#House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Annie Norman

The public learned last fall of one particularly controversial element of United States Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year plan for the U.S. Postal Service that would be rolling out soon. Essentially, the function of sorting and delivering mail would be consolidated into regional centers, leaving empty former sorting space in the back of post offices. No layoffs were announced.

At first glance, this sounds innocuous, but seasoned postal observers suspect that with less activity happening at smaller or rural post offices, they become vulnerable to a reduction in hours or closure. This leads to the kind of job losses that initially present as don’t worry, we’ll relocate you to the regional center but are experienced by postal workers as if I don’t commute two hours there and back each day or more, I lose my job.

In response, The Save the Post Office Coalition, which I coordinate, wrote to the Secretary of the USPS Board of Governors to ensure the board was made aware of emails from 160,000 postal customers across the country urging them to stop the disastrous elements of DeJoy’s plan before it’s too late.

Among the several thousands of personalized messages, we highlighted a handful in our note:

“The USPS provides a service to the public. It was never intended to be a profit-making business. I’m disappointed & ashamed at where politics seem to be taking us.”

— David B. (veteran) Seattle, Washington.

“As a former United States Postal Service employee and as someone who regularly uses the [USPS], I ask you to do something about DeJoy, who continues to degrade everything about the postal service — especially the service part of it.”

— Kristin F. in Cottonwood, Indiana.

“It is important for seniors like me to be able to count on a dependable means of getting medications without having a further drain on our resources.”

— Peter L. in Los Angeles, California.

“I believe that a well supported and functioning post office is a hallmark of a healthy, advanced nation. Stop DeJoy’s undemocratic plan now before it’s too late.”

— Janet M. in Downers Grove, Illinois.

“We senior citizens depend on USPS. Please help keep it viable.”

—Joanne L. in Akron, Ohio.

“Our postal service should be about serving us rather than serving businesses that give it money.”

— Douglas L. in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

We have yet to hear a response or acknowledgement that the messages from the public were received, and DeJoy continues to make it clear that he doesn’t want anyone asking questions about his 10-year plan.

On the same day that USPS leadership received our coalition’s messages, the Postal Regulatory Commission issued a public inquiry order to DeJoy asking that USPS provide details on the sorting and delivery changes under his plan. In the order, the Commission said it “notes that stakeholders have expressed concerns regarding a lack of a forum to explore the impacts of these proposed changes.”

DeJoy responded with an objection to the Commission’s inquiry. On May 17, DeJoy delivered congressional testimony for the first time in nearly two years at a hearing of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations. Rep. Summer Lee asked him why USPS is objecting. In his response, DeJoy was openly hostile toward the postal regulator, accusing them of actively participating “in the destruction of [USPS].”

Just last month, DeJoy sat down with the press for a 90-minute interview where he once again doubled down with an adversarial attitude toward postal regulators who seek details for the public on his 10-year plan, calling the Commission’s inquiry “nonsense,” saying, “We don’t need to be babysat.”

On May 22, DeJoy delivered the keynote address at the 2023 National Postal Forum where he spoke at length touting his efforts to implement “dramatic changes” and increase the pace of his 10-year plan. The postmaster general told the audience that “dramatic changes must be done at a pace, and with a tenacity that is rarely seen.” However, these changes are a mystery to many, and for a public institution, this mystery is dangerous.

If the past is any guide, the effects of potential post office closings and reduced hours will be devastating, particularly to rural and Indigenous communities. The Save the Post Office Coalition organized a petition to the Postal Regulatory Commission and the USPS Office of Inspector General urging them to stop DeJoy’s “dramatic changes” and demand public input, and so far has received over 131,000 signatures from the public who regularly use the postal service.

The bottom line is that the public has a right to more transparency and input in the decision-making process at a public institution. This requires engagement with said public — which DeJoy is actively resisting. When you put a rich, white, private-sector executive who isn’t used to public accountability and cooperation in charge of a treasured public institution, such a clash might be inevitable. It’s plain DeJoy doesn’t have the temperament for public service.

Communities across the nation want dramatic change at the post office too, but that dramatic change is not to be secretive or a surprise; it must be a shift toward protecting and expanding the public footprint and services available at the post office to meet new needs and change with the times. The People’s Postal Agenda outlines a framework for an expanded USPS that includes things like postal banking, expanded nonbank financial services like bill payment and ATMs, WiFi in parking lots, and public electric vehicle charging.

We still remember former President Donald Trump’s plan to privatize the post office, right before he put his thumb on the scale to have his donor DeJoy appointed as postmaster general. We also remember DeJoy’s role in sowing public fear and uncertainty in the vote-by-mail process by slowing down the mail and then sending out mailers to voters that meeting their state’s deadline would not ensure their vote would arrive in time to be counted, causing him to be sued by the NAACP and Public Citizen, as well as secretaries of state.

There is nothing to suggest that DeJoy has abandoned the privatization vision of the people who got him the job. So it’s our job as citizens to make absolutely sure any upcoming “dramatic changes” to the post office don’t shrink and privatize the institution but protect and expand it for generations to come.

[esotericworld]

Last week, I had a front-row seat at the hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), also known as UFOs. The three witnesses provided extraordinary testimony on their observations of aerial craft with performance characteristics far beyond those of modern aircraft, as well as knowledge of a hidden U.S. government crash retrieval program of such vehicles and their nonhuman operators.

The witnesses were former officers in the U.S. military with stellar service records. Their message to Congress was that we are not alone, we possess technology unlike anything available in the public or private sectors, and the U.S. government has covered up this earth-shattering information for decades.

So how has our society responded? To quote an assessment in Forbes, “the internet shrugged.” After some brief reporting by the major news networks, they returned their attention to nearly full-time coverage of the dismal legal landscapes surrounding Hunter Biden and Donald Trump.

Perhaps the era of fake news has desensitized the public to remarkable revelations like these, so I feel compelled to share my perspective to shed light on their validity and implications.

As a retired U.S. Navy flag officer, I can attest to the integrity and authenticity of the two pilots who testified: retired Commander David Fravor and Ryan Graves. I have served on three aircraft carriers and count many Naval aviators as close friends. These two witnesses are the real deal.

So is David Grusch. As a Navy information warfare officer, I worked closely with the intelligence community and Grusch’s former command, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. I too have been read into special access programs, and I understand how Department of Defense classification systems and authorities work. His testimony is 100 percent credible.

It may take time for society to come to grips with this historic hearing, but we will be best served by immediately responding as follows:

1) The U.S. Congress should continue to demand the Department of Defense and intelligence community disclose UAP information, data, and materials to the public.

2) The U.S. government should show leadership in international scientific studies of UAP.

3) The U.S. research community should significantly expand the scientific study of UAP.

…

[paranormal-xfiles]

Three military veterans testified in Congress' highly anticipated hearing on UFOs Wednesday, including a former Air Force intelligence officer who claimed the U.S. government has operated a secret "multi-decade" reverse engineering program of recovered vessels. He also said the U.S. has recovered non-human "biologics" from alleged crash sites.

But while the topic of "little green men" did come up, much of the discussion centered on improving processes for reporting unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs — the military's term for UFOs (increasingly, UAP refers to "anomalous" rather than "aerial" phenomena, to account for sightings in both air and water). There are also calls to remove the stigma for aviators who report UAP sightings and to ensure oversight of government programs that investigate them.

Retired Maj. David Grusch, who went from being part of the Pentagon's UAP Task Force to becoming a whistleblower, told the House Oversight Committee's national security subcommittee that he had been denied access to some government UFO programs but that he knows the "exact locations" of UAPs in U.S. possession.

You can watch the hearing here:

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Scott Horton  · Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 25, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

Yesterday, the chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, James Comer (R-KY), the chair of the Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce, Pete Sessions (R-TX), the chair of the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, Glenn Grothman (R-WI), and the chair of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, Nancy Mace (R-SC), along with seventeen other extremist Republican members of Congress, sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

The letter complained that the federal government had not responded effectively to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. It referred to a preliminary report by the “D[epartment] O[f] T[ransportation]’s National Transportation Safety Board” and demanded Buttigieg provide “[a]ll documents and communications regarding NTSB’s progress on the cause of the derailment.”

The NTSB is not part of the Department of Transportation.

The NTSB is part of the government, but it is an independent agency, charged with investigating civil transportation accidents. It is also in charge of investigating the release of hazardous materials during transportation. Congress deliberately set it apart from the Department of Transportation to guarantee unbiased investigations.

A 150-car Norfolk Southern train was traveling from Illinois to Pennsylvania on Friday, February 3, when 38 cars derailed at about 8:54 p.m. Those cars caught fire, and 12 cars that had not derailed also caught fire. The NTSB responded immediately and, the following afternoon, held a press conference explaining that it was collecting perishable evidence to determine what caused the accident and to make appropriate recommendations for safety upgrades if such recommendations were warranted.

Nine NTSB investigators and four engineers in labs have been involved in the accident review. They have reviewed footage of the derailment, interviewed train staff, and examined the train event recorder, a device similar to a black box on an airplane.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the federal agency in charge of responding to the release of hazardous substances and leading cleanup efforts. Its personnel were at the site by 2:00 on Saturday morning, about five hours after the derailment. It has had six staff and 16 contractors on the ground since the crash.

The Department of Transportation has two agencies that are appropriate to deploy for this kind of an accident. The Federal Railroad Administration enforces safety regulations for railways, and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration enforces safety regulations for hazardous materials. Those agencies have deployed ten staff to help NTSB investigate. They will figure out if Norfolk Southern ignored any regulations.

This letter is not about the derailment itself, or the dangers, or the cleanup, or even the history of deregulation.

It is about the careful way generations of Americans have tried to create a government that could support progress while also guaranteeing oversight, and it is about the lawmakers who wrote the letter to Secretary Buttigieg.

Either 21 Republican lawmakers charged with oversight of our government don’t know how the government works and didn’t care to find out, or they are deliberately misleading their loyalists.

We are becoming accustomed to certain Republican lawmakers saying ridiculous things. Just two days ago, in a now-deleted tweet, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) claimed that “6 billion” people have illegally crossed the border since President Biden took office. (There are slightly fewer than 8 billion people on earth.)

But the letter these representatives wrote shows such a profound disinterest in how our government works that it suggests these representatives have no real interest in the job they were sent to Washington to do, and instead are weaponizing the government to mislead their followers into believing things that are not true.

Buttiegieg responded: “I am alarmed to learn that the Chair of the House Oversight Committee thinks that the NTSB is part of our Department. NTSB is independent (and with good reason). Still, of course, we will fully review this and respond appropriately.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[oipolinternacional]

Defense Leaders Speak at House Oversight Hearing

Oipol & Oijust operating in U.S.A | U.S Department of Defense (DoD), communication and video,  June 26, 2024 | 01:27:11 Communication and edition Oipol & Oijust, June 27, 2024 – A subcommittee of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hears testimony on the Defense Department’s security background check system. Testifying before the Government Operations and the Federal Workforce…

[dertaglichedan]

How and why Cassidy Hutchinson’s J6 testimony changes have come under renewed scrutiny by Congress

On Monday, the House committee investigating the government response to Jan. 6 and the work of the Democrats’ eponymous committee ordered star witness Cassidy Hutchinson to preserve all communications and documents related her account of that day and her testimony before the select committee.

Of particular interest to GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk, who chairs the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, are the changes in Hutchinson’s testimony throughout 2022 as she appeared before the Jan. 6 committee behind closed doors on at least four separate occasion.

"On June 28, 2022, you testified during one of the Select Committee’s primetime hearings. During this hearing you asserted that former President Donald Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel from one United States Secret Service employee driving the vehicle and lunged at another,” Loudermilk wrote to Hutchinson.

“However, in your previous three transcribed interviews on February 23, 2022, March 7, 2022, and May 17, 2022, you did not mention this interaction,” Loudermilk continued.

An analysis of Hutchinson’s transcribed interviews over the course of that year show that her account of events shifted dramatically after replacing her lawyer.

Hutchinson eventually filed an errata sheet—legal documentation that permits a witness to correct typographical errors in their previous testimony—by September with the Jan. 6 Committee. She used this sheet to modify facts alleged in her previous testimony about this specific incident, among others. Legal experts have called substantive changes unusual.

Testimony from another key witness—a former Secret Service employee and a Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations under President Trump—and Hutchinson’s own text messages contradict some of her central claims and continue to raise questions about the reliability of her "corrections," which might be characterized as changing facts she initially alleged under oath.

[female-malice]

BY REAR ADMIRAL TIM GALLAUDET, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 08/02/23 11:00 AM ET

Last week, I had a front-row seat at the hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), also known as UFOs. The three witnesses provided extraordinary testimony on their observations of aerial craft with performance characteristics far beyond those of modern aircraft, as well as knowledge of a hidden U.S. government crash retrieval program of such vehicles and their nonhuman operators.

The witnesses were former officers in the U.S. military with stellar service records. Their message to Congress was that we are not alone, we possess technology unlike anything available in the public or private sectors, and the U.S. government has covered up this earth-shattering information for decades.

So how has our society responded? To quote an assessment in Forbes, “the internet shrugged.” After some brief reporting by the major news networks, they returned their attention to nearly full-time coverage of the dismal legal landscapes surrounding Hunter Biden and Donald Trump.

Perhaps the era of fake news has desensitized the public to remarkable revelations like these, so I feel compelled to share my perspective to shed light on their validity and implications.

As a retired U.S. Navy flag officer, I can attest to the integrity and authenticity of the two pilots who testified: retired Commander David Fravor and Ryan Graves. I have served on three aircraft carriers and count many Naval aviators as close friends. These two witnesses are the real deal.

So is David Grusch. As a Navy information warfare officer, I worked closely with the intelligence community and Grusch’s former command, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. I too have been read into special access programs, and I understand how Department of Defense classification systems and authorities work. His testimony is 100 percent credible.

It may take time for society to come to grips with this historic hearing, but we will be best served by immediately responding as follows:

1) The U.S. Congress should continue to demand the Department of Defense and intelligence community disclose UAP information, data, and materials to the public. The House Select Committee that Reps. Tim Burchett, Matt Gaetz, Anna Paulina Luna, and Jared Moskowitz recently requested Speaker Kevin McCarthy establish can do this by further investigating the UAP cover-up described at the hearing and drafting legislation that directs disclosure. While specific technical characteristics regarding the materials and acquisition of data may require that they remaining classified, UAP should be included in other efforts by the Defense Department to solve the U.S. government’s over-classification problem. 

2) The U.S. government should show leadership in international scientific studies of UAP. San Marino is proposing Project Titan to the United Nations secretary-general for this purpose. While the witnesses at the hearing highlighted the national security concerns that UAP represent, there is a global security issue as well. Not only do we lack technical data regarding their occurrence, we need to understand where they come from, who controls them, and what their intentions are. Advancing our understanding of these phenomena can reinforce international alliances and be used as leverage in resolving disputes. As the world leader in 20th century breakthroughs of nuclear power, information technology, and human exploration of the ocean and space, the U.S. has the opportunity to lead in a field with potentially more impact than any before it.

3) The U.S. research community should significantly expand the scientific study of UAP. With more disclosure and international engagement, U.S. national labs, in partnership with American universities and research institutions, can lead an effort to transform our understanding of physics and the universe. Several U.S. research institutions are already making remarkable progress, including Harvard University’s Galileo Project and Stanford University’s Nolan Lab. Based on the observed flight characteristics detailed in the hearing, the results of this endeavor could make the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries look like baby steps, with wide-ranging benefits in areas as diverse as transportation safety, agricultural productivity, energy efficiency, environmental stewardship and human health.

Our tiny planet orbits a relatively medium-sized star, in a galaxy of over 100 billion stars, among a distribution of several hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. How arrogant to believe we are the only species that has developed a means for travel between celestial bodies. Now that we are finding out otherwise, we must demand disclosure of what the government knows. Instead of staying asleep at the wheel, we should wake up as a society for the safety, security, and scientific advantages that can be gained.

Rear Admiral (ret.) Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., is the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC , a research affiliate with Harvard University’s Galileo Project, and a member of the advisory board of Americans for Safe Aerospace. He is a former acting and deputy administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), acting undersecretary and assistant secretary of Commerce, and oceanographer in the Navy.

[chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted]

If our government won’t even be upfront about UFOs or Alien life, why can’t we question the small stuff?

If our government won’t even be upfront about UFOs or Alien life, why can’t we question the small stuff? Grusch even claimed that the military was misusing funds to shield these operations. Some of the incidents reported in this article are fascinating. Are they out there?

A spokesperson from the Pentagon, understandably, denied these allegations.

If our government has been lying to us about UFOs for over 100 years what else have they lied about? Origins of viruses, elections or maybe even vaccines?

Direct Quotes:

A former intelligence official claimed the U.S. government has been covering up a longstanding defense program that collects and reverse engineers unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and has found "nonhuman biologics" at alleged UFO crash sites

Testifying under oath at a House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Grusch told lawmakers he believes the U.S. government is in possession of UAPs based on his interviews with 40 witnesses over four years, claiming that he was informed of "a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program" during the course of his work examining classified programs. He said he was denied access to those programs when he requested it, and accused the military of misappropriating funds to shield these operations from congressional oversight.

The Pentagon denies Grusch’s claims about a UAP crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program. "To date, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently," Sue Gough, a Pentagon spokesperson, tells TIME in a statement.

He also said that “nonhuman biologics” were found at alleged UAP crash sites when asked about the pilots of the craft.

U.S. Navy fighter pilots Ryan Graves and retired Commander David Fravor, who both claimed they had encountered aircraft of a nonhuman origin. “These sightings are not rare or isolated,” said Graves, who served in the Navy for over a decade. “Military aircrews and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena.”

Graves told lawmakers that his aircrew encountered UAP during a training exercise off the coast of Virginia Beach, Va, when their lead jet came within 50 feet of what he described as a “dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere.” He estimated it to be five to 15 feet in diameter, motionless against the wind, fixed directly at the entry point. The mission was immediately terminated, and his squadron submitted a safety report that he claims received no official acknowledgement of the incident.

National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby admitted last week that UFOs have been causing problems for the U.S. Air Force, particularly for pilot training exercises. “When pilots are out trying to do training in the air and they see these things, they’re not sure what they are and it can have an impact on their ability to perfect their skills. So it already had an impact here,” Kirby said

The federal government has recorded 510 UFO sightings since 2004, according to an unclassified report Office of the Director of National Intelligence released in January.

[cpandf]

The “FBI’s Richmond Document” Exposes Deep State Spying on All Those Darn Catholic Domestic Terrorists

Date: April 11, 2023Author: Nwo Report0 Comments Posted BY: Teresa | NwoReport Congressman Jim Jordan and the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government delivered a demand to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday for his cooperation in their oversight of what appears to be a massive sting operation on Catholics across the country. The “FBI’s Richmond…

[whatisonthemoon]

President Park Said to Direct Lobbying (1978)

From the Washington Post, by Charles B. BabcockWashington Post

March 16, 1978         page A1-27

by Charles R. Babcock

Washington Post Staff Writer

U.S. Intelligence agencies reported during the early 1970s that South Korean President Park Chung Hee was personally directing a broad-scale covert lobbying campaign in the United States, according to summaries of secret documents released yesterday.

Rep. Donald M. Fraser (D-Minn.), chairman of a House International Relations subcommittee investigating U.S.-Korean relations, said the intelligence reports show that President Park once considered, but rejected, a plan placing businessman Tongsun Park in charge of all the Korean lobbying in Washington.

Instead, President Park and his top advisers set up a special “foreign policy review board,” Fraser said, to coordinate a variety of lobbying operations. The lobbying was aimed at ensuring the flow of U.S. military and economic aid to Korea.

Though U.S. intelligence agencies were sending detailed reports of the meetings in the Korean presidential mansion, the Blue House, to Washington as early as 1971, the Nixon administration failed to take adequate steps to stop the improper lobbying, Fraser added.

Yesterday’s hearing was the first of several in which the subcommittee seeks to document how much the U.S. executive branch knew of the Korean effort. Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Attorney General John N. Mitchell are among those the subcommittee hopes to call as witnesses next week, Fraser said.

Some of the documents released yesterday indicate that the FBI either was not aware of or ignored some of the intelligence reports on Tongsun Park’s activities. A subcommittee investigator said yesterday that coming hearings would establish that other, very specific, intelligence information was available at the time but not acted on by federal investigators.

The subcommittee is studying the Korean lobbying as a sort of case history of a failure of U.S. foreign policy. Its approach has been scholarly at times, since its aim is not to punish wrongdoers. 

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is conducting an investigation of members who may have violated ethical standards by accepting cash or favors from Koreans.

William J. Porter, U.S. ambassador to Korea at the time the lobbying campaign was initiated, testified that he witnessed the lobbying grow to a point where “everyone was talking about the lavish way the Koreans were approaching the legislative branch. Tongsun Park was cutting too wide a swath.” But the U.S. government, he said, was “very permissive” in its attitude toward the lobbying. “It must have been [permissive], voluntarily or by oversight, for the thing to grow as the Tongsun Park thing did from 1972 to 1975 or 6.”

Porter said Tongsun Park was spending so much money and had so much freedom of action that he thought some group, probably the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, was subsidizing Park.

Tongsun Park has been indicted for conspiring to bribe members of Congress and for failing to register as a foreign agent, and is now back in Washington to testify before congressional investigators and at the bribery trial of former Rep. Richard T. Hanna (D-Calif.). It has been reported that Tongsun Park made more than $750,000 in payments, mostly in cash, to members of Congress during the early 1970s.

The Korean government has consistently denied that Park was its agent. 

The Washington Post reported in October 1976 that the Korean lobbying effort was initiated by President Park in meetings at the Blue House, and that U.S. intelligence reports “apparently” included tape recordings of those meetings.

In releasing the summary of U.S. intelligence reports on those meetings yesterday, subcommittee investigators said the source was considered “highly reliable.” There was no evidence it was a bug or wiretap on the Korean president’s residence, however, they said.

Porter said he was skeptical about the reliability of the reports and strongly implied they had come from a Korean official in Seoul. “They didn’t tell our people any more than they wanted to say,” he said. “They know how to keep secrets.” “I wouldn’t bet on that, necessarily, as a useful report on what went on at those meetings,” he said. Porter backed off, however, when Fraser challenged him because he, as ambassador, was responsible for the intelligence reporting sent from the embassy to Washington. He said he didn’t know the source.

The intelligence summaries of the Blue House meetings said that among those considered to be placed under Tongsun Park’s control were Lee Sang Ho, the KCIA station chief in Washington (whose real name is Yang Du Won); Pak Bo Hi , head of the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation in Washington, and Kang Young Hoon, a former Korean Army general who headed a research Institute on Korean affairs in suburban Washington.

Pak, who is now the chief aide to Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon, attended the hearing yesterday and denied in a hallway interview—as he has before—that he has ever acted at the direction of the Korean government.

The subcommittee also released yesterday a 708-page book of documents that includes a variety of FBI, CIA and other investigative reports. Among the records are:

A February 1963 CIA report that says Moon’s Unification Church was organized by high-ranking government official Kim Jong Pil while he was head of the KCIA. The report was labeled as unevaluated, however, and it is generally believed that Moon founded his church in 1954, before President Park came to power and the KCIA was founded. 

Exchanges of correspondence between the State and Justice departments in 1971, including a “secret” June 1971 memo in which State passed on CIA references to Korean intelligence connections involving Tongsun Park and Pak Bo Hi.

Justice responded by conducting what the documents show to be only a cursory investigation that didn’t include any interview of Tongsun Park. In one Justice memo, he is referred to as Mr. Sun.

On the other side of Capitol Hill, meanwhile, Tongsun Park continued to answer questions in a closed session of the Senate Ethics Committee, which is probing senators’ possible involvement in the influence-buying effort.

Park’s performance yesterday, his second day before the Senate panel, raised doubts about his credibility, according to Sen. Harrison Schmitt (R-N.M.). “He is extremely good, apparently, at anticipating what we know,” said Schmitt. “He remembers everything we already know, but not some other things. So there still is a question of credibility.” Schmitt said it is “too early to say” whether the committee will uncover evidence leading to disciplinary action against any present or former senators.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Republican-controlled House Oversight and Accountability Committee has disbanded the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which focused on issues including voting rights, freedom of assembly and criminal justice reform policies.

In a committee meeting on Tuesday, Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said this doesn’t mean topics related to these issues can’t be brought before the committee.

“Let me be very clear: any topic that’s not mentioned in the subcommittee jurisdiction is reserved for the full committee,” Comer said. “We can have a committee hearing in this committee on basically anything we want.”

A spokesperson for the panel told The Hill that “Oversight Republicans are realigning subcommittees to ensure the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the federal government and all its agencies. Going forward, subcommittees will now be better equipped to meet our mission, identify problems, and propose meaningful legislative reforms for the American people.”

But Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) is urging the committee to reinstate the subcommittee, saying that the loss of it sends an “unmistakable message to the American people that their civil rights and civil liberties are no longer a priority to the 118th Congress.”

Crockett, a civil rights attorney, said she was appointed to the Oversight Committee on Friday, when she heard the news that the subcommittee had been removed.

In a statement, Crockett called the decision “reckless and cruel.”

“Rather than squandering their authority on investigations of the President’s family, the Chairman and House Republicans should use their authority to conduct oversight and investigate the merciless murders of innocent Americans – mainly Americans who look like me – at the hands of law enforcement,” Crockett said.

“Systemic policing and extremist violence are killing people, devastating our communities, and breaking the hearts of families we took an oath to defend and protect at all costs.”

On Tuesday, Crockett introduced an amendment that would reinstate the subcommittee.

“Especially in a time like this – when across the nation, from small towns to big cities, Americans are crying out against the horrible injustice that was perpetrated against Tyre Nichols and so many others every single day, it is undeniable that the civil rights of the American people are under threat and this committee must do something about it,” Crockett said on Tuesday.

Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has thrown his support behind Crockett’s amendment.

Invoking the late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who was chairman of the Oversight Committee before his death in 2019, Raskin said he feels an “obligation to stand in defense of this subcommittee.”

“Mr. Cummings was always adamant that there are two major purposes for the Oversight Committee and one is to make sure that the laws and programs that Congress adopts actually go to the benefit of the people that they’re intended for and not siphoned off in waste and self enrichment and corruption and other forms of fraud and abuse,” Raskin said.

“But the other purpose is to make sure that the government is always respecting the rights and the freedoms and the civil liberties of the people in the conduct of its operations,” he added.

In previous years, Raskin said, the subcommittee was able to address things in a bipartisan manner, including the war on drugs, the treatment of marijuana, governmental seizures and forfeitures that violated the civil liberties, as well as extremist political violence across the country.

It’s unclear why the subcommittee was removed, or if it will be reinstated at any point.

[leutjaneausten]

Open in app or online

February 25, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 26

Yesterday, the chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, James Comer (R-KY), the chair of the Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce, Pete Sessions (R-TX), the chair of the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, Glenn Grothman (R-WI), and the chair of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, Nancy Mace (R-SC), along with seventeen other extremist Republican members of Congress, sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

The letter complained that the federal government had not responded effectively to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. It referred to a preliminary report by the “D[epartment] O[f] T[ransportation]’s National Transportation Safety Board” and demanded Buttigieg provide “[a]ll documents and communications regarding NTSB’s progress on the cause of the derailment.”

The NTSB is not part of the Department of Transportation.

The NTSB is part of the government, but it is an independent agency, charged with investigating civil transportation accidents. It is also in charge of investigating the release of hazardous materials during transportation. Congress deliberately set it apart from the Department of Transportation to guarantee unbiased investigations.

A 150-car Norfolk Southern train was traveling from Illinois to Pennsylvania on Friday, February 3, when 38 cars derailed at about 8:54 p.m. Those cars caught fire, and 12 cars that had not derailed also caught fire. The NTSB responded immediately and, the following afternoon, held a press conference explaining that it was collecting perishable evidence to determine what caused the accident and to make appropriate recommendations for safety upgrades if such recommendations were warranted.

Nine NTSB investigators and four engineers in labs have been involved in the accident review. They have reviewed footage of the derailment, interviewed train staff, and examined the train event recorder, a device similar to a black box on an airplane.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the federal agency in charge of responding to the release of hazardous substances and leading cleanup efforts. Its personnel were at the site by 2:00 on Saturday morning, about five hours after the derailment. It has had six staff and 16 contractors on the ground since the crash.

The Department of Transportation has two agencies that are appropriate to deploy for this kind of an accident. The Federal Railroad Administration enforces safety regulations for railways, and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration enforces safety regulations for hazardous materials. Those agencies have deployed ten staff to help NTSB investigate. They will figure out if Norfolk Southern ignored any regulations.

This letter is not about the derailment itself, or the dangers, or the cleanup, or even the history of deregulation.

It is about the careful way generations of Americans have tried to create a government that could support progress while also guaranteeing oversight, and it is about the lawmakers who wrote the letter to Secretary Buttigieg.

Either 21 Republican lawmakers charged with oversight of our government don’t know how the government works and didn’t care to find out, or they are deliberately misleading their loyalists.

We are becoming accustomed to certain Republican lawmakers saying ridiculous things. Just two days ago, in a now-deleted tweet, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) claimed that “6 billion” people have illegally crossed the border since President Biden took office. (There are slightly fewer than 8 billion people on earth.)

But the letter these representatives wrote shows such a profound disinterest in how our government works that it suggests these representatives have no real interest in the job they were sent to Washington to do, and instead are weaponizing the government to mislead their followers into believing things that are not true.

Buttiegieg responded: “I am alarmed to learn that the Chair of the House Oversight Committee thinks that the NTSB is part of our Department. NTSB is independent (and with good reason). Still, of course, we will fully review this and respond appropriately.”

—

Notes:

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000186-8539-de7f-a9ee-b5fdb28f0002

Twitter avatar for @SecretaryPete

Secretary Pete Buttigieg

@SecretaryPete

I am alarmed to learn that the Chair of the House Oversight Committee thinks that the NTSB is part of our Department. NTSB is independent (and with good reason). Still, of course, we will fully review this and respond appropriately.

10:41 PM ∙ Feb 24, 2023

62,690Likes11,433Retweets

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20230214.aspx

https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-mocked-tweeting-6-billion-crossed-us-border-1783508

https://www.govexec.com/lmanagement/2023/02/federal-agencies-responding-toxic-train-derailment-ohio/382955/

[ank01-fan]

Roundup: Strategies and next steps for improved cybersecurity in 2023

Healthcare government and industry leaders see national standards, federal agencies get involved, and technology plays a starring role in the fight against healthcare cyberattacks. Here's a brief roundup of some of those trends, based on what we've been reporting and reading in recent weeks.

'Meaningful Protection' could drive healthcare cybersecurity transformation

Writing in Forbes, Ed Gaudet, CEO and founder of Censinet and member of the Health Sector Coordinating Council, suggests and describes what he calls a "Meaningful Protection" standard for healthcare cybersecurity, akin to the federal meaningful use program that spurred electronic health record adoption in the early 2010s. The goal would be to reduce patient safety risks and improve operational resilience through a "velvet hammer" approach, he said. "It's time for the U.S. to implement an incentive-based program to drive the meaningful adoption of processes and technologies that protect patients and our healthcare infrastructure," Gaudet wrote. Despite some debate over the details of the meaningful use program, implemented as part of the HITECH Act to ensure effective use of federal incentive dollars, Gaudet says it's hard to refute the impact the $27 billion program had on moving healthcare from paper to EHRs.  "To truly transform cybersecurity in healthcare, the U.S. government must consider modeling a cybersecurity investment program after Meaningful Use – namely, the 'meaningful protection' of patient safety, data and care delivery operations realized through a combination of incentives and penalties over time," Gaudet wrote. He offers a three-stage program designed to enable healthcare organizations to demonstrate use of certified practices, processes and technologies in ways that can measure the protection of patient safety, data and care delivery operations. Gaudet also suggests such a program would "accelerate 'cyber herd immunity,'" which the Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council cybersecurity working group is calling for in trumpeting cyber preparedness as a collective responsibility. "The first step to a solution is: recognize you have a problem. We do recognize we have this problem. It's now starting to manifest as all hands on deck. I'm seeing it, and I'm energized by it," Greg Garcia, the group's executive director, told attendees at the recent HIMSS 2022 Healthcare Cybersecurity Forum. James Noga, former CIO for Boston-based Mass General Brigham, agreed. "Meaningful Protection will move the needle in a positive direction in protecting healthcare organizations and patients from cybersecurity attacks if adopted," he wrote today on a LinkedIn post he agreed to share on Healthcare IT News. "Next step is to lobby our legislators."

FTC could report on cross-border ransomware complaints 

As part of the end-of-the-year Congressional omnibus package, Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr., D-New Jersey, and Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, announced consumer protections that include requiring the Federal Trade Commission to report on "cross-border complaints received that involve ransomware or other cyber-related attacks committed by certain foreign individuals, companies and governments." According to the announcement, FTC must focus specifically on attacks committed by Russia, China, North Korea or Iran as well as individuals or companies that are tied to those nation-states. In June, the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee forwarded the Reporting Attacks from Nations Selected for Oversight and Monitoring Web Attacks and Ransomware from Enemies Act to the full committee, but as NextGov reported, it floundered due to a lack of support from Senate Leadership.  The RANSOMWARE Act required the FTC to report to Congress on data from The Undertaking Spam, Spyware and Fraud Enforcement with Enforcers Beyond Borders Act allowing the federal commission to share evidence with foreign law enforcement agencies and assist in investigations upon their request. Committee members had argued over state preemption and the right of individuals, as opposed to government entities, to sue violators, according to the report. But Pallone has advocated since 2017 for "long-term commitments from many players" to strengthen healthcare's cybersecurity posture. Many healthcare organizations like the American Hospital Association are calling for greater federal support for victims of nation-state cyberterrorism, including real-time insights.  "We can only do so much on defense when foreign-based adversaries sheltered by hostile nation-states attack us. The other half of this equation is a robust offense by the U.S. government to go after these folks," John Riggi, national advisor for cybersecurity and risk for AHA, formerly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told Healthcare IT News in a recent conversation about government offense on healthcare cyberattacks.

Automation strategies could improve connected healthcare device security

While the industry waits for the government to act on the PATCH Act and a proposed software bill of materials, Greg Murphy, advisor and former CEO of Ordr, which recently partnered with Sodexo on managed cybersecurity services, offers hospitals six immediate steps they can take to improve medical device security. Writing for SC Magazine, Murphy proposes automation to maintain complete visibility to maintain an up-to-date device inventory, identify risks and monitor device communications. "Countering the threat and maintaining patient safety requires continuous monitoring and securing the plethora of connected devices in use in hospitals today," he wrote.  "It’s a huge job to avoid Code Dark events that press doctors, nurses and frontline hospital staff into service following attacks." Risk analysis is "still a very manual and labor-intensive process," Kathy Hughes CISO of Northwell Health, shared during a panel on third-party cybersecurity at the recent HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Forum. Murphy suggests automating the discovery and classification of devices to enable real-time and accurate device data and inventory. First, "identify devices with outdated operating systems or other risks such as misconfiguration and software that is unauthorized or vulnerable," he said. Hospital IT teams should also track communication from countries with known cyberattack postures; identify and monitor devices with high-risk privilege protocols; segment devices running outdated operating systems that can’t be patched; enable only sanctioned communications required for device operations and baseline all connected device communications. "Whenever ransomware takes over a device, there’s communication with an internet-based command-and-control site and potential for lateral movement across the organization," Murphy said.  "Any detected deviation from baseline communications is an indicator of compromise." Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News. Email: afox@himss.org Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication. #Roundup #Strategies #steps #improved #cybersecurity Read the full article

[violetsandshrikes]

Some key quotes from this article:

Republican congressional leaders including New Mexico’s U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell are fighting a proposal to provide federal protections to the lesser prairie chicken in multiple western states, arguing such government action would stymie oil and gas and other industries in the region.

In June 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed designating the species as “endangered” in a southern population zone, encompassing southeast New Mexico and West Texas – the Permian Basin region known as the U.S.’ most active oilfield.   

She [Rep. Yvette Herrell] said landowners and both the fossil fuel and agriculture industries were already taking it upon themselves to reduce threats the bird.

Herrell herself was recently named ranking member of the House Oversight Committee’s environmental subcommittee and is an ardent supporter of oil and gas and opponent of increased government regulations. She’s up for reelection in November, running against Democrat former-Las Cruces City Councilor Gabe Vasquez, and energy and its impact on the environment was a central theme of both campaigns.

This alleged failure by the government to protect the lesser prairie chicken was the motivation behind a series of lawsuits filed since the 1990s, with the latest coming from the Center for Biological Diversity which filed a notice of intent to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service on Aug. 11 [2022], arguing the agency failed to provide a decision in June, 12 months after the latest listing proposal.

“The fact is the lesser prairie chicken is gone from the vast majority of its range. It’s losing habitat and in danger of extinction,” Robinson said. “This is progressively happening. Under the law, they qualify as endangered.”

[liberaleffects]

The House on Thursday passed a bill that seeks to protect federal civil service employees from “Schedule F,” an executive order former President Trump signed that would make it easier for the White House to replace federal workers with loyalists.

[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson

October 4, 2021 (Monday)

“hello literally everyone,” the official account of Twitter tweeted this afternoon, after Facebook and its affiliated platforms Instagram and WhatsApp went dark at about 11:40 this morning. The Facebook outage lasted for more than six hours and appears to have been caused by an internal error. But the void caused by the absence of the internet giant illustrated its power at a time when the use of that power has come under scrutiny.

In mid-September, the Wall Street Journal began to publish a series of investigative stories based on documents provided by a whistle-blower.

The “Facebook Files” explore how the company has “whitelisted” high-profile users, exempting them from the rules that put limits on ordinary users. Another article reveals that researchers showed Facebook executives evidence that Instagram damages teenage girls by pushing an ideal body image and that they flagged the increasing use of the site by drug smugglers, human traffickers, and other criminals; their discoveries went unaddressed.

Concerned about declining engagement with their material, Facebook allegedly privileged polarizing material that engaged people by preying on their emotions. It appeared to have encouraged the extremism that led to the January 6 insurrection, lowering restrictions against disinformation quickly after the 2020 election.

Last night, on CBS’s 60 Minutes, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen revealed herself to be the source of the documents. She is concerned, she says, that Facebook consistently looks to maximize profits even if it means ignoring disinformation. Her lawyers have filed at least eight complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees companies and financial markets. Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said it was “ludicrous” to blame Facebook for the events of January 6. Chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg have not commented.

Lawmakers have repeatedly asked Facebook to produce documents for their scrutiny and to testify about the social media platform’s public safeguards. Tomorrow, Haugen will testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security about the effects of social media on teenagers. Her lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, told Cat Zakrzewski and Cristiano Lima of the Washington Post that Haugen’s information is important because “Big Tech is at an inflection point…. It touches every aspect of our lives—whether it’s individuals personally or democratic institutions globally. With such far-reaching consequences, transparency is critical to oversight, and lawful whistleblowing is a critical component of oversight and holding companies accountable.”

Amidst the outrage over the Facebook revelations, technology reporter Kevin Roose at the New York Times suggested that the company’s aggressive attempts to court engagement reveal weakness, rather than strength, as younger users have fled to TikTok and other sites and Facebook has become the domain of older Americans. He notes that Facebook’s researchers foresee a drop of 45% in daily use in the next two years, suggesting that the company is desperate either to retain users or to create new ones.

While the technology Facebook represents is new, the concerns it raises echo public discussion of late nineteenth century industrialization, which was also the product of new technologies. At stake then was whether the concentration of economic power in a few hands would destroy our democracy by giving some rich men far more power than the other men in the country. How could the nation both preserve the right of individuals to build industries and preserve the concept of the common good in the face of technology that permitted unprecedented accumulations of wealth?

While money is certainly at stake in the issue of Facebook’s power today, the more pressing issue for our country is whether social media giants will destroy our democracy through their ability to spread disinformation that sows division and turns us against one another.

When we began to grapple with the excesses of industrialism, lots of people thought the whole system needed to be taken apart—by violence if necessary—while others hoped to save the benefits the technology brought without letting it destroy the country. Americans eventually solved the problems that industrialization raised for democracy by reining in the Wild West mentality of the early industrialists, protecting the basic rights of workers, and regulating business practices.

The leaked Facebook documents suggest there are places where the disinformation at Facebook could be reined in as the overreaches of industrialization were. When Zuckerberg tried to promote coronavirus vaccines on the site, anti-vaxxers undermined his efforts. But one document showed that “out of nearly 150,000 posters in Facebook Groups disabled for Covid misinformation, 5% were producing half of all posts, and around 1,400 users were responsible for inviting half the groups’ new members.” Researchers concluded: “We found, like many problems at FB, this is a head-heavy problem with a relatively few number of actors creating a large percentage of the content and growth.”

“I don’t hate Facebook,” Haugen wrote in a final message to her colleagues at the company. “I love Facebook. I want to save it.”

While most Americans were busy watching Facebook crash—the falling stock took between $5 billion and $7 billion of Zuckerberg’s net worth—drama in Washington, D.C., was an even bigger deal.

Los Angeles Times reporter Sarah D. Wire noted that the rioters who broke into the Capitol on January 6 ran more than 100 feet past 15 reinforced windows, “making a beeline” to four windows that had been left unreinforced in a renovation of the building between 2017 and 2019. They found the four windows, located in a recessed part of the building, Wire wrote, “by sheer luck, real-time trial and error, or advance knowledge by rioters.”

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will likely look into this oddity.

The committee has begun to take testimony from cooperative witnesses. Observers expect fireworks on Thursday when former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, longtime Trump aide Dan Scavino, Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Trump appointee Kash Patel must hand over documents. Trump has vowed to fight the release of any information to the committee. Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) says the committee will make criminal referrals for anyone ignoring a subpoena.

Finally, today, the debt ceiling fight got even hotter. While Congress passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through December 3, the issue of the debt ceiling, which stops the government from borrowing money Congress has already spent, remains unresolved. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the government will be unable to pay its obligations after October 18, and warns that a default, which has never before happened, would be catastrophic.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) insists the Democrats must raise the debt ceiling themselves, although the Republicans raised it three times under former president Trump and added $7.8 trillion to the debt, which now stands at $28 trillion. But when Democrats tried to pass a measure to raise the ceiling, Republicans filibustered it. As Greg Sargent points out in the Washington Post, McConnell is trying to force the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling through reconciliation, which cannot be filibustered. Since they get only one chance to pass such a bill this year, this would force them to dump their infrastructure bill.

McConnell is holding the nation hostage to keep the Democrats from passing a very popular bill, and today, Biden called him on it. McConnell complained that congressional Democrats were “sleepwalking toward significant and avoidable danger,” prompting Biden to demand that Republicans “stop playing Russian roulette with the U.S. economy.... Not only are Republicans refusing to do their job, but threatening to use their power to prevent us from doing our job—saving the economy from a catastrophic event—I think, quite frankly, is hypocritical, dangerous and disgraceful. Their obstruction and irresponsibility knows absolutely no bounds.”

When asked if he could guarantee we would not default on our debts, Biden said, “No, I can’t…. That’s up to Mitch McConnell.” If McConnell doesn’t blink and the Republicans continue to filibuster Democrats’ attempts to save the economy, there will be enormous pressure on the Democrats to break the filibuster.

Meanwhile, every day this drags on, Congress does not pass the Freedom to Vote Act.