Update
My Marine Buddy from Louisiana , John Payne, who got a lung just before I did, is still here in the VA Hospital. Between visiting him every day, a new nebulizer treatment that added 30 minutes to my day, and physical therapy Friday morning, I didn't get through all of the email. but there is a lot worth reading in this post. ~Bob
General News and Comment
Excerpt: After much controversy and a lack of interest from candidates and voters, the 2015 Iowa Straw poll has been cancelled after a vote from the Republican Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee. The poll was originally set to take place on August 8.
Important: Obama-backed trade bill fails in the House
Excerpt: President Obama suffered a major defeat to his Pacific Rim free trade initiative Friday as House Democrats helped derail a key presidential priority despite his last-minute, personal plea on Capitol Hill. The House voted 302 to 126 to sink a measure to grant financial aid to displaced workers, fracturing hopes at the White House that Congress would grant Obama fast-track trade authority to complete an accord with 11 other Pacific Rim nations. (I'm for free trade--it is part of having a growing economy. But Obama handled this in his usual way, with secrecy, and rumors of bad provisions on things like immigration, which gave the unions a big win. The result will be fewer jobs. ~Bob)
Mark Levin interviews Jeff Sessions on ObamaTrade deal
http://therightscoop.com/must-listen-mark-levin-interviews-jeff-sessions-on-obamatrade-deal/#ixzz3cpcigqWK
http://therightscoop.com/must-listen-mark-levin-interviews-jeff-sessions-on-obamatrade-deal/#ixzz3cpcigqWK
Excerpt: Jeff Sessions explains to Mark Levin how bad this ObamaTrade bill is, that it even creates an international community that is in many ways similar to how the European Union began, putting us in partnership with 12 countries and giving them the power to make laws or rules that put us in a bind, essentially ceding our sovereignty to them. It is really bad. And as we already know, Obama will use it to push his climate change agenda as well.
Racist! Pelosi Says No To Obamatrade
Mika: Questions About Clinton
Excerpt: MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski went after Hillary Clinton for her response to Clinton Foundation scandals Friday, calling her behavior “sneaky” and adding questions “scream out” about the group’s accepting of money from foreign governments and pay-for-play allegations while she ran the State Department. ... Brzezinski, a liberal who openly declared Friday she wants a Democrat to win and to see a first woman president, has expressed consistent frustration with Clinton.
WHISTLEBLOWER: Senior State Department Officials Under Hillary Clinton Quashed Investigations into Alleged Misconduct. By Andrew Stiles
Excerpt: The Washington Examiner has followed up on a previous report exposing the Clinton State Department’s efforts to cover up alleged misconduct with new details about some of the “most egregious” examples of investigations thwarted by agency staff, and the frustration felt by investigators:
Hidden junket funds: How Deval Patrick secretly diverted millions to off-budget accounts
Excerpt: Former Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration secretly diverted nearly $27 million in public money to off-budget accounts that paid for a $1.35 million trade junket tab, bloated advertising contracts, and a deal with a federally subsidized tourism venture backed by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, a Herald investigation has found. The maneuver to fatten the hidden “trust” accounts with millions from state quasi-public agencies allowed Patrick to skirt the state Legislature and evade state budget cutbacks during the recession, the Herald found.
Massachusetts House Launches Investigation Into Deval Patrick’s Hidden Accounts
http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/12/massachusetts-house-launches-investigation-into-deval-patricks-hidden-accounts/#ixzz3ct4QC8bN
Excerpt: Democratic state Rep. David Linsky is the chairman of the House Post Audit Committee and announced the investigation Thursday.
Excerpt: Democratic state Rep. David Linsky is the chairman of the House Post Audit Committee and announced the investigation Thursday.
If the Secret Service goes through with this…we’re ALL going to jail
Excerpt: You see, The US Secret Service is advertising on the Federal Business Opportunities website for developers who can create software that will detect SARCASM on social media. I kid you not. As The Hill reports, In an online notice posted on Monday, the agency said that it was looking for a “social media analytics software tool” that could “detect sarcasm and false positives,” among other features.
Carly Fiorina's New Presidential Ad
Forbidden at the University of California : “America Is the Land of Opportunity Arnold
Excerpt: The progressive storm troopers at the University of California
Totalitarianism on Campus: UC Professors Instructed Not to Say ‘ America is the Land of Opportunity
Excerpt: If I didn’t know any better, I would say that this article at The College Fix is clever satire, but what is going on under University of California President Janet Napolitano Del )
Obama. From The Patriot Post
"Your petulance is unbecoming, Mr. President, and your criticism of anyone who disagrees with you is downright unmanly. You come off like a spoiled child who has been denied his way. And while you blame your shortcomings on opposing political parties, you have had both houses of Congress and the White House in the first two years of your term. Plus an electoral mandate to do just about anything you wanted to, so the least you can do is cowboy up and take the blame for the messes you’ve made." —Charlie Daniels
Scott Walker Says Supporters Have Suggested Walker-Rubio 2016 Ticket. By John McCormick
Excerpt: Some who have talked to the governor privately about a possible pairing say they have been surprised by how seriously he seems to be taking the prospect.
Judge Rules Administrative Court System Illegal After 81 Years
Excerpt: A federal judge’s ruling against the Securities and Exchange Commission for using its own Administrative Law judges in an insider trading case is perhaps the beginning of the end of an alternative system of justice that took root in the New Deal. Constitutionally, the socialists tore everything about the idea of a Democracy apart. It was more than taxing one party to the cheers of another in denial of equal protection. It was about creating administrative agencies (1) delegating them to create rules with the force of law as if passed by Congress sanctioned by the people; (2) the creation of administrative courts that defeated the Tripartite government structure usurping all power into the hand of the executive branch, as if this were a dictatorship run by the great hoard of unelected officials.
The GOP racing form, second edition. By Charles Krauthammer
Excerpt: The Republican nominating race is a mess: a strong field, but with 10 declared candidates and a half-dozen more to come, we need a bouncer to keep order.
I’ve given myself the job. Rope lines separate the four categories.
Summer Vacation: Michelle Obama to visit London
Excerpt: US First Lady Michelle Obama is to visit London to highlight her efforts to boost girls' education around the world. The visit, later in June, is part of the Let Girls Learn initiative....Mrs Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, and daughters Malia and Sasha will accompany her on the trip.
A Nation In Decline--Nowhere To Run
Excerpt: Today we live in a confused society torn between rational selfishness, abject greed, and a morally destructive altruism. When a nation's people reach the point that none matter but themselves or that none are more important than a misconstrued conception of morality, that nation is doomed. We, the American people, have now reached this self destructive stage, waiting only for the ultimate fall. (Heard somewhere that some of the millionaires are entering their "holes" of safety now....Barb)
Labor Department Employee Looked At Porn For HOURS Every Day
http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/11/labor-department-employee-looked-at-porn-for-hours-every-day/#ixzz3coI1OpN4
http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/11/labor-department-employee-looked-at-porn-for-hours-every-day/#ixzz3coI1OpN4
Excerpt: A Department of Labor (DOL) official looked at porn for hours every single day and wasn’t fired for months. The Daily Caller first reported that a DOL “Grade 14 employee” — who made between $107,325 and $139,523 per year on the taxpayer dime — was caught looking at pornography at work on his official government computer.... DOL could have vetted the porn addict before he ever started getting taxpayer money.
Rising Dragon News
A Chinese Ebola Drug Raises Hopes, and Rancor
Excerpt: Within three months, using information in ZMapp’s patent, Dr. Li and his colleagues had copied the active part of ZMapp and used the company’s specialized cells to produce the antibodies. A month later, with the help of the Chinese pharmaceutical company Hisun, they had 100 doses.... The United States government holds a patent on one of the antibodies in ZMapp, which was developed with support from American and Canadian military research agencies, a legacy of fears that Ebola could be used as a biological weapon by the Soviet Union or, later, by terrorists. (So, the African article noting US and Canadian military research undertaken in Africa as the Ebola outbreak occurred may not have been without merit.... It was pooh-poohed by many at the height of the epidemic. --Barb)
The No Scandal Administration
Excerpt: There is a severe void of information from our government concerning the massive hack into the Office of Personnel Management that is only now coming out in various media reports, including some from ABC News and The Hill. Via the former: The massive hack into federal systems announced last week was far deeper and potentially more problematic than publicly acknowledged, with hackers believed to be from China moving through government databases undetected for more than a year, sources briefed on the matter told ABC News. “If [only] they knew the full extent of it,” one U.S. official said about those affected by the intrusion into the Office of Personnel Management’s information systems.
The Effect of China
Excerpt: When the Office of Personnel Management announced that the data of four million past and present federal employees were taken by China , it could have been running damage control. The American, the largest union for federal employees, accused OPM of being not forthright about the hack. The union believes China targeted the Central Personnel File and is now in possession of the information of every federal employee, including those who retired and left the government’s employ. But it could be much, much worse. An unnamed government official told ABC News China could have targeted the database that stored government employees' SF-86 forms — the 127-page form public workers fill out when they apply for a security clearance.
Officials: Second Hack Exposed Military And Intel Data
Excerpt: Hackers linked to China appear to have gained access to the sensitive background information submitted by intelligence and military personnel for security clearances, several U.S. officials said Friday, describing a second cyberbreach of federal records that could dramatically compound the potential damage.
Excerpt: With each passing day the U.S. government’s big hacking scandal gets worse. Just what did hackers steal from the Office of Personnel Management? Having initially assured the public that the loss was not all that serious, OPM’s data breach now looks very grave. The lack of database encryption appears foolhardy, while OPM ignoring repeated warnings about its cyber vulnerabilities implies severe dysfunction in Washington . To say nothing of the news that hackers were scouring OPM systems for over a year before they were detected. It’s alarming that intruders got hold of information about every federal worker, particularly because OPM previously conceded that “only” 4 million employees, past and present, had been compromised, including 2.1 million current ones. Each day brings worse details about what stands as the biggest data compromise since Edward Snowden stole1.7 million classified documents and fled to Russia .
The OPM Hacking Scandal Just Got Worse. By John R. Schindler
Excerpt: The other day I explained in detail how the mega-hack of the Office of Personnel Management’s internal servers looks like a genuine disaster for the U.S. Government, a setback that will have long-lasting and painful counterintelligence consequences. In particular I explained what the four million Americans whose records have been purloined may be in for: Whoever now holds OPM’s records possesses something like the Holy Grail from a CI perspective. They can target Americans in their database for recruitment or influence. After all, they know their vices, every last one — the gambling habit, the inability to pay bills on time, the spats with former spouses, the taste for something sexual on the side (perhaps with someone of a different gender than your normal partner) — since all that is recorded in security clearance paperwork (to get an idea of how detailed this gets, you can see the form, called an SF86,here).
Gun News
70-year-old security guard shoots suspect trying to break into his van on East Side
Excerpt: A security guard in his 70s had to open fire on an assailant after the man tried to break into his van on the East Side , according to the San Antonio Police Department.
Would-be burglar shot climbing through doggie door
Excerpt: Police said he went through the doggie door in the back of the house. When the homeowner walked in, he came face to face with the burglar.
The homeowner told police he pulled a .40-caliber handgun and shot the intruder three to four times, hitting him once in the head.
Obama quietly implementing OUTRAGEOUS rule against gun owners
Excerpt: Message to President Obama: get a strategy to defeat ISIS , because we are not going to allow you to disarm our citizenry so your Islamist pals can overtake us here in our homeland. And I say that fully aware that PSD-11 demonstrates the Obama administration’s collusion with the Muslim Brotherhood — and we know exactly what the Brotherhood has intended for America in their Explanatory Memorandum written in 1991 by Mohammed Akhram. In case you don’t know, a secret directive called Presidential Study Directive-11, or PSD-11 was produced in 2011 and outlines administration support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Bankruptcy On The Horizon For Colt
http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/11/bankruptcy-on-the-horizon-for-colt/#ixzz3coJinAu1
http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/11/bankruptcy-on-the-horizon-for-colt/#ixzz3coJinAu1
Excerpt: The American gunmaker Colt is currently in a downward financial spiral, CNN Money reports. For over 160 years, Colt has been a key player in the gun industry. However, the company has reluctantly admitted they have been in a state of financial turmoil since missing a $10.9 million interest payment in May. (What? No Regime intervention to save this company? Maybe the Chinese or Russians will buy it. --Barb)
Democrat Proposes Bill Banning Plastic Guns
Excerpt: Here they go again trying to ban an inanimate object, thinking it will make us all safer. Of course, I don’t think they actually think it will make anyone safer. Anytime a politician says he’s concerned with our safety or security, you can bet that he’s lying. After all, his lips are moving. Breitbart reported:
Race Card News
‘Are you an African American?’ Why an NAACP official isn’t saying. By Justin Wm. Moyer
Excerpt: A controversy is raging over whether a prominent Washington state civil rights activist and Howard University
Rachel Dolezal, 37, is the president of the Spokane NAACP and has claimed to be the victim of a number of hate crimes. As questions were raised about the veracity of some of her reports this week, a white couple from Montana came forward to claim that Dolezal is their daughter. (I would expect one/thirty-second Cherokee-by-family-legend Sen. Elizabeth Warren would come to her defense. ~Bob one/sixteenth-Cree-by-family-legend Hall)
Marilyn Mosby’s Father Was A ‘Crooked Cop,’ Police Officer Grandfather Sued For Racial Discrimination. By Chuck Ross
Excerpt: Start with Mosby’s father, a former Boston police officer named Alan James. In 1989, James and a fellow officer named Dwight Allen were arrested and charged with assault and battery for their role in several armed robberies in a high-crime area of Boston . ... Mosby has not publicly acknowledged this mark on her family’s policing legacy. Though, according to the Brew, she acknowledged her father’s troubled past in a biography written for her campaign for state’s attorney. “My dad was a crooked cop,” Mosby said, according to the document, which was not released to the public. “He confiscated drugs and money from the dealers on a regular basis.”
Excerpt: After the death of Freddie Gray and the resulting violence, Baltimore has seen a huge shift in the number of arrests, shootings, and homicides.
Students At All-Boys High School In Inner City LA Are Making Headlines For All The Right Reasons
Excerpt: The Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles isn’t known for educational and economic opportunity. In fact, it’s one of the roughest neighborhoods in the city. But members of the Verbum Dei High School class of 2015 are doing something very few of their neighbors have done. Though only 2.9 percent of Watts adults have a four-year degree, 100 percent of Verbum Dei’s graduates are heading to college in the fall. (The Democrats will want to put an end to this. If the grads become successful, they might not vote right! As I say repeatedly, it's not race, it's culture. ~Bob)
Judge Finds Probable Cause To Charge Cleveland
Excerpt: A Cleveland judge found that Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback should be charged in the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Loehmann was charged with murder, while Garmback was charged with negligent homicide...
Excerpt: This Memorial Day weekend marked a historic uptick in violence in many US cities. Three cities seem to symbolize our national woes the most - Baltimore , Chicago , and Ferguson . In Baltimore 9 people were killed and 29 shot. Chicago marked 12 killed and 44 wounded. The police in Baltimore and the other cities seem to be moving with unprecedented caution. Further, self initiated policing has slowed down significantly. The morale of law enforcement officers is at a decadal low. Therefore, both violent and petty crimes may flourish in several “hot spot” cities this summer.
Excerpt: Barack Obama, for his own education, never set foot in a public school. When he was 10 years of age, his mother shipped him back from Indonesia to his grandparents in Hawaii so that young Barack could get a first-class American education. He entered Punahou, the expensive and most prestigious prep school in the islands. From there, despite his admittedly indifferent grades, Obama was admitted to Occidental, an elite private college in Los Angeles . He spent two years there, after which he transferred to Columbia University Columbia , Obama attended Harvard Law, another private Ivy League school. ... Urban parents want the option to remove their kid from an underperforming local government school to a better school. Polls show 80 percent of inner-city parents want vouchers.
Where Were the Parents of the McKinney
Excerpt: "I saw a young lady who clearly had not been taught respect for authority, who repeatedly returned after a police officer told her to leave an area where she was trespassing, and who finally pushed him into using physical force to make her behave. And then she resisted, crying and hollering for her mama. Had she not resisted, there would have been no juicy video." (Oh, the many uses of those free ObamaPhones for "social organization." They have swarmed all-night gas stations who have 1-2 clerks on at 2 AM and totally trashed the stores, stealing beer, food, running rampant, their cars screaming hip hop so loud they surely have no hearing left. Sure, the police get called but the 1-2 clerks have to clean up, take inventory, report the losses and deal with the feeling of being gang raped. This is race war, baby steps. Given the green light. --Barb)
Excerpt: In the midst of a heated lawsuit alleging Harvard holds Asian students to a much higher standard during its admissions process, some college admissions counselors in California and elsewhere are coaching Asian American students to appear “less Asian” in an attempt to help them be accepted into the nation’s most elite schools. The Wall Street Journal recently dubbed Asians “The New Jews of Harvard Admissions,” referring to the antisemitism the school practiced in order to keep Jews out of the school during the early 20th century. (Can you imagine what would happen if they told blacks to "Be less black" or to not wear red/black? --Barb)
Black Woman Goes On Epic Rant About Mckinney
Excerpt: A Texas mother’s Facebook video post expressing her thoughts about the McKinney pool party has gone viral with over 1.8 million views. Kisa Jackson, shown sitting in a car, said she was on her lunch break and had just had a heated discussion with co-workers about the McKinney pool party incident. She made the video to get her thoughts out. In the roughly five-and-a-half minute video, Jackson places most of the blame on the parents of the children involved for the way events went down. She gives specific reasons why she felt McKinney police officer Eric Casebolt acted appropriately, given the chaotic situation. “Do I think that the incident was excessive? Yes. But do I think it was necessary? Yes,” she says. Jackson first turns her thoughts towards the parents of the children, saying they should teach their “children when the police arrive on a scene, you should stay there and you wait for instructions. Based on, you don’t know what’s going on. The police officer does not know what is going on.”
Obamacare/Government Healthcare News
Excerpt: If Ohio Gov. John Kasich can fundraise as fast as he’s spending Obamacare money, he’s a shoo-in for the Republican presidential nomination. After just 17 months, Kasich’s Obamacare expansion has cost federal taxpayers $3.7 billion. That’s over $1 billion more than the Kasich administration projected for the expansion’s first 18 months.
"You're Greener than Gore" News
EPA boss threatens to come knocking on doors
Next time there is a knock at the front door, it just might be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency waiting to deliver a message. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy dealt a warning Wednesday to Americans who do not place environmental stewardship above everything else. "If you are selling to somebody a product, and you can assure them that that product was produced in the most environmentally responsible way, I will guarantee you that they will value that product more highly," McCarthy said at the 2015 GreenGov symposium at George Washington University in Washington . (Start at home; stop demanding ethanol additives in gasoline. It decreases the availability of feed for animals and humans; it ruins engines and it pollutes more, per reports. --Barb)
Ag lobby: Final EPA water rule is worse than proposal
Excerpt: “Our public affairs specialists and legal team have assembled the best analysis available anywhere, and their conclusions are sobering: Despite months of comments and innumerable complaints, the waters of the U.S. proposal is even worse than before,” Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman said in a statement. “Our analysis shows yet again how unwise, extreme and unlawful this rule is,” Stallman said. The Obama administration said it wrote the rule to ensure that small streams, ponds, wetlands and other important waterways can be regulated under the Clean Water Act, which requires permits for actions the harm or pollute water. (The Earps were affiliated with Republicans reportedly; they were brought to Tombstone, AZ to counter the monopoly being created by the Democratic Cowboys, who were running off private ranchers and gaining monopoly of wells and water rights to control the land; ergo, power. Nothing new. --Barb)
Religion of Peace News
Excerpt: It is getting hard to keep up with concessions, capitulations actually, from the Obama administration as it frantically tries to make a deal with Iran . We have let them keep thousands of centrifuges, given them a sunset clause, allowed the Fordow enrichment facility to remain open and dropped the requirement that they ship out of the country their fissile material. Now the Associated Press reports: “World powers are prepared to accept a nuclear agreement with Iran that doesn’t immediately answer questions about past atomic weapons work, U.S. and Western officials said. Washington has said such concerns must be resolved in any final deal.” This is a complete reversal and makes any inspection regime useless. If you don’t know where to look you can’t find where they are cheating.
CIA releases memo showing agency blamed Bill Clinton for bankrupting war on terror ahead of 9/11. By Stephen Dinan
Excerpt: The Clinton administration had bankrupted the intelligence community and refused to let the CIA prioritize anti-terrorism over other major priorities in the late 1990s, leaving the agency stretched too thin in the days ahead of the 2001 terrorist attacks, former Director George J. Tenet said in a 2005 document declassified Friday. Mr. Tenet, who was head of the agency at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks and has taken severe criticism for not anticipating and heading them off, said in the document that he took the threat of Osama bin Laden very seriously, and put major effort into trying to penetrate al Qaeda, beginning as far back as 1998.
Excerpt: And just when you thought that the Obama foreign policy couldn't get any worse:
Newly disclosed documents reveal that the Obama administration quietly decided in April to cut funds for Hayya Bina, a leading anti-Hezbollah group in Lebanon, “due to a recent shift in Department of State priorities in Lebanon,” according to a letter notifying the group of the funding cuts. Soon after this move, the United States announced that it would deliver a slew of new weapons to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which has come under intense criticism for its close relationship with Hezbollah and its efforts to bolster the group’s activities in Syria .
Excerpt: This week, one of the Islamic State’s so-called “provinces” began to battle its jihadist rivals for control of Derna , Libya
Lawsuit: Al Jazeera America
Excerpt: Shannon High-Bassalik is not a journalist who buries the lead. In a federal discrimination lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Thursday against her former employers at Al Jazeera America (AJA), High-Bassalik starts by saying the network quickly abandoned its stated mission of providing "unbiased, fact-based, in-depth stories of U.S. and international news." Her experience shows a network "where truth and objectivity are set aside to cater to the Company's pro-Arabic prejudices," the lawsuit says. "As ratings failed to live up to the expectations of management, Al Jazeera openly decided to abandon all pretense of neutrality in favor of putting the Arabic viewpoint front and center, openly demanding that programs be aired that criticized countries such as America , Israel and Egypt ."
Excerpt: If you ask defense officials in Israel today for a short-term security forecast, chances are good that you will hear an optimistic outlook and an expectation of relative quiet and stability.
Yet a longer-term glance at the next four to five years is less rosy, and suggests the approach of storm clouds, driven by violent, radical Islamic winds.
That's why defense chiefs are keen to use the coming years to improve the Israeli military's readiness, build up intelligence and firepower capabilities, and improve civil defenses, while the "sun is still out."
Concerns Mount Over Islamic State Creating Dirty Bomb. By Dan Gilmore
Excerpt: Brace for another round of Islamic State brutality, as Ramadan begins next week. It’s the holiest time of the year for Muslims, and the ideal time for jihadists to engage in more violence. Ramadan 2015 comes at a time when Australian intelligence is issuing reports saying the Islamic State has possibly collected enough radioactive material from hospitals and research facilities to create a dirty bomb.
Excerpt: First, the good news: It turns out President Obama was right. Al-Qaida is being destroyed. One could even say he deserves some credit for this happy turn of events. Which brings us to the bad news: Al-Qaida is dying out because it’s being replaced by something far worse. According to a fascinating report in the Guardian newspaper, two of Al-Qaida’s leading clerics say that the Islamic State has all but destroyed its parent organization. Basically, people in the market for Jihad think the Islamic State offers the best product on the market. It’s ironic. For a decade, terror analysts marveled about how creative al-Qaida was. Lawrence Wright in his gripping account of the rise of al-Qaida, “The Looming Tower,” writes that Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri deliberately set out to bring the best practices of the business world to religiously fueled terror and carnage.
Ignoring Terrorism but Celebrating Gay Pride. By Cliff Kincaid
President Obama and his administration apparently haven't had enough time - though it's been more than a year - to develop a strategy to combat the anti-American terrorist group known as the Islamic State. But the Department of Defense has certainly found enough time and money to celebrate June as "Pride Month" at the Pentagon and highlight the "husbands" of top male generals. The celebrations include events inside the Pentagon, posters and PowerPoint presentations, and even a special video from the news agency of the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense also conveyed its approval by "rainbow-ing" its website. (You have to just keep going back to that promise he made when running for the Oval Office. The one about bringing "fundamental change" to the nation. That was the most direct, honest, committed thing he's ever said in these past few years, and he's worked at it very hard and consistently. You have to give him credit for living up to that promise, all the way. --Del )
Testimony on Iran Lieutenant General , USA
Excerpt: Our closed, 20th Century bureaucratic system appears unable to adapt to the
rapid and complex changes and threats we face in the 21st Century, especially those occurring throughout the Middle East and the wider trans-region, including Iran and Central Asia to the East, large parts of North and East Africa to the West, and many parts of Europe to the North. (Wow, here is a whole bunch of input provided, in some detail, to Congress from a retired general. He sure brings out a lot of information, and his analyses of what it all means. There's enough in here to cause a lot of sleeplessness for anyone who really wants to think about the long term future and what it can bring, and very likely will bring, if we don't figure out ways to counter the threats that are building now. --Del )
rapid and complex changes and threats we face in the 21st Century, especially those occurring throughout the Middle East and the wider trans-region, including Iran and Central Asia to the East, large parts of North and East Africa to the West, and many parts of Europe to the North. (Wow, here is a whole bunch of input provided, in some detail, to Congress from a retired general. He sure brings out a lot of information, and his analyses of what it all means. There's enough in here to cause a lot of sleeplessness for anyone who really wants to think about the long term future and what it can bring, and very likely will bring, if we don't figure out ways to counter the threats that are building now. --
Excerpt: The Obama administration and the Islamic State both issued new manifestos for the battle in Iraq this week. Guess which one is more forceful? The U.S. plan is to add 450 additional military advisers who will train Sunni tribal fighters at an air base in Anbar province. It’s a careful, incremental step. The American troops won’t go into battle with the Iraqis, they won’t call in airstrikes and they’ll mostly remain inside the protected compound. The hope is to recruit Sunnis to support a Shiite-led government that many of them oppose. The Islamic State’s message, meanwhile, is that it will continue its rampage and compel Sunnis to accept its rule.
Boko Haram crisis: Nigeria
Excerpt: Five African countries have agreed to set up a joint military force led by Nigeria to fight the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. The leaders reached the deal at a summit hosted by Nigeria 's new president Muhammadu Buhari, who made tackling it a key campaign pledge. Most of the troops will be from Nigeria with Chad , Cameroon , Niger and Benin also contributing.
Syrian Druze join battle to push back rebels in south. By Tom Perry
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/12/us-mideast-crisis-syria-base-idUSKBN0OS0IP20150612?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=%2AMorning%20Brief&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign
Excerpt: Members of Syria 's Druze minority have helped repel a rebel attack on an army base in the south, mobilizing to confront insurgents including al Qaeda's Nusra Front who are trying to build on gains against President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization that tracks the war, said on Friday rebels had been driven from the base, which they had partly captured on Thursday, by air strikes and Druze fighters from nearby Sweida.
Excerpt: When Abdullah, a Taliban commander in central Afghanistan , needs more rifles and ammunition, he turns to the same people who pay his $580-a-month salary: his Iranian sponsors.
“Iran supplies us with whatever we need,” he said. Afghan and Western officials say Tehran has quietly increased its supply of weapons, ammunition and funding to the Taliban, and is now recruiting and training their fighters, posing a new threat to Afghanistan ’s fragile security.
Is Obama Supporting a Shiite ISIS? By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Staff Sgt. Ahmed Altaie was the last American soldier to come home from Iraq . His body was turned over by Asaib Ahl al-Haq or The League of the Righteous; a Shiite terrorist group funded and trained by Iran . Altaie had been kidnapped, held for ransom and then killed. It was not Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s only kidnapping and murder of an American soldier. A year after Altaie’s kidnapping, its terrorists disguised themselves as Americans and abducted five of our soldiers in Karbala . The soldiers were murdered by their Shiite captors after sustained pursuit by American forces made them realize that they wouldn’t be able to escape with their hostages. (This is one hell of an awful question to be asking. But with the incredible twisted world of Middle Eastern complexities anything is possible, anything at all. And the idea of supporting the Shia rather than wanting to really solve the ISIS problem fits in with the continuing refusal to pour the support into the Kurds that they need and would use well. --Del )
Excerpt: Police announced Thursday that seven Arab residents of Haifa , all members of the same family, were arrested for abusing and assaulting elderly Holocaust survivors. The seven reportedly physically struck the residents of a home for survivors in the Hadar neighborhood of Haifa , and likewise stole from them, verbally abused them, and made them walk in the street according to Yedioth Aharonoth.
One held with 49 crude bombs ahead of Rathyatra
Excerpt: "Based on that tip-off, during our combing, we stopped one Mohammad Irfan Fakir, 20, during the wee hours when he was walking towards his home in Narol area. We found 49 hand made crude bombs from his bag," Bhadran told reporters here today.
US Official: Iran Means What it Says About Destroying Israel
Excerpt: The Iranian leadership disingenuously denies it, but the “hints” they give about wanting to destroy Israel are the real thing, former top Pentagon official General Michael Flynn asserted on Wednesday. Speaking before Congress, the former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said the deal being worked out between Iran and Western powers “leaves a lot to be desired,” and that there was no doubt Tehran would eventually develop nuclear weapons. And, he added, there was no doubt that those weapons would be directed against Israel .
Iraqi Military Still in Shambles, Racked by Disunity. By Daniel Davis
Excerpt: The 450 US troops now being sent to train Iraqi forces will meet a deteriorating situation. The Iraqi military, which has all but disintegrated in the wake of ISIS ' victories, remains weak and divided. According to Jennifer Griffin of Fox News, US troops have not trained any Sunni soldiers since training efforts began in January of this year. About one-quarter of the trained soldiers are Kurds, while the rest are Shia.
Security Guard at U.S. Embassy in Egypt
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/10/security-guard-at-u-s-embassy-in-egypt-arrested-as-a-terrorist.html
Excerpt: To the shock ofU.S. officials, authorities in Egypt have arrested the local employee and charged him as the purported commander of a radical Islamist organization. Egyptian authorities have arrested an Egyptian security guard at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo , claiming he is a senior figure in an Islamist terrorist organization. U.S. officials are scrambling to get information from Egyptian authorities, who did not alert them beforehand.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/10/security-guard-at-u-s-embassy-in-egypt-arrested-as-a-terrorist.html
Excerpt: To the shock of
Humor: Waltzing Matilda Halal Style
A West African Muslim meets his Jewish O.C. 'family.' By Deepa Bharath
Excerpt: Luc reverently bowed his head as the kiddush, a Jewish blessing over wine before the Sabbath meal, was recited. Luc is a practicing Muslim from a West African village who spent his teen years in an Israeli orphanage. He now goes to business school in Tel Aviv.
Punishment Announced for Naked Woman Who ‘Offended the Mountain Gods’ in Malaysia
Excerpt: Police and locals claim that Hawkins and numerous other tourists offended the mountain god by taking nude selfies on top of the mountain, despite their guide’s warning. (I thought Malaysia was Muslim--does Allah tolerate Mountain Gods? ~Bob)
Malaysian Tribal Elder: Western Nudists Must Offer 10 Buffalo
Excerpt: Tindarama Aman Sirom Simbuna, the head tribal priest, or Bobolian, of Sabah, Malaysia, is demanding that European and Canadian tourists accused of causing a major earthquake by stripping at the summit of a sacred mountain offer ten buffalo to aggrieved spirits to pay for their transgression. “According to local beliefs, the spirit of the mountain is very angry,” Tindarama Aman tells Malaysia’s The Star, explaining that the only way to appease the spirit is to offer sogit, or a fine, to absolve sin. “This fine, called sogit in the native tongue, should be in the form of 10 male or female buffaloes,” he explained.
Iraq’s Christians Need Sanctuary, and the West Should Provide It. By Nina Shea
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419582/iraqs-christians-need-sanctuary-and-west-should-provide-it-nina-shea
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419582/iraqs-christians-need-sanctuary-and-west-should-provide-it-nina-shea
Excerpt: It has been one year since Islamic State began its conquest of a third of Iraq and its destruction of that country’s ancient Christian civilization. While a massive international aid effort has helped most of the exiled Christians to subsist, it is time to look for a new strategy to help them fully live.
Colonel: 'A Good Deal Of Evidence' Ransom Was Paid For Sgt. Bergdahl
Colonel: 'A Good Deal Of Evidence' Ransom Was Paid For Sgt. Bergdahl
Excerpt: Once the Taliban got involved in the negotiations, the Obama administration decided that trading five Taliban leaders in exchange for Bergdahl was the “only viable option,” said Col. Amerine. The Department of Defense (DoD) and the FBI were behind the ransom deal, he noted. He went on to say that after he told Rep. Hunter, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, that the FBI was involved in the ransom, the federal law enforcement agency complained to the Army, accusing him of providing classified information to the California Republican.
Decorated Green Beret threatened with court martial for blowing whistle on "dysfunctional" hostage recovery effort
Excerpt: Lt. Colonel Jason Amerine, a decorated Green Beret who was among the first on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11, is now under investigation by the U.S. Army and was threatened with court martial for sharing information with lawmakers about what he calls a “dysfunctional bureaucracy” preventing the recovery of American hostages held by Islamist terrorists. "Warren Weinstein is dead. Colin Rutherford, Joshua Boyle, Caitlin Coleman and the child she bore in captivity remain hostages in Pakistan . I used every resource available but I failed them,” Amerine told a Senate committee during a hearing on whistleblower protection Thursday, listing the names of American hostages.
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Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304815980&sr=1-5 For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s eleven books are listed here:
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html. His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com.
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