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US kills more than 100 Assad regime fighters in largest deliberate strike against Syrian government forces
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
11:34 7 20:12 Anomalous Sources []
11:06 6 17:22 SteveS [2]
10:41 6 14:17 DarthVader []
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02:43 17 23:49 TopRev [1]
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
FBI Missed Clinton Emails Openly MARKED Classified, Wanted To Conclude Probe Before IG Caught Mistake
[Daily Caller] The FBI didn’t flag that some emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server were marked classified with a "(C)" when they were sent ‐ something that seemingly would have been one of the first and most obvious checks in an investigation, and one that FBI agents instantly recognized put the facts at odds with Clinton’s public statements.

The Intelligence Community Inspector General noticed it after the FBI missed it, texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, reveal. "Holy cow," Strzok wrote, "if the FBI missed this, what else was missed?"

"Remind me to tell you to flag for Andy [redacted] emails we (actually ICIG) found that have portion marks (C) on a couple of paras. DoJ was Very Concerned about this," he wrote.

"Found on the 30k [emails] provided to State originally. No one noticed. It cuts against ’I never sent or received anything marked classified,'" he wrote, referring to statements by Clinton downplaying the danger of her email practices.

Much of the more in-depth investigation considered whether Clinton and her aides emailed materials that were classified but were not marked as such, a harder determination to make.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 11:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  (C) indicates the classification category CONFIDENTIAL.

Unless the classification guidance has changed, the header across the top of the document would read 'CONFIDENTIAL'... or higher, depending upon the highest level contained in the document.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 11:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Real top notch investigators as it did not matter anyways.
Posted by: Airandee || 02/08/2018 11:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Missed, or "missed"?
Posted by: gorb || 02/08/2018 12:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Missed or avoided?
Posted by: AlanC || 02/08/2018 15:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Missed or Miss-led
Posted by: Warthog || 02/08/2018 16:30 Comments || Top||

#6  Comey's Corrupt FBI Officials Missed Caught Hiding Clinton Emails Openly MARKED Classified, Wanted To Conclude Probe Before IG Caught Missing Them Lying.

Fixed that.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 18:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Re: "(C)" (Source: Wiki)

Security clearances can be issued by many United States of America government agencies, including the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of State (DOS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Energy (DoE), the Department of Justice (DoJ), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). DoD issues more than 80% of all clearances. There are three levels of DoD security clearances:[1]

TOP SECRET – Will be applied to information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.
SECRET – Will be applied to information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.
CONFIDENTIAL – Will be applied to information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause damage to the national security.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 02/08/2018 20:12 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
US kills more than 100 Assad regime fighters in largest deliberate strike against Syrian government forces
[Telegraph] The US-led coalition killed more than 100 Assad regime fighters in eastern Syria on Wednesday, officials said, in the largest deliberate strike carried out by Western forces against pro-Syrian government troops.

The coalition said it struck regime fighters with airstrikes and artillery after they launched an "unprovoked attack" against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Western-backed rebels fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in Syria.

"We estimate more than 100 Syrian pro-regime forces were killed while engaging SDF and coalition forces," a US military official said.

The strikes took place in the Euphrates River valley in the province of Deir Ezzor, where Isil still holds scraps of territory but is under intense pressure from both Syrian regime forces and the SDF.

The US said that around 500 pro-regime troops, backed by tanks and artillery, had launched what appeared to be coordinated attack on an SDF headquarters.
Posted by: Flimp Ulavinter9261 || 02/08/2018 11:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Something to do with the alleged Chlorine attacks the other day?
Posted by: gorb || 02/08/2018 12:31 Comments || Top||

#2  My guess is that Assad/Putin wanted to test limits. It is SecDef Jim Mattis; what were they thinking?
Posted by: C. Dark Lord of the Hatfields8922 || 02/08/2018 13:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Not sure what they were thinking then. I'm pretty sure what they are thinking now, however.
Posted by: gorb || 02/08/2018 13:32 Comments || Top||

#4  The SDF is comprised of a Kurdish core and various Arab and other auxilliary units. American trainers are embedded with them, as Bashar Assad and his generals well know. He is testing to see if he can attack with impunity, like Turkey against the Kurdish forces in Afrin, it seems to me.

Guess he found the answer.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 15:04 Comments || Top||

#5  This is simultaneously a warning to Turkey. I think Assad was checking to see if Uncle lacked the will/ability or simple desire to stop the Turkish incursion. He's found that that it is simple desire that's missing, not will or ability. Erdogan will be taking notes re his warnings about Manbij. And if Uncle goes after his troops in Afrin, he will see thousands of Turkish dead, given that their highly mechanized nature means big (and highly-visible to strike aircraft) targets.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/08/2018 16:15 Comments || Top||

#6  Am I correct that the vics were not actual Syrian Army but some combination of the various pro-regime gangs?

On the radio (the Beeb, I think) they said Russia had promised the US these guys would play nice. Obviously they didn't. I wonder if Russia cares.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/08/2018 17:22 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Northeastern Professor Wouldn't Mind Seeing Trump Dead
Ah, the new civility...
[Boston.com] Northeastern University is distancing itself from comments made by a prominent economics professor who recently said he wouldn’t mind seeing President Trump dead.

"Sometimes I want to just see him impeached other times, quite honestly ‐ I hope there are no FBI agents here ‐ I wouldn’t mind seeing him dead,’’ said Barry Bluestone, a professor of political economy, during a Jan. 31 lecture focused on the rule of law and inequality in the United States. The lecture was open and free to the public. Video from the lecture was uploaded to YouTube on Monday.

In the video, Bluestone, the founding director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern, was responding to a question about a "path forward’’ for the nation when he made the comments.
And that path forward includes killing political opponents. That'll go over well with the alumni, which includes me.
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 10:41 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's what Marxist economics professors do.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/08/2018 11:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Send the S.O.B. to the African or South American nation of his choosing. Without right of return.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 02/08/2018 12:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Golden rule. So I guess he wouldn't care if a bunch of people felt the same way about his life.

An atheist doesn't believe in inalienable rights granted by a creator so they are stuck with the Social Contract. Society respects your right to life as long as you respect other's right to the same. When you violate that contract then you forfeit society's protection of your life.

What a jerk.
Posted by: C. Dark Lord of the Hatfields8922 || 02/08/2018 13:30 Comments || Top||

#4  What the hell is a professor of political economy?
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 02/08/2018 13:55 Comments || Top||

#5  I think Abu has a handle on that one, Deacon - Straight Outta Compton Das Kapital.
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 14:00 Comments || Top||

#6  Fair enough. I wouldn't mind helping this guy kick his oxygen addiction either.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/08/2018 14:17 Comments || Top||


Europe
Political Correctness on the Populist Right
An eruption of political correctness on Eastern Europe's populist right helps clarify the source of political correctness on the American left. Poland has just passed a law that imposes jail time for any claim about Poles or Poland "being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich." Poland suffered horribly at the hands of the Nazis, but plenty of individual Poles collaborated with them and helped exterminate Jews.

...The US government, the Israeli government, the President of France and most of the Western world deplored the Polish law. As it happens, similar laws already are on the books in Ukraine and Latvia.

...Poland's Law and Justice Party government is right wing, Catholic and nationalist. It strongly opposes the European Community's attempt to impose immigration quotas on its members, in alliance with anothother right-wing populists, Hungary's Viktor Orban as well as the Czech Republic's Miloš Zeman. But there is no difference whatever between the American Left's witch hunt against "micro-aggressions" and the imposition of speech codes at American universities, and the new Polish law. They both criminalize speech that injures self-esteem, and they do so for exactly the same reason.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 04:12 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So when the Left did it it was OK, but now that the Right is doing it as well, suddenly it's wrong. So fucking typical.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 || 02/08/2018 5:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Holocaust survivors protest at Polish Embassy
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 7:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Polish laws are similar to PC anti-speech codes and micro aggressions rules at American universities? Time to test the constitutionality of these anti-first Amendment speech codes and rules. Universities are not some special case where they get exclusions from obeying our laws. They should not be protected hot houses allowed to germinate leftism.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 7:36 Comments || Top||

#4  There was a stupor bowl commercial about safe places and snowflakes by the California Avocada growers that was really funny...you can find it on YouTube.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/08/2018 9:20 Comments || Top||

#5  Lèse-majesté Laws are as old as civilization.
Posted by: magpie || 02/08/2018 12:14 Comments || Top||

#6  And as unenforceable.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 12:29 Comments || Top||

#7  What was it it that Lincoln said about bad laws?
Posted by: charger || 02/08/2018 20:00 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Rep. Paul Gosar: Obama's Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS Scandals All Connected to DOJ, FBI Corruption in Trump Probe
[Breitbart] Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), a leading conservative member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told Breitbart News Daily on Wednesday that he believes that there is an interconnectivity between various high-profile Barack Obama-era scandals and the latest revelations about corruption at the Department of Justice and FBI.

Gosar was asked during the interview on the SiriusXM 125 Patriot Channel show about the corruption on display in the release of the famed memo from House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) that detailed FISA court abuses by the FBI and DOJ in the lead-up to the 2016 election and in the months that followed now President Donald Trump’s win during the transition and even during his presidency.

That all came before the release of new text messages between senior FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok that detailed how Obama himself was overseeing everything personally on the Hillary Clinton email investigation and rivaling Trump probe. Gosar detailed how this same corruption that is now being further exposed first reared its ugly head in the earliest days of the administration of now former President Barack Obama, with the Operation Fast and Furious scandal then the IRS and Benghazi scandals‐all of which had intricate levels of DOJ and FBI involvement.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 02:43 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm just telling you bro, she's bat-shi* crazzy. If she goes down, there's no telling what she'll say.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 2:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Been wanting, waiting for someone with balls to bring up the big picture. Gosar is right and the GOP has completely missed the big picture.

The entire Bin Obama Inc. proven sedation graft needs to be shouted nationwide. Some nice big neon billboards would be a good start. The tracks are there.

Now fire Jeffy AG, flush the Deep State and "git her done". Or suffer Barry's KGB.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 3:38 Comments || Top||

#3  But...but...HE's the Messiah, ..and besides I got the thrill up my leg. What about the thrill? The Messiah and the Thrill. NBC told me. They told me, I tell you.

And BESIDES, its Hillary's TURN, we OWE it to her.
Posted by: Cleart Flenter2305 || 02/08/2018 5:13 Comments || Top||

#4  I will be SHOCKED in the extreme to see anything happen (justice as we might call it) to Soetoro. Disrupting contemporary symbols and heroes of our shared African cultural heritage and struggle cannot be uprooted. Saint Teresa of Calcutta may someday be pushed from the lineup, but not Soetoro.

[sarc off]
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 7:14 Comments || Top||

#5  And yet, that moronic F & F criminal Eric Holder is making noises about running for POTUS. Is he even eligible? Thought he was tagged with criminal contempt which should disqualified him.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 7:49 Comments || Top||

#6  Speaking of Holder, the irony is inescapable. A man who, had justice been properly served, might be getting out of jail in a few more years is talking about running for president.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 8:04 Comments || Top||

#7  Gosar is right and the GOP has completely missed the big picture.

I'm afraid a lot of top Republicans were complicit.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/08/2018 8:56 Comments || Top||

#8  Let's see:

Fast and Furious was not about controlling weapons sales to drug cartels in Mexico, it was about creating a negative impression of the 2nd Amendment to allow complete bans on weapons sales in the US.

The IRS was about suppressing opposition PACs to allow Democrap candidates easier elections.

Benghazi was about hiding a vast arms dealing conspiracy by the CiA for the Clinton Foundation that was inadvertently uncovered by Stevens and a few CIA operatives in Libya.

Now we have FISAGate...corrupt the election process for a corrupt Democrap candidate.

See where this is all going, add the weaponization of previously non-law enforcement government agencies with SWAT teams and snipers, the packing of the military command and intelligence networks with true believers and you have the makings of a dictatorship.

I truly believe Zero wanted to set himself up as the first President for Life in the US.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/08/2018 9:34 Comments || Top||

#9  Benghazi was about hiding a vast arms dealing conspiracy by the CiA for the Clinton Foundation that was inadvertently uncovered by Stevens and a few CIA operatives in Libya.

If this is the case, then the stand down order is tantamount to premeditated murder.
Posted by: Bubba Sforza9175 || 02/08/2018 10:19 Comments || Top||

#10  Prison would only be a slightly worse punishment than to go down in history as the worst president ever — ignored, powerless, soon to have very little income at all to support that grand house in Washington, DC, two daughters at Harvard, and the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed... and after whom African-American voters rejected the firm embrace of the Democratic party.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 10:34 Comments || Top||

#11  'Flimflam Man' by Monty Pelerin
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 11:06 Comments || Top||

#12 
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 02/08/2018 12:40 Comments || Top||

#13  Bubba,

Why else would Clinton et al., refuse to provide air support and reinforcements to the Benghazi diplomatic compound and the CIA station?

A point that is made several times in 13-Hours is the fact the CIA guys knew something was up with the local militias in the run up to the attack. Part of what the CIA was looking into was the transport of advanced weapons from the Libyan army arsenals to Hamas and Hezbollah after Qaddafi's assassination. They found it and reported it and Stevens came to Benghazi to see it for himself, someone told him to go.

Then there is the semi-expected attack, and then there is the refusal of the Air Force and SF to come to Benghazi as originally planned.

Sounds like Stevens was set up.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/08/2018 12:47 Comments || Top||

#14  Sock, when you put it like that it is very clear that O and Hilda were up to their eyebrows in this. They need to swing.
Posted by: Bubba Sforza9175 || 02/08/2018 13:55 Comments || Top||

#15  Intersectionality is not just for College SJWs.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/08/2018 15:25 Comments || Top||

#16  there is the refusal of the Air Force and SF to come to Benghazi as originally planned.


I suspect, Gen. Ham moved his forces from Mali to Tripoli expecting the country to explode as did Mali, but he was prevented from engaging by the Mali directive: The Pentagon has been prohibited from giving military aid or training to Mali in the aftermath of the March coup. The ban, imposed by the State Department, is unlikely to be lifted until a democratically elected government can be reinstated.

He was immediately replaced and then perjured himself during Gowdy's investigation in a deal to save his retirement.

I may be wrong.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 19:04 Comments || Top||

#17  I'll call and raise on Rep. Gosar: Moslem Brotherhood is who owns much of D.C., R and D, and is the evil spirit that, once inside the body (from the Clinton 90s), brought 70+ more of same kind in with them. Thus the mess today.

Trump is clean and scares the pants off the Americans in D.C. and elsewhere, very rich and influential in many fields, who got owned by the Brotherhood directly (contributions, leg-work, endorsements, Islamic Center fundings, flatterings) or indirectly ("PC culture").
Posted by: TopRev || 02/08/2018 23:49 Comments || Top||


Britain
George Soros, the man who 'broke the Bank of England', backing secret plot to thwart Brexit
[Telegraph] George Soros, the billionaire known as the man who "broke the Bank of England", is backing a campaign to overturn Brexit, the Telegraph can disclose.

The investor is one of three senior figures linked to the Remain-supporting campaign group Best for Britain who plan to launch a nationwide advertising campaign this month, which they hope will lead to a second referendum to keep Britain in the EU.

The campaign is trying to recruit major Tory donors in an attempt to undermine Theresa May.

It also plans to target MPs and convince them to vote against the final Brexit deal to trigger another referendum or general election, according to a strategy document leaked from a meeting of the group.

The document says the campaign, which will begin by the end of this month, must "wake the country up and assert that Brexit is not a done deal. That it’s not too late to stop Brexit".
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 01:50 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Because fuck that democracy, right? We're going to vote again and again until you deplorables get it right!
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 || 02/08/2018 3:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe this time around the Brits remember who they are and deal with it in the proper manner?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 4:45 Comments || Top||

#3  When is this trouble-making globalist traitor going to be arrested and shipped off to gitmo?
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 6:54 Comments || Top||

#4  Plus all his evil spawn.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/08/2018 7:17 Comments || Top||

#5  Isn't it interesting how England lets this guy into their country and at the same time tries to ban Trump.
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 9:38 Comments || Top||

#6  When is this trouble-making globalist traitor going to be arrested and shipped off to gitmo?

Why the continued practice of preserving evil?
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 11:35 Comments || Top||

#7 
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 11:38 Comments || Top||

#8  Soros has been playing suicide by cop, at the professional level.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/08/2018 11:39 Comments || Top||


Economy
California Will Block Oil And Coal Shipments, Risks Constitutional Battle
[Daily Caller] California officials plan on preventing the federal government from transporting oil and gas using existing pipelines in the state, according to a report Wednesday from The San Francisco Chronicle.

Officials on the California Coastal Commission are urging the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to rescind plans allowing companies to drill for oil off the coast. They are still hoping for an exemption from the oil drilling plan, that Florida has received.

"Given how unpopular oil development in coastal waters is in California, it is certain that the state would not approve new pipelines or allow use of existing pipelines to transport oil from new leases onshore," coastal commissioners Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Controller Betty Yee, and state Department of Finance Director Michael Cohen wrote in a letter Wednesday to the BOEM.

The agency will also be holding a meeting in Sacramento Thursday to take public comment on President Donald Trump’s administration’s offshore drilling plans. The public question session will not be enough for a state with a population of nearly 40 million people, officials say.

Trump issued executive orders in 2017, nixing former President Barack Obama-era regulations on offshore drilling that are worth $288 million over a decade.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 01:42 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cut off their water and electricity.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 1:53 Comments || Top||

#2  It's just hilarious how the outdated, discredited racist idea of States Rights is suddenly making a big comeback with Democrats. It's as if they never had any principles in the first place and wanted to dominate us with the federal government the whole time.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 || 02/08/2018 3:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Are these not considered strategic defense materials? Act accordingly against anyone who interferes with the flow of these strategic defense materials.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 7:07 Comments || Top||

#4  It's the same people doing this as having a hissy fit over network neutrality, right?
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/08/2018 8:04 Comments || Top||

#5  California is running out of money and they can't tax their way out of it.

They can drill to earn money to pay the pensions for state employees. Or they can not-pay those pensions and watch the state suddenly go GOP as union members vote against the betrayal the way the rust belt did.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/08/2018 9:55 Comments || Top||

#6  One might wonder if they're really desperate for Trump to declare martial law in California in order to stop these sorts of things. That could be their desire so they can kick off their Glorious (Utterly doomed to damn near instant failure) Revolution. And yes, their leaders are cynical enough to believe that 1. They will win and 2. None of them will have to pay the price for the Revolution.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 02/08/2018 11:09 Comments || Top||

#7  "Unilateral Ultimatums are only bad when the other person does it" is a sure recipe for (armed) conflict. When you stop negotiating the countdown begins.
Posted by: magpie || 02/08/2018 15:52 Comments || Top||

#8  Time to revisit the Colorado River Compact allocations.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 17:46 Comments || Top||

#9  Damn Bourgeoisie, won't let any of us proletariat in the energy business catch a break... but if they put it that way, they'd have problems, so they're "Saving Mama Planet" instead.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/08/2018 18:30 Comments || Top||

#10  Then cut them completely off.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 18:35 Comments || Top||

#11  Cadillac Desert
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/08/2018 18:45 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Strzok Texts Suggest Discussions About Giving Huma Abedin Immunity [VIDEO]
[Daily Caller] Congressional investigators are puzzling over a December 2016 text message that suggests the Justice Department sought to grant immunity to Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

In a Dec. 13, 2016 text exchange, FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok sent his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, a text message referring to a conversation he had with the Justice Department discussing immunity and potential grand jury testimony.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released the text message along with 384 pages of additional records on Wednesday.

"Talked with DoJ about HA interview," Strzok wrote to Page.

"Told them we had to interview, no immunity. They said they thought that would get counsel to the point of saying she’s either taking the 5th in the Gj or you need to give her immunity. I said that’s fine, please have discussions to get the decision to that point and I would run it up the chain."
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 01:30 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Granting immunity has been weaponized to protect fellow lawbreakers from prosecution and justice during the last admin. Also used to put in place a series of firewalls to insure silence.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 7:16 Comments || Top||

#2  I fear you are correct John. The evidence clearly points in that direction.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 7:22 Comments || Top||

#3  Not just protect fellow lawbreakers but protect potential witnesses so they can't be intimidated into speaking.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/08/2018 9:52 Comments || Top||

#4  Huma and Weiner recently cancelled their divorce proceeding. My guess is that they did this so that one spouse can not testify against the other.
Posted by: warthogswife || 02/08/2018 11:37 Comments || Top||


Economy
Economic collapse: The real message of the fall of Troy
[BBC] The fall and sack of the city of Troy at the hands of an avenging Greek army is one that has been told for some 3,000 years, but contained within it are clues to a much wider global collapse - with lessons for our own 21st Century.

In 1300BC, at the height of the Bronze Age, the great powers of Egypt, the Hittites in central Turkey, the Greeks, Babylonians and Middle Eastern city states would have seemed secure to any merchant sailing around the Mediterranean.

None more so than the walled city of Troy, on Turkey's north west coast at the mouth of the Dardanelles.

Ships were often forced to wait in its harbours for suitable winds to sail into the Sea of Marmara and Black Sea, so it was ideally placed to grow rich by taxing this trade.

Yet just over 100 years later, by about 1170BC, almost all these civilisations had collapsed. In the dark age that followed even the art of writing was lost.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 01:25 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I read the article and couldn't help read between the line what the author doesn't state.

All of the 'failed' economies (hitties, Babylonians, even Egypt eventually) only the Greeks survived. The only culture that was attempting alternatives to dictatorship in most of the city-states.

Centrally planned economies have always led to failure and even trade is not enough to sustain them. Of course the BBC wouldn't/couldn't say that.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/08/2018 9:46 Comments || Top||

#2  There was also an abrupt 'Global Cooling' in the region from the Minoan Warm Period (look at Fig.1). The Minoans who depended on long distance trade for prosperity went into decline first (Thera was the garnish on their apocalypse sandwich). Cool and dry hurts agriculture...
Posted by: magpie || 02/08/2018 12:10 Comments || Top||

#3  The Greeks too...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece

"Mycenaean Greece perished with the collapse of Bronze Age culture in the eastern Mediterranean, to be followed by the so-called Greek Dark Ages, a recordless transitional period leading to Archaic Greece where significant shifts occurred from palace-centralized to de-centralized forms of socio-economic organization"
Posted by: james || 02/08/2018 18:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Consider the Dark Ages in Western Europe as a further example. A central authority needs a steady income stream to enforce its will on its subjects. No money, no influence, then no central authority. One advantage the Eastern Roman Empire had in its stranglehold on the East-West (Silk Road) and the Black Sea-Mediterranean (Grain and Troy's old revenue stream) was enough 'cash flow' to avoid devolving into a squabbling collection of petty states.
With modern civilization it is the flow of cheap energy that keeps us out of barbarism.
Posted by: magpie || 02/08/2018 19:51 Comments || Top||


Europe
90% of Violent Crime Spike in Germany attributed to REFUGEES…
BERLIN (Reuters) - Young male refugees in Germany got the blame on Wednesday for most of a two-year increase in violent crime, adding fuel to the country’s political debate over migrants.

Violent crime rose by about 10 percent in 2015 and 2016, a study showed. It attributed more than 90 percent of that to young male refugees.

It noted, however, that migrants settling from war-torn countries such as Syria were much less likely to commit violent crimes that those from other places who were unlikely to be given asylum.

Migration will be a key issue in forthcoming coalition talks between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). The arrival of more than a million migrants since mid-2015 hurt both parties in last September’s election.

The government-sponsored study showed a jump in violent crime committed by male migrants aged 14 to 30.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 01:16 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists

#1  refugees live in Germany without partners, mothers, sisters or other females

They must learn to share!
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 12:36 Comments || Top||

#2  And I'm guessing the other 10% is probably a combination of the natives defending themselves and a political attempt to say that the natives are just as much a part of the problem.
Posted by: gorb || 02/08/2018 12:37 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
VDH - Why FISA-gate is scarier than Watergate
[Wash Times] The Watergate scandal of 1972-74 was uncovered largely because of outraged Democratic politicians and a bulldog media. They both claimed that they had saved American democracy from the Nixon administration’s attempt to warp the CIA and FBI to cover up an otherwise minor, though illegal, political break-in.

In the Iran-Contra affair of 1985-87, the media and liberal activists uncovered wrongdoing by some rogue members of the Reagan government. They warned of government overreach and of using the "Deep State" to subvert the law for political purposes.

We are now in the midst of a third great modern scandal. Members of the Obama administration’s Department of Justice sought court approval for the surveillance of Carter Page, allegedly for colluding with Russian interests, and extended the surveillance three times.

But none of these government officials told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the warrant requests were based on an unverified dossier that had originated as a hit piece funded in part by the Hillary Clinton campaign to smear Donald Trump during the current 2016 campaign.

Nor did these officials reveal that the author of the dossier, Christopher Steele, had already been dropped as a reliable source by the FBI for leaking to the press.

Nor did officials add that a Department of Justice official, Bruce Ohr, had met privately with Steele ‐ or that Mr. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, had been hired to work on the dossier.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 01:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not just in USA.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 7:03 Comments || Top||

#2  The sheer magnitude of FisaGate with all its connections and tentacles is staggering--far larger than Watergate. FisaGate is an existential threat to our Republic and system of justice.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 7:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Or that Carter Page worked for the FBI...

Something REALLY weird is up.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/08/2018 7:48 Comments || Top||

#4  We are now in the midst of a third great modern scandal. Members of the Obama administration’s Department of Justice sought court approval for the surveillance of Carter Page, allegedly for colluding with Russian interests, and extended the surveillance three times.

A hand picked court of nodding nabobs and pisslewinks.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 7:53 Comments || Top||

#5  This is an extension of the technique known as 'pretexting'. Pretexting is used when the "law enforcement" people need an excuse for a prosecution, but can't get a legally defendable trail. So they use illegally gained knowledge (from let's say, a wiretap) to feed a source who will send confidential information back to them, allowing a paper trail to begin.
They've been doing it for years in drug smuggling arrests. You actually thought a random traffic stop just happened to come up with ten tons of pot?
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/08/2018 8:32 Comments || Top||

#6  #3 Or that Carter Page worked for the FBI...

Something REALLY weird is up.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2018-02-08 07:48



..I'm not at all confident that a single one of these ba$tards will ever swing for their crimes, but let me suggest this: has anyone noticed how (relatively) quiet the Clinton and Obama teams have been on this? No ringing denials from the mountaintop? No rallies to support bringing down these falsehood-speaking Republicans? No nothing.

With that in mind - is it possible the Trump Administration has quietly put the word out that though we might not be able to get you for this...we know you did it. Keep your mouths shut and behave from here on out, or you may well discover that there are far, far worse things than Federal trial for treason and fraud.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/08/2018 8:37 Comments || Top||

#7  ...has anyone noticed how (relatively) quiet the Clinton and Obama teams have been on this?

Yes, on the advice of legal counsel no doubt. I am savoring the quiet interlude, and I still have my Robben Island dream foto.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 8:53 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Black Caucus Members Refuse To Denounce Hate Group Leader Louis Farrakhan
[Daily Caller] Twenty-one members of the Congressional Black Caucus facing questions about their ties to Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan have all refused to condemn the hate group leader.

The CBC, it was recently revealed, held a secret meeting with Farrakhan in 2005 but hid it from the public to avoid controversy. Twenty-one members of the caucus today were part of the caucus at the time of the secret Farrakhan meeting. All 21 declined to denounce Farrakhan when asked by The Daily Caller.

The Nation of Islam is so extreme that even the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes it as a hate group, citing the group’s "theology of innate black superiority over whites and the deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders."
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 00:59 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is the occasion when a much younger Barack Obama was photographed smiling with Rev. Farrakhan, a photo suppressed until a few days ago lest it ruin his career prospects. Professor Dershowitz, upon being informed of the thing, announced he would not have campaigned for the gentleman in question had he known. Though to be fair, we all knew about the as yet unrevealed Khalidi video, and that did not seem to have triggered any professorial qualms.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 1:15 Comments || Top||

#2  I like Dershowitz for the most part, but your description of his recent conversion is too convenient for me to put any stock in it. Too little, too late.
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 1:22 Comments || Top||

#3  Tribe above country. Noted.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/08/2018 1:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Surely conservative Republican Black Caucus members crossed over and denounced him ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 2:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Black Dhimmicrap Christaphobic racists.

A mainstream media approved protected class of racism.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 3:52 Comments || Top||

#6  As Rex says at #3. It's tribal in origin, the root of communism by the way. While there are many others, the Blombos cave drawings are a record of their attempts at civilization. Some say the Blombos date 60,000 years before the modern era. These people are not to blame, tribal 'best practices' have skewed the DNA.

While they possess remarkable regional survival skills, lads from the northern Athabasca cultures, the Yupic, Aleut, and Eyak make disappointing cricket players. The Hambletonian has yet to be won by a Shetland Pony, and so it goes. Each has it's homeland and calling.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 7:08 Comments || Top||

#7  BC members and Farrakhan are birds of the same feather--antisemites.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 7:53 Comments || Top||

#8  Lemme get this straight. These are the guys who were wearing the funny ties during the SOTU, right?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/08/2018 9:00 Comments || Top||

#9  Lemme get this straight. These are the guys who were wearing the funny ties during the SOTU, right?

Yep. My question is - who shot the couch, guys?
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 9:44 Comments || Top||

#10  ...probably no one. Was just sitting there on the curbside.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/08/2018 9:56 Comments || Top||

#11  Why exactly was the young Obama-Farrakhan photo such a big deal?

IMO Dershowitz is treating Obama unfairly.

In 2012, 75 y/o Colin Powell was palling around with Farrakhan in full public view.

Was there a sh*tstorm? Was there national or international outrage over a former Sec State's choice of friends?

Did any Republican or Democrat or non-US politician criticize and condemn Powell as harshly as Trump is now being criticized?

In reality Farrakhan is a member of the Western mainstream political class. Not everyone is in agreement with him on all issues, but he is 'one of our kind' in a way the deplorable Trump isn't.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 02/08/2018 10:30 Comments || Top||

#12  Unfairly? Obama had Farrakhan to the White House a bazillion times, along with that other race pimp Al Sharpton.

Al Sharpton was one of the perpetrators of the Tawana Brawley hoax. He accused innocent people of raping a girl. One of them was an assistant DA, Steven Pagones. For years, he pursued a defamation case against Sharpton and finally won.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/272473/al-sharpton-power-dem-jay-nordlinger

In reality Farrakhan is a member of the Western mainstream political class

Here's your own SPLC, which is a great friend to the Far Left, describing Farrakhan. If he's mainstream, it's like kissing the Grand Wizard of the KKK. Oh wait, Hillary did that.

Louis Farrakhan heads the Nation of Islam, a group he has led since 1977 and that is based on a somewhat bizarre and fundamentally anti-white theology. Farrakhan is an anti-Semite who routinely accuses Jews of manipulating the U.S. government and controlling the levers of world power.

Farrakhan blames Jews for the slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping and general black oppression. Farrakhan's tone grew more belligerent in June 2010, when he sent letters to several leaders of the Jewish community as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center demanding that they realize the evils they have perpetrated and that they work to further Farrakhan's goals. The letter ended with a threat to "ruin and destroy your power and influence here and throughout the world" if his terms were not met.

In His Own Words
"The Jews, a small handful, control the movement of this great nation, like a radar controls the movement of a great ship in the waters … the Jews got a stranglehold on the Congress."
— Louis Farrakhan, Saviour's Day speech, Chicago, Feb. 25, 1990

"And the Christian right, with your blindness to that wicked state of Israel … can that be the holy land, and you have gay parades, and want to permit to have a gay parade in Jerusalem when no prophet ever sanctioned that behavior. How can that be the Israel, how can that be Jerusalem with secular people running the holy land when it should be the holy people running the holy land. That land is gonna be cleansed with blood!"
— Louis Farrakhan, Saviour's Day speech, Chicago, Feb. 26, 2006

"We can now present to our people and the world a true, undeniable record of the relationship between Blacks and Jews from their own mouths and pens. These scholars, Rabbis and historians [that Nation of Islam researchers studied] have given to us an undeniable record of Jewish anti-Black behavior, starting with the horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping, the labor movement of the North and South, the unions and the misuse of our people that continues to this very moment."
— Letter sent by Louis Farrakahn to Jewish leaders and the Southern Poverty Law Center, June 24, 2010.

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/louis-farrakhan

Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 || 02/08/2018 11:24 Comments || Top||

#13  Hat tip to Father Time. He has an earthly solution for men bound by the chains of stupid like our Louis.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 11:28 Comments || Top||

#14  Elmerert Hupens2660, what happened to "no platform" for anti-Semites?

he is 'one of our kind'

Ah, I see. Tribal affiliation. This makes being a Jew-hater OK. They're ok if they're one of our kind.
Posted by: Unomoling Borgia5457 || 02/08/2018 11:31 Comments || Top||

#15  How bad could Farrakhan be compared to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/08/2018 11:52 Comments || Top||

#16  A clarification:

I was trying to describe the Western political mainstream's mindset as I see it, not to praise that mindset. I am well aware of the odious nature of political figures like Farrakhan, Sharpton et al.

I thought Dershowitz treated Obama 'unfairly' insofar at least tacit implicit acceptance of non-white racism is a mainstream view.

Not everyone agrees with this kind of racists but they're still members of the establishment tribe.

If Dershowitz' outrage was sincere he would have to condemn this mainstream consensus, not single out Obama because of this one photograph.

When he supported Obama he knew full well who Obama was and what he stood for. Obama's politics had never been a secret.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 02/08/2018 12:14 Comments || Top||

#17  Sultan Knish: The Congressional Racist Caucus
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 15:24 Comments || Top||


Economy
Seattle is putting fences under its bridges to keep campers out ‐ and some say that's wrong
[Seattle Times] When Mike O’Brien, Ballard’s Seattle City Council member, biked up the Ballard Bridge last Thursday night, he counted five tents camped under the north ramp.

He went back Tuesday, and those tents were gone. The underpass was fenced off, and workers were drilling holes to put up a 10-foot-high spiked fence to prevent homeless people from camping there.

The price tag on this fencing: $100,000 for both sides of Northwest Leary Way at the Ballard Bridge. That money, O’Brien reasoned, could have housed those five households in apartments for a year.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: 746 || 02/08/2018 00:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "...could have housed those five households in apartments for a year." Not sure how a homeless "household" can be said to even exist. Not to mention the question of where to house these people for the remaining decades of their lives. What we have here is a failure to think.
One solution for Seattle is to have their housing prices double again, in the same way that trees have been known to grow to the sky.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/08/2018 6:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Not to mention the question of where to house these people for the remaining decades of their lives.

But, but, but, Anguper Hupomosing9418 - have you no compassion?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 6:56 Comments || Top||

#3  "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread."

-Anatole France
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2018 7:42 Comments || Top||

#4  have you no compassion?

Call me a Darwinist. I do believe in helping my fellow man, but only if he is willing to also help himself. If he has no interest in the latter, I have no interest in the former.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/08/2018 8:32 Comments || Top||

#5  When Mike O’Brien, Ballard’s Seattle City Council member, biked up the Ballard Bridge

But of course he did - don't want to drive those fossil-fuel carbon belching vehicles!
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 9:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Back in the early 90's a reporter for one of the Knoxville papers did a story about what it was like to be homeless for a month. He decided to go out for a month and live off the land as it were. What he discovered was that there was SO MUCH help available, that you had to want to sleep under bridges and such. The reason is, the shelters and other places won't support their addictions so they won't stay there. They prefer to get drunk and sleep under the bridge. The reporter said he was flat out stunned how much assistance there was to find. Churches and civic groups had beds, food, showers, etc there but the homeless refuse such help.

Honestly, institutionalizing them is the only real solution that might lead to them becoming productive citizens again.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 02/08/2018 11:47 Comments || Top||

#7  estimated 5,500 unsheltered homeless people

That's only 5500 compassionate households opening one stall of their 2.5 stall garages. Give them a tax break in recompense.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 12:04 Comments || Top||

#8  Fences make good neighbors andkeep shit, filth, and needles from under my bridges.
Posted by: Frank G || 02/08/2018 15:29 Comments || Top||

#9  Where will the homeless smoke legal pot now?
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 18:27 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Uranium One informant makes Clinton allegations in testimony
[The Hill] An FBI informant connected to the Uranium One controversy told three congressional committees in written testimony that Moscow routed millions of dollars to America with the expectation it would be used to benefit Bill Clinton's charitable efforts while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quarterbacked a "reset" in US-Russian relations.

The informant, Douglas Campbell, said in the testimony obtained by The Hill that he was told by Russian nuclear executives that Moscow had hired the American lobbying firm APCO Worldwide specifically because it was in position to influence the Obama administration, and more specifically Hillary Clinton.

Democrats have cast doubt on Campbell’s credibility, setting the stage for a battle with Republicans over his testimony.

Campbell said Russian nuclear officials "told me at various times that they expected APCO to apply a portion of the $3 million annual lobbying fee it was receiving from the Russians to provide in-kind support for the Clinton’s Global Initiative," he added in the testimony.

"The contract called for four payments of $750,000 over twelve months. APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement. "

APCO officials told The Hill that its support for CGI and its work with Russia were not connected in any way, and in fact involved different divisions of the firm. They added their lobbying for Russia did not involve Uranium One but rather focused on regulatory issues aimed at helping Russia better compete for nuclear fuel contracts inside the United States.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 00:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Old adage applies, follow the money, follow the treason.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 4:10 Comments || Top||

#2  If DOJ goes after Uranium 1, it should also pull in the Clinton Foundation with all its criminality. However, I am not confident Sessions will push it. If not, it is time to replace him.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 7:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Poor Jeff Sessions is a motionless post turtle. He was put there by someone and will remain there until someone puts him elsewhere.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 8:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Personally, Sessions is playing dumb like a fox.

I expect that once all of this is out in the open, you will see investigations everywhere.

Of course you also have the DoJ IG who seems to be digging everywhere for DoJ malfeasance and that would lead straight to UraniumOne.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/08/2018 9:48 Comments || Top||

#5  He is quite busy and these revelations almost become a full time job alone for him.
That and staffing take so much time.
Posted by: newc || 02/08/2018 20:21 Comments || Top||

#6  It’s looking more and more like Jeff Sessions is doing Trump’s political dirty work

Bwahahahahahahahha....

I'm with SPOD with this one.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 02/08/2018 21:58 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Pro-US Syrian Fighters Leave ISIS Fight To Counter Turkey in Afrin
Members of a U.S.-backed force of Syrian fighters who played a critical role in the collapse of Islamic State have begun leaving that operation to counter Turkey’s offensive against Kurds along its border with Syria, according American officials and Syrian fighters.

U.S. officials have voiced repeated concerns about Ankara’s assault in recent weeks against Kurds in the northwestern Syrian city of Afrin, warning it could become a security distraction that would draw the U.S.-backed force away from the fight to defeat remaining pockets of Islamic State militants.


Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Ulaigum Ebbineng7056 || 02/08/2018 00:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte

#1  now are gearing up to battle Turkey, an ally and fellow member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

"ally"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/08/2018 8:27 Comments || Top||

#2  I wonder if things are being said sotto voce by Uncle to these people, i.e. we're not technically supporting you, but if you go there, you'll get all the tactical intel, weapons and ammo you need.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/08/2018 18:53 Comments || Top||


Rantburg Exclusive: Powerful Arab Al Shammar Tribe Arrives in Afrin
Al Shammar tribe are in Afrin
«We came to support our brothers in Afrin to defend our land and to emphasize the national cohesion among all the components of the N Syria.
We have come from the far east of Syria to show to the world the coexistence among the peoples of the region»

pic.twitter.com/GuMiqdR6Aa

— Claudia (@ClaudiaAlMinah) February 7, 2018
Wikipedia
The Shammar is a historically powerful and prestigious tribal group, though their number and influence in Syria has dwindled since the independence of Syria. After the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War and the almost complete retreat of the Syrian Army from the al-Hasakah Governorate in mid 2012, Humaydi Daham al-Hadi soon aligned himself with the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and in 2013 set up the Army of Dignity (Jaysh al-Karama), which later transformed into the al-Sanadid Forces. The alliance with the Kurds and the formation of the Army of Dignity were Humaydi's response to the growing power of Jihadi groups like ISIL in the region. By aiding the PYD's YPG and YPJ in capturing much of the al-Hasakah Governorate, and especially securing the local oil fields, the militia managed to grow in size and power.
Posted by: Ulaigum Ebbineng7056 || 02/08/2018 00:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Slapping down the Ottomans. Defending tribal-family lands always proves to be steel backbone motivators. And these are not the unarmed Christian Armenians

Afrin Geo-map.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 3:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Turkey will not have such an easy time of it. Quagmire time.
Posted by: Dale || 02/08/2018 8:08 Comments || Top||

#3  ..we will know soon when the lost old American equipment is replaced by more Russian models.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/08/2018 8:35 Comments || Top||

#4  Gotta wonder if this is Uncle not showing his hand, while tacitly giving the Kurds tactical intel, and not throttling their money, food, ammo and equipment resupply. But also holding back on the airstrikes against Turkish forces.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/08/2018 16:20 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel Briefs: more troops in W. Bank, 3 arrests, 1 surrender

More troops sent to West Bank following uptick in attacks

[IsraelTimes] Forces to operate primarily in areas near Nablus and Jenin, as manhunt for Ariel stabber continues; several battalions also to be placed on stand-by.

Palestinian caught entering military court with suspected pipe bomb

[IsraelTimes] Security forces arrest man who had what appeared to be an improvised explosive device hidden in his clothes. It was the third such incident in the past two months at the Samaria Military Court in the northern West Bank.

Palestinian who tried sneaking into settlement in army uniform turns himself in

[IsraelTimes] Suspect arrives at Civil Administration headquarters after evading capture in Itamar last week. On January 28, soldiers near the settlement of Itamar spotted men dressed in army uniforms trying to enter the north West Bank community. The troops detained one of the suspects, but the second one managed to evade capture. During searches of the area, forces uncovered binoculars, when the captured the first suspect. Later, they found several prepared Molotov cocktails as well.

Palestinian mother, daughter suspected of planning terror attack

[Ynet] A Palestinian mother and daughter, aged 48 and 16, were arrested on suspicion they planned to carry out a terror attack, it was cleared for publication on Tuesday. They are also suspected of incitement to terrorism and the possession of weapons. The mother allegedly attacked police officers who came to arrest her.
Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
PC Marches On In Hollywood With Marvel's 'Black Panther' Movie
Short summary - movie 'critics' (who are all effete kale-eating leftists) love this movie, which seems to shove more leftism down our throats. How'd that work out with the unfunny broads in that Ghostbusters reboot? This tells me the box office haul's gonna suck big, hairy donkey balls. Just get a load of some of this vomit-inducing lapdog praise:
[HollywoodReporter] The future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in Wakanda.

Reviews are in for Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, and they are easily the best for a Marvel Studios project to date, with almost everyone left in awe not only of the movie’s ambition, but its success in achieving that ambition on the big screen. As of Wednesday evening, the film has a 99 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes with just one "rotten" review out of 76.

"There's no mistaking you're still in the Marvel universe here, but this entry sweeps you off to a part of it you've never seen: a hidden lost world in Africa defined by royal traditions and technological wonders that open up refreshing new dramatic, visual and casting possibilities," writes The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy in his review. "There are vistas, costumes and settings that keep the images popping off the screen, even though this Marvel offering is not in 3D."

"It’s as if everyone enlisted to bring the project to life understood the magnitude of what Black Panther, the first comic-based studio movie with a black hero at the center since 1998’s Blade, would represent," critic and writer Marc Bernardin wrote for Nerdist. "The chance to fill every corner of their fictional Wakanda with the same level of craft and detail usually reserved for British-star-studded period pieces. An opportunity to tell a story about black lives, which matter and are not defined by their pain but, instead, by their glory. An answer to a culture’s question, ’When will it be our time in the sun?’"
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 00:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's gonna be great, because we say it it's gonna be great!
Posted by: Bobby || 02/08/2018 0:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Is it true that Rotten Tomatoes does not allow any negative reviews of it - because negative reviews would be 'racist'?

No wonder it received 100%.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/08/2018 0:19 Comments || Top||

#3  I liked Blade because I think Wesley Snipes is a good actor. I don't dig the whole vampire thing, though. In contrast, these assholes are trying to sell you something other than a solid actor(s), interesting plot and / or great action, and that substitute is leftism shoved down our throats one more time. This is also evident in the comments section - the comments 'awaiting moderation' (i.e., not shown unless you click on them) are all critical of the movie, mostly from the political angle. I hope they lose at least $50 million from this one.
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 0:25 Comments || Top||

#4  One other thing - there are few movies in the 95% - 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. Check them out here. I can't believe they're trying to compare this very potential box office trainwreck with Citizen Kane, The Godfather, etc. Even Terminator 2 got 93% or 95%. It's a sick kale-fueled joke.
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 0:32 Comments || Top||

#5  When they have to lie about it that hard, you know it will probably be sheit.

Now it is easy to tell what not to see if the left kook lobotomized parrots like it.
Posted by: newc || 02/08/2018 0:35 Comments || Top||

#6  Unfortunately it doesn't take much to stir up the pot smoking BLM types. And Bollywood is over ripe for this kind of rot. (Apologies to Bollywood, I meant Hollywood.)
Posted by: Ulaigum Ebbineng7056 || 02/08/2018 0:59 Comments || Top||

#7  It looks like a blacksploitation film with a big sci-fi special effects budget.

IronShaft?

Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/08/2018 7:51 Comments || Top||

#8  The political babblings of many of the superhero movie actors are even more noxious than the garden variety Hollywood actor pronouncements swill. These franchise movies are the most reliable moneymakers these days and the audience is regrettably prime for the political nonsense.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/08/2018 7:52 Comments || Top||

#9  Me and The Mussus used to spend at least one afternoon a weekend at the moving pictures.

Now, not so much.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 02/08/2018 8:09 Comments || Top||

#10  a hidden lost world in Africa defined by royal traditions and technological wonders

In other words, a fantasy.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 02/08/2018 8:21 Comments || Top||

#11  In other words, a fantasy.

Ah, so mom will be able to go to the basement for some cleaning while the target audience is at the movies.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/08/2018 8:29 Comments || Top||

#12  Cultural affirmation for the urban mobs. Laura Ingalls Wilder is so yesterday.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 8:32 Comments || Top||

#13  Raj, I liked Blade because the world building, it was a refreshing take on how things might go if Vampires were real.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/08/2018 9:50 Comments || Top||

#14  "a hidden lost world in Africa defined by royal traditions and technological wonders"

One has to wonder why they don't use those technological wonders to improve the lives of Africans. But of course Black Panther is a King or something and the nations treasury is his own personal trust fund to spend at will, at least that part is believable.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/08/2018 9:52 Comments || Top||

#15  Blacks in America have been told for generations that Africa would have been the greatest continent, greatest technology etc, if it hadn't been for the whites. They fully believe this, and now that the Egyptians have repeatedly popped their bubble about building the pyramids etc, they needed a new...seed for their delusions.

None of the actual Africans I have worked with have had this illusion. They often hold American blacks in total comtempt at squandering their fortune to be born American. They don't like socializing with them at all either.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 02/08/2018 11:06 Comments || Top||

#16  Point of order:
Isn't Black Panther a Americas/New World species/term?

If we are Africa, should we not be Black Leopard or something?

And boy we hit the clichés. Gal with afro - check, gal with shaved head - check, gal with African chapeau or hair style - check.

What are we missing? Richard Roundtree as the elder king?

This isn't honorary or even inclusive, this is Undercover Brother for comic books.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/08/2018 13:29 Comments || Top||

#17  Undercover Brother was awesome.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/08/2018 15:07 Comments || Top||

#18  Loved that movie.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/08/2018 20:04 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
2 martyred, 3 injured as security force vehicle comes under attack in North Waziristan
[DAWN] Two men belonging to the security forces bit the dust while three others were maimed on Wednesday when their vehicle was targeted in Mir Ali tehsil of North Wazoo.

According to sources, the three injured men have been transferred to a Combined Military Hospital (CHM) nearby.

The political administration of the area claimed that Lions of Islam fired rockets on a vehicle carrying members of the security forces in Edak area of Mir Ali tehsil.

The area where the attack occurred has been sealed and a search operation for the arrest of the perpetrators of the attack is underway.

The uptick in attacks targeting security forces raises questions over the efficacy of counter-terror operations in different parts of the country, including North Waziristan where the army was said to have cleared the area of the presence of Lions of Islam under Operation Zarb-e-Azb
..the Pak offensive against Qaeda in Pakistain and the Pak Taliban in North Wazoo. The name refers to the sword of the Prophet (PTUI!)...
which was launched in June 2014.

Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russian hackers cyberspies exploit weakness in US cyber defense
[IsraelTimes] Group known as 'Fancy Bears' targets dozens of employees working on secret projects including drones, missiles, stealth fighter jets, cloud-computing platforms
BLUF: During the sample period ending May 2016, up to 40% of contractors clicked on phishing links targetting their personal email accounts, primarily Gmail. Anonymous sources claim the FBI was aware of the phishing campaign, while DSS explicitly does not concern itself with personal email issues. Only one of those interviewed by reporters was warned of problem by “US officials”, whoever they might be.
Russian hackers exploited a key vulnerability in US cyber defenses to come within reach of stealing some of the nation’s most secret and advanced defense technology, an News Agency that Dare Not be Named investigation has found.

What may have been stolen is uncertain, but the cyberspies clearly took advantage of poorly protected email and scant direct notification of victims.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Heaviest snow in 30 years in Paris, FR
[WashingtonPost] As much as six inches of snow
(probably its much deeper in centimetres)
fell on Paris late Tuesday, coating Montmartre, Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower in a pristine layer of white. It was the largest snow accumulation in the French capital since 1987, according to Meteo France, and it brought the city to a halt Wednesday morning, the news website thelocal.fr reported:
nice pictures at the link
Posted by: lord garth || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  With all that white I thought they'd surrendered.
Posted by: Classer || 02/08/2018 1:21 Comments || Top||

#2  If this doesn't get Snark 'O The Week, then nothing will.
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 1:23 Comments || Top||

#3  London's been unaffected.

The alps have buckets of snow though.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/08/2018 7:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Perhaps it's a good thing we don't get much snow here:

8:00 I made a snowman.
8:10 A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn’t make a snow woman.
8:15 So, I made a snow woman.
8:17 The nanny of the neighbors complained about the snow woman's voluptuous chest.
8:20 The gay couple living nearby grumbled that it could have been two snowmen instead.
8:25 The vegans at No. 12 complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and not to decorate snow figures with.
8:28 I am being called a racist because the snow couple is white.
8:31 The Muslim gent across the road wants the snow woman to wear a headscarf.
8:40 Someone calls the cops who show up to see what’s going on.
8:42 I am told that the broomstick of the snowman needs to be removed because it could be used as a deadly weapon. Things get worse after I mutter : "Yeah, if it's up your a***"
8:52 My phone and broomstick are then seized and I'm taken away in a police car to the police station while my neighbors are cheering.
9:00 I’m on the news as a suspected terrorist bent on stirring up trouble during this difficult weather.
9:10 I am asked if I have any accomplices.
9:29 A little known jihadist group has claimed it was their plot.

Moral: When it's this cold, stay inside.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 9:03 Comments || Top||

#5  So the floods went down, and then it snowed...
Sounds like time for a Car-b-que!
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/08/2018 10:19 Comments || Top||

#6  A 'Dusting' for some climes.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 02/08/2018 11:01 Comments || Top||

#7  My advice is to grow up in Northan Minnesota because everywhere else then seems like a heat wave.
Posted by: C. Dark Lord of the Hatfields8922 || 02/08/2018 16:57 Comments || Top||

#8  'Citroens roasting on an open fire,'
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/08/2018 17:20 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Burqa-clad kidnapper arrested in Nangarhar province
[Khaama Press] A kidnapper who was attempting to escape under the guise of Burqa was locked away
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
by the Afghan cops in eastern Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
province.

The governor’s office in Nangarhar in a statement said the suspect has been identified as Lal Agha who was involved in a number kidnapping cases in this province.

The statement further added that the suspect was attempting to escape from Behsud district under the guise of Burqa but was identified and arrested by the operatives of the national directorate of security

This comes as there has been a sharp rise in kidnapping cases in the key cities and provinces of the country including Nangarhar during the recent years.

In the meantime, the provincial government said the NDS operatives have arrested two suspects having links with the Taliban
...Arabic for students...
group.

According to the governor’s office, the suspects have been identified as Abdullah and Mohammad Halal and were arrested from Sra Rod district.

The detaind individuals were allegedly involved in the destructive activities in Nangarhar province and are currently in the custody of the security forces for further investigations.

The anti-government armed bad boy groups including the Taliban snuffies have not commented regarding the report so far.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordan approves construction of Iraq oil pipeline
[IsraelTimes] Jordan gives the green light for the construction of a pipeline that would bring oil from southern Iraq to its port of Aqaba, a government front man says.

In 2013, the neighboring countries agreed on the idea of the 1,700-kilometer (1,000-mile) pipeline to run from Basra to the Red Sea port at a cost of $18 billion.

But plans for the pipeline ‐ which would run across Iraq ‐ were then put on hold after the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
jihadist group in 2014 swept across large parts of the country.

Jordan’s cabinet late Monday approved a framework agreement to be signed by both countries to build the pipeline to export Iraqi crude and provide resource-poor Jordan with oil, government front man Mohammed Momani says.

Momani does not give a timeframe for its construction
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq

#1  It strikes me $18B would buy a number of tankers for a water route available without construction, much sooner, at much less risk of completion.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 12:26 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraq, Syria discuss opening border exit between two countries
Normalization appears in the distance, like the light at the end of a tunnel that is not an oncoming train.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi Prime Minister has discussed along with Syrian foreign minister coordination on efforts to open the border exit between the two countries.

A statement by the media office of PM Haidar al-Abadi said the two officials, discussed boosting security cooperation between the two countries." This came after Abadi receiver Syrian Minister Mohammed al-Sha’ar.

"Coordination on efforts to open Qaim border between the two countries has been discussed," it added.

Sha’ar arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday within an official visit, during which he met with several Iraqi officials.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Why not since both (at least intention-wise in case of Syria) are Iranian provinces?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 16:12 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Fatah-linked Gaza group shows off mortar shell production
[IsraelTimes] al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades offshoot exhibits activists assembling bombs, boasts Israel 'within range of our shells'
And vice versa, of course. But unlike yours, Israel’s don’t ever land in the wrong side of the fence.
A Gazoo-based group associated with the terrorist al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades on Sunday posted a video clip showing its members produce 120-mm mortar bombs and threatening that Israel is "within range of our shells."

The video, translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, shows how mortars and the explosive shells that they propel are assembled and put in position to fire.

The Nidal al-’Amoudi Battalion, one of several in the coastal enclave linked to Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
’s Fatah faction, credits the video to its "Engineering and Production Unit."

Al-Amoudi, after whom the splinter group is named, was killed by Israeli forces in 2008 after carrying out a series of attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers during the Second Intifada between 2000 and 2005.

Its parent organization, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, is based in the West Bank and designated as a terror organization by the US, the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
, Israel, Canada, and Japan.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Fatah

#1  Time for some workpace accidents.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 6:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
College student is jailed for 18 years after helping ISIS plot a pressure-cooker bomb attack on New York City
[DailyMail]
  • Munther Omar Saleh was sentenced on Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn

  • The 22-year-old pleaded guilty last year to charges that he planned to help ISIS

  • 'I'm in NY and trying to do an Op,' Saleh told a confidential source in an intercepted conversation

  • In March of 2015, a police officer observed Saleh on successive days on foot at the George Washington Bridge seemingly looking around

  • The behavior prompted officers to interview Saleh, who denied sympathizing with ISIS
The one thing the article neglects to mention: Mr. Saleh was in contact with Junaid Hussain (also cleverly known as "Abu Hussain"), the young former Birmingham, Englander who was briefly the proud husband of middle aged, former punk rocker Sally Jones and one of ISIS' long-distance jihad coaches. Mr. Hussain was killed at age 21 by a drone in Raqqa in August 2015. So our villain is not nearly the remorseful naif he is presented to be.

This article starring:
Munther Omar Saleh
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  They are all over the country. This one really pisses me off. We have family there. Again, What jihad mosque did she go too!?

Woman (Muslim) Set Fires At Minneapolis College For US sought to encourage fellow students to "join the jihad in fighting" and to "(j)oin Al Qaeda, Taliban, or Al Shabaab." Now Facing Federal Terrorism Charges.

Hassan also said "you guys are lucky that I don't know how to build a bomb, because I would have done that."
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 18:25 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Top US General Warns of 'Nasty' Korea Conflict, Stresses Diplomacy
[Military.com] The US military's top officer warned Tuesday that any war with North Korea would be "nasty" and said America still hopes to find a peaceful solution to the ongoing crisis.

General Joe Dunford, who is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon's role is to bolster diplomatic efforts by providing a clear message about US warfighting capabilities.

"Right now, the military dimension of the problem is reinforcing Secretary (of State Rex) Tillerson's economic and diplomatic pressure campaign," Dunford told reporters travelling with him after he visited US Marines temporarily deployed to an Australian air force base in Darwin.


"His diplomatic efforts are underwritten by a credible military strength."
Continues.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Lessons learned from AFG mountainous terrain will not help in NKR. A ground/man war will be terrible.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 12:11 Comments || Top||

#2  "Maybe so, but statesmanship [diplomacy] was operating on credit, and sooner or later your credit ran out and you had to pay off in hard money or get sold out". - Lord kalvan (H. Beam Piper)
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 16:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry, I may have been unclear Grom.
I fully advocate air and orbital bombing of power, port and water infrastructure. A man-to-man, tree-to-tree, mountain tunnel and urban clearing effort in NKR is foolish.

Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 17:53 Comments || Top||

#4  I was referring to headline - it just triggered an association - not your post, Skid.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 18:17 Comments || Top||

#5  a meat grinder is avoided if your enemy is out of power, ammo, water and food. You starve them out.
Posted by: Frank G || 02/08/2018 20:04 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Seminary teacher, three associates convicted in rape-murder case of girl
[DAWN] The teacher of a seminary and his three associates were convicted in a gang rape and murder case of a 10-year-old girl student in 2014.

The FIR against Ghulam Murtaza Shar and his associates Waseem Arain, Bilawal Arain and Adil was lodged by the victim’s father on April 10, 2014 at Kadhan cop shoppe. The rape and murder of the girl had triggered protests by the Arain community in Kadhan and some other towns of Badin taluka over the next few weeks.

On Tuesday, the Second Additional Sessions Judge of Badin, Abdul Wahab Tunio, pronounced his judgement in the case. Shar was sentenced to death and his three accomplices to life imprisonment.

Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Terror Networks
American IS recruits struggle to fit in with jihadists, study finds
We’re not Number 1!
[IsraelTimes] Paper finds imported muscle from US lack connections, cultural experience and are kept doing menial tasks, leading to widespread disappointment

US recruits to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group struggle more than their European counterparts, lacking support networks and field experience and being assigned to menial jobs, a report on American jihadists said Monday.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  Lets face it,
After years in American PC government schools, they are not much worth a fuck other than as baristas.
Posted by: newc || 02/08/2018 0:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Apparently, these Islamic wannabes who were not real Americans were not good at being baristas and gofers. Probably they would not be worth much as fighters either. Good bomb fodder?
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 6:49 Comments || Top||

#3  But JQC, they're learning a profession, establishing households - some even bought a girlfriend.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 6:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Does acute schadenfreud make me a bad person?

Good on newc.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/08/2018 7:20 Comments || Top||

#5  emerged from a generally wealthier and better-integrated Moslem community

I thought poverty and isolation were the cause of terrorism. With those ruled out, the only common factor left is... Islam?
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 02/08/2018 8:18 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Arms Control Wonk: Nuclear Posturing
[Arms Control Wonk] The Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, as advertised, is devoid of new diplomatic initiatives to reduce nuclear dangers and endorses new, low-yield nuclear warhead designs for sea-based delivery. It also expands the scope of potential U.S. military activities by establishing the requirement for “enforceable” arms control compacts.

U.S. nuclear posture reviews have continuity from one administration to the next because acceptance of basic premises is a prerequisite to being part of the drafting process. Those who think that nuclear deterrence doesn’t matter enough to spend large sums on its upkeep, or that numbers are immaterial beyond a certain point, or that the Triad and its offshoots are not sacrosanct won’t be doing the writing and editing. Those looking for fundamental change on these matters don’t play inside baseball.

This posture statement comes at a particularly rough time, reminiscent of the transition from President Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. Back then, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan killed prospects for the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. Well before the Red Army rumbled into Kabul, President Carter’s ambitious arms control agenda, which included negotiations on nuclear testing and space warfare, was already in tatters. As one who served in the Carter administration, I watched the downsizing of President Obama’s ambitions with a sad sense of déjà vu.
Posted by: newc || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You know, if they had put the "As one who served in the Carter administration" at the beginning, it would have saved me a lot of unnecessary reading.
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/08/2018 12:05 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Tribesmen set ablaze offices of ‘militant group’ in DI Khan
[DAWN] DERA ISMAIL KHAN/WANA: Reacting to the killing of a youth from South Wazoo Agency, enraged mob stormed the offices of an alleged krazed killer group and set on fire two compounds and vehicles in Dera Ismail Khan
... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ...
on Tuesday, sources said.

Family members of the dear departed, Idrees Wazir, alleged that he had quarrelled with a krazed killer commander belonging to Mehsud tribe after a road accident in the city two days ago.

They said that both sides agreed to a patch up following the accident. They said that krazed killers, who had offices in the main city, killed Idrees on February 4. Following the killing of Idrees, the rustics of Ahmadzai Wazir residing in Tank and Dera Ismail Khan held a protest and set up a camp.

Their fellow rustics from Wana, the administrative headquarters of South Waziristan Agency, also rushed to Dera Ismail Khan and joined the protest. The killing of Idrees sparked anger among his fellow rustics in Wana and other parts of South Waziristan Agency.

Sources told Dawn that the angry rustics blocked the Bannu Road to every kind of traffic. They said that the ’pro-government peace committee members’ opened fire on an inn, owned by a local businessman Ghazi Khan, that killed Idrees Wazir.

Sources said that following the murder, Wazir rustics took the body of Idrees to GPO Chowk and staged protest. However,
a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all...
they dispersed peacefully after the authorities assured them of action.

On Tuesday, the rustics again erupted into the streets and attacked the compounds of the so-called peace committee in Madina Colony. Unruly mob torched two compounds and two vehicles on the occasion.

Militant groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata have changed their modus operandi to initiate their activities in the name of peace committees.
Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Iraq
Four Islamic State militants killed, injured in Diyala aerial bombardment
Diyala (Iraqinews.com) ‐ Four Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
holy warriors were killed and injured Wednesday as an intensified aerial bombardment targeted the Lion of Islam group’s hotbeds in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, a security official was quoted as saying.

Speaking to Basnews website on Wednesday, Awwad al-Rabei, the head of Abu Saida’s security committee, said, "An Arclight airstrike was launched Wednesday on Islamic State strongholds at al-Makhisa village, east of Abu Saida, leaving two IS holy warriors killed and two others injured."

"There are still Islamic State sleeper cells in different parts in Diyala," Rabei said, warning that such cells pose a serious threat to the province’s security and stability.

Earlier this week, a joint force made up of the Iraqi army, police and al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) launched a wide-scale military operation, tracking down Islamic State remnants in the eastern part of Diyala.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Africa Subsaharan
Boko Haram: Troops uncover bomb making factory in Sambisa
[DAILYPOST.NG] Troops of operation Deep Punch, supported by the Nigerian Air Force, on Tuesday continued their raid on Camp Zairo in Sambisa Forest.

They carried out an offensive against 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...
murderous Moslems defending a major Improvised Explosive Device (IED) making factory.

Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu, Deputy Director Public Relations, Theatre Command, Operation LAFIYA DOLE, in a statement said troops successfully engaged the murderous Moslems, demobilized their vehicle borne IED, neutralized a number of the murderous Moslems and captured a bomb making factory.

The troops also recovered 88 Gas Cylinders, 1 Laptop computer, one 100m Ultra High Frequency Hand-held Radio (UHF HH Radio), 1 Motorola GP 180, Theodolite and 2 Global Positioning Systems (GPS).

They further destroyed 22 Motorcycles, 18 Bicycles and provisions store.

Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram (ISIS)


India-Pakistan
Mashal Khan lynching: Shooter Imran Ali sentenced to death, 5 given life imprisonment
[DAWN] A Haripur Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) announced its verdict in the Mashal Khan lynching case on Wednesday, handing one person two death sentences, five persons multiple terms of life imprisonment, and 25 others jail sentences, but acquitting 26 others for want of sufficient evidence.

Mashal Khan, 23, a student of Mass Communications at Mardan's Abdul Wali Khan University, was beaten and shot to death by an angry mob on April 13, 2017, after he was accused of blasphemy.

The lynching took place within the premises of the university and was caught on video which later circulated on social media. The horrific incident shocked the nation and sparked a debate over the misuse of the blasphemy laws in Pakistain.

Of the total 61 suspected of involvement in the lynching ─ the majority of them students and university employees and a tehsil councillor belonging to the Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf
...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations....
(PTI) ─ charged in the first information report, 57 had been tossed in the calaboose
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
within a few days of the incident.
Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


15-year-old cousin arrested for murder of Mardan minor girl: IG KP
[DAWN] A 15-year-old second cousin of the four-year-old Mardan girl found dead in a field in January was tossed in the clink
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Police for his suspected involvement in the alleged rape and murder of the minor.

Inspector General (IG) Police Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Salahuddin Mehsud said the suspect has confessed to his crimes.

Speaking to the media in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 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.
, the IG KP said that the suspect in the "blind case" was traced using DNA samples obtained from a single drop of blood found on a leaf near the scene of the crime.

The IG also stated that the accused had unsuccessfully attempted rape before murdering the girl, contradicting a forensic report earlier issued by the 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....

Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) which had stated that the girl was raped before she was murdered.

The accused was produced before an Anti Terrorism Court in Mardan later in the day, which remanded him to police custody for 10 days.

Mardan Regional Police Officer (RPO) Alam Shinwari, speaking to media earlier in the day, claimed that the suspect had attempted to rape the child but ended up suffocating her to death with his hands after she began shouting and crying.

Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Woman found dead two months after free-will marriage
[DAWN] An 18-year-old woman, who had contracted a free-will marriage about two months back, was found dead with her throat slit in her room in the thatched house of her family in Khair Mohammad Panhwar village near Nindo Shahar town on Tuesday.

Nindo Shahar SHO Ghulam Mustafa Bhatti said that when police reached the house, the room was locked from inside and they had to break open the door.

The woman, Shabana Panhwar, was found dead in a pool of blood, he said, adding that her throat was slit and it was presumed that she had did away with himself.

However,
a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all...
her husband, Ali Hasan Panhwar, and other family members chose not to share a motive behind her suicide with police or local news hounds.

They also did not comment on a question about possibility of it being a murder.

Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Suicide? Reads more like the divorce was final with prejudice.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 7:19 Comments || Top||


JUI-F workers in Mardan protest Mashal Khan case verdict, welcome acquitted 'heroes'
[DAWN] A large group of Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam
...the political wing of the Pak Taliban...
Fazl (JUI-F) workers gathered at the Mardan Motorway Interchange on Wednesday to protest an Anti-Terrorism Court's (ATC) verdict in the Mashal Khan murder case.

The crowd rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud against the slain Mashal Khan and vowed to "move the Supreme Court against the verdict".

Talking to DawnNews, a JUI-F worker said that they had congregated there to "welcome" the 26 "heroes" who had been acquitted by the ATC earlier today.

JUI-F workers gather around the car of one of the 26 acquitted people as he arrives in Mardan. ‐ Photo by author
Six of the acquitted had reached Mardan, two had gone to Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
while others were on their way, local sources said. One person, who was released by the ATC earlier today, was welcomed and garlanded by a jubilant crowd as he got off from a car.

Addressing the crowd, JUI-F's provincial general secretary Maulana Shujaul Mulk said that "this issue [of Mashal Khan's verdict] will not end here". He also criticised the government for supporting the verdict.

Another provincial party leader warned that if the government did not release the convicts that were sentenced by the ATC, JUI-F will hold protests and added that the party "will not sit quietly [till the convicts are released]".

An ATC in Haripur jail had announced its verdict in the Mashal Khan lynching case earlier on Wednesday, handing one person two death sentences, five persons multiple terms of life imprisonment, and 25 others jail sentences, but acquitting 26 others for want of sufficient evidence.

Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami


Naqeeb murder case: Four policemen recant confessions about staged 'encounter'
[DAWN] Four coppers detained for their involvement in the alleged extrajudicial killing of 27-year-old aspiring model Naqeebullah Mehsud pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
before a court in 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...
on Wednesday.

Police had informed the court in an initial report that assistant sub-inspector Allahyar, head constables Khizar Hayat and Mohammad Iqbal, and constable Arshad Ali had wished to confess to their involvement in the abduction and killing of Mehsud.

When the four coppers were presented before a judicial magistrate, they refused to confess to their involvement in the murder.

The magistrate in his report submitted to the administrative judge of an anti-terrorism court said that police had been ordered to present the suspects before the court on a request of the investigating officer, however, the coppers pleaded not guilty.

The police officials told the magistrate that they had been "trapped" in the case and that the real culprits are some other people.

The four men were among six police officials ‐ sub-inspector Mohammad Yasin and assistant sub-inspector Supurd Hussain being the other two ‐ who were presented before the ATC today.

Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Afghanistan
B-52 bombers target ISIS hideouts in North of Afghanistan
[Khaama Press] The US Air Force has carried out a series of Arclight airstrikes on ISIS hideouts using the B-52 bombers in northern Jawzjan province of Afghanistan.

The 209th Shaheen Corps of the Afghan military in a statement said the airstrikes were carried out in the vicinity of Darzab district home to several ISIS fighters.

The Shaheen Corps said more than ten murderous Moslems including foreigners were killed in the airstrike carried out in Sar Dara area.

The anti-government armed bully boy and terrorist groups have not commented regarding the report so far.

In the meantime, the Shaheen Corps says this is the second time the US and Afghan forces have been jointly carrying out airstrikes on ISIS targets in this province during the past two weeks.

According to Shaheen Corps, at least 70 gunnies have been killed during the counter-terrorism operations so far and around 40 others have sustained injuries.

The latest airstrikes on ISIS hideouts in Darzab take place amid ongoing efforts by the ISIS and other Death Eater and terror groups to expand their foothold in the northern parts of the country.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Coalition warplanes carpet bomb ISIS forces in Iraq
[ALMASDARNEWS] Declassified footage from the targeting cameras of US-led coalition warplanes operating over Iraq during 2017 has been publicly released. The footage shows anti-ISIS coalition aircraft conducting attacks against the terrorist group’s positions and underground bases in the north of the country.

The Arclight airstrikes by US-coalition airpower were in support of Iraq forces on the ground who themselves conducted a major and ultimately successful offensive against Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
gunnies throughout the Hawija region over the course of September-October 2017.

Coalition warplanes were particularly fixated on hitting ISIS positions and underground bases throughout the Hamrin Mountains at the time of the Iraqi operation across Hawija.

To this end, the footage available at the end of this article shows anti-ISIS coalition warplanes (mostly likely American) carrying out a heavy carpet bombing of terrorist positions and underground bases throughout the Hamrin range.

Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Economy
Stockton, CA files for Chapter Nine Bankruptcy
(Reuters) - Stockton, California, became the largest city to file for bankruptcy in U.S. history on Thursday after years of fiscal mismanagement and a housing market crash left it unable to pay its workers, pensioners and bondholders.

The filing by the city of 300,000 people followed three months of confidential talks with its creditors aimed at averting bankruptcy.

"We are now a Chapter 9 debtor," Marc Levinson, the lawyer who filed the city's voluntary petition in the Eastern District of California, in Sacramento (Case 12-32118) told Reuters.

Pleadings in support of Stockton's eligibility for Chapter 9 bankruptcy will be filed on Friday, Levinson said.

Stockton, which officially declared insolvency and its desire to restructure its debt, also filed a separate list of its major unsecured creditors.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, which manages Stockton's pension plan, tops the list. The retirement system has a $147.5 million claim for unfunded pension costs.
Posted by: badanov || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And in other Stockton news... or Brockton news, anyway...

Two ebony babies of Brockton:
"Da heck has your Democrat bloc done?"
"Our canon defective
Is safe... from perspective
Of Princeton and Sea Girt and Stockton!"

Jeez, it's like you're reading over my shoulder or something.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 02/08/2018 0:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Isn't this the city which recently wanted to guarantee everyone a basic-income no matter what? Legal, Illegal, etc...?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/08/2018 0:36 Comments || Top||

#3  How on earth does our resident poet laureate know about the City of Champions with seeming fluent knowledge? I GOTS to know!
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 0:42 Comments || Top||

#4  The retirement system has a $147.5 million claim for unfunded pension costs.

Promises made that can not be kept will not. Public employee unions are not victims but perpetrators of the problem by ignoring funding abilities. It's all been a magic money tree game. Or to paraphrase a real old but applicable observation of human behavior - you killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/08/2018 8:24 Comments || Top||

#5  WOW.
This is Stockton's second run at Chapter 9. June 12, 2012 was the first. (What is about 'right outta Stockton'?)
This is the same thing Orange County did in '94.
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/08/2018 9:46 Comments || Top||

#6  the link is to a 2012 article

Stockton emerged from about 30 months of bankruptcy in 2015

they voted to tax themselves an additional 0.75 cents sales tax in 2013 and raised that by 0.25 cents in 2017

they are not in bankruptcy now but their bonds only get a B-

the report of the auditor is here
Posted by: lord garth || 02/08/2018 10:50 Comments || Top||

#7  Dang!
I read the article, researched the 'prior' filing, and didn't read the date on the article.
[crap]
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/08/2018 12:02 Comments || Top||

#8  Raise the taxes.
Drive those that can out of state.
Fewer consumers means less infrastructure support.
Welcome to Detroit.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 12:15 Comments || Top||

#9  the link is to a 2012 article

Very good catch, lord garth.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 13:22 Comments || Top||

#10  Yeah, Stockton's good these days. Why, they are handing out free $500 / month "UBI". To a few people, that is.
Posted by: KBK || 02/08/2018 22:51 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Busted. There Are 11 FISA Judges, Guess How Many Obama Appointed…
[ConservativePost] Obama is as crooked as Hillary!

Of the 11 FISA court appointed judges, 10 of them were appointed by Obama
Gee, that's almost, like, 91%.
including the corrupt Rudolph Contreras that granted the FISA warrant after another judge rejected it. He is also the same judge who had to recuse himself days after the Michael Flynn plea.

This is yet another inconvenient fact that the media and Democrats don’t want to discuss. The entire FISA court basically was full of Obama appointees. The one Trump apoointee to the FISA court also replaced an Obama appointee named Susan Webber Wright who’s term expired May of 2016. Keep an eye on the story about Rudolph Contreas though. That’s the big story that everyone seems to be missing from this memo release. Corruption at the judge level is even more frightening than corrupt DOJ and FBI hacks.

Gateway Pundit reports:

The Obama team’s actions with the FISA Court were not just corrupt ‐ they were criminal! Now his appointed judges are in the news for suspect deep state actions.

The FISA Court was put in place in 1978 when Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The Court sits in Washington D.C., and is composed of eleven federal district court judges who are designated by the
Chief Justice of the United States. Each judge serves for a maximum of seven years and their terms are staggered to ensure continuity on the Court. In addition, the entire FISA court in late 2016 was stacked with Obama appointees. The entire court as of March 2017 was Obama appointees.

Now Obama appointed Judges to the FISA Court are in the news because of their suspect actions ‐

1. On Friday the House Intelligence Committee released its FISA memo that described the corrupt actions taken by Obama’s FBI and DOJ to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. Obama’s DOJ and FBI used a document created from information by Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC funding to obtain multiple FISA Court warrants. The political anti-Trump sources of the information were not provided to the court when requesting the warrant and top DOJ and FBI officials were the ones partaking in these actions. As a result, Congressional leaders are calling for prosecution of FBI and DOJ officials involved in the criminal actions and FOX News’ Gregg Jarrett stated that the criminal acts by Obama’s scoundrels involved in the FISA crimes could qualify for sentences of up to 10 years in prison.

It’s time to determine who signed off on the above warrants. Judges typically sit on the Court for one week at a time, on a rotating basis. Which judge signed off on the warrants with such flimsy information provided? The judge or judges who signed off on these warrants need to be investigated. Also, why have none of these judges announced that they are prosecuting the individuals who provided the fake information? This is their duty!

2. One Obama FISA appointee was also involved in General Flynn’s criminal case. We know this because he recused himself from the Flynn case. Obama FISA Court appointee and U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself from former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s criminal case in December. It’s yet unknown the reason for why Contreras recused himself. Why did he recuse himself and did he also sign off on any of the FISA warrants given to Obama cronies?

3. On Friday another Obama appointed FISA Court judge, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg sidedwith the Department of Justice after multiple news organizations, including CNN and USA Today, sued for the public release of Comey’s memos after their Freedom of Information Act requests were denied. (read more). The fact that any judge would currently side with this corrupt Department of Justice is suspect. What is in the memos and why is this being hidden from the public?
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The timing of the appointments is quite convenient for the time frame of 702 irregularities, niet?
Posted by: newc || 02/08/2018 0:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Quis Custodiet?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/08/2018 7:49 Comments || Top||

#3  We need to get rid of these judges and these secret kangeroo rubber-stamp courts. They were used by Obamaites to do an end-around on our 4th Amendment.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/08/2018 8:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Wait a minute. First the article says the judges are designated by the Chief Justice. Then it says Obama appointed them. What's the difference between designated and appointed? And where in the hell was John Roberts in all of this?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/08/2018 9:05 Comments || Top||

#5  And where in the hell was John Roberts in all of this?

Same place he was on Obamacare I suspect.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 9:07 Comments || Top||

#6  If the FISA request listed the Clinton campaign sourcing of info in a footnote the judges that cleared it should be disbarred for not reading carefully (in addition to arrests among the FBI for trying to hide the info and have it both ways).

If the FBI did not include the Clinton Campaign sourcing of info some folks in the FBI should be arrested for treason.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/08/2018 9:49 Comments || Top||

#7  So, it appears Ms. Clinton and Co. bought a FISA warrant using the FBI as skullduggeryists.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 02/08/2018 20:26 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Death Toll Soars as Syria Regime Pounds E. Ghouta Rebel Enclave
[AnNahar] Fresh regime strikes killed 15 civilians Wednesday in a rebel-held enclave near Damascus where overwhelmed medics were still treating the survivors of the Syrian conflict's bloodiest day in months.

The district of Eastern Ghouta, controlled by jihadist and rebel factions, suffered some of its worst bloodshed in years Tuesday and the toll continued to mount overnight.

"The civilian toll is now 80. Two maimed people died after midnight," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"This was the highest civilian toll in Syria in nearly nine months, and one of the bloodiest days for Eastern Ghouta in several years," the head of the Britannia-based monitoring group told AFP.

Nineteen children and 20 women are among the dead, and around 200 were maimed.

There was no respite for Ghouta residents as regime warplanes returned on Wednesday morning and carried out strikes that killed 15 civilians and maimed dozens.

Eight were killed in the town of Hammuriyeh, four in the town of Beit Sawa, and three in the main town of Douma, the Observatory said.

Civilians had been bracing for more raids as the regime appeared intent on ratcheting up the pressure on Eastern Ghouta, a rebel pocket on the capital's doorstep.

"Please break up all gatherings and clear the streets," blared an announcement from mosque minarets in Douma.

Surrounding areas and villages had been heavily battered by raids on Tuesday, flooding Douma's hospitals with maimed children.

Home to an estimated 400,000 people, the Eastern Ghouta region has been included in a de-escalation deal that was meant to bring calm to several zones across the country.

- 'Chlorine' use in Syria -
But bombardment there has increased in recent days, including with suspected chlorine-filled munitions.

On Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that "all indications" pointed to the Syrian government's use of chlorine weapons in Syria.

"All indications... tell us today that chlorine is being used by the regime at present in Syria," he told BFM television.

Chlorine is suspected of having been used on two occasions this month alone on Eastern Ghouta.

The U.S. State Department said on Monday it had recorded six suspected chemical attacks in Syria in the past 30 days.

Syria has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons. On Wednesday, Syria's army intercepted an Israeli attack on a military position in Jamraya, northwest of Damascus.

Jamraya is home to several military positions and a branch of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), suspected of playing a leading role in chemical weapons production.

An Israeli air strike hit the facility in May 2013.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Home Front: WoT
US arrests Saudi with Qaeda ties who sought pilot license
[AlAhram] US authorities said Tuesday they had locked away
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
a longtime Saudi resident of Oklahoma who had trained with al-Qaeda and sought flying lessons.

The Department of Justice said Naif Abdulaziz Alfallaj, 34, applied in 2000 to attend the same al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, called al-Farouq, where several of the September 11 hijackers had trained.

He came to the United States in 2011 on a non-immigrant visa, traveling with his wife, who was a student. In 2016, he took pilot lessons at an Oklahoma flight school, the Justice Department said.

He was only discovered recently after Sherlocks matched 15 fingerprints found on a document recovered by the US military from an al-Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan in 2001 with his fingerprints in official US records.

The document was an application to the al-Farouq camp, and included an emergency contact number in Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
that was linked to Alfallaj's father.

Other than attending the same bully boy training camp, officials did not claim any links between Alfallaj and the September 11, 2001 plot in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Several of them took flight training inside the United States before launching their attack.

Alfallaj was arrested in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Monday and charged with two counts of visa fraud -- for not reporting his links to al-Qaeda -- and one count of lying to the FBI about his past with the myrmidon group.

He faces up to 10 years in prison on each count.
The New York Times has more, much as I hate to link to them.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Egypt allowed Israeli airstrikes on terror targets in Sinai
[LI] The relationship between Israel and Egypt has often been referred to as a "cold peace", marked by various levels of mistrust and antagonism from Cairo toward its treaty partner.

However, it appears that the relationship is now far warmer than is widely known. David Kirkpatrick, Cairo bureau chief and a Middle East correspondent for The New York Times, reports that there has been a "secret alliance" between the two nations, as Israeli has hit terror targets in the Sinai at the behest of Egypt’s leaders.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (IS)


Africa North
Egypt opens Gaza's Rafah border crossing for three days
How many days until the next big attack, dear Reader?
[AlAhram] Egyptian authorities will open the Rafah border crossing into the Gazoo Strip for three days starting on Wednesday, Egypt's state-run MENA news agency reported.

The Rafah crossing will be open in both directions to allow Paleostinians to travel in and out of Gazoo.

Egypt has largely kept the border closed in recent years due to security concerns following the ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

Egypt last reopened Rafah in both directions briefly in December.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hamas


Iraq
Baghdad Bomb & Bullets Bulletin: 2 bombs, 7 injured, and a dead boomerette wouldabeen

Female suicide bomber shot dead inside Baghdad school

Dhi Qar (Iraqinews.com) – A female suicide bomber was killed early on Wednesday as she was trapped by Iraqi troops inside a Baghdad school before blowing herself up, the Baghdad Operations Command said.

In a statement, a copy of which was obtained by Basnews website, the command said, “Security forces foiled a terrorist attack by a female wearing an explosive belt inside a school in al-Tarmia area, north of Baghdad.”

“The troops opened fire at the terrorist after she refused to give herself up, causing the explosive belt to explode immediately,” the statement read.

It added that the woman had spent the night at the school with an intention to go out in the wee hours of Wednesday to blow herself up at any crowded place in Baghdad but security forces foiled her plot.

Seven people injured in two bomb blasts in Baghdad

Baghdad (Iraqinews.com) – Seven people were wounded Wednesday in two bomb explosions in the north and southeast of Baghdad, security sources were quoted as saying.

Speaking to Alghad Press, the sources said that a bomb went off near a busy street market at al- Hussainiya district, north of Baghdad, leaving three people injured.

“A security force cordoned off the blast site and opened a probe into the incident,” the source added.

In another terrorist attack, four people were wounded when a bomb exploded at a village in al-Mada’in district, southeast of Baghdad, according to Baghdad Today news website.

Ambulances rushed to the blast sites and carried the injured to the nearest hospital for treatment, the sources added.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan
US conduct airstrikes near Tajikistan and China border with Afghanistan
[Khaama Press] The US Air Force has carried out a series of Arclight airstrikes on Taliban
...Arabic for students...
hideouts near the border with Tajikistan and China as efforts are underway to suppress the Taliban-led insurgency across the country as part of the ongoing massive air campaign.

Over the past 96 hours, U.S. forces conducted air operations to strike Taliban training facilities in Badakhshan province, preventing the planning and rehearsal of terrorist acts near the border with China and Tajikistan by such organizations as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and others, according to a report by NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
-led Resolute Support Mission.

The strikes also destroyed stolen Afghan National Army vehicles that were in the process of being converted to vehicle-borne improvised bombs.

The report further adds that during these strikes, a U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress dropped 24 precision guided munitions on Taliban fighting positions, setting a record of the most guided munitions ever dropped from a B-52. The aircraft has played a leading role in Air Force operations for decades, and was recently reconfigured with a conventional rotary launcher to increase its reach and lethality.

Continued U.S. strikes disrupt Taliban support networks in Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province, as well as destroy their sources of revenue such as illegal narcotics, the report adds.

According to the Resoute Support, ongoing strikes in Helmand continue to degrade Taliban revenue sources and safe havens. U.S. strikes and ASSF raids have resulted in the removal of more than $30 million of Taliban revenue since the campaign began in November, 2017.

"The Taliban have nowhere to hide," said General John Nicholson, commander, USFOR-A. "There will be no safe haven for any terrorist group bent on bringing harm and destruction to this country."
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  NOCK'EM OUT JOHN, One of us has got to have some relief!
Posted by: ranture || 02/08/2018 10:56 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Don't promote Valentine's Day, Pemra reminds broadcasters
[DAWN] The Pakistain Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Wednesday issued an advisory directing local media to "desist from promoting Valentine's Day".

The authority directed all "broadcast media and distribution services licensees" to refrain from promoting Valentine's Day as per an order of the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

The IHC, in a verdict passed on February 13, 2017, had prohibited the celebration of Valentine's Day in public spaces and government offices across the country "with immediate effect".

The court had also warned print and electronic media to "stop all Valentine's Day promotions immediately".
Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Arabia
Bahrain accuses Iran of training oil pipeline bombing suspects
[IsraelTimes] Manama arrests four men who allegedly blew up pipe connecting country to Soddy Arabia, claims Revolutionary Guards instructed them

Bahrain said Wednesday that it had nabbed
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
four men suspected of bombing a Saudi Aramco oil pipeline, accusing Iran of training and arming two of the suspects.

The blast on November 10 of last year cut off the pipeline linking Bahrain’s Bapco refinery with oil giant Aramco’s main pumping station in neighboring Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
’s Dhahran province.

Authorities at the time blamed "terrorists" for the kaboom.

The interior ministry said Wednesday that four Bahraini men, aged 23 to 27, had been arrested for "plotting" and "remotely bombing" the pipeline outside the capital Manama.

Two of the four had received "intensive training at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard camps with the help of the leading runaway forces of Evil living in Iran," it said in a statement.

Three others remain on the lam, according to the statement.

The interior ministry accused all seven of belonging to the "February 14 Coalition" ‐ a reference to a protest movement that emerged in 2011 against the al-Khalifa dynasty, which has ruled Bahrain for more than two centuries.

Protests have continued to rock the Sunni-ruled, Shiite-majority kingdom, as authorities escalate their clampdown on political dissent, frequently accusing opposition figures of links to Shiite Iran.

Since 2011, hundreds of Bahrainis have been stripped of their citizenship and protesters and opposition leaders enjugged
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
or driven into exile.

Bahrain accuses Tehran of supporting the opposition in a bid to overthrow the government, but Tehran denies involvement.

Manama has drawn harsh criticism from leading rights groups, including Amnesia Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, over its treatment of the opposition.

A key ally of Washington located between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, Bahrain is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran Proxies


Africa Subsaharan
Open-Border Loving Politician Found Beheaded, Case Still Barely Mentioned by Media
[Brutalist.press] It’s been almost a year since Swedish politician Zaida Catalan was beheaded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet, most people haven’t even heard her name ‐ and there’s a good reason for that.

According to the U.K. Sun, Catalan was killed along with American Michael Sharp, a United Nations worker, as part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission to the troubled African nation.

On March 12, 2017, Catalan and Sharp were kidnapped along with four Congolese in the disputed province of Kasai. The BBC reports that the two had been dispatched to the region "to investigate reports of abuses after local rebels took up arms."

On March 27, their bodies were found.

"We have been informed that two Caucasian bodies have been found in shallow graves in the search area, one male and one female," Sharp’s father, John Sharp, posted on Facebook after the discovery of their bodies.

Since no other Caucasians have been reported missing in that region, there is a high probability that these are the bodies of MJ and Zaida.

Dental records and DNA samples will be used to confirm the identities. This will take some time.

However, a video of the murders quickly surfaced, showing the two being shot by members of the Kamwina Nsapu rebels, according to The Guardian.

Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende later confirmed that "the woman was found beheaded, but the body of the man was intact," the BBC reported.

According to the International Crisis Group, the Kamuina Nsapu insurgency is a localized conflict which occurred when "the state refused to recognize the traditional appointment of Jean-Pierre Mpandi as Kamuina Nsapu," a traditional chiefdom.

While a localized conflict, the Kamwina Nsapu fighting has helped to add to the instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, particularly given that President Joseph Kabila’s government had begun a brutal crackdown in the region, which is what Sharp and Catalan were investigating.

In December, a local militia leader was arrested in the deaths of Sharp and Catalan, according to The New York Times, but the case has been largely kept in obscurity ‐ likely because it didn’t fulfill the liberal media’s narrative of open borders as a panacea for the world’s ills.

Ironically, Catalan was a member of the Swedish Green Party. While generally Euroskeptical, the party has still embraced open borders. Its 2013 platform states that the Greens "are warm adherents to international cooperation. We want to see Europe as a part of a world of democracies, where people move freely over borders, and where people and countries trade and cooperate with each other."

While the Kamuina Nsapu insurgency is a localized one without the taint of globalized Islamic fanaticism, the destabilization of the Congo represents a larger problem, especially if terrorist groups are able to flourish within the failed state.

Terrorist groups often do flourish in failed states, the same way that al Shabab flourished in Somalia or Al Qaeda did in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Indeed, according to the U.K. Express, the Islamist Allied Democratic Force has also been busy in the DRC, attacking Christian villages and hospitals as part of an attempt to "carve out" a caliphate in the east of the unstable country.

While it may not be the Allied Democratic Force or Al Qaeda who’s responsible for Catalan’s death, the message is clear: The world is often a fragile place, filled with terrorist groups who want people dead for no other reason than they live in the West or they don’t believe in their religion.

Open borders would utterly destroy our most effective measure to keep those individuals from inflicting the harm they wish to. That’s something the media doesn’t like talking about, which is why you don’t hear a lot about Ms. Catalan or her death.

Zaida Catalan may have died in Africa. Make no mistake, though ‐ the next time terrorism claims a politician’s life, it may be in Europe, all thanks to policies Zaida Catalan’s party supported.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It was the only way they could get her to shut up.

(I know. Corner. sigh)
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/08/2018 10:10 Comments || Top||

#2  :-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 13:17 Comments || Top||

#3  And her IQ didn't drop a point!
Posted by: charger || 02/08/2018 20:58 Comments || Top||


Boko Haram: Shekau appears again, says ‘we’re in Sambisa, police wives with us’
[DAILYPOST.NG] 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...
leader, Shekau has appeared in a new video, days after the military said the sect has been completely defeated.

Maj.-Gen. Rogers Nicholas, the Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, had made the claim last weekend.

He disclosed that hundreds of bully boyz surrendered, several others fled their enclave, while over 100 civilians were rescued.

"My soldiers are in the heart of Boko Haram enclave that is Camp Zairo, the gallant troops have taken total control of Sambisa Forest.

"We have broken the heart and soul of Shekau’s group, taking over the camp and its environs.

"They are on the run and we are pursuing them to wherever they go. This time around there is no place for escape anywhere.

"We had earlier asked those of them that want to surrender to do so and we are still asking them to come out and surrender otherwise they are going to meet it the hard way", he said.

But in a new footage, Shekau threatened more violence in the region, insisting that his men were still in Sambisa, if not, "where are the police wives that ’are being tossed in the clink
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
by us'".

Ahmad Sakilda, a journalist known for his coverage of the sect, also confirmed the new video on Twitter.

"Abubakar Shekau
... the lunatic leader of Boko Haram who has been reported dead at least eleven times, pledged his body and soul to ISIS, told his fighters to hang it up once or twice, and been fired by the Caliph and refused to step down ...
looks and sounded weary in his latest video, but is he really the trouble now? The insurgency has developed beyond his reach. No doubt, #ISWAP is the future of the insurgency that we all have to contend with in the upcoming years", he tweeted.

Posted by: Fred || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram (ISIS)


Europe
Finnish knife attacker who killed two identified with IS, police say
[IsraelTimes] Asylum seeker Abderrahman Bouanane, who last year went on stabbing rampage in Turku, said to have acted alone, reacted to Syria bombardments.

Finnish police say the Moroccan asylum-seeker who killed two people and maimed eight others in last year’s stabbing attack in southwestern Finland identified strongly with the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group and was motivated largely by hatred after heavy bombardments by the Western-led coalition in the Syrian city of Raqqa.
Whatever. Jihad is its own excuse — no other is needed.
Olli Toyras of the National Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday that Abderrahman Bouanane
This would be the gentleman who previously identified himself to the Finnish authorities as Abderrahman Mechkah, age 18. He arrived in Germany in 2015, where he was picked up in a number of cities for illegal entry and criminal assault, and gave a number of aliases before moving on to apply for asylum in Finland in 2016. He went on a knifing rampage when it became clear Finland would not grant him asylum, though he seems to think this is not terrorism. The police stopped him by shooting him in the fleshy part of his upper thigh, or thereabouts.
became radicalized some three months before the August 18 attack in the western city of Turku, and although he acted alone, he thought of himself as an IS fighter.

"We don’t think any group is being involved in this," Toyras said, although adding that the suspect’s phone and computer contained IS-related photos and material. "He has seen himself as a fighter, a soldier, a man of IS. He would have liked IS to have taken credit for the attack."

On the day of the attack, Bouanane had bicycled from Turku’s outskirts to the city center, bringing along two kitchen knives he had taken from a friend’s home.

He attended prayer at a local mosque before he started a stabbing rampage in Turku’s main market square that lasted some three minutes and left two women dead and eight others ‐ six women and two men ‐ maimed.

Toyras said Bouanane, born in 1994,
...which would make him a fully adult 23 or 24, not the boyish 18 he claimed on his asylum request...
had picked his victims at random. His initial target had been a Finnish soldier waiting at a bus station but he abandoned the plan as too risky.

Toyras said Bouanane had keenly followed earlier terror incidents in Belgium and La Belle France, was willing to die for "a martyr cause" and was waiting to be rubbed out by the Finnish police.

The suspect came to Finland in 2016 and saw later his asylum application rejected. But police said that was not considered the main motive.

Following the attack, police discovered a manifesto posted online by Bouanane that was strongly influenced by Moslem and IS world views and contained disparaging references to Western religions.

The case is being investigated as two counts of terror-related murder and eight counts of attempted murder with a terror-related motive.

State prosecutors are expected to file official charges by the end of February.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  "He attended prayer at a local mosque before he started a stabbing rampage"

Bulldozer time.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 3:27 Comments || Top||

#2  AbderrahmanMechkah, age 18.

A native Finn?
Posted by: Claviter Lumumba4844 || 02/08/2018 7:47 Comments || Top||

#3 
His initial target had been a Finnish soldier waiting at a bus station but he abandoned the plan as too risky.


Too high a chance the soldier would resist. Ah,the brave Islamic warrior!
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 02/08/2018 8:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Finnish soldiers are always on the lookout. He could have been a Russian !
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 8:21 Comments || Top||

#5  The police stopped him by shooting him in the fleshy part of his upper thigh, or thereabouts.

By his actions it appears to be a lot of fleshy parts between his ears too. Police finger a little jumpy on raising the projectile device and maybe pulled too soon.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/08/2018 9:52 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Gunmen Kill Officers, Free Militant in Kashmir Hospital Raid
[AnNahar] Two button men opened fire Tuesday in a hospital in India-administered Kashmire where a Pak holy warrior was brought for treatment, escaping with the high-profile prisoner and killing two coppers.

A manhunt is underway after the attackers stormed the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar and opened fire on police guarding Naveed Jutt, a Pak rebel imprisoned in the restive province since 2014.

One officer died at the scene while another later departed this vale of tears in hospital, deputy inspector general of police Ghulam Hassan Bhat told AFP.

The trio escaped on a cycle of violence and were still on the lam. Police have set up roadblocks and fanned out in search teams across Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmire.

Jutt was second in command of the Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
(LeT) holy warrior group at the time of his arrest.

The Pakistain-based group is active in Indian Kashmire, regularly staging armed assaults on the roughly half a million Indian soldiers deployed in the divided Himalayan territory.

India accuses Pakistain of arming, training and deploying holy warrior groups, including LeT, to foment unrest in the part of Kashmire controlled by New Delhi, where many support the rebel cause.

Islamabad denies the allegations, saying it only provides diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination.

Pakistain and India both control parts of Kashmire but claim the whole of the territory and have fought two of their three wars over it since independence in 1947.

LeT has been blamed for a string of deadly attacks inside India, most notably the Mumbai carnage in November 2008 that left more than 160 people dead on the streets of the financial capital.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Taiba


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Here is the Grassley memo (PDF) Fishing with hand grenades
Posted by: newc || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So that was a month go, newc. Why the delay?
Posted by: Bobby || 02/08/2018 0:13 Comments || Top||

#2  To string this out until mid-term elections I guess.
With the amount of malfeasance I tracked at the time, this is barely a scratch in the end.
Posted by: newc || 02/08/2018 0:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Why the delay?

It was only just released to the public, Bobby.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 1:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Yep, the referral to the DoJ has been several months. The media just has not covered it except in passing as a political ploy.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/08/2018 9:50 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraqi troops liberate three villages in Salahuddin from White Flags group
Does anyone know who this White Flags group is? They seem to have suddenly appeared.
Salahuddin (Iraqinews.com) – Security forces liberated on Wednesday three villages in Tuz Khurmatu, Salahuddin, from the White Flags group and destroyed a booby-trapped vehicle that was planned to be used for targeting security forces, a paramilitary force announced on Wednesday.

In a statement, a copy of which was obtained by Alghad Press news website, al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) said that its troops, along with a joint force from the Iraqi army, police and Salahuddin Operations Command “launched a military operation early on Wednesday to purge the eastern part of Tuz Khurmatu from the White Flags group.”

“The troops have so far liberated three villages east of Tuz Khurmatu in Salahuddin province from the White Flags group and destroyed a booby-trapped vehicle that was meant to target security forces,” the statement read.

It added that many tunnels and premises used by the group “have been put under control just one hour after the start of the operation, which was launched from five axes.”

“The operation mainly aims at eliminating outlaws, IS remnants and White Flags militants in Tuz Khurmatu, in addition to securing the road between Baghdad and Kirkuk,” the statement read.

The White Fags group, whose members always carry a white banner with a lion’s head in the middle, began appearing in Iraqi in late-2017, especially after the worsening situation between Baghdad and Erbil and the elimination of IS in most of Iraq’s territory.

According to Al- Arabiya, members of the White Flags are estimated at hundreds, and the group’s main bases are in mountains and highlands.

Iraqi officials have always been condemning the group’s terrorist activities and blamed the Peshmerga for not taking proper action against it.

Three servicemen injured as military operation underway in Iraq’s Tuz Khurmatu

Salahuddin (Iraqinews.com) – Three army personnel were wounded Wednesday in a bomb explosion in Salahuddin’s multi-ethnic district of Tuz Khurmatu, security and medical sources were quoted as saying.

“An armored vehicle manned by troops from the army’s 9th armored brigade was targeted by a bomb blast during a military operation to eliminate Islamic State and White Flags militants in the eastern part of Tuz Khurmatu,” the sources told Shafaq News.

“Three servicemen were wounded in the explosion and carried to a nearby hospital for treatment,” the sources added.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
PA President Abbas's government sued over alleged CIA-backed wiretapping
This is dreadful. Simply dreadful. Really, there are no words for how dreadful this simply is.
[Ynet] Ex-Paleostinian intelligence chief suing PA after revelations of large-scale CIA wiretapping of prominent Paleostinians, both allies, rivals, of Abbas; suit may prove embarrassing for PA president in light of Paleostinian anger at US since Trump's Jerusalem announcement; Abbas also facing accusations of increasingly authoritarian rule.

A former Paleostinian intelligence chief and the head of the West Bank bar association are suing the Paleostinian self-rule government after a purported whistleblower alleged the two were targeted, along with many other allies and rivals of President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
, in a large-scale CIA-backed wiretapping operation.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority


-Obits-
Muhiyidin Moye aka Muhiyidin d'Baha flag snatching days have come to an end.
[Huffpoo] A Black Lives Matter activist who made headlines last year when he leaped through police tape to grab a Confederate flag away from a protester was fatally shot in New Orleans early Tuesday morning.

Muhiyidin Moye, also known as Muhiyidin d’Baha, was riding his bike in New Orleans when he was shot in the leg by an unknown assailant around 1 a.m., WCSC reports.

Moye’s niece, Camille Weaver, told the station that her 32-year-old uncle rode more than five blocks after being shot to get medical help.

"He was transported to a hospital and subsequently died of his wounds," New Orleans Police spokesman Beau Tidwell said in a statement to WCSC. "The incident is the subject of an active and ongoing investigation."

Moye was a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement in Charleston, South Carolina, and close to the family of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man who was shot and killed by then-officer Michael Slager in 2015.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Severed the artery, I'll wager.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 02/08/2018 13:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Rode his bike some 5 blocks with a shot leg, then got transport to hospital, doesn't say by ambulance so maybe no first aid, 1 am so maybe some alcohol involved which wouldn't help.

Once a hero's demise has been very quiet.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/08/2018 17:40 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
FBI Used 'Ex-British Spy' as main source for spying warrants after suspending its relationship with him
[Free Beacon] Despite suspending its relationship with an ex-British spy who wrote the unverified dossier on President Donald Trump over the ex-spy's unauthorized contact with the media, the FBI presented him as a credible source to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court multiple times after that suspension, according to two Republican senators.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) late Tuesday afternoon released a new version of a Jan. 4 criminal referral he wrote with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) that asked the Justice Department to investigate Trump dossier author Christopher Steele for allegedly lying to the FBI, which is a crime.

At Grassley's request, the FBI removed multiple heavy redactions to the senators' criminal referral, which the senators first released Monday and asserts that Steele wrote a second memo with help of at least one of Hillary Clinton's friends.

"I appreciate the FBI's quick turnaround on a tight deadline to my request for a classification review of the Steele referral," Grassley said in a statement. "The more clarity we can provide to the American people about decisions at the FBI and Justice Department, the better."

Grassley pledged to keep pushing for additional transparency and thanked the men and women of the FBI and Justice Department for their continued service.

The newly released memo with fewer redactions states the FBI took "important investigative steps largely based on Mr. Steele's information‐and relying heavily on his credibility."
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Paging Austin Powers.
Posted by: newc || 02/08/2018 0:22 Comments || Top||

#2  The term 'useful idiot' comes to mind.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/08/2018 0:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Paging Austin Powers.

It's a man, baby?
Posted by: Raj || 02/08/2018 0:37 Comments || Top||

#4  International man of mystery.
Posted by: newc || 02/08/2018 1:06 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
French jihadis held in Syria and Iraq to be tried there
[IsraelTimes] French foreign minister Jean-Yves le Drian says the French citizens who fought with the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group before being tossed in the clink
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
in Syria or Iraq will be judged by local authorities.

Speaking to BFM TV channel, Le Drian says that about 100 fighters have been captured in northeastern Syria by Kurdish fighters.

Le Drian says they will be tried by "local authorities" and won’t be repatriated to La Belle France "because they are enemies who fought against Syrian citizens, Ottoman Turkish people. They have raped and committed barbarian acts."

He adds that La Belle France’s doctrine regarding children was different, with the French government aiming to send them back to their country with the help of the Red Thingy.

According to Le Drian, six families of French fighters have also been arrested in Iraq
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  will be judged by local authorities.


Didn't Macron say he wasn't going to let that happen?
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/08/2018 11:27 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Joe Manchin Jointly Fundraised With Democrat Challenging Incumbent Republican
[FreeBeacon] Despite pledge, Manchin joined joint fundraising committee with Jacky Rosen this cycle

Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.V.) urged his Senate colleagues to join him in a pledge not to campaign against incumbents or fundraise for their opponents, but records show he has already been part of a fundraising operation against Nevada incumbent senator Dean Heller (R.).

Manchin publicly signed the pledge Tuesday on the Senate floor. He told CNN he would like to make it an official ethics violation to raise money to oust incumbents.

Records show, however, that Manchin's campaign was part of a joint fundraising committee, Blue Senate 2018, with three other Democrats, including Jacky Rosen's campaign to unseat Heller in Nevada.

Manchin and Rosen were both added to the committee last October, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission. The other two campaigns involved were for incumbent senators Tim Kaine (D., Va.) and Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.).

Documents filed a week ago by Blue Senate 2018 show all of the campaigns involved raised thousands of dollars through the joint fundraising committee. On Dec. 28, 2017, the committee transferred $32,390 to Manchin, $28,960 to Rosen, $29,557 to Kaine, and $31,913 to Stabenow.

A spokesman for Manchin said the senator does not think participating in a fundraising operation with a candidate challenging a sitting senator is a violation of his pledge.

"Sen. Manchin attended a fundraiser for himself, raised money for his own campaign and never raised, donated, or solicited donations against his good friend, Sen. Heller," said spokesman Jonathan Kott.

Manchin's campaign also dismissed criticism on Tuesday from Republicans, who pointed out Manchin's direct contributions to Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes for her 2014 campaign against Republican senator Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and labeled him the "most transparently hypocritical politician in Washington, D.C."

Kott told CNN Manchin in 2014 exempted donations to campaigns against party leaders from his policy against fundraising against sitting members because they are "the two senators who are most responsible for the dysfunction in Washington."

Heller, like Manchin, is viewed as one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the Senate.

Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "My word of honor - I give it, I take it back."
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/08/2018 3:00 Comments || Top||

#2  The "Manchinian Candidate". Chinese Collusion!

Snark off.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/08/2018 4:08 Comments || Top||

#3  >He told CNN he would like to make it an official ethics violation to raise money to oust incumbents.

ER WTF?!?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/08/2018 7:58 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
9 Taliban insurgents killed in Maiwand-11 operations in Helmand
[Khaama Press] At least nine Taliban
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
turbans were killed during the Maiwand-11 military opera rations in souther Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province of Afghanistan.

The Helmand governor’s office in a statement said Tuesday that the Afghan national defense and security forces have launched a counter-terrorism operation, Naveed-11 operations, for the elimination of the terror groups and security of the province.

The statement further added that the operations are currently being conducted in Nad-e-Ali, Garamser, and Sangin provinces with the support of the Afghan Air Force.

At least 9 turbans were killed and another Death Eater was maimed during the operations in the past 24 hours, the statement said.

According to Helmand governor’s office, at least two vehicles were also destroyed during the same operations and 27 improvised bombs were discovered and defused.

The anti-government armed Death Eater groups including the Taliban turbans have not commented regarding the reports so far.

Helmand is among the relatively volatile provinces in southern parts of the country where the Taliban turbans are active in a number of its districts and often carry out insurgency activities.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Africa North
ICC-Wanted Libya Commander 'Hands Himself In' to Strongman's Forces
[AnNahar] A Libyan commander wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges announced he has handed himself in to the allied forces of strongman Khalifa Haftar
...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all...
Mahmoud al-Werfalli -- who commands the Benghazi-based al-Saiqa Brigade loyal to Haftar -- has been under an arrest warrant for the past six months over the cold-blooded executions of at least 33 people in 2016 and 2017.

Calls for Werfalli to face justice have grown since he was accused of personally shooting dead some 10 jihadist prisoners last month at the scene of a deadly kaboom on a mosque in Benghazi, Libya's second city.

In a video posted on Facebook overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, the commander announced "I am handing myself in to military police" under the command of Haftar, whose forces dominate the east of the country.

The claim could not be independently verified.

In the footage Werfalli insisted on his "innocence" and justified the executions as "sentences" against jihadist "killers."

This is not the first time that Werfalli has reportedly been held by Haftar's forces.

When his arrest warrant was issued in August 2017 Haftar's forces insisted he was in their custody and would face a military trial.

The United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
in late January reiterated its demand for "the handing over of Mahmoud al-Werfalli immediately to the ICC in The Hague" after the latest reported killings in Benghazi.

The U.N. said it had documented "at least five similar cases, in 2017 alone, carried out or ordered by Werfalli."

Libya has been mired in chaos and violence since longtime dictator Muammar Qadaffy
...The late megalomaniac dictator of Libya, admired everywhere for his garish costumes, funny hats, harem of cutie bodyguards, and incoherent ravings. As far as is known, he is the only person who's ever declared jihad on Switzerland...
was ousted and killed in a NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
-backed uprising in 2011.

A U.N.-backed unity government based in the capital Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
has struggled to assert its authority outside western Libya. Haftar supports a rival administration based in the east.

The U.N. is currently trying to negotiate an end to the current political turmoil by agreeing parliamentary and presidential elections later this year, but there is deep skepticism over whether they will take place.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
Google Reveals Its Leftist Bias: YouTube Still Censors PragerU Videos
1984 is here.
[PJMedia] In October, the conservative educational nonprofit Prager University filed a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company, Google, for "intentional" censorship of conservative speakers. PragerU told PJ Media that after five months, YouTube is still restricting its videos. PragerU will go before a California judge on March 15.

"There’s one thing we know and that’s that we’re being targeted by YouTube," Craig Strazzeri, chief marketing officer at PragerU, told PJ Media. "We tried the diplomatic approach for over a year and a half. We had email dialogue, phone call dialogue with them. I was even invited to New York to discuss the problem, where absolutely nothing got done."

After a year, PragerU had had enough and filed the lawsuit. After this, they had to wait six months before appearing before a judge.

More than 40 of PragerU's videos have been "restricted" by YouTube. "We have in writing from them that they’ve reviewed our videos and deemed them inappropriate. They’re not even hiding behind it," Strazzeri said.

"Restricted" videos cannot be viewed in specific "modes," such as "child mode," a version of YouTube supposedly tailored to children. The video company told PragerU they deemed the videos inappropriate for young people, because they discuss "mature topics."

"However, there are millions ‐ that’s not an exaggeration ‐ of other videos on the same topic that are not restricted. Sometimes either an identical title from a Left-leaning perspective and theirs won’t be restricted and ours will be," Strazzeri told PJ Media.

Ironically, there are many YouTube accounts that copy a PragerU video ‐ in its entirety ‐ and do not find their copycat videos restricted, even though PragerU's original video was.

For instance, on December 4, 2017, PragerU released a video with author and film producer Dinesh D'Souza on the true nature of fascism.

Six days later, a user named Jack Kern published an identical video.

People using YouTube in a restricted mode cannot watch the PragerU video, but they can watch the exact same content from Jack Kern. The PragerU video has more than 893,000 views, while Kern's video has a mere 40 views. It seems YouTube is specifically targeting PragerU because it has a wide audience.

The issue goes far beyond PragerU, however. Google dominates Internet search traffic with over 75 percent of the market. This dominance has a cultural impact, as "Google" itself has become a verb meaning "Internet search."

"It's in Google's mission statement that they make information accessible. People don’t realize when they Google something they may not actually get all the information that's available," Strazzeri said.

"It would be different if they said they were a Leftist organization, but they claim themselves to be this place where they collect and organize the world's information for people to access," he explained. "The public thinks they're getting an objective look, not so much that Google is picking and choosing and hiding and deleting anyone who disagrees with their point of view."
More at the link.
Posted by: E. Clainter9830 || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israeli troops raid home of terrorist who stabbed security guard
[IsraelTimes] Clashes break out as soldiers descend on slain assailant's house in Halhul, north of Hebron
...Hamas Central in the West Bank...
interrogate his family.


Clashes broke out between Paleostinians and Israeli soldiers in the southern West Bank town of Halhul on Wednesday, as troops raided the home of a terrorist who stabbed a security guard and then was rubbed out earlier that morning.

"As they entered [Halhul], a riot broke out in which rocks were thrown at the soldiers. The IDF troops responded with riot dispersal means and enjugged
Please don't kill me!
one of the demonstrators," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

"The forces arrived at the home of the terrorist and interrogated members of his family," the army said.

Early Wednesday morning, Hamzeh Yusef Zamaareh, 19, stabbed a civilian security guard in the palm of the hand in a guard post at the entrance to the Karmei Tzur settlement, just outside Halhul in the Etzion bloc.

A second guard shot the assailant and killed him, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Officials said the terrorist arrived at the scene with a car. Security forces were scanning the area.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Three Islamic State members, hiding among refugees, arrested in Anbar
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Security troops have tossed in the slammer
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
three Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
members during an operation, east of Ramadi, a local source from Anbar province said on Wednesday.

"Troops carried out a campaign at refugee camps at al-Habbaniya region, east of Ramadi, after intelligence authorities gathered information that some bully boyz sneaked into the camps," the source told SNG website.

"Three bully boyz were arrested during the campaign. They were able to infiltrate into the camps after counterfeiting their identity cards," the source added. "The forces transferred the detainees, under tight measures, to one of the detention cells for investigations."
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/08/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State



Who's in the News
33[untagged]
8Islamic State
3Govt of Syria
3Govt of Pakistan
3Taliban
2Boko Haram (ISIS)
2TTP
1Govt of Iraq
1Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (IS)
1Hamas
1al-Qaeda
1Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami
1Lashkar e-Taiba
1Moslem Colonists
1Palestinian Authority
1Sublime Porte
1Fatah
1Commies
1Govt of Iran Proxies

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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2018-02-08
  US kills more than 100 Assad regime fighters in largest deliberate strike against Syrian government forces
Wed 2018-02-07
  Israelis kill Ahmad Nasser Jarrar, terrorist behind murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevah
Tue 2018-02-06
  Chlorine gas dropped in rebel-held territory of Idlib, Syria
Mon 2018-02-05
  Russian, Syrian warplanes unleash all-out attack on ISIS in northeast Hama as army prepares to eliminate pocket
Sun 2018-02-04
  Bomb blast kills top military commander in S. Yemen Zoom
Sat 2018-02-03
  Ahrar Al-Sham’s top commander in northern Idlib has been assassinated
Fri 2018-02-02
  Four Migrants Critical after Being Shot in Calais Brawl
Thu 2018-02-01
  Robert Mueller Requests Postponement of General Mike Flynn Sentencing… It was a set up
Wed 2018-01-31
  Southwest State Confirms The Death Of Burhakabo Military Commander
Tue 2018-01-30
  Iraqi court sentences Al-Qaeda member to death over executing eight civilians in 2007
Mon 2018-01-29
  McCabe Resigns
Sun 2018-01-28
  Top Houthi leader killed in Sanaa by unknown individuals
Sat 2018-01-27
  Taliban kill 40 63 90 95 with ambulance bomb in Afghan capital Kabul
Fri 2018-01-26
  Mosul clean up continues: 21 turbans permanently unwound, 9 more jugged
Thu 2018-01-25
  Double car bombing kills 33 in Benghazi

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