Conservative Blogger
Thursday, July 9, 2015
NYSE repoens after trading stopped amid United Airlines, WSJ.com tech issues
Trading was halted for more than two hours on the New York Stock Exchange floor Wednesday after an internal technical issue was detected – which then set off speculation that a cyber-glitch at United Airlines and a temporary online outage at the Wall Street Journal newspaper were connected.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama had been briefed on the glitch that took out trading on the floor of the NYSE by White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco and chief of staff Denis McDonough.
He also said despite indications that it was not a cyber-breach, the administration was “keenly aware of the risk that exists in cyber space right now.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson tried to allay fears, saying, “It appears from what we know at this stage that the malfunctions at United and at the stock exchange were not the result of any nefarious actor.”
He added, “We know less about the Wall Street Journal at this point except that their system is back up again as is the United Airline system.”
Trading at the NYSE stopped around 11:30 a.m. ET though NYSE - listed shares continued to trade on other exchanges such as the Nasdaq.
Shortly after the outage, which was unusual and symbolic, the NYSE tweeted that the issue was internal and not a breach.
"The issue we are experiencing is an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber breach," the exchange tweeted. "We chose to suspend trading on NYSE to avoid problems arising from our technical issue."
Still, the timing of the event coincided with other cyber glitches.
The Wall Street Journal’s homepage displayed a 504 outage though other sections on the online paper’s website, continued to function. The homepage had been quickly restored following the outage.
“I think the Wall Street Journal piece is connected to people flooding their web site in response to the New York Exchange to find out what’s going on.” FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence committee. “In my business we don’t love coincidences, but it does appear that there is not a cyber-intrusion involved.”
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., the top Democrat on the cyber-security subcommittee, told Fox News that the NYSE incident has “the appearance” of a cyberattack and noted the coordination of multiple sites.
An FBI official told Fox News that the bureau has offered its assistance concerning the NYSE situation, but at this time it does not appear to be nefarious.
Stocks were already trading lower Wednesday when the glitch occurred. Traders had been worried about China’s inability to stop a steep drop in its own market. Traders have also been skittish as talks between Greece and its creditors seemed to have stalled.
U.S. stocks closed with sizable losses with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 261 points, Standard & Poor's 500 gave up 34 points and the Nasdaq was down 87 points.
Despite San Francisco criticism, Clinton once backed sanctuary city policies
High-profile Democrats now speaking out about San Francisco's "sanctuary" treatment of an illegal immigrant charged with the murder of a young woman weren't always so critical of the policies.
Hillary Clinton and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., both criticized San Francisco for ignoring a federal request to hold Francisco Sanchez -- who already had been deported five times -- when he went into city custody in March. He was released in April, and is now in jail for the murder last week of Kate Steinle, 32.
"The city made a mistake, not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported," Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, said in an interview with CNN. "So I have absolutely no support for a city that ignores the strong evidence that should be acted on."
But Clinton, when she was a New York senator running for president in 2007, was openly supportive of sanctuary city policies, which limit cooperation with federal immigration officials.
Clinton said during an MSNBC debate that these policies exist to encourage people to report crimes. Without them, she said, "You will have people hiding from the police. And I think that is a real direct threat to the personal safety and security of all the citizens."
Asked if she would allow sanctuary cities to disobey federal law, Clinton said: "Well, I don't think there is any choice. The ICE groups go in and raid individuals, but if you're a local police chief and you're trying to solve a crime that you know people from the immigrant community have information about, they may not talk to you if they think you're also going to be enforcing the immigration laws. Local law enforcement has a different job than federal immigration enforcement."
Feinstein also has raised questions about San Francisco's actions, as has California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.
California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democratic member of the House, has not spoken out on the case.
Feinstein, in a letter, called on San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to start cooperating with federal immigration officials who want to deport felons such as Sanchez.
"I strongly believe that an undocumented individual, convicted of multiple felonies and with a detainer request from ICE, should not have been released," Feinstein said. "We should focus on deporting convicted criminals, not setting them loose on our streets."
Feinstein, though, got the ball rolling on the city's policies when she served as mayor from 1978-1988. She signed legislation in 1985 making the city a "sanctuary" for immigrant refugees from Central America.
That policy was expanded significantly after Feinstein left office and now limits cooperation with federal officials for a range of illegal immigrant cases.
Feinstein said in her letter that "dangerous criminals" should not be released.
The mayor's office has said it reached out to Homeland Security officials to determine if there's a way to cooperate while still upholding the city's sanctuary policy.
"Mayor Lee shares the senator's concerns surrounding the nature of Mr. Sanchez's transfer to San Francisco and release," said Christine Falvey, a spokeswoman for the mayor. "As the mayor has stated, we need to gather all of the facts as we develop potential solutions."
San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi defended Sanchez's release and the city law requiring it to ignore ICE detainer requests. The sheriff said ICE could have obtained a warrant or court order to keep Sanchez in custody.
"My long-held belief is that local law enforcement should not be in the civil immigration detainer business," Mirkarimi said last year.
Sanchez entered a not guilty plea Tuesday in the shooting death of Steinle last week at a popular San Francisco tourist spot.
His bail was set at $5 million and he could face life in prison if convicted in the murder.
Gowdy counters Clinton claim she 'never had a subpoena,' reveals document
House Republicans investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya on Wednesday released a March subpoena issued to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, one day after she said in a nationally televised interview that she "never had a subpoena" in the email controversy.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the Benghazi panel, said he had "no choice" but to make the subpoena public "in order to correct the inaccuracy" of Clinton's claim.
Clinton told CNN on Monday that she "never had a subpoena," adding: "Everything I did was permitted by law and regulation."
Gowdy said the committee issued the March 4 subpoena to Clinton personally after learning the full extent of her use of private emails while serving as secretary of state.
Regardless of whether a subpoena was issued, "Secretary Clinton had a statutory duty to preserve records from her entire time in office, and she had a legal duty to cooperate with and tell the truth to congressional investigators requesting her records going back to September of 2012," Gowdy said in a statement.
The dispute over the subpoena is the latest flashpoint in an increasingly partisan investigation by the House panel, which was created to probe the September 2012 attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.
Gowdy and other Republicans have complained that Clinton and the State Department have not been forthcoming with release of her emails and note that the State Department has said it cannot find in its records all or part of 15 work-related emails from Clinton's private server.
The emails all predate the assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility and consist mainly of would-be intelligence reports passed to Clinton by longtime political confidant Sidney Blumenthal, officials said.
Gowdy has said the missing emails raise "serious questions" about Clinton's decision to erase her personal server, especially before it could be analyzed by an independent third-party arbiter.
A Clinton campaign spokesman has said she turned over 55,000 pages of materials to the State Department, "including all emails in her possession from Mr. Blumenthal."
South Carolina House approves removal of Confederate flag
Just The Beginning.
The move came after more than 13 hours of contentious debate, weeks after the deadly shootings of nine black church members, including a state senator, at a Bible study in Charleston. The House approved the Senate bill 93-27, and still has one more vote than appeared to be perfunctory since they had met two-thirds approval.
It is possible the flag could come down Thursday or Friday, but the exact timing is unknown.
The bill is set to go to Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, who supports it.
“Today, as the Senate did before them, the House of Representatives has served the state of South Carolina and her people with great dignity,” Haley said in a statement early Thursday. “I’m grateful for their service and their compassion. It is a new day in South Carolina, a day were can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state.”
A group of Republicans mounted an opposition Wednesday to immediately removing the flag from the Capitol grounds, but at each turn, they were beaten back by a slightly larger, bipartisan group of legislators who believe there must be no delay.
As House members deliberated into the night, there were tears of anger and shared memories of Civil War ancestors. Black Democrats, frustrated at being asked to show grace to Civil War soldiers as the debate crept into the 12th hour, warned the state was embarrassing itself.
The closest vote in the GOP-controlled body came on an amendment to place the state flat beside the monument to Confederate soldiers at the front of the Statehouse.
Changing the Senate bill could have meant weeks or even months to remove the flag, perhaps blunting the momentum that has grown since the church massacre.
Republican Rep. Jenny Horne scolded fellow members of her party for stalling the debate with dozens of amendments as she reminded them she was a distant relative of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
She cried as she remembered the funeral of her slain colleague state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, who was gunned down as his wife and daughter locked themselves in an office.
"For the widow of Sen. Pinckney and his two young daughters, that would be adding insult to injury and I will not be a part of it!" she screamed into a microphone.
Horne said she didn’t intend to speak but got frustrated with fellow Republicans.
Opponents of removing the flag talked about grandparents who passed down family treasures and lamented that the flag had been “hijacked” or “abducted” by racists.
Rep. Mike Pitts, who remembered playing with a Confederate ancestor’s cavalry sword while growing up, said for him the flag is a reminder of how dirt-poor Southern families fought Yankees not because they hated blacks or supported slavery, but because their lands was being invaded.
Pitts said those soldiers should be respected just as soldiers who fought in the Middle East or Afghanistan. Pitts then turned to a lawmaker he called a dear friend, recalling how his black colleague nearly died in Vietnam.
"I'm willing to move that flag at some point if it causes a twinge in the hearts of my friends," Pitts said. "But I'll ask for something in return."
The debate began less than one day after the U.S. House voted to ban the display of Confederate flags at historic federal cemeteries in the Deep South.
House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said Democrats were united behind the Senate bill, which would send the flag to the state's Confederate Relic Room — near the resting place for the final rebel flag that flew over the Statehouse dome until it was taken down in 2000.
Democrats didn't want any new flag going up because it "will be the new vestige of racism," Rutherford said.
After the break around 8 p.m., Rutherford said Democrats were willing to let the other side make their points, but had grown tired. He said while much had been said about ancestors of the Confederacy, “what we haven’t heard is talk about nine people slaughtered in a church.”
"The whole world is asking, is South Carolina really going to change, or will it hold to an ugly tradition of prejudice and discrimination and hide behind heritage as an excuse for it," Neal said.
Other Democrats suggested any delay would let Ku Klux Klan members planning a rally July 18 a chance to dance around the Confederate flag.
"You don't have to listen to me. But there are a whole lot of people outside this chamber watching," Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter said.
Under the Senate proposal, the Confederate flag would have to come down within 24 hours of the governor signing the bill.
In Washington, the vote by the U.S. House followed a brief debate on a measure funding the National Park Service, which maintains 14 national cemeteries, most of which contain graves of Civil War soldiers.
The proposal by California Democrat Jared Huffman would block the Park Service from allowing private groups to decorate the graves of Southern soldiers with Confederate flags in states that commemorate Confederate Memorial Day. The cemeteries affected are the Andersonville and Vicksburg cemeteries in Georgia and Mississippi.
Also Wednesday, state police said they were investigating an unspecified number of threats against South Carolina lawmakers debating the flag. Police Chief Mark Keel said lawmakers on both sides of the issue had been threatened, but he did not specify which ones.
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