Fri 24 May 2013 14:44
While the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) wastes resources going after conservative groups that have committed no wrongdoing, a wealthy Indian tribe in south Florida cheats the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes from its lucrative gambling businesses.
Fri 24 May 2013 14:20
President Obama has preemptively rolled over and shown his belly to the newly elected leadership of Pakistan. A Taliban and Al Qaeda supported leadership that has vowed to push back on unrestricted US drone strike violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty.
After years of directing ever increasing CIA-run drone strikes, Obama has announced his intent to reel in both the frequency of such strikes and the CIA’s operational control of the President’s favorite form of lethal foreign policy. Obama’s speech yesterday described a bizarre dichotomy of praise for the success of such strikes while simultaneously announcing his avowed intent to severely limit future attacks.
Do you wonder why?
POTUS realizes that Pakistan is about to tell him to take his “Kill List” and shove it. The president has neither the spine nor effective emissaries for engaging in Realpolitik with Pakistan. He also doesn’t need more drama in the swamp while he’s up to his ass in recent scandal-driven alligators.
Thus, he has acquiesced to the inevitable and given our enemies exactly what they desire…a respite from one of the few effective means we have of targeting them in a lawless region. Of course “effective” is really a misnomer, as this administration (like Bill Clinton’s) has always favored form over function when it comes to application of military force. Obama prefers the appearance of decisive action (lobbing low risk kill shots from unmanned robots) over the tougher work of capturing live terrorists in order to more effectively destroy insurgent networks.
Obama and his inner circle have repeatedly ignored advice from military and intelligence professionals that you can’t Kill Your Way to Victory in the current War That Shall Not Be Named. The real solution to eviscerating networks of trans-national terrorists and insurgent groups is by application of nose-to-grindstone capture and interrogation of key enemy personalities. Capture is almost always more important than Kill in these cases. But capturing folks presents another political sticky wicket. Where to incarcerate them? Guantanamo and Special Renditions are rotting political albatrosses on the US home front, and anathema to the president’s own base. Then again, Barak Obama has no actual vision for Victory in a conflict he intends to wish away, so the point is probably moot.
Pakistan’s tribal areas have always presented a unique problem of offending Islamabad’s sensibilities vs. wreaking real effect on our enemies hiding in Pakistani sanctuary. President Bush and his NSC took a very cautious approach to that situation, limiting strikes on Pakistani territory to a level that a complicit Pakistani government could live with. On the other hand, President Obama and his team of amateur foreign policy geeks saw escalated drone warfare as a cheap and risk-free means of appearing militarily decisive while avoiding US casualties. They increased the level of violence to a point that both the enemy and Islamabad squawked. Because the Taliban and Al-Qaeda don’t like being vaporized by missiles and Pakistan’s politicians detest their impotence in the face of overt US military aggression on their home soil.
That dynamic is about to change, and the president doesn’t have the spine to effectively negotiate with Pakistan behind the scenes. His bench of foreign policy lightweights is unlikely to sway Pakistan’s new government to ignore the very policy planks that ensured their election (and quid pro quo support from the insurgents).
Thus, Obama has preemptively seized the moral high ground in a feckless effort to convince the world that his conscience drives this military retreat…rather than the Pakistanis who are about to tell him to pound sand.
Related News Articles from Fox and CNN:
“Drone strikes are a necessary evil, but one that must be used with more temperance as the United States’ security situation evolves, President Barack Obama said Thursday…
To stop terrorists from gaining a foothold, drones will be deployed, Obama said, but only when there is an imminent threat; no hope of capturing the targeted terrorist; ‘near certainty’ that civilians won’t be harmed; and ‘there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat’…”
“Nawaz Sharif, the twice-elected former prime minister who will once again lead a new government, has promised to change Pakistan’s foreign and national security policies when he takes office. He has said he will immediately raise the drone issue with the U.S., and wants to end strikes targeting militants in the country’s tribal belt…”
Copyright T2M 2013
Fri 24 May 2013 14:18
Schools and police stations were burning in Stockholm as violent riots continued for a fifth consecutive night.
Emergency services were called to 70 separate incidents, including two torched primary schools, burning shops and a destroyed library building also housing a local police unit.
Despite police claiming that the situation is beginning to calm down, critics say the riots were unavoidable after years of widening social gaps in a country which has the highest proportion of foreign-born citizens in Scandinavia.
Say, that reminds me…
Fri 24 May 2013 14:02
Indianapolis police say they were high-end Ukrainian call girls charging hundreds of dollars per hour.
They stayed in lavish hotels and collected pricey jewelry.
There was a madam known only to clients as “Natasha.”
It sounds like something out of a spy thriller — but the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department says that’s the kind of prostitution operation they busted near the Fashion Mall at Keystone last week.
One of the women, they say, is on the run.
Because ‘immigrants’ are good for America.
Had enough, yet?
Fri 24 May 2013 05:13
The man gunned down execution-style at the Southlake Town Square Wednesday was an attorney linked to a major Mexican drug cartel who had been living in Southlake with his wife and three children, NBC 5 has learned.
The victim was identified as Juan Jesus Guerrero-Chapa, 43, of Guanajuato, Mexico.
Guerrero has been named in various Mexican news reports as a lawyer for the Gulf Cartel, one of the largest and most violent drug organizations in Mexico.
More Here
This Mexican cartel thug was arrested for battery in Miami in 2011 and allowed to stay and move around freely in the U.S. and besides paying for the investigation into his death; we get to pay to protect his wife and kids.
Exactly how has the U.S. benefited by allowing this Mexican and his family to reside here?
Fri 24 May 2013 04:42
KISSIMMEE – Ibragim Todashev, the Chechen martial-arts fighter killed by an FBI agent in Orlando on Tuesday, was a bit of a mystery to his neighbors in his modest gated community in Kissimmee.
They knew little about his lifestyle, his travels or his relationship with one of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.
Fri 24 May 2013 04:28
WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Barack Obama pushed hishealth care overhaul plan through Congress, he counted labor unionsamong his strongest supporters.
But some unions leaders have grown frustrated and angry about what they say are unexpected consequences of the new law — problems that they say could jeopardize the health benefits offered to millions of their members.
Fri 24 May 2013 04:19
Rookie Florida Senator Marco Rubio continues to work tirelessly to get the United States to annex Mexico, though an exhaustive (and exhausting) search of his 2010 election campaign reveals no promises to do, nor even a mention that he might consider doing such an outlandish thing. Au the contraire, the pre-election Rubio said all the right things about line-cutters and lawbreakers. That’s one of the reasons he’s a senator today.
Thu 23 May 2013 23:16
The 2013 Schumer-Rubio Amnesty/ Immigration Surge bill now being debated aims to double legal immigration from what are already historic highs. In many ways, it can be regarded as the 1965 Immigration Act on steroids.
Thu 23 May 2013 22:56
A federal complaint unsealed Thursday indicates Dante Phearse, 32, was charged with calling in bomb threats to two synagogues in Houston, officials said.
