Russia Does Not Know How to Fight Islamic State Loyalists Sunday August 2nd, 2015 at 2:34 PM | CA wildfires: Thousands evacuate
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Thousands of California acres are ablaze as firefighters battle at least 21 wildfires throughout the state, but while many of those fires are small or contained, the wind and heat that are spreading the Rocky Fire in Northern California -- and the area's steep terrain -- are causing the most concern.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's security cabinet approved on Sunday the detention of citizens suspected of waging violence against Palestinians without trial in a crackdown aimed at capturing the perpetrators of a lethal West Bank arson attack blamed on Jewish militants.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. backers of the Iran nuclear deal are increasingly confident of enough Democratic support to ensure it survives review by Congress, despite fierce opposition by majority Republicans and a massive lobbying drive.
The war on drugs is over, and weed won? D.A.R.E., the organization designed to plant a deep-seated fear of drugs in the minds of every late-20th-century middle-schooler, published an op-edcalling for marijuana legalization (which they now say was published by mistake, see the update at the bottom of this post).
Written by former deputy sheriff Carlis McDerment in response to a letter in the Columbus Dispatch,the op-ed explains that it's impossible for law enforcement to control the sale of marijuana to minors. "People like me, and other advocates of marijuana legalization, are not totally blind to the harms that drugs pose to children," McDerment writes. "We just happen to know that legalizing and regulating marijuana will actually make everyone safer."
He continues:
Anyone who suggests we outlaw everything dangerous to children would also have to ban stairs, Tylenol, bleach, forks and outlet sockets and definitely alcohol. Those things harm children every day, but anyone championing that we ban them would be laughed at.
I support legalization precisely because I want to reduce youths’ drug use. Drug dealers don’t care about a customer’s age. The answer isn’t prohibition and incarceration; the answer is regulation and education.
For a program that pioneered the questionable "just say no" policy, this is a breakthrough.
Update (7/31): D.A.R.E. appears to have removed the op-ed from its website. Here is the screenshot of the original post:
Update (8/1): Daily Intelligencer reached out to D.A.R.E. for comment, and director Ronald J. Brogan responded:
The article you wrote about was mistakenly posted on our website by a service we use. We have not changed our stance of being opposed to the legalization of marijuana.
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ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants killed two soldiers and wounded 31 in a suicide attack overnight in eastern Turkey, the army said on Sunday, as violence escalated following Ankara's air bombardment targeting Kurdish militants.
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 Channel 4 News |
Internal Dispute Over Taliban Succession Hints at Rifts
New York Times KABUL, Afghanistan — The brother of Mullah Mohammad Omar on Sunday joined a growing chorus of opposition to the opaque selection of the late Taliban leader's successor, indicating widening rifts within the militant group as it weighs whether to revive ... Mullah Omar's family does not endorse new Taliban leader: statementReuters The aftermath of the shadowy life and death of Mullah OmarFinancial Times New leader of Afghan Taliban Mullah Akhtar Mansour calls for unityFinancial Express RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty all 871 news articles » |
A government watchdog has discovered several roadblocks preventing the FBI from fully implementing a cybersecurity initiative aimed at thwarting threats to the United States.
The FBI launched the initiative, known as Next Generation Cyber, in 2012 and has made "considerable progress" toward addressing cyber intrusion threats, according to a report ...
Security experts suspect that hackers working on behalf of the Russian government are behind a sophisticated cyber campaign in which infected computers are controlled through hidden messages embedded within image files shared over Twitter.
FireEye, a California-based security firm, all but blamed the Kremlin for an offensive campaign revealed publicly ...
You can learn a lot about a person by the websites they visit, but what can be inferred by the speed of their keystrokes? Two privacy-minded security experts have released a tool that they say obscures the digital footprints left not by metadata, but behavioral biometrics.
Passwords aren't passé just yet, ...
The Islamic State militant group has recruited new fighters to offset 15,000 militants killed over the past year in U.S.-led airstrikes, U.S. military and intelligence estimates show.
Since Aug. 8, more than 5,500 airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria have forced the militants to scatter into smaller ...
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Obama has tapped a former Maine congressman for an administration post to help veterans seeking training and jobs.
Obama on Thursday announced the nomination of Maine's Michael Michaud to be assistant secretary for veterans' employment and training at the U.S. Department of Labor.
During his 12 ...
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Police try to keep protest involving Arctic-bound shipby STEVEN DuBOIS and DAN JOLING
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Authorities are trying to force protesters in kayaks from a river in Portland, Oregon, where the demonstrators are trying to stop a Royal Dutch Shell icebreaker from leaving dry dock and joining an Arctic oil drilling operation.
The move by Coast Guard and police officers came ...
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - A western New York man is due in court on charges of attempting to support terrorism by traveling overseas to try to join the Islamic State group and declaring his allegiance to the militant organization online.
Arafat Nagi was arrested on Wednesday at his Lackawanna home. ...
CHICAGO (AP) - A cardiologist who worked at a Chicago-area Veterans Affairs hospital says the facility had a yearlong backlog of unread heart tests.
Lisa Nee testified Thursday at a Senate hearing on claims against the Department of Veterans Affairs. U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois chaired the Senate subcommittee ...
MEXICO CITY (AP) - A federal judge in Mexico has ordered that four soldiers be held for trial on charges including forced disappearance and murder related to the deaths of seven people.
The federal judiciary council said Friday in a statement that a judge in the central state of Zacatecas ...
The Obama administration announced Friday that it would retaliate against China for the theft of more than 20 million Americans' personal information in a massive hack of the Office of Personnel Management.
The specific response is still being debated and may not be determined for weeks to come as officials ...
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) - Officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs in the Black Hills say they're taking steps to notify veterans affected by an information breach after an employee accidently threw away personnel files on its Hot Springs campus.
The Rapid City Journal reports the VA says someone ...
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MOSCOW (AP) - A Russian military helicopter from an elite aerobatic squadron crashed Sunday during an air show, killing one pilot and injuring another, the Defense Ministry said, the latest in a series of accidents that have dogged the nation's air force this year.
The Mi-28 helicopter gunship was part ...
The U.S. economy grew in the second quarter of 2015 as real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.3 percent, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) datareleased Thursday.
This is an increase from the 0.6 percent growth the economy saw in the first quarter of 2015. That number was revised from an original report of a 0.2 percent decline in the first quarter of 2015.
But the 2.3 percent growth just announced is down from the 4.6 percent growth experienced in the second quarter of 2014.
The real GDP measure of 2.3 percent represents the Bureau’s “advance” estimate, which is based on incomplete source data. A second, more detailed estimate will be released on Aug. 27, 2015. Real GDP is adjusted for inflation and represents the value of the production of goods and services in the United States.
BEA says the increase in real GDP was due to personal consumption expenditures, exports, government spending, and residential fixed investment. According to BEA, these were offset by negative contributions from federal government spending, private inventory investment, and nonresidential fixed investment.
Economists predicted that real GDP would rise by 2.7 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal. “A reading much lower than that could renew concerns about the economy’s underlying momentum heading into the second half of the year,” WSJ stated.
In its release, BEA also explained the implementation of calculating a new measure of the economy, the average of GDP and gross domestic income (GDI). This average increased 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2015 and estimates for the second quarter will be available next month.
GDI measures things such as employee compensation, corporate profits, and small business income.
According to BEA,GDI is “the sum of the income earned—by labor (compensation of employees), by governments (taxes on production and imports less subsidies), and by entrepreneurs (net operating surplus, which is a profits-like measure for private enterprises, and for government enterprises)—and the consumption of fixed capital.”
BEA says the aggregate of these two measures GDP and GDI will facilitate the analysis of macroeconomic trends.
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A retired Navy commander and former spokesman for the Pentagon is blowing the whistle on the falsities dispersed by the Obama administration in regards to its effort to shutter the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
J.D. Gordon, who worked as Pentagon spokesman from 2005 to 2009, penned an op-ed for The Hill during which he pointed out the details of the prison’s impending closure that President Obama and his national security advisers have been concealing.
First, Gordon argued that the current 116 detainees–half of whom are designated with indefinite detention status and a third of whom are confirmed or believed to be returning to terrorism–could go free in the United States.
“Our courts will have the final say on whether they remain locked up, not the administration,” Gordon explained. “And if other countries won’t take them, they could just walk out of jail. Detainees don’t have to escape from Supermax if judges let them out.”
The former Navy commander also slammed Obama for purposely keeping costs of maintaining the Guantanamo Bay prison at lofty heights:
The White House is also misleading about Gitmo’s cost, claiming $3 million per detainee, per year. Yet they don’t mention the primary expense is 2,000 troops guarding them, providing legal services and medical care. That’s the same number deployed to handle the total of 780 detainees, so it’s deliberate overkill. Taken together with 4 catered halal meals a day, Ramadan feasts with roasted meats and imported dates, expensive exercise equipment, Wii-fits, satellite TV, etc. Obama deliberately keeps that cost high to score political talking points.
Gordon also estimated that Obama has designs on returning the military base to Cuba, stressing that White House officials have “zero credibility” when they insist that they will not bend to Raul Castro’sdemand for the Naval Base.
The American people cannot, Gordon asserted, “trust anything” the administration says on the issue. He labeled the intent to shutter the prison and deliver it to Cuba a part of Obama’s effort to enact “hope and change.”
“He extends olive branches to terrorists and appeases dictators for little to nothing in return, designed to usher in a new, post-U.S. superpower status era,” Gordon concluded. “As America gets weaker with $1 trillion in defense cuts, our enemies get stronger.”
As Obama pushes to close Guantanamo Bay before he leaves office, the Army is gearing up to cut 40,000 troops and lay off 17,000 civilian employees over the next two years.
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Navy Adm. John Richardson, the nominee to be the next Chief of Naval Operations, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday that there were “other options besides going to war” if the Iran nuclear deal was not signed.
The remarks contradict Obama administration rhetoric that rejection of the deal would lead to war. At a press conference July 15, Obama said, “Either the issue of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is resolved diplomatically through a negotiation, or it’s resolved through force, through war.”
Richardson made the remarks while being questioned by Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa).
“We do not have to sign this agreement, and that does not necessarily mean that we will be going to war with Iran,” Ernst said. “Is that your assessment?”
“Ma’am, I do support whole-of-government approach and–” he said before Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) cut in.
“Admiral, you were just asked to give your personal opinion if asked for it,” McCain said. “The senator is asking for your opinion as to whether there are other options besides going to war with Iran.”
“I think that there are other options besides going to war,” Richardson said.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey expressed a similar opinion during his testimony Wednesday, telling Ernst there were a “range of options” besides war and the current nuclear deal.
Fox News correspondent Catherine Herridge reported Thursday that members of the intelligence community are worried about the lack of response to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack from the Obama administration.
The Obama administration has yet to confirmthat the Chinese government was responsible for the hack.
“Unlike Sony, where the White House publicly identified North Korea, for OPM the President’s team including counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco have made it clear they will not call out China because it might reveal sources and methods,” Herridge said.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) said the United States’ lack of response would embolden others to attack.
“According to the Defense Department, attribution is the key element of deterrence,” Sasse said. “If you don’t admit it’s a big deal and who did it, you embolden lots more attackers.”
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the next wave of cyber attacks would include data manipulation and deletion.
“The next wave will be data deletions and manipulation that will also be damaging, but as this progresses and people get, they will push the envelope and whether nation states are hacked or individuals, we will so more and more aggressiveness.”
Herridge said that the information of more than 22 million people was compromised in the OPM data breach.
President Obama’s recent trip to Kenya and Ethiopia ran taxpayers roughly $6 million on roundtrip air transportation alone.
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation conducted a study based on presidential travel abroad and determined the cost of the trip using total flight time and costs per hour to fly Air Force One.
The Washington Examiner reports:
The taxpayer watchdog group determined that Obama’s trip from Joint Base Andrews to Nairobi, Kenya, then to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia then home today has a total flight time of 29 hours.The Air Force recently told Judicial Watch that it cost $206,337 an hour to fly Air Force One, putting the price just for Obama’s jet at $5,983,773, said NTUF. Not included are the many millions more for lodging, security, communications and the prepositioning of cars, vans and aircraft for the president.Study author and policy analyst Michael Tasselmyer said, “While flight costs can be estimated, the rest of the expenses associated with travel, including security, lodging, food, and more, not just for the president and Air Force One, but additional staff and airplanes, remains opaque.”
The National Taxpayer Union Foundation also concluded that President Obama has now tied Bill Clinton for most international travel–with 41 trips–by their seventh year in office. Obama’s top destinations include Mexico and France, having visited each five times.
George W. Bush, by comparison, took 38 international trips at this point in his presidency. Reagan took 21.
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The migrants, estimated to number around 200 by an Associated Press journalist, faced off for close to an hour with security forces, chanting slogans including: "Open the border" and "We are not animals."
The aerobatics show was part of the International Army Games, competitions involving troops from Russia and several other nations at shooting ranges across Russia.
Those killed included the group's leader, who was accused of staging December's attack in Chechnya's provincial capital, Grozny, which left 25 people dead.
U.S. pressure has finally brought Turkey to the frontline of the war on Islamic State, but only at the risk of alienating another key member of the coalition.
Cerner Wins Bid to Redo Health Data by By JULIE CRESWELL
The contract aims to let the Defense Department and the Veterans Affairs Department electronically transmit records to each other, a function they currently cannot do.
U.S. Decides to Retaliate Against China’s Hackingby By DAVID E. SANGER
The Obama administration decided a response was needed after the Chinese stole data on 20 million Americans from the Office of Personnel Management.
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Rivals of ISIS Attack U.S.-Backed Syrian Rebel Groupby By ANNE BARNARD and ERIC SCHMITT
The members trained by the United States to take on the Islamic State found themselves fighting off an attack from another Islamist faction.
Kerry, in Egypt, Discusses Balancing Human Rights and Terror Fight by By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Secretary of State John Kerry told the Egyptian authorities on Sunday that they would not be able to defeat terrorism at home unless they showed greater respect for human rights.
Mr. Fattah, Democrat of Pennsylvania, was indicted by the federal authorities in connection with bribery schemes and the misuse of federal, charitable and campaign funds.
Man From Buffalo Area Is Charged With Trying to Aid ISISby By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Arafat M. Nagi, from Lackawanna, N.Y., is the latest to be accused of trying to support a terrorist group; he faces up to 15 years in prison.Family of Man Killed by Rogue Detectives Settles Suit for $5 Million by By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Israel Greenwald was killed in 1986 by two New York Police detectives known as the “mafia cops,” Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito. His body was not found until 2005.
Russia continues to surprise observers by its actions to counter the threat of the Islamic State (IS). Notably, Russian authorities recently updated the list of Islamic organizations that could harm the Russian Federation. The list is interesting because it includes organizations that disappeared more than ten years ago. For example, it is unclear why the High Military Council of the Joint Forces of Mujahideen of the Caucasus is still on the list even though it disappeared back in 2007, when the Caucasus Emirate was proclaimed. Another organization, the Congress of the Peoples of Ichkeria and Dagestan, ceased to exist after the start of the second Russian-Chechen war, in the fall of 1999 (Ntv.ru, February 27), but it is still on the list. One has the impression that the Russian authorities do not know that these organizations disappeared a long time ago. It is understandable why the Caucasus Emirate, which is still around, has made the list. It also makes sense to include the terrorist organization Islamic State on the list of Islamic extremist organizations, even with a lag of two years. Still the logic behind the inclusion of some of the other existing groups is not entirely clear. For example, it is hard to understand why the Syrian organization Jabhat al-Nusra, which is not believed to harbor any plans against Russia, was put on the list.
Despite its shortcomings, the updated list of organizations that pose a threat indicates Russian priorities at the moment. The steps taken by Russian authorities to prevent the ideas of IS supporters from spreading in the country are quite similar to Russian policies taken toward Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) over the past twenty years (Kavkazsky Uzel, July 30, 2014).
In the worst traditions of the Soviet past, “peaceful” citizens wrote an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dagestan’s Governor Ramazan Abdulatipov and Dagestan’s Interior Minister Abdurashid Magomedov, to close down the mosque in the Aeroport area of the southern Dagestani city of Derbent, on the border with Azerbaijan. The authors of the appeal claimed the mosque was a Salafist establishment that spread the ideas of the Islamic State (Kavkazsky Uzel, July 23).
The appeal’s signatories, seven women, were naturally anonymous, so that even the Dagestani interior ministry could not find out who they are and whether they even exist. Gajirasul, the imam of the mosque, which is indeed a Salafist mosque, denied that the outflow of young people to join IS was related to attending his place of worship. According to Gajirasul, surveillance cameras are installed inside the building; and even though arrests have been quite frequent in the mosque, no accusations have ever been introduced against it. Up to 1,500 people from Derbent attend the mosque, which attracts the authorities’ attention. The authorities equate Salafism with IS, which is obviously not the case.
On July 25, continuing its traditions in combatting Islamic radicalism, the Russian police, jointly with the Federal Security Service (FSB), made arrests at a mosque in Balashikha, near Moscow (Newsru.com, July 24). More than 30 individuals were arrested on suspicion of disseminating extremist material and recruiting for the Islamic State. The detained individuals were of various nationalities—Russians, Tajiks, Chechens, Uzbeks and others. Following the search of the mosque, which lasted about four hours, everyone inside was taken to the police station. One officer in the police cordon said the detained individuals may have been involved with IS, but all those arrested were later released. However, the Russian neighbors of the mosque are unlikely to forget the police operation and will regard the Muslims who worship there as potential terrorists.
A statement made by the Russian security services about killing IS militants in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, which was circulated by the mainstream Russian media, is also dubious. On July 23, the security services killed six people in an apartment block in Nalchik. The connection between the slain rebels and IS was made on the basis of “a 1.5-kilogram homemade bomb, which was used by IS militants in Syria” (Interfax, July 24).
The authorities seem to be saying that the members of the former Caucasus Emirate, and now of the Islamic State’s North Caucasus branch, did not know how to make bombs until IS taught them! It was clear from the onset of the special operation in Nalchik that it was designed to kill those who may have been involved in the July 14 murder of Marat Tokov, an official with the republican prosecutor general’s office. Tokov served in the department for combating extremism (Kommersant, July 24).
The police must have been ordered to draw a link between the six slain individuals and IS. From now on, every slain suspected rebel will be presented as someone with ties to one of the most radical Islamic organizations in the world in order to show the Russian government is successfully battling IS. However, if the Russian security services have their way, all Muslims who do not submit to the official muftis and imams will automatically be considered suspicious characters. That is why the Salafists want to set up their own mosques and elect their own imams, rather than have an imam appointed by the authorities. If every Salafist who rejects the official Russian Muslim clergy is regarded as a suspect, the number of suspect Muslims across Russia could grow from the thousands into the hundreds of thousands.
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