GOP Sweep: Big Governor Victories in Virginia, NJ

Republicans sweep governor races in Virginia, New Jersey – troubling sign for Dems, Obama

By LIZ SIDOTI AP National Political Writer
WASHINGTON November 4, 2009 (AP)

Independents who swept Barack Obama to a historic 2008 victory broke big for Republicans on Tuesday as the GOP wrested political control from Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey, a troubling sign for the president and his party heading into an important midterm election year.

Conservative Republican Bob McDonnell’s victory in the Virginia governor’s race over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds and moderate Republican Chris Christie’s ouster of unpopular New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was a double-barreled triumph for a party looking to rebuild after being booted from power in national elections in 2006 and 2008.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Maine voters rejected a state law that would allow same-sex couples to wed. If supporters had prevailed, it would have marked the first time that the electorate in any state endorsed gay marriage.

And Democrat Bill Owens captured a GOP-held vacant 23rd Congressional District seat in New York in a race that highlighted fissures in the Republican Party and illustrated hurdles the GOP could face in capitalizing on any voter discontent with Obama and Democrats next fall.

California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, also a Democrat, won a special election to a vacant congressional seat, Ohio voters approved casinos and a slew of cities selected mayors, including New York, which gave Michael Bloomberg a third term.

The outcomes of Virginia and New Jersey were sure to feed discussion about the state of the electorate, the status of the diverse coalition that sent Obama to the White House and the limits of the president’s influence — on the party’s base of support and on moderate current lawmakers he needs to advance his legislative priorities.

His signature issue of health care reform was dealt a blow hours before polls closed when Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid signaled that Congress may not complete health care legislation this year, missing Obama’s deadline and pushing debate into a congressional election year. Democrats in swing-voting states and moderate-to-conservative districts may be less willing to back Obama on issues like health care after Virginia and New Jersey showed there are limits to how much he can protect his rank and file from fallout back home.

The president had personally campaigned for Deeds and Corzine, seeking to ensure that independents and base voters alike turned out even if he wasn’t on the ballot — and voters still rejected them. Thus, the losses were blots on Obama’s political standing to a certain degree and suggested potential problems ahead as he seeks to achieve his policy goals, protect Democratic majorities in Congress and expand his party’s grip on governors’ seats next fall.

Interviews with voters leaving polling stations in both states were filled with reasons for Democrats to be concerned and for Republicans to be optimistic, particularly about independents — the crown jewel of elections because they often determine outcomes.

Independents were a critical part Obama’s victory in Virginia, New Jersey and across the country. But after more than a year of recession, they fled from Democrats in the two states, where the economy trumped all.

The Associated Press exit polls showed that nearly a third of voters in Virginia described themselves as independents, and nearly as many in New Jersey did. They preferred McDonnell by almost a 2-1 margin over Deeds in Virginia, and Christie over Corzine by a similar margin.

Last year, independents split between Obama and Republican John McCain in both states.

In Virginia, McDonnell won by big margins in rapidly growing, far-flung Washington, D.C., suburbs — places like Loudoun and Prince William counties — that Republicans historically have won but where Obama prevailed last fall by winning over independents and swing voters. Republicans swept all three statewide Virginia offices up for election: governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.

“Bob McDonnell’s victory gives Republicans tremendous momentum heading into 2010,” declared Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. “His focus on ideas and pocketbook issues will serve as a model for Republicans running next year.”

Said Tim Kaine, the Democratic National Committee chairman and the term-limited Virginia governor: “We are disappointed.”

In both states, the surveys also suggested the Democrats had difficulty turning out their base, including the large numbers of first-time minority and youth voters whom Obama attracted. The Virginia electorate was whiter in 2009 than it was in 2008, when blacks and Hispanics voted in droves to elect the country’s first black president.

Democratic victories in both Virginia, a new swing state, and New Jersey, a Democratic stronghold, in 2005 preceded big Democratic years nationally in 2006 and 2008.

Tuesday’s impact on Obama’s popularity and on the 2010 elections could easily be overstated. Voters are often focused on local issues and local personalities.

Yet, national issues, like the recession, were clearly a factor, with voter attitudes shaped to some degree by how people feel about the state of their nation — and their place in it.

And, voter attitudes — particularly among independents — could bode ill for Democrats in moderate districts and in swing states like Ohio, Colorado and Nevada, should they remain unchanged when the party seeks to defend its turf next fall. In 2010, most governors, a third of the Senate and all members in the House will be on ballots.

It’s also difficult to separate Obama from the outcomes after he devoted a significant chunk of time working to persuade voters to elect Deeds in Virginia and re-elect Corzine in New Jersey.

More than four in 10 voters in Virginia said their view of Obama factored into their choice on Tuesday, and those voters roughly split between expressing support and opposition for the president. People who said they disapprove of Obama’s job performance voted overwhelmingly Republican, and those who approve of the president favored Deeds, the Democrat.

The Obama factor was similar in New Jersey, though there were slightly more voters who said the president did not factor into their choice.

Saudi court upholds child rapist crucifixion ruling

RIYADH (Reuters) – A Saudi court of cassation upheld a ruling to behead and crucify a 22-year-old man convicted of raping five children and leaving one of them to die in the desert, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

The convict was arrested earlier this year after a seven-year old boy helped police in their investigation. The child left in the desert after the rape was three years old, Okaz newspaper said.

International rights groups have accused the kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, of applying draconian justice, beheading murderers, rapists and drug traffickers in public. So far this year about 40 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia.

In Saudi Arabia, crucifixion means tying the body of the convict to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after beheading.

(Reporting by Souhail Karam; editing by Inal Ersan)

iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm Pre All Vulnerable To Spear-Phishing Experiment

Phony LinkedIn invitation from ‘Bill Gates’ lands in smartphone inboxes

Oct 28, 2009 | 04:59 PM

By Kelly Jackson Higgins
DarkReading

Three of the most popular smartphones — iPhone, BlackBerry, and Palm Pre — fell victim to a recent spear-phishing experiment that sent users a phony LinkedIn invitation from “Bill Gates,” according to the security expert who conducted the research.

The experiment, which was aimed at measuring the effectiveness of email security controls in several major products and services, demonstrated just how powerful social engineering can be and how little technology can do about it. Joshua Perrymon, CEO of PacketFocus, sent a spoofed LinkedIn email to users in different organizations who had agreed to participate in the test; he was able to get his spoofed message through 100 percent of the time. He tested 10 different combinations of email security appliances, services, and open-source and commercial products; four major client email products; and the three major smartphone brands.

The results took Perrymon by surprise; he has contacted the various affected vendors and is working with some of them to come up with “fixes,” or solutions, to the problem. He announced today that Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s BlackBerry, and Palm’s Palm Pre all failed the experiment, delivering the phony LinkedIn messages to users’ inboxes. Perrymon says he sent all three smartphone vendors his research paper and details on the experiment, but he has not received a response from any of them.

Next week, Perrymon plans to name the email appliances that failed the test, and the following week the email services that missed the phishing message.

At the time of this posting, neither Apple, RIM, nor Palm had responded to inquiries about Perrymon’s findings.

Perrymon says he worked with iPhone users who agreed to participate in his experiment, and he tested his own BlackBerry and Palm Pre phones. “What I found on the Palm and BlackBerry is [that there is] no protection to any type of phishing attacks,” he says. “The Palm runs on Linux, so I SSH’ed into it and looked around. The email client is built in JavaScript and made to download emails from a server — POP, IMAP, or Exchange. So if the hosted server doesn’t pick up on the email, then the phone gets the attack delivered.”

And it’s harder to spot a real attack in the smartphones because you can’t see the detailed email headers, he says.

Each of the smartphones’ browsers also let users click on the attack, so Perrymon says the issue is both in the phones’ email clients and browser software. “I’m working on client-side exploits on the phones, but not ready to release anything yet on that,” he says.

Perrymon, who performs spear-phishing assessments for clients, used his own phishing framework tool, called User Attack Framework (UAF), in the experiment. UAF automated the experimental attack and let him track its success. It also captured information about the “victim” after he or she clicked on the “invite” and was directed to the phishing site, including his or her IP address, user ID, location, browser, and operating system.

The trouble with socially engineered, targeted attacks is that there’s no real “patch” to protect products and users from falling for them. Email authentication technologies like PGP are not widely adopted, and it’s difficult for vendors to spot spoofed email messages, experts say.

Meanwhile, Perrymon says he told Apple, RIM, and Palm that even if they don’t have a fix for the attack, they should at least “address the issue.”

CNN’s Lou Dobbs Claims Shot Fired at Home, Wife

Recently a lot of hubbub had been made about the possibility that the peaceful tea party protests and some conservative voices would stir up emotions that could lead to violence. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was even one of those sounding that alarm.

But what has gone unsaid by those same voices has been the possibility of violence against those who might take a position antithetical to that of the left.

Case and point: CNN’s Lou Dobbs. Dobbs, who has been the target of a smear campaign by the left-wing noise machine, told his radio audience on Oct. 26 that his home had been shot at three weeks earlier. (Unabbreviated audio available here)

“But I want to tell you, when you talk about what they’ve done – they’ve created an atmosphere and they’ve been unrelenting in their propaganda,” Dobbs said. “Three weeks ago this morning, a shot was fired at my house where I live. My wife was standing out and that followed weeks and weeks of threatening phone calls.”

Dobbs detailed the event, the notification of law enforcement and threatening phone calls he had received after the fact.

“And, as I told the state patrol, and by the way, the New Jersey State Patrol is absolutely terrific – they responded instantly. But this shot was fired with my wife not, I don’t know, 15 feet away and we had threatening phone calls that I decided not to report because I get threatening phone calls,” Dobbs continued. “I now – it’s become a way of life – the anger, the hate, the vitriol, but it’s taken a different tone where they’ve threatened my wife. They’ve now fired a shot at my house while my wife was standing next to the car. It’s become something else.”

The CNN host later took a shot at the “national liberal media,” which he claims has taken a side on the immigration issue and has created this sort of reckless environment.

“But we’ve got to start being honest,” Dobbs said. “Instead, the national liberal media has chosen sides and they’ve decided that they’re going to focus on the liberal view, which is that they will embrace illegal immigration – no matter who is harmed, no matter how many laws are broken or how few consequences there are for breaking those laws.”

Dobbs had been attacked by Fox News host Geraldo Rivera earlier and told his listeners that following these events that he was in no mood for attacks from Rivera.

“My wife has now been, and I have been, shot at, our driver,” Dobbs said. “My house has been shot and hit. An investigation continues. I’ve had bodyguards now and you know what, I’m not in the mood to put up with little fools like Geraldo Rivera.”

Police: Celeb-Obsessed Teens Robbed Famous Victims

Police: Celebrity-obsessed teens used Web to target stars, then burglarize their homes

 

By THOMAS WATKINS Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES October 29, 2009 (AP)

A video still from a surveillance camera provided by the Los Angeles Police Department

For a group of Hollywood-obsessed teens, entertainment news on the Internet offered more than a glimpse into the lives of stars. It helped them break into celebrities’ homes.

The teens tracked the movements of stars such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and broke into their houses, making off with millions of dollars in stolen possessions in a spree that lasted almost a year.

With a few clicks on the Internet, police say, the suspects developed a wish list of designer clothes and jewelry, then raided the homes while celebrities were away.

“They thought it was fun, kind of an adrenaline rush,” Los Angeles police officer Brett Goodkin said. “They would go in and steal the celebrity’s clothes and possessions, things they could never afford on their own.”

Police last week arrested four young women and two men on suspicion of burglarizing 10 homes in the Hollywood Hills. In addition to Lohan and Hilton, other victims included “The Hills” star Audrina Patridge, Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, Brian Austin Green, Ashley Tisdale and Rachel Bilson.

Several of the group graduated two years ago from the “continuation campus” at Indian Hills High School in suburban Agoura Hills, said Donald Zimring, superintendent of the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

Such campuses are for students struggling to attain good grades in regular schools, but Zimring could not comment on their academic records.

Additionally, 18-year-old Nicholas Prugo was arrested last month in the same case on suspicion of breaking into the homes of Lohan and Patridge. A sixth suspect, 27-year-old Ray Lopez Jr., was also arrested.

Police also sought Jonathan Ajar, also 27, for a variety of offenses, including receiving stolen property and possession of a firearm.

Prosecutors have filed felony residential burglary charges against Neiers, Ames, Tamayo and Lopez Jr. They declined to file charges against Lee, pending further investigation, and additional charges will be filed against Prugo, who had already been charged with burglaries at Lohan and Patridge’s homes.

Police recovered three guns and a large amount of drugs as they served search warrants in the case. They did not specify where they searched.

The robberies were driven by “celebrity infatuation and greed,” Goodkin said.

Neiers had been the subject of a reality-TV pilot episode that the Los Angeles Times said was about aspiring actresses.

The cable network E! would not confirm that, but network officials issued a brief statement they “are concerned by recent events, awaiting further details and will be monitoring the situation closely.” The statement said shooting began recently and would continue.

 In a short interview on E!’s Web site, Neiers said she was eager to put the matter behind her.

“I just learned my lesson that I need to make some better friends and some better decisions as far as my friends go,” she said.

An attorney representing some of the victims said the crimes highlight the growing risks faced by celebrities in a world of unending media attention. Blair Berk worried this was putting a “bull’s-eye on the forehead of celebrities.”

“You cannot on a weekly basis publish pictures of the back entrance to someone’s house and do stories on their collection of cars and jewelry without increasing that person’s vulnerability to theft and harm,” Berk said. “It’s a celebrity envy thing.

“It’s the new sociopath generation of ‘I really like those Chanel boots.’ Instead of going out and buying them, they just steal them.”

Lee appeared to be the “driving force” behind the burglaries, Goodkin said. Attempts to reach her, Lopez and Ames were unsuccessful. A man who answered the phone at a number registered to Tamayo declined to comment or to say whether she had an attorney.

Court records show Lee and Tamayo were convicted of petty theft earlier this year.

Neiers’ attorney, Jeffrey K. Rubenstein, released a short statement saying his client “was at the wrong place at the wrong time” and is “not the party responsible for the events that led to her arrest.”

Prugo’s attorney, Sean Erenstoft, downplayed his client’s role in the burglaries. He declined to elaborate, but said Prugo was pleased that others had been caught.

Erenstoft said he had not yet reviewed any evidence in the case, which includes video surveillance from some celebrity homes.

Publicists for Lohan and Bloom did not immediately respond to e-mails seeking comment. Patridge’s publicist declined to comment.

Paris Hilton retrieved stolen belongings, including most of her missing jewelry, from police, but did not get everything she lost, her publicist said.