GROWN-UP TEMPER TANTRUM: Two School Districts Plan to Close for ‘Day Without a Woman’ Strike.

Officials with Alexandria City Public Schools in Virginia and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools in North Carolina cited safety concerns with so many employees taking off as a primary reason for closing.

“We’re not closing to show support for the cause,” said Chapel Hill-Carrboro spokesman Jeffrey Nash. “We’re closing because so many are not going to be here, making the schools possibly unsafe.”

I don’t want to hear one more damn chorus of “for the children” ever again.

HMM: Russia to Arm Nuclear Subs With New Supersonic Cruise Missile.

The Russian Navy will arm its upgraded Project 949A Oscar II-class nuclear-powered guided missile submarines (SSGN) with 3M-54 Kalibr cruise missiles, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said on March 6.

Two Project 949A SSGNs are currently being retrofitted as part of a life extension program at the Zvezda shipyard in the Russian Far East, which is supposed to expand the subs’ service life by 15 to 20 years.

“The Zvezda shipyard is carrying out profound modernization of Project 949A nuclear submarines, including the replacement of armament with the Kalibr missile complex and also the replacement of navigation, life support, and other systems,” Borisov told TASS news agency this week.

Project 949A subs, built between 1985 and 1999, are primarily designed to attack U.S. carrier strike groups and coastal targets in the event of a conflict. They are the largest cruise missile subs currently in service in Russia. The Russian Navy is currently operating two Project 949A subs in its Northern Fleet and five with the Pacific Fleet.

The Oscar II-class boats probably never stood much chance at getting close enough to launch cruise missiles at targets here in the U.S., but their ability to put up a lot of missiles almost all at once would play hell with our surface ships’ air defenses.

NOTE: DIAMOND REYNOLDS IS NO RELATION. Woman Who Famously Live-Streamed Her Boyfriend’s Police Shooting is Arrested for Hammer Attack. “Diamond Reynolds, the woman who famously live-streamed the controversial fatal police shooting of Philando Castile, has been arrested in connection with a vicious attack that left another woman with serious injuries. Reynolds, Dyamond Richardson, and Chnika Blair were apprehended Thursday in St. Paul, Minnesota, after allegedly attacking a woman with a hammer Tuesday night, and leaving the scene in a silver truck.”

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THE MORE YOU KNOW… Trump’s New Immigration Order Creates Database of Honor Killings.

FLASHBACK: Journalist Michael Hastings Was Investigating CIA Director John Brennan Before He Was Killed in Fiery Car Crash.

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: The Coming Islamic Culture War.

As LGBT and religion-critical communities in Muslim countries become increasingly assertive, they are likely to trigger a backlash from conservative religious forces. Indeed, the backlash has already begun, sometimes violently, at both the state and the sub-state level.

Even as Islamist groups have launched reporting campaigns to shut down atheist Facebook accounts, governments have arrested atheists who are vocal online. In 2015, Egyptian courts sentenced a 21-year-old student to three years in prison after he declared on Facebook that he was an atheist. Saudi Arabia has imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi since 2012 on charges of insulting Islam online, occasionally dragging him out of jail for a public lashing. And across the MENA region, governments have similarly targeted members of the LGBT community who are active online. On dating apps, Egyptian police have used catfishing—a tactic in which individuals use false personas to establish online relationships—to identify and arrest gay men.

In the most extreme cases, members of these marginalized groups have been the victims of targeted sub-state violence. Since 2013, Islamist militants in Bangladesh, some of whom are linked to al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, have carried out a series of assassinations targeting atheist bloggers. And in April 2016, a jihadist faction pledging allegiance to the Islamic State claimed responsibility for killing the editor of Bangladesh’s only LGBT magazine.

It is not entirely clear how the Internet-enabled rise of marginalized communities—such as the LGBT or religion-critical ones—will reshape Muslim-majority societies. In the short term, the rise of these social movements may provide a boon to jihadist groups, who often cast themselves as the only force capable of protecting the faith against Western and secular values. But over the long term, these marginalized groups may fundamentally challenge religious conservatives’ grip on power.

Two things are clear, and not just from reading this piece. One is that much of the Islamic world is in desperate need of reform. The other is that if reform comes, it will be halting — except where it comes suddenly and radically — and that the reaction will be violent.

MAYBE THIS EXPLAINS THE OTHERWISE-UNACCOUNTABLE INDUSTRYWIDE ENTHUSIASM FOR THE “INTERNET OF THINGS:” WikiLeaks dump shows CIA can use IoT to hack ‘anything, anywhere.’ “Your government has been using your own devices to spy on you without warrant. If you’re not upset, you should be.” (Bumped).

ROLL CALL: A Brief History of Calls for an Independent Prosecutor.

STAY DOWN: Kim Jong Nam’s son appears for first time since his father’s murder.

In a 40-second video posted online by a group called Cheollima Civil Defense, Kim Han Sol identifies himself and shows his passport to the camera. The image of the passport has been blacked out.

“I’m currently with my mother and my sister,” he says. “We hope this gets better soon.”

It’s not clear where Kim Han Sol is in the video or when it was shot, though he says his father was killed “a few days ago.”

Kim Han Sol’s identity was verified to CNN by a South Korean National Intelligence Service spokesman.
No one from Kim Jong Nam’s immediate family has been heard from since his murder in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13.

In a statement, Cheollima Civil Defense said it had responded to an emergency request by Kim Jong Nam’s family for “extraction and protection” last month.

The group thanked the governments of the Netherlands, China, the US and a fourth, unnamed country for “emergency humanitarian assistance” in protecting Kim’s family, and singled out the Dutch Ambassador to South Korea, A. J. A. Embrechts for credit.

Good luck to Kim Han Sol and his family.

PARANOID KIM’S PARANOID SPRING

INSTAPUNDIT READER AND SECURITY EXPERT ERIC COWPERTHWAITE ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LATEST CIA HACK:

Q: So what’s the big news in this particular leak?

Eric:
There’s three things, I think.

The CIA has built a capability to hack pretty much anything, anywhere. It turns out that they, potentially, have more ability to intrude into servers, computers, smartphones and electronic communications than even the NSA.
This capability is now in the hands of people other than the CIA.
All the things you’ve read, that seem like science fiction movie plots, are really true. Other people can listen to you via your smart TV, can read your email, turn on the webcam on your laptop, without you ever knowing.

Q: The leak itself is a sign of problems, but what do we know about how the CIA is using this stuff?

Eric:
According to what we know, the CIA’s capabilities and tools were not actually classified, because that would mean that CIA employees and contractors would break the law as they moved the tools, and information gleaned with the tools, across various networks and computer systems. Apparently, the tools, data, etc were freely shared within the CIA hacking teams. Which is what led to the Wikileaks leak, but also, apparently, has led to this entire capability being acquired by people outside the CIA. I’m sure that further details will come out in the near future on this topic.

Q: Is there an upside to these leaks?

Eric:
This is a tough one to answer. I’m torn, honestly. There is good and bad in this. We know that some of the Manning leaks had impacts on military operations. That was part of Manning’s trial. I also found it interesting that Wikileaks alleges that the US Intelligence Community has a problem keeping its cyberwar tools off the blackmarket. And if the CIA, NSA, etc can’t keep these things under control, that is something that citizens should know.

Eric side note — this goes back to your “don’t fear the leaker” talk at ISSA. I am … mostly … in agreement with you.

Some final comments from Eric:

The Wikileaks disclosure also makes clear that the CIA (and undoubtedly every other government agency) built tools that would make it look like they were some other intelligence agency. For example, there is a tool in this called “Stolen Goods 2.0” that uses Russian techniques and footprints. This means that it becomes very difficult for investigators to have any idea who actually conducted the cyber attack. It might have been the Chinese, but it might actually have been the British using tools that made it look like the Chinese were the bad actors. Just because someone publicly attributes the attack, does not mean anything. As security professionals say to each other all the time, “attribution is hard, bro.”

So for all we know, “Russian hacks” might actually be by the CIA, or by the Iranians, or by Indian mobsters. Great.

And here’s my Don’t Fear The Leaker paper that came from that talk.

SEEN ON TWITTER:

DUH. BECAUSE HE’S A DEMOCRAT. AND BLACK. NEXT QUESTION? Why Does Cedric Richmond Get A Pass For Lewd Comments About Kellyanne Conway? To be fair, there was a small amount of pro forma harrumphing.

SUZANNE VENKER: ‘A Day Without Women’: Who are the women who won’t be marching? Pretty much all of them, actually, since this self-parody of a left-wing operation is, as usual, just a chance for well-off white people to feel important without really doing anything.

But I hope they bring snacks.

MICHAEL BARONE: Looking for fascism in America? Look left, on campus.

IS IT EVER NOT PROJECTION WITH THESE PEOPLE? Hate Crime Hoax: Michigan Snowflake Scratched Own Face with ‘Safe Space’ Safety Pin.

DID ERIC HOLDER COMMIT PERJURY?

So the issue is rather squarely posed: Holder testified that he had never “been involved in” or even “heard of” any “potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material.” And yet, he participated in “extensive deliberations,” “discussed” and approved of the filing of an application for a search warrant that specifically represented to the court that a reporter has “potential criminal liability in this matter.” It is hard to imagine a more direct contradiction.

To be fair, laws are for the little people.

IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN, I SHALL ONLY BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE: Ivanka Trump clothing line reports record sales.

Her stuff is available on Amazon, so who cares about Nordstrom?

NEW YORKERS TO HILLARY CLINTON: No thanks.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t perform well in the latest poll in the New York City mayor’s race, according to a new Rasmussen poll released Tuesday.

Fifty-eight percent of likely voters in the city don’t want Clinton to run again, compared to just 23 percent of voters who wanted the former presidential candidate to run. Nineteen percent of voters hadn’t yet made up their mind.

Might America finally be done with the Clintons?

LIKEWISE WHEN THE CIA IS LEAKING LIKE A SIEVE WITH UNSUBSTANTIATED STORIES ABOUT ELECTION HACKING: Ex-CIA director: When Trump tweets unproven allegations, it ‘weakens the office of the presidency.’

Not to mention when the CIA can’t even keep its own hacking technology away from WikiLeaks. . . .

POWER BROKER: Putin sends a clear message to Turkey on Syria. “Russia is openly working with the Kurds to obstruct Erdogan’s buffer-zone, reminding him that the Kremlin, rather than Ankarra, is calling the shots in war-torn country.”

The Turks struck back by proxy, attacking a Russian position in the deserts of the ancient city of Palmyra, killing four Russian soldiers, and letting their allies in the countryside of Aleppo fire rockets at the city, debunking all claims by Russian and Syrian media that the city had been “freed completely” from rebel presence.

They were sending a message to Putin that they remain strongly entrenched in the city’s suburbs and can attack at will, if Moscow continues to hamper the expansion of the Turkish buffer zone.

Taking the confrontation to new heights, the Russians hammered out an agreement with the Manbij Military Council, a branch of the SDF, whereby the Kurdish militia would hand over control of several villages west of Manbij to the Syrian Army. They called it the “transferred defence of the frontline,” to halt “Turkey’s invasion plan”, referring to the Turks as “gangs” in their official communiqué, and to the Syrian troops as “state forces,” driving Erdogan extremely mad.

Erdogan had spoken on the telephone with President Donald Trump, asking for US cover to prevent Kurdish advances on Al Raqqa or continued US presence in Manbij. Not only did Trump refuse to commit, but provided the SDF, at their request, with anti-tank weapons, mine detectors and other military equipment.

Erdogan doesn’t seem to have any friends left, which shouldn’t shock anybody.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING LEFT: “Liberals mystified by the election of Donald Trump might look to the Middlebury assault—in which Charles Murray was shouted down and physically pursued as he left campus while the professor escorting him was attacked and put in a neck brace—for a slice of the explanation. The answer may lie less in the grotesque conduct of college students awash in—wait for it, wait for it—privilege than in what the impassioned youth never said.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: The Republican Plan Is Even Worse Than Obamacare.

It will not, for example, make the looming possibility of a “death spiral” in the individual market any less possible, and indeed may make it more likely. Passing this bill would certainly ensure that Republicans will 100 percent own any ensuing death spiral, and will have little luck whining that it was gonna death spiral anyway, because Obamacare. In other words, even if we leave aside any policy effects, this bill will be a disaster for the long-term political fortunes of the Republican Party.

It’s tempting to blame short-sighted Republican leadership, so focused on getting a point on the board that they’re not considering whether the sacrifices they need to get that point might end up costing them the game. But it’s not even clear that this scores any short-term political points.

Heritage Action, Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity — three of the biggest groups that Republicans will need to help them whip their right flank into voting for this thing — have all come out hard against it. Avik Roy and Michael Cannon, two of the leading opponents of Obamacare in the policy community, have both panned it. You’re not exactly seeing enthusiastic cheers from the journalists who opposed Affordable Care Act, of which I am one. See? This is me, emphatically not cheering. If such a thing is possible, I am actively failing to cheer.

And:

That’s if the House Republicans can pass this. And frankly I doubt they can. Twenty-four hours ago, I was beginning to think that Republicans were going to ram something dumb through just to be able to say they’d done something. I don’t think they could get this through with the world’s largest battering ram and a million Visigoths to man it.

Ouch.