[Breitbart] The organized left’s kitchen sink tactic seen throughout the week against Senator Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) nomination for the next U.S. Attorney General included a bold effort tell the Senate Judiciary Committee directly that the nominee’s record of prosecuting federal voter fraud defendants served as an example of voter intimidation.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s opposition campaign formally expanded this week to include the promotion of a letter from former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D), who previously served as a staff lawyer for the organization before advancing to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Clinton Administration.
The document, directed to Senate Judiciary Committee leadership, charged that Sessions’ judgment should be questioned after bringing a case against three black, Alabama voters for what Patrick describes was an effort to "help someone else to vote or advise them how to vote--even if and when they ask for such help." The defendants named in the case (the Perry County Three) were Albert Turner, Spencer Hogue, Jr., and Evelyn Turner. Patrick reports that he served as counsel to Mr. Hogue. The former governor further charged that the case was an example of Sessions’ "extraordinary quasi-judicial activism" and noted that Sessions targeted his efforts on "black voters and only where white incumbents were losing political ground." Finally, the letter argued that the former U.S. Attorney’s decision to give 20 local government witnesses armed protection when traveling to testify led some to believe there was a "campaign to intimidate" the group into "believing that voter assistance was illegal."
#1
Seems to me - looking from outside in - that African-Americans from top (current POTUS) to bottom (these punks in Chicago), with every stage in between (all these AA professors & organizations), are doing everything they can to reverse the advancement they've achieved since 1960. I guess, I'm wrong (because the only other alternative is that the old racists were right).
#7
Funny that they can't find a victim. Well other than the people who's vote were actually changed, without their knowledge or consent, by the people Session prosecuted.
And they failed to note that Sessions acted on behalf of other black candidates who felt that their election was being stolen.
Housekeeping note: I switched over from tracking California firearms to Arizona. You can see that Arizona is the smallest market I can track, but it is relatively free.
On the heels of its wildly successful gun control laws, the one with a five percent registration compliance rate, New York legislators are considering a law that will limit ammunition purchases to 20 rounds every 90 days. They apparently think firearms ammunition is separate from firearms, Constitutionally, but they are wrong. Limits to ammunition purchases not only infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, but even with registering ammunition purchases are easy to get around.
Metrosexuals are starting to look at firearms as a bulwark against a government that no longer intrudes only on the lives of their political opponents. As a personal note, I welcome them into the fold, with the caveat that their rights are identical to mine, but our ends may differ.
Prices for pistol ammunition were mostly steady. Prices for rifle ammunition were mixed.
Prices for used pistols were mixed. Prices for used rifles were mixed.
New Lows:
None.
Quarterly reports are noted below: The three signature ammunition classes, .45 ACP, .223 Remington and .22LR showed mixed results. .45 ACP was unchanged from last quarter, while .223 Remington rose by $0.01 per round, which was an unexpected increase. Most significant was the .22LR which dropped to the lowest level since this column has been tracking ammunition prices, $0.05 each.
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2016) (From Q3, 2016: .24 per round, Unchanged)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (9 Weeks))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 Grain, From Last Week: +.01 Each After Unchanged (2 Weeks) (From Q3, 2016: .20 per round, +.02 Each)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds:LAX Ammunition, Own brand, FSFP, Brass Casing, reloads, .21 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
9mm Parabellum, 115 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (6 Weeks) (From Q3, 2016: .14 per round, +.01 Each)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .15 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: FedArm, Own Brand, TPMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .14 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.357 Magnum, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (8 Weeks) (From Q3, 2016: .23 per round, +.02 Each)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .25 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: J&G Sales, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel casing, .25 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2016))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 Grain, From Last Week: +.02 Each After Unchanged (2 Weeks) (From Q3, 2016: .23 per round, -.01 Each)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Midsouth Shooters Supply, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
.308 NATO 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (6 Weeks) (From Q3, 2016: .35 per round, +.01 Each)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .34 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .34 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
7.62x39mm AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks) (From Q3, 2016: .24 per round, -.01 Each)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammo King, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .25 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .22 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (5 Weeks) (From Q3, 2016: .06 per round, -.01 Each)
Cheapest, 50 rounds (10 Box Limit): Natchez Shooters Suuply, Federal, RNL, .05 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 325 rounds (2 Box Limit): Ammo King, Federal, RNL, .06 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks))
Guns for Private Sale
Rifles
.223/5.56mm (AR Pattern Semiautomatic) Average Price: $485 Last Week Avg: $550(-) ($616 (2Q, 2015), $468 (5 Weeks))
Arizona (115, 0): Palmetto State Armory: $500 ($500(), $500 ())
Texas (327, 306): Palmetto State Armory: $475 ($700 (1Q, 2015), $350 (2Q, 2015))
Pennsylvania (162, 154): Smith & Wesson M&P15 Tactical: $500 ($700 (2Q, 2015), $300 (3Q, 2015))
Virginia (201, 189): Palmetto State Armory: $500 ($750 (1Q, 2015), $415 (4 Weeks))
Florida (451, 445): Anderson Arms: $450 ($650 (2Q, 2015), $380 (1Q, 2015))
[National Review] In 2010, the 3rd Platoon of Kilo Company in the 5th Marine Regiment was patrolling the farmlands in bloody Sangin in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. When I joined them, they were shot at or encountered concealed IEDs (improvised explosive devices) every day.
I had patrolled in many places in Vietnam (in the ’60s) and in Iraq and Afghanistan. Third Platoon went into Sangin with 51 Marines and in seven months took 27 casualties, including two killed and nine amputations. Altogether, American and British forces each lost 100 troops in the battle and incurred several hundred moderate to severe casualties.
I suppose I have as much time on patrols as any American, and I loathed what I saw in Sangin, because what we gained could not be sustained. Our top generals were preaching a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy based on winning hearts and minds. "The conflict will be won," General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander, wrote, "by persuading the population, not by destroying the enemy." Yet by a two-to-one ratio, the Marines in the platoon rated the Taliban better fighters than the Afghan soldiers, and not one Marine believed the villagers supported the government. (See my book One Million Steps, page 244.)
Every battalion commander who served there knew that the Afghan soldiers would give up what we paid so dearly to gain. Yet the top Marine general in Helmand wrote me that I did not understand operations or strategy. We had a difference of opinion long before Sangin fell. The denial, at the top, of the reality at the bottom was Kafkaesque. The 3rd platoon waded through red, crimson and purple poppy fields as beautiful as Monet’s paintings. Helmand provided 70 percent of the world’s supply of opium and heroin. A farmer collected pitch from every bulb on his five to seven acres and earned $9,000 for the aggregate product. He paid about $3,000 to the Taliban youths who helped him, plus a tax of 15 percent. Sangin District was yielding $40 million and Helmand Province was yielding $250 million in farm-gate revenues alone. The value skyrocketed from there, after the raw opium was refined in hidden labs and smuggled out to Pakistan, then west into Iran, and from there to the Balkans and on to the rest of Europe and to Russia.
The Taliban in Helmand and across Afghanistan are tied into a global drug network estimated at well over $20 billion. Of course tribal leaders and government officials at all levels wanted their share. Our Marines were sent to the end of the earth -- the miserable, selfish, mean district of Sangin -- to win hearts and minds, while drug lords in collusion with the Taliban (and too many government officials) filled the wallets of the villagers. Mission impossible.
#1
It'd sure be interesting if we could follow the money.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/07/2017 13:30 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The author is saying in essence, that if we were Romans using current technology, we'd kill the Sangin men, sell off the women and children into slavery, resettle the district with a more tractable (non-Pashtun) population and be done with it. What we've done, the hearts-and-minds program, was a complete waste of both money and good men. Given current mores, the best we can do is to give up on Sangin and other Pashtun areas, support only the non-Pashtun areas and drone-zap the Pashtuns who try to attack those areas.
#3
What we've done is not wage war. The noun is used for something that it is not. When you make something less painful, less determinate, you make humans far more likely not to change their ways/behaviors that got you there in the first place. See - Germany,Japan post-45.
[LEADERSHIP.NG] The reported arrest of a Local Government Chairman in Borno State and his father for aiding and abetting insurgency confirms long held opinion by security analysts that Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... could not have lasted this long without some form of assistance from among the locals. There was also the allegation that they were using the people in the area as human shield. That may have been possible, because those used for that purpose made themselves available, they acquiesced to the evil plot. With this arrest that assertion has also been confirmed.
In the early days of that war, there were reports that some of the locals were sabotaging the military operations by giving the soldiers false intelligence. In some cases, the same locals knowingly and deliberately lured the soldiers into ambush that led to the death of officers and men of the armed forces.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Boko Haram
[Daily Caller] Russia’s original hacking intent had nothing to do with President-elect Donald Trump, according to intelligence officials who detailed their assessment in a report released Friday.
The intel chiefs are highly confident the core motivations behind the extensive Russian campaign were to undermine the integrity of the election, denigrate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and undermine her potential presidency. Although the report states Russia developed a "preference" for Trump late in the campaign, it’s clear they believe the underlying goal was always to hurt Clinton.
"We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election," the report states. "Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency."
[Sputnik News] A highly-anticipated declassified US intelligence report, aimed to prove that Russia supported Donald Trump, has turned out to be a huge embarrassment. The annex that contained factual material that was thought to provide evidence of RT influencing the American public was compiled in December 2012, right after the reelection of Barack Obama.
The report focuses on television shows and interviews that took place four years before Trump was elected, and well before he was even a politician. In Annex A of the report, intelligence agencies claim that "Kremlin's TV Seeks To Influence Politics, Fuel Discontent in US." Buried at the bottom of that page is a note stating, "This annex was originally published on 11 December 2012 by the Open Source Center, now the Open Source Enterprise."
The report notes that two RT shows, Breaking the Set and Truthseeker, focused on criticism of US. The problem is, both of these shows were off air before the 2016 election season began.
[Wash Times] President-elect Donald Trump is "undermining the credibility" of the U.S. intelligence community by using Twitter to discuss and dispute matters of national security, former CIA Director Leon Panetta said Friday.
In an interview broadcast by NBC’s "Today" show, the former CIA chief said it was "unheard of and unprecedented" for the president-elect to be publicly sparring with the nation’s intelligence community after Mr. Trump used his widely followed social media account to challenge its claims concerning a hacking campaign waged against the 2016 White House race by the Russian government.
"When he sits down with our intelligence community and hears what they have to say, I think he’s going to realize that this is a very important issue that must be dealt with seriously," said Mr. Panetta, who at separate times ran both the CIA and Department of Defense under President Obama.
"He’s going to find that it’s easy to tweet about reactions to all kinds of issues. But to seriously deal with our national security and deal with the threats to our country is a business that ought to be done in the confines of the Oval Office," he said Friday morning.
Although Mr. Panetta has been hardly reserved in the past with respect to expressing his opinion of the president-elect, his latest comments proved especially timely given that Mr. Trump was scheduled to be briefed by intelligence officials Friday afternoon on the Russia’s hacking campaign.
#1
Failed to predict the collapse of Soviet Union. Failed to predict the raise of Islamic Militancy. Failed in all their recommendation in how to deal with Islamic Militancy. Failed in predicting Russian response to engineering Ukrainian putsch. Failed to ... Ok, maybe we should talk about their successes instead?
#5
Next you're going to say "Trump ‘undermining the credibility' of news media with Twitter tirades"?
Seems both institution sunk themselves by their own actions and behaviors. Trump is just the kid pointing out the Emperor has no clothes. Fortunately, he has enough standing to actually get peoples attention to the matter.
#6
I think it's the fact that the CIA is pursuing it's own agenda and has become lying worthless political hacks instead of doing their actual job that is the reason Trump is going to eviscerate them. Maybe we should use rendition to send them all to the Russians so they can have that fantasy super secret agent experience, only for real. I'm sure the Russians will 'disappear' them.
#7
I think it's the fact that the CIA is pursuing it's own agenda and has become lying worthless political hacks instead of doing their actual job.
But, but, but intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination... be hard. Political intrigues, running guns, shi* disturbing, and overthrowing governments is much more lucrative.
#8
It would appear that Pannettas' primary beef is the public nature of PE-Trumps' IC critiques. He also seems to insinuate the use Twitter is not an appropriate vehicle to air such grievences. Those are opinions held by many - not the few. Trump would be wise to tone down his 144 characters on this issue. At least re-focus the motive conclusion towards the damaging of a single candidate as opposed to swaying an entire election.
#10
....I think one should read TFA with this in mind: the CIA cheerfully went after Dubya in his second term, and may have actively worked against John McCain. Mr Panetta - White House COS under Slick Willie and with ZERO LE or Intel experience - was sent to CIA by President Obama with one and only one purpose in mind: make sure that a weaponized intel community wouldn't turn against Obama and the Democratic party. He did his job and made sure that when it came down to it, the intel community would support The Right People.
Mr Panetta isn't bitching about undermined credibility here; he's complaining that President-elect Trump might actually be intending to drain the particular swamp in Langley, VA.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/07/2017 10:53 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Incoming director Rep. Mike Pompeo is going to have his hands full.
#12
"the CIA cheerfully went after Dubya in his second term, and may have actively worked against John McCain"
And this is not half of the bureaucratic nonsense for political gain I have seen for decades.
Do not get me wrong, I love them, they do deliver some great products,
The political arm over Our entire structure has been tuned into an ether level priority.
The ground level probably waits on 50 staff to do anything now.
information is forged for political purposes. Metrics are off.
Grab a decade of WFB and check it
There is no Sin against being plain spoken or direct. There is nothing wrong with trust but verify.
And this dogpile on Trump looks exactly like it is.
It's an army of strawmen to contaminate the news that no one cared about in 2012.
China is the Nation State that attacked Our Government, and probably has the OPM file on everyone on rantburg, plus .. Every Federal Government Employee.
Some simple rudimentary checks show inconsistencies with "competing" agencies. The map making process must have been a bitch beating your heads together to make a consistent non-story about the big Russian Bear in your barn or bathroom.
[DAWN] IF ever an image was emblematic of Pakistain’s progress in the war against extremism -- and indeed of the fissures in its society -- it is that of the viciously defaced Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... Press Club walls. Last October, a group of artists had painted them with portraits of women who have made significant contributions to the country in various fields, including Fatima Surraiya Bajiya, Zubeida Mustafa, Yasmeen Lari, Perween Rahman and Sabeen Mahmud. To celebrate them in this manner was to celebrate the progressive ideas they embodied, the last two even having paid with their lives for their efforts towards a more inclusive and egalitarian society. On Wednesday night, those ideas came up against another side of Pak society -- bigoted, fanatical and misogynistic. In what was clearly a premeditated act, members of ultra right-wing groups demonstrating outside the press club, one of several such protests to counter commemorations of Salmaan Taseer’s death anniversary in the country, spray-painted the walls with profanities and calls to murder.
This is the ugly reality of the state’s much-vaunted ’fight against extremism’, a fight that it vowed to take on with unwavering commitment after the APS Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. attack in December 2014. Two years on, with kinetic operations to dismantle the terrorist network in the northern areas virtually over, the other aspect of the fight -- the long, laborious work to stamp out extremism from society -- has barely begun. It is not that the state is incapable of asserting its writ: we have seen it do so comprehensively when Mr Taseer’s killer was tried and convicted. The problem is that it chooses to do so selectively instead of sending a consistent, resolute message. How else can one explain the impunity with which certain right-wing elements continue to menace anyone who rejects their noxious worldview? Notwithstanding ad hoc measures such as the arrest in Lahore of over 100 people -- who will undoubtedly soon be released without charge -- for attempting to hold a rally to ’celebrate’ the former Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... governor’s liquidation, where is the concerted drive against hate speech and incitement to violence that should be the cornerstone of the civilian aspect of NAP? Why does the government not robustly demonstrate that it values progressive voices rather than appeasing those who would build a shrine to an assassin?
Instead, the state goes through motions such as the Punjab apex committee meeting on Thursday where it resolved to choke terror funding and launch an indiscriminate crackdown against those providing financial support to terrorists. Yet the province has not seen action commensurate with the fact of it being the heartland of jihadist organizations. On the contrary, well-known centres of radical thought continue to operate unimpeded here while members of right-wing groups are being ’mainstreamed’ into charitable work. Only when ’zero-tolerance’ is more than just a meaningless buzzword will there be any hope of us turning the corner.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
How do the DAWN writers stay alive? It's amazing.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/07/2017 12:59 Comments ||
Top||
#4
When the democrats start the race war they so desperately want, I think they'll find it doesn't go the way they want. They are concentrated in the cities where the blacks and others tend to live, so they'll be the ones facing the brunt of the crazy. And sure, Houston has it's areas like that, but once they're done with the city liberals, trying to expand out won't go well.
#5
A violent sociopath is a thousand times more dangerous than an angry bigot After all, anger can be calmed and bigotry can be overcome. An utter lack of a moral compass, however, is not an issue so easily resolved. Especially when the parent suffers from the same condition..
Perhaps title should actually read 'Jim Clapper on Steroids.'
[Wash Times] The nation’s top spy suggested Thursday that it would behoove the incoming administration to revive the defunct U.S. Information Agency, or USIA, as a bulwark against Moscow’s powerful propaganda operation. But wait! I thought the current problem was cyber hacking and espionage? Wasn't the old USIA a diplomatic tool ?
"We could do with having a USIA on steroids to fight this information war [with Russia] a lot more aggressively than we’re doing right now," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Resuscitating and revamping the agency, which was officially shuttered in 1999, and focusing the organization’s pro-U.S. messaging into social media networks would go a long way in countering Russian-sponsored media outlets like Russia Today and Sputnik, Mr. Clapper said. Resuscitation of USIA? But Wikileaks has such a head start. It could take years, possibly decades. Wikileaks is the problem, right ?
"[Russia Today] was very active in promoting a particular point of view, disparaging our system, our alleged hypocrisy about human rights," he said. "Whatever crack, fissure they could find in our tapestry, they would exploit it," via the state-owned news network. The Clinton 'tapestry' did not require a great deal of exploitation.
Currently the aging State Department-run Voice of America is the closest capability Washington has in offsetting Russia Today’s growing influence across the globe.
#1
Forget the Department of Defense, and the fact that we failed you in the past. We now need those new Trump defense dollars. Just ask Leon Panetta, Mike Morell, or Brennan !
Please hurry! We've already selected senior people and purchased desks.
#4
A Mark Dillen review of Nicholas Cull's, The Decline and Fall of the United States Information Agency: American Public Diplomacyfound at this link.
About the author: "Mark Dillen is an international public affairs consultant. As a member of the Senior Foreign Service, he served as Political Minister Counselor at the US Embassy in Rome in 1999, when talks about a Loya Jirga were underway in Rome with Zahir Shah. Mark recently returned from Kabul, where for one year he was Communications Director for USAID and Executive Secretary for the USAID Mission."
#5
Remember, white propaganda is truth. So how do you fight white propaganda, with gray (misleading) or black (lies)? The Donks are already full spin on the latter. They don't need govt subsidizes.
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.
[Sputnik News] A highly-anticipated declassified US intelligence report, aimed to prove that Russia supported Donald Trump, has turned out to be a huge embarrassment. The annex that contained factual material that was thought to provide evidence of RT influencing the American public was compiled in December 2012, right after the reelection of Barack Obama.
[DAWN] IF ever an image was emblematic of Pakistain’s progress in the war against extremism -- and indeed of the fissures in its society -- it is that of the viciously defaced 
