[Just Security] - Editor’s Note: In this special Just Security article, highly respected former member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service, John Sipher examines the Steele dossier using methods that an intelligence officer would to try to validate such information. Sipher concludes that the dossier’s information on campaign collusion is generally credible when measured against standard Russian intelligence practices, events subsequent to Steele’s reporting, and information that has become available in the nine months since Steele’s final report. The dossier, in Sipher’s view, is not without fault, including factual inaccuracies. Those errors, however, do not detract from an overarching framework that has proven to be ever more reliable as new revelations about potential Trump campaign collusion with the Kremlin and its affiliates has come to light in the nine months since Steele submitted his final report.
#2
I'd afraid Mr. Sipher enjoys a confidence in the FBI not shared by many. He also makes no mention of Christopher Steele's connection to Fusion GPS, an “oppo firm” funded by Hillary’s supporters. Nor does he mention the unique relationship of former FBI Director Comey to the Clinton's.
One clue as to the credibility of the sources in these reports is that Steele shared them with the FBI. The fact that the FBI reportedly sought to work with him and to pay him to develop additional information on the sources suggest that at least some of them were worth taking seriously. At the very least, the FBI will be able to validate the credibility of the sources, and therefore better judge the information. As one recently retired senior intelligence officer with deep experience in espionage investigations quipped, “I assign more credence to the Steele report knowing that the FBI paid him for his research. From my experience, there is nobody more miserly than the FBI. If they were willing to pay Mr. Steele, they must have seen something of real value.”
#3
So the FBI, which refused to pursue Hillary's obvious and already public crimes, is to be trusted over a bundle of nonsense about her political opponent?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/09/2017 12:53 Comments ||
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#4
I am not surprised by allegations that the Kremlin was attempting to undermine Ms. Clinton, in an attempt to weaken the united states government, particularly in the period in which she seemed very likely to win the election.
However I would suspect that the Kremlin would be equally likely to attempt to undermine Trump once he started to look like a viable candidate, just in case he might win.
I fail to see how reports about supposed Trump crazy behavior in Russia suggest collusion between the Russians and Trump. It sounds much more like an attempt to embarrass and discredit him.
Moreover, the entire claim of collusion between Trump and the Russians, seems, according to this article, to be based on this "dossier", which has been used, ever since the electionas far as I can tell, to sow dissent aimed at Trump in this country.
Given that this "dossier" was apparently paid for and disseminated by the Democratic Party in an attempt to discredit Trump, and that the sources in this document are primarily Russian agents, it is plausible to me that the Democrats, and the FBI have been colluding with the Russians to discredit Trump, just exactly in the manner that the documents claim that Trump was attempting to discredit Clinton.
The main difference is that the Democratic Party apparently paid for this information, as opposition research, and no evidence that I have seen asserts that the Trump campaign paid for any particular anti-Clinton information.
This reminds me of how much the Clinton campaign and the press howled about Trump not willing to declare that he would accept the result of the election, and how silent they are about the gigantic efforts by the Democrats and the press to refuse to accept the the results of the election once it happened .
One was mere talk, the other an attempt to subvert our democracy.
This report could really be evidence of the pot calling the kettle black.
Posted by: Daniel ||
09/09/2017 21:15 Comments ||
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Pistol ammunition prices were mostly higher. Rifle ammunition prices were mostly steady.
Prices for used pistols were lower across the board. Prices for used rifles were mixed.
Following a trend set in the 2nd quarter, prices for used AR pattern semiautomatic rifles continue to drop, this time to a nationwide low of $318. This also is the second time in a row that the average price for this class of rifle has dropped to below $400. For at least the second time since this column was begun, all states reported prices in the $400 to $499 range or less, with three of five reporting prices at $400, and four of five in the $400 to $499 range.
The intermittent price fluctuations suggests that this class of rifles will continue to trade in the $400 to $499 range for some time to come.
Given the general price level of parts and components, however, I fail to see how this trend will be reversed anytime soon.
New Lows:
Texas: .308 NATO (AR-10 Pattern Semiautomatic): Mixed Build: $675
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 Grain, From Last Week: +.01 Each
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Ten Ring, TMJ, Brass Casing, .23 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo Valley, Own Brand, FMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads .23 per round (From Last Week: +.01 Each After Unchanged (3 Weeks))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 Grain, From Last Week: +.01 Each
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ammomen,Mag tech, FRN, Brass Casing .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo Valley, Own Brand, RNFP, Brass Casing, Reloads, .19 per round (From Last Week: +.01 Each After Unchanged (2Q, 2017))
9mm Parabellum, 115 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Extreme Reloading, Own Brand, RN, Brass Casing .14 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Extreme Reloading, Own brand, RN, Brass Casing, Reloads .14 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.357 Magnum, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (1Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .23 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .23 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (8 Weeks))
.38 Special, 158 Grain, From Last Week: +.02 Each
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Armscor, FMJ, Brass Casing .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Armscor, FMJ, Brass Casing .24 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 Grain, From Last Week: +.02 Each After Unchanged (9 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammo Men, Wolf WPA, FMJ, Steel Casing, .21 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo Men, Wolf WPA, FMJ, Steel Casing, .20 per round (From Last Week: +.01 Each After Unchanged (9 Weeks))
.308 NATO 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .32 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .32 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3Q, 2017))
7.62x39mm AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (9 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammo King, Wolf WPA, FMJ, Steel Casing, .19 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: True Caliber, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .19 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (10 Weeks))
.30-06 Springfield 145 Grain. From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .54 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: United Nations Ammo, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .54 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (1Q, 2017))
.300 Winchester Magnum 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Prvi Partizan, Brass Casing, SP, .80 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Ammo Liquidator, Winchester, Brass Casing, SP, .82 per round (From Last Week: +.01 After Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.338 Lapua Magnum 250 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Red River Reloading, Federal, Brass Casing, JSP, 2.36 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 200 rounds : Wholesale Hunter, Federal, Brass Casing, JSP, 2.36 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ammo Men, Aguila, RNL, .04 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 400 rounds: South Georgia Outdoors, Browning, RNL, .04 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2017))
#1
If your mom & dad stole a bunch of money, and you yourself haven't had anything worse than a parking ticket for 15 years, you should get to keep the cash, right? (I'm asking for a friend)
#2
Not Americans - precisely why those in our Unioarty in DC love them so much. Real Americams are too problematic with their slavish devotion to that Constitution of theirs
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/09/2017 2:32 Comments ||
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#3
'uniparty' PIMF
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/09/2017 2:33 Comments ||
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[Free Beacon] "Why did we lose this war?" asked James Burnham of Vietnam in 1972. One reason, he wrote, was that "We failed‐that is, our leadership failed‐to comprehend this Indochina struggle as one campaign or sub-war in a global conflict. Since we did not set it within its global frame of reference, our leaders could neither develop a comprehensive strategy to win it nor make it comprehensible to the American people."
That is a fair description of the geopolitical situation more than four decades later. America faces diplomatic and security crises along the Rimland of the Eurasian supercontinent, from Lebanon and Syria and Yemen and Iran, to a recalcitrant Pakistan, a militarized South China Sea, and nuclear brinkmanship in North Korea. We bomb ISIS, threaten to unwind the Iranian nuclear agreement, demand that Pakistan assist us in our war against the Afghan Taliban, and remind Kim Jong Un that U.S. forces are "locked and loaded" if he crosses an ill-defined red line.
We treat these dilemmas as if they are isolated from one another. We prefer to think the Shiite Corridor that Iran is establishing from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean has nothing to do with a North Korean hydrogen bomb. We focus on Omar al-Baghdadi and Kim Jong-Un and Bashar al-Assad rather than the more powerful players who lurk behind them. We apply local solutions to a global problem. The result is not only strategic incoherence. It's a diminished United States.
We know what the problem is. The post-Cold War, American-led world order of democratic capitalist nation-states tied to one another by free-flowing capital, trade, labor, technology, and media is falling apart. And this fragmentation is happening not only because of internal division, feelings of historical guilt, and spiritual exhaustion, but also because two external challengers are actively subverting American prestige and influence around the globe. I doubt Burnham would be surprised to learn that these challengers are exactly the same powers that thwarted the United States in Vietnam: Russia and China.
None of the subsidiary national security issues of war in Ukraine, chaos in the Middle East, or nukes on the Korean peninsula can be resolved without confronting Russian and Chinese malfeasance. As we are consumed with White House intrigue, dopey clichés, and blistering Twitter threads, Russia and China consolidate their positions by establishing facts on the ground. Consider the following headlines:
"What we have, then, is the steady erosion of the American position, with Russia acting in the western flank of the great continent"
Russia is surrounded on all sides, hemmed in by US bases. China is behind three lines of defense. They have shitty positions and we hold all the cards. And this guy is pretending that we're somehow losing and the world will go to hell.
"What he needs now is to align his words with his actions and resist fully the Russian and Chinese attempt to remove America from the global power equation. That is the way to solve our North Korean problem, our Syrian problem, and many of our problems besides."
Ah, a globalist. What a fucking surprise. Globalism doesn't solve problems, it creates them. How else can it justify its existence?
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 ||
09/09/2017 6:39 Comments ||
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Just two months after Standard & Poor’s downgraded its general obligation debt to junk status, warning that the historic Connecticut capital could soon follow other once-proud cities like Detroit into bankruptcy, Hartford city officials confirmed as much when they warned on Thursday that the city could be forced into insolvency within two months if the state doesn’t provide emergency financial relief, the WSJ reports.
“City officials warned Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, and state lawmakers that Hartford, which has a deficit approaching $50 million, wouldn’t be able to pay all of its bills within 60 days. Hartford officials said it would file for bankruptcy at that point unless the state legislature passes a budget that gives the city more funding or otherwise provides it with more cash.
‘We face the greatest fiscal crisis in our city’s history,’ officials said in a letter signed by Mayor Luke Bronin, Treasurer Adam Cloud and Thomas Clarke II, president of the court of common council.”
Hartford has been plagued by political corruption and a disintegrating corporate tax base – most recently exemplified by health-insurance giant Aetna’s decision to move its corporate headquarters away from the city, which was once proudly called “the Insurance Capital of the World.”
#1
...This is in a state where until 26 years ago, they didn't HAVE an income tax. Amazing how quickly and efficiently you can run someplace into the ground when you think you have an unlimited supply of money.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/09/2017 9:10 Comments ||
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#2
Another proud example of liberal/progressive/Democrat governing. Just like Detroit.
[Hurriyet Daily News] An Istanbul prosecutor has launched an investigation against Sezgin Tanrikulu, a prominent politician from the ranks of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), over his claims that civilians had been killed by armed drones as part of the anti-terror fight in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s southeastern region.
What’s more striking is the fact that the judicial move against Tanrikulu came only a few hours after President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... strongly slammed the CHP member at a presser before his departure to Kazakhstan on Sept. 8. This picture alone could be seen yet as another example of the deterioration in the implementation of the very principle of the separation of powers, with concerns that Ottoman Turkish justice has increasingly become politicized in recent years.
Erdogan’s criticisms toward Tanrikulu, however, are rather a part of a larger political plan being implemented by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). In a statement on Sept. 6, Erdogan compared the CHP to terror organizations, saying "Their language is not the normal language of an opposition party; it is almost the language of a terrorist organization." "Whatever they [terrorist organizations] do, they [the CHP] do the same," Erdogan added.
In further remarks on the same issue on Sept. 8, he argued that the CHP was no different from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), describing both parties as having no "national" identity. The AKP and its de facto coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), are fully national and local, Erdogan suggested.
Erdogan’s comparisons on these two parties are being closely followed by the Ottoman Turkish judiciary. HDP’s co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas and former co-chairwoman Figen Yuksekdag have been in prison since late 2016. In addition to them, around nine other HDP politicians are also behind bars while four elected politicians have lost their seats in parliament with the votes of AKP and MHP deputies.
Many elected mayors from the HDP have been removed from their posts through governmental decisions on grounds they supported terrorist activities. It’s getting much more difficult for the HDP politicians to conduct politics under these conditions.
The campaign against the opposition has spread to the CHP in mid-June after Enis Berberoglu, a prominent CHP politician and former journalist, was tossed in the calaboose Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! on espionage charges. That was why CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu had initiated his "justice march" from Ankara to Istanbul and a "justice congress" late August. The investigation into Tanrikulu fuels concerns that this campaign will likely continue in the upcoming months.
Arresting political rivals on baseless grounds is simply not among the characteristics of democratic regimes. Accusing political parties of supporting terrorism and encouraging judicial action against them has no place in political ethics.
The AKP-MHP duo should immediately abandon their plans to win the 2019 elections through a massive crackdown on their political competitors, if they have anything like that in mind.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[Forbes 13 Jan 2017] A former British intelligence officer, who is now a director of a London private security-and-investigations firm, has been identified as the author of the dossier of unverified allegations about President-elect Donald Trump’s activities and connections in Russia, according to the Wall Street Journal. A Christopher Steele, a director of London-based private intelligence company, Orbis, purportedly prepared the dossier under contract to both Republican and Democratic adversaries of then-candidate Trump. The poor grammar and shaky spelling plus the author’s use of KGB-style intelligence reporting, however, do not fit the image of a high-end London security company run by highly connected former British intelligence figures.
[American Thinker] President Trump was upbraided in the press for stating that illegal out-of-state voters swung the New Hampshire vote to Hillary Clinton in a state he otherwise would have won in the presidential election of 2016.
Mixing news with opinion, the Boston Globe, under the headline, "Trump makes groundless N.H. vote fraud claims," led with:
WASHINGTON ‐ President Trump has revived unproven voter fraud allegations, telling a group of senators in a private meeting Thursday that he lost New Hampshire last November because thousands of Massachusetts residents were bused to the neighboring state to cast ballots against him.
The president offered no evidence to support the claim.
WMUR, an area broadcaster, had the same kind of mixed news-opinion reporting here.
But it turns out that Trump was objectively right all along, and not for the first time.
According to Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times:
More than 6,500 people registered to vote in New Hampshire on Nov. 8 using out-of-state driver's licenses, and since then the vast majority have neither obtained an in-state license nor registered a motor vehicle.
Conservatives say the state's same-day registration is an invitation for fraud because of loose proof-of-residence rules.
New Hampshire House Speaker Shawn Jasper, a Republican, issued the numbers Thursday based on inquiries he made to the Department of State, which oversees elections, and the Department of Safety.
Since Election Day, Republicans have charged that a significant number of nonresident Democrats, principally from Massachusetts, flowed into New Hampshire to vote illegally, tilting a close race to their party.
And don't think it didn't matter. According to GatewayPundit, Trump lost the state by the narrowest of margins:
New Hampshire was a close race in the 2016 Presidential election. Hillary won the four electoral votes, however; it took a week to count the votes because it was tight. Hillary received 348,521 votes, while Trump picked up 345,789. Trump lost by 0.4 percent.
That's 2,736 votes. The GOP's Sen. Kelly Ayotte lost her seat by an even narrower margin: 1,017 votes.
So, like colonists taking over a puppet state, hordes of mostly Massachusetts voters, upset at the election returns coming in on their TV sets, rolled into the state to take advantage of its same-day registration, plunked down their Massachusetts state driver's licenses, got a voter card, and got in time to illegally cast ballots for Democrats. Their onslaught canceled out the votes of legitimate New Hampshire voters, a violation of state sovereignty if there ever was one. And they illegally shifted the results.
#1
Mass. Ah, yes, the home of Teddy "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy and "John "War Hero" Kerry.
If the voter fraud was really that extensive, throw out the fraudulent votes and make the election results right, no matter that the election was 10 months ago.
[DAWN] THE National Assembly, the government and the COAS have categorically rejected President Trump’s allegations against Pakistain. The furious outrage of the political and military elite in Pakistain brings to mind Hamlet’s mother who said "the lady doth protest too much, methinks" which questions the credibility of overreactions. The reaction in Pakistain obscures the fact that none of Trump’s charges against Pakistain are new and none of Pakistain’s denials are entirely convincing ‐ even among Paks. The first sensible reaction has been from Pakistain’s much maligned diplomatic envoys who reportedly "urged the government to avoid any knee-jerk reactions and prefer diplomacy to confrontation".
It is true the US has not provided evidence of alleged Pak assistance to the Taliban ...Arabic for students... insurgency in Afghanistan. The border is porous, people flow back and forth, and complete border control is impossible. Building border fences unilaterally will exacerbate rather than alleviate tensions. Moreover, there are legitimate Pak contacts with "the political wings" of the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network apparently to urge them to come to the negotiating table for a peace settlement with Kabul. However, if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... this is a scenario in which games can be played ‐ and are played.
Pakistain’s reaction does not take into account that a frustrated Trump, whose presidency hangs in the balance, may be looking for a "splendid little war" to divert domestic attention from his dismal and embarrassing performance at home and whip up support for ’the chief slaying monsters abroad.’ North Korea is not on the menu because China would intervene in any American assault. It is less clear what China’s reaction would be to another Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... -like assault on targets in Pakistain beyond robust denunciation.
Trump’s generals in Washington and Afghanistan approved his warnings to Pakistain and his authorising them to take any action they think appropriate without seeking his further approval. These are likely to be drone attacks and ’black ops’ by special forces who do not require access to air or ground routes in Pakistain. The generals saw the reaction of Pakistain to the raid on Abbottabad in May 2011 and are not likely to be deterred from similar or escalated action again. Given the professional advice of Pakistain’s diplomats, it is not clear what the foreign minister meant by a "paradigm shift" in foreign policy.
The BRICS statement referred to four bad boy organizations located in Pakistain as threats to regional security. They are on the UN terrorist list and are banned but active in Pakistain. Given Trump’s statement, the China-India disengagement from Doklam, and the Xi-Modi meeting on the sidelines of the Xiamen summit there is a worrying query: is China gently but publicly pressing Pakistain to take down organizations on its territory who have links with snuffies on Chinese territory? If Pakistain is silly enough to ignore this message it will progressively upset China and sow doubts in Chinese minds about their strategic partnership with Pakistain. This would inevitably impact CPEC. If this happens Pakistain will have kicked itself in the face again!
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] Where differences of opinions crop up with the outside world or even with their critics within the country is on, for example, how to handle groups that the military believes have never gone rogue in Pakistain.
"We need to deradicalise these groups and try and mainstream them before attempting to disarm them. This is important as we can’t fight on too many fronts and layers at the same time," explained one former officer.
The directives by Jamaat-ud-Dawa ...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba... leader Hafiz Saeed ...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat... to his men to contest elections under the banner of a new party he has created is seen as one such step. Moreover, this newspaper has carried news stories that another murderous Moslem leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil ...one of the signers of Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against Christians and Jews back in 1998, when he was head of the Bangla jihad movement. The Pak govt's had him under house arrest a few times, but he seems to come and go as he pleases and remains the head of Harkat ul-Mujaheddin... , is also on the verge of launching a political party for mainstream, electoral politics.
It isn’t clear how would these murderous Moslem groups-turned-political parties will react if they make no headway in electoral politics and their first attempts to secure seats in parliament to enforce their Islamic agenda are frustrated. Will they keep faith in the democratic process and persist or revert to jihad ‐ this time here?
Even if there is a desire in each state institution to brush away the mess created by decades of near-suicidal policies and start with a clean slate, it won’t be easy. And if state institutions continue to differ on the way forward even now then help us God.
In terms of the global environment, China may appear as if it is in our corner vis-à-vis the US but it would be foolish to assume Beijing’s tolerance threshold for religious militancy in Pakistain would be any different to Washington’s. Hope the policymakers understand this.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Used to be the distance to my hands or feet.
Now it's the range of my arms.
[Mercer at WND] "Anybody who would trash Lee and laud Lincoln is either stupid as a post or just plain evil," said a sage reader. This applies in spades to anyone who would laud the Radical Republicans of 1865, as one TV GOP blonde has recently, and asininely, done.
The Radical Republicans, if you can believe it, considered Abraham Lincoln a moderate (a bad thing, in their book). Lincoln successor Andrew Johnson these fanatics branded a reactionary (punishable by obstruction and impeachment).
Praised these days by the blonde-ambition faction of the Republican Party, the Radicals were stars of America’s own Reign of Terror over the South, at the end of the War Between the States.
If the French Reign of Terror was led by the terrifying Robespierre and his Jacobins; its American equivalent was infused with the spirit of lunatics like John Brown. (His abolitionist activists snatched five pro-slavery settlers near Pottawatomie Creek, in 1856, and split the captives’ skulls with broadswords, in an act of biblical retribution gone mad.)
Thaddeus Stevens was another of their "inspirational" madmen, lauded in the annals of the Party of Reconstruction. In his biography of Stevens, "Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth Century Egalitarian," historian Hans Trefousse even makes a brief reference to the Jacobin Club, a term reserved for the most extreme Republicans in Congress (p. 168). Other club members: Henry Winter Davis, Benjamin Butler, Charles Sumner, Benjamin Wade, Zachariah Chandler.
Although Republicans shared "the drive toward revolution and national unification" (the words of historian Clyde Wilson, in "The Yankee Problem," 2016), the Radicals distinguished themselves in their support for sadistic military occupation of the vanquished Rebel States, following the War Between the States.
Really. IIRC the only one executed after the surrender was the commandant of the Andersonville prison camp. The French Reign of Terror involved 16,594 official death sentences. Can we say exaggerated beyond the pale.
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.
[Just Security] - Editor’s Note: In this special Just Security article, highly respected former member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service, John Sipher examines the Steele dossier using methods that an intelligence officer would to try to validate such information. Sipher concludes that the dossier’s information on campaign collusion is generally credible when measured against standard Russian intelligence practices, events subsequent to Steele’s reporting, and information that has become available in the nine months since Steele’s final report. The dossier, in Sipher’s view, is not without fault, including factual inaccuracies. Those errors, however, do not detract from an overarching framework that has proven to be ever more reliable as new revelations about potential Trump campaign collusion with the Kremlin and its affiliates has come to light in the nine months since Steele submitted his final report.
Mixing truth with fiction, sometimes referred to as 'half-truth' or 'partial truth' is generally regarded as misrepresentation. 
[DAWN] THE National Assembly, the government and the COAS have categorically rejected President Trump’s allegations against Pakistain. The furious outrage of the political and military elite in Pakistain brings to mind Hamlet’s mother who said "the lady doth protest too much, methinks" which questions the credibility of overreactions. The reaction in Pakistain obscures the fact that none of Trump’s charges against Pakistain are new and none of Pakistain’s denials are entirely convincing ‐ even among Paks. The first sensible reaction has been from Pakistain’s much maligned diplomatic envoys who reportedly "urged the government to avoid any knee-jerk reactions and prefer diplomacy to confrontation".
