Monday Mourning & US Wins World Cup!

FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM

Career launch. Editor Lindy Kyzer explains, “Many careers fizzle around the fifteen year mark – maybe you’ve made a transition you regret, you’re stuck in a dead end job with a boss you hate, or you’re just confused about what step to take. These tips apply to you, as much as they do to the recent graduate. Keep them in mind and empower your career for an impressive take off. . . .”

Work-life balance. Contributor Ana Sherman offers, “[A]s the job market picks up, companies are touting ways they promote work-life balance among their benefits. From floating holidays, to remote work options, to flexible hours, to rotating days off, employers realize that the idea of a traditional office environment with established hours no longer appeals to job seekers who have embraced work-life balance culture. So how exactly do we master maintaining a balanced load? It’s certainly a process, but these tips have helped me even the scales . . . .”

THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

Defending Iran. Reuters’ Louis Charbonneau reports, “Tehran and Washington, which have called each other the ‘Great Satan’ and a member of the ‘Axis of Evil’ during 36 years of hostility, are more used to exchanging insults than defending each other. The two foes cut diplomatic ties after Iranian revolutionaries seized 52 hostages in Tehran’s U.S. embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Yet for a month now the U.S. State Department has been defending Iran from suggestions that it was on the verge of violating a requirement to reduce its low-enriched uranium stockpile under a 2013 interim nuclear with major powers.” See also, “The Other Reason the Iranians Are Edging Toward a Nuclear Deal.”

Assad’s chemical option. Homeland Security News Wire reports, “U.S. intelligence agencies say there is a strong possibility the Assad regime will use chemical weapons on a large scale as part of a last-ditch effort to protect important Syrian government strongholds, or if the regime felt it had no other way to defend the core territory of its most reliable supporters, the Alawites. . . . U.S., European, and Israeli intelligence services say that after the most toxic chemicals were removed and more than a dozen chemical weapons production site dismantled, the Assad regime has developed and deployed a new type of chemical bomb filled with chlorine. U.S. intelligence officials say Assad may now decide to use these weapons on a larger scale in key strategic areas.”

Russia and Saudi Arabia: common ground. Christian Science Monitor’s Fred Weir reports, “As two of the world’s biggest oil producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia working together have the potential to dominate the globe’s petroleum markets. . . . Some experts perceive signs of an ‘emerging partnership’ driven by shifting global winds, in which Saudi cash helps Moscow dodge Western sanctions, while Russian arms, engineering expertise, and diplomatic support assist the energetic new Saudi king to wean his country from dependency on an increasingly uncooperative US.” See also, “ISIS in Afghanistan on Putin and Xi Jinping’s summit agenda.”

Talisman Sabre underway. Defense News reports, “The United States and Australia kicked off a massive joint biennial military exercise on Sunday, with Japan taking part for the first time as tensions with China over territorial rows loom over the drills. The two-week ‘Talisman Sabre’ exercise in the Northern Territory and Queensland state involves 30,000 personnel from the US and Australia practicing operations at sea, in the air and on land. Some 40 personnel from Japan’s army — the Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) — will join the American contingent, while more than 500 troops from New Zealand are also involved in the exercise, which concludes on July 21.”

CONTRACT WATCH

Contractors’ shoddy cyber defenses. Nextgov’s Aliya Sternstein reports, “After revelations that a compromised contractor login abetted a grandiose breach of federal employees’ background investigations, now comes word that Defense Department suppliers score below hacked retailers when it comes to cyber defense. The new industry-developed cyber rankings — and the recent Office of Personnel Management hack — raise questions about the extent to which cybersecurity is a shared responsibility between government agencies and contractors.”

Pasternack’s EW and SATCOM amplifiers. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “Pasternack Enterprises Inc. in Irvine, Calif., is introducing rugged solid-state high-power amplifiers for electronic warfare (EW), instrumentation, military communications, radar, satellite communications (SATCOM), telecommunications, data links, and medical devices. These coaxial packaged RF and microwave amplifiers cover UHF, VHF, L, S, and C frequency bands and are designed to withstand environmental conditions like humidity, altitude, shock, and vibration.”

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

Hacking Team hacked. Help Net Security’s Zeljka Zorz reports, “Hacking Team, the (in)famous Italian company that provides offensive intrusion and surveillance software to governments, intelligence and law enforcement agencies around the world, has been hacked. The unknown attackers have not only managed to steal the company’s data, but they have also decided to share it with the world. After hijacking Hacking Team’s official Twitter account (and changing its name into ‘Hacked Team’), they tweeted a link to a 400GB+ torrent file containing the company’s internal emails, files and source code.”

VA’s cybersecurity sprint. FierceGovernmentIT’s Molly Bernhart Walker reports, “The Veterans Affairs Department is using the recent information system breaches at the Office of Personnel Management as an opportunity to review current security practices and push existing protocols that may not have been fully implemented. It’s all part of the work being done at VA as part of a post-OPM breach ‘30-day cybersecurity sprint’ orchestrated by the Office of Management and Budget . . . .” See also, “White House sprints to patch security flaws.”

NSA’s Brazilian portfolio. The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports, “WikiLeaks disclosed documents Saturday detailing the National Security Agency’s wiretapping of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. They said the NSA also spied on Rousseff’s secretary, her chief of staff and other top Brazilian government officials . . . . WikiLeaks said the NSA eavesdropped on 29 critical Brazilian phone numbers, including Rousseff’s palace office line and her presidential jet’s number. It also wiretapped phone numbers for Brazil’s foreign minister, ambassadors and military chiefs. The group said the NSA conducted an ‘economic espionage campaign’ by spying on those in charge of Brazil’s economy. That initiative targeted the head of Brazil’s Central Bank.”

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

Fissures. “The Senate’s arcane rules are creating new fissures in the 2016 presidential primary: Candidates from outside Washington are vowing to gut the filibuster in order to repeal the Affordable Care Act, while GOP senators pursuing the White House want to keep the time-honored 60-vote threshold. Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt is aiming to turn the obscure Senate rules into a litmus test for Republicans candidates, asking every contender on his radio show if they are prepared to kill what remains of the Senate’s supermajority requirement to gut Obamacare. It’s a hypothetical issue that depends on two big ifs . . . but one that would have major political repercussions for years to come if Washington ever went through with it.”

Duck season. “President Obama is making it clear that he’s not letting up on his job until a new commander in chief is sworn in, even as his eight years in office are drawing to a close. ‘[M]y instructions to myself have always been that we are going to squeeze every last ounce of progress that we can make as long as I have the privilege of holding this office,’ Obama said . . . . With yet another deadline looming before the highway trust fund runs out again, Obama said he wants to go beyond replenishing it in the short term and pursue an infrastructure building initiative.”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

An Unacceptable Danger.” US News contributor Evan Moore argues, “To deal with the rising global threat of Islamist terrorism, the president should stop thinking in terms of ‘targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists.’ . . . To defeat this threat, it must be defeated as a whole, as part of a global war on terror.”

Russia Must Focus Less on Ukraine, More on IS.The Moscow Times contributor Natalia Antonova argues, “Russians can certainly point the finger at destructive U.S. misadventures in the Middle East as having given rise to the IS in the first place, but that can’t and won’t make the IS go away.”

Kurdish independence and the role of Kurdish leaders and intellectuals.” Rudaw contributor Huseyin Tunc argues, “Emancipated Kurds in Turkey and Syria and an independent Iraqi Kurdistan will serve each other and the Kurds overall. The Kurdish intellectuals and leaders have a pivotal role to play in fostering unity among Kurds, rather than fomenting the seeds of disunity, even if this is not deliberate.”

THE FUNNIES

Soul musak.

Jurassic debate.

Modern science.

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Ed Ledford enjoys the most challenging, complex, and high stakes communications requirements. His portfolio includes everything from policy and strategy to poetry. A native of Asheville, N.C., and retired Army Aviator, Ed’s currently writing speeches in D.C. and working other writing projects from his office in Rockville, MD. He loves baseball and enjoys hiking, camping, and exploring anything. Follow Ed on Twitter @ECLedford.