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Today: 76 articles and 186 comments as of 11:52.
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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Opinion        Politix   
Ahrar Al-Sham’s top commander in northern Idlib has been assassinated
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Joe di Genova Explains the Greatest Scandal In History (video)
[Live Leak] The Greatest Scandal in History Explained. Congress now knows that everything you are about to watch in this video, happened. Watergate was a minor crime compared to this.

Special attention to Joe di Genova's explanation of Admiral Mike Rogers' the Director NSA discovery and reporting.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 15:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Superb comprehensive job of linking known events with the public but unknown FISA court 99 page report on the misleading warrant applications...
really worth every second!
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 02/03/2018 20:05 Comments || Top||

#2  This video needs to be seen by all the people asking what the big deal is.
Posted by: Chomock Cretch2383 || 02/03/2018 20:24 Comments || Top||


16 Bombshells in the Nunes Memo the Media Do Not Want You to Know About
BLUF:
[Breitbart]

Here are 16 things the media do not want you to know about the Nunes memo:

1. The so-called Russian Dossier, the creation of Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele, is a political document ‐ namely, opposition research, created for the Democrat National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

2. Using what it knew was opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign, in October of 2016, the FBI and DOJ obtained a FISA warrant from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to install a wiretap to spy on Hillary Clinton’s opponent ‐ the Trump campaign, specifically Carter Page. This spying would last for a year.

3. It should be noted that the FISA court was set up to stop foreign terrorists. The fact that the FBI and DOJ would use this court to not only wiretap an American but to wiretap a presidential campaign belies belief. Why Obama’s FBI and DOJ used this court as opposed to a normal court is obvious. As you will see below, a normal court probably would have denied the wiretap.

4. Worse still, in the summer of 2016, Obama’s DOJ had already opened a counter-intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign. The fact that nothing from that months-old partisan investigation was used to obtain the Page wiretap is revealing.

5. According to the Nunes memo, an "essential" part of the FISA wiretap application was the Steele dossier, which again is a partisan political document created for the Clinton campaign.

6. So essential was this partisan dossier, Andrew McCabe, the disgraced former-Deputy Director of the FBI, admitted in December that "no surveillance warrant would have been sought" without the dossier.

7. Not only did the FBI knowingly use a document from a partisan campaign to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on the competing campaign, the FBI knew the dossier was mostly "salacious and unverified." We know this because disgraced former-FBI Director James Comey told us so in June of 2017.

8. According to the Nunes memo, "Steele told [former FBI official Bruce] Ohr, he ’was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.'"

9. Ohr, who was part of the FBI’s anti-Trump Russian investigation, was not only friendly with Steele, Ohr’s own wife worked with Steele at Fusion GPS doing opposition research (the dossier) against Trump for the Clinton campaign.

10. Despite a) knowing the dossier was opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign b) knowing the dossier was "salacious and unverified" c) knowing Steele was desperate to destroy Trump d) the breathtaking conflict of interest in having an investigator’s own wife working on the dossier, the FBI still went to the FISA court to obtain permission to spy on Hillary Clinton’s opponent.

11. In order to obtain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, all of the conflicts of interest above were withheld from the FISA court ‐ an indefensible (and possibly illegal) lie of omission.

12. Even worse, in order to legitimize a warrant request based on a piece of partisan opposition research they knew was "salacious and unverified," the FBI and DOJ used a media report to bolster the findings in the phony dossier. The FBI and DOJ told the court that the media report was independent verification of the dossier. But this was not true, and, according to the Nunes memo, the FBI and DOJ knew this was not true. The truth is that the phony dossier was the source of this media report.

13. Also hidden from the FISA court was the fact that the FBI obtained Steele as a source but had to fire him in October of 2016 when, in a bid to use his phony dossier to derail the Trump campaign, he leaked his information to the far-left Mother Jones.

14. Although the FBI and DOJ were willing participants in pushing a "salacious and unverified" narrative against a presidential candidate (primarily through media leaks), this was all hidden from congressional investigators. To begin with, for months, while under oath, Comey said he did not know where the dossier came from ‐ meaning from the Clinton campaign. The Wall Street Journal explains:
We also know the FBI wasn’t straight with Congress, as it hid most of these facts from investigators in a briefing on the dossier in January 2017. The FBI did not tell Congress about Mr. Steele’s connection to the Clinton campaign, and the House had to issue subpoenas for Fusion bank records to discover the truth. Nor did the FBI tell investigators that it continued receiving information from Mr. Steele and Fusion even after it had terminated him. The memo says the bureau’s intermediary was Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose wife, incredibly, worked for Fusion.

15. All of this dishonesty occurred under Comey, the man our media now hold up as a living saint, a man so desperate to destroy Trump, he not only oversaw those committing the above abuses, he leaked classified information to the news media in order to see a Special Prosecutor appointed against Trump, which his pal, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, immediately did.
And finally...

16. Much of the "salacious and unverified" material in the dossier came from the Russians. In other words, those disgusting dossier lies about Trump’s personal behavior came from Russian operatives. So there is no question that it was the Clinton campaign, Democrats, Steele, the FBI, and DOJ who colluded with the Russians to rig a presidential election.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 13:10 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So there is no question that it was the Clinton campaign, Democrats, Steele, the FBI, and DOJ who colluded with the Russians to rig a presidential election.

No, no question. And the Russians they were dealing with (and giving UDS $$$ to) were quite likely Russian intelligence operatives.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 13:30 Comments || Top||

#2  A nice summary, but Snoozy recused himself and the fox (Rosenstein) is still guarding the henhouse.
Posted by: PBMcL || 02/03/2018 13:41 Comments || Top||

#3  So there is no question that it was the Clinton campaign, Democrats, Steele, the FBI, and DOJ who colluded with the Russians to rig a presidential election.

We see a lot of projection coming from the Democrats. Maybe that's because it's easy for them to make up stories about other people doing the things they've done themselves...they know all about how these things are done. That bit about Trump hiring prostitutes to pee on a bed where Baraq slept may have come from the Russians but who would ever even think of such a thing? Well, it sounds to me a helluva lot like something Bill Clinton would do.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/03/2018 14:17 Comments || Top||

#4  All's I wanted for Christmas last year was an AG with balls.
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2018 14:41 Comments || Top||

#5  Tar, feathers, rope, lamp posts, some assembly required. Pitchforks as necessary.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/03/2018 15:16 Comments || Top||

#6  I think I'll puke the next time I hear or read "bombshell". Bombshell for what? Any charges filed? Anybody under arrest? Computers confiscated? Meh....
Posted by: Clem || 02/03/2018 15:41 Comments || Top||

#7  GOP lawmaker calls for FBI, DOJ officials to face 'treason' charges
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 15:59 Comments || Top||


WSJ - Obama and the FISA Court
[WSJ] This column is trying to imagine how an editor at The Wall Street Journal would treat a draft article alleging a political campaign adviser was secretly working for a foreign government if the story featured uncorroborated opposition research paid for by a rival campaign. If the writer of the draft article assured the editor that readers would not be told where the information originated, it’s a safe bet this would not increase the chances of publication.

This column is also trying to imagine the conversation that would ensue if a reporter or writer then tried to persuade the editor by appealing to the authority of Yahoo News.

Of course the Journal isn’t the only media outlet that enforces standards. Many organizations strive to ensure basic accuracy and fairness. Can it possibly be true that the evidentiary standards for obtaining a federal warrant allowing the government to spy on the party out of power are significantly lower than in a professional newsroom?
Continued on Page 49
This article starring:
Yahoo News
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Abuses of authority" only matter when your opponents do 'em.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/03/2018 8:29 Comments || Top||

#2  "This article starring: Yahoo News"

Hands down the biased of the biased.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 9:24 Comments || Top||

#3  Can it possibly be true that the evidentiary standards for obtaining a federal warrant allowing the government to spy on the party out of power are significantly lower than in a professional newsroom?

You know what tells me? The approving judge was in on it.
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2018 12:50 Comments || Top||

#4  So, how does one go about dismantling Federal agencies?
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 02/03/2018 21:15 Comments || Top||


IRS admits Obama admin 'weaponized' agency against pro-Israel groups…
[Right Scoop] This won’t surprise any of you. It’s now being revealed by the founder of a pro-Israel group who sued the Obama administration that the IRS didn’t just target conservative groups before the reelection of Obama in 2012, but also targeted pro-Israel groups from the very beginning:
WSJ ‐ The first IRS viewpoint discrimination case to be filed, Z Street v. IRS, has been settled, with disturbing revelations about how the Internal Revenue Service treated pro-Israel organizations applying for tax-exempt status.

I founded Z Street in 2009 to educate Americans about the Middle East and Israel’s defense against terror. We applied for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code in December 2009‐a process that usually takes three to six months.

Instead, the application languished. In late July 2010, an IRS agent truthfully responded to our lawyer’s query about why processing was taking so long: Z Street’s application was getting special scrutiny, the agent said, because it was related to Israel. Some applications for tax-exempt status were being sent to a special office in Washington for review of whether the applicants’ policy positions conflicted with those of the Obama administration.

So in August 2010 we sued the IRS for violating Z Street’s constitutional rights, including the First Amendment right to be free from viewpoint discrimination‐government treatment that differs depending on one’s political position.

Now we know the truth, and it’s exactly as bad as we thought. IRS documents‐those they didn’t "lose" or otherwise fail to produce‐reveal the following:

• Our application was flagged because Z Street’s mission related to Israel, a country with terrorism. Therefore, an IRS manager in our case said in sworn testimony, the IRS needed to investigate whether Z Street was funding terror.

• Some applications for tax-exempt status were indeed being sent to IRS headquarters in Washington for more intense scrutiny. They were selected because of the applicants’ viewpoint.

• In August 2010, three other Jewish organizations applying for tax-exempt status were asked by the IRS to "explain their religious beliefs about the Land of Israel."
While claiming to be investigating Z Street’s funding of terror, the IRS never asked how or where Z Street spent its money. The IRS ultimately granted Z Street’s application, in October 2016, without asking anything about terror, or money, or anything else it hadn’t known in 2010.

Of course groups that wanted to send donations to Gaza were approved without any hesitation:
This article starring:
Gaza
Obama
pro-Israel
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They should have applied by calling themselves 'Hipster Pansies for Palestine', then change the name back once they got IRS approval. Naturally, no one got punished, demoted or fired over this.

Ever 'find' the hard drives of Lois Lerner & Holly Paz, guys?
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2018 10:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Is CAIR tax exempt?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/03/2018 15:06 Comments || Top||

#3  You just gave me an excellent idea Abu Uluque...
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2018 18:32 Comments || Top||

#4  Maybe not - they lost their 501(c)(3) status seven years ago. They may have gotten it back by filing under a different name, though.
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2018 18:35 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
US Combat Advisers in Vietnam Knew the Score and Got Ignored
[Daily Beast] While attending the Armed Forces Staff College in late 1964, just as the U.S. Army was gearing up to deploy its own combat forces to Vietnam, Col. Volney F. Warner attended a speech by the Marine commandant, Gen. Wallace Greene. Before he began his talk, Gen. Greene asked his audience of a hundred 100 majors and colonels a pointed question: "How many of you think that U.S. forces should be sent to fight in Vietnam and draw the line against communism there?"

Virtually everyone in the audience raised their hands enthusiastically. Then Greene, a decidedly hawkish member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked a second question: "How many think we should stay out of Vietnam?" Six officers raised their hands ... hesitantly. Warner was among them.

"There are a few cowards in every bunch," quipped the commandant.

But those six officers weren’t cowards. They were soldiers and Marines who had recently returned stateside from tours of duty as advisers to South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) combat units. They knew from firsthand experience what the senior leadership of the American armed forces did not: That the ARVN officer corps, like the government it served, was riven by nepotism, corruption, and indifferent to the plight of the peasantry it was supposed to protect. Moreover, the ARVN was fighting a decidedly unconventional, "people’s war" against small units of guerrillas with tactics and doctrine developed by the U.S. Army for conventional conflicts between regular armies. Not surprisingly, it was losing.

And finally, the advisers had come to understand, much to their dismay, that the top generals and admirals in Saigon and Washington clung tenaciously to this conventional way of war, despite paying lip service to the counterinsurgency training and doctrine that the war in Vietnam seemed to require. This, coupled with the fecklessness of the ARVN, did not bode well for American prospects in Southeast Asia.

In Vietnam, U.S. ground forces would be facing off against a superbly organized and highly motivated insurgency that enjoyed widespread support among South Vietnam’s 14 million peasants. The communist-led National Liberation Front in the South was largely an indigenous movement, but it was supplied with weapons and well-trained military and political warfare specialists from the People’s Army of Vietnam‐the formal name for the North Vietnamese regular army.

The more Warner and the best of his fellow advisers learned about the political and social forces that fueled the civil war in South, the more skeptical they became about the efficacy of using conventionally trained American combat forces to defeat the insurgency in the South. Part of the problem was cultural. The commanding generals in the early ’60s in Vietnam‐men such as John O’Daniel, Samuel T. Williams, Paul Harkins, and finally, William Westmoreland, had come of age as junior officers in World War II. To a man, they were deeply imbued with "victory disease" that blinded them to the extraordinary political and organizational strengths of their Vietnamese adversaries. Under no circumstances could they imagine how a largely guerrilla army with no air force or tanks could possibly defeat the ARVN, let alone the most technologically advanced army on the face of the planet.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 08:19 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Strange isn't it, how some things never change ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 8:23 Comments || Top||

#2  fellow advisers learned about the political and social forces that fueled the civil war in South

Corruption and power mongering - seems to be very present much mush closer to home these days. That and one side believing there can be only one political agency in their world.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2018 8:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Read Bernard B. Fall's Street Without Joy sometime. One of the anecdotes was the author watching two French officers too busy with their tennis game to pause for the colors being lowered at the same time a senior Cambodian NCO nearby was standing at rigid attention. How to lose a war in imperceptible steps...
Posted by: magpie || 02/03/2018 10:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Under no circumstances could they imagine how a largely guerrilla army with no air force or tanks could possibly defeat the ARVN, let alone the most technologically advanced army on the face of the planet.

Except, it wasn't. When South Vietnam was finally conquered, it was by a tank invasion from the North.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/03/2018 10:51 Comments || Top||

#5  Heard through the grapevine a story about the Tet offensive, probably relevant here. A USA officer told me his intelligence unit got a pile of documents from a dead NVA officer. They were translated & seemed to have a detailed outline of a massive coordinated NVA operation coming up for the next Tet holiday in a week or so. He personally was concerned enough that he called senior commanders & got an appointment to bring this to Gen. Westmoreland's face to face, personal attention. Shortly after this, he presented his documents along with a short summary. Westermoreland glanced at the top, waved the back of his hand towards it, and dismissed the officer with, "They can't do this!"
He went back to near front lines with the sure knowledge of the exact hour the attack would start, and he learned they could do it.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/03/2018 12:13 Comments || Top||

#6  I'm not saying there weren't fuckups then.

If we discussed every fuckup we did in Ww2 in the same context at the time I guarantee you the outcome would have been a lot worse.

The US and the UK combined lost about 800,000 people in WW2. I guarantee you a lot of those deaths were due to stupidity and corruption.

The Soviets didn't lose ~ 12 million military dead and ~ 17 million civilian dead because Stalin was an Angelic Genius.

We can point this out without reaching the context that Naziism Was Right because we eventually won WW2. But we eventually gave up South Vietnam and every discussion, every history book has to justify that sale.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain with his beloved B-Wing "Brad" in the basement of the castle || 02/03/2018 13:25 Comments || Top||

#7  British knew how to win, they fought a very similar war in Malaya not long before. Their experience was ignored as well because it required massive political control. They were ignored.

Marines knew how to win, they wrote the SMALL WARS manual about how to win these things using experience of their many combats in Latin America. They were ignored and an artillery expert was put in command.

The whole thing is sad.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/03/2018 18:39 Comments || Top||

#8  Brits figured out that most of the problem was from the Chinese community. They could tell the difference between someone who looked Chinese and one who looked Malaysian. Didn't work as well in Northern Ireland where the 'natives' looked the same.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2018 18:54 Comments || Top||


Dead Goose Falls From Sky, Sends Waterfowl Hunter To Shock Trauma (video)
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ‐ An experienced hunter is recovering after a goose that was shot and killed fell from the sky and hit the man in Easton, Maryland.

The waterfowl hunter found himself in the crosshairs of his harvest on Thursday ‐ knocked out cold by a dead goose falling from the sky.

"These birds weigh anywhere from 10 to probably 14 pounds. They can have a wingspan of up to six feet," says Candy Thomson, Maryland Natural Resources Police. "So, if they’re 35 yards up in the air, and they’re falling 60 feet and they hit you in the head, it’s going to definitely cause severe damage."

Maryland Natural Resources Police say the unpredictable scene played out near the Miles River.

A group of hunters had leased private land and took their shots at a flock of geese before sunset. Robert Meilhammer, 51, was severely injured on his head and face.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 03:39 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So, if they’re 35 yards up in the air, and they’re falling 60 feet and they hit you in the head

You at 45 feet tall, or up a tower or something, because 35 yards = 105 feet - 60 feet = still 45 feet up...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/03/2018 7:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Goosebumps, or running afoul of the fowl ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 7:35 Comments || Top||

#3  "As God is my witness..."
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2018 7:52 Comments || Top||

#4  ^ golf clap
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2018 8:36 Comments || Top||

#5  This never would have happened to Phil Robertson!
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2018 12:43 Comments || Top||


-War on Police-
How Dallas SWAT Cornered, Killed A Man Who Just Killed 5 Cops
[Dallas News] Larry Gordon could hear the fear in his own voice, and he wondered if the gunman could hear it, too. In standoff negotiations, tone is everything. He needed this guy to know he was heard, feel he was understood.

But this had lasted too many hours, and the tension, like the burnt smell of gunfire in the air, was overwhelming. Gordon’s knees ached from crouching. Pain shot through his shoulders and the back of his neck ‐ either from stress, or the weight of his ceramic-plated vest, or both.

He usually felt calm, even a little bored, in negotiations. Most involved desperate men with small guns and no real plan. This guy, separated from Gordon by a few dozen feet and a couple of sheetrock walls, had a semiautomatic rifle and a clearly defined endgame. The cops weren’t intervening in some private drama he’d set in motion. The way the gunman saw it, he was doing the intervening. He’d come for them.

In the best of scenarios, Gordon’s aim was to talk people down, coax them out peacefully. Tonight that seemed impossible. Outside, several officers were already down. Gordon didn’t know how many. He’d gotten word that one had died, and then another. Then another...
Posted by: Ulaigum Ebbineng7056 || 02/03/2018 01:43 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Last July.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/03/2018 3:41 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
US bans export of weapons, defense services to South Sudan
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The United States on Friday banned the export of weapons and defense services to South Sudan, stepping up pressure against President Salva Kiir to end the country’s four-year conflict.

"The Department of State today announces that it is implementing restrictions on the export of defense articles and defense services into South Sudan," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

While the United States government does not conduct arms sales to South Sudan, the move prevents any American company or citizen from sending military equipment or services to the country’s warring factions.

The unilateral embargo is another signal by Washington that it is losing patience with Kiir after ceasefires have been repeatedly violated.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Caribbean-Latin America
The Guardian puts suicide hotlines up for its readers bereaved over the death of Castro junior
[AMERICANTHINKER]
So there is some business out there specializing in instantly deployed suicide lines? Sort of a child of the old 900 numbers?

Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Dial 1-800-ROSEBUD
Posted by: SteveS || 02/03/2018 1:17 Comments || Top||

#2  It'd be funny if someone hacked the line, and encouraged the callers to act on their inclinations.
Posted by: charger || 02/03/2018 11:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Nothing for folk bereaved after terror attacks.
Posted by: 3dc || 02/03/2018 11:36 Comments || Top||

#4  "Can you drive a truck?"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2018 12:44 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Putin, power and poison: Russia's elite FSB spy club
[BBC] FSB. The letters are not just familiar to fans of spy thrillers. They have come to symbolise Vladimir Putin's grip on power in Russia.

Russia's secretive security agency has gained notoriety around the world with its intelligence and counter-terror operations. But with roots in the Soviet Union's KGB secret police, allegations of state-sanctioned killings and close ties to the president, it faces questions about its true nature and ambitions.

What does the FSB do? Counter-terrorism and counter-espionage.

The Federal Security Service's (FSB) was set up in 1995, and is tasked with tackling perceived threats to the Russian state. Mr Putin ran the agency before he came to power. It co-operates with foreign police forces in fighting jihadists and some organised crime gangs.

Skipping down a bit:

Cyber spying and interference - The FSB is integral to Russia's new doctrine of information warfare, which includes shaping public opinion abroad via social media.

"Shaping public opinion abroad." What an amazing coincidence.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 03:06 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Begs the question regarding the greater danger; "shaping public opinion abroad" or shaping public opinion domestically ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2018 3:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Sounds like Booz Allen.
Posted by: DooDahMan || 02/03/2018 4:24 Comments || Top||

#3  Sounds like the FBIs wet dream.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/03/2018 7:02 Comments || Top||

#4  But... but... I thought the communists were just nationalists at heart, like Our Founding Fathers. Big admirers of Thomas Jefferson etc.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/03/2018 11:04 Comments || Top||

#5  Yeah, and the Nazi's were National Socialists...oh, wait
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2018 12:42 Comments || Top||

#6  There was never any equivalent of the Nuremburg trials (which themselves didn't fully accomplish the job of cleaning up post Nazi Germany) for the former USSR.

And so, here we are.

Of course, the next time the Dems take over and "Muh Russia!" ceases to be useful, all this discussion will be memory holed and America will once again be "flexible" towards Vlad/his successors.
Posted by: charger || 02/03/2018 13:16 Comments || Top||


Economy
Oil rises as OPEC compliance eclipses boom in US output
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET]
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Tariq Ramadan jailed in Paris after being charged for rape
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Prominent Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan was charged with rape on Friday and tossed in the calaboose
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
in Gay Paree after two days in police custody, a judicial source said, according to AFP.

French authorities say Ramadan is being investigated for allegedly raping two women and could be held in long-term custody while the probe continues.

According to an AP report, a judicial official said the Gay Paree prosecutor’s office opened a formal inquiry on Friday based on complaints against Ramadan the women filed last year. Ramadan has been in jug for questioning in Gay Paree since Wednesday.

After two days of questioning by Sherlocks, the 55-year-old Oxford professor was brought before three magistrates who have been assigned to the case, suggesting that he is facing an extensive investigation, judicial sources said.


This article starring:
Tariq Ramadan
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
The Memo Has Been Released
Direct access is here; it's straining under heavy load right now.

[Washington Examiner] The House Intelligence Committee has released its controversial memo outlining alleged abuses of secret surveillance by the FBI and Justice Department in the Trump-Russia investigation. Here are some key points:

* The Steele dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page.

* Andrew McCabe confirmed that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele dossier information.

* The four FISA surveillance applications were signed by, in various combinations, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and Rod Rosenstein.

* The FBI authorized payments to Steele for work on the dossier. The FBI terminated its agreement with Steele in late October when it learned, by reading an article in Mother Jones, that Steele was talking to the media.

* The political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials, but excluded from the FISA applications.

* DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to DOJ information about Steele's bias. Steele told Ohr that he, Steele, was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming president.
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  My lovely wife of 46 years says there is a Democratic Memo, as opposed to this 'Republican Memo'. Does the Dem version require approval of the FBI and POTUS prior to release? If not, why not?
Posted by: Bobby || 02/03/2018 3:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Answered my own question:

For the Democrat's memo to actually be released, it would have to undergo the same process that the Republican memo has gone through.

First, the House Intelligence Committee would vote to have the memo released to the public - and if they vote for it, President Donald Trump would have five days to object to its public release.


However....

When the committee voted Monday to release the memo spearheaded by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, the committee also rejected a motion from Schiff to release his own memo at the same time.

"Well, we are going to try to force another vote on this," Schiff told CBS on Friday about his memo. "The Republicans voted down the release of the Democratic response, which was quite breathtaking, because they said they were offering their own memo in the interest of full transparency."

House Speaker Paul Ryan's spokeswoman AshLee Strong said the speaker is open to the Democrat's memo to be released.
"The speaker is in favor of greater transparency," Strong said in a statement. "If it is scrubbed to ensure it does not reveal sources and methods of our intelligence gathering, the speaker supports the release of the Democrats' memo."


CNN Link

Bring it!
Posted by: Bobby || 02/03/2018 3:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Our "top men" and other Deep State media manipulators all insisted that the world would end if this happened.
Now that we are living in a "life after death", it seems suspiciously exactly like yesterday's world, the one that passed away. Even my morning coffee tastes about the same. How is it for everyone else this fine morning?
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/03/2018 7:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Didn't the world end on Jan 20th?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2018 8:11 Comments || Top||

#5  No - it ended when the Trump tax cut passed.
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2018 8:44 Comments || Top||

#6  Grassley's and the Senate judiciary committee has its own memo dealing with FISA abuses coming out soon. It will be interesting to see what it has to say also.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2018 9:51 Comments || Top||

#7  ^ Oh noes! We're all gonna die again!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2018 9:56 Comments || Top||

#8  Yup Frank, at least twice; maybe more. I think we've got a short-term (aka "kick the can down the road") funding bill this week along with DACA?
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2018 16:13 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Policemen allegedly involved in ATM scam in Lahore
[GEO.TV] Members of the police force were allegedly involved in Automated Teller Machines fraud in the province, it emerged on Friday.

Upon an affected citizen’s plea, CCPO Ameen Vaince ordered SSP Iqbal Town to investigate the matter.

As per details, police personnel raided a New Year night party on Dec 31, in Sabzazar area. During the raid, money, mobile phones, ATM cards were confiscated from the attendees.

Police also started the paperwork but haven't done much else after taking people into custody, however, they were later released on bail.

People received their valuables after two days. Upon switching on their mobiles, they received messages from their respective banks, informing them of the amounts withdrawn from their bank accounts.

During the inquiry, Nawakot police accepted that the ATM cards of people were in their custody for two days.

The money was taken out from ATM machines in Khushab and Sargodha, it was learnt.

Geo News also obtained the CCTV footage of the incident, in which money was taken out without using pin codes. In the CCTV footage, the people withdrawing money had concealed their faces.

The ATM skimming fraud came to spotlight in the past few months, after which the Federal Investigation Agency came into action.

Hundreds of citizens in Pakistain lost millions of rupees over a couple of weeks after they fell prey to the skimming fraud.

Earlier, a district 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...
sentenced two Chinese nationals to one-year imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs50,000 each over their involvement in the scam.

According to the FIA, the suspects were involved in manipulating ATM machines to take out money.

Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Major snowstorm in Tehran, Iran (was in late January)
[NYT]....On the highway between Tehran and Qom, hundreds of people were trapped in their cars, including a former vice president, who was brought to safety after many hours. Planes stuck on the runways at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran were covered in about 19 inches of snow...

lovely pictures at the link
Posted by: lord garth || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Government
How to Avoid Going to Jail under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 for Lying to Government Agents
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2018 09:52 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I don't know whether others are interested in this or not. Mrs. JohnQC asked me this a.m. if it is illegal to lie to the FBI if not under oath? What prompted this was the question of how General Flynn might have gotten trapped into a lying to the FBI charge. It is really quite easy according to the article. In interactions with the government, one should be very concerned and cautious by what interactions they might have with government agents.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2018 10:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Welcome to the Middle Ages where every peasant understood that talking to the King's Men was a bad, bad idea. To paraphrase the old movie line: "Badges Bill of Rights? We don't need no steenking badges Bill of Rights!"
Posted by: magpie || 02/03/2018 10:30 Comments || Top||

#3  ...You say NOTHING until your lawyer gets there, and then his job is to tell the Feds that nobody's saying anything. 'Lying to the FBI' can and will be something as trivial as saying the Uber you took was turquoise, and then they go "AHA - it was TEAL!", and it's done. If you don't say nothin', 99 times out of a hundred they ain't GOT nothin'.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/03/2018 11:15 Comments || Top||

#4  This is quite relevant to the 'Burg. I was going to extract & quote the italicized part of the cited article, as a comment. Don't have time for that today.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/03/2018 12:05 Comments || Top||

#5  Even that might work, if the feebs change the 302 to whatever the prosecutor needs.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey || 02/03/2018 21:03 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Editors of paper accusing POTUS of Sexual Misconduct Out Over Sexual Misconduct
[Front Page] Before Trump’s first SOTU, projection on his D.C. hotel calls for probe into his alleged sexual misconduct - 2 Days ago

Halsey poem recounts sexual assault, calls out Trump - Jan 21

Fox News killed story on Trump's sexual encounter - Jan 16

Second porn star claims Trump invited her to hotel - Jan 12

Dems to bring sexual assault survivors to Trump's State of the Union - Jan 11

What fine upstanding folk these New York Daily News people must be.

Two top editors at the Daily News, who have been suspended since late last week as parent company Tronc conducted an investigation into numerous sexual harassment complaints, have been fired, Media Ink has learned.

Rob Moore, the managing editor, news, and Alexander "Doc" Jones, the Sunday editor, were suspended last Friday in the midst of ongoing investigations.

Several ex-Daily News female reporters had come forward in recent weeks and filed complaints against the two alleging of sexual harassment.

A Tronc spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that both editors "are no longer with the company."

Continues.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Always with the Freudian Projection
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2018 8:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Thou shall remember the 11th commandment.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2018 17:39 Comments || Top||


Government
The Air Force Is Re-Winging A-10s After All
[Popular Mechanics] It's official: The U.S. Air Force will buy new wings for aging A-10 Warthogs that risked a one way trip to the boneyard. The Air Force has made clear its intention to keep the A-10 flying after concerns surfaced that the service was taking advantage of the issue to get rid of the iconic close air support plane.

Earlier this month, a Pentagon official in charge of the A-10 program announced an effort to re-wing 110 of the jets "was not going to happen." Of the 280 A-10s still in U.S. Air Force service, 173 have received new wings to keep them flying into the 2030s. The original re-winging contract with Boeing was for 242 sets of wings, but the contract ended when it was no longer cost-effective for the company, and the Boeing production line is closing later this year.

That left at least 110 A-10s high and dry without new wings, a state that threatened to ground them for good unless a solution was found, reducing the number of A-10 squadrons from nine to six. The Air Force, focused on getting the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter up and running, didn't include a new wing contract it its 2018 budget. Congress, however added funding a new wing assembly line and four new wings to get it warmed up.

Now, the Air Force has committed to buying more wings. According to DoDBuzz General Mike Holmes, the head of the Air Force's Air Combat Command, announced last week at a Washington D.C. think tank that the service will buy more wings beyond the initial four. Exactly how many wings will "depend on a Department of Defense decision and (the Air Force's) work with Congress".
Posted by: KBK || 02/03/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The AF has repeatedly expressed its disdain for the close air support mission. It is unclear to me why we don't give the A-10s to the ground services and stop this dicking around.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/03/2018 0:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Of the 280 A-10s still in U.S. Air Force service, 173 have received new wings to keep them flying into the 2030s.
2030's? Will the A-10's be flying after the last F-35A is retired, or will the F-35A be finally in active squadron service by that time? Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by: magpie || 02/03/2018 1:24 Comments || Top||

#3  I have a strong feeling that Trump is behind this support for the A10's. What is good for the troops on the ground is reason enough to support for him.
Posted by: Dale || 02/03/2018 6:55 Comments || Top||

#4  This has been an ongoing fight for years.
Posted by: Dale || 02/03/2018 6:56 Comments || Top||

#5  We gave the A-10 to the Army but then the Airforce wanted it back.
It have been years of aggravation trying to keep this program alive.
The Airforce is schizophrenic with it's spending.

They spend all their monies on thee idiot trillion dollar airplane (F-35) the idiot congress made them take.

And it still does not have portholes.
Posted by: newc || 02/03/2018 9:52 Comments || Top||

#6  #5 They spend all their monies on thee idiot trillion dollar airplane (F-35) the idiot congress made them take.
No, Puzzle Palace Mafia and the Beltway Think Tank Cabal. There is an intellectual argument to the multi-role one plane does everything. Take the F/A-18 as an example: A-6's and/or A-7's to drop the bombs, EA-6's for defense suppression, F-4's for fighter cover and so on. With a multi-role you can magically fold all those airframes into one plane and shrink the size of the air force by 20% ...
Until you need those specialists to do the hard jobs because the enemy has a vote and they don't feel like making things easy. And the bean counters have decided to throw away all of that specialist "know how" because multi-role means multi-capable.
Posted by: magpie || 02/03/2018 10:23 Comments || Top||

#7  i like the way Magpie thinks.
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 02/03/2018 10:57 Comments || Top||

#8  The Space War folk have a similar fight with the AirForce. The A-10 supporters and Space Command supporters should get together.
Posted by: 3dc || 02/03/2018 11:28 Comments || Top||

#9  It is unclear to me why we don't give the A-10s to the ground services and stop this dicking around.

They will pretend it costs a bazillion dollars a year to run, cancel the plane, then keep control of the money so they can funnel it into the stupid F-35 program.
Posted by: gorb || 02/03/2018 18:00 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
45[untagged]
3Sublime Porte
3Govt of Pakistain Proxies
2Taliban
2al-Nusra
2Govt of Pakistan
2Islamic State
2PLO
2South Yemen Resistance
1Govt of Saudi Arabia
1Govt of Syria
1Hamas
1Hezbollah
1Houthis
1Ahrar al-Sham (Salafists)
1Jaish al-Islam (MB)
1Moslem Colonists
1Narcos
1Govt of Iran
1Govt of Iran Proxies
1Commies
1al-Qaeda

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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
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
Wed 2018-01-24
  Two suicide attackers, Islamic State member killed as troops repel attack in Baghdad
Tue 2018-01-23
  1.5K al-Nusra troops surrounded in Idlib
Mon 2018-01-22
  Tunisian forces kill top aide of Al Qaeda leader in Maghreb
Sun 2018-01-21
  Seven Niger troops killed in Boko Haram attack
Sun 2018-01-21
  Seven Niger troops killed in Boko Haram attack
Sat 2018-01-20
  Lebanon foils ISIS plans to attack places of worship, government buildings

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