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From: Craig Quigley To: Craig Quigley Subject: EXECUTIVE INSIGHT BRIEF - March 3, 2017 Date: Monday, March 06, 2017 9:20:37 AM

Ladies & Gentlemen, below please find this week’s edition of Executive Insight Brief from The Roosevelt Group.

Craig R. Quigley Rear , U.S. Navy (Ret.) Executive Director Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance 757-644-6324 (Office) 757-419-1164 (Cell)

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT BRIEF | March 3, 2017

TOP STORIES

JEFF SESSIONS RECUSES HIMSELF FROM INQUIRY. Attorney , facing a storm of criticism over newly disclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States, recused himself on Thursday from any investigation into charges that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Read more

ISIS DUMPED BODIES IN A DESERT SINKHOLE. IT MAY BE YEARS BEFORE WE KNOW THE FULL SCALE OF THE KILLINGS. The horror stories about the Islamic State’s mass killings at a cavernous hole in the desert near Mosul became legendary over the years. Soon after the group took control of the Iraqi city more than 2½ years ago, the 100-foot-wide sinkhole five miles southwest of the airport became a site for summary executions. Read more

TRUMP’S DEFENSE SPENDING INCREASE ISN’T EXTRAORDINARY, BUT ITS IMPACT COULD BE. On Monday, the White House announced the first few details of President Trump’s budget proposal, expected to be released within the next month. He plans to increase defense spending by $54 billion — about 10 percent of its 2017 budget. In his joint address to Congress Tuesday night, he falsely called it “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.” Read more

KIM JONG-NAM KILLING: N KOREAN SUSPECT TO BE DEPORTED. Malaysia has condemned the use of toxic nerve agent VX that killed the estranged half-brother of 's leader at an airport packed with travelers, as authorities moved to deport a North Korean suspect. Kim Jong- nam was murdered on February 13 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where he was assaulted by two women who allegedly smeared his face with VX, a chemical classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction. Read more

UN: 4,000 CIVILIANS FLEE MOSUL EACH DAY AMID FIGHTING. Intense battles between Iraqi security forces and ISIL fighters in Mosul are causing increasing numbers of displaced people, with 4,000 civilians fleeing the city each day, according to the United Nations. More than 28,000 people have been forced from their homes since a coalition of US-backed Iraqi forces launched an offensive on February 19 to retake the western sector of Mosul, ISIL's last urban stronghold in Iraq, the UN said. Read more

IN POSSIBLE RESPONSE TO TRUMP, EU PARLIAMENT CALLS TO END VISA-FREE TRAVEL FOR US CITIZENS. In what has been called a “visa war,” the European Union’s parliament on Thursday called on the bloc to force American tourists visiting Europe to first obtain visas because the U.S. excludes five EU countries from its no-visa policy. reported that the request is unlikely to change policy, but reflects “hostility among some European politicians to the Trump administration.” Read more

CASEY ANTHONY JUDGE: SHE PROBABLY KILLED HER DAUGHTER -- BY ACCIDENT. Casey Anthony was "more than likely" the person who used too much chloroform that killed her 2-year-old daughter, the former judge who presided over the case told HLN on Thursday. Belvin Perry, a retired Florida judge who is now an attorney, told HLN's "On The Story" that he thinks the death of Caylee Anthony was the result of someone overdosing the child with chloroform, which is banned in the United States as an anesthetic. Read more

FLORIDA JUDGE BLOCKS RELEASE OF WIFE OF PULSE NIGHTCLUB SHOOTER. A federal judge in Orlando on Thursday stayed a California judge's decision to grant bail to the wife of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen. The stay granted by U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron means that Noor Salman, 30, will not be freed on $500,000 bail on Friday as planned. The ruling sets up a schedule for briefings to argue the matter. Read more

MAN ACCUSED OF CYBER-STALKING, THREATENING SOME JEWISH CENTERS. A St. Louis man was arrested Friday for making some of the threats against Jewish Community Centers and other institutions that have been part of a surge of intimidation nationwide. The threats were an attempt to intimidate a particular person after a romantic relationship, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York. Read more

ADMINISTRATION

WHITE HOUSE PUSHING BACK AGAINST MATTIS APPOINTMENT. Secretary of Defense wants to tap the former U.S. ambassador to , Anne Patterson, as his undersecretary of defense for policy, but chief is running into resistance from White House officials, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation. Read more

MELANIA TRUMP READS DR. SEUSS TO CHILDREN IN FIRST SOLO OUTING AS FIRST LADY. Melania Trump made her first solo foray in public as first lady on Thursday, visiting a hospital pediatric wing to read to sick children. Mrs. Trump, who has been reluctant to embrace the high-profile and ill-defined role of presidential spouse, began with a brief and simple outing: an afternoon reading of a Dr. Seuss book in honor of the author’s birthday and National Read Across America Day. Read more

JOE BIDEN JUST RIPPED PRESIDENT TRUMP FOR HIS ‘CORROSIVE’ ATTACKS ON THE COURTS. Without mentioning President Trump, former vice president delivered a reminder that the executive branch's power is limited and that disparaging the judiciary that is supposed to check that power is “corrosive” and “dangerous.” “The almost [constant] drumbeat of denigration of the institutional structures that govern us is dangerous,” Biden said during an impassioned speech Wednesday. Read more

CONGRESS SENATE CONFIRMS PERRY FOR ENERGY SECRETARY. The Senate on Thursday confirmed to lead the Energy Department – an agency he once pledged to eliminate. Perry, the former Texas governor and a two- time Republican presidential candidate, was confirmed on a 62-37 vote. The Senate confirmed Perry after only a few hours of debate on Thursday afternoon, moving unexpectedly quickly on the final cabinet – level member of President Trump’s energy and environment team. Read more

IN CHAOTIC SCENE, DEMANDS TO SEE THE HOUSE GOP'S OBAMACARE REPEAL BILL. Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul marched to the House side of the Capitol Thursday morning, knocked on a locked door and demanded to see a copy of the House's bill to repeal and replace the , which he believed was being kept under lock and key. Aides in the room told the senator -- before dozens of reporters in a crowded hallway -- that there was no bill to see. Read more

GOP’S BOLD PREDICTION: OBAMACARE REPEAL WILL PASS THIS MONTH. Take it to the bank, GOP leaders are all but declaring: The House will vote to repeal and replace by the end of this month. Their confidence, coming after months of dead ends and false starts, is fueled by the belief that President has their back — even if some conservatives currently don't. At a closed-door meeting with Republicans on Thursday, Speaker said he plans for the House to hold a vote on the leadership's Obamacare alternative in three weeks, sources in the room told . Read more

POLITICS

KUSHNER AND FLYNN MET WITH RUSSIAN ENVOY IN DECEMBER, WHITE HOUSE SAYS. Michael T. Flynn, then Donald J. Trump’s incoming national security adviser, had a previously undisclosed meeting with the Russian ambassador in December to “establish a line of communication” between the new administration and the Russian government, the White House said on Thursday. , Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and now a senior adviser, also participated in the meeting at Trump Tower with Mr. Flynn and Sergey I. Read more

HACKERS ACCESSED A PRIVATE EMAIL ACCOUNT PENCE USED FOR OFFICIAL BUSINESS AS INDIANA GOVERNOR. Vice President Pence used a private email account that was later compromised while he served as governor of Indiana, his office confirmed Thursday. The existence of the account was first reported by the Indy Star, which obtained copies of Pence's emails through a Freedom of Information request. The paper reported that Pence used the account to conduct government business, including corresponding about potentially sensitive issues. Read more

NEW INTERIOR SECRETARY ZINKE REVERSES LAST-MINUTE OBAMA LEAD-AMMUNITION BAN. On his first full day in office, Interior Secretary issued an order Thursday reversing a last-minute action by the Obama administration to ban lead ammunition and fish tackle used on national wildlife refuges. Gun-rights supporters condemned the earlier order — issued a day before Obama left office Jan. 20 — as nakedly political. The order was intended to protect birds from lead poisoning, the Obama administration said. Read more

DEFENSE AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

PENTAGON DELIVERS INTERIM AT&L MEMO TO CONGRESS. The Department of Defense is looking at a greater realignment of the roles held by the undersecretary of defense for acquisitions, technology and logistics, or AT&L, than is required by Congress, and the agency hopes to craft a chief management officer position to handle department wide business processes, according to a memo obtained by Defense News. Read more

US FORCES CONDUCT MORE THAN 20 AIRSTRIKES ON AL QAEDA IN . The U.S. military battered al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch with more than 20 airstrikes overnight Thursday in the first known military operation in the country since a controversial raid that left one Navy SEAL dead. “U.S. forces conducted a series of precision strikes in Yemen against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, in the early morning of March 2,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said in a statement Thursday. Read more

AL-QAIDA CONFIRMS DEPUTY LEADER KILLED IN U.S. STRIKE IN . A U.S. airstrike in Syria earlier this week killed the deputy leader of al- Qaida, known as Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, the group confirmed on Thursday. The death brings a significant blow to the terror network and points to the central role Syria has taken in its operations. Al-Masri, a veteran Egyptian militant, was the deputy of al-Qaida's leader Ayman al-Zawahri, and the organization's senior figure in Syria. He coordinated al-Qaida's work with other militant groups and played a direct role in developing external plots, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official, who was not authorized to discuss the issue and spoke on condition of anonymity. Read more

ECONOMY AND FINANCE

AMERICAN BANK PROFITS ARE HIGHER THAN EVER. Not only did the banking industry notch its third year of record profits in the past four, but FDIC statistics published this week showed that loan growth was strong and the number of "problem banks" fell to a seven-year low. The strong 2016 results stand in contrast with the dark picture painted by President Trump and Republicans who want to rip up financial regulation. Trump has vowed to "do a big number" on Dodd-Frank, calling the 2010 reform law a "disaster." He recently signed an executive order that began the process of dialing back bank regulation. Read more

SNAP JUMPS IN DEBUT AFTER APP MAKER RAISES $3.4 BILLION IN IPO. Snap Inc., maker of the disappearing photo app that relies upon the fickle favor of millennials, jumped in its trading debut after pricing its initial public offering above the marketed range. Shares opened at $24 and traded as high as $25.42 apiece Thursday, giving the company a market valuation of about $29 billion, based on the total number of shares outstanding after the offering in the deal prospectus. Read more

MASAYOSHI SON, SPRINT AND A BET ON THE TRUMP ECONOMY. The world’s largest technology investor is preparing to ramp up his bet on the Trump economy. Masayoshi Son, the billionaire technology entrepreneur from , promised President Trump late last year that he would create 50,000 new jobs in the United States through a $100 billion technology fund. Now, Mr. Son and his financial advisers are weighing several major possible deals for Sprint, the struggling American wireless operator controlled by Mr. Son’s SoftBank. Read more

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT EPA HALTS INQUIRY INTO OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY EMISSIONS OF METHANE, A POWERFUL GREENHOUSE GAS. The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday announced it was withdrawing a request that operators of existing oil and gas wells provide the agency with extensive information about their equipment and its emissions of methane, undermining a last-ditch Obama administration climate change initiative. Read more

EPA PULLS BACK METHANE REQUEST FOR DRILLERS. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is withdrawing its request that oil and gas drillers provide regulators with information about methane emissions. Under former President Obama, officials had asked drillers to give the EPA data about methane emissions and equipment at existing oil and gas wells. Read more

LIFE WITHOUT PHOSPHATE – MYSTERY SOLVED? Scientists in Boston may have solved a longstanding mystery – how early life developed on an Earth where phosphate, a chemical so vital to a vast range of biological processes today, was unavailable. Their work has led to an intriguing question – could an ancient sulfur-based metabolism have formed a key stepping stone towards life as we know it today? Read more

TECHNOLOGY

GOOGLE’S ROBOCAR LAWSUIT COULD KILL UBER’S FUTURE AND SEND EXEC TO PRISION. Uber was having a bad month even before Waymo, Google’s self-driving car outfit, filed a bombshell lawsuit accusing the ridesharing giant of swiping gobs of its autonomous driving tech. Now, on top of political criticisms of CEO Travis Kalanick and accusations of a sexist corporate culture, the company must worry about a legal dispute that could cost it a truckload of money, kill its self-driving research, and even land more than one executive in prison. Read more

MEDICAL DEVICES ARE THE NEXT SECURITY NIGHTMARE. Hacked medical devices make for scary headlines. ordered changes to his pacemaker to better protect it from hackers. Johnson & Johnson warned customers about a security bug in one of its insulin pumps last fall. And St. Jude has spent months dealing with the fallout of vulnerabilities in some of the company’s defibrillators, pacemakers, and other medical electronics. You’d think by now medical device companies would have learned something about security reform. Experts warn they haven’t. Read more

ONLY ICE CAN SLOW DOWN THE TERRIFYING FENCE-CLIMBING ROBOT. Since the world first saw Ghost Robotics’ Minitaur robot last September, our best scientists have been racking their brains, asking themselves one question: how do you escape from a robot that can climb stairs, scale fences, and open doors? Finally, after months of study, we have an answer: ice. Read more