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Today: 60 articles and 81 comments as of 11:32.
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Kunar Drone Strike Kills Four Taliban
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 6: Politix
9 14:15 OldSpook [] 
6 16:36 Charles [2] 
6 16:31 Charles [2] 
4 11:51 Bill Clinton [] 
8 23:41 Blossom Unains5562 [1] 
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Page 4: Opinion
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-Land of the Free
Obama regime bans discrimination by drones
[WASHINGTONTIMES] The Obama Justice Department issued new guidelines Friday for how the government should operate drones, including declaring a ban on flying them "to engage in discrimination," ticking off race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation and "gender identity" as out of bounds for drone targeting.

Officials also said drones, or "Unmanned Aerial Surveillance," also cannot be used to monitor activities protected by the First Amendment.

While saying that drones can be a boon for Sherlocks, the Justice Department said when officials are using them, they must be connected to authorized investigations or other official activities.
Posted by: Fred || 05/23/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So using drones to hunt for Mexicans along our southern border is off limits? Pity. It seemed like a perfect application.
Posted by: SteveS || 05/23/2015 1:54 Comments || Top||

#2  ..I believe they've already turned the Border Patrol into drones. See - Drone (bee)
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/23/2015 8:15 Comments || Top||

#3  So using Drones to track and kill Islamic Terrorists who are only engaging in their Religious Actinity of enslaving and killing infidels is also off limits right?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/23/2015 10:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Who writes this stuff.

Geez, is everyone in DOJ sleeping under a rock?
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 05/23/2015 11:51 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Chinese Law Firm to Merge With American Firms, Employ Howard Dean, Newt Gingrich
Dacheng, one of the biggest law firms in the People's Republic of China, is set to merge with two major American law firms, Dentons and McKenna Long & Aldridge, making it the largest law firm in the world.

The arrangement will bring together a unique arrangement of policy professionals all under the same roof. The new mega-firm will employ, via Dentons: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Democratic National Committee Chair Joe Andrew, and former Rep. Van Hilleary, R-Tenn., among others. McKenna Long's political roster includes: former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, former Rep. Bill Owens, D-N.Y., and former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo. Many of the individuals, like Hart, do not have a law degree or practice law, but work in the "government affairs" departments of the two firms, a catch-all phrase to describe lobbying-related business.
Posted by: Daffy Brown4464 || 05/23/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So, now they are just being overt about it. (slow clap)
Posted by: Nguard || 05/23/2015 9:21 Comments || Top||

#2  A whore is still a whore no matter who's paying them.
Posted by: ed in texas || 05/23/2015 9:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Newton Leroy Gingrich,
When he became "Beijingrich,"
Resolved the ancient mystery
Of why he studied history.
Posted by: Shuting Gurly-Brown7975 || 05/23/2015 10:07 Comments || Top||

#4  Should make it much easier for the Chinese to make large bribes contributions to their candidates and buy Congressmen and Senators.

Not to mention transfer tech out of the country.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/23/2015 10:11 Comments || Top||

#5  Sellouts.
Posted by: OldSpook || 05/23/2015 12:46 Comments || Top||

#6  Mandarins are gonna mandarin.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 05/23/2015 15:54 Comments || Top||

#7  Dui Chi Ta Man Hau, LLP
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 05/23/2015 16:29 Comments || Top||

#8  @#6: Well said.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 || 05/23/2015 23:41 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Obama Says US Not Losing Against Daesh
[Tolo News] US President Barack Obama
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...
has described the loss of key Iraqi territory to Daesh as a tactical setback, while insisting the war against the jihadist group is not being lost.

"I don't think we're losing," Obama said in an interview with news magazine The Atlantic published Thursday, days after the Iraqi city of Ramadi was overrun.

"There's no doubt there was a tactical setback, although Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time," he said.

Since August 2014, on Obama's orders, a US-led coalition has hit more than 6,000 targets in Iraq and Syria with Arclight airstrikes, with the aim of degrading the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group.

Obama has refused to return US combat troops to Iraq, following a long brutal war after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

But the rout in Ramadi has called into question US strategy and the credibility of Iraq's central government.

Obama blamed it on a lack of training and reinforcement of Iraq's own security forces.

"They have been there essentially for a year without sufficient reinforcements," he said.

"But it is indicative that the training of Iraqi security forces, the fortifications, the command-and-control systems are not happening fast enough in Anbar, in the Sunni parts of the country."
Posted by: Fred || 05/23/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  "I don't think we're losing,", he said. "We are simply not winning at a positive rate. A result of the situation I inherited from the previous administration."
Posted by: SteveS || 05/23/2015 1:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Interesting phrase, that. Not winning at a positive rate. Does that mean we are winning at a negative rate? Isn't that the same as losing?
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 05/23/2015 8:37 Comments || Top||

#3  indicative that the training of Iraqi security forces, the fortifications, the command-and-control systems are not happening fast enough

So who was it, Mr. President, who pulled out the trainers before the Iraqis could stand up on their own? It wasn't the Bushian Surge, was it>
Posted by: Bobby || 05/23/2015 8:37 Comments || Top||

#4  This turns into sort of a Richard Feynman type argument, that winning is the same as loosing, just moving in opposite directions in time. (Feynman used it to describe how antimatter would behave, not how to deal with it.)
Posted by: ed in texas || 05/23/2015 9:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Geez,

I swear we've been "training" and equipping the Iraqi Army since 2004 and we still have no positive results.

Wow.

That's discouraging, especially given how Iraqi young men would stand in line for hours to enlist and endured jacket wallahs and snipers and mortar attacks to keep their place in line.

Thank you Paul Bremer. If we had kept the officer corps from the Old Iraqi Army and used it to organize and train the NEW Iraqi Army, maybe we would have a good army in Iraq and those ex-Saddam officers wouldn't be training Daesh.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 05/23/2015 11:45 Comments || Top||

#6  Correction, we HAD positive results. Then almost everyone who knew what they were doing, was sacked by Maliki and replace by stooges. Obama wanted out, allowed this, and then when it came time to show mettle the grunts of the Iraqi army looked for orders. Then discovered everyone officer and up basically fled, leaving them with no command structure.

After that, Mosul fell, and you know the rest. Remember, we had something of an army trained in 2008. It's just that army was gutted, and it's festering corpse left in place until the vultures of ISIS finished the job.
Posted by: Charles || 05/23/2015 16:36 Comments || Top||


Isis claims it could buy its first nuclear weapon from Pakistan within 12 months
[INDEPENDENT.CO.UK] Or it could earn one from the U.S. Obama's not always gonna be president.
Posted by: Fred || 05/23/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  knowing the Paks they would sell for the right price just like North Korea and Iran would do.
Posted by: paul || 05/23/2015 8:11 Comments || Top||

#2  The key concern is deliverability.

Can the thing be strapped to a missile or put into an aircraft and dropped?

Otherwise you are looking at a car bomb on a vast scale.

I believe the first nuke from Iran will find itself on a container ship just outside Long Beach or South Hampton or Bremen...and detonated outside the range of the radioactivity scanners.

A nuke, even one of those old technology fission types, produce enough power that you don't have to park it next to the target, parking it in the same zip code is good enough.

ISIS would buy a nuke for one reason and one reason only, and the answer to that is painted red, white and blue.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 05/23/2015 11:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Maybe Pakistan will drop ship it.
Posted by: KBK || 05/23/2015 12:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Maybe our new freetrade agreement will let Obama sell ISIS a nuke.
Posted by: Airandee || 05/23/2015 12:21 Comments || Top||

#5  The US should draw up a "top secret" list of nuclear retaliation targets for someone to leak to the press. Mecca should be included.
Posted by: Apostate || 05/23/2015 13:20 Comments || Top||

#6  Disagree with Bill on this. A high-value target area to nuke, with Isis gains, has to be one of three places. This is purely from a logical standpoint that they can turn around and reach quickly. I wouldn't imagine ISIS would want to sit on a nuke to long and risk losing it to an airstrike.

1, somewhere in Kurdistan, this includes the Mosul Damn. Hard to protect it against a damn nuke. 2, Jordan, where causing mass chaos will open a clear path to Isreal and millions of Paleos waiting for war. US abandoned equipment would go a long way there. Third, Finish Assad. While corralled, he's still a thorn stuck in ISIS foot. Finishing him won't draw condemnation nearly as much(from Arabs), and give ample opportunity to demonstrate your power to recruits.

A distant fourth, might be Russia. I think there's still Chechen support willing to do it if given the damn nuke. I still remember Beslan.
Posted by: Charles || 05/23/2015 16:31 Comments || Top||


Government
Democrats' Vanishing Future
[National Journal] May 21, 2015 One of the most underappreciated stories in recent years is the deterioration of the Democratic bench under President Obama's tenure in office. The party has become much more ideologically homogenous, losing most of its moderate wing as a result of the last two disastrous midterm elections. By one new catch-all measure, a party-strength index introduced by RealClearPolitics analysts Sean Trende and David Byler, Democrats are in their worst position since 1928. That dynamic has manifested itself in the Democratic presidential contest, where the bench is so barren that a flawed Hillary Clinton is barreling to an uncontested nomination.

But less attention has been paid to how the shrinking number of Democratic officeholders in the House and in statewide offices is affecting the party's Senate races. It's awfully unusual to see how dependent Democrats are in relying on former losing candidates as their standard-bearers in 2016. Wisconsin's Russ Feingold, Pennsylvania's Joe Sestak, Indiana's Baron Hill, and Ohio's Ted Strickland all ran underwhelming campaigns in losing office in 2010--and are looking to return to politics six years later. Party officials are courting former Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina to make a comeback bid, despite mediocre favorability ratings and the fact that she lost a race just months ago that most had expected her to win. All told, more than half of the Democrats' Senate challengers in 2016 are comeback candidates.

On one hand, most of these candidates are the best choices Democrats have. Feingold and Strickland are running ahead of GOP Sens. Ron Johnson and Rob Portman in recent polls. Hill and Hagan boast proven crossover appeal in GOP-leaning states that would be challenging pickups. Their presence in the race gives the party a fighting chance to retake the Senate.

But look more closely, and the reliance on former failures is a direct result of the party having no one else to turn to. If the brand-name challengers didn't run, the roster of up-and-coming prospects in the respective states is short. They're also facing an ominous historical reality that only two defeated senators have successfully returned to the upper chamber in the last six decades. As political analyst Stu Rothenberg put it, they're asking "voters to rehire them for a job from which they were fired." Senate Democrats are relying on these repeat candidates for the exact same reason that Democrats are comfortable with anointing Hillary Clinton for their presidential nomination: There aren't any better alternatives.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/23/2015 01:42 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Three words: (1) ballot, (2) box, (3) stuffing.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/23/2015 3:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Three words: (1) ballot, (2) box, (3) stuffing.

Harder to do when the other party has been cleaning up the voter rolls of the imaginary, the dead, and the multiply registered in the states where it has been swept into power in recent years... not to mention enforcing newly passed laws requiring photo IDs to vote. Contrariwise, you will no doubt astutely argue, even easier in those states with expanded mail-in voting schemes, but the ratio of such states is skewed away from them.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/23/2015 7:06 Comments || Top||

#3  From your mouth to the ear of G*d, TW. But...
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/23/2015 7:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Remember, you don't have to be faster than the bear, just someone else in your group. RINOs will keep the Donks alive for a long time cause they block real conservatives from getting the seats and the RINO preservation society is in full operation.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/23/2015 8:12 Comments || Top||

#5  P2K-

You are right, but that sets up a "gradually, then all at once" Armageddon event for the Dems within a few election cycles.
Posted by: no mo uro || 05/23/2015 8:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Too bad the article doesn't read "Corrupt Entitlement Class" instead of Democratic Party. The Boehners, McConnells, Pelosis, and Reids of the world will find a way to stay in power till they die. Then they will be replaced by someone just as corrupt.
Posted by: jvalentour || 05/23/2015 8:36 Comments || Top||

#7  The problem is not where they're going, but where they are now.
Posted by: ed in texas || 05/23/2015 9:44 Comments || Top||

#8  Also importing millions of new voters illegally.

Voter clean up efforts are still only marginally effective due to federal rules like motor voter.

So I'm thinking that the Dems have thought this through and are working to 'correct' it.
Posted by: Iblis || 05/23/2015 11:51 Comments || Top||

#9  Problem for their bench is the GOP domination of state houses and state offices, with the exception of California. And the days of a nationally electable Californian left when the Gipper left office and Cali slid off inro the progressive abyss which is now beginning to consume the state.
Posted by: OldSpook || 05/23/2015 14:15 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
18[untagged]
12Islamic State
4Taliban
3Govt of Pakistan
3Hezbollah
2Govt of Syria
2Arab Spring
2Govt of Iran
2Govt of Saudi Arabia
2Narcos
1Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis
1al-Shabaab
1Houthis
1al-Qaeda in Pakistan
1Jamaat-e-Islami
1Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
1Thai Insurgency
1Pirates
1Commies
1al-Nusra

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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2015-05-23
  Kunar Drone Strike Kills Four Taliban
Fri 2015-05-22
  Air strikes kill 15 militants in North Waziristan
Thu 2015-05-21
  Kurds advance against Islamic State in northeastern Syria
Wed 2015-05-20
  IS Attacks Syria Druze Village, Battles for Palmyra
Tue 2015-05-19
  US drone strike in North Waziristan leaves six 'militants' dead
Mon 2015-05-18
  ISIS confirms Ramadi capture
Sun 2015-05-17
  US special forces kill senior IS leader in Syria: Pentagon
Sat 2015-05-16
  Jury sentences Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for marathon attack
Fri 2015-05-15
  Belmokhtar's Jihadist Group in N. Africa Pledges Allegiance to IS
Thu 2015-05-14
  ISIS acting leader al-Afri killed by US-led airstrike
Wed 2015-05-13
  Iraq Blast Kills Four including Peshmerga General
Tue 2015-05-12
  Drone Strike Kills 4 Qaida Suspects in Yemen's Mukalla
Mon 2015-05-11
  Terror recruiter with roots in Minn. linked to Texas shooting
Sun 2015-05-10
  Houthis agree to five-day cease-fire in Yemen
Sat 2015-05-09
  Pakistani Chopper Crashes into School, 2 Ambassadors Killed

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