BLUF: [WAPO] Flynn has previously acknowledged that he was investigated while serving as the U.S. military intelligence chief in Afghanistan for sharing secrets with British and Australian allies there. But he has dismissed the case as insignificant and has given few details.
An Army Regulation (AR) 15-6 investigation was conducted and no adverse action was recommended. If I recall correctly Great Britain and Australia are 'Five Eyes' classification members. Just a wild guess, but it sounds like Flynn or one of his staff, might have told someone (USN Specialist) to get off their arse and that prompted the claim and subsequent 15-6.
[Canadian Free Press] I’m not entirely sure that Keith Olbermann had much of a mind to lose but, whatever he did have, I think we can safely say it’s gone now. The election of Donald Trump has reduced the former television personality to a bitter, sputtering, rage-machine who appears determined to become the left-wing Alex Jones. He shakes, screams, and spits his way through conspiracy theories that - if he wasn’t some sort of once-upon-a-time celebrity - he’d probably be scratching into the walls of his cell using only his fingernails.
Previously, Keith offered to lead America’s anti-Trump resistance forces. Now, he’s decided that we’re at war with Russia. Or, more acurately, we’ve "lost a war with Russia without a battle." It seems that we are "no longer a sovereign nation, no longer a Democracy, we are no longer a free people." We’re nothing but victims of a "so-far bloodless coup" against the United States and its rightful President, Hillary Clinton.
His rant, which he still appears to be filming in a closet in front of two large sheets of construction paper, appears below.
If you’ve been enjoying the left’s post-election meltdown, you’re going to love this. It’s completely worthless as political commentary but, as unintentional comedy goes, it’s absolutely top notch.
#7
Holy hell, that is hilarious. As a cherry topping the has-been yelling at a wall, his target audience, if they know what the Pearl Harbor reference means, thinks the USA deserved it. More, please.
By the way, safety pins are for diapers.
Oh, and how is Mr. Beck? He seemed quite certain of his poll interpretations.
[Canadian Free Press] We know that the media picked sides in the presidential contest. Now we are seeing more evidence of how the CIA picked sides, to the point of engaging in what is an obvious effort to bring down the Trump presidency even before it begins.
You couldn’t fault Donald J. Trump for concluding that the CIA is out to get him even before he starts his presidency. Former CIA officials Michael Morell, Michael Hayden and Philip Mudd have all denounced him. Plus, former CIA operations officer Evan McMullin ran against him as an independent presidential candidate.
Obama’s director of the CIA is John Brennan, who recently disclosed that he voted for the Communist Party (CPUSA) ticket when he was in college. He was hired by the CIA anyway and quickly rose through the ranks, even though the CPUSA was funded by Moscow and known to provide cover for Soviet espionage activities.
#1
Now we must work with these generals and successful business people. They know nothing about regime change, gun running, deceit, dishonesty, betrayal, or pay-for-play.
Sessions, Tillerson, Mattis, Kelly, Perry, Zinke, and Mike Flynn... they're just not our kind of people.
[Free Beacon] A federal appeals court on Tuesday issued an opinion saying that Virginia’s voter identification law is constitutional and does not violate the Voting Rights Act.
In the unanimous opinion issued by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the court affirmed that Virginia’s voter identification law "does not sweep away all election rules that result in a disparity in the convenience of voting." Under Virginia’s elections laws, "every registered voter in Virginia has the full ability to vote when Election Day arrives," the court continued.
The lawsuit against Virginia’s voter identification law was filed in early 2015 and was dismissed in May. The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of the law by alleging that it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and disproportionally hurt minority voters.
The challenge was initially brought forth as part of a multi-state legal effort challenging state voter ID laws implemented by Republican-controlled legislatures leading up to the 2016 elections. It was bankrolled by millions of dollars from liberal billionaire George Soros.
#1
Mr. Soros has been very generous this election cycle in terms of pouring money into the economy. President Trump will get the credit for the result of all that pump priming, which seems only fair -- it was because of him that Mr. Soros fruitlessly wrote those checks.
[GP] Judge Napolitano doubled down today on Varney and Co. that the US intelligence community leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Napolitano told Stewart Varney the US intelligence community leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks -- NOT the Russians. Napolitano says he has a source inside the intelligence community.
The CIA and FBI examined the exact same data that was produced for them by the NSA. The CIA analysts said the Russians are behind this. The FBI analysts said there is no evidence that the Russians are behind this. We do know this was leaking. This was not hacking. Leaking is the unauthorized exposure of something to a person to whom it wasn’t intended. Hacking is th altering of an operational system… You can’t affect the outcome of the election if you hack Clinton and the DNC. You can affect the outcome of an election if you affect those who register the voters or count the voters.
There is NO EVIDENCE that this was done by the Russians. But there is evidence for this. Who was harmed by Mrs. Clinton’s extremely careless use of state secrets? Whose agents’ lives were jeopardized by her failure to keep these state secrets? The American intelligence community. It is more likely than not that members of the American intelligence community leaked this to Julian Assange than that the Russians did… The suggestion comes from members of the intelligence community.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? It ain't over now. This is Islamic Whack-a-Mole, so it ain't over 'til ISIS sez it's over.
[ArabNews] In its 7,000 years of existence, Aleppo has been fought over by Babylonians, Greeks and Romans. The modern battle for the ancient Syrian city, however, may yet be as significant for the future of the Middle East as those fought by the kingdoms and empires of the past.
The four-year battle for Aleppo now seems to be reaching its final stages. More than any other place, the city — one of the oldest continually inhabited places in the world — has been the epicenter of the Syria conflict.
In time, Syria may be seen to define the early 21st century the way the Spanish Civil War did the 1930s, a perfect storm of all the worst trends in global politics and conflict. If it is, then Aleppo will be its Guernica, the Spanish town carpet bombed by Nazi aircraft in 1937 in a savage precursor to the horrors of the coming WW II.
As long as it held out, Aleppo made a mockery of President Bashar Assad’s ambition to once again be seen as ruler of everywhere important in Syria. Even now with Russian support, the Syrian government’s attempts to seize it back have been largely unsuccessful. And in diverting its forces to the most recent Aleppo assault, Damascus left Palmyra too lightly defended and vulnerable to Daesh, which recaptured the ancient city on Sunday.
Aleppo might always have been doomed. The victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, however, appears to have settled the matter. Had Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton prevailed, those fighting to protect the last handful of opposition enclaves in the city might finally have seen Washington drawn into the fight, if only through enforcing a no-fly zone against Syrian and Russian aircraft.
That might have been dangerous for the rest of the world. But it would have offered at least a limited salvation for those still fighting in Aleppo.
Trump has signaled that he intends to take a very different approach, pledging to work with Moscow and prioritize the fight against Daesh. European nations still want some kind of political transition deal to remove the Syrian leader, something Washington now seems much less likely to support.
The battle is not quite over. The failure of Assad’s forces to take the sprawling city suggests they lack the combat power to do so. Russian and Syrian bombing may kill hundreds if not thousands of civilians, but the attacks will not in themselves bring victory to Damascus.
The end of the siege will be in some ways a humanitarian blessing, whoever might win.The darker side of the fighting’s end, however, is already also becoming clear, with reports of perhaps hundreds of fighting age men “disappeared” or killed after surrender.
If the Assad regime regains control over the rebel city, it will likely use brutal measures to reduce any prospect of further insurrection, especially if it feels neither the United States nor other major powers will take any action.
Any harsh response by Assad shouldn’t be surprising. What has and will happen in Aleppo is little different to that in thousands of other sieges throughout history. But as it appears to be ending, it’s worth examining why it took so long to reach this point.
The West’s half-hearted approach to Syria’s civil war — giving support to opposition forces, but never enough to beat the government or its Russian allies — has been an unmitigated failure.
Perhaps the United States, the United Kingdom and others should share the guilt for the horror that has come with it. The Syria conflict has always had many moving pieces. Even now, formulating policy is complicated by the myriad rival interests — Kurds, Arabs, Alawites, the competing concerns of half a dozen nations.
In the process, the wider political landscape of the Middle East has been redrawn. In the early days of the uprising, the Assad government was heavily reliant on Iran as its main ally, the opposition on rival Arab states. In the last two years, however, Russia has been calling the shots.
If Aleppo is to fall shortly, then much of the credit — if that is the right word — must go to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has established a potential new role for itself, a source of military power for autocratic regimes the West might rather see gone. What we don’t know is whether that will be a sign of things to come.
In some ways, that was inevitable. After the disasters of Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the feeling in Washington and Europe was that there was little to gain and much to lose. With the migrant crisis, Europe in particular found itself paying a much higher price for the bloodshed in Syria than it ever anticipated, but that in itself did not appear to justify any intervention.
If the battle of Aleppo is seen as some kind of regional historic turning point, historians may well be arguing over it for generations. As it draws to a close, however, only one thing is truly apparent — that a city that started the century as a relatively cosmopolitan metropolis and destination for Western tourists has been reduced to rubble.
And that all the fighting and international handwringing may ultimately have made little difference to who actually runs Syria.
•Peter Apps is Reuters global affairs columnist. The opinions expressed here are his own.
#3
That might have been dangerous for the rest of the world. But it would have offered at least a limited salvation for those still fighting in Aleppo.
Doesn't enter his "brain" that he's part of the rest of the world?
#5
European nations still want some kind of political transition deal to remove the Syrian leader, something Washington now seems much less likely to support.
The European Elites want a foreign intervention in Syria that is effective, humane, and cheap. Pick one. If they do not want to get their own hands dirty they should be silent.
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.
[Canadian Free Press] I’m not entirely sure that Keith Olbermann had much of a mind to lose but, whatever he did have, I think we can safely say it’s gone now. The election of Donald Trump has reduced the former television personality to a bitter, sputtering, rage-machine who appears determined to become the left-wing Alex Jones. He shakes, screams, and spits his way through conspiracy theories that - if he wasn’t some sort of once-upon-a-time celebrity - he’d probably be scratching into the walls of his cell using only his fingernails.
