| 2020 Vision: Hillary Clinton thinks Russia will back Tulsi Gabbard to help Trump stay in power Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:11 PM PDT  "This is not some outlandish claim," Clinton said in an interview this week. "This is reality."
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| Atomwaffen Division’s Washington State Cell Leader Stripped of Arsenal in U.S., Banned from Canada Posted: 19 Oct 2019 02:13 AM PDT  Police HandoutKaleb James Cole, the 24-year-old leader of Atomwaffen Division's Washington State Cell stripped of his firearms by a "red-flag law" late last month, was deported and banned for life from Canada earlier this year, according to court records, which also showed that he had been previously interrogated by American border agents about his extremist views.Cole, a National Socialist black metal enthusiast who goes by the alias "Khimaere," was first identified as a member of Atomwaffen Division in a 2018 ProPublica investigation. He played a key role in organizing "hate camp" trainings for the group's members at an abandoned building known as "Devil's Tower" in Skagit, Washington, and in Nevada's Death Valley. Cole also helped craft the group's eye-catching propaganda.Atomwaffen Division is an underground neo-Nazi guerrilla organization which had 23 chapters throughout the United States as of mid-2018. Since its inception in 2015, Atomwaffen members have been implicated in five homicides and several bomb plots, and are the subject of an intensifying national investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It makes common cause with other militant fascist groups like the Base and Sonnenkrieg Division in the United Kingdom, where authorities have charged a number of members with terrorism-related offenses.As The Daily Beast reported, the Seattle Police Department obtained an "Extreme Risk Protection Order" against Cole on September 26 to confiscate his concealed carry firearms permit and any firearms he owned for at least a year. That same day, SPD seized five rifles, a shotgun, three semiautomatic handguns and four lower receivers (the firing mechanism of a rifle that can be used to craft untraceable 'ghost guns') from Cole's father's house outside Arlington, in Washington State's Snohomish County.According to court records, none of the guns or the lower receivers seized from Cole were registered in Washington State's licensed firearms database."Law enforcement officials are increasingly concerned about the respondent's access to firearms and his involvement in the Atomwaffen Division, a known terrorist group," Seattle Police Sergeant Dorothy Kim wrote in a petition for an Extreme Risk Protection Order. As further evidence, Sgt. Kim cited Atomwaffen Division propaganda calling for "Race War Now," and the group's adherence to "acceleration theory," which urges actions that undermine the existing social order to "exacerbate the feeling of alienation among white supremacists and a greater impulse to engage in violence or destructive behavior."Cole's "words, actions and behavior suggest he has taken additional steps towards a plan with his ideologically motivated violence. Specifically, the coordinated camps with firearms training, overseas travel with Atomwaffen paraphernalia-flags/skull masks, threats to kill (gas the Kikes) and the possession of firearms, suggest an imminent risk to public safety if Cole is permitted to continue to purchase or possess firearms," Sergeant Kim wrote.The request to seize Cole's guns was reportedly made to Seattle Police by the FBI, which did not have enough information to file criminal charges but believed Cole posed a serious threat to public safety.Multiple law enforcement sources told The Daily Beast that Cole had been the target of an FBI investigation following his February 2018 identification by ProPublica. However, law enforcement made no contact with him until December 28, 2018, when Cole landed in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on a flight from London. Customs and Border Protection pulled Cole aside for secondary screening. Records of that interview were included by the Seattle Police Department in their emergency risk petition last month.During the interview, Cole told CBP agents he had traveled to the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine with two friends from Washington State, Aidan Bruce-Umbaugh and Edie Allison Moore. The trip, Cole said, was to "see the historic architecture and museums in Eastern European countries." The three also attended a heavy metal festival while in Kyiv. The 2018 edition of Asgardsrei, a festival several National Socialist black metal bands have played in the past, was held in Kyiv from December 15-16 last year. Photographs from the concert posted to social media show an Atomwaffen Division flag brandished by individuals in the crowd. According to information obtained by The Daily Beast, Aidan Bruce-Umbaugh is a member of the Washington State cell of Atomwaffen Division, and goes by the moniker "Nythra." The drummer for Kaleb Cole's old metal band, Operblut, is listed as "Nythra" on music websites. In the CBP interview, Cole told federal agents he and Bruce-Umbaugh had been friends since grade school.Border agents searched Cole's luggage, and found a skull mask balaclava and an Atomwaffen Division flag inside his bag. When questioned about press reports tying him to Atomwaffen Division, Cole admitted to his involvement with the group and stated that he "shares a Fascist ideology, 'strong dominate the weak'." He also admitted he owned an AK-47 and multiple handguns "for his own protection."Cole's phone was also searched by border agents, who downloaded several images from the device. Amongst them are a photograph of Cole and another man wearing skull mask balaclavas in front of the gates of Auschwitz, the death camp where the Nazis murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews. Images of him posing with other Atomwaffen members, firearms, and the group's flag were also recovered from Cole's phone.According to multiple sources close to law enforcement, Cole previously attracted the interest of Canadian authorities by frequently driving across the border to British Columbia, sometimes several times a week. In late May, Cole was detained by the Canadian Border Service Agency because of press reports linking him to Atomwaffen Division, as well as "his overseas travel to Ukraine," where several right-wing extremists have traveled to fight with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion against Russia-backed separatists.According to court records, he was held by Canadian authorities and placed into deportation proceedings due to his involvement in "an organization that may engage in terrorism," per Section 34 [1][F] of the Canadian Immigration Code. According to records prepared by the Seattle Police Department, Cole was deported in July and "barred from Canada for life."The Canadian Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police both declined to comment on Cole's deportation, the Atomwaffen Division or its affiliated organizations in Canada, citing the restrictions of Canada's Privacy Act. Earlier this year, Patrik Mathews, a master corporal in the Canadian Military Reserve went AWOL after being identified as a recruiter for the Base. Mathews—who reportedly came to the attention of multiple Canadian security agencies because racist material was previously found by the Canadian Border Services Agency in his car while crossing the border with the United States—is still at large.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| The Chicago teachers' strike shows how to go on offense against neoliberalism Posted: 19 Oct 2019 03:00 AM PDT  Chicago teachers led the battle against destructive reforms seven years ago – now they're showing all working people left behind by cuts how to fight'Together, the coordinated strikes have put more than 30,000 workers on the picket lines – more than 1% of the city's population.' Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft MediaIn 2012, when Chicago teachers walked off the job in their first strike in 25 years, the cards were stacked against them, nationally and locally. Today, they're on strike again – and on the offense against austerity.Seven years ago, Rahm Emanuel had just been elected mayor and was looking to deal the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), who he saw as a barrier to privatizing the city's education system, a crushing defeat. That agenda was shared by both Republicans and Democrats across the country, with a barrage of attacks on teachers' unions, devastating budget cuts to schools and charter school networks – intended to undercut public schools and do an end run around their unions – rapidly multiplying.Yet after electing a new militant leadership in 2010 that pledged to fight not just for bread-and-butter issues like higher pay but a broad agenda of "educational justice" and opposition to austerity, Chicago teachers won that strike, inspiring educators and workers of all kinds across the country – and planting the seeds of future unrest in schools across West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Oakland, Denver and elsewhere, in the teachers' strike wave that kicked off last year.Chicago teachers are again on strike, now against the recently elected mayor, Lori Lightfoot. As in 2012, their demands are focused on burning issues in their schools and the city as a whole rather than simply wages and benefits (a strategy that has been called "bargaining for the common good"). And they're waging that fight alongside another striking union, SEIU Local 73, which represents bus aides, janitors, classroom assistants and other school staff – many of whom earn below-poverty wages.CTU's staffing demands are straightforward: a nurse, counselor, librarian and social worker in every school. The current ratio of students to counselors, nurses and social workers in Chicago public schools (CPS) far exceeds professional association recommendations. The National Association of School Psychologists recommends one psychologist for every 700 students; last year, each CPS psychologist served 1,760. For nurses, the ratio is four times what is recommended; for social workers, nearly five times. The union is also demanding enforceable caps so that classes aren't overcrowded, which CTU says is the case in nearly a quarter of all Chicago classrooms.The union is also connecting its bargaining to the city's affordable housing crisis, demanding housing assistance for both its members and its students, nearly 16,000 of whom experience homelessness. The op-ed pages of the city's newspapers have upbraided this proposal, but CTU argues that "to fully support our public schools, we must address the lack of sustainable, affordable housing in our city" – a problem faced by cities throughout the country.CTU is breaking new ground, both in the kinds of broad working-class demands it is putting forward and by striking alongside SEIU Local 73. Together, the coordinated strikes have put more than 30,000 workers on the picket lines – more than 1% of the city's population. Yesterday, a sea of CTU red and SEIU purple swarmed the city's downtown in the afternoon, with thousands on the streets for a mass march after morning school pickets.The union is up against Lightfoot, a political newcomer who won office earlier this year by campaigning as a progressive and running on an education agenda that borrowed heavily from CTU's: an elected school board rather than one appointed by the mayor, a freeze on charter expansion and major investments in public schools. But Lightfoot's progressive posturing is now running up against tens of thousands striking Chicago teachers and staff who want more than progressive rhetoric – they want hard commitments, put in writing and legally enforceable through their contract.If she continues to balk at union demands at the bargaining table, Lightfoot will probably see the goodwill she has maintained from average Chicagoans since taking office disappear. The signs don't look good for her: a Chicago Sun-Times poll conducted just before the strike shows that the public is backing the CTU over the mayor and school board. The same was true for Rahm Emanuel in 2012.Critics on the school board and in mainstream media have responded with the common refrain that Chicago is broke and can't afford such demands. But Chicago is awash in wealth – enough for Lightfoot to approve the giveaway of $1.3bn in public money to luxury real estate firm Sterling Bay for the mega-development project Lincoln Yards. CTU has long argued that the way to pay for their demands is clear: end these corporate giveaways and tax the rich.The nationwide neoliberal education reform movement was on the march when CTU struck in 2012. But after numerous corruption scandals, growing charter school unionization and strikes, and teacher walk-offs in states throughout the country, that movement is on its heels. Just as the Democratic party has been forced to at least feint left on issues like Medicare for All and free public college tuition because of Bernie Sanders's presidential campaigns, the party has been forced to back off of its most fervent support for corporate education reform.Chicago teachers led the way in the fight against these destructive reforms seven years ago. Today, they're showing educators around the country how to fight not only for themselves, but for all working people who have been left behind by budget cuts and the dismantling of the public sector.The education policy scholar Pauline Lipman once described Chicago as "the incubator, test case and model for the neoliberal urban education agenda". This week, teachers are working to make sure Chicago is where that agenda ends. * Miles Kampf-Lassin is an editor at In These Times. * Micah Uetricht is the managing editor of Jacobin and host of its podcast The Vast Majority. He is the author of Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity and coauthor of the forthcoming Bigger Than Bernie: How We Go From the Sanders Campaign to Political Revolution in Our Lifetimes
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| Mexico deports 311 Indian nationals in 'unprecedented' move Posted: 18 Oct 2019 07:17 AM PDT  More than 300 Indian nationals who paid tens of thousands of dollars each trying to get into the United States arrived in New Delhi Friday after an "unprecedented" mass deportation by Mexico. The move, which saw those deported flown back to the capital on a charter flight, follows a deal on illegal migration struck between Mexico and US President Donald Trump in June. The only woman in the group of 311 people, Kamaljit Kaur, 34, told the Press Trust of India news agency she spent 5.3 million rupees ($74,500) for herself, her husband and her son.
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| Israel, Russia, and the US are in a diplomatic standoff over a 26-year-old woman smuggling 9 and a half grams of marijuana Posted: 19 Oct 2019 10:54 AM PDT  Naama Issachar, 26, was sentenced to 7.5 years of prison in Moscow, and negotiating her release is part of a bigger diplomatic dispute.
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| U.S. ground troops will not enforce Syria safe zone: defense secretary Posted: 18 Oct 2019 10:53 AM PDT  Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan earlier on Friday said Turkey will set up a dozen observation posts across northeast Syria, insisting that a planned "safe zone" will extend much further than U.S. officials said was covered under a fragile ceasefire deal.
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| Could France and Germany Jointly Build an EU Aircraft Carrier? Posted: 18 Oct 2019 08:00 PM PDT  All in all, a European carrier will only come about in a world where Germany is willing and able to commit far more resources to defense than it currently does; and can arrive at a joint vision with France on how to use such an expensive vessel to project force abroad. That's not the world we live in yet.
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| Next-Gen Dodge Challenger Coming in 2023? Don't Be So Sure, Says Dodge Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:40 PM PDT  The number 2023 spotted on press photos has people all excited, but Dodge told C/D it doesn't mean anything.
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| 38 people cited for violations in Clinton email probe Posted: 18 Oct 2019 01:42 PM PDT  The State Department has completed its internal investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of private email and found violations by 38 people, some of whom may face disciplinary action. The investigation, launched more than three years ago, determined that those 38 people were "culpable" in 91 cases of sending classified information that ended up in Clinton's personal email, according to a letter sent to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley this week. The 38 are current and former State Department officials but were not identified.
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| Hong Kong democracy activist injured in knife attack Posted: 19 Oct 2019 12:12 PM PDT  A man handing out leaflets for a Hong Kong pro-democracy protest was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant who slashed his neck and abdomen on Saturday, days after a leading activist was left bloodied in another street attack. The injured 19-year-old, wearing black clothes and a black face mask, was knifed near one of the large "Lennon Walls" that have sprung up around the city during months of demonstrations, police said. Footage posted on social media showed another man holding a knife shortly after the attack and shouting: "Hong Kong is part of China... (You) messed up Hong Kong".
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| South Korean Students Break Into U.S. Ambassador’s Residence Posted: 18 Oct 2019 10:27 PM PDT ![South Korean Students Break Into U.S. Ambassador's Residence]( "South Korean Students Break Into U.S. Ambassador's Residence") (Bloomberg) -- A group of South Korean students broke into the residence of American ambassador Harry Harris on Friday, in a protest against Donald Trump's campaign to get the Asian nation to pay more for U.S. military support.Nineteen students, who described themselves as members of a liberal university students' group, were detained by police after staging a protest against plans to impose a bigger financial burden for the stationing of U.S. troops in the country, the Yonhap News Agency reported.The students used a ladder to climb the walls of the ambassador's residence, next to an old South Korean palace, and urged Harris to leave the country.The incident happened days before officials from the U.S. and South Korea are due to meet in Honolulu for the next round of talks on sharing defense costs.After the incident, Seoul police dispatched 80 more officers to beef up security of the envoy's home, according to Yonhap.Earlier this year, the two allies reached a one-year cost-sharing deal for maintaining about 28,500 American troops in South Korea. That deal expires at the end of 2019.The relationship between the two allies soured after Seoul abruptly announced the termination of a three-year-old pact with Japan -- another U.S. key ally -- for exchanging classified military information. That was in response to Japan's move to restrict exports of key materials for the manufacture of semiconductors to South Korea.To contact the reporters on this story: Kanga Kong in Seoul at kkong50@bloomberg.net;Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, Marcus Wright, Jasmine NgFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Archaeologists have located an ancient city hidden in the Cambodian jungle. The discovery was 150 years in the making. Posted: 18 Oct 2019 08:45 AM PDT  For centuries, the ancient city of Mahendraparvata has been covered by dense trees that make it hard to observe.
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| UPDATE 1-Mexico flies 300 Indian migrants to New Delhi in 'unprecedented' mass deportation Posted: 18 Oct 2019 01:27 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Mexico flies 300 Indian migrants to New Delhi in 'unprecedented' mass deportation]( "UPDATE 1-Mexico flies 300 Indian migrants to New Delhi in 'unprecedented' mass deportation") MEXICO CITY/NEW DELHI Oct 17 (Reuters) - Mexico has deported over 300 Indian nationals to New Delhi, the National Migration Institute (INM) said late on Wednesday, calling it an unprecedented transatlantic deportation. The move follows a deal Mexico struck with the United States in June, vowing to significantly curb U.S.-bound migration in exchange for averting U.S. tariffs on Mexican exports. "It is unprecedented in INM's history - in either form or the number of people - for a transatlantic air transport like the one carried out on this day," INM said in a statement.
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| Why Did 3 U.S. Navy Submarines Surface In The Pacific In 2010? China. Posted: 19 Oct 2019 03:00 AM PDT  Submarines are useful for signaling intent.
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| McConnell rebukes Trump administration: Syria withdrawal is a 'grave strategic mistake' Posted: 18 Oct 2019 04:55 PM PDT  The Senate majority leader never mentions President Donald Trump by name in his op-ed for the Washington Post.
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| Hondurans call for president to step down after drug verdict Posted: 19 Oct 2019 01:28 PM PDT  Opposition groups called Saturday for continuing protests to demand that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández be removed from office after his younger brother was convicted of drug trafficking in a New York court. President Hernández insisted via Twitter that the verdict is not against the state of Honduras, saying his government has fought drug trafficking. On Saturday he attended a parade to honor the country's armed forces and posted pictures of himself on Twitter smiling alongside the U.S. chargé d'affaires to Honduras, Colleen Hoey.
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| Protest Leaders Ignore Ban, Call for March: Hong Kong Update Posted: 19 Oct 2019 03:09 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong protest organizers said they would lead demonstrators through Kowloon on Sunday in a march despite losing an appeal against a police ban on the procession.The Appeal Board on Public Meetings and Processions supported the police's refusal to approve the march because of the potential for violence, Radio Television Hong Kong reported. The rally was originally called to protest a government ban on masks and comes after Wednesday's attack on Civil Human Rights Front's organizer Jimmy Sham by hammer-wielding thugs in Mong Kok.Protesters are seeking to keep the pressure on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam with a 20th straight weekend of demonstrations. Earlier this week, Lam was twice shouted down in the city's legislature by opposition lawmakers as she discussed her annual policy address.The protests began in opposition to Lam's since-scrapped bill allowing extraditions to mainland China and have expanded to include calls for greater democracy and an independent inquiry. The unrest has turned increasingly violent, with frequent clashes between protesters and police.Here's the latest (all times local):March to go ahead (5:17 p.m.)Civil Human Rights Front convener Figo Chan said he will lead a march Sunday along the route originally planned and he will be joined by other prominent pro-democracy activists including Leung Kwok-hung, Albert Ho and Cyd Ho, RTHK reported.Demonstrators planned to walk from Tsim Sha Tsui to the express rail terminus in West Kowloon before the police banned the march. The protesters could face arrest, but all of the city's protests have had to deal with risks, whether they received police permission or not, RTHK cited Chan as saying.March ban upheld (2:30 p.m.)Hong Kong protesters lost an appeal against the police ban of their planned march on Sunday through Tsim Sha Tsui on concern about violence, RTHK reported.Organizers had planned to march through Tsim Sha Tsui to the west side of the district, where the high-speed train station to mainland China is located. Civil Human Rights Front Sham was one of the organizers of the event.Despite the police ban, protesters could still go ahead with the march. Activists mostly ignore restrictions on their gatherings and have continued to show up at events that lack police permits, with some devolving into violent clashes.On Friday night protesters formed human chains citywide, with everyone covering their faces in some way in defiance of the mask ban. People masqueraded as Disney characters, animals and super heroes, but the most popular mask was one of China President Xi Jinping. In Tsim Sha Tsui a long line of protesters linked hands, all wearing a facade of Xi's smiling face.Lam may reshuffle ExCo (1 p.m.)Chief Executive Lam said she would consider reorganizing the city's Executive Council, its de facto Cabinet, but would wait until protests had ended.The beleaguered leader of Hong Kong said on an RTHK radio program that she doesn't "blindly" support the actions of each officer but fully supports the force in enforcing the law. She urged people to wait for a report from Independent Police Complaints Council into the recent clashes, RTHK said. Lam again rejected calls for an independent inquiry into police brutality, the latest coming from Chinese University's vice-chancellor, Rocky Tuan.Taiwan gets letter (10:45 a.m.)Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau confirmed it had received a letter from the Hong Kong police offering assistance in the case of Chan Tong-kai, Central News Agency reported.There is no precedent for the cooperation and the Taiwan bureau will follow up with relevant departments for discussion, CNA reported.Homicide suspect to surrender himself to Taiwan (11:28 p.m.)Hong Kong's Chief Executive received a letter Friday from Chan Tong-kai, a Hong Kong man who's been accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend during a Valentine's Day trip to Taiwan, saying that he'd decided to surrender himself to Taiwan, according to a statement on the website of Hong Kong's government.Chan, who's currently serving a prison sentence for money laundering in a Hong Kong jail, "requested the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government to assist him in making the relevant arrangement," according to the statement.Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao Daily reported earlier on Friday, citing a person it didn't identify, that Chan made the decision after consulting with a pastor.Protesters march across city (1 p.m.)Demonstrators marched in the Central financial district on Hong Kong Island, temporarily blocking traffic, as well as in the Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok neighborhoods of Kowloon. Some carried a banner calling on the Hong Kong government to agree to their five demands, which include an independent inquiry into police violence, an amnesty for arrested protesters and greater democratic freedoms.Police deny weekend permit (12:30 p.m.)Hong Kong police denied a protest permit for the Civil Human Rights Front's planned march in Kowloon on Sunday. The group -- whose organizer Jimmy Sham was hospitalized this week -- has been behind some of the largest protests during the last five months, including a few that have drawn over one million people. In many cases, protesters have continued to show up at events that lack police permits, with some devolving into violent clashes with police.\--With assistance from Dominic Lau.To contact the reporter on this story: Iain Marlow in Hong Kong at imarlow1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Stanley JamesFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Archaeologists discover hidden city in the jungle Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:08 PM PDT  For centuries, the ancient city of Mahendraparvata has been buried under a dense canopy in the Cambodian jungle. It was one of the first capitals of the Khmer Empire, which controlled large swaths of Southeast Asia from the 9th to 15th centuries. Over the last 150 years, archaeologists have uncovered artifacts that they suspected came from Mahendraparvata, but they didn't have enough evidence to support the link — until now.
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| Trump news – live: President ‘not happy’ over chief of staff's stunning Ukraine admission as next impeachment deadline arrives Posted: 18 Oct 2019 03:51 AM PDT  Donald Trump is said to be "not happy" after his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, appeared to confirm the US had withheld military aid to Ukraine for political purposes, acknowledging the quid pro quo Democrats pursuing the president's impeachment have sought to prove.While Mr Trump was quick to hail the ceasefire his vice president Mike Pence agreed with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara over the Syria crisis, his DC rivals denounced the measure as a "sham" as the fighting continued between the Turkish military and the Syrian Democratic Forces.
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| Egypt unveils biggest ancient coffin find in over a century Posted: 19 Oct 2019 06:08 AM PDT  Egypt on Saturday unveiled the details of 30 ancient wooden coffins with mummies inside discovered in the southern city of Luxor in the biggest find of its kind in more than a century. A team of Egyptian archaeologists discovered a "distinctive group of 30 colored wooden coffins for men, women and children" in a cache at Al-Asasif cemetery on Luxor's west bank, the Ministry of Antiquities said in a statement on Saturday. "It is the first large human coffin cache ever discovered since the end of the 19th century," the Egyptian Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Enany was quoted as saying during a ceremony in Luxor.
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| India's Nuclear Weapons Arsenal Keeps Getting Bigger and Bigger Posted: 19 Oct 2019 11:30 AM PDT  A large arsenal in a dangerous part of the world.
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| The Endgame in Syria Posted: 19 Oct 2019 03:30 AM PDT  "The slaughter going on in Syria is not a consequence of American presence. It's a consequence of a withdrawal and a betrayal by this president of American allies and American values." —Pete Buttigieg, October 15Mr. Mayor has a point. For 75 years, from Fulda Gap to the 38th parallel, the American soldier has been the last line of defense against violence, chaos, and oppression. From Kosovo to Anbar, he has kept a lid on cauldrons of bloodlust. Remove him, and the poison boils over.That is what happened when Congress reduced aid to South Vietnam in 1975. It is what followed U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. It is happening now in northeast Syria, and it will happen again when Americans leave Afghanistan. Our forces depart; our allies collapse; our adversaries take command.The pattern was established well before Donald Trump took office. It will persist after he departs. There is nothing so consistent as American ambivalence toward our superpower status. Most great powers covet hegemony. We hate it. The costs are too high, the demands too stressful."For every exercise of the great power's prerogative, there has been an equally strong recoiling from the use of power," wrote Robert Kagan in A Twilight Struggle (1996). "While the United States cannot escape behaving as the hegemonic great power, it is also a great power with a democratic conscience, a strong anti-imperialist streak, and an unwillingness to adopt the role of policeman anywhere for more than a brief time."Kagan was describing U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. He might as well have been talking about the Middle East.Trump is getting America out of a country we were never really in. Our presence in Syria was not enough to deter Turkey. One thousand troops do not constitute a tripwire. They are chips in a high-stakes game. Erdogan called the bluff.Our footprint was light because the last two administrations wanted it that way. That is why criticism of Trump's policy from left-wing non-interventionists and former Obama officials is ridiculous. Where were they when Assad killed hundreds of thousands of people, when he and Erdogan used migration to Europe as a weapon, when civilians were gassed, when ISIS formed, when Russia moved in? Did they think Syria was peachy keen up until Sunday, October 6? Are we really to take lectures from them on the value of forward presence?Americans have wanted out of the Greater Middle East for over a decade. Barack Obama promised to leave both Iraq and Afghanistan. He said Special Forces and drone strikes would maintain global security. It didn't work out that way. Terrorism spiked. The Arab Spring erupted. Obama was forced to intervene, leading from behind in Libya and desultorily aiding some rebel groups in Syria.Obama ended Moammar Qaddafi's regime but shied away from Bashar al-Assad's. The difference? Assad was an ally of Iran and Russia. To bring Damascus to heel would have endangered the chances of a nuclear agreement with Tehran.Obama was consistent in one respect. In Libya, Syria, and Iraq, American involvement was kept to a minimum. The results were the same in all three countries: state failure and civil war.The seeds of Trump's hasty exit from Syria were sown when the uprising began in 2011. The moment to act decisively was then. We did not. And we did not because there was no appetite, in either popular or elite circles, for another war in the Middle East. Political leadership followed public opinion.What a superpower does not do is as important as what it does do. America was content to fund a few rebels but otherwise leave Syria in the hands of others. Assad turned to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, and Iran. Russia saved him from reprisal after the gas attack in 2013 and again when rebels neared Damascus in 2015.By then, Obama had been forced to intervene against the caliphate established by ISIS in eastern Syria and western Iraq. But some red lines he stuck to. In his speech announcing the counterterrorism campaign in September 2014, Obama pledged, "We will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq." Our presence would be limited, our footprint light. Enough to defeat the terrorists, but not enough to make us targets. Or decisively affect the outcome of the Syrian war.If there is a place where America blinked, where America chose decline, where America's allies began to worry and America's retrenchment from Eurasia and pivot to East Asia began, it is Syria. We did so with open eyes and, until the last two weeks, an untroubled conscience. Not wanting to commit the resources necessary to build functioning states, we left Iraq, abandoned Libya, and turned a blind eye to Syria. Not willing to sacrifice Americans on additional fields of battle in the Long War against Islamic terrorism and the religious-political cultures that breed it, we withdrew that presence which guarantees the security of our partners.Pete Buttigieg is right to say that what is happening in Syria is a consequence of American withdrawal. But if what's happening is a betrayal of American values, it's one Americans voted for.
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| Boris Johnson Furious as Parliament Refuses to Be Bounced Into Brexit Deal Posted: 19 Oct 2019 07:07 AM PDT  REUTERSLONDON—Boris Johnson was left raging on Saturday as lawmakers forced the prime minister to seek yet another Brexit delay from the European Union. The extremely rare parliamentary vote taken on a Saturday did not reject Johnson's compromise deal with the EU outright, it merely demanded more time for the deal to be examined and inserted an additional failsafe to stop Britain from slipping out of the EU without an agreed deal on Halloween.No. 10 was furious because Johnson has repeatedly promised to leave the EU by October 31, and that will now become more difficult. Brexit campaign insiders lamented the destruction of Johnson's "head of steam," and an end to the momentum created by his unlikely success in securing a deal from Europe. After another vote that went against Johnson last month, the prime minister is now legally mandated to write to the EU asking for an extension to January 31. The government formally asked for the extension Saturday night, but also sent a letter from Johnson arguing against the delay.EU Council President Donald Tusk said in a tweet that he had received the request. "I will now start consulting EU leaders on how to react," he said.Johnson is expected to bring the withdrawal legislation to the floor of the House of Commons early next week, so he may only have to wait a few days to secure victory but Labour opponents—and nervous No. 10 insiders—believe that potential support for the deal may ebb away once lawmakers get the chance to fully examine the fineprint.Just two days after Johnson was back-slapping European counterparts and clasping hands with fellow leaders, his precarious grip on power was underlined once again in a vote that went against him by 322 to 306.In response, Johnson stood up and said he would refuse to "negotiate" a further extension with the EU. He stopped short of saying he would refuse to comply with the law and send the extension letter, although he reiterated his hopes that the EU would not immediately grant an extension. "I don't think they'll be attracted by delay," he said.As lawmakers continued to debate the result, Johnson sat slumped on the frontbench shaking his head. It was a sharp contrast to his mood two days earlier. Tickled pink with the deal he had unexpectedly secured from the EU, Johnson had sought to rush back to Westminster and bounce parliament into agreeing. One of his own long-term colleagues, Sir Oliver Letwin, had other ideas. Letwin is a veteran Conservative right-winger who has been in the heart of Conservative thinking for decades. He was a member of Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street policy unit in the 1980s and entrusted by David Cameron to write the Tory manifesto in 2010.He was kicked out of the party last month by Johnson after voting to ensure there wouldn't be a No Deal Brexit. He exacted his revenge on Saturday by wrecking Johnson's chance for a victorious homecoming. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| 7 Things To Do With Your Old Smartphone Posted: 19 Oct 2019 12:00 PM PDT |
| Harry Dunn's family vow to expose 'cover up' as Foreign Office admit they asked police to delay passing on information Posted: 18 Oct 2019 05:41 AM PDT  The family of Harry Dunn have said they suspect the British government of colluding with the United States to "cover up" details of his death and renewed calls for police to extradite Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US intelligence agent accused of killing him. Radd Seiger, a spokesman for the family, said: "The search for justice has now expanded beyond simply Mrs Sacoolas' return, as important as that is. "The family is now concerned that there has been misconduct and a cover up on both sides of the Atlantic and they are intent on exposing it." The call came after Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, admitted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office asked police to delay informing the family that Mrs Sacoolas had left the country. Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Mr Raab said: "I know there was a delay and we were asked our opinion by the police, and I think an official from the Foreign Office said it would be helpful to have a day or two. "I know the police delayed a bit longer, and they are responsible for that." He added: "We have done everything we can within the law to clear the path so that justice can be done for the family and we will continue to do so." Mr Raab was speaking after ITV News reported there had been a been a ten-day delay between officers learning that Mrs Sacoolas had left the country and the family being told. Dominic Raab admitted FCO officials asked police to delay telling Harry Dunn's family that Anne Sacoolas had left the country Credit: Victoria Jones/PA Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, Harry's parents, told the Telegraph they felt that the British government had abandoned them, saying they believe the Foreign Office "just want us to go away and forget about it all". "We don't understand why," said Mr Dunn. "Harry has died in an accident, and we feel that nobody but us wants to get justice for him." They were due to fly back from the United States on Friday after a five day trip to plead with US officials to send Mrs Sacoolas back to the UK. The trip included a surprise meeting with Donald Trump at the White House, which the family say ended after he suggested an impromptu photo-opportunity meeting with Mrs Sacoolas in the Oval Office. Anne Sacoolas left the country after she allegedly collided with his motorbike near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on August 27 Mr Seiger said when they said they would only meet her on UK soil, Robert O'Brien, Mr Trump's national security adviser, said she would never return to Britain. Mrs Sacoolas is alleged to have been driving her right-hand drive Volvo on the wrong side of the road when her car hit Mr Dunn, who was riding his motorbike, on August 27. She and her husband Jonathan Sacoolas, a US intelligence officer, were spirited out of Britain on a private flight from a US air base after the incident. The 42 year old mother-of-three, claimed diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution despite not being on the official London diplomatic list. The Foreign Office confirmed however that Mrs Sacoolas and her husband, 43, were given diplomatic immunity prior to their arrival in the UK under the Vienna Convention. The immunity is extended to intelligence officers and other Americans working on military bases including RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire where the crash happened. Mr Seiger said the family did not accept that Mrs Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity and would be meeting with the chief constable of Northamptonshire police next week. The family has called on the force to charge Mrs Sacoolas and initiate extradition proceedings. Mr Seiger said he the family had told the FCO and US officials that they were prepared to "have a conversation" if there were security concerns related to Mr Sacoolas' work, but had been rebuffed. "If there is some good reason why this lady should have been recalled, the family would have been open to that discussion. But they just completely ignored us," he said.
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| Russia's Stealth Su-57 Is a Beast, But Can Russia Afford It? Posted: 19 Oct 2019 01:00 AM PDT  It's pretty expensive for Russia's flagging economy.
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| What Happens Next in Ecuador Posted: 18 Oct 2019 01:49 PM PDT  Protests erupted in Ecuador this past week. What do they mean for the country and its economy? Ian Bremmer breaks it down.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Porsche Macan Turbo Posted: 18 Oct 2019 11:29 AM PDT |
| Ousted Communist leader Zhao Ziyang is buried: family Posted: 19 Oct 2019 12:00 PM PDT  A former Chinese Communist Party leader ousted after he opposed the use of force to quell 1989 democracy protests was buried over a decade after he died, his family said, in a service ignored by state media. Zhao Ziyang, who is a revered figure among Chinese human rights defenders, is still a sensitive topic in the country, where commemorations of his death are held under tight surveillance or prevented altogether. There was no mention of his burial ceremony Friday on state media, and searching for his name on social media returned no results.
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| Nestor heads into Georgia after tornados damage Florida Posted: 19 Oct 2019 02:43 PM PDT  Nestor rushed into Georgia on Saturday as a post-tropical cyclone after the former tropical storm spawned a tornado that damaged homes and a school in central Florida but spared an area of the Florida Panhandle devastated one year ago by Hurricane Michael. The storm made landfall on St. Vincent Island, a nature preserve just off Florida's northern Gulf Coast in a lightly populated area of the state, the National Hurricane Center said. Nestor is now expected to bring 1 to 3 inches of rain to inland areas as it moves northeast across Georgia and then heads Sunday into the Carolinas before exiting into the Atlantic Ocean.
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| Pelosi’s Impeachment Express Posted: 18 Oct 2019 03:41 PM PDT  Nancy Pelosi is right."This is deadly serious," the House speaker said Tuesday, regarding impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Too bad Pelosi is handling this solemn matter with staggering unseriousness.As the Impeachment Express accelerates, the Democrat-controlled House is hell-bent on removing America's duly elected president of the United States. This is among the gravest contingencies in this constitutional republic.On something so momentous, the House should operate once again on a bipartisan basis: * Before President Bill Clinton was impeached, the House voted on October 8, 1998. The tally was 258–176 to advance an impeachment probe, with 31 Democrats resisting their party leaders. * At the depths of Watergate, on February 4, 1974, the House voted 410–4 — on a nearly unanimous, bipartisan basis — to launch the impeachment of President Richard Milhous Nixon. He resigned that August 9, before the House adopted articles of impeachment, but after the emergence of severely incriminating evidence of his illegality. (What a concept!) * The House also voted 126–47 to commence the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson on February 24, 1868.Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, hurled these precedents off the Golden Gate Bridge."There's no requirement that we have a vote," she declared Tuesday. "So, at this time, we will not be having a vote."True, despite these three powerful precedents, the Constitution does not compel a full-House vote to start the impeachment ball rolling. Regardless, Pelosi avoids this opening move because she might lose such a vote or, ultimately, her majority if she forced certain members to support a formal impeachment inquiry.Pelosi is speaker thanks to 31 Democrats who won districts in 2018 that Trump secured in 2016. These Trump-district Democrats fear, as does Nervous Nancy, that if they back an impeachment probe, some will face furious constituents, lose their seats, and hand the House back to Republicans.So, as she clutches to political control like a life preserver, Pelosi preserves the political lives of these 31 Democrats.Beyond this non-vote strategy, Pelosi and her far-Left colleagues have little interest in due process or first-grade-level fairness. These Democrats — the sorest losers in the history of human competition — lust to oust a president whose guts they hate, largely for the warm rush of doing so. Unlike the widely watched Nixon and Clinton impeachment hearings, Pelosi's persecution happens behind closed doors, with all the transparency of a casket. Trump's attorneys cannot cross-examine witnesses, present counter-evidence, or simply sit quietly and watch. Even worse, scheming Democrats have barred the American people from this star chamber.Democrats often whine that Trump flattens political norms. In fact, the norm-crushing steamroller finds Pelosi at the wheel, with House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam "Four Pinocchios" Schiff riding shotgun. Schiff, another California Democrat, is grilling impeachment witnesses in secret. If the House Judiciary Committee were in charge — as it was in the Clinton, Nixon, and Johnson impeachments — these perilous developments surely would unfold in public."We're going forward in the most secret room in the Capital. And all Adam Schiff is doing right now is building a secret record in his SCIF, in a one-sided process to move forward towards impeachment," Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Channel's Bill Hemmer this morning. (A SCIF is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. Such a high-tech space is designed to foil eavesdroppers, foreign and domestic.) "I think it's a very unfair process," McCaul added. "I think it's a bit of a fishing expedition at this time."Schiff's opening statement at a September 26 hearing included these comments, supposedly from Trump to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky:"I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand. Lots of dirt, on this and that," Schiff read aloud. "And don't call me again. I'll call you when you've done what I asked."Schiff fabricated these words. Caught red-handed, he claimed he spoke "at least part in parody."Hilarious.Zelensky repeatedly insists that he felt no such pressure to investigate alleged Biden-family corruption in Ukraine. At a joint September 25 news conference with President Trump at the United Nations, Zelensky said, "nobody pushed me." Zelensky said on October 10, "There was no pressure or blackmail from the U.S." He spoke during a 14-hour "press marathon" in Kiev, in which he answered unscripted questions from some 300 journalists who interviewed him in 20- to 30-minute sessions, in seven- to ten-member squads. "This call influenced only one thing. We needed to secure a meeting, that it was necessary to meet with the president," Zelensky added, referring to Trump. "I wanted to show him our team, our young team. I wanted to get him into Ukraine."Likewise, Trump did not threaten to withhold U.S. military aid, absent a Ukrainian probe of the Bidens. Though such assets were being withheld at the time, Ukrainian officials were reportedly unaware of this during the July 25 Trump/Zelensky phone call. Zelensky told journalists in Kiev on October 10: "I had no idea the military aid was held up." These weapons — which Obama never even offered — arrived not long after Trump and Zelensky conversed. Specifically, Zelensky and Vice President Mike Pence spoke in Warsaw on September 1. Zelensky explained: "And after this meeting, the U.S. unlocked the aid and added $140 million. That's why there was no blackmail." As Reuters reported, the Trump administration freed the military assistance to Kiev on September 11, thus bolstering Ukraine's defenses against Russia and refuting the lie that Trump is a Kremlin stooge."President Obama was sending you pillows and sheets," Trump told Zelensky at the U.N. "I gave you anti-tank busters."These facts should compel the House to abandon this self-indulgent nonsense and — radical idea — return to governing this republic, starting with a vote on the USMCA trade agreement among America, Mexico, and Canada. At a minimum, the whole House should vote on whether or not to shove America down this rocky path, adjudicate this matter in public, and stop basing these decisions on how best to insulate 31 Trump-district Democrats from the righteous rage of their own voters.Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece.
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| The U.S. Army And Marines Have a Plan To Take On China and Russia's Navies Posted: 19 Oct 2019 06:00 AM PDT  Dispersed attacks from land and sea.
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| Bernie Sanders draws thousands to rally in New York in comeback from heart attack Posted: 19 Oct 2019 04:21 PM PDT  U.S. presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders returned to the campaign trail in New York City on Saturday, three weeks after suffering a heart attack, and pledged to resume at full throttle his battle against the business and political establishment, including members of his own Democratic Party. Sanders, one of 19 Democrats fighting to take on Republican President Donald Trump at the polls in November 2020 was introduced by U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the leaders of the party's progressives and a frequent target of Trump's attacks.
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| U.K. serial killers had affair in prison, lawyer claims Posted: 19 Oct 2019 07:47 AM PDT  Notorious U.K. serial killers Rose West and Myra Hindley were lovers in prison, according to one of their former lawyers. West's ex-attorney Leo Goatley claimed his client fell for the Moors murderer in 1995 after they were both jailed in the hospital wing of Durham prison.
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| Michigan Farmers Suffered a Massive Apple and Pumpkin Heist, Losing Thousands of Dollars in Produce Posted: 19 Oct 2019 12:03 PM PDT  "This was not a one man job"
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