma’ Panic, Media’s Hurricane Madness

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are back from vacation.  Before discussing the day’s martinis, they remember the horrific events of September 11, 2001 and why we must remember what happened that day.  Then they welcome the news that Hillary Clinton will never run for office again and laugh as she blames the “godforsaken electoral college” among many other factors for her defeat last year.  They also shake their heads as a tongue-in-cheek Facebook page encouraging people to “Shoot at Hurricane Irma” gets the media and even law enforcement very alarmed.  And they sigh as the major networks once again send their reporters into fierce storms, somehow thinking we won’t believe there is a hurricane unless we see their people getting hammered by the rain and wind.

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Trump’s Tough Talk, Post Loves Anarchists, Jeffrey Lord’s Odd Exit

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The Three Martini Lunch is on vacation for the week and will return on Monday, September 11.  Please enjoy this encore presentation of a recent podcast.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss the media hand-wringing over President Trump’s words towards North Korea and point out why Trump’s rhetoric is serving an important purpose.  They also throw their hands up as The Washington Post offers a glowing profile of D.C.-based anarchists and how all their rioting and property destruction is all for some greater good.  And Jim and Greg speculate about how a conservative group would be treated by the media if it behaved similarly.  Finally, Jim goes after CNN for their dishonesty in firing Jeffery Lord over a Twitter battle: “Just come out and say it — we’re tired of Jeffery Lord!”

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Kelly Takes Command, Murkowski’s Sleepy Dodge, Delaney Who?

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The Three Martini Lunch is on vacation for the week and will return on Monday, September 11.  Please enjoy this encore presentation of a recent podcast.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America show optimism that new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly will bring stability and focus to the Trump administration. They also criticize Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski for her refusal to answer a question about why she did not vote for the repeal of Obamacare even though she voted in favor of repeal in 2015. And they react to Maryland Rep. John Delaney announcing his candidacy for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2020, right after they figure out who he is.

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Haley Hits Hard, Scalise Status Ignored, Fury of the 1%

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The Three Martini Lunch is on vacation for the week and will return on Monday, September 11.  Please enjoy this encore presentation of a recent podcast.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in her firm-handed approach to the security threat posed by North Korea, specifically regarding China’s refusal to cooperate with UN resolutions against the isolated nation.  They also express frustration with national media over their lack of coverage of Rep. Steve Scalise’s condition as he returns to the ICU.  Finally, they highlight that most of those protesting Trump’s presidency are among the most wealthy in the DC area.

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