[Legal Insurrection] Last month, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, presiding in Committee On Oversight And Government Reform, United States House of Representatives v. Lynch (the "House Suit"), rejected the Justice Department's assertion of the "deliberative process privilege" to withhold around 10,000 Fast and Furious documents. Judge Jackson held that DOJ had waived the privilege by previously releasing a substantial amount of information about the same documents it then sought to withhold.
I discussed Judge Jackson's decision in more detail, here.
[NYPOST] The woman who accused ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer of choking her during a fight at the Plaza Hotel hopped on a Russia-bound airplane after refusing to press charges, law enforcement sources said Monday.
Svetlana Travis, 25, took a 7:30 p.m. Sunday flight from JFK Airport to Moscow, using a ticket she had purchased in advance, the sources said.
"She said she just wanted to go back to Russia," one source said.
"She was lucid. She insisted on going...and there were no grounds for us to keep her here."
Travis first dropped her bombshell allegation against Spitzer at Roosevelt Hospital, where she was treated Saturday night for a superficial cut to her forearm that she said she inflicted on herself with a broken wine glass, sources said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2016 00:00 ||
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[THECOLLEGEFIX] The University of Portland has launched a "Speak Up" webpage that encourages students to report "incidents of discomfort" to its Public Safety department. That sort of stupidity makes me very uncomfortable. Who do I call?
"We ask members of our community to SPEAK UP and report alleged incidents of discrimination and incidents of discomfort regarding observed or experienced interactions of intolerance," the university states on the webpage.
The top resource listed under "Reporting Options" is the university's Public Safety department, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and includes a director, two sergeants and nine public safety officers, the department reports.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
This "Speak Up" page makes me uncomfortable.
Let me report you to the political officers so they can re-educate you.
[REUTERS] Ugandan police fought running battles with supporters of opposition leader Kizza Besigye in Kampala, in the worst outbreak of violence yet during campaigning for Thursday's presidential election.
Several people were maimed on Monday as police fired bullets and tear gas while opposition supporters hurled rocks and erected street barricades in the capital's Wandegeya suburb, witnesses said. Hours earlier, police briefly detained Besigye.
"I have seen people shot although we're yet to know how many exactly," said Ingrid Turinawe, a bigwig from Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party.
"Many people (were) on the road bleeding, the situation is still very tense."
Besigye is expected to be one of two main election challengers to veteran leader Yoweri Museveni, who will attempt to extend a 30-year hold on power that his opponents say has been increasingly underpinned by state intimidation and rampant corruption.
Several opposition supporters were placed in durance vile ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... on Monday, said a Rooters photographer who also saw one person passed out in a large pool of blood, either dead or critically maimed.
Witnesses said streets were calmer in the evening but the violence has fuelled tensions before the Feb. 18 election, which Besigye and six other candidates will contest alongside Museveni.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2016 00:00 ||
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[USATODAY] The B.O. regime approved the first U.S. factory to be built and operated in Cuba in more than 50 years, in the latest sign of the rapidly changing relationship between the United States and the communist nation. Entrepreneurial communism, the Kissinger solution.
Cleber LLC, an Alabama-based company that builds tractors for small farms, was notified by the Treasury Department that it could open a facility in Cuba. Co-founder Saul Berenthal said the company's attorney was in Havana on Monday to start the lengthy process of finalizing the agreement with the Cuban government and hopes to start production by early 2017.
Berenthal said he was proud to get the approval, but it means even more for the future relationship between the Cold War foes.
"Being first is great," he said. "But for certain, we should not be the only ones. We're hoping and expecting many more will follow."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Will POTUS Obama do the same for We-Need-Everything-from-Anybody OWG Co-Superpower IRAN???
* FYI CNN AM = the Fed has also approved Airline Flights to, from Cuba.
#4
Did they repeal the Helms–Burton Act? Or is this just another Executive Order which can be killed at anytime by anyone else sitting in the oval office? I see dead people graft.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/16/2016 12:29 Comments ||
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Excellent catch Richard. I could not remember the model, but it looked quite familiar. Of course as we've all recently learned, Allis Chalmers..... 'didn't build that tractor' so there really are no copyright infringements.
U.S. Federal farming loans to follow. Farm implements are simply the camel's nose.
#9
As far as I can find Cleber doesn't sell in the US. If they do, it's harder to find English language information on them than on, say, Mohindra.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/16/2016 15:01 Comments ||
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There are quite a few folks around here that collect the older tractors and farm equipment. They have big 'fests' from time to time and I've always liked going and marveling at what the early designs were and what they could do. Pretty ingenious and durable stuff for mostly 'non-schooled' inventors and manufacturers.
The equipment was simple and worked really well under a variety of conditions. Smelly and noisy - I love it.
Didn't have a bunch of MBA's sitting in the front office, either.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/16/2016 18:07 Comments ||
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#11
Looks like it needs some flames painted on it, and taken down to the mud bog with a case of used to be cold beer.
For a map, click here. You can enlarge the map, if you open it separately.
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
As many as 30 Ukrainians were killed in a fratricide incident last week in western Donetsk, according to an official report by the Donetsk ministry of defense.
According to the report, the incident took place in Markinka near western Donetsk city last Tuesday night, February 9th, when volunteers associated with an unidentified Right Sector volunteer military unit tried to goad a Ukrainian army unit into firing onto rebel held territory.
According to the report, radio messages which had been monitored by separatists commanders, indicated that a proposed attack was made that elements of the Ukrainian 95th Airmobile Brigade refused to support.
Right Sector volunteers then placed themselves between rebel positions and positions of the Ukrainian unit and began firing on the Ukrainian unit. The Ukrainian military unit returned fire.
According to the report, rebel intelligence officers also had received reports of dead and wounded from the incident being transferred to Ukrainian military hospitals in western Donetsk.
The report goes on to note that some skirmishes have taken place between Ukrainian military and "radical nationalists", but the report did not elaborate.
The Marinka incident is not the only time Russian backed separatists have claimed they monitored a fratricide incident. Last year, separatists said that a private military unit entered into the area of operation of another unidentified Right Sektor volunteer unit and destroyed the unit using suppress small arms. Communications and GPS data were said to have been monitored in real time as the unit assassinated members of the volunteer unit.
In that incident, separatists claimed that a total of 30 elements had been killed.
Fighting in western Doentsk
Ukrainian military officials said Monday their forces were fired on 71 times by rebel forces in several locations, according to a news account which appeared in korrespondent.net
Mortar fire was recorded in Peski, Talakovke, Malyorsk and Zaitsev, while small arms fire and RPG fire were recorded in Novotroitsk, Marinka, Avdeevka, Novgorod, Opytnoye, and Peski, all of which are locations west of Donetsk city.
Small arms and RPG fire were noted near Mariupol and Shirokino, both of which are in southern Donetsk.
A separate korrespondent.net report said small arms and mortar fired were recorded in Marinka and Krasnogorovka on Sunday. The report also noted rebel forces were moving heavy equipment into the area, but that report did not elaborate.
Yet another korrespondent.net report said that a total of one dead and seven wounded Ukrainian soldiers were reported in separatist mortar attacks on Saturday.
The report said that rebel mortar and small arms fire struck Ukrainian positions at Marinka, Krasnogorovka and Maryinsky. Gunfire was also report near the Donetsk airport, Opytnoye, Avdeevka and Pemok.
Separatist defense officials say the Ukrainian military fired on their positions more than 200 times using banned weapons, such as 82mm and 120mm mortar fire and tank gunfire. The incidents occurred in Gorlovka, Staromykhailivka , Zhabichevo, near the Donetsk airport and western and northern suburbs of Donetsk city.
Southern Donetsk areas said to have come under Ukrainian fire include Dokuchaevsk and Kominternovo.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com and on Twitter. You can read past articles about the 2014 war in southeastern Ukraine by clicking here.
[IN.REUTERS] The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... ended five years of sanctions against Belarus and its authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday, citing improving human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. as the bloc seeks more friends in Russia's back yard.
A peaceful presidential election in October, the release of political prisoners and Lukashenko's role in holding Ukraine-Russia peace talks in Minsk have improved ties with the man who the United States once said runs Europe's last dictatorship.
"This decision is not taken under the illusion that Belarus is changing overnight," Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said, underlining what the European Union insists is its sober but constructive approach to the former soviet state.
Announcing its decision at a foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels, the European Union said it will maintain its arms embargo on Belarus and will keep sanctions for another year on four men suspected of being behind the disappearances of two opposition politicians, a businessman, and a journalist.
The sanctions -- on 170 people, including Lukashenko, and three companies -- were already lifted for four months at the end of October in a gesture to Lukashenko. Monday's decision means they will end definitively on March 1.
The European Union has pushed for democratic change in Belarus but is now shifting its approach to engage rather than isolate its neighbours in central and eastern Europe, as well as to counter what it sees as a newly aggressive Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2016 00:00 ||
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[REUTERS] French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... reckons there is work still to be done to secure a deal at a European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... summit this week to help keep Britannia in the EU, a presidency source said after a visit by British Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... On a final push to rally support in Europe before Thursday's summit in Brussels, which could sway Britons voting in a referendum to stay or leave the EU, Cameron met Hollande for an hour and will meet members of a wary European Parliament on Tuesday.
"There's a political will to conclude in Brussels," the French presidency source said. "There is still work to be done, especially on economic governance."
The French are seeking to limit any British right to interfere in euro zone decisions, and ensure Britannia commits to allowing further integration of the euro area, a diplomatic source said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2016 00:00 ||
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KARACHI: Initially reported as an act of terror, the attack on a private school in North Nazimabad area of the metropolis turned out to be a firecracker explosion by high-school students, with the police arresting five students on Monday over their alleged involvement in the incident.
According to DIG West Feroz Shah, five students of Educators campus-I in North Nazimabad were taken into custody after the investigation into the reported grenade attack revealed that the students brought firecrackers in a bid to play a prank, following the school administration's refusal to let them appear for upcoming examinations over non-payment of school fees.
"The police took one injured student into custody for investigation, since he was the only one injured in the incident and the student confessed that he and other students had bought firecrackers which exploded accidentally," said the DIG.
The incident was reported on Friday along with two other minor blasts, one at police station in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, and the other at girls’ college in Karimabad.
[DAWN] QUETTA: A teenage girl from Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... 's Killa Saifullah district, who led a protest against suspension of classes at her college owing to a shortage of female teachers, did away with himself on Friday after the college principal refused to send her examination form to the intermediate education board, family members claim.
17-year-old Saqiba Kakar, who was a second year intermediate student, and 12 other girls were suspended from sitting their intermediate final exams by Principal Abida Ghous of Government Girls Degree College, Muslim Bagh, allegedly for staging a demonstration outside the Quetta Press Club in June 2015 demanding resumption of classes at their institution.
The girls, who had travelled all the way to Quetta last year to stage a protest, said the principal had cancelled classes because there were "no female teachers at the school".
In a video obtained by DawnNews, a group of burqa-clad girls from the school talk to a news hound purportedly outside the Quetta Press Club, where they had gathered to raise their voices for their right to education.
In the footage, the girls claim they have no objection to being taught by male instructors, and despite their parents having held meetings with the college administration, classes remained suspended.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] For the first time in the country's history, marriage laws for millions of Hindus living in Sindh have been codified after the Sindh Assembly approved the Hindu Marriage Bill, 2016, on Monday.
Senior PPP leader and Sindh Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Nisar Ahmad Khuhro moved the bill in the provincial assembly which was later passed after a debate between the opposition and treasury benches.
The bride and groom cannot be less than 18 years, according to the text of the approved draft.
Married couples will be required to obtain a marriage registration certificate, while a couple can also face fines in case their marriage is not registered. The law can be applied retroactively to existing marriages.
Zoroastrians and Sikhs will also be able to register their marriages under the new law.
Hindus, despite being the second-largest religious minority group in Pakistain, with a population of 3.3 million, had no legal mechanism to register marriages.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2016 00:00 ||
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[Telegraph] Researchers in immunotherapy trials engineer cells so they boost body's natural defences and stand guard for lifetime - acting effectively like vaccine.
A revolutionary new cancer treatment that remembers the disease and acts like a watchman to prevent it ever returning is being developed by scientists. Researchers are engineering immune cells so that they not only boost the body's own natural defences to fight tumours, but stand guard for a lifetime - acting effectively like a vaccine.
Scientists say it is like having a "living drug", which is constantly vigilant to the return of cancer and quickly removes it from the body.
#4
If this is the same as that other treatment hitting the news stories, the treatment has severe and nasty side effects, including death in 2 out of the 7 patients.
Seyyed Hassan Khomeini lost his appeal of the Guardian Council’s decision to bar him from running for a seat in the Assembly of Experts. A grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, he is widely considered the heir apparent of the late revolutionary leader’s legacy. The young Khomeini’s long-anticipated entrance into politics could have important consequences. The 86-member Assembly of Experts, which will increase its membership to 88 this election, is the only constitutional body with the authority to appoint, supervise and dismiss the supreme leader. The group of clerics has historically served as a rubber stamp organization that has never seriously questioned the actions of Iran’s previous or current supreme leader. But the stakes are higher for the February 2016 election. The next assembly may be faced with the question of what to do should the 76-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pass away due to illness or old age.
Khomeini would likely have been popular with voters. He has spoken out against extremism and supported the nuclear deal, which was broadly welcomed by the Iranian public. At age 43, Khomeini is significantly younger than the mostly elderly members of the Assembly of Experts. The youth vote is increasingly important in Iran, where more than 60 percent of its 80 million people are under 30 years old. In addition to Khomeini’s revered pedigree, his family is connected to prominent reformists through marriage. His cousin, Zahra Eshraghi is married to former deputy speaker of parliament Reza Khatami, brother of former President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005). Khomeini also has the support of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who chairs the Expediency Council. In August 2015, Rafsanjani said it was Khomeini’s turn to come forward to “protect the revolution.”
Khomeini kept a relatively low profile until 2002, when a university professor was sentenced to death for insulting Islam. Professor Hashem Aghajari argued that each generation should be able to interpret Islam on its own. Khomeini reportedly protested the sentence with about 1,000 students in November 2002. Khomeini has spoken out against military interference in politics. He also criticized the disqualification of nearly 2,000 candidates from running for parliament in 2008. Most of them were reformists. Khomeini’s comments prompted a harsh reaction from conservatives, who accused him of corruption.
Khomeini reportedly supported reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in 2009. Khomeini reportedly went on a trip outside Iran before Ahmadinejad’s August 2009 inauguration ceremony. Conservative publications criticized Khomeini’s move and interpreted his absence as opposition to the election results. Khomeini also met with political prisoners Alireza Beheshti and Mohammadreza Jalaeipour shortly after their release in 2009, which also suggested sympathies with the reformist camp.
In June 2010, Khomeini spoke at a ceremony marking his grandfather’s death. But his speech was cut short by hardliners chanting “Death to Mousavi!” and shouting slogans in support of Iran’s current supreme leader. The incident may have been the first time a Khomeini family member had been insulted in a public venue.
Posted by: Pappy ||
02/16/2016 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
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.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[THECOLLEGEFIX] The University of Portland has launched a "Speak Up" webpage that encourages students to report "incidents of discomfort" to its Public Safety department.
[USATODAY] The 
[IN.REUTERS] The 
[REUTERS] French President 
David Cameron
[DAWN] QUETTA: A teenage girl from 
