Month: June 2017

The top Democrat on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee on Sunday criticized the administration of former President Barack Obama for not taking earlier and tougher action against Russia for its alleged hacks aimed at swaying the Nov. 8 election for Donald Trump.

“The Obama administration should have done a lot more when it became clear that not only was Russia intervening, but it was being directed at the highest levels of the Kremlin,” said Representative Adam Schiff on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

The Obama administration imposed sanctions in December on two Russian intelligence agencies over their alleged involvement in hacking political groups during the election, but those sanctions were too little, too late, Schiff said.

Schiff and his Senate counterpart, Dianne Feinstein, issued an unusual public statement in September condemning Russia for the alleged hacks. “We had to vet that with the intelligence community, but we took that step because we weren’t succeeding in getting the administration to do it itself,” Schiff said.
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Artifacts connected to some of the nation’s most notorious gangsters sold for more than $100,000 at auction Saturday.

 

A diamond pocket watch that belonged to Al Capone and was produced in Chicago in the 1920s, along with a handwritten musical composition he wrote in Alcatraz in the 1930s, were among the items that sold at the “Gangsters, Outlaws and Lawmen” auction. The watch fetched the most — $84,375 — according to Boston-based RR Auction.

 

The winning bidder of the watch was not identified. The buyer is a collector who has an eye for interesting American artifacts, said RR Auction Executive Vice President Bobby Livingston. He was among about 30 internet, telephone and in-person bidders.

 

Capone’s musical piece entitled “Humoresque” sold for $18,750. The piece shows Capone’s softer side. It contains the lines: “You thrill and fill this heart of mine, with gladness like a soothing symphony, over the air, you gently float, and in my soul, you strike a note.”

 

Livingston told The Associated Press he wasn’t surprised that lyrics written by a man better known for organized crime than his musical talents sold at the auction because of the way Capone “resonates in the American imagination.”

 

“The musical artifact gives insight into who this man was,” Livingston said. “It humanizes him, and shows that he had an imagination and creativity. These people had talents and they used those talents, unfortunately for criminal endeavors.”

Livingston was referring not just to Capone, but to infamous couple Bonnie and Clyde. An autographed “So Long” letter written by Bonnie Parker and signed by Clyde Barrow just before their deaths sold for $16,250. A pair of Texas arrest warrants fetched $8,125.

 

Parker’s silver-plated, three-headed snake ring fetched $25,000. The ring was not made by Barrow — a skilled amateur craftsman who engaged in jewelry making, woodworking and leathercraft behind bars — as originally believed, according to RR Auction’s website.

 

Clyde Barrow’s nephew, Buddy Barrow, and Bonnie Parker’s niece, Rhea Leen Linder, were in attendance.

 

“I asked Buddy Barrow what his uncle would be thinking about the auction, he felt that Clyde would have said ‘make as much money as you can,”’ Livingston said.

 

A letter written by John Gotti, the reputed head of the Gambino crime family in New York, didn’t sell. The 1998 letter to the daughter of a mob associate urges the recipient to tell her father “to keep the martinis cold.”

 

 
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Homelessness is increasing in Los Angeles, and the signs are visible. From tents under freeways and shopping carts at street corners, to people begging for money outside fast-food restaurants, the number of homeless people in Los Angeles county has risen by 23 percent, to nearly 58,000. It is a life Destiny Prescott knows all too well.   

“I was sleeping in a car; I was sleeping at the beach, pregnant. I was four months pregnant at the time,” Prescott remembered. She grew up in an unstable home and ended up using drugs and alcohol, then lost her job and her home. 

Substance abuse is one cause of homelessness. Others include domestic violence, mental and physical disabilities. However, an even larger cause is due to economic factors. Peter Lynn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, said this occurs when a tight rental market develops in a city that already has a high poverty rate. 

“As the economy picks up steam, there’s more spending power [that] comes into the rental market, and a lot of it goes out again as rent increases,” Lynn said. “Rents are moving up $100, $200 [a month]. No one’s income is keeping pace with that.”

US homelessness down 3% overall 

Data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development covering 2015-2016, indicates a three-percent drop in homelessness nationwide, but at the same time, the number of homeless people increased in 13 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, home of the nation’s capital.

California is one of those 13 states, and it has one of the highest homeless populations in the country. 

In cities such as Los Angeles, “the rich are getting richer and the middle class is slowly disappearing,” said Tanya Tull, a homeless advocate who founded Partnering for Change, an organization that helps with stable housing for children and families. 

Venice, a beach community in Los Angeles, is a place where people in homeless encampments live side-by-side with residents of multimillion-dollar homes. 

“Residents find homeless people … defecating in their backyard,” said William Hawkins, chairman of the Venice Homeless Committee and a resident. 

“It’s not about criminalizing homelessness. It’s simply criminalizing criminal behavior and when you have an encampment like this, that from midnight to four o’clock becomes a night club and an area where people are doing drugs, it’s not fair to the residents,” said Hawkins. 

‘Housing First’ approach

To reduce the number of homeless people, one approach adopted by Los Angeles and other parts of the country is the Housing First model. These programs put homeless people into permanent housing without requirements such attending parenting classes or being free of addiction. Advocates say that by focusing on solving the housing problem without preconditions, people are better able to address the other problems in their lives. 

“The human mind needs to have a home, a safe space, and so whatever it takes we should be developing innovative approaches to creating those safe spaces that people control. It is a basic human right,” said Tanya Tull, who has been advocating for the Housing First approach for the last three decades. 

“You put them in housing and then you wrap around cares. You have home visits and case management and health care and mental health care,” said Tessa Madden Storms, senior director of development and communications for PATH, a family of agencies that work to end homelessness in California. 

Destiny Prescott and her daughter found help at a housing program called PATH Gramercy. 

“It makes me feel like a good mom,” explained Prescott. “We’re in our own space. We get to lock our door. We have our key. It just feels nice. It makes me feel good.” 

While Los Angeles works on building new housing and turning existing buildings into permanent housing for the homeless, advocates and citizens such as those in the Venice Homeless Committee also are working on other approaches, such as reuniting the homeless with their families.
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The bearers of two potentially clashing slogans, “Made in India” and “America First,” will finally meet Monday at the White House.  

“It’s going to be a robust discussion,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said of what will be the first face-to-face talks between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump. 

“We’re really seeking to roll out the red carpet,” a senior U.S. official said of the visit, which will feature the first dinner Trump will host at the White House for a foreign dignitary.  

“It’ll be a long interaction and lots of time for the two leaders to get to know each other,” the senior official told White House reporters Friday. 

“These are two very populist leaders,” with aspirations for transformation, notes Satu Limaye. He is director of the Washington office of the East-West Center, an American nonprofit group dedicated to promoting public diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Both are ‘professional dealmakers’ 

Their origins are not only separated by a distance of 12,000 kilometers: Modi helped his father sell tea from a Gujarat street stall, while Trump’s tutelage was in property development.  

“Their personal backgrounds don’t matter at this point,” Limaye tells VOA. “They are professional dealmakers.” 

While Trump likes to set the tone with a very firm handshake, the barrel-chested Indian leader breaks the ice with bear hugs. 

What they have both embraced is enthusiasm for Twitter, and they are among the most followed political figures on social media. Both will surely want to tout the success of this visit in 140 characters or less. 

The news from Modi’s and Trump’s tweets is likely to come from their announcement of transactions, rather than geopolitical agreements. 

“The U.S. wants to treat India as a major defense partner in concrete terms [on a par] with our closest allies and partners,” says the senior White House official. 

​

Billion-dollar drone deal expected 

A California drone-maker, General Atomics, confirms a deal is imminent for the sale of 22 Guardian (MQ-9) unarmed drones to India’s navy for maritime patrolling. The deal, estimated to be worth up to $3 billion, originally raised concerns at the State Department about putting such sophisticated surveillance capabilities in the Indian Ocean, where tensions could arise between India and its rival Pakistan.  

“We don’t believe they represent a threat to Pakistan,” counters the U.S. official. “It’s not a zero-sum game.” 

Also highlighted will be a tentative deal between Lockheed Martin and Tata Advanced Systems to produce F-16 fighter jets in India.  

A senior White House official notes these defense deals support “thousands of American jobs,” but that may not be enough to appease some U.S. commercial sectors. With a $24 billion trade surplus in India’s favor, American manufacturers want action by Washington on a range of issues, including tariffs and localization, intellectual property and eliminating price controls on medical devices.  

“I think this is an opportunity for the prime minister and President Trump to sit down and figure out ways that both sides can grow their economies through the right set of trade policies,” the vice president of international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers, Linda Dempsey, told VOA. 

India’s values, ideas are close to US 

On the other hand, a former high-ranking U.S. diplomat who served as ambassador to India in the early 1990s under President George H.W. Bush, Thomas Pickering, says he is concerned the two leaders will focus on short-term economic gains, at the expense of nurturing a longer-term strategic relationship. 

Pickering tells VOA the Trump administration should see that India “espouses values and ideas that are much closer to ours than the other dominant country in Asia” – China. 

A focus on commerce rather than geopolitics may come as a relief to traditionally nonaligned India. 

“India doesn’t want a relationship with the U.S. built on an anti-China policy,” says Limaye. 

The two governments are working on a joint statement about fighting terrorism, and a senior White House official says: “We can expect to see some new initiatives on counterterrorism cooperation.” 

​

India expects more attention from US 

There is angst in New Delhi that Trump has not paid adequate attention to India, especially in contrast to his repeated praise for China and its leader, Xi Jinping. 

For Trump, “Foreign policy, on the whole, is not a priority, with the exception of the hot-ticket issues generating the headlines: Russia, Syria, ISIS, and the like,” says Michael Kugelman, deputy director and senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson Center. “In that regard, India has indeed been left in the lurch.” 

“There have been two very good (Trump-Modi) phone calls,” a senior White House official rebuts. “It would be wrong to say this administration has been ignoring or not focusing on India.” 

Trump has generally been positive about India in public messaging. He previously visited Mumbai as a businessman, and he has Trump-branded properties in the country. 

“He’s not new to India,” says the senior White House official, who also emphasizes that the president appreciates the contribution Indians have made to the U.S. economy, in particular through their embrace of innovation and entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. 

Both Trump and Modi enjoy support from a significant portion of the 3.5 million-member community of Indian-Americans. 

“This is the ballast in the relationship,” says Limaye. “But I don’t think it’s a determiner.” 

Trump has named several members of the community to important positions. Nikki Haley is U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Ajit Pai is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and Seema Verma runs Medicare and Medicaid programs under the Department of Health and Human Services. 
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CIA Director Mike Pompeo says he thinks disclosure of America’s secret intelligence is on the rise, fueled partly by the “worship” of leakers like Edward Snowden.

“In some ways, I do think it’s accelerated,” Pompeo told MSNBC in an interview that aired Saturday. “I think there is a phenomenon, the worship of Edward Snowden, and those who steal American secrets for the purpose of self-aggrandizement or money or for whatever their motivation may be, does seem to be on the increase.”

Pompeo said the United States needs to redouble its efforts to stem leaks of classified information.

“It’s tough. You now have not only nation states trying to steal our stuff, but non-state, hostile intelligence services, well-funded — folks like WikiLeaks, out there trying to steal American secrets for the sole purpose of undermining the United States and democracy,” Pompeo said.

Besides Snowden, who leaked documents revealing extensive U.S. government surveillance, WikiLeaks recently released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA’s cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers. WikiLeaks previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are several other recent cases, including Chelsea Manning, the Army private formerly known as Bradley Manning. She was convicted in a 2013 court-martial of leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning said she leaked the documents to raise awareness about the war’s impact on innocent civilians.

Last year, former NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin III, 51, of Glen Burnie, Maryland, was accused of removing highly classified information, storing it in an unlocked shed and in his car and home. Court documents say investigators seized, conservatively, 50 terabytes of information, or enough to fill roughly 200 laptop computers.

Pompeo said the Trump administration is focused on stopping leaks of any kind from any agency and pursuing perpetrators. “I think we’ll have some successes both on the deterrence side – that is stopping them from happening – as well as on punishing those who we catch who have done it,” Pompeo said.

On other issues, Pompeo said:

– North Korea poses a “very real danger” to U.S. national security. “I hardly ever escape a day at the White House without the president asking me about North Korea and how it is that the United States is responding to that threat.  It’s very much at the top of his mind.” He said the North Koreans are “ever-closer to having the capacity to hold America at risk with a nuclear weapon.”

-Pompeo said U.S. national security also is threatened by Iran, which he described as the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.

“Today, we find it with enormous influence, influence that far outstrips where it was six or seven years ago,” said Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas. “Whether it’s the influence they have over the government in Baghdad, whether it’s the increasing strength of Hezbollah and Lebanon, their work alongside the Houthis in Iran, the Iraqi Shias that are fighting along now the border in Syria — certainly the Shia forces that are engaged in Syria.  Iran is everywhere throughout the Middle East.”
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