Good morning everyone! Happy Thursday to you!

Joining the show today is / are Donny Deutsch, Dorian Warren, Richard Haass, Howard Dean, Roger Bennett, Nancy Gibbs, David von Drehle, Alex Winter, Josh Earnest, Amb. Chris Hill, Blythe Danner, Brett Haley, Brian Sullivan and more

The New York Times created this graphic for its front page as a way to show whom is indicted in the FIFA scandal:
As Willie stated yesterday and then reiterated just now on Morning Joe, Qatar getting approved must have been the 'tipping point' with regard to the issue. I won't rehash what we wrote about yesterday here but the graphic is funny in its own way. It is actually a decent break down of what went down. It is like a crime chart you see on police shows when they try to take down mob syndicates. Once they get the person, they 'X' them out on that board. Its quite funny (but not). I think this just happened to go on for so long that they felt they were untouchable if you will. Do NOT forget that there is an internal election at FIFA slated to happen tomorrow on Friday.

Did GOP create ISIS? Why Rand Paul says so the junior senator from the Bluegrass State is not afraid of speaking what's on his mind. And his feelings on this country's foreign policy are no exception.
Did GOP create ISIS? Why Rand Paul says so
Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky, who is a candidate for his party's 2016 presidential nomination, has created a national brand as a man unafraid of challenging party orthodoxy. "ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS," Paul said in an interview with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that aired Wednesday on “Morning Joe.” "They’ve created these people."

As severe as his statement appears, it's not surprising: Paul is known for his unflinching attacks on his own party. He recently wrote that the Republican brand is "broken." And a central theme in his campaign is challenging Republican hawkishness abroad and the national security state at home.

Republican hawkishness has long gone unchallenged within the party – critics have alleged that hawks in the George W. Bush administration dragged the nation into the Iraq war on exaggerated evidence. Are Paul and the GOP's libertarian wing changing the party's narrative?

In April 2013, when news emerged that US contractors reaped $138 billion from the Iraq war, Senator Paul told the Christian Broadcast Network that his party is too enthusiastic for war. "Part of Republicans' problems... I think [they] have appeared too eager for war," he said.

In December 2014, when President Obama announced he would restore ties with the Castro regime, Republicans decried communist appeasement. But Paul allied with the president and said he supported normalizing relations with Cuba.

And as a majority of Republicans offer a full-throated defense of the Patriot Act, Paul has spoken out against it and against government surveillance programs. “I’m the only one out there saying the Patriot Act went too far,” Paul said in Wednesday's MSNBC interview.

His contrarian stance resonates: Some 60 percent of Americans believe the Patriot Act should be reformed “to limit government surveillance and protect Americans’ privacy," according to a new poll commissioned by the ACLU. Most Americans also oppose the NSA's collection of phone records, according to a January 2014 poll.

Rand Paul on government collecting phone records,  …Play videoRand Paul on government collecting phone records, ISIS …
And as for the Iraq war, Americans appear to be nearly united, with 75 percent saying it wasn't worth the costs, according to a June 2014 CBS/New York Times poll.

Is Paul changing the GOP foreign policy narrative? Not quite. Some in the party are "nearing a critical mass of impatience with what some call “Rand-ism," writes Politico's Alexander Burns. From center-right South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham to center-left New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, they're lashing out at Paul and his foreign policy philosophy.

In fact, there is evidence that Paul himself is changing, adopting a more hawkish tone to appeal to his party base as the 2016 race heats up.

He proposed an increase in military spending in March, calling for a nearly $190 billion infusion to the defense budget over the next two years, seen as an olive branch to defense hawks.

And as the Financial Times pointed out, "After spending years criticizing Republican colleagues for demonizing Iran, he was one of the 47 senators who signed last month the now-infamous letter to Iran’s leaders warning them not to trust any deal signed by Mr. Obama."

But it was his presidential campaign announcement tour that best summed up Paul's evolving foreign policy.

"I envision an America with a national defense unparalleled, undefeatable, and unencumbered by overseas nation-building," he told supporters in Louisville in April.

His backdrop for his South Carolina announcement? The aircraft carrier USS Yorktown.

This interview on the show yesterday was the one heard round the world. I liked what he said on the show which i said yesterday too. I knew people would be upset about it but still, that was probably why i liked that interview done so much. I get what he was saying or trying to articulate during it was astute but pointing fingers precisely at people was/is a hard thing to pull of but them again, I maintain Rand was replying to what the likes of Lindsey graham and John McCain had said about him and his platforms. It is now all twisted around to make it like he struck first in that regard when that is not the case. Again, I loved what rand Paul said during that interview yesterday. It is finally bringing what is a real conversation and debate that the GOP needs to have fast in order to get them elected or even nearly elected during that next general election. No one on that side says the things he does and honestly, it is such a fine line between him and the far left winged platforms. 

Elizabeth Warren Bought Foreclosed Homes to Make a Quick Profit. 
Before the crash that she blamed on speculators, Senator Elizabeth Warren made a bundle by flipping houses. Nearly two years after Veo Vessels died, her daughter, 70-year-old Mary Frances Hickman, decided to sell the home her mother had left to her. A sprawling brick house in Oklahoma City’s historic Highland Park neighborhood, it was built in 1924, just a year after Mary’s birth. 

Decades later, one of Vessels’ great-grandchildren fondly recalls the wood and tile floors, the fish pond, the butler’s quarters, and the multi-car garage where children played house. “It was really, really nice,” says Hickman’s granddaughter, Andrea Martin. That’s part of the reason she’s so surprised her grandmother sold the home in 1993 for a mere $30,000. Despite a debilitating stroke, Martin says Hickman remained sharp, and she had always been business-savvy. As an Avon saleswoman, she had at times ranked among the top ten in the country. “So I don’t know why,” Martin says. “Maybe she just wanted out from underneath it, but to sell it for such a low number — I don’t know. Maybe she got bad advice, maybe she was just tired.” 

The home’s new owner: Elizabeth Warren, today a Massachusetts senator who has built a political career on denouncing the sort of banking titans and financial sophisticates who make a buck off the little guy. Five months after purchasing Veo Vessels’ old home, Warren flipped the property, selling it for $115,000 more than she’d paid, according to Oklahoma County Property Assessor records. 

Warren rose to political prominence in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis as a crusader against big banks and a dispenser of common-sense economic advice. She campaigned for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, intended to shield people from the predations of the mortgage and credit-card industries, among others. In her 2006 book All Your Worth, co-authored with her daughter, Amelia, Warren lists as a top myth the idea that “you can make big money buying houses and flipping them quickly.” She has made a career out of telling people how to behave in financially responsible ways, and out of creating laws that will make it illegal for them to do otherwise. 

But Warren bought and sold at least five properties for profit at a different time in her life, before the cratering economy and a political career made her a star. Her life story has been the subject of much interest, and her 2014 memoir, A Fighting Chance, chronicled her rise from humble beginnings in small-town Oklahoma and her struggle to make ends meet. It didn’t much mention, though, the early 1990s, years when her children were teenagers and she was once again happily married. These are years when she wasn’t yet the multimillionaire she is today, and, she has said, she was voting Republican. As a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, and later as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, she was doing well for herself, building both her professional profile and her wealth. She owes at least part of her considerable financial success, it seems, to snapping up these properties in her native Oklahoma and turning them for a profit — though today that’s not a practice she endorses for the many people looking to emulate her success. The Boston Herald reported on these purchases during Warren’s Senate run in 2012, noting that she invested in “the often topsy-turvy real-estate market of the 1990s” and that her actions “don’t seem to square with her public statements about the latest real estate boom and bust.” (By our deadline, Warren’s office did not respond to our request for an interview with the senator or for a request for comment from the senator’s spokesperson about the home sales.).

Hickman’s granddaughter Martin says of the home flip: “I don’t think it’s right, but I don’t really know much about it. . . . You flip houses to make a profit, so I can’t really fault [Warren] much. I think my grandmother made a mistake by selling it for so cheap. . . . She had worked hard all her life and was a self-made woman.” Don Vessels — a grandson of Veo Vessels, and the nephew of Mary Frances Hickman — said he had not known that Warren had purchased the family home, but “my reaction is that it’s kind of par for the course.” He added: “What’s said and what’s done in politics are two different things. Mary Hickman, being the executor of the estate, should have sold it for the highest price on the market, which I’m not sure she did. But the house was not in fantastic shape, I can tell you that. It was a very nice house when it was purchased, but my grandmother kind of let it fall into disrepair.” Records show Warren bought the house Hickman inherited from her mother, located at 200 N.W. 16th Street, in August 1993 and quickly obtained permits to do plumbing and electrical work, selling it five months later for a 383 percent gain. 

House flipping is commonly defined as the practice of buying and selling a home within six months, as the future senator did with the Hickman property. Warren held onto at least four other properties for longer periods, sometimes waiting a year before relinquishing ownership and, at other times, as long as seven years. Warren bought two homes after they’d fallen into foreclosure. And though she spent money fixing up the Hickman home before selling it, records suggest she sold others at a significant profit without making any meaningful upgrades. Warren bought two homes after they’d fallen into foreclosure. Records suggest she sold them at a significant profit without making any meaningful upgrades.

In 1993, Warren bought a foreclosed property on N.W. 14th Street in Oklahoma City for $4,000. National Review attempted to contact the couple who had owned it. No phone number or email could be found on record for them, and they did not respond to a letter mailed to their last known address, in Colorado. No public records could be found elaborating on the events that led to the foreclosure of their home. In 2004, Warren transferred the home to her brother, John Herring, and his wife, who sold it for $30,000 in 2006, a 650 percent increase over what Warren initially paid for it. Neither Warren nor her brother filed any permits to make improvements. In June 1993, Warren bought another foreclosed property in Oklahoma City, this one on West Wilshire Boulevard, for $61,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Because properties purchased from HUD are sold as is, and because foreclosed homes can have damage ranging from simple poor upkeep to stripped copper, “the only reason you do that is for profit,” says Steve Stout, residential field supervisor at the Oklahoma County Assessor’s Office. 

On the national stage, Warren has been outspoken about the dangers of home foreclosure. In a 2002 book, The Fragile Middle Class, co-authored with Teresa Sullivan and Jay Lawrence Westerbrook, she wrote that foreclosures are “notorious for fetching low prices.” And as a professor at Harvard Law School, in the wake of the financial crisis, Warren served as a member of the congressional panel overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The panel produced, among other things, a report on the foreclosures taking place across the country. It began with a paean to the place of the home in American life: “Foreclosures are about the home,” it said, which is “the physical and emotional nexus of many households as well as the centerpiece of many Americans’ finances.” Foreclosures, it concluded, “can harm other homeowners both by encouraging additional foreclosures and by reducing home sale prices, while decreased property values hurt local businesses and reduce state and local tax revenues.” 

A year after buying the foreclosed property on West Wilshire Boulevard, Warren also bought the house next door for $72,000. Despite filing no building permits to renovate at either property, Warren pocketed $34,000 in profits when she sold the first house in December 1994, and she and her husband, Bruce Mann, made an additional $32,000 when they sold the one next door in 1998. That same year, Warren sold another home she and Mann owned for a sizeable profit. The couple had purchased the property, at 4721 Dove Tree Lane, in 1991, filing permits for mechanical and plumbing repairs, according to Oklahoma County Assessor’s Office records. “We’re talking about more than just painting or minor repairs,” says Stout, adding that it could add up to tens of thousands of dollars. “It’s serious work.” Still, the investment seems to have paid off: Warren and her husband paid only $50,000 for the house and sold it for $109,500, a 119 percent gain. 

The profits from these flipped homes adds up: Even excluding the property sold by her brother, Warren and her husband have made at least $240,500 flipping homes (before deducting the unknown sum they invested in remodeling). In her 2014 autobiography, Warren wrote of the events that precipitated the financial crisis that “everyone seemed to have a story about someone they knew who was getting rich by flipping houses.” She omitted a crucial one. 

She's back: Riley Curry helps Stephen Curry deliver MVP press conference.
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) and Riley Curry address the media in a press conference after game five of the Western Conference Finals of the NBA Playoffs against the Houston Rockets at Oracle Arena. (USA TODAY Sports)
After sharing an adorable moment with his daughter following the Warriors’ Western Finals-clinching victory against the Rockets on Wednesday night, Stephen Curry again had his lovable little two-year-old steal the show in the postgame press conference.

Riley Curry burst onto the scene in Game 1’s press conference, sparking a mini controversy amongst irritated reporters fighting tight deadlines and wanting the NBA MVP’s full attention.

In this press conference, Curry answered tough questions from the media. His daughter, meanwhile, took precedence with some incredibly hilarious distractions which included playing hide-and-seek peek-a-boo behind a curtain and handing her gum to a Warriors employee.

“She’s taking advantage of the situation for sure,” Curry said at the mic.

Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina Shadow Dance In South Carolina.
<> on May 27, 2015 in Columbia, South Carolina.
Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina echoed and opposed each other in South Carolina on Wednesday. At twin events in South Carolina on Wednesday, rivals Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina spoke about equal pay within hours of each other, each blaming the other’s party for not doing enough to fight for women’s rights in the workplace.

“I don’t think I’m letting you in on a secret when I say too many women still earn less than men on the job,” Clinton told a roomful of mostly South Carolina women. “We could fix this if Republicans would get on board.”

“Before the federal government or Hillary Clinton lecture others,” said Fiorina, “maybe they ought to look into their own offices or look into the seniority system and the federal government.”

Like doppelgangers parading on different sides of a funhouse mirror, Clinton and Fiorina echoed each other even in their opposition.

Clinton was speaking from inside the Columbia, S.C. Marriott hotel; Fiorina spoke from outside the same hotel a few hours earlier. Clinton gave a speech and took no questions; Fiorina bragged about how accessible a candidate she has been to the press compared with her Democratic counterpart. Clinton, a dominant frontrunner among the Democrats, never mentioned Fiorina; Fiorina’s event seemed planned specifically to antagonize the former secretary of state.

For Clinton, it was a chance to reconnect with South Carolina voters after badly losing the primary to Barack Obama in 2008. (During the last election, Bill Clinton appeared to write off Barack Obama’s victory in the state by comparing him with Jesse Jackson, another black candidate who never won.)

Fiorina, on the other hand, was shadowing Clinton, continuing her ceaseless criticism of the Democratic candidate in an effort to gain some much-needed attention in the press.

“Our events tomorrow are all open to the press,” Fiorina’s spokeswoman, Sarah Flores, wrote in an email to reporters Tuesday night, jabbing at the Clinton campaign. “And by ‘open press,’ we mean we’ll actually take questions.”

Clinton’s speech was one of the first true speeches of her campaign. She made a case for equal pay and forcefully criticized Republicans for not fully embracing an equal pay platform. She listed four specific measures to improve pay for women, including legislation that allows women to sue for wage discrimination, requiring pay transparency, and paid leave and flexible scheduling.

Clinton’s ideas aren’t new: she long advocated for equal pay legislation as senator of New York, and paid leave has become a fixture of liberal politicians’ platforms around the country. She repeated her claim that equal pay is “not a women’s issue, this is a family issue” and an American economic issue.

What is new to her candidacy, however, is Clinton’s sharp language for Republicans who she says are responsible for holding back similar legislation. Without mentioning any Republican presidential hopefuls by name, she mentioned Scott Walker’s comment that equal pay is a “bogus issue”—though she mistakenly called him a candidate, a declaration he has not yet made. Her other two jabs at Republicans were directed at Marco Rubio who said Congress was “wasting time worrying” about equal pay, and Rand Paul, who has said equal pay efforts remind him of the Soviet Union.

Fiorina said she “of course” supports equal pay for equal work, and said that a seniority system in the federal government “allows a man to watch pornography all day long in the federal government” and earn the same as “a woman sitting next to him trying to do a good job.”

Fiorina also claimed that Clinton does not pay women equally in her own office. The Clinton campaign has not yet released details about its expenditures and salaries. As a senator, Clinton paid women and men equally for the same jobs, according to figures released by her campaign and reviewed by PolitiFact.com.

Have democrats Pulled too Far Left? For any reporter to say (write about), let alone to write that Obama is far left is not real. Obama is so bad for the liberal and is all about big business. That New York Times article written up by Peter Wehner is a very simple minded one. 

The United States society just wants things to be a fair and balanced one. Right now, the loud talking points have been far right for years. It is just recent that the left has been able to speak up. The far right monopolized the media outlets since the late 80s and well into the 90s. It has just been over the last 8 years or so that middle of the road or even far left media outlets have been able to thrive on TV and over the press wires. That is the reason for the polarization. But again, people want what is fair. And, what is fair is to be down the middle for both sides of the aisle. It is a perception ting. It is not a left winged issue. People want what is fair for everyone. It is showing up as being far left because everyone is trying to shift what has been a far right stance for decades over to the middle. It should balance out soon but remember and again, the shift to the right has been evident for decades and again, it has just been over the last few years that people listen to the left side or what are considered to be progressives. 

Twenty (20) years ago the progressive side of the aisle were deem,d as tree huggers so to speak and further, it has not helped that the far right has and had act like idiots over the last 8 years. The tea party movement was bad because they were bullies that were not real and they were not down the middle. The progressive side wants to be down the middle but tipping that scale is hard because you have to take what has been ingrained in our system for decades now, to then tip the scale to a balanced one. And, so being far left is what i said above, polarized now. But its all about being fair. It is not about pushing things so far to the left for the sake of it. Think about it. The climate change issue was all so far to the right for decades now. People have made so much money plundering the earth. Stopping that needs to be done in loud ways tosday and it comes off as being about the far left when it is a bi partisan issue today. Stopping mass incarceration was a right winged or conservative issue where certain people were able to make money filling up the prisons and jails over the last few decades. Now, the left has to talk about it in extreme ways to get it to be a fair system that incarcerates real criminals that hurt other people, and not people caught up when doing drugs (i.e.: they need help staying off drugs and putting them in jails in prisons makes it worse for them). 

What else? Gay issues is now and should be a bi partisan issue and remember in 2004, it was what helped (Geirge) Bush Jr. get himself his win (because of Ohio and Pennsylvania and that push there against gay marriage or against same sex marriage I should say). 

Income and equlaity is now a bi partisan issue but the facts are that many of the GOP'ers that use that as part of their platform today, have helped caused it and still vote on things that perpetrate today. And, it shows. Even when Hillary (Clinton) syas stupid things like how she is broke in so many words, just comes off so ridiculous and again, it shows. Its the ONLY crux in her campaign today. Even in John Heilmann's focus group done in Iowa last week, that was the ONLY issue with regard to what those people thought negatively about Hillary. Is that she was 'out of touch' with normal people. I mean they also said she would get elected no matter what but still.  

I cant think of these platforms off the top of my head but again, the scale tipping to the middle or to what is a fair and balanced one is what is happening now. (Sorry i cant think about this issue whole heart idly off the cuff now, I am on to the next segment talking about global issues with Richard Haas). 

Overall,the far right conservative wing wants things done their way or its the highway. They have acted like bullies for years now. They lash out in such adolescent ways. They call people names. They blame anyone for anything rather than to have a solution. They do NOT do what is fair for all walks of life. And, it shows. 

And, then you have the Elizabeth Warrens and the Bernie Saunders which and whom I have backed for almost ten years now, but that Bernie Saunders announcement the other day was such a festive one. People were and are energized by him and you know why? It is because he is being real about things and it shows. He is all about the people and doing what is fair for everyone and it shows. When Liz warren speaks it is the same thing. She comes off as real and it shows. She is about the people and doing what is fair for everyone and it shows.

As for the Rand Pauls, Carly Fiorini's and the Ted Cruz's, on the GOP side of aisle, when they come off as being real, it shows but the way they have voted and then what they do at the next speech pandering to whatever audience also shows. It is very easy to see this political science unveil itself on that side or with the conservative right winged element. They come off as not being real and it shows. But what they say is a good message but most do NOT walk he walk as that cliche is said

Except for my partners at the Conservatives Against the Death Penalty whom are real about things and smart about them and look at what they are doing today. They up heaved the death penalty in a state like Nebraska this week and it is because they dealt with in such a brilliant way. They were real about it. They blamed certain fiscal reasons and again, they were smart about it. That is why they won. People that are real and for every walk of life win in Politics. Whether it is left, right, center or anywhere on that scale, if you are real and about the people, you will win. If you come off disingenuous and not for everyone, you will lose. 

Like this Seaworld commercial ad we see on MSNBC every day nowadays, that is a bold faced lie (or deceiving I should say about it). They may not get whales from stealing them from the oceans, but they sure as hell get Dolphins from areas like in Taji, Japan. One was or is being delivered to them this month. It was taken into the 'The Cove' area off Taji, Japan and flown to the Sea World facility just this month. And, their organization is beginning to show its failures. Another top official was fired this week (CFO).  

BTW, The WAPO reports about how Biden talked tough about Ukraine, but U.S. must ‘cooperate’ with Putin. While the Commander-in-Chief doesn’t know how to follow through after he draws a big red line (i.e. Syria), the vice president on Wednesday appeared open to the idea of arming Ukraine in its battle with Russia.

Joe Biden accused Russia of violating international laws by its “brutal” aggression in Ukraine — and said the debate over whether to provide lethal defensive aid, including anti-tank missiles and other heavy arms, is “worth having.”

“Helping Ukraine against Russian aggression is critical to checking further aggression down the road,” the vice president told an audience at the Washington think tank the Brookings Institution.

“The United States sanctions on Russia must and will remain in place until the Minsk agreement is fully implemented,” he said. 

Biden said Russia has mounted a “hyper-aggressive” state-sponsored propaganda program for more than a year. 

So far, the United States is only provided training for Ukraine’s national guard and delivering “non-lethal” equipment, such as military vehicles. Still, Biden said the U.S. still needs to “cooperate” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It makes sense to cooperate where there’s a clear mutual interest as long as you’re not being asked to back off,” Biden said.

And if you did not just hear it now, Donny Deutsch had a dream with Katy Kay and with Mika in it. Haven't we all Donny, haven't we all?

Morning Papers: NBC News reports that Live Anthrax Mistakenly Sent to U.S. Labs. Federal health officials say they are investigating the accidental shipment of live anthrax bacteria to labs in nine states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms that it's investigating the accidental shipments. No one's been sickened by the bacteria, which can cause potentially deadly illness although it's easily treated with antibiotics if caught soon enough.

"CDC is investigating the possible inadvertent transfer of a select agent from the U. S. Department of Defense (DOD) to labs in nine states. At this time we do not suspect any risk to the general public," CDC said in a statement sent to NBC News. "At this time we do not suspect any risk to the general public."

Department of Defense spokesman Col. Steven H. Warren told NBC News the shipments were mistakenly sent out from the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. "The DoD lab was working as part of a DoD effort to develop a field-based test to identify biological threats in the environment," Warren said. "Out of an abundance of caution, DoD has stopped the shipment of this material from its labs pending completion of the investigation."

CDC says the anthrax was being used to develop a test in case someone used the bacteria as part of a bioterror attack. "The lab was working as part of a DOD effort to develop a new diagnostic test to identify biological threats. Although an inactivated agent was expected, the lab reported they were able to grow live Bacillus anthracis," CDC said. Live anthrax is supposed to be handled in a biosafety level 3(BSL-3) lab -- one that is equipped to protect workers from the bacteria and from the spores it produces.

"CDC is working in conjunction with state and federal partners to conduct an investigation with all the labs that received samples from the DOD. The ongoing investigation includes determining if the labs also received other live samples, epidemiologic consultation, worker safety review, laboratory analysis, and handling of laboratory waste. "

It's the second mistaken shipment of live anthrax in a year. Last June, CDC said more than 80 people may have been exposed to live anthrax when a CDC lab sent it by mistake. Lab workers thought they had inactivated the bacteria. CDC lab procedures were overhauled after the mishap. In 2004, a Maryland lab accidentally sent a batch of live anthrax to a children's hospital in California. "The lab was working as part of a DOD effort to develop a new diagnostic test to identify biological threats."

And in 2001, five people died including two postal workers infected after anthrax spores puffed out of anthrax-filled letters as they were processed. The anthrax-laced letters made another 17 people sick. They were sent deliberately in a case that still hasn't been fully resolved.

"All samples involved in the investigation will be securely transferred to CDC or Laboratory Response Network laboratories for further testing. CDC has sent officials from the CDC Federal Select Agent Program to the DOD labs to conduct onsite investigations."

Anthrax can infect people in three ways -- on the skin, in the digestive system or in the lungs. All three types can be dangerous but inhaled anthrax is the most deadly because once it starts causing symptoms it is often too late for antibiotics to help. And the inhaled spores can lurk in the lungs for months before they activate, so someone exposed to the spores may not know what their symptoms mean.

AP Sources: IRS Believes Identity Thieves From Russia. IRS investigators believe the identity thieves who stole the personal tax information of more than 100,000 taxpayers from an IRS website are part of a sophisticated criminal operation based in Russia, two officials told the Associated Press.

The information was stolen as part of an elaborate scheme to claim fraudulent tax refunds, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told reporters. Koskinen declined to say where the crime originated.

But two officials briefed on the matter said Wednesday the IRS believes the criminals were in Russia, based on computer data about who accessed the information. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing criminal investigation.

An IRS spokeswoman said Wednesday the agency couldn't comment on the investigation.

The revelation highlights the global reach of many cyber criminals. And it's not the first time the IRS has been targeted by identity thieves based overseas.

In 2012, the IRS sent a total of 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania, and 343 refunds went to a lone address in Shanghai, according to a report by the agency's inspector general. The IRS has since added safeguards to prevent similar schemes, but the criminals are innovating as well.

The information was taken from an IRS website called "Get Transcript," where taxpayers can get tax returns and other tax filings from previous years. In order to access the information, the thieves cleared a security screen that required detailed knowledge about each taxpayer, including their Social Security number, date of birth, tax filing status and street address.

The IRS believes the criminals originally obtained this information from other sources. They were accessing the IRS website to get even more information about the taxpayers, which would help them claim fraudulent tax refunds in the future, Koskinen said.

The thieves have already used some of the information to claim as much as $50 million in fraudulent tax refunds, Koskinen said.

"We're confident that these are not amateurs," Koskinen said. "These actually are organized crime syndicates that not only we but everybody in the financial industry are dealing with."

The IRS believes the thieves started targeting the website in February. Technicians discovered the breach about two weeks ago, when they noticed an increase in the number of taxpayers seeking transcripts. The website was shut down last week.

Congress is demanding answers about how identity thieves were able to steal the information.

The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday. Koskinen and J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, are scheduled to testify.

"When the federal government fails to protect private and confidential taxpayer information, Congress must act," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Finance Committee. "Taxpayers deserve to know what happened at the IRS regarding the data theft, and this hearing will be the first step of many that the committee takes to determine what happened and how the government can prevent such attacks from happening again."

Hatch also requested a confidential briefing by IRS officials. He said he wants to know where the scheme originated, and whether the IRS can link it to any other breaches at other organizations. Identity thieves, both foreign and domestic, have stepped up their efforts in recent years to claim fraudulent tax refunds. The agency estimates it paid out $5.8 billion in fraudulent refunds to identity thieves in 2013.

In April, Hatch and Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, quietly launched an investigation into how online tax preparers and prepaid debit card providers screen to prevent identity thieves from stealing tax refunds. Hatch publicly disclosed the investigation Wednesday in a letter to Koskinen.

The IRS said it is notifying taxpayers whose information was accessed, and is providing them with credit monitoring services. The IRS has launched a criminal investigation, and the inspector general is also investigating.

Baltimore Cops' Attorneys Want Freddie Gray Case Moved Out of City. 
Attorneys representing six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray filed a motion on Wednesday to have the case moved out of the city, arguing the passions surrounding the case make it impossible for their clients to receive a fair trial.

"Every citizen of Baltimore was impacted by the events surrounding the arrest and death of Freddie Gray and every potential juror would bring their passions and prejudices relating to the events with them to the courtroom," the lawyers wrote in a motion filed in Circuit Court for Baltimore City. A grand jury in Baltimore on May 21 indicted the officers, Caesar Goodson Jr., William Porter, Brian Rice, Edward Nero, Garrett Miller and Alicia White. The death of Gray from a spinal cord injury on April 19, a week after he was arrested following a foot chase, sparked protests and riots, and the National Guard was called in to enforce a mandatory curfew amid the violence.

The motion for a change of venue argues that statements made by the prosecutor in the case, State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and police officials who admitted mistakes were made in the way Gray was arrested and treated have prejudiced potential jurors. The motion also argues that the mayor's request for a Department of Justice investigation into policing practices in Baltimore — which the DOJ has launched — has "blurred the line between the defendants and the police department as a whole."

Attorneys for the six officers have previously accused Mosby of rushing to judgment in filing charges so quickly amid a backdrop of social unrest, and have asked that she recuse herself from the case. Mosby could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. Goodson, who drove the police van, is charged with second-degree depraved heart murder, involuntary manslaughter and other charges. Porter, Rice, and White are charged with involuntary manslaughter and other charges. Nero and Miller face charges that include second-degree assault.

San Jose Mercury News reports how Former 49er Ray McDonald arrested for allegedly violating restraining order. Ray McDonald, the former 49ers and Chicago Bears defensive tackle who was arrested Monday after a domestic violence call, was arrested again Wednesday on suspicion of violating a restraining order, police said. McDonald showed up at a Santa Clara residence shortly before 3 p.m., according to police. He is not allowed to be there because of the restraining order, which police said was issued against McDonald on Monday after he was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence and child endangerment.

On Wednesday, McDonald had already left the home by the time officers arrived. Police said he was found just down the road at Togo's Sandwiches at 2203 Tasman Drive. He was arrested without incident and taken to the Santa Clara Police Department. He was later booked into Santa Clara County Jail on $5,000 bail. McDonald's attorney, Steve DeFilippis, said neither he nor his client had been notified about the restraining order. DeFilippis said McDonald had gone to the residence Wednesday to meet with a defense investigator, who had spoken to the woman who lived. DeFilippis said the investigator wanted to let the woman know he was going to be there, and she told him she was in Santa Cruz. It was unclear if the woman knew McDonald would also be at the home, DeFilippis added.

The investigator and McDonald were meeting at the home to take pictures for evidence, DeFilippis said, including documenting the broken door that McDonald allegedly kicked down before the domestic violence call Monday. McDonald maintains the door is intact. In the Monday incident, McDonald allegedly assaulted a woman -- who has not been identified -- while she was holding a baby in her arms shortly before 4 a.m. He was gone by the time Santa Clara officers arrived that morning, but was found just hours later at the home of his former 49er teammate Justin Smith on the 2000 block of Terra Nova Lane in San Jose.

The Chicago Bears released McDonald from an non-guaranteed one-year, $1.5 million contract on Monday after the allegations surfaced. They had signed him in March. "We believe in second chances, but when we signed Ray we were very clear what our expectations were if he was to remain a Bear," General Manager Ryan Pace said in a news release. "He was not able to meet the standard and the decision was made to release him."

The 49ers released McDonald in December, months after the first domestic violence allegation was made against him and after he was also accused of raping a woman. The team cited ongoing questionable behavior when they parted ways with the player, and McDonald's NFL career stalled as a result of the release.

Former San Francisco 49er and Chicago Bears defensive tackle Ray McDonald was arrested Wednesday in Santa Clara on suspicion of violating a restraining
Former San Francisco 49er and Chicago Bears defensive tackle Ray McDonald was arrested Wednesday in Santa Clara on suspicion of violating a restraining order. His arrest comes two days after he was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence and child endangerment. ( Katie Nelson )
In May, a woman who alleged that McDonald had raped her late last year -- only to be sued by him for defamation -- filed a cross-complaint, claiming that a home-surveillance video shows that both McDonald and 49ers linebacker Ahmad Brooks sexually molested her after she slipped on a wet swimming-pool deck and suffered a traumatic brain injury.

MSNBC.com reports settlement agreed upon with Walmart and with Tracey Morgan. details of the settlement are not disclosed but they all seem happy about it.

NASA, DARPA collaborating on Deep Web search to analyze spacecraft data.
Iceberg (CalTech)
By now you may have heard of the Deep Web, which is a loose term describing the invisible or hidden layer of the Web that search engines like Google and Bing don’t index (hence the iceberg metaphor, illustrated above). Sometimes it’s conflated with the Dark Web, which contains darknets that exist between trusted peers using non-standard protocols and ports. Darknets originally were designated as isolated from the ARPANET of the 1970s. You could connect to them and send data to them, but they didn’t respond to network pings or other inquiries.
At any rate, the Deep Web is by definition not easily searchable. It often contains all manner of illegal activity as a result: havens for criminals, terrorists, sex trafficking, and other groups with nefarious purposes. Back in November, a large-scale crime bust by the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Association resulted in the shutdown of over two dozen Tor websites, including Silk Road 2.0, a newer version of the original online black market that made available illegal drugs, weaponry, electronics, and other goods.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has developed tools (dubbed Memex) that can access and categorize this world for the purposes of tracking these people, and last month the agency open-sourced major portions of the code behind Memex so that other groups can take advantage of the tools. Now researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California have joined in, and are looking to Deep Web search tools for an entirely different reason: mining vast data stores from NASA spacecraft and other science-related objectives.
The idea is to treat the Deep Web like Big Data — a term that usually refers to any tremendous store of structured, semi-structured, or unstructured data that’s too large to process or mine for information using traditional search and database techniques. In this case, it could easily apply to the data retrieved in space missions.This screenshot from the ImageSpace and ImageCat applications in Memex shows how you can organize a large amount of information and look for relationships between data hidden in images. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kitware/ContinuumThis screenshot from the ImageSpace and ImageCat applications in Memex shows how you can organize a large amount of information and look for relationships between data hidden in images. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kitware/Continuum
“We’re developing next-generation search technologies that understand people, places, things and the connections between them,” said Chris Mattmann, principal investigator for JPL’s work on Memex, in a statement. Right now, in the Deep Web, Memex is smart enough to check both text-based content and online images, videos, pop-up ads, scripts, and forms, and it can associate content from one source with another in a different format. That kind of search tech could be of great use during space missions, where spacecraft snap photos, videos, and other kinds of data with complex scientific instruments.
For example, a researcher could search through visual information from a planet or asteroid in order to learn more about its geological features, said Elizabeth Landau of JPL, or automatically analyze data from Earth-based missions monitoring the weather and climate. Scientists could also run deep searches on published scientific results from NASA data stores. All of it is with open-source code.
“We’re augmenting Web crawlers to behave like browsers — in other words, executing scripts and reading ads in ways that you would when you usually go online. This information is normally not catalogued by search engines,” Mattmann said. “We are developing open source, free, mature products and then enhancing them using DARPA investment and easily transitioning them via our roles to the scientific community.” It will be interesting to see what NASA engineers — not to mention other researchers — do with the project. The good news is, unlike with typical DARPA projects, we’ll actually get to see and use the results.
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