Biden buzz grows amid new polling, ‘draft’ movement picks up key adviser

What a Team!

The Biden 2016 buzz keeps building -- and the vice president is doing little to tamp down the speculation -- as the leading group trying to coax the veep into the presidential race touts new poll numbers they say put him in prime position to run.

The Vice President Biden chatter kicked up again this week on two fronts, as Hillary Clinton continued to see her numbers suffer in the face of mounting revelations in her personal email controversy.
First, the pro-Biden group Draft Biden 2016 signed up longtime Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who helped President Obama win Florida in 2008 and 2012.
Then, a Quinnipiac Poll released Aug. 20 showed Biden running strong in head-to-head match-ups with Republican candidates in key states.
“[The poll] signals the vice president's strength and viability as a serious contender. We see it as an encouraging sign that the American people are hungry for his candidacy,” Draft Biden 2016 said in a statement.
The developments come as Clinton struggles to ignite the Democratic base on the campaign trail. While she’s still the unrivaled front-runner, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is polling competitively in key states and drawing big crowds on the trail.
Sanders’ performance has helped stoke speculation that Biden might have a shot, should he enter.
Schale described his new role with Draft Biden 2016 as that of an informal adviser. “Basically just grabbing an oar,” Schale told Fox News.
Schale told Fox New Radio host Alan Colmes he has “a strong affinity for the vice president,” and said of the current primary race, “there’s just not a lot of energy, and I’m worried about that.”
Two weeks earlier, Josh Alcorn, who has worked for Biden and was working on Beau Biden’s gubernatorial campaign in Delaware before he died in May, also joined Draft Biden 2016 as a senior adviser. The PAC is ramping up a social media campaign to tout the vice president’s accomplishments.
Meanwhile, the new Quinnipiac Poll showed Clinton with a comfortable lead in the Democratic field. But it showed her negative numbers rising, and Biden doing at least as well as Clinton in match-ups against Republicans.
In Florida, for instance, Biden was leading Donald Trump 45-42 percent, while Trump was narrowly leading Clinton. Polling in Ohio and Pennsylvania likewise showed Biden doing well.
Biden has been on vacation in South Carolina with family, and last week it was reported he would be discussing his possible candidacy with insiders and family members -- and make a decision “next month.” The New York Times reported Biden had an hour-long conversation with Richard Harpootlian, former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, and was putting out feelers through advisers to state operatives, “to determine how fast they could organize a campaign.”
The White House has declined to take a stance. In July, spokesman Eric Schultz was asked if President Obama has encouraged or talked with Biden about him running. He said Obama “has said that the best political decision he’s ever made in his career has been to ask Joe Biden to run as his vice president.”
On Monday, however, a “well-placed source” in the White House told CNN the administration was already quite invested in Clinton’s success as a candidate.
Whether or not the White House is on board, there is space for Biden in the primary field, thanks to Clinton’s worsening poll numbers and a general sense of restiveness among the voters for something new, said Tom Whalen, an assistant professor of social science and political author at Boston University.
“[Hillary’s] personal ratings in likeability and trust are falling faster than Red Sox pennant hopes in August,” he told FoxNews.com. “It’s very bleak, and I think Biden would have a good shot. I think voters are open to an alternative.”
Whether Biden fits the bill remains to be seen, said former Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein, who warns polling is still volatile right now, and candidates tend to do better when they are operating from a safe distance, off the trail.
“They don’t have to take the slings and arrows and prove their salt on the campaign trail,” he said. “When Hillary was secretary of state, her [popularity] was at rock star levels. As soon as she got into the campaign, and had to start talking like a candidate … her numbers dropped.”
“Plus,” he added, “Biden comes in with weaknesses of his own. He has run for president twice (’88 and ‘08) and with very bad results. This romanticized version of him now … once he is back on the campaign trial, we’ll see.”
Biden is known for his frequent gaffes. Yet, given the acceptance of Trump’s candor on the other side, it seems voters are more forgiving these days, Whalen said.
He said Biden’s tragic personal life – he lost his son Beau to cancer; his first wife and daughter were killed in a car crash in 1972 – has resonated.
“When you are talking about presidential politics, you are talking personal narrative,” said Whalen. “I think he has a bond with the American people that can’t be underestimated.”

EPA aware of 'blowout' risk at mine that could release tainted wastewater

Managers at the Environmental Protection Agency were aware of the possible risk for a catastrophic “blowout” at an abandoned mine that could release “large volumes” of wastewater laced with toxic metals, according to internal documents released late Friday.

EPA released the documents following weeks of prodding from news organizations like The Associated Press. EPA and contract workers accidentally unleashed 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater on Aug. 5 as they inspected the idled Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado.
Among the documents is a June 2014 work order for a planned cleanup that noted that the old mine had not been accessible since 1995, when the entrance partially collapsed. The plan appears to have been produced by Environmental Restoration, a private contractor working for EPA.
"This condition has likely caused impounding of water behind the collapse," the report says. "ln addition, other collapses within the workings may have occurred creating additional water impounding conditions. Conditions may exist that could result in a blowout of the blockages and cause a release of large volumes of contaminated mine waters and sediment from inside the mine, which contain concentrated heavy metals."
A May 2015 action plane for the mine also notes the potential for a blowout. There are at least three current investigations into exactly how EPA triggered the environmental disaster, which tainted rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with lead, arsenic and other contaminants. Water tests have shown the contamination levels have since fallen back to pre-spill levels. However, experts warn the heavy metals have likely sunk and mixed with bottom sediments that could someday stirred back up.
Officials in the affected states and elsewhere have slammed the agency’s initial response. Among the unanswered questions is why it took the EPA nearly a day to inform local officials in downstream communities that rely on the rivers for drinking water.
Much of the text in the documents released Friday was redacted by EPA officials, according to The Associated Press. Among the items blacked out is the line in a 2013 safety plan for the Gold King job that specifies whether workers were required to have phones that could work at the remote site, which is more than 11,000 feet up a mountain.
On its website, contractor Environmental Restoration posted a brief statement last week confirming its employees were present at the mine when the spill occurred. The company declined to provide more detail, saying that to do so would violate "contractual confidentiality obligations."
The EPA has not yet provided a copy of its contact with the firm. On the March 2015 cost estimate for the work released Friday, the agency blacked out all the dollar figures.

South, North Korea to hold high-level meeting to defuse war fears

South Korea and North Korea agreed on Saturday to hold high-level talks at the border village of Panmunjom to defuse mounting tensions that have pushed the rivals to the brink of a possible military confrontation.

The meeting is scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Seoul time, 30 minutes after the deadline set by North Korea for the South to take down the loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda at their border. North Korea has declared its frontline troops are in full war readiness and prepared to go to war if Seoul doesn’t back down.
South Korea’s national security director Kim Kwan-jin and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo will sit with Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer for the Korean People’s Army, according to the South Korean presidential office. Hwang is considered to be North Korea’s second most important official after supreme leader Kim Jong Un, and Kim Yang Gon, a secretary of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and a senior official responsible for South Korea affairs.
The meeting comes as a series of incidents, starting with the North's alleged land mine attack that maimed two South Korean soldiers and the South's resumption of anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts, raised fears that the conflict could spiral out of control.
A South Korean Defense Ministry official, who didn’t want to be identified, said the South will continue with the anti-North Korean broadcasts until the end of North Korea’s deadline, but hasn’t made a decision whether to continue with them if the high-level meeting goes as planned.
In the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, businesses were open as usual and street stalls selling ice cream were crowded as residents took breaks under parasols from the summer sun. There was no visible signs of increased security measures, though the city is even under normal situations heavily secured and fortified. More than 240 South Koreans entered a jointly-run industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.
North Korea’s state-run media agency has strongly publicized its rhetoric, saying the whole nation is bracing for the possibility of an all-out war. Leader Kim Jong Un has been shown repeatedly on TV news broadcasts leading a strategy meeting with top military brass to review the North’s attack plan and young people are reportedly swarming recruitment centers to sign up to join the fight.
"We have exercised our self-restraint for decades," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday. "Now, no one's talk about self-restraint is helpful to putting the situation under control. The army and people of the DPRK are poised not just to counteract or make any retaliation but not to rule out all-out war to protect the social system, their own choice, at the risk of their lives."
North Korean citizens voiced support for the government’s policies and their leader. They also used phrases like “puppet gangsters” to refer to South Korean authorities, according to The Associated Press.
"I think that the South Korean puppet gangsters should have the clear idea that thousands of our people and soldiers are totally confident in winning at any cost because we have our respected leader with us," said Pyongyang citizen Choe Sin Ae.
It’s unclear whether North Korea means to attack immediately, if at all, but South Korea has vowed to continue the broadcasts, which it recently restarted after an 11 year stoppage after accusing Pyongyang of planting land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers earlier this month.
Four U.S. F-16 fighter jets and four F-15k South Korean fighter jets simulated bombings, starting on South Korea's eastern coast and moving toward the U.S. base at Osan, near Seoul, officials said.
South Korea's military on Thursday fired dozens of artillery rounds across the border in response to what Seoul said were North Korean artillery strikes meant to back up a threat to attack the loudspeakers.
U.S. experts on North Korea said the land mine blast and this week’s shelling were the most serious security incidents at the border since Kim Jong Un came to power after the 2011 death of his father, Kim Jong Il. The country was founded by Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung.
"If Kim Jong Il or Kim Il Sung was in charge, I would say that leadership in North Korea would recognize that South Korea has responded in kind to an attack and it's time to stand down. But I'm not sure Kim Jong Un understands the rules of the game established by his father and grandfather on how to ratchet up tensions and then ratchet them down. I'm not sure if he knows how to de-escalate," said Evans Revere, a former senior State Department official on East Asia.
The latest standoff comes during annual military drills between the U.S. and South Korea, which North Korea calls preparation for an invasion. The U.S. and South Korea insist they are defensive in nature.
Hundreds of residents in South Korean border towns had evacuated to shelters during the conflict on Thursday before returning home on Friday afternoon. Fishermen on Saturday were banned for the second straight day from entering waters near five South Korean islands near the disputed western sea border with North Korea, according to marine police officials in Incheon.
Yonhap news agency, citing a government source, reported Friday that South Korean and U.S. surveillance assets detected the movement of vehicles carrying short-range Scud and medium-range Rodong missiles in a possible preparation for launches. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it couldn’t confirm the report.
The Koreas' mine-strewn Demilitarized Zone is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are deployed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from North Korea.

Tech Server Cartoon

Group is gunning for small town's veteran memorial cross

The memorial features a silhouette of a soldier holding a gun and kneeling at the foot of a cross.
It was installed a few months ago alongside Freedom Rock at Young’s Park in the small town of Knoxville, Iowa.

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“It was clear to us it was a memorial to fallen veterans,” Mayor Brian Hatch told me. But it wasn’t clear to everyone.
About a month ago a citizen filed an anonymous complaint -- arguing that the memorial was promoting Christianity and therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Mayor Hatch told me the city council ignored the complaint.
“We didn’t take any action because it (the memorial) did not have any religious ties to us at all,” he said. “I only see it as a memorial to the veterans and it shocked me that someone could see it otherwise.”
Instead of letting bygones be bygones, the offended citizen contacted Americans United for Separation of Church and State – a group that relishes in bullying towns across the nation. On Tuesday their attorney fired off a letter to the town.
“Please remove the Latin cross from government property,” the letter demanded.
Americans United said the Constitution prohibits government bodies from promoting religion on public land and they argued that the Latin cross is the “preeminent symbol of Christianity.”
They suggested that the inclusion of the cross excludes service members of other faith groups.
“Another court prohibited a county government from displaying a war memorial featuring crosses and the Star of David, because this design ‘gave the impression that only Christians and Jews are being honored,’” Americans United wrote in their letter.
Mayor Hatch told me the council will meet next month to decide what course of action to take. Meanwhile, the citizens of Knoxville are launching a campaign to save the memorial.
“This political correctness stuff is getting way out of hand,” resident Doug Goff told me. “When we are bending to the will of one person in the town -- you know something is wrong there.”
Goff is a lifelong resident of Knoxville. He’s also a Navy veteran. And he’s helping to spearhead an August 30^t rally to defend the cross.
“This is a memorial for our veterans,” he said -- wondering if Americans United has a problem with the crosses in Arlington National Cemetery.
“The cross is white because the headstones in Arlington are white,” he said. “Would you take that cross down, too?”
Americans United has given the town 30 days to respond to their demand. If they refuse to comply, don’t be surprised if the town of Knoxville gets hauled into court.
Meanwhile, I think Americans United should answer Mr. Goff’s question. Will they demand that Arlington Cemetery remove their crosses?
It’s doubtful Americans United would pull a stunt like that. I think they just like to bully small towns in the Heartland.

High-level federal employees used work Internet systems to join Ashley Madison

WASHINGTON –  Hundreds of U.S. government employees -- including some with sensitive jobs in the White House, Congress and law enforcement agencies -- used Internet connections in their federal offices to access and pay membership fees to the cheating website Ashley Madison, The Associated Press has learned.

The AP traced many of the accounts exposed by hackers back to federal workers. They included at least two assistant U.S. attorneys; an information technology administrator in the Executive Office of the President; a division chief, an investigator and a trial attorney in the Justice Department; a government hacker at the Homeland Security Department and another DHS employee who indicated he worked on a U.S. counterterrorism response team.
Few actually paid for their services with their government email accounts. But AP traced their government Internet connections -- logged by the website over five years -- and reviewed their credit-card transactions to identify them. They included workers at more than two dozen Obama administration agencies, including the departments of State, Defense, Justice, Energy, Treasury, Transportation and Homeland Security. Others came from House or Senate computer networks.
The AP is not naming the government subscribers it found because they are not elected officials or accused of a crime.
Hackers this week released detailed records on millions of people registered with the website one month after the break-in at Ashley Madison's parent company, Toronto-based Avid Life Media Inc. The website -- whose slogan is, "Life is short. Have an affair" -- is marketed to facilitate extramarital affairs.
Many federal customers appeared to use non-government email addresses with handles such as "sexlessmarriage," "soontobesingle" or "latinlovers." Some Justice Department employees appeared to use pre-paid credit cards to help preserve their anonymity but connected to the service from their office computers.
"I was doing some things I shouldn't have been doing," a Justice Department investigator told the AP. Asked about the threat of blackmail, the investigator said if prompted he would reveal his actions to his family and employer to prevent it. "I've worked too hard all my life to be a victim of blackmail. That wouldn't happen," he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was deeply embarrassed and not authorized by the government to speak to reporters using his name.
The AP's analysis also found hundreds of transactions associated with Department of Defense networks, either at the Pentagon or from armed services connections elsewhere.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter confirmed the Pentagon was looking into the list of people who used military email addresses. Adultery can be a criminal offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
"I'm aware it," Carter said. "Of course it's an issue because conduct is very important. And we expect good conduct on the part of our people. ... The services are looking into it and as well they should be. Absolutely."
The AP's review was the first to reveal that federal workers used their office systems to access the site, based on their Internet Protocol addresses associated with credit card transactions. It focused on searching for government employees in especially sensitive positions who could perhaps become blackmail targets.
The government hacker at the Homeland Security Department, who did not respond to phone or email messages, included photographs of his wife and infant son on his Facebook page. One assistant U.S. attorney declined through a spokesman to speak to the AP, and another did not return phone or email messages.
A White House spokesman said Thursday he could not immediately comment on the matter. The IT administrator in the White House did not return email messages.
Federal policies vary for employees by agency as to whether they would be permitted during work hours to use websites like Ashley Madison, which could fall under the same category as dating websites. But it raises questions about what personal business is acceptable -- and what websites are OK to visit -- for government workers on taxpayer time, especially employees who could face blackmail.
The Homeland Security Department rules for use of work computers say the devices should be used for only for official purposes, though "limited personal use is authorized as long as this use does not interfere with official duties or cause degradation of network services." Employees are barred from using government computers to access "inappropriate sites" including those that are "obscene, hateful, harmful, malicious, hostile, threatening, abusive, vulgar, defamatory, profane, or racially, sexually, or ethnically objectionable."
Records also reveal subscribers signed up using state and municipal government networks nationwide, including those run by the New York Police Department, the nation's largest. "If anything comes to our attention indicating improper use of an NYPD computer, we will look into it and take appropriate action," said the NYPD's top spokesman, Stephen Davis.
The hackers who took credit for the break-in had accused the website's owners of deceit and incompetence, and said the company refused to bow to their demands to close the site. Avid Life released a statement calling the hackers criminals. It added that law enforcement in both the U.S. and Canada is investigating and declined comment beyond its statement Tuesday that it was investigating the hackers' claims.

Information in dozens of Clinton emails was 'born classified', report says

Dozens of emails that passed through Hillary Clinton's server during her time as secretary of state reportedly contained information automatically considered classified by the U.S. government and State Department's own regulations.

According to Reuters, at least 30 e-mail threads dating from as far back as 2009 contained what the State Department describes as "foreign government information." That number represents scores of individual emails that have already been made public, including 17 sent by Clinton herself. At least one of those emails was sent to longtime supporter Sidney Blumenthal, who did not hold a government position at the time.
The report says that the State Department identified the emails as containing "foreign government information" when it retroactively classified them upon their release earlier this year. However, the regulations say that such information, defined as having been provided orally or in writing to U.S. officials by their foreign counterparts in confidence, must be "presumed" classified, regardless of whether it is initially marked that way.
Reuters said the State Department disputed the report's analysis, but declined to say how it was incorrect.
"We do not have the ability to go back and recreate all of the various factors that would have gone into the determinations," State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach wrote in an e-mail,after initially accusing Reuters of making "outlandish accusations" about the emails. Reuters said it could not establish whether the State Department was applying its rules in a different manner from when the emails were first sent.
If true, the regulations would undercut Clinton's defense that she never sent or received information that was marked classified at the time it passed through her server. The Reuters report says that the government's standard nondisclosure form warns employees authorized to handle classified information that it may not be marked as such in writing and that a determination about its secrecy may be made orally.

More on this...

• Inside the company in charge of Hillary's server

• Fox First: Clinton did not use 'secure' State Dept. devices

"It's born classified," said J. William Leonard, a former director of the U.S. government's Information Security Oversight Office. "If a foreign minister just told the secretary of state something in confidence, by U.S. rules that is classified at the moment it's in U.S. channels and U.S. possession."
The report comes amid an ongoing federal investigation over whether Clinton mishandled classified information that passed through her so-called "homebrew" server during her tenure as America's top diplomat. On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the State Department to work with the FBI to try to recover approximately 31,000 emails that Clinton had described as personal. The Democratic presidential frontrunner has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Reuters reports that the unredacted portions of the emails appear to indicate information from one prime minister, one foreign minister and several intelligence chiefs. One e-mail, dated from November 2009, comes from the principal private secretary to then-British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and is addressed to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The British official writes that Miliband "very much wants the Secretary (only) to see this note." Abedin forwarded the e-mail to Clinton's private account.
A spokeswoman for one of the governments whose information appeared in the emails told Reuters that the information was shared confidentially with Clinton and her senior staff, making it classified according to the regulations. The spokeswoman said her government expected all private exchanges with U.S. officials to be treated as confidential.
According to State Department regulations in force in 2009, department employees "must ... safeguard foreign government and NATO RESTRICTED information as U.S. Government Confidential" or higher. Confidential information is considered the lowest level of classification for information that could harm national security if leaked, behind "Secret" and "Top Secret".

South Korea vows response to 'provocations' from North after exchange of fire

South Korea warned that North Korea was likely to launch "provocations" if Seoul did not meet a Saturday deadline to cease propaganda broadcasts as tensions heightened on the divided peninsula Friday.

South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo issued the warning at a press conference as a South Korean media outlet reported that Pyongyang appeared to be preparing to test-fire short- and mid-range ballistic missiles.
The report by Yonhap News Agency cited a South Korean government source who said that North Korea seemed to be "weighing the timing of the firing under its strategic intention to increase military tension on the Korean Peninsula to the highest level." The source also said that the apparent preparations for the test had been detected by South Korea's joint radar system, which it shares with the United States.
Earlier Friday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared his country to be in a "quasi-state of war"and be fully ready for any military operations starting Friday evening, according to a report by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
In response, South Korea raised its military readiness to its highest level. Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Jeon Ha-kyu told a televised news conference that South Korea is ready to repel any additional provocation.
The North has also given Seoul a deadline of 5 p.m. Saturday evening (4 a.m. EDT) to remove border loudspeakers that, after a lull of 11 years, have started broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda. Failure, Pyongyang says, will result in further military action. Seoul has vowed to continue the broadcasts.
The North's media report said that "military commanders were urgently dispatched for operations to attack South Korean psychological warfare facilities if the South doesn't stop operating them." South Korea's vice defense minister said Friday this likely meant the North would fire on the 11 sites where South Korea had set up loudspeakers to broadcast propaganda.
The loudspeaker broadcasts began after South Korea accused the North of planting land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers earlier this month. One of the injured soldiers lost both legs and the other one leg. North Korea denies the South's accusation and demanded video proof.
The North's declaration Friday is similar to its other warlike rhetoric in recent years, including repeated threats to reduce Seoul to a "sea of fire," and the huge numbers of soldiers and military equipment already stationed along the border mean the area is always essentially in a "quasi-state of war." Still, the North's apparent willingness to test Seoul with military strikes and its recent warning of further action raise worries because South Korea has vowed to hit back with overwhelming strength should North Korea attack again.
The North's capital of Pyongyang was mostly business as usual Friday morning, although propaganda vans with loudspeakers broadcast the state media line that the country was in a "quasi-state of war" to people in the streets.
North Korea on Thursday afternoon first fired a single round believed to be from an anti-aircraft gun, which landed near a South Korean border town, Seoul said. About 20 minutes later, three North Korean artillery shells fell on the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas. South Korea responded with dozens of 155-millimeter artillery rounds, according to South Korean defense officials.
North Korea said the South Korean shells landed near four military posts but caused no injuries. No one was reported injured in the South, either, though hundreds were evacuated from frontline towns.
On Friday, about 60 residents in the South Korean town near where the shell fell, Yeoncheon, were still in underground bunkers, Yeoncheon officials said. Yonhap reported that a total of about 2,000 residents along the border were evacuated Thursday.
Escalation is a risk in any military exchange between the Koreas because after two attacks blamed on Pyongyang killed 50 South Koreans in 2010, South Korea's military warned that any future North Korean attack could trigger strikes by South Korea that are three times as large.
Many in Seoul are accustomed to ignoring or discounting North Korea's repeated threats, but the latest have caused worry because of Pyongyang's warning of strikes if the South doesn't tear down its loudspeakers by Saturday evening. Observers say the North may need some save-facing measure to back down.
This is what happened in December 2010, when North Korea backed off an earlier warning of catastrophic retaliation after South Korea defiantly went ahead with live-fire drills near the country's disputed western sea boundary. A month earlier, when South Korea staged similar drills, the North reacted with an artillery bombardment that killed four people on a South Korean border island. North Korea said it didn't respond to the second drill because South Korea conducted it in a less provocative way, though the South said both drills were the same.
The rivals are currently at odds also over annual U.S.-South Korean military drills that North Korea calls an invasion rehearsal. Seoul and Washington say the drills are defensive in nature.
The Koreas' mine-strewn DMZ is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are deployed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from North Korea.