In the News
So, what if there's a real crisis?
A real war — not a war with the media, or James Comey. A real showdown — not a political showdown. A real surprise that's out of the White House's control — not a situation of President Donald Trump's own making that spins out of control because the president and his inner circle sprung a decision on an unprepared staff. But what if there's a real crisis?
A bill to honor Chinese-American veterans who served in World War II with a Congressional Gold Medal was introduced in both chambers of Congress last week.
Chinese American units of the U.S. Army Air Forces train during World War II in this photo from the family of Joe Lee. Chinese American WWII Veterans Recognition Project
During a Morning Joe appearance on Wednesday, Principal Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders grossly misrepresented the facts as part of the White House's effort to downplay the multiple active investigations into the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russian intelligence.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible ties to the Trump campaign and top aides.
"The FBI is one of our Nation's most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement," the president said in the statement.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the Senate hearing on Russia arrived before it even began: Had Donald Trump taken President Obama's advice back in November, and chosen anyone but Michael Flynn to be his national security advisor, there would have far fewer Americans glued to C-SPAN on Monday.
President Trump fired James B. Comey as the director of the FBI. The decision came as Comey was leading a counterintelligence investigation into potential Russian interference in the 2016 election. Officials said it resulted from a conclusion by Justice Department officials that he had mishandled a probe of Hillary Clinton's emails.
Members of Congress sent a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs asking for more information into the department's experiments on dogs.
"We are concerned that the VA's description of these experiments as ‘observational' is inaccurate and misleads Congress and taxpayers to believe that the studies are harmless," the letter reads.
Recently, hackers managed to drain bank accounts across Germany. They did so not by hacking the banks themselves, but by exploiting a long-known flaw in a global telephony protocol known as Signaling System 7. It's the kind of attack that researchers have warned about for years—and may finally be the one the gets the telecom industry to clean up its giant SS7 mess.
Politicians are becoming increasing aware and concerned about cybersecurity issues. One need look no further than two recent letters written by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore), senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Representative Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). Both are leading congressional advocates for stronger cybersecurity and privacy measures.
After acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified before a Senate panel on Monday and provided troubling details about how slow the White House was to act on information its then-national security adviser may have been compromised by Russia, President Trump took to Twitter to try and tamp the whole thing down.