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BREAKING in Turkey: MILITARY COUP UNDERWAY
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Feds Have Released 86,288 Criminal Aliens Since 2013
But if you oppose this you're a Xenophobe Racist
[FreeBeacon] Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released nearly 90,000 illegal immigrants since 2013 who had committed more than 200,000 crimes,
...ambitious little sods. And of course, the 200,000 are the known crimes -- the unknown crimes could be a great deal more...
according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) reported during a hearing Thursday that nearly a million illegal aliens who have received final deportation orders remain in the United States.

"We have people that come here legally to this country, we have people that come here illegally to this country," Chaffetz said during his opening statement. "But there's a population here that may have overstayed a visa, they may have come here on a tourist visa or a student visa. But they were supposed to go home and they didn't and they're here illegally."

"Nevertheless, there is a large population of people that are in this country illegally," he said. "Unfortunately, there is also a criminal element to this population."

Chaffetz said 86,288 illegal aliens who have been convicted of a crime have been released by the federal government since 2013. Those illegal immigrants had committed a total of 231,074 crimes.

"That's a lot of criminal activity that can be totally and wholly avoided," Chaffetz said.

Convicted sex offenders, kidnappers, and murderers were released last year, and a total of 953,507 aliens who have received deportation orders remain in the United States.

"In the last year alone, ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement, released‐keep in mind these people committed crimes or were convicted of these crimes, they're in our possession and we release them out into the public‐19,723 criminal aliens, who among them had 64,197 convictions, including 934 sex offenses, 804 robberies, 216 kidnappings, and 196 homicide-related convictions," Chaffetz said.
Posted by: Frank G || 07/15/2016 09:02 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:


FBI confirms: Hillary probe agents required to sign extraordinary NDAs
[Hot Air] The FBI did demand a separate non-disclosure agreement from agents assigned to the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe, Fox News - Catherine Herridge reported this morning. Agents had to agree not to discuss the case outside of the investigation, and were told that polygraph tests could well be involved to make sure the cone of silence remained in effect. The Senate Judiciary Committee got word two weeks ago of the unusual arrangements, including an apparent bar on speaking to members of Congress -- which chair Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) complained was a violation of whistleblower protections:

The FBI has confirmed to a senior Republican senator that agents were sworn to secrecy -- and subject to lie detector tests -- in the Hillary Clinton email probe, an extensive measure one former agent said could have a "chilling effect."

A July 1 letter sent by a senior deputy to FBI Director James Comey to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, detailed the restrictions on agents. The letter, reviewed by Fox News, confirmed agents signed a "Case Briefing Acknowledgement" which says the disclosure of information is "strictly prohibited" without prior approval, and those who sign are subject to lie detector tests.

"The purpose of this form is to maintain an official record of persons knowledgeable of a highly sensitive Federal Bureau of Investigation counterintelligence investigation," the agreement attached to the Grassley letter reads, "....I (FBI agent) also understand that, due to the nature and sensitivity of this investigation, compliance with these restrictions may be subject to verification by polygraph examination."

The measures show the extent to which the bureau has gone to keep additional details of the politically sensitive case from going public. While Comey has provided some information ‎on why the FBI did not opt to pursue charges, Attorney General Loretta Lynch repeatedly ducked questions on specifics of the case at a House hearing Tuesday.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 03:40 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If there was nothing to prosecute, no verifiable wrong doing or criminality, then the NDA's are no longer needed.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 3:49 Comments || Top||

#2  The top FBI guy was in on the "not guilty" fix. But they had to silence the rest of the FBI people who would discuss illegal activities of the Hildebeast and the DNC.
Posted by: Percy McCoy7690 || 07/15/2016 4:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Www.movealong5.org
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 6:11 Comments || Top||

#4  The term is gag order
Posted by: regular joe || 07/15/2016 7:53 Comments || Top||

#5  No problem...

Just place the information and documents on an unsecured email server!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/15/2016 8:56 Comments || Top||

#6  I saw a video or read an article the other day that said if the rocks were turned over with the Clinton Foundation that the government would fall. Maybe hyperbole but maybe not.
Posted by: JohnQC || 07/15/2016 10:55 Comments || Top||


Georgia to execute man, 6th this year for that state
Georgia officials plan to carry out an execution Thursday that would set a modern record in the state — and, if the lethal injection happens, would be the country’s first in more than two months.

Authorities plan to execute John Wayne Conner, who was convicted of murder more than three decades ago, by lethal injection on Thursday night. The Supreme Court denied his requests for a stay in an order issued about 90 minutes after his lethal injection was originally scheduled to begin.

Conner’s execution would end a nationwide pause in executions that has lasted for nine weeks as the dwindling number of states still looking to put inmates to death have struggled to obtain lethal drugs and faced uncertainty stemming from court rulings and problems with earlier executions. Conner, if put to death, would be the 15th person executed in 2016.

Conner had appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that he was sentenced to death at “a time when Georgia systemically failed to provide competent counsel at trial and on appeal.” His attorneys wrote in their court filings that he is “an undisputedly cognitively impaired man,” and said the idea of executing him more than three decades after his sentencing would be unconstitutional.

State officials responded in a filing saying that lower courts have “thoroughly reviewed his case and reliably found no constitutional violations” leading to Conner’s conviction or death sentence and urged the court to reject the request to stay his execution.

On Thursday night, the Supreme Court denied Conner’s request for a stay. The only recorded dissent came from Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who pointed to the long gap between Conner’s sentencing and scheduled execution and said he would have accepted the case “to consider this constitutional question.”
What constitutional question? That the defense team nearly succeeded in running out the clock?
Breyer, who has previously raised the issue of long waits before executions before, wrote in his brief dissent that he would have heard the case “for reasons I have previously expressed.”

Earlier on Thursday, the Georgia Supreme Court denied a stay request for Conner, 60, in a 5-to-2 decision.

According to the court, Conner was sentenced for killing J.T. White in 1982 after a fight sparked when White told Conner he wanted to have sex with Conner’s girlfriend. Conner then beat White, left him in a ditch and returned later to ensure that White was killed, the court said. A medical examiner later said that White drowned in his own blood and that portions of his jaw were broken apart when a blunt object hit his face, the Georgia Supreme Court added.

State records show that in the years before Conner was convicted of killing White, he had been in and out of prison, serving four different stints behind bars between 1974 and 1981.

A day before the court’s ruling, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles — the only entity in the state that can commute a death sentence or convert it to life in prison — denied Conner’s clemency request.

Conner’s execution was scheduled for 7 p.m. at a Georgia state prison in Jackson, about 50 miles southeast of Atlanta.

This lethal injection, if carried out, would be the sixth in Georgia this year, matching Texas for the most in the country during that time. That would also mark the most executions for Georgia in a single year since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center — a record that would be set with more than five months still left on the calendar.
At least we lead the country in something.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Georgia crime of passion. 20 years no parole. Death seems excessive.
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 6:15 Comments || Top||

#2  who pointed to the long gap between Conner’s sentencing and scheduled execution

Which was caused by YOU GUYS. Yes, you in the robes. How about holding yourselves accountable if you so deem it a 'civil rights' violation.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/15/2016 7:50 Comments || Top||

#3  @shipman, the death penalty did not seem to be to much for the victim. If ya don't live in Georgia , don't worry bout it.
Posted by: chris || 07/15/2016 8:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Can't argue much with that Chris, I live in very South Georgia.
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 13:26 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Final Budget Deficit Under Obama Projected At $600b

Thanks, spineless Trunks.
The White House predicted Friday that the federal government's budget deficit for current fiscal year will hit $600 billion, an increase of $162 billion over last year's and a final sour note on President Obama's watch.

While the figure was expected, the increase represents a reversal from previous years, in which budget deficits had steadily declined from the massive $1.4 trillion annual deficit early in Mr. Obama's first term during the recession.

In March, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected a $534 billion deficit in fiscal 2016, which ends on Sept. 30.

Shaun Donovan, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the new projection is actually $16 billion lower than the $616 billion deficit estimated by the administration in February. He said deficits are expected to remain below 3 percent of gross domestic product through the next decade.

"Even as the administration made critical investments to support economic growth, it also succeeded in putting the nation on a sound fiscal path," Mr. Donovan said. "Since 2009, federal deficits have fallen by nearly three-quarters as a share of the economy -- the most rapid sustained reduction since just after World War II."

Under Mr. Obama, the total national debt has climbed to $19.3 trillion; it was about $10.6 trillion when he took office in January 2009.
And now we can't even afford to keep our military in good repair. All by design, of course.
Mr. Donovan credited the $821 billion recovery act of 2009, the Affordable Care Act and other measures for American businesses adding 14.8 million new jobs since February 2010 and lowering the unemployment rate by more than half.
Posted by: gorb || 07/15/2016 13:02 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:


African migrants hoping to reach US wait in makeshift camp at the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border
[IBT] Thousands of African migrants are currently stranded in Costa Rica after they were denied entry into neighbouring Nicaragua, which they have been using as a crossing point in order to reach the United States. According to the Costa Rican Red Cross, most of these people from Africa, Asia and Haiti.

It has been reported that many of them paid smugglers to reach Central America. However, when they arrived at the border gates, they were denied entry and were left with nowhere to go.

"We are just hoping that they might open the border because no one is leaving here to go backwards because there is nowhere to go back. You [have to] understand, more people are coming every day, we are receiving [up] to about 50 to 100 people every day. Right now, we are about 3,000 of us and more are still coming, so if they don't open the border we will stay here forever," Banchue Bhotoos from Congo explained to Reuters.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 08:30 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The regime will do little to rescue these poor people. Their numbers are yet small and there is little hope that they could be registered to vote before the election.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 8:43 Comments || Top||

#2  They are actual Africans instead of the native Hispanics, and will not fit in with the African-American community when they arrive.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/15/2016 9:54 Comments || Top||

#3  You mean like our gentlemen from Minnesota?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/15/2016 11:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Somalis are... different.
Posted by: Pappy || 07/15/2016 12:23 Comments || Top||


Chinese man to serve US prison term for military hacking
[Ynet] A Chinese businessman who pleaded guilty in March to conspiring to hack into the computer networks of Boeing and other major US defense contractors was sentenced on Wednesday to nearly four years in prison, prosecutors said.

Su Bin, 51, was charged with taking part in a years-long scheme by Chinese military officers to obtain sensitive military information. In addition to the 46-month prison term, a judge in US District Court in Los Angeles ordered Su to pay a $10,000 fine.

"Su Bin's sentence is a just punishment for his admitted role in a conspiracy with hackers from the People's Liberation Army Air Force to illegally access and steal sensitive US military information," John Carlin, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Commies


Britain
May puts stamp on Brit cabinet with mass firing of Cameron ministers
Lots of inside cricket here.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dang! She's throwing the body-line at 'em!

Ashes to Ashes
Must to must,
Get a real Tory when times be tough.
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 6:18 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm a May skeptic but she's looking vastly better than expected.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 07/15/2016 6:35 Comments || Top||

#3  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36788162

Best News from May. Obviously lots of backroom deals and listening to grassroots Tories going on.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 07/15/2016 6:37 Comments || Top||

#4  IMO, one of the advantages of the parliamentary system is that an empty-suit like Obama can't survive backroom dealings.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/15/2016 7:54 Comments || Top||

#5  In her first speech as the country’s leader, May indicated she would chart a new course, emphasizing the need for social justice and saying she would govern on behalf of the poor, minorities, women and others who have traditionally not been given a strong voice in government.

Dandy.
Posted by: Bobby || 07/15/2016 8:10 Comments || Top||

#6  Ditto BP
Posted by: AlanC || 07/15/2016 8:42 Comments || Top||

#7  Huzzah! Huzzah!
Posted by: newc || 07/15/2016 11:56 Comments || Top||

#8  IMO, one of the advantages of the parliamentary system is that an empty-suit like Obama can't survive backroom dealings.

Just imagine Obama doing one of those question and answer sessions with Parliament like the British PM must do.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 07/15/2016 12:27 Comments || Top||

#9  All without a teleprompter, too.
Posted by: gorb || 07/15/2016 12:30 Comments || Top||

#10  Instead, the Champ delivers to Congress a State of the Union address once a year which is little more than platitudes and lies while giving our congress critters no opportunity to question it.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 07/15/2016 12:30 Comments || Top||

#11  She named Boris Johnson Foreign Foreign Secretary. Interesting choice. I found this interesting:

https://youtu.be/EVq7ZGlvapM
Posted by: OregonGuy || 07/15/2016 13:34 Comments || Top||

#12  Imagine Lyndon Johnson at question time!

Muh good fren and colleague from Rio Linda is mistaken in his assertions. It is well known his Momma (a grand and notable woman I admire greatly) would not let him out of the house without his special instructions.

Chair! Chair!
I do ask the first minister what instructions is he referring to?

The right honorable member from Metcalf must know that our esteemed colleague from Rio Linda requires requires instruction on the best way to pour piss from a boot. His gracious mother prints them on his boot heels, sadly this does not always suffice.

Okay Doc how's that for toned down?
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 13:39 Comments || Top||

#13  Oh, that's funny!
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 07/15/2016 14:11 Comments || Top||

#14  *giggle*
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/15/2016 19:39 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Domestic Insurrection Digest, July 15th, 2016

From Fred:
#BlackLivesMatter Protests Set for Friday in 37 US Cities

From Fred:
The FBI investigated the Orlando mass shooter for 10 months -- and found nothing

[LATIMES] The veteran FBI agent and a local sheriff’s deputy took no chances when they got a credible tip about a potential terrorist.

In a joint operation, they ran his name through a maze of federal criminal and terrorism databases and scrutinized his telephone records for suspicious contacts.

Without a warrant, they couldn’t read his emails or listen to his calls. But they watched him from unmarked vehicles to track his daily routine and to see whom he met.

They deployed two confidential informants more than a dozen times to secretly record his conversations. They interviewed him twice and convinced him to provide a written statement -- in which he admitted he previously had lied to agents.

In the end, after a counter-terrorism investigation that stretched from May 2013 to March 2014, the agent and his supervisor concluded that Omar Mateen was not a threat and closed the case.

Just over two years later, on June 12, the 29-year-old security guard strode into a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., and massacred 49 people and maimed dozens more in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. He pledged allegiance to 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....
before he was killed by police.
Posted by: badanov || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  'Damn White People caused a coup in Turkey to overshadow our Black Panther Party.'
Posted by: swksvolFF || 07/15/2016 17:39 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Lawyers help college ex-head flee court
[DAWN] LAHORE: A group of lawyers on Wednesday acted as a shield for their client, former principal of a government college, facing embezzlement charges and did not allow personnel of police and Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) to arrest him after a judge of the Lahore High Court dismissed his bail petition.

Zahid Butt, former principal of Government Science College, Wahdat Road, had filed a petition seeking bail in case of financial embezzlement in college’s accounts.

Justice Shams Mahmood Mirza heard the arguments of the suspect’s counsel and dismissed the petition.

Personnel of police and ACE already present in the court followed the suspect and tried to arrest him. However,
a lie repeated often enough remains a lie...
lawyers surrounded suspect Zahid Butt and did not let the personnel catch him claiming that such arrests could not be made on the court premises.

The lawyers also scuffled with the personnel and managed escape for their client.

Posted by: Fred || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  what is up with Pak lawyers? They are basically gangs. The cops need to do some hickory shampoos on them
Posted by: Frank G || 07/15/2016 13:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Racehorse Haynes has a new idea.
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 13:57 Comments || Top||


Police arrest blasphemy suspect
[DAWN] GUJRAT: Police have finally locked away
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
the Christian man who allegedly committed blasphemy at Majeedabad, Sara-e-Alamgir.

Three members of the suspect’s family, who were in the protective custody, were freed and may be handed over to federal minister Kamran Michael.

Acting District Police Officer Kamran Mumtaz confirmed the arrest of Nadeem Masih who was sent to Gujrat jail on judicial remand.

Sources told Dawn the suspect, who was booked on blasphemy charges under sections 295 C and 298 A on the report of Yasir Bashir, had been arrested in Lahore after local police made efforts to trace him in Jhelum, Gujranwala and Lahore.

Police had also recovered the mobile phone which Nadeem used for messaging and the initial inquiry revealed that he downloaded a blasphemous message from a Facebook page which was being operated from India. Gujrat SP Investigation Kamran Mumtaz (who is currently serving as the acting DPO) is formally investigating the case.

Police said they had set free the two women and the child and they were handed over to some elected representatives of the area.

Federal minister Kamran Michael on Wednesday again approached the local authorities to seek the custody of the family.

Posted by: Fred || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Science & Technology
Marines' new Sea Stallion won't have to borrow spares
[DoD Buzz] FARNBOROUGH, England -- Under the hood of the much-anticipated CH-53K King Stallion helicopter is a slew of smart systems that will help maintainers keep it flying faster and safer, the Navy’s program executive officer for air, anti-submarine warfare, assault and special mission programs said this week.

Speaking at the Farnborough International Airshow on Tuesday, Rear Adm. Dean Peters said the King Stallion, built by the Lockheed Martin Corp.-owned Sikorsky and set to hit the Marine Corps fleet in 2019, would come with native health usage and monitoring systems and enhanced logistics tracking capability that would allow the aircraft to tell the crew when a part was failing or needed maintenance well ahead of a crisis point.

This advanced tech, he said, would allow maintainers to request parts further in advance.

"It’s similar to the technology that’s used in commercial department stores, so we understand when components are failing or about to fail and we have the part ready and we don’t have to rob that from another aircraft and create more maintenance," Peters said.

The aircraft will also come equipped with a high-durability gearbox that are expected to keep the aircraft out of maintenance for longer periods, a key concern now as the Marine Corps grapples with a fleet of heavy-lift helicopters that is largely unfit to fly.

These are just a few ways of many that the King Stallion is expected to save the Marines’ aging CH-53 Echo Super Stallion fleet.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 13:28 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Now they just have to have spares in the system.
Posted by: Pappy || 07/15/2016 14:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Yep! Article is a Defense & Acquisition publication. Anything to divert the current cannibalization narrative.

Note the word cannibalization wasn't even used.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 14:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Hell I thought it was going to be about an in-frame 3-D printer with the temporal overlay, so your part would show


Never mind, on ThinIce these days.
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 14:28 Comments || Top||

#4  Marines are already playing with 3D printers; a squadron - better yet detachment- level one would be nice.

No/not mcuh money innit for LockMart, tho.
Posted by: Pappy || 07/15/2016 14:34 Comments || Top||


GPS for the Hajj
Hajj Pilgrims to Get Electronic Bracelets to Prevent a Repeat of 2015 Stampede
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It wasn't a "stampede" where people trample each other. It was a "crowd crush" where the volume of people exceeds the available space. People get their chests compressed and die of asphyxiation.

The 2015 tragedy was caused by a Saudi Royal who drove through the procession route, blocking a road and causing the crowd to pile up and crush. GPS won't help one bit with this.
Posted by: Eohippus Uluck5608 || 07/15/2016 3:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Hush, their lemming like behavior is our best hope for peace. I mean along with the genotypeing of course.
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 6:33 Comments || Top||

#3  They could take turns breathing . . . .
Posted by: gorb || 07/15/2016 10:22 Comments || Top||


Government
SF 91B Could Be Next Vietnam War MOH Recipient
[Mil.com] WASHINGTON -- The story of Green Beret Gary Michael Rose's heroism is an epic of classified warfare and a stinging media scandal, but it might soon end with a Medal of Honor.

In 1970, Rose was the lone medic for a company of Special Forces soldiers and indigenous Vietnamese fighters during a risky, four-day assault deep into Laos. The badly injured Rose helped bring all the soldiers back alive and received the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest military honor, during a ceremony at the time in Vietnam.
"He is not a gung-ho person, he is very thoughtful, but he was a hell of a medic and I trusted him with my life," said Keith Plancich, 66, who was a Special Forces squad leader on the mission.

But Rose and the other men were wrongly accused of taking part in war crimes in 1998 after the mission, called Operation Tailwind, was declassified and unearthed for the first time by CNN and its partner Time magazine.

Stunning claims that Rose and the Green Berets were sent to Laos to kill American defectors and that the military used sarin gas during the mission were fully discredited. CNN and Time retracted the story, which was co-written and presented by famed journalist Peter Arnett, but it cast a shadow over the mission that still remains.

The highest recognition of heroism is close for Rose and the Green Berets. The soft-spoken former medic might be the next Vietnam veteran to receive the Medal of Honor, after President Barack Obama presents the medal to retired Army pilot Lt. Col. Charles Kettles on Monday.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 13:20 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Edward R. Morrow, a giant of radio and TV. “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful."

Too bad the next generation(s) didn't understand that.
Posted by: Bobby || 07/15/2016 13:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Too bad indeed Bobby. Too bad indeed.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 13:51 Comments || Top||

#3  The word "famed" and the name "Peter Arnett", used in the same sentence. What a world.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 07/15/2016 15:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Shouldn't that be infamous Peter Arnett?
Posted by: AlanC || 07/15/2016 16:48 Comments || Top||


The CIA has a team of clairvoyants
[The Week] If the CIA had a crystal ball, then they would probably not be routinely blindsided by world events. Lacking such a device, the agency has endured notable analytical failures. During the early 1990s, sudden collapses of Somalia, Zaire, Rwanda, and the Soviet Union seemingly appeared without warning.

Strategic surprises have always been a problem for intelligence agencies. The material impossibility of having eyes everywhere requires making judgments without seeing a complete picture, let alone the future. Assessing the likeliness of future rare political events has had dubious reliability.

Thus, in 1994, the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence commissioned the Political Instability Task Force (PITF), formerly known as the State Failure Task Force, a clairvoyant-esque squad of social-scientist brainiacs charged with churning global political data into global instability forecasts.

The creation of the PITF began at end of the Cold War. The PITF's mission is straightforward  --  make intelligence analysis as holistic as possible, and locate where the next crisis might be, and why.

"The collapse of the Soviet Union completely caught the government off guard. Their models didn't capture that at all. [Their models] didn't even accept it," Monty Marshall, a senior consultant for the PITF and director of the Center for Systemic Peace told War Is Boring.

"The intelligence community was looking for alternative explanations," he added. "The old way of thinking, wasn't catching the new dynamics, trends, that don't fit into the way they understand things."
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 08:01 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If they are really good they should be able to win the lottery.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 07/15/2016 8:12 Comments || Top||

#2  The creation of the PITF began at end of the Cold War. The PITF's mission is straightforward  --  make intelligence analysis as holistic as possible, and locate where the next crisis might be, and why.

Software social network tools have taken predictive analysis to entirely new levels. A good analytic team, devoted to specific region or population can make pretty accurate assessments and predictions along with the data to back them up. 'Spoon bending' dollars could be better spent on highly perishable human intelligence (HUMINT) asset recruitment and reporting which feeds and supports the analytic process.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 8:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Yep, who else could have seen the collapse of socialist Venezuela?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/15/2016 8:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Who could have predicted the fall of the Muammar Gaddafi regime would result in the proliferation of his vast armories and weapons stockpiles throughout the ME ?

[rhetorical question of course]
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 9:05 Comments || Top||

#5  Software social network tools have taken predictive analysis to entirely new levels. A good analytic team, devoted to specific region or population can make pretty accurate assessments and predictions along with the data to back them up. 'Spoon bending' dollars could be better spent on highly perishable human intelligence (HUMINT) asset recruitment and reporting which feeds and supports the analytic process.
Posted by Besoeker


Yep. HUMINT corroborated by the other ints and directed by the operators will always be the standard. All else is parlor game gossip.
Posted by: Tennessee || 07/15/2016 13:05 Comments || Top||

#6  Well, if they got the software running well, they could move into climate change forecasting.
Posted by: Bobby || 07/15/2016 13:49 Comments || Top||

#7  Peace Percy, you will make the cousins mad
I can call the spirits from the vasty Deep!
Why so can I or any Bosun
But will They come when you call for them?
Let me show you my passive action link...

There Tony enuf?
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 13:55 Comments || Top||

#8  Wonder if they saw the Turkey club?
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/15/2016 17:05 Comments || Top||



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Fri 2016-07-15
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  Truck Plows Through Bastille Day Crowd, Kills 30
Wed 2016-07-13
  Trial begins for Virginia, Washington women accused of fundraising for Al Qaeda affiliate
Tue 2016-07-12
  Nigerian Islamists Hack Female Pastor to Death – Place Her Head on Bible
Mon 2016-07-11
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Sun 2016-07-10
  Iraqi Forces Push ISIL Back from Air Base in Mosul
Mon 2016-07-04
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Sun 2016-07-03
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Sat 2016-07-02
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