ARMY GENERAL: Screw This Procurement Nightmare. Give Me Glocks.

U.S Army General Mark Milley is sick and tired of the military’s Byzantine and politically-compromised procurement system, and is looking for a COTS (commercial off the shelf) solution to replace the Beretta M9 pistol instead of waiting for years for the Modular Handgun System trials to complete.

More:

The Army launched its long-awaited XM17 MHS competition in late August to replace its Cold-War era, M9 9mm pistol.

Milley criticized the program’s 356-page requirement document and lengthy testing phase slated to cost $17 million for technology that has existed for years.

“The testing itself is two years long on known technology,” Milley told law makers at a March 16 House Armed Services Committee hearing.

“We are not talking about nuclear subs or going to the moon here. We are talking about a pistol.”

I bought my first Glock (the nearly omnipresent G19) back in December, and have found it accurate and fun to shoot, a breeze to maintain, and easy to carry. The price was right, too — for the same $17 million the military plans to spend on “testing,” they could have already purchased 34,000 G17s or G19s complete with two magazines each.

EUROPE: Blasts leave ‘scores’ dead at Brussels airport and metro station.

Apparently coordinated terrorist explosions rocked Brussels Airport and a metro station Tuesday, leaving at least 26 dead and raising fears that attackers carried out retaliatory strikes after the arrest of a key suspect in last year’s Paris massacres.

The full casualty count remained unclear hours after the attacks, but various Belgian reports and officials said it reached at least 26.

“We are talking about scores of dead,” said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel without giving clearer estimates after blasts brought down roof panels at the airport’s departure hall and an explosion on the Maelbeek metro platform shrouded it in smoke and littered it with debris.

APPLE VS THE FBI: “The issue probably has been deferred, not resolved.”

Less than 24 hours before a highly anticipated Tuesday court session where prosecutors and Apple lawyers would have squared off here in federal court, government attorneys suddenly got a judge to vacate that hearing and stay an unprecedented court order that would have forced Apple to aid investigators’ efforts to unlock and decrypt an iPhone linked to a 2015 terrorist attack. In a court filing Monday, federal authorities cited a newly discovered “unlocking method” that it hopes won’t require Apple’s help.

The sudden and unexpected postponement essentially means an immediate victory for Apple—the company doesn’t have to comply with the government’s demands to create a customized version of iOS. But the new government filing also raises more questions than it answers, such as the reach of the government’s decryption capabilities.

Or perhaps the FBI is looking for a way to back off gracefully from a test case where the law is clearly not on the Bureau’s side.

CHOCOLATE RATION INCREASED: Previously Owned U.S. Home Sales Decline More Than Forecast.

Closings on existing homes, which usually take place a month or two after a contract is signed, decreased 7.1 percent to a three-month low 5.08 million annual rate after a 5.47 million pace in January, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. Sales were weaker than the most pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Faster growth in residential real estate is being hampered by a limited selection of available properties that has led to higher offering prices. While mortgage rates are attractive, affordability remains an issue for potential first-time and lower-income buyers whose participation would help broaden the market’s improvement.

“This number seems to suggest the trend may be a little weaker than we thought,” said David Sloan, senior economist at 4cast Inc. in New York. “Supply is fairly limited, so that is a restraint on sales.”

The Administration’s response to the popped real estate bubble was to blow the bubble back up, and now younger buyers are getting priced out of the market.

Unexpectedly.

HIGH TIMES: Supreme Court Declines to Hear Challenge to Colorado’s Marijuana Laws.

CHANGE: A Political System Fails in Brazil.

In October 2014, Dilma Rousseff was sworn in for a second term as president of Brazil. She had succeeded her mentor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was leader of the Worker’s Party and the most popular politician in Brazil — so popular that many in the opposition were afraid to challenge him.

Seventeen months later, Dilma struggles to keep her job, support for the government is at a historic low, and Brazil watches the largest street demonstrations in its history. What has changed?

One of the reasons for the revolt is economic. Right after Dilma’s reelection, it became clear that she had lied to the nation. After more than a decade of uncontrolled spending sustained only by the temporary boom of commodities, the government — surprise! — had run out of other people’s money. Brazil’s economy shrank 3.8 percent in 2015, and the markets predict a similar decrease this year. Unemployment and inflation are running out of control.

Centralized command of the economy will work next time, I’m sure.

LOOSE CHANGE: How to Rob a Central Bank.

As brazen heists go, it was a quiet one. Over a single weekend in February, hackers managed to extract tens of millions of dollars from Bangladesh’s central bank before anyone noticed. Now the bank is in turmoil, its governor has resigned and much of the cash is missing. It’s one of the biggest holdups in history — and other central banks should be on notice.

The scheme started when intruders inserted malware into Bangladesh Bank’s system in January. With information evidently gleaned from the attack, they were able to divert funds from the bank’s account at the New York Fed using the SWIFT messaging system. Officials only wised up when the thieves tried to move an additional $850 million to suspect accounts, and a routing bank noticed a comical spelling error in one request. By then, some $81 million was long gone.

That’s nothing. Our own central bank has taken most of a trillion dollars from savers since the Great Recession.

THE LAW IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: “FBI chief James Comey and his investigators are increasingly certain presidential nominee Hillary Clinton violated laws in handling classified government information.”

Some FBI staffers suggest the probe’s at a point where Comey might quit in protest if Justice ignores a recommendation to pursue a criminal case against Clinton.

Just how close Comey is to any recommendation — whether to indict or exonerate Clinton — is difficult to know. But agents believe the probe is nearing an end. A State Department staffer who set up Clinton’s e-mail server, for instance, was recently granted immunity from prosecution to provide Comey’s team with evidence.

“You don’t start granting people close to Clinton immunity unless you are seriously looking at charges against your target,” one former official told me.

We wouldn’t be talking about these doubts had the Justice Department not been ruthlessly politicized under the Obama Administration.

CREEPY: FTC warns developers about apps that listen to other devices for advertisers.

The Federal Trade Commission has sent warning letters to 12 Android app developers apparently using controversial “SilverPush” ad software. When used, the software can detect so-called “audio beacons” inaudibly emitted by devices like televisions, giving third-party advertisers more information on viewing habits.

The FTC does not name the app developers, but says the developers were sent warning letters after it was determined that their apps on the Google Play Store were apparently using SilverPush code. Although, as the FTC notes, the creators of SilverPush say the software is not yet used in the United States, the warning letters say the apps are requesting microphone permissions without a clear need for them, and do not appear to properly notify users.

Here’s a support page from Google on how to review and limit your Android phone’s permissions.

I SEE NOTHING, I KNOW NOTHING: CMS Was ‘Passive’ in Preventing Fraud in Administering Obamacare.

A third of applications had “inconsistencies” worth almost two billion dollars in subsidies.

THEY PROBABLY HAD IT COMING: How Donald Trump Bent Television To His Will.

Two network sources also confirmed the unprecedented control the television networks have surrendered to Trump in a series of private negotiations, allowing him to dictate specific details about placement of cameras at his event, to ensure coverage consists primarily of a single shot of his face.

Network officials say the ratings have born out commercial incentives to devote their campaign coverage to largely unfiltered streams of Trump talking. CBS CEO Les Moonves quipped that Trump “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS, that’s all I got to say.”

But many inside the networks are growing increasingly disturbed with what they’ve helped create.

“As a programmer, it’s an easy decision, people watch it,” said one producer. “As an American, I’m sort of troubled by it, because I feel like we contribute it.”

And this:

According to two sources familiar with the call, the Trump campaign, citing security concerns from Secret Service, dictated to the networks that their camera crews can only shoot Trump head-on from a fenced-in press pen.

Under the Trump campaign’s conditions, camera crews would not be able to leave the press pen during Trump’s rallies to capture video of audience reactions, known in the industry as “cutaway shots” or “cuts.” Networks would also not be able to use a separate riser set up to get cutaway shots.

The terms, which limit the access journalists have to supporters and protesters while Trump is speaking, are unprecedented, and are more restrictive than those put on the networks by the White House or Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which has had Secret Service protection for its duration.

You don’t have to be enthusiastic about Trump to enjoy watching him beat Clinton at her own media game.

ASIA PIVOT: U.S. sees new Chinese activity around South China Sea shoal.

The head of U.S. naval operations, Admiral John Richardson, expressed concern that an international court ruling expected in coming weeks on a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China Sea claims could be a trigger for Beijing to declare an exclusion zone in the busy trade route.

Richardson told Reuters the United States was weighing responses to such a move.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year.

Maybe now isn’t the best time to be considering further cuts to our aircraft carrier force.

NEWSBUSTERS: NY Times Caught ‘Stealth Editing’ Clintonesque Trash Talk Into Sanders Story.

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME: American IS fighter: I made a bad decision.

Mohamad Jamal Khweis, 26, from Alexandria, Virginia detailed his weeks-long journey from the United States to London, Amsterdam, Turkey, through Syria and finally to the IS-controlled Iraqi city of Mosul, where he was moved into a house with dozens of other foreign fighters.

Khweis said he met an Iraqi woman with ties to IS in Turkey who arranged his travel into Syria and then across to Mosul. There Khweis said he began more than a month of intensive Islamic studies and it was then he decided to try and flee.

“I didn’t agree with their ideology,” he said, explaining why he decided to escape a few weeks after arriving. “I made a bad decision to go with the girl and go to Mosul.”

Sounds like the worst “Road to…” movie ever.

YOU DON’T SAY: North Korea Missile Launch Repeats Pattern of Defiance.

Even China is getting tired of Pyongyang’s antics.

CHANGE: Air Force faces shortage of drone and jet pilots.

It might all even out though, since the Air Force also risks running short on jets.

ASSAD WILL SQUAWK BUT ERDOGAN WILL GO BALLISTIC: Kurds to declare federal state northern Syria despite challenges.

On Wednesday, 200 delegates from parties and organizations from Syria held a conference in the oil-rich town of Rumelan in Hasakah province to discuss the establishment of a federal political system in Kurdish areas of Syria, also known as Rojava.

The meeting, titled ‘federal Syria is a guarantee for a common life and brotherhood of nations’, included Kurdish, Arab, Christian and Armenian delegates.

Speaking to ARA News, Idris Nassan, a Kurdish official from the local administration in Kobane, said that federalism is one of the key demands of Kurds in Syria.

George W. Bush should have made an Independent Iraqi Kurdistan the price for Turkish intransigence during the buildup to the Iraq War. Now things are even more complicated, and some Kurd groups have started leaning towards Putin, who unlike us doesn’t have to try and keep Ankara happy.

UNFIT TO SERVE: Hillary Faces National Security Establishment ‘Uprising’ Over Emails.

“The way I’m reading this is that there’s this uprising in the national security bureaucracies to prosecute Mrs. Clinton,” Tom Fitton told TheDCNF. Fitton is president of the nonprofit government watchdog Judicial Watch, which is preparing to depose top Clinton aides and possibly her as well, in litigation stemming from the State Department’s maladroit handling of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Fitton’s group has also won multiple federal court victories regarding release of 55,000 pages of emails sent to and from Clinton’s use of a private email address and server located in her New York home to conduct official government business during her four years as the nation’s chief diplomat.

“There’s just this kind of ‘just-the-facts approach’ out of the national security establishment on this,” Fitton told TheDCNF. “I don’t see Mrs. Clinton escaping prosecution here.”

Before or after the election?

THIS SHOULD BE INTERESTING: RNC weighs scrapping convention rule book to head off anti-Trump maneuvers.

Top Republicans will try to force more transparency at the party’s national convention in July, aiming to scrap their 1,500-page rule book in favor of simpler procedures that they hope will head off arcane maneuvers designed to deny Donald Trump the presidential nomination.

The changes wouldn’t guarantee Mr. Trump the nod but would make it easier for all sides to see what sorts of changes anti-Trump factions are attempting.

More transparency is a good thing, especially if the RNC wants to keep Trump voters from bolting if he doesn’t win the nomination.

But what will the RNC do to keep more traditional conservatives from bolting?

AND THEN THERE WERE (STILL) THREE: Kasich’s Pennsylvania ballot challenge withdrawn; clears way to primary.

Pennsylvania won’t be a head-to-head challenge between Trump and Cruz after all.

YOU DON’T SAY: Belgium Says Algerian Killed in Raid May Have Had Links to Radical Islam.

WHERE WAS MARCO? Tim Alberta dissects a campaign that never got off the ground:

In one of 2016’s great unsolved mysteries, he spent much of the summer avoiding voters, so conspicuously absent that opposing campaign officials would ask reporters about his whereabouts. Officially, Rubio aides often claimed that he was on private fundraising swings. And yet for the entire third quarter of 2015, spanning from July through September, Rubio raised less than $6 million — a haul dwarfed by those of Bush, Cruz, and Ben Carson. Even Carly Fiorina raised more.

At the same time, news clips piled up detailing Rubio’s poor attendance record in the Senate. Stories alleged he’d missed half of his committee meetings; others claimed he had the Senate’s worst voting record. It was enough to prompt multiple Florida newspapers to pen editorials demanding his resignation. The “truant senator” narrative, on top of his absences from the trail and his lackluster fundraising, gave pause to Rubio’s friends and foes alike. “He’s not visiting the early states and organizing. He’s not raising money. And he’s got the worst Senate voting record,” Rick Tyler, the Cruz campaign’s former national spokesman, recalls thinking during that period. “So then people began to wonder: What exactly is he doing?”

Read the whole thing.

JUSTICE IN THE HERMIT KINGDOM: U.S. student gets 15 years in N. Korea prison.

A University of Virginia student has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea for trying to steal a propaganda banner from a hotel. Twenty-one-year-old Otto Warmbier was given the sentence today by North Korea’s highest court.

He may be lucky just to survive 15 years in one of North Korea’s notorious labor camps.

UPDATE FROM THE INTERNET OF THINGS:

I’m in London for Kubecon right now, and the hotel I’m staying at has decided that light switches are unfashionable and replaced them with a series of Android tablets.

One was embedded in the wall, but the two next to the bed had convenient looking ethernet cables plugged into the wall. So.

I managed to borrow a couple of USB ethernet adapters, set up a transparent bridge (brctl addbr br0; brctl addif br0 enp0s20f0u1; brctl addif br0 enp0s20f0u2; ifconfig br0 up) and then stuck my laptop between the tablet and the wall. tcpdump -i br0 showed traffic, and wireshark revealed that it was Modbus over TCP. Modbus is a pretty trivial protocol, and notably has no authentication whatsoever. tcpdump showed that traffic was being sent to 172.16.207.14, and pymodbus let me start controlling my lights, turning the TV on and off and even making my curtains open and close. What fun!

And then I noticed something. My room number is 714. The IP address I was communicating with was 172.16.207.14. They wouldn’t, would they?

I mean yes obviously they would.

Matthew Garrett didn’t mess with any other rooms, and was kind enough to let the hotel know that their IoT system had practically zero security. Management was smart enough not to brush him off. Not every home or business will be so lucky.

(H/T, Dave Mark.)

HOPE: After K-9 slain, young girl sends Ohio PD her allowance for vests.

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