#1
I don't know too much about General Petraeus other than what I read. This seems like a sad end to a distinguished career. Hillary, basically called him a liar in Senate hearing. Move-On.org referred to him as General Betray Us--he took a lot of hits from the left. Summary of some of the hits.
Hey, it is not the WH hasn't leaked all sorts of info with impunity. IMO that this is a beat down of Petraeus to unsure he doesn't rise as a political candidate. Moreover, as former head of the CIA, he was most likely privy to a lot of damaging stuff to the existing regime. This was insurance he wouldn't talk.
#3
I'd be more interested in the prologue, specifically how Petraeus got so crosswise with this admin. Posted by: SteveS
My suspicion is, he was a potential political threat. I will always feel Broadwell was a witting or unwitting 'honey trap.' Her co-author, "writing partner and coach" was WAPO editor Vernon Loeb, who refuses to talk about the Broadwell-Petraeus incident.
If Petraeus had 'black books' with lists of true names of clandestine sources or operatives, he was illegally storing VERY HIGHLY classified documents and information. If he loaned the 'black books' to Broadwell, she too was in possession of highly classified unauthorized documents.
Where is the investigation and charges against Broadwell ?
[The Right Scoop] Obama's unconstitutional amnesty order directly led to the deaths of four Americans by a scumbag that should have been deported but was granted amnesty under his "DACA" program. Even more shockingly, he was given legalized status even though he didn't actually qualify for it.
The Obama administration has admitted that an illegal immigrant and known gang member -- who recently was charged in the murders of four people -- was allowed to remain in the United States under President Obama's executive actions.
Emmanuel Jesus Rangel-Hernandez was allowed in August 2013 to remain in the U.S., following his request about seven months earlier to stay under the president's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez.
Rodriquez acknowledged in a letter to a top Republican senator that Rangel-Hernandez's application was approved, even though a federal crime database indicated he was a "known gang member."
[Rooters] - Police in Colorado have cited a 37-year-old man for carrying his computer into an alley then shooting it eight times with a handgun after what authorities said had been a long battle with the uncooperative machine.
Lucas Hinch was cited for discharging a firearm within city limits after officers responded to a "shots fired" call early on Monday evening, the Colorado Springs Police Department said in a statement.
"Investigation revealed a resident was fed up with fighting his computer for the last several months," said the statement, entitled "Man Kills His Computer."
"He took the computer into the back alley and fired eight shots into the computer with a handgun, effectively disabling it," it added.
The Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper cited police as saying Hinch was good-natured about the citation, and that he told officers he had not realized he was breaking the law.
A judge will decide what penalty the citation carries.
#10
I've thought about it several times. Windows 8 frustrates me--definitely not the new and improved version of Windows 7. Scammers are frustrating too--those who have a popup that say "your computer is at risk." And we can make the risk go away if you just click on our site. Nigerian scammers piss one off too.
HARTFORD, Conn. — Mary Doyle Keefe, the model for Norman Rockwell's iconic 1943 Rosie the Riveter painting that symbolized the millions of American women who went to work on the home front during World War II, has died. She was 92.
Keefe died Tuesday in Simsbury, Connecticut, after a brief illness, said her daughter, Mary Ellen Keefe.
Keefe grew up in Arlington, Vermont, where she met Rockwell — who lived in West Arlington — and posed for his painting when she was a 19-year-old telephone operator. The painting was on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943.
The hour-long discussion touched on everything from Eastwood's most-admired directors, such as Don Siegel and Sergio Leone, to his favorite films (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and The Outlaw Josey Wales got shout outs). Eastwood also addressed some areas of controversy, such as his feud with Michael Moore.
The Bowling for Columbine director claimed that Eastwood had previously threatened his life at the National Board of Review Awards dinner in 2005 and said he would shoot Moore if he ever came to his house with a camera.
Eastwood said he was upset that Moore had showed up on NRA President Charlton Heston's doorstep in that film to grill him on gun control, because he said the actor was ailing and had Alzheimer's.
"Everybody's saying I threatened to kill Michael Moore," said Eastwood. "That's not true."
"It isn't a bad idea," he added, after a pause -- followed by nervous laughter from the audience.
.[AnNahar] Africa is the market of the future for illegal drugs, a top U.N. narcotics official said Tuesday, predicting the continent would go from transport hub to major consumer.
Massive amounts of cocaine and other narcotics already pass through Africa on their way from Latin America to Europe, and it is only a matter of time before large numbers of Africans start using them, said Pierre Lapaque, the West and Central Africa representative for the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... Office on Drugs and Crime.
"The market of the future for cocaine and other drugs is Africa," he said in Panama at an international meeting on fighting organized crime.
Ever since narcos realized a decade ago that sending drugs through West Africa was easier than shipping them directly to Europe, the region has become a major hub in the drug trade, said Lapaque.
This "parallel highway" typically runs from Brazil through Suriname to Mauritania, Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... , Gambia ... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain... , Guinea and Sierra Leone, he said.
Every year, 35 to 40 tonnes of cocaine pass through West Africa, of which just 20 to 25 tonnes make their way to Europe. Traffickers keep the rest in Africa to avoid glutting the European market and to sell locally, Lapaque said.
Africa's mostly non-existent borders, underfunded and understaffed police forces, corruption and political instability all contribute to the problem, he said.
In West Africa, the large youth population and growing middle class make the region "a market with incredible potential for development" in the eyes of drug pushers, he said.
He also highlighted the growing problem of illegal labs in the Mali-Senegal border region producing drugs such as methamphetamine.
[AnNahar] A court ordered a Cuba-bound Chinese ship loaded with undeclared weapons to sail for Havana on Tuesday, saying the arms could not be unloaded and might pose a safety threat.
Da Dan Xia, which has been held since last month, was loaded with undeclared military equipment including about 100 tonnes of gunpowder, 99 projectile bases and 3,000 artillery cartridge cases, according to Colombian authorities.
The freighter had been due to stop in the northern Colombian city of Barranquilla before ending its journey in Havana.
But when authorities found the ship's documentation "conflicted with what was actually found" aboard the vessel, it was held in port.
But Beijing's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying maintained that the Da Dan Xia was operating within Chinese and international law.
The court ultimately ruled that because there was no way to unload the weapons and materiel, it ought to be shipped out.
It therefore ordered "to safeguard Cartagena residents and Colombians in general, the Chinese-flagged Da Dan Xian, to sail for Cuba," the court statement said in part.
The ship's captain Wu Hong will remain in Cartagena, on investigation for weapons trafficking, officials said.
A North Korean cargo ship, Chong Chon Gang, was found to be carrying Cuban weapons including surface-to-air missile systems and launchers when it was stopped in the Panama Canal in July 2013.
[AyePee] A widely used assault rifle has "no future" with the German military in its current form, Germany's defense minister said Wednesday, escalating a dispute over the weapon's alleged shortcomings.
Ursula von der Leyen said last month that a study showed the G36 rifle has a "precision problem, particularly at high temperatures." Manufacturer Heckler & Koch has questioned those conclusions, complained about a lack of consultation and accused the government of damaging its reputation.
After parliament's defense committee met Wednesday, von der Leyen said another expert report finds "the G36 as it is constructed now has no future in the Bundeswehr" -- the German military -- though she didn't rule out the possibility of using a modified version.
The G36 is a standard weapon for the German military, which currently uses more than 166,000 of them. Germany also has supplied some 8,000 of the rifles to Kurdish forces battling the Islamic State group in northern Iraq.
Von der Leyen herself has faced questions from the media and opposition politicians over how long her ministry has been aware of the extent of problems with the G36. She commissioned a study last summer, six months after taking office, but the ministry acknowledged some problems with its precision three years ago.
Von der Leyen said officials are working urgently to find a replacement, news agency dpa reported. She acknowledged that that it won't be possible to replace the rifles within a year -- "it will take longer."
[AnNahar] The United States welcomed Tuesday news that Poland is planning to buy the U.S.-made Patriot missile system in an unprecedented revamp of its military in a deal worth up to $5 billion.
"Poland is a stalwart NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... ally, and its defense modernization program... directly fortifies the military strength of the alliance," State Department acting spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement.
Amid heightened tensions with neighboring Russia, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski announced earlier that Warsaw would hold exclusive talks with Washington on the multibillion-euro air defense contract for the system built by Raytheon. Talks will begin in May.
"Economic diplomacy in support of American companies and workers is a centerpiece of our international agenda, and Raytheon's selection reflects a coordinated advocacy approach by the Departments of State, Commerce and Defense," Harf added.
The program was also "expected to generate at least $2.5 billion in U.S. export content -- that means supporting American jobs at home and growing our manufacturing base," she said.
Poland's defense ministry said it wanted to acquire eight missile batteries by 2025, with two of them to be delivered within three years of signing a deal.
"The U.S. offer is regarded as the most advantageous from the viewpoint of Polish security and fulfilling (NATO) alliance obligations," the Polish defense ministry said.
Harf added that the U.S. "remains committed to Poland's security and NATO's collective defense."
"The program also includes co-development and co-production elements that will also strengthen Poland's defense industry," she said in her statement.
While picking the U.S. for its missiles, Poland went with the Europeans for helicopters, announcing that it would test Airbus-made multi-purpose choppers to replace its Soviet-era equipment.
[AnNahar] Pakistain has hanged 19 prisoners in the past two days, officials said Wednesday, bringing the total number put to death since executions resumed in December to nearly 100.
A total of 15 went to the gallows on Tuesday, the most in a single day since executions restarted in the wake of a Taliban massacre at a school, and a further four on Thursday, officials said,
One execution took place in the southwestern province of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... and the rest in Punjab, Pakistain's most populous province.
Punjab prisons chief Farooq Nazir said he did not have details of individual cases and charges, but most of the 18 executed in the province had been convicted of murder and had been on death row for between eight and 10 years.
Dawn has details of the second day's hangees here.
In Balochistan a convict was hanged at Mach prison on Tuesday for the 2004 murder of a man during a robbery at a house, prison officials told AFP.
The Justice Project Pakistain, a human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... law firm, said their latest count of executions so far was 99. A tally by AFP puts the total at 95.
A moratorium on the death penalty had been in force since 2008, but executions were restarted in December after Talibs bumped off 154 people, most of them children, at a school in the restive northwest.
The moratorium was initially lifted only for those convicted of terrorism offenses, but in March was extended to cover all capital offenses.
The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... and human rights campaigners have all urged Pakistain to reinstate the moratorium.
Critics say Pakistain's criminal justice system is marred by police torture, poor legal representation for victims and unfair trials.
Human rights group Amnesia Amnesty International estimates that Pakistain has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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Clearly Lebanon, like Belgium, doesn't actually need an executive branch to function well enough.
[AnNahar] The presidential elections were postponed once again after parliament failed for the 22nd time to meet the required quorum to hold the polls.
Speaker Nabih Berri postponed the elections to May 13. MTV reported that 44 lawmakers were present at the session.
Lebanon has been without a president since May when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the election of a successor.
Ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 camps over a compromise presidential candidate have thwarted the polls. The Loyalty to the Resistance bloc of Hizbullah and the Change and Reform bloc of Michel Aoun have been boycotting the elections.
[annahar] Hackers who penetrated the State Department and White House computer networks in recent months were "Russian speakers," security researchers said Wednesday.
The hackers have aimed at high-profile targets including U.S. government and commercial networks as well as in Germany, South Korea and Uzbekistan, according to researchers at Kaspersky Lab, a Russian-headquartered security firm.
The malware used, dubbed "CozyDuke," bears similarities to other malicious programs used in recent years and is designed to get around most detection programs.
Kaspersky said CozyDuke's coding is related to similar malware MiniDuke and CosmicDuke.
"We have been monitoring both MiniDuke and CosmicDuke for couple of years. Kaspersky Lab was the first to warn about MiniDuke attacks in 2013, with the oldest known samples for this cyberthreat dating back to 2008," said Kaspersky researcher Kurt Baumgartner.
"CozyDuke is definitely connected to these two campaigns, as well as to the OnionDuke cyberespionage operation. Every one of these threat actors continues to track their targets, and we believe their espionage tools are all created and managed by Russian-speakers.”
According to Kaspersky, this group is responsible for the attack on the State Department which allowed hackers to access the White House.
Last year, White House officials acknowledged a computer intrusion but said no classified data was accessed, and did not comment on reports linking the attack to Russian hackers.
Kaspersky said a key element of the attacks was the use of "spearphishing," or emails that appear legitimate but contain attachments that install malware when a recipient clicks on them.
One of the attachments was an amusing "office monkeys" video which appears to be innocent.
"These videos are quickly passed around offices with delight while systems are infected in the background silently," the Kaspersky report said.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The hour-long discussion touched on everything from Eastwood's most-admired directors, such as Don Siegel and Sergio Leone, to his favorite films (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and The Outlaw Josey Wales got shout outs). Eastwood also addressed some areas of controversy, such as his feud with Michael Moore.
North Korea
[AyePee] A widely used assault rifle has "no future" with the German military in its current form, Germany's defense minister said Wednesday, escalating a dispute over the weapon's alleged shortcomings.
