60 Minutes to Report on 28 Pages Said to Link 9/11, Saudi Arabia
The drive to declassify 28 pages from a congressional intelligence inquiry that detail specific indications of foreign government support of the 9/11 hijackers is about to be put under a powerful spotlight, as 60 Minutes will air a segment on the topic this Sunday, April 10 at 7 pm ET/PT.
According to the CBS News preview of the story, Steve Kroft interviewed former senator Bob Graham, former congressman and CIA director Porter Goss, former 9/11 Commission members Bob Kerrey and John Lehman, lawyers representing 9/11 family members suing Saudi Arabia and former congressman Tim Roemer, who served on both the inquiry that produced the 28 pages and the 9/11 Commission that followed that inquiry.
Report to Air on Eve of Obama Visit to Saudi Arabia
The high-profile 60 Minutes segment—which is positioned for high viewership as it follows coverage of the Masters Tournament—comes at a particularly sensitive time for the White House, as the president will visit Saudi Arabia on April 21. 9/11 family members say that, in 2009 and 2011, Obama assured them he would declassify the 28 pages, yet that promise has gone unfulfilled.
Graham, who co-chaired the inquiry that wrote the 28 pages, has said, “The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11 and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier.” He has also said that, by shielding Saudi Arabia from scrutiny of its sponsorship of Sunni extremism, the continued classification has encouraged their continued sponsorship and paved the way for the rise of ISIS.
Congressman Thomas Massie described the experience of reading the pages as “shocking” and said, “I had to stop every couple pages and…try to rearrange my understanding of history. It challenges you to rethink everything.”
Congressmen Walter Jones, Stephen Lynch and Massie are leading an effort in the U.S. House of Representatives to declassify the 28 pages: Their House Resolution 14, which urges the president to declassify the material, has 41 cosponsors. A similar measure, Senate Bill 1471, was introduced by Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden and cosponsored by Kirsten Gillibrand.
Review of 28 Pages Nears Its Third Year
In response to heightened media attention to the 28 pages in September 2014, the White House said the president, earlier that summer, tasked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper with conducting an intelligence community review of the 28 pages for potential declassification.
Inexplicably, and with essentially no follow-up by national media to date, that review of just 28 pages has already taken far longer than the entire, unprecedented congressional inquiry that produced them. As we reported here last summer, in just six months the 2002 inquiry:
- Reviewed nearly a half million pages of documents from intelligence agencies and other sources
- Conducted roughly 300 interviews
- Participated in briefings and panel discussions involving about 600 people from the intelligence community, other government departments, state and local entities, foreign government representatives and other individuals
- Held 13 closed-door sessions and nine public hearings
- Dueled with intelligence agencies and the White House over many aspects of the inquiry’s undertaking, including requests for information and the format of the final report
- Wrote, edited and revised an 838-page report on the inquiry’s findings
A separate evaluation, under a process called Mandatory Declassification Review, was initiated in 2014 by an attorney representing investigative journalists Dan Christensen, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan. Like the review requested by the president, it is still pending as the Obama administration nears its final months.
I can’t even guess at how many posts we have done on Saudi Arabia, the darlings of the Clintons and Bush family.
ReplyDeleteREAD ON
Hillary Clinton’s State Department Armed Saudi Arabia to the Teeth
ReplyDeleteWhile Saudi Arabia and Boeing poured cash into the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved enormous sales of Boeing fighter jets to the kingdom.
As Hillary Clinton emerges as the front-runner for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, she’s receiving increased scrutiny for her years as secretary of state — and in particular her hawkish foreign policy. Many critics are focusing especially on her long relationship with Saudi Arabia.
On Christmas Eve in 2011, Hillary Clinton and her closest aides celebrated a $29.4 billion sale of over 80 F-15 fighter jets, manufactured by U.S.-based Boeing Corporation, to Saudi Arabia. In a chain of enthusiastic emails, an aide exclaimed that it was “not a bad Christmas present.”
These are the very fighter jets the Saudis have been using to bomb Yemen since March 2015. A year later, at least 2,800 Yemeni civilians have been killed, mostly by airstrikes — and there’s no end in sight.
The indiscriminate Saudi strikes have killed journalists and ambulance drivers. They’ve hit the Chamber of Commerce, facilities supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors Without Borders), a wedding hall, and a center for the blind. The attacks have also targeted ancient heritage sites in Yemen. International human rights organizations are saying that the Saudi-led strikes on Yemen may amount to war crimes.
During her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton made weapons transfers to the Saudi government a “top priority,” according to a new report published in The Intercept. And even while Clinton’s State Department was deeply invested in getting weapons to Saudi Arabia, the Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars in donations from both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the weapons manufacturer Boeing. Christmas presents were being gifted all around.
Despite the brutal attacks on Yemen and its egregious domestic human rights violations, Saudi Arabia remains the number one U.S. ally in the Arab world. While the original U.S. interest was to secure Saudi’s vast oil reserves, today only 10 percent of oil used in the United States comes from the kingdom. Instead, U.S. dependence on Saudi oil has been superseded by U.S. dependence on weapons sales.
The most recent Saudi weapons deal was made in November 2015, a sale worth $1.29 billion that included 22,000 smart and general purpose bombs, and over 5,000 Joint Direct Attack Munitions kits to convert older bombs into precision-guided weapons using GPS signals. The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency justified the sales, saying they helped “sustain strong military-to-military relationships between the United States and Saudi Arabia.”
It’s hard to exaggerate the enormity and high-tech nature of Saudi weapons purchases. Indeed, the deals this decade constitute the most enormous military sales in history.
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ReplyDeleteAccording to a White House press release in 2014, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest U.S. Foreign Military Sales customer, with active and open cases valued at approximately $97 billion, as Saudi forces build capabilities across the full spectrum of regional challenges.” The weapons include F-15 bombers, Apache and Blackhawk helicopters, missile defense systems, missiles, bombs, armored vehicles, and related equipment and services. Weapons manufacturers such as Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and McDonnell Douglas have been unapologetically pushing these sales to offset military spending cuts in the United States and Europe.
While the U.S. government continues to provide massive amounts of weapons to Saudi Arabia, on February 25 the European Union took the extraordinary step of voting for an EU-wide arms embargo to Saudi Arabia. While non-binding, it’s a powerful statement that will put pressure on all European governments.
Already, government committees in the United Kingdom have urged Prime Minister David Cameron to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia; Germany has pledged to review all future arms sales to the kingdom; and in Belgium the government has denied an export license to ship weapons to the country. Canadian activists are also pressuring their government in light of Canada’s $15 billion transaction with Riyadh for weaponized armored vehicles, the biggest manufacturing export deal ever struck in Canada.
U.S. activists must follow the example of our European allies and demand that our government stop supplying the Saudi rulers with weapons to bomb civilians in Yemen and repress its own citizens.
Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human rights organization Global Exchange. She is the author of eight books, including one about Saudi Arabia coming out in a few months.
Rebecca Green is the D.C. office coordinator at CODEPINK. She is a student at Northeastern University with a sociology degree and a minor in women’s gender and sexuality studies.
The Clintons and Their Royal Saudi Friends: More Dubious Donations to the Family’s Foundation In December 2008, as Hillary Clinton prepared for the hearings that would confirm her as the next U.S. secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation disclosed a list of its donors — separated into tiers by amount given — to reassure the public and Congress that the former first lady would avoid any potential conflicts of interest in her new perch atop Foggy Bottom. “I agree that these are matters that have to be handled with the greatest of care and transparency,” Clinton said during her confirmation hearing. A look at one organization that made a donation in the range of $1 million to $5 million shows how the Clintons’ gestures toward transparency often revealed little. Meet Friends of Arabia, or FSA, a thinly veiled public-relations organ of the repressive Saudi regime.
ReplyDeleteRead more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419178/clinton-foundation-took-money-saudi-propagandists-joel-gehrke
...The Clinton Foundation is receiving contributions from foreign governments, as Hillary Clinton gets ready for the 2016 presidential campaign.
ReplyDeleteAccording to The Wall Street Journal, donors include the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany, and a Canadian government.
Hillary Clinton re-joined the foundation after leaving the State Department in 2013 and has fronted a $250 million endowment campaign, Fox News Reported.
The Journal has reported that foreign donors doubled in 2014:
-UAE donated between $1 million and $5 million last year.
-Germany gave between $100,000 and $250,000.
-Saudi Arabia, which has contributed at least $10 million since the foundation’s founding in 1999.
Does this sound strange to you?
Why is Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE interested in funding Clinton’s possible presidential campaign?
http://conservativepost.com/united-arab-emirates-and-saudi-arabia-are-funding-hillary-clinton-as-potential-president-in-2016/
The dots are there, the data sets have not been 'stove piped'.
DeleteVery few of the voters care.
Those that do, they support Sanders, or Trump.
In late 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was formally clearing the sale, asserting that it was in the national interest. At press conferences in Washington to announce the department’s approval, an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been “a top priority” for Clinton personally. Shapiro, a longtime aide to Clinton since her Senate days, added that the “U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army have excellent relationships in Saudi Arabia.”
ReplyDeleteThese were not the only relationships bridging leaders of the two nations. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing -- the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 -- contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.
The Saudi deal was one of dozens of arms sales approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department that placed weapons in the hands of governments that had also donated money to the Clinton family philanthropic empire, an International Business Times investigation has found.
Under Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure -- derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) -- represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.
http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187
Political synonyms:
ReplyDeleteCorruption and Clinton
Let's hope FBI Director Comey's criminal referral includes all of the above.
ReplyDeleteLet's all pray, even those of us who don't pray (make an exception for this), that it all EXPLODES IN HER LOATHSOME FACE.
"If Totalitarianism comes to the USA it will come from the Left not the Right"
ReplyDeletefrom: 'The Honored Sayings of an Agricultural Sage'
April 9, 2016
The New Fascists: Kamala Harris
By Tom Trinko
Kamala Harris, the Attorney General of California, is an example of the new jackbooted fascists pretending to be Americans....
....In doing so Harris achieves a fascist two for one; she manages to distort science to support her personal prejudices -- just like Stalin did -- and use the full power of government to silence voices she doesn’t like.
It’s time for conservative leaders to stop acting as though people like Harris and Brown are good American’s who simply disagree about what the best course should be for the country.
With the MSM lying to cover the fascist totalitarian nature of many elected Democrats we need the faces of conservatism, especially elected officials, to shine a light on the Democrats subversion of the Constitution.
Interestingly, the fact that “conservative” leaders treat monsters like Harris politely is one of the main reasons Trump is enjoying so much support. For all his many vices, he’s perceived as being willing to spit in the face of people like Harris who are eager to subjugate the American people to the fascist demands of the ruling elite....
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/the_new_fascists_kamala_harris.html#ixzz45KF6hCFu
Just what in hell is 'Q'uirk up to now ?
ReplyDelete“Our company is an outlier for In-Q-Tel,” Russ Lebovitz, the chief executive of Skincential Sciences, said during an interview with The Intercept. He conceded that the relationship might make for “an unusual and interesting story,” but said, “If there’s something beneath the surface, that’s not part of our relationship and I’m not directly aware. They’re interested here in something that can get easy access to biomarkers.”
Still, Lebovitz claimed he has limited knowledge of why In-Q-Tel selected his firm.
“I can’t tell you how everyone works with In-Q-Tel, but they are very interested in doing things that are pure science,” Lebovitz said. The CIA fund approached his company, telling him the fund shares an interest in looking at DNA extraction using the method pioneered by Skincential Sciences, according to Lebovitz.
Beauty Secrets of the Stars
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/08/cia-skincare-startup/
Deletewe need the faces of conservatism, especially elected officials, to shine a light on the Democrats subversion of the Constitution.
There are very, very few of those.
None are in the Republican Party.
Only in the Land of The Free and The Home of The Brave, would a so-called “free people” allow their elected politicians to hide details on such an event as 911.
ReplyDeleteThere is no sense in asking our politicians, “Who do you think we are?”
They know too well.
How about them Kardashians?
Sheeple.
DeleteWe're all Sheeple.
Giving our wool to the State.
Fleeced Sheeple r Us.
Delete
DeleteRobert "Draft Dodger" Peterson must have had to cut a check for his share of the war on the Islamic State, now he seems bitter.
Probably thinks we should have put it on a Chinese credit card, then renege on repayment.
What the hell are you talking about there, 'Dead Beat Dad' General Jack "Memorial Day" Hawkins ??
DeleteNot only do you owe your former wife, who fled from you ASAP after she 'dropped the kid' on USA soil, years and years and years of child support, you owe ME money for your utterly stupid prediction and bet that ISIS would be totally gone from Iraq by Memorial Day, last.
Yup, I pay my taxes, all of them, unlike you who don't have any income to report.
Having paid lots of taxes is a big reason I am so against The Bern. I don't wish to pay any higher rate.
I'd like to buy an American made pickup and camper, instead, and help our economy.
Why aren't you out working on your super secret nationally critical to our defense project off the coasts of Panama with the CIA, NSA and Defense, Dead Beat Dad ?
Since 'Jack is Back' is back, I'll sign out for a while.
My daughter will be here soon anyway.
Cheers ! to all but the Dead Beat Dad.
later...
What I am talking about, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson was that yesterday you were 'off to the accountant', today you grouse about being 'fleeced'.
DeleteCoupled with the calendar, the subject is clear...
especially for those with eyes that see and ears that hear.
In the first 5 months of this fiscal year, Dept of Defense - Military Outlays are
ReplyDelete$34,296,000,000.00 Less than in the first 5 months of the 2009 fiscal year.
Current Fiscal Year
2009 Fiscal Year
One would hope so, the war in Iraq has been dialed "WAY BACK".
DeleteIf there had been no expenses subsequently trimmed .... the perfidy would have been overwhelming.
It still kind of surprises you to see it, though. :)
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteRobert "Draft Dodger" Peterson mentioned my time off shore, yesterday ...
ReplyDeleteOn a mission that I cannot confirm or deny personal, first hand, knowledge of, but the results, encouraging so far ....
David Cameron's terrible week ends with calls for resignation over Panama Papers
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/08/david-cameron-panama-papers-offshore-fund-resignation-calls
The founding partner of Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm hit by a huge leak of offshore financial data, told a German newspaper his company had not yet been approached by anyone as part of investigations.
DeleteRamon Fonseca also said the release of more than 11.5 million company emails was the result of hacking from a computer overseas rather than an inside job and that he knew which country the hacker attack had come from but was not allowed to disclose it. He had told Reuters on Tuesday the firm was a victim of a hack from outside.
"We're the ones who have filed a complaint with the authorities," Fonseca told Bild newspaper's Saturday edition.
"Every time there's something in the newspapers, the authorities announce they'll launch investigations. We're fully cooperating but we haven't been contacted by anyone yet."
Panama said on Wednesday that an independent commission would review the country's financial practices following the leak of information that has embarrassed a clutch of world leaders and forced Iceland's prime minister to resign.
Fonseca, who was a senior government official in Panama until March, said "thousands of lawyers around the world" were doing the same "completely legal" work as Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in setting up offshore companies.
Most of the offshore firms are in jurisdictions other than Panama, including Britain, the United States and the British Virgin Islands, Fonseca said.
"So why us? We see it like the biblical story of David and Goliath. Everyone has the right to privacy. Perhaps God chose us to fight for this fundamental human right or perhaps I'm mistaken," he added.
http://in.reuters.com/article/panama-tax-fonseca-idINKCN0X60CB
The idea that a Bush would be voting for Mrs Clinton rather than Mr Trump, a vindication of the "Federal Socialist" meme of Desert Rat.
ReplyDeleteThere is but one political party in Washington DC, the "Federal Socialists", they have two public fronts, but one policy mission, to expand the power and scope of the Federal government.
Laura Bush, the former first lady, has hinted she would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, saying she wants the next American president to be someone who cares about women in Afghanistan.
The Democratic front-runner is the only female candidate left in the race and visited Afghanistan four times during her stint as Secretary of State.
Mrs Bush putting the interests of Afghanis ahead of those of the people of the United States.
Typical DC elitism
“I want our next president – whoever he or she might be – to be somebody who is interested in women in Afghanistan and who will continue US policies… that we continue to do what we're committed to do as a country,” she said, as she appeared on stage alongside her twin daughters Jenna and Barbara.
Delete“That's who I want - or the kind of people that will do that and will pay attention to our history, and know what's what's happened before and know specifically how we can continue to do the good things that we do around the world.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/08/laura-bush-hints-shed-rather-see-hillary-as-president-than-repub/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/08/laura-bush-hints-shed-rather-see-hillary-as-president-than-repub/
.
Delete“I want our next president – whoever he or she might be – to be somebody who is interested in women in Afghanistan and who will continue US policies… that we continue to do what we're committed to do as a country,” she said, as she appeared on stage alongside her twin daughters Jenna and Barbara.
“That's who I want - or the kind of people that will do that and will pay attention to our history, and know what's what's happened before and know specifically how we can continue to do the good things that we do around the world.”
Good lord.
.
Don't give a shit about the women in Afghanistan Quirk ?
DeleteI do. I think we ought to stay and at least protect Kabul.
For the sake of the women.
Fox News tells me, Quirk, confirming my earlier report, which I was unable to find again, that the operation to retake Mosul will be delayed, probably another year. This may become an annual event. The mighty Iraqi Army seems to have made a slight move forward from 40 or 50 miles away, ran into a little resistance, and had all run away within 8 hours. The Shia just don't seem to give much of a damn about retaking Sunni Iraq.
Also from Fox - USA is sending over the B-52s once again. Some one seems to have concluded the Rufian Pinpricks aren't getting the job done.
Perhaps they are meant for help with Mosul, but with the Iraqi Army having just run away, one wonders.
I love the BUFFs....Big Ugly Fat Fuckers.....what a great and venerable aircraft.
I'll always remember Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb dropped from a BUFF on the Evil Empire....:)
DeleteNow THERE was real imperialism....the old Soviet Union.
DeleteThe breakup of which Pooty has proclaimed 'the greatest geo-political tragedy in the history of the world'.
DeleteRobert "Draft Dodger" Peterson 'remembers' a scene from a movie, and thinks it was 'real'.
There was no bomb, "Draft Dodger", the was no BUFF, it was just 'movie magic', not reality.
Reality was that the BUFF could not destroy North Vietnam POL infrastructure, because it was not centralized. There were no 'big' targets for BUFF to 'take out'.
DeleteOn 29 June 1966, airstrikes against the North's petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) storage areas were authorized by Johnson. The American military had advocated such strikes since the inception of the operation, believing that to deny North Vietnam its POL would cause its military effort to grind to a halt.
At first, the strikes appeared highly successful, destroying tank farms near Hanoi and Haiphong and leading the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to estimate that 70 percent of North Vietnam's oil facilities had been destroyed for the loss of 43 aircraft.
The loss of the oil storage tank farms and refineries proved to be only a short-term inconvenience for North Vietnam, however, since Hanoi had anticipated just such a campaign and had during that time dispersed the majority of its POL stocks in 50-gallon drums across the length of the country.
The POL attacks were halted on 4 September, after U.S. intelligence admitted that there was "no evidence yet of any shortages of POL in North Vietnam."
"Carpet Bombing" chalks up another 'fail'
It was 'just a movie', it 'wasn't reality' ?
DeleteJeez and here all these years I was certain Slim was vaporized along with Moscow, Russia.
I'll be damned.
Well, I'm pretty certain we didn't use nukes in Vietnam.
We just sprayed chemical on jungle canopy and carpet bombed certain areas where the Viet Cong were never clubbed up together.
When Nixon got a little serious and carpet bombed Hanoi that had some temporary effect.
Everyone knows you are a nasty moron, Dead Beat Dad, and in need of psychological help..
Many here have offered their own diagnosis of your state, trying to be of some help to you.
I suggest you sit naked in some busy intersection in Phoenix and maybe the State of Arizona will finally help you.
We can all hope....
DeleteWell, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, you thought Michael Bay's "13 Days" to be 'real'.
When it was just another movie.
I suggest you read:
DeleteRolling Thunder 1965: Anatomy of a Failure
by Col Dennis M. Drew
...
By the end of 1965, American air power had expended a massive effort in North Vietnam, but an effort that would pale in comparison with the following years. Even with the reins held tightly in Washington, Rolling Thunder in 1965 amassed 55,000 total sorties, which dropped 33,000 tons of bombs on 158 fixed targets and a far larger number of “targets of opportunity.” But Rolling Thunder failed to bring the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table. It failed to stop the flow of men and materiel to the south or even to reduce the flow to the degree that the impact was clearly felt in the south. The bombing had, by all accounts, helped the morale of the South Vietnamese. But this success was purchased at a high price, including the loss of 171 aircraft along with many of their crewmembers.71
Rolling Thunder would continue through 1966, 1967, and most of 1968.
Gradual escalation would continue, although the reins on the campaign would remain tightly held in Washington.
By October 1968, Rolling Thunder attacks were reported to have destroyed 77 percent of all ammunition depots, over 60 percent of all POL storage facilities, nearly 60 percent of North Vietnamese power plants, over 50 percent of all major bridges, and 40 percent of all railroad shops. In addition, 12,500 vessels, 10,000 vehicles, and 2,000 railroad cars and engines were reported destroyed.
And yet, the North Vietnamese did not waver in their ability or will to continue.
In contrast, the costs to the United States mounted and the American will to continue began to crumble.
It was around that time that you decided that serving your nation was not as important as serving yourself, right?
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/readings/drew2.htm
DeleteVery few of the voters care.
ReplyDeleteThose that do, they support Sanders, or Trump
No truer statement.
ReplyDeleteDick Cheney heaps praise on Hillary Clinton
Former US vice president Dick Cheney has praised Hillary Clinton as one of the more competent members of President Barack Obama's administration, saying it would be "interesting to speculate" on how she would perform as president.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/8741148/Dick-Cheney-heaps-praise-on-Hillary-Clinton.html
Mr Cheney is a smart guy. To me this is a very left handed compliment. A one-eyed woman is a queen in the land of the blind.
ReplyDeleteA blind man can comprehend reality.
ReplyDeleteSo it has been said of 'Homer', The Guide of the Sighted....
Quirk will get this, Dead Beat Dad won't have a clue.
DeleteThe clue, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson is that the Bush/Cheney Team is moving to back the "Establishment" Democrat, rather than support Mr Trump.
They are setting the table, now.
Who's table will you be siting at?
OR, maybe they're just trying to slip Paul Ryan in the back door. :)
DeleteI haven't read anything about any Iraqis "running away," recently. The retook Ramadi in impressive fashion, and now they're busily reclaiming Hit, while "setting up" Fallujah.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, they're clearing out the weeds (and, there are a Lot of them) around Mosul and Kirkuk. If they're not of a mind to act rashly, who could blame them. Every month they get stronger, and ISIS is weaker.
We (Obama's administration) might want Mosul cleared before the U.S. elections, but it's not U.S. soldiers that will die in that operation. If the Iraqis would just as soon do it next year, and take a lot less casualties, who could blame them?
Meantime:
Strikes in Syria
Attack aircraft conducted two strikes in Syria:
-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, one strike destroyed an ISIL oil separator.
-- Near Manbij, one strike destroyed an ISIL rocket rail, seven ISIL rockets and an ISIL mortar system.
Strikes in Iraq
Attack, fighter, ground attack and remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted 21 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Huwayjah, a strike destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun.
-- Near Albu Hayat, a strike destroyed two ISIL rocket rails and 22 rockets.
-- Near Habbaniyah, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL mortar system and suppressed an ISIL tactical unit.
-- Near Haditha, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions.
-- Near Hit, four strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed 10 ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL heavy machine gun, an ISIL artillery piece, an ISIL anti-air artillery piece, 30 ISIL boats and an ISIL tactical vehicle.
-- Near Kirkuk, a strike destroyed an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Kisik, two strikes destroyed an ISIL command and control node and an ISIL tunnel system.
-- Near Mosul, three strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL financial storage center and destroyed three ISIL rocket rails.
-- Near Qayyarah, four strikes struck an ISIL weapons storage facility, destroyed two ISIL vehicle bombs and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Sinjar, a strike suppressed an ISIL tactical unit.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Tal Afar, a strike struck an ISIL headquarters.
.
ReplyDeleteDon't give a shit about the women in Afghanistan Quirk ?
You, moron. With friends like the US who needs enemies? Who do you think it was that helped introduce the fundamentalism now so prevalent in Afghanistan. True, we had help from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan but until '88 or '89 we took the lead in building up the mujaheddin there which has led to the Taliban, al Qaeda, and now ISIS.
Sure we put in some cosmetic changes, a new constitution in 2004 that offered women new rights but the Afghan courts have ruled that Sharia remains the guiding principle there. And yes, we build a few schools but only about 40% of women attend primary school and most have been to leave by the 6th grade as they are forced to enter arranged marriages with some old fart. The literacy rate for women in Afghanistan is about 12%.
We've been there for over 15 years and our success improving the lives of the women there matches out success in trying to cut down on the heroin trade.
We've probably killed more women in drone attacks than we have helped during our occupation.
.
.
Delete...and most have been forced to leave...
.
.
ReplyDeleteOf course, when it comes to foreign policy at least Idaho Bob is consistent...well, at least consistently wrong...
It is almost never mentioned now, so it is easy to forget that many Libyan war supporters initially argued for intervention in order to save the “Arab Spring.” Their idea was that the U.S. and its allies could discourage other regimes from forcibly putting down protests by siding with the opposition in Libya, and that if the U.S. didn’t do this it would “signal” dictators that they could crush protests with impunity. This never made sense at the time. Other regimes would have to believe that the U.S. would consistently side with their opponents, and there was never any chance of that happening. If it sent any message to them, the intervention in Libya sent other regimes a very different message: don’t let yourself be internationally isolated like Gaddafi, and you won’t suffer his fate.
Another argument for the intervention was that it would change the way the U.S. was perceived in the region for the better. That didn’t make sense, either, since Western intervention in Libya wasn’t popular in most countries there, and even if it had been it wouldn’t change the fact that the U.S. was pursuing many other policies hated by people throughout the region. It was on the foundation of shoddy arguments such as these that the case for war in Libya was built.
Bacevich is right that many critics fault specific interventions for their failings without questioning the larger assumptions about the U.S. role in the region that led to those wars. Liberal hawks will complain that the Iraq war was run incompetently (and it was), but they don’t give up on the idea of preventive war or the belief that the U.S. is entitled to attack other states more or less at will in the name of “leadership.” Neoconservatives will fault Obama for not doing more in Libya after the regime was overthrown, but it would never occur to them that toppling foreign governments by force is wrong or undesirable. There remains a broad consensus that the U.S. “leads” the world and in order to exercise that “leadership” it is free to destabilize and attack other states as it sees fit. The justifications change from country to country, but the assumptions behind them are always the same: we have the right to interfere in the affairs of other nations, our interference is benevolent and beneficial (and any bad results cannot be tied to our interference), and “failure” to interfere constitutes abdication of “leadership.”
To make matters worse, every intervention always has a die-hard group of dead-enders that will defend the rightness and success of their war no matter what results it produces. They don’t think the war they supported every really went “awry” except when it was ended “too soon.” Everyone is familiar with Iraq war dead-enders, who continue to claim to this day that the war had been “won” by the end of Bush’s second term and that it was only by withdrawing that the U.S. frittered away its “victory.”
I've made the comment before that Hillary, though she denigrate the Republicans at every turn, represents the worst aspects of the GOP herself. Not a dimes difference between them.
Our favorite Swedish dead-ender seems to fit the same profile.
.
.
Deletehttp://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/pro-war-dead-enders-and-our-unending-wars/
.
The lessons the 'others' learned from Colonel Q
Delete1. Don't try to sell oil for Euros
2. Don't try to start a 'Gold Based' currency
3. Don't negotiate with Russians to provide the Russian Navy basing rights.
Those are the "Lessons to be Learned"
Heet Council announces liberating 85% of Heet District, 30 ISIS fighters killed
ReplyDelete(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Heet District Council in Anbar Province announced on Friday, that the joint forces managed to free 85% of Heet District west of Ramadi and killed 30 ISIS fighters, while pointed out that the security forces are working to evacuate the civilians from the district.
The Head of Heet Council Mohammed Mohannad al-Hiti said in a press statement received by IraqiNews.com, “The security forces are advancing in the cleansing battles of Heet, and liberated about 85% of the district,” indicating that, “30 fighters belonging to ISIS were killed and dozens of vehicles were destructed during the battles.”
Hiti added, “The joint forces from the army, police, Anti-Terrorism and tribal fighters are working to evacuate innocent civilians from the areas of Heet.”
Iraqinews
9,000 displaced families return to their areas in Ramadi, says District Mayor
Delete(IraqiNews.com) al-Anbar – The Mayor of Ramadi District in Anbar province, Ibrahim al-Awsaj, announced on Saturday the return of more than 9,000 displaced families to 15 areas in the center of Ramadi District.
Awsaj said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “More than 9,000 displaced families have returned to 15 areas and neighborhoods in the center of the city of Ramadi and the eastern regions,” noting that, “The proportion of damage to those areas is little.”
He also added, “The return of displaced families to the center of Ramadi District is ongoing and there is a great cooperation between the security leaders of the army and police in facilitating the return of families to their liberated areas.”
Hundreds of Fallujah residents demonstrate in Sulimaniyah calling for liberation
Delete(IraqiNews.com) Sulimaniyah – On Saturday, hundreds of Fallujah residents demonstrated in Sulimaniyah Province calling for the liberation of the city.
A source in al-Sulimaniyah Province said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “Today, hundreds of displaced people in al-Sulimaniyah Province have demonstrated in Dukan Dam area northwest of Sulimaniyah.”
The source added, “The demonstrators called the central government to accelerate the liberation of Fallujah City and save its people.”
Iraqinews
22 ISIS fighters killed in Fallujah and Saqlawiyah
Delete(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – The leadership of al-Hashed al-Shaabi in Anbar Province announced on Friday, that 22 fighters of the so-called ISIS were killed in an aerial bombardment carried out by the International coalition aviation and an artillery shelling carried out by the Iraqi Army in Fallujah and Saqlawiyah, while pointed out to the destruction of four vehicles mounted with weapons and a rocket launcher.
The commander of Karmat Fallujah brigade in al-Hashed al-Shaabi, Colonel Khamis Bahr al-Halbusi, said in a press statement received by IraqiNews.com, “The international coalition aircraft and artillery of the Iraqi Army bombed ISIS strongholds and gatherings in the areas of al-Bazara and Golan in Fallujah and Albu Obeid and Albu Bedaiwi in Saqlawiyah, killing 22 ISIS fighters.”
Halbusi added, “The bombing also resulted in the destruction of four armed vehicles and a rocket launcher in the agricultural area in central Saqlawiyah,” noting that, “The bombing significantly weakened the ISIS capabilities.”
15 ISIS fighters killed in artillery shelling in Makhmur District
Delete(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – A security source in Nineveh Province announced on Friday, that 15 members of the so-called ISIS were killed and others were wounded in an artillery shelling targeted ISIS headquarters in Makhmur District south of Mosul, while indicated that the shelling also destructed three ISIS headquarters.
The source said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “The international coalition artillery bombed three headquarters belonging to ISIS in the village of al-Nasser in Makhmur District south of Mosul.”
The source, who asked anonymity, added, “The shelling resulted in the killing of 15 ISIS fighters, while wounded dozens of them.”
Iraqinews
So, the Iraqis are busy. They're cleaning up Ramadi, well into the fighting in downtown Hit, just getting started in the Fallujah suburbs/exurbs, and clearing out the countryside (Machmur, primarily) around Mosul. Also, they fight every day in the area around Kirkuk (this will probably be the Last area to be completely cleaned out, because this is where a lot of the oil is.
DeleteWith great sadness and reluctance, but with noetic certainty, it's now time to call Quirk a damnable misogynist.
DeleteJust look, really, at how he has treated Maria, for instance, taking total advantage of her, as if she were a mere convenience., a kitchen utensil.
He can get away with this cause she ain't got the brains of rat's 'Maria', who had the good sense to flee back to Central America ASAP after she got screwed.
In this regard -
DeleteBREAKIGN NEWS:
Hip Hop legend Afrika Bambaataa accused of sex abuse......DRUDGE}
Change the names, the M.O. is the same, only Q is being protected by the racist, sexist, homophobic Detroit Police Department.
Apologies for intruding on your comment, galopin2.
DeleteI was so in despair about Q's abhorrent aberrant behavior I pushed the 'reply' instead of the 'comment'.
Here's our future should we be such dumb shits as to elect Sanders:
ReplyDeleteVenezuela: No hairdryers; Save electricity.....DRUDGE
Ladies: THINK !
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has won the Wyoming caucuses, giving him eight wins in the last nine contests.
ReplyDeleteSanders won nearly 56 percent of the vote. But he and Clinton will split the state's 14 delegates down the middle.
Even so, the win is another jolt of momentum for Sanders heading into the critical New York primary April 19.
Both campaigns paid little attention to Wyoming. Sanders held a rally there Tuesday. Rival Hillary Clinton did not go to the state, but her husband Bill Clinton did.
Sanders's victory follows rising tensions between the two candidates after he questioned Clinton's qualifications to run for president, a remark that snowballed into a week-long dispute.
He said Wednesday that her super-PAC support, Iraq War vote and support of trade agreements disqualified her. The campaign doubled down a day later, arguing that Clinton and her allies had insinuated that Sanders himself wasn't qualified to run, but she brushed aside those accusations.
The argument appeared to die down Friday when Sanders said "of course" Clinton is qualified.
Entering Saturday, Clinton led the race with 1,280 pledged delegates to Sanders’s 1,030, according to the Associated Press.
In addition, Clinton has 469 superdelegates and Sanders 31.
Bill Clinton is Bernie Sanders secret weapon:
ReplyDelete...Both campaigns paid little attention to Wyoming. Sanders held a rally there Tuesday. Rival Hillary Clinton did not go to the state, but her husband Bill Clinton did.
Maybe This Time Dumb Ass American Voters Will Notice Their Political “Servants” Are Hosing Them
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON — When it comes to nominating presidential candidates, it turns out the world’s foremost democracy is not so purely democratic.
For decades, both major parties have used a somewhat convoluted process for picking their nominees, one that involves ordinary voters in only an indirect way. As Americans flock this year to outsider candidates, the kind most hindered by these rules, they are suddenly waking up to this reality. And their confusion and anger are adding another volatile element to an election being waged over questions of fairness and equality.
In Nashville a week ago, supporters of Donald J. Trump accused Republican leaders of trying to stack the state’s delegate slate with people who were anti-Trump. The Trump campaign posted the cellphone number of the state party chairman on Twitter, leading him to be inundated with calls. Several dozen people showed up at the meeting at which delegates were being named, banged on the windows and demanded to be let in.
Backers of Senator Bernie Sanders, bewildered at why he keeps winning states but cannot seem to cut into Hillary Clinton’s delegate count because of her overwhelming lead with “superdelegates,” have used Reddit and Twitter to start an aggressive pressure campaign to flip votes.
Bill Maher: GOP is a 'filthy pee-stained house full of dead cats'
ReplyDeletePerhaps.
DeleteAnd the Dems are, Bill ?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
ReplyDeleteDALLAS – A former FBI agent who later enlisted in the U.S. Air Force was identified Saturday as the man who killed his commander at an air base in San Antonio before turning the gun on himself.
A statement from the Air Force identified the two men as Tech. Sgt. Steven D. Bellino and Lt. Col. William A. Schroeder. The statement did not name the gunman, but a federal official close to the investigation said Bellino opened fire Friday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person isn't authorized to speak publicly about the case.
The official said Bellino was an FBI agent for less than two years before resigning in 2013 and later enlisting in the Air Force. Authorities have not confirmed why Schroeder was targeted. He was commander of the 342nd Training Squadron.
Hillary Clinton elicited boos from members of New York’s largest teachers union after mentioning the state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, at a campaign event held in Rochester Friday night.
ReplyDeleteAt a closed-door event hosted by New York State United Teachers, Clinton praised Cuomo for supporting a $15 minimum wage in the state. But members of the 600,000 member union were not as enamored with Cuomo.
“I applaud the big step just taken under Governor Cuomo’s leadership to raise the minimum wage,” Clinton began, prompting loud boos from attendees.
“Well, now come on, come on,” Clinton responded, holding up her hands and tilting her head.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/09/new-york-teachers-boo-hillary-after-she-praises-states-governor-video/#ixzz45Pi8tOzt
U.S. general: Number of Islamic State fighters in Libya doubles
ReplyDeleteBy Robert Spencer on Apr 09, 2016 12:18 pm
U.S. general: Number of Islamic State fighters in Libya doubles
At this point, what difference does it make? “U.S. general: Number of ISIS fighters in Libya doubles,” by Nicole Gaouette, CNN, April 8, 2016: Washington (CNN)U.S. intelligence estimates now put the number of ISIS fighters in Libya between 4,000 to 6,000, double the number in the war-ravaged country last year, according to the top U.S. […
Read in browser »
Jihad Watch
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/04/u-s-general-number-of-islamic-state-fighters-in-libya-doubles
Sanders' problem isn't the "superdelegates." His problem is that Hillary, by wiping him out in the big states like Texas and Florida, and Georgia, has amassed a pledged delegate lead of over 200.
ReplyDeleteShe did this by getting over 2 and a half million more Votes than Bernie. Bernie's had a little streak of wins in small population caucus states - Ak, Id, Wy, etc., but it takes a lot of Wyomings (pop. six hundred and something thousand) to make up for a Texas (pop. 25 million, or so.)
Yea, but it's comforting to any Old Hag to have about 95% of the Superdelegates in one's purse, just in case.
ReplyDeleteWhat's 'democratic' about the Demorat Party ?
Not much.....n o o o t m u c h
And don't forget The Comey Primary.
DeleteThe Hag has stacked the odds against herself there.
I LOVE this election !)
The Democrats have had "Super" Delegates for 30 years, and they haven't decided an election, yet.
ReplyDeleteThe superdelegates always end up going with the candidate that gets the majority of the pledged delegates.
Basically, it's just a perk to give some party hosses a free trip to the convention.
Aha !
ReplyDeleteYou've given away your game !!!
"party bosses"
or
"party hosses"
if that wasn't a typo.
Aha ! You've given away your game !!
The 'game' is rigged before the sacred Convention even begins !
It's best likened unto a carpeted house stinking of cat piss, with dead decaying cats all around.
;)
DeleteDemodeadstinkin'cats
I'd vote for poor old club footed Claudius the Stutter before I'd vote for Livia Drusilla.
ReplyDeleteAt least The Stutter had a moral sense, like Moses.
A Muslim country that loves America
ReplyDeleteBy Frida Ghitis
Updated 2238 GMT (0538 HKT) March 30, 2016
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/30/opinions/why-albania-loves-america-ghitis/index.html?eref=edition
April 10, 2016
ReplyDeleteIsrael and the Occupation that Isn't
By Steve Postal
March saw a return of economic warfare against Israel, masked in discontent with Israel’s “occupation” of “Palestine.” On March 24, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted 32-0-15 to create a database of companies that have profited from Israeli settlements, which the Israeli government has called a “blacklist.” A petition by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Jewish Voice for Peace, CODEPINK, and others, which has surpassed 144,000 signatures, calls for Airbnb to “[s]top listing vacation rentals in Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land and deemed illegal under international law.” On March 7, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called on its members and all other countries to “ban products produced in or by illegal Israeli settlements from their markets.”
The “occupation” theme also made a recent appearance in the 2016 presidential race. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, in his first major policy statement on the Middle East, stated that “peace will mean an end to what amounts to the occupation of Palestinian territory.”
What these economic and political warriors don’t seem to realize is that Israel is not occupying anything. There was never an Arab state known as Palestine. In fact, the Arabs have rejected multiple offers to establish such a state......
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/israel_and_the_occupation_that_isnt.html#ixzz45QbbR2i4
Obama: Clinton’s Email Server Did Not Jeopardize National Security
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton never jeopardized national security in the handling of her emails as his secretary of state.
Obama, in an interview broadcast on Fox News Sunday, said Clinton has recognized a carelessness on the email issue in which she used a private server for Government business.
“But I also think it is important to keep this in perspective,” Obama said. “This is somebody who has served her country for four years as secretary of state, and did an outstanding job.”
Huffington Post
I guess this means his Attorney General is going to indict any day now.
DeleteHa! The leader of the Dims is down playing the email atrocity of the Dims probable next leader? Were you expecting something else?
ReplyDeleteYeah, like the Sun to come up in the West.
Deletegalopin2 doesn't often deal in reality.
ReplyDeleteHis Darling Hillary is in deep deep deep do-do, do-do.
She's up to her chin in shit, and then there is The Clinton Foundation as well, and all the taking of brides from foreign countries when Secretary of State.
This puts the deep shit up over her head.
He just can't stand to think about of it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIf Hillary cares so much about women, perhaps Laura should set Bill up with the twins, knowing that Hillary would never allow any hanky panky to occur.
ReplyDeleteThankfully Laura has lots of good sense and would never allow it in this life or any other.
DeleteWithout W and his dad doing full on reputation resuscitation, Clinton's name would be mud by now.
ReplyDeleteGOP Excuses:
ReplyDelete1981-1986: We can't reduce government because we only have the White House and the Senate but the Dems have the House.
1987-1992: We can't reduce government because we only have the White House but the Dems have Congress.
1993-1994: We can't reduce government because we control nothing.
1995-2000: We can't reduce government because we only have Congress but the Dems have the White House.
2001: We can't reduce government because we only have the White House, The House, and half the Senate with a tie-breaking VP. Because we only have half the Senate we have to be nice.
2001-2002: We can't reduce government because we only have the White House and the House but the Dems have the Senate.
2003-2006: We can't reduce government because we only have the White House, the House, and Senate while the Dems have nothing.
2007-2008: We can't reduce government because we only have the White House but the Dems have Congress.
2009-2010: We can't reduce government because we control nothing.
2011-Now: We can't reduce government because we only have the House but the Dems have the Senate and the White House.
There are eight combinations possible with two parties and three institutions. The only one we haven't tried is a GOP Senate with Democratic House and White House.
DeleteWhite House: We Didn't Censor The French President For Saying 'Islamic Terror,' It Was a Technical Problem
ReplyDeleteAfter the Media Research Center caught the censorship, the White House denied any effort to disrupt the audio and claimed a technical error, at the exact moment when Islamic terror was mentioned, as cause for the gap.
http://beta.townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2016/04/04/white-house-we-didnt-censor-the-french-president-for-saying-islamic-terror-it-was-a-technical-problem-n2143303
ISIL is not Islamic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwp8qKvE-0g
subotaibahadur:
ReplyDeleteYesterday's Colorado Republican State Convention, after the GOPe arranged to have their slates of picked party loyalists National Delegates all given to Cruz, the supposedly "honest broker between faction" Colorado Republican Party Tweeted on its official account, "We did it! #NeverTrump!".
After some uproar, they are now claiming that persons unknown "hacked" their Twitter account. If you believe that, I might be willing to sell my interest in a number of bridges around the country.
Well, I'll give you one President that Has cut spending.
ReplyDeleteIn the first 5 months of fiscal year 2009 - Oct. 2008 thru Feb. 2009 - spending, in current dollars, was $1,796,719,371,000.00.
In the latest comparable period - Oct. 2015 thru Feb. 2016 - spending was $1,601,375,000,000.00.
fiscal yr. 2009
fiscal yr. 2016
My favorite:
Delete2003-2006: We can't reduce government because we only have the White House, the House, and Senate while the Dems have nothing.
.
Delete:o)
The art of lying with statistics.
Funny when $6 trillion has been added to the debt in less than 8 years.
Funny given what was going on in those 5 month periods and the funds being pumped out in 2008/2009 to try to forestall the recession.
Funny given the 1st law of bureaucracies [expanded version] 'spend every dime allocated (or more)by September 30 or lose not only this year but possibly in the future'.
.
.
DeleteWell, I'll give you one President that Has cut spending.
F/Y Receipts Outlays Deficit
2009 2,104,989 3,517,677 -1,412,688
2010 2,162,706 3,457,079 -1,294,373
2011 2,303,466 3,603,056 -1,299,590
2012 2,449,988 3,536,951 -1,086,963
2013 2,775,103 3,454,647 -679,544
2014 3,021,487 3,506,114 -484,627
2015 3,249,886 3,688,292 -438,406
2016 estimate 3,335,502 3,951,307 -615,805
2017 estimate 3,643,742 4,147,224 -503,482
2018 estimate 3,898,625 4,352,222 -453,597
2019 estimate 4,095,054 4,644,309 -549,255
2020 estimate 4,345,701 4,879,818 -534,117
2021 estimate 4,571,990 5,124,248 -552,258
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/
.
Raceciss!
DeleteCHICAGO (AP) — Comedian Andy Richter says he remembers the chair facing the showers that Dennis Hastert placed in the boys’ locker room at the high school where Hastert coached wrestling before becoming an Illinois congressman.
ReplyDeleteRichter attended Yorkville High School in the 1980s. He tweeted about the chair Friday night after prosecutors mentioned it in a court filing in the former House Speaker’s hush-money case.
“I went to Yorkville HS ‘80-‘84 & I remember this chair. Purportedly ‘to keep boys from fighting,’ ” Richter tweeted, referring to the chair, which prosecutors describe as similar to a “Lazyboy” in the court filing.
SEE ALSO: Small town turns on Dennis Hastert, former House speaker, as details of allegations emerge
Richter, the sidekick on Conan O’Brien’s TV show, says he was “struck by how easy it was” for Hastert to do that. He added: “Nobody questioned it.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/9/comedian-andy-richter-recalls-hasterts-locker-room/
Douglas County Delegate who was removed and replaced:
ReplyDeleteYouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVc_hIKFmmE
Burns his registration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJT_Zbu6LcE
Fox News: Pennsylvania: Trump 48, Kasich 22, Cruz 20
ReplyDeleteWisconsin is receding in the rear view mirror.
Republican voters not needed in Colorado -
ReplyDeleteColorado Republicans cancel presidential vote...
Trump blasts RNC: 'Crooked shenanigans'...
'Disenfranchising people'...
Cleveland will be haunted by ghosts of Chicago 1968....DRUDGE
Well this really sucks...
And it certainly gives The Donald reason to say he's been cheated if he loses....
(there's going to be fireworks in USA come July one way or another)
NO PRIMARY, NO CAUCUS: CRUZ GETS ALL DELEGATES
DeleteVOTERS NOT NEEDED.....DRUDGE
Maybe I'll go to Cleveland and Philly this summer to drink and riot.....
What to join me Quirk ?
Might be out last chance....
I've invited my Niece, you bring Maria....
You up for some Mainland fun, Doug ?
We can drink the Wahine Juice, and let Quirk do the rioting...and the getting arrested....
(we can testify in court that Quirk just got shoved into the melee by the crowds he was trying to escape)
Delete(heading off Jack's inevitable critical counter attack, I'm not being fully serious)
Though I would kinda like to go watch it all.
Delete.
ReplyDeleteWell, this was predictable.
Remember how Deuce pointed out that 60 Minutes was going to put on a review of the 28 Minute deletions and the charges of Saudi participation in the 9/11 attacks? Well CBS had it set up to run first on the program. However, predictably (?) the masters is running a few minutes over on the same channel.
I expect they will be handing out the green jacket right about the time the '28 Minute' spot is ending.
More fuel for the conspiracy theorists (not that there is anything wrong with being a conspiracy theorist).
.
The Saudis have obviously paid off Jack Nicholas, if he's still alive, and he has fudged the tee times, and told everyone to play slowly, take lots of time.
DeleteThat's easy enough.
One here has even said that 'everything is a conspiracy'.
This must include birth and death, the creation and dissolution of the universe, I suppose, as they are part of 'everything', are everything.
For myself, I don't think the human race is bright enough to pull a really lasting conspiracy.
Michelle Fields screamed that Arnold Palmer pulled her to the ground, delaying the Masters.
DeleteArnold at work:
http://img5.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/w/4/w4sfwufvxgdsdgf.jpg?djet1p5k
Maher, among others, on Fields:
Deletehttps://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=michelle%20fields
Maher also reacted that Fields’ comment that the event was, “[A]side from my father’s death, the worst experience [that] I’ve gone through. The hate that I’ve received, the email messages.” He replied, “What a charmed, lucky, clueless white girl life you have lived. If that’s the worse thing that happened to you. And do we have to politicize everything? … That’s not assault. If I pick a hair off your sweater, is that assault?”
DeleteDemos Action President Heather McGhee disagreed with Maher’s statement and said that the charge was technically battery, which is unwanted touching, that Fields had a bruise.
Trump supporter Andy Dean then said, “That tape was released by Donald Trump and the campaign. It was from our ballroom at Trump Jupiter. We wanted people to see this tape, because after the event, she said she almost fell down. This is also a reporter who said she was abused by the NYPD, and groped by a war hero, Allen West.” Comedian Kathy Griffin then responded, “I hear her skirt was too short. Don’t even start that perspective.” Dean responded, “She has a history, like Brian Williams, of inserting herself into the news.”
After the discussion briefly pivoted to other events at Trump rallies, Maher stated, “If you cut in line in a bathroom at a nightclub, and somebody did that to you, would there be an assault charge?” McGhee responded, “But this man wants to be the leader of the free world and his number two — this is not a concert. That’s the point. We have to hold these people to a higher standard than a guy in a concert line.” Dean then stated, “He redirected her.” Maher concluded the discussion by stating, “No one can take someone’s arm anymore in America? That’s assault?”
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/04/10/maher-lewandowski-fields-incident-nothing-stupidity-no-can-take-someones-arm-anymore-in-america/
No real surprise on the 60 Minutes program.
DeleteNo one is revealing anything classified but those interviewed said that they should be.
The clear implication, is that it would be impossible for 911 to have happened, the way it happened, without high level Saudi support.
Well, everyone here has known that for years. What else is going on that keeps us in bed with the Saudi scum is not known.
.
DeleteLuckily, Bob called their bluff and they got scared and actually ran the piece after the Masters was over.
Unfortunately, it was the same stuff we have heard before.
Perhaps fortunately it may introduce the info to people who know nothing of it.
.
Pakistan, Afghanistan and India were jolted when an earthquake of 7.1 magnitude struck the region at about 3:36pm on Sunday.According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, the epicenter of the earthquake was Ishkisham, Afghanistan, and its focal depth was recorded at 236 kilometers.
ReplyDelete...
CHARSADDA: Two persons died and one injured when a wall collapsed in Shahbaz Khan Killay in Khwajawas area due to earthquake. The people ran out of houses in a state of fear due to the tremors.
MINGORA: Two people, including a child, were killed and around 30 people sustained injuries in the Malakand Division as the earthquake shook the region at around 03:29pm.
...
MANSEHRA: The people in Balakot and other parts of the district rushed out of their houses and shops in panic as the tremors jolted the area.The reports about landslides were received from Kohistan, Kaghan, Konsh and Siran valleys as well.
Failing to plan for the aftermath of the US-led military intervention in Libya was President Barack Obama’s worst mistake during the eight years in the White House, Obama himself confessed to US media.
ReplyDeleteWhen asked in a quick Q&A preview for an interview with Fox News Sunday what his “worst mistake” as a president had been, the US leader answered: “Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.”
REALLY?
***This is also a reporter who said she was abused by the NYPD, and groped by a war hero, Allen West***
ReplyDeleteAllen West ??
The woman is crazy, a publicity hound.
Trump is right. Trump himself should file charges for battery against Michelle Fields.
.
DeleteAllen West??
The guy who played Batman?
.
An, you used to watch Batman.
DeleteFiggers.
Real high quality urban entertainment.
The guy that played the original Batman went to college at Whitman College, Walla Walla (water, water) Washington, and took a psychology class from my uncle.
He was going out to the State Penitentiary out side of Walla Walla one time, when I was real small, saying he was going to do a 'lecture'.
I thought he said 'electrocution' and everybody had a big laugh over that.
7 IN A ROW! Sanders scores WY victory...
ReplyDeleteBut rigged race means Hillary takes more delegates...
Trump beats Cruz by 30% in VA district, Cruz gets the delegates...
'Gestapo tactics'...
Ordinary Voters Feel Sidelined....DRUDGE
All hell may well, and should, break loose.
If not Quirk's Theory of Sheeple will have been proven to be correct.
The Boston Globe published a parody front page on Sunday that offered a satirical view of a Donald Trump presidency.
ReplyDeleteThe fake page, with headlines like “Deportations to Begin” and “Markets Sink as Trade War Looms,” ran as the front page of the newspaper’s “Ideas” section, with an editorial denouncing Mr. Trump’s candidacy on the next page.
Quirk, NOW take that 2009 Outlay Number (3,517,677,000,000) and convert it into 2016 Dollars.
ReplyDeleteHere, let me do it for you with my trusty intertubes PCE Calculator: Interactive Calkylator
And, the answer is: $3,900,189,000,000.00 - $3,738,083,942,000.00 = $162,105,255,000.00
Bottom Line: The Federal Government spent, In Inflation-Adjusted Dollars $162,105,255,000.00 less in 2015 than it did in 2009.
You're Welcome
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DeleteDebt that is not paid back is always in current dollars.
FY 2009 included the Iraq and Afghan wars that were still going strong including the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops to the latter, also TARP, the auto bailout, Obama's stimulus program, and a $1.4 trillion deficit which contributed along with all the succeeding deficits including the $440 billion from 2015 to the $7 trillion increase that took our debt up to over $19 trillion and the interest on it that keeps compounding daily both of which are in today's dollars. This year the budget deficit was projected to come in around $600 billion. Figure on another $1 trillion being added to the debt every two years. And that is with interest rates at zero. Hard to image what happens if/when interest rates begin to rise.
$162 billion? Hell, a rounding error. We lose $125 billion every year in waste and fraud according to the the GAO. After 8 years, that's the best you've got?
Well, gee. Thank you very much.
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It’s well known that spending on prescription drugs is growing. The question is, what can be done about it?
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Participating were Stephen Ubl, chief executive of the drug industry’s trade group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Marilyn Tavenner, chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, and a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; and John Rother who leads the Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing and is a former AARP official. (The campaign is a project of the National Coalition on Health Care, which receives funding from groups representing hospitals, physicians, consumers, patients, businesses and insurers.)
Following are edited excerpts of the discussion.
Is there a problem?
WSJ: Do we really have a drug-pricing problem?
MR. UBL: The share of spending on retail medicines remains the same as it was 50 years ago. In fact, government actuaries project that spending on prescription medicines will grow roughly in line with overall health-care spending through the next decade—despite the expected introduction of many new first-in-class medicines and a shift toward spending on so-called specialty medicines.
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MR. ROTHER: Millions of patients have had their medications double in price over recent years, including common prescriptions like Crestor for high cholesterol, Abilify for depression, Lyrica for nerve pain, and on and on. Prices for drugs are rising faster than inflation year after year, and these escalating prices have nothing to do with value or recoupment of long-ago research-and-development costs.
MS. TAVENNER: We need to fundamentally address the underlying prices being charged for these medications, and assess whether these prices reflect the true value to patients and the health system. That is why you see health plans doing everything they can to make sure patients are getting the treatments they need, and looking at more value-based payment arrangements that link price to improved patient outcomes.
Strikes in Syria
ReplyDeleteAttack aircraft conducted one strike in Syria:
-- Near Raqqah, a strike destroyed two ISIL oil pump jacks.
Strikes in Iraq
Fighter, ground attack and remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted 24 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Huwayjah, a strike destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun.
-- Near Albu Hayat, two strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL tactical vehicle and three ISIL fighting positions.
-- Near Fallujah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.
-- Near Haditha, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Hit, two strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed nine ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL heavy machine gun and an ISIL mortar system and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Kirkuk, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL heavy machine guns, an ISIL fighting position, five ISIL assembly areas and an ISIL supply cache.
-- Near Mosul, eight strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and five ISIL communication facilities and destroyed two ISIL vehicles and an ISIL boat.
-- Near Qayyarah, three strikes destroyed two ISIL boats and an ISIL vehicle and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Sinjar, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL assembly area.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun.
Boats? ISIL has a Navy now?
DeleteThere will be geographic realignments as the antiquated Eurocentric artificial subdivisions of areas continue to dissolve. As with prior decolonization, devolution is likely to be a painful process, albeit a necessary one.
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Terroristic behavior will not stop in the near future. How, we need to reset the stage and move to a strategic approach to identifying and resolving the problems.
Whack-a-mole is not working.
Don't Understand
Map of Tigris - Euphrates River System
ReplyDeleteYou can take a fishing boat down the Euphrates all the way from ISIS's Capital, Raqqa to Hit, to Ramadi, to Fallujah, and all the way to Basra, and the Persian Gulf.
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DeleteSee your local travel agent or sports outfitter for information on fishing trips.
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Apparently it is quite good trout fishing in the headwaters in Turkey.
DeleteA proposed British military intervention in Libya risks the same pitfalls that blighted the bloody Afghanistan campaign, a former UK commander in the north African country has warned.
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Col Rupert Wieloch, who until 2012 was the senior British commander in the country, said any international mission to the country faced “a great danger of mission creep”.
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The Government says it has made no final decision on whether to send troops to Libya and has yet to receive a formal invitation for help from the Tripoli government.