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al-Baghdadi arrives in Nineveh amid secrecy
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Page 4: Opinion
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2 11:08 swksvolFF [7]
Page 6: Politix
1 13:19 g(r)omgoru [4]
13 19:54 SteveS [10]
4 13:17 Abu Uluque [6]
-Short Attention Span Theater-
Federal Agencies Ted Cruz wants to abolish.
Yes, yes, yes, he mentioned 'Commerce' twice last evening, but here they are; Department of Energy, Department of Education, Department of Commerce, and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Does he read the Burg ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/11/2015 05:15 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cruz said he planned to kill off five major agencies, but when he tried to name them he said the Department of Commerce twice

I'd say Education twice, but it's just me.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/11/2015 5:57 Comments || Top||

#2  No EPA? I would list that three times!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/11/2015 7:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Wonder if Rick Perry is on the Cruz campaign.
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/11/2015 7:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Any agency that has decided to become paramilitary and form SWAT teams without explicit functional mandates. No Luftwaffe Field Divisions, no NKVD battalions, and no independent EPA Strike Police Companies. Leave armed force to people that are supposed to be doing it ... they can make a big enough mess, but at least that is their job.
Posted by: magpie || 11/11/2015 7:43 Comments || Top||

#5  I'd love to see it but I can't believe one man can overcome the cronies, vested interests and bureaucrats to actually do it.
Posted by: AlanC || 11/11/2015 8:24 Comments || Top||

#6  I agree AlanC. When was the last time any U.S. Federal Agency was shuttered? Big gov't has become it's own 'employee owned' enterprise. They've all become too big to fail.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/11/2015 8:30 Comments || Top||

#7  If he can't shut them down then move their headquarters out of DC to Barrow Alaska.
The staff would quit and take their pensions.
Posted by: jvalentour || 11/11/2015 8:32 Comments || Top||

#8  ...and gifts from the Great Society like NPR, PBS, The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Humanities, The National Science Foundation (oh, my god, the grant money, not the grant money)...
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/11/2015 8:32 Comments || Top||

#9  Please add the Department Agriculture, which I believe administrates the Federal Food Stamp Program. Talk about too big to fail.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/11/2015 8:47 Comments || Top||

#10  most agencies were established by legislative statute and only by changing statute can you abolish them

the Departments are basically clusters of agencies

many of the Departments have large 'oversight and policy' staffs which sometimes get in the way of the agencies doing the work that is required by statute - paring this down would generally be a good thing but it's tough because those staffs usually support political appointees
Posted by: lord garth || 11/11/2015 8:52 Comments || Top||

#11  Downsizing the 'Department of the Army' appears to be quite easy to do, at least the uniformed portions.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/11/2015 8:56 Comments || Top||

#12  The president is the symptom; congress is the problem.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/11/2015 9:33 Comments || Top||

#13  POTUS is both a 'symtom' and a vector. Congress should be quarantined.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/11/2015 9:37 Comments || Top||

#14  I'd love to see it but I can't believe one man can overcome the cronies, vested interests and bureaucrats to actually do it.

Actually, it is easier than you might imagine. Oblahblah has set the precedent with his pen and phone.

All a President Cruz would have to do is instruct his Agency/Department head to begin the process of shutting down the agency.

Issue an EO canceling Federal Government Labor Unions and proceed from there. It can be done, just needs someone with the grit to do it.
Posted by: Spinesing Gray3122 || 11/11/2015 10:30 Comments || Top||

#15  I would say shutting things down would be far easier in a Reagan style wave election.

Perhaps cutting a department is near-impossible but one could merge departments and then not exactly merge the budgets.

For example take the ATF and merge them into the department of homeland security. Then take the bulk of their managers and post them to a Coast Guard base in Alaska to watch for reindeer infiltration on the tundra. Eventually the numbers drop and the ATF is effectively laundered.

I'd do the same with Education, merge them into Homeland security and post the whole lot to Alaska to teach those Reindeer.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 11/11/2015 11:18 Comments || Top||

#16  There are many theoretical ways to accomplish that which we would all applaud, BUT, the size of the lobbying organizations and indirectly supported orgs. Think of the parts manufacturers when a car company goes under.

All of the parasite groups will activate their armies and support groups to defend their turf. A utopian fantasy I'm afraid.
Posted by: AlanC || 11/11/2015 12:12 Comments || Top||

#17  I 't disagree, AlanC, yet as B pointed out in #11, the military can be reduced, and it's IN the Constitution. Grit and determination. And a big wave from the voters.
Posted by: Bobby || 11/11/2015 12:46 Comments || Top||

#18  Defund it and it won't exist anymore.
Posted by: newc || 11/11/2015 12:57 Comments || Top||

#19  Prohibit new hiring. Attrition from retirement should held immensely. Also, early retirement options for older employees; the gov't doesn't like them much anyway.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a first stip."
~ Lao-tzu

I wish Trump would have mentioned that last evening when the deportation discussion was swirling the drain.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/11/2015 13:12 Comments || Top||

#20  NMFS. Oh, please please get rid of NMFS.
Posted by: no mo uro || 11/11/2015 17:55 Comments || Top||


Africa North
No Country for Young Men: Mali Loses Youth to Migrant Crisis
[AnNahar] Once bustling with sinewy young men like any other farming village in rural Mali, Kodjan is starting to look distinctly grey.

Little by little, the demographics of the settlement are altering as its youth join the exodus of African migrants looking for a better life in Europe.

"My three grandchildren went off in search of adventure in Spain, because here there is nothing," a 72-year-old woman tells AFP in front of her shack.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/11/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Free stuff, free stuff, free stuff!
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/11/2015 8:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Danegeld rush.

"I too went to Spain for adventure."
-Oruc 'Barbarossa' Reis
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/11/2015 11:16 Comments || Top||


Europe
Economic warfare: Labeling products is ‘opposite of boycott,’ European official says
The "logic" is familiar to anyone who has ever dealt with teenagers.
[IsraelTimes] Countries that ignore EU's instructions to mark settlement goods won't be sanctioned,
...yet...
official claims as contested measure about to become official


The European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/11/2015 12:59 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Betcha some Europeans will start buying labeled staff.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/11/2015 13:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Update from The Times of Israel:

Israel suspends talks with EU amid settlement tagging scrap: European envoy formally rebuked; deputy FM says there will be no dialogue with Europeans about Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/11/2015 15:55 Comments || Top||


Slovenia prepares to erect fence to control migrants
[Rooters] Trucks carrying wire fencing arrived in the Slovenian village of Veliki Obrez close to the border with Croatia early on Wednesday, a day after the government said it would start erecting barriers to control the flow of migrants.

Large numbers of soldiers and police were at the scene, some guarding construction equipment, a Reuters photographer there said.

Slovenia is the smallest country on a major route for refugees and migrants heading north on their way to Austria and then Germany.

About 180,000 people, many fleeing war in Syria and Afghanistan, have entered the Alpine state since mid October, when Hungary fenced off its border with Croatia and pushed the migrant route towards it western neighbour.

Prime Minister Miro Cerar said on Tuesday the border would remain open, but the fence would help control the flow of people.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/11/2015 04:14 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gonna be a big cage!
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/11/2015 7:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Jean Raspail wasn't a very good writer but he's looking like quite the prophet.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/11/2015 8:18 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
Number of new firms opened by Syrians in Turkey on rise
[Hurriyet] Syrian migrants are becoming an economic actor in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
not only in terms of their labor power but also their entrepreneurial skills, with the number of companies opened by Syrians increasing 40-fold between 2010 and 2014, according to new data.

Other data suggests the trend is even accelerating more quickly this year.

A total of 1,257 new companies were opened in partnership with Syrians in 2014, up from a mere 30 in 2010, according to an Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) study conducted by Esra Özpinar, Seda Basihos and Aycan Kulaksiz.

The share of Syrians in foreign partnerships in Turkish business has continued rising in 2015, data from the Union of Chambers of Stock Exchanges (TOBB) has also shown.

The companies in question have largely congregated in regions close to Turkey's border with Syria and big cities where the trade volume is higher.

Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, was housing 559 firms formed in partnership by Syrians as of 2014, while Gaziantep, the leading business city in Turkey's southeast, had 222 businesses.

There are 203 such companies in the southern province of Mersin.

In Hatay, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Adana and Mersin, all in the south or southeast, there were only 12 Syrian partnerships in 2010. By the end of 2014, however, this number had reached 537.

Some 10.5 percent of all new businesses founded in 2014 in Hatay were Syrian partnerships, up from 0.68 percent in 2010. In Kilis, where the Syrian population rivals the Turkish residents in number, there were no Syrian businesses five years ago. But as of 2014, the Syrian partnerships constitute nearly 34 percent of the newly founded companies.

Despite political problems between Turkey and Syria, Turkish exports from Mersin, Gaziantep, Hatay, Mardin, Kilis, Malatya, Sivas and Diyarbakir increased in 2014 to a level before the war started in the neighboring country in 2010.

TOBB data revealed that 144 Syrian-capital companies, one of them a limited company, were founded in September, topping all other new foreign firms.

Between January and September this year, 1,148 Syrian-capital companies were founded across the country, boasting $161 million in capital.

The economic effects of the migration wave have been spread across Turkey, the TEPAV report said.

Migrants have economically enlivened regions close to the border, it said.

"People who migrated to the border regions in the first step due to the war brought with them their authentic production and consumption habits," it said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/11/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Suu Kyi vows to call shots after election landslide
Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi made it clear on Tuesday that she was ready to defy the powerful military's attempts to clip her wings, as fresh results from Sunday's historic election showed her party heading for a resounding win.

As vote tallies trickled in, Suu Kyi's long-oppressed National League for Democracy (NLD) looked set to take control of most regional assemblies as well as forming the central government, a triumph that will reshape the political landscape.

Under the constitution drawn up by Myanmar's former junta, Suu Kyi is barred by the constitution from taking the presidency because her children are foreign nationals, a clause few doubt was inserted specifically to rule her out. But in two interviews on Tuesday, the Nobel peace laureate said that, whoever was appointed president by the newly elected houses of parliament, she would call the shots.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White || 11/11/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Link gives this error:

Cannot display page

We're sorry. We are having issues serving you the page you have requested. Please try again later. You will now be redirected to our front-page.
Posted by: 3dc || 11/11/2015 1:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Link to Rooters.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/11/2015 4:02 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Gay Versus Trans Bar Fight Breaks Out Over '€˜Stonewall.'
h/t instapundit
When director Roland Emmerich set out to create his upcoming film "Stonewall," he was engaging in a labor of love. He desired to tell the very American story of standing up to power and demanding equal rights. What he could not have expected is that angry backlash and threats of boycotts would come, not from right-wing, religious zealots, but from the LGBT community itself. Now Emmerich stands accused of whitewashing and cis-washing the seminal event in gay-rights history.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/11/2015 13:25 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hissy fit?
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 11/11/2015 13:41 Comments || Top||

#2  I take it the movie isn't about The Valley Campaign?

If it is Stonewall Johnson, I guess it is.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/11/2015 16:22 Comments || Top||

#3  A tale, kids (I doubt you will buy it!):
Before schools would urge one to try it,
When guy-on-guy action
Was just an abstraction,
It's rumored that gay dudes were quiet.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 11/11/2015 20:09 Comments || Top||

#4  the seminal event in gay-rights history

Says it all.
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/11/2015 23:06 Comments || Top||



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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
Wed 2015-11-11
  al-Baghdadi arrives in Nineveh amid secrecy
Tue 2015-11-10
  ISIS, Talibunnies do battle in eastern Nangarhar province
Mon 2015-11-09
  New ISIS Video: Execution of 200 Syrian Children
Sun 2015-11-08
  Ajnad AlSham video star gets his AlohaSnackbar moment
Sat 2015-11-07
  Russian air strikes kill 42 in ISIL-held Raqqa, Syria: monitor
Fri 2015-11-06
  ISIS commanders get the hell out of Dodge Raqqa
Thu 2015-11-05
  British Son of Omar Bakri Mohammed is 'executed by ISIS in Syria' after fleeing there to fight
Wed 2015-11-04
  Germany: Enraged Syrians Threaten Police With Use Of Armed Force
Tue 2015-11-03
  Turks continue attacks against Kurds
Mon 2015-11-02
  Senior officials killed in Mogadishu hotel siege
Sun 2015-11-01
  Publisher killed, 3 bloggers hurt; Ansar Al Islam claims they dunnit
Sat 2015-10-31
  Islamic State claims responsibility for Russian plane crash in Egypt
Fri 2015-10-30
  German ISIS Rapper Deso Dogg aka Denis Cuspert Killed in U.S. Air Strike
Thu 2015-10-29
  Nigerian Troops Rescue 338 People Held by Boko Haram
Wed 2015-10-28
  Yemeni Army claims Soddy warship destroyed


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