[Daily Caller] FBI director James Comey testified in front of a House panel on Wednesday to discuss the agency's 2016 budget, but he ended up making a profound point about the issue of concealed carry.
At the end of the two-hour budget hearing, Texas U.S. Rep. John Culberson, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Justice, asked Comey about the nature of his interactions with legal concealed carry permit holders.
Before his stint as head of the FBI, Comey worked for more than two decades as a federal prosecutor.
"You mentioned earlier about criminals with guns, I doubt you've ever had a problem with a concealed carry permit holder who is licensed with a background check using their good judgment," Culberson said at the end of Comey's two-hour testimony. "Could you comment on that as a law enforcement officer?"
"I haven't had situations where there has been problems with that," Comey said. He's been wandering off the regime's reservation of late. I hope he survives his current assignment.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/29/2015 15:14 Comments ||
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#2
DOJ does takes a really different view, as of late, on a lot of things. Its as if the country stepped into Alice's malevolent wonderland for the past 6 years.
An excellent article about a part of Russian president Vladimir Putin's life as a KGB agent in Germany in 1989. I will excerpt only a small portion here:
Kohl praised Gorbachev, the man in Moscow who'd refused to send in the tanks, and he used patriotic language - words like Vaterland, or fatherland - that had been largely taboo in Germany since the war. Now they prompted an ecstatic response.
It's not known whether Putin was in that crowd - but as a KGB agent in Dresden he'd certainly have known all about it.
The implosion of East Germany in the following months marked a huge rupture in his and his family's life.
"We had the horrible feeling that the country that had almost become our home would no longer exist," said his wife Ludmila.
"My neighbour, who was my friend, cried for a week. It was the collapse of everything - their lives, their careers."
One of Putin's key Stasi contacts, Maj Gen Horst Boehm - the man who had helped him install that precious telephone line for an informer - was humiliated by the demonstrating crowds, and committed suicide early in 1990.
This warning about what can happen when people power becomes dominant was one Putin could now ponder on the long journey home.
#1
"... and he used patriotic language - words like Vaterland, or fatherland - that had been largely taboo in Germany since the war. Now they prompted an ecstatic response."
"Vaterland" had never been a 'taboo' term in West Germany.
The East German demonstrators quoted a line from the East German national anthem "Deutschland einig Vaterland" - "Germany united Fatherland".
#3
Angela Merkel seems to have an extreme dislike for Putin. I thought it was because of his Alpha ways but more likely Putin's roll in East Germany being her homeland.
#4
I am reading "The Man Without a Face: the unlikely rise of Vladimir Putin" by Masha Gessen, a journalist who will no doubt be shot or poisoned in the next few years for writing it.
Today I learned that when Putin became acting president in 1999 his second directive established a new russian military doctrine abandoning the old no-first-strike policy regarding nuclear weapons and emphasizing a right to use them against aggressors "if other means of conflict resolution have been exhausted or deemed ineffective".
#5
Putin immediately set about dismantling the brief flower of Russian democracy and putting in place the Soviet police-spy system. He marginalised the democrats. More than 150 people died in the Moscow theatre terror attacks not because they were shot but because they choked on their own vomit after russian paramilitary used knockout gas, dragged them out of the theatre and lay them on their backs. They put them in buses and drove them miles to hospitals in the middle of Moscow instead of to the nearest medical centre then refused to tell the hospitals what chemical they used so they couldn't treat the victims.
Some died up to a week later, in comas - because they didn't know what was used.
Worse, a Russian secret police agent Khanpash Turkibaev was one of the chechen terrorists to hold the moscow theatre seige.
he boasted of having a detailed map of the theatre, and having led the terrorists there through checkpoints in chechnya and police outposts on the way to Moscow.
He left the theatre shortly before russian troops stormed it.
Information on Terkibaev was given to Sergei Yushenkov, involved in the parliamentary investigation of the theatre siege. He was shot two weeks later in Moscow, in broad daylight.
Journalist Anna Politkovskaya tracked Turkibaev down and interviewed him. He admitted working for the Russian secret services. She was killed.
Her boss was poisoned. came down with mysterious symptoms. a burning sensation. in a week he was in a coma, skin peeled off, hair fell out. died of multiple organ failure from an unknown toxin.
Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB who became a whistleblower to say how the former KGB was interfering in politics was poisoned by polonium in London
Make no mistake the KGB runs Russia like a police state. No democracy should EVER let the spies and police take over. Be warned.
[AsiaTimes], Never in the history of American foreign policy has so much egg adhered to so little face as in the matter of Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. All of America's allies, including Britain and Australia, have elected to join the Chinese-led institution. That is a grand validation of China's One Belt/One Road vision for infrastructure upgrades across the whole Eurasian landmass. China's President Xi Jinping envisions $2.5 trillion of trade between his country and the "Silk Road" nations over the next decade. Rather than fret about the impact of a slowing (or shrinking) world economy on China's export-driven prosperity, China is seeking to shape the economic environment around it.
It is not only the Obama administration that has been wrong-footed by the world's embrace of China's economic ambitions, but almost the whole of America's foreign-policy elite. With almost no exceptions, American analysts have misunderstood China. One school argues that China inevitably will collapse of its own weight, because authoritarian governments supposedly are incapable of efficient allocation of resources; another warns of a Chinese plan for world domination.
#7
Beso, I'm not sure that you're assigning the correct value to "bastids". You might want to consider that the bastids were the ones that sold us out. Can you blame the Chinese for accepting the offer?
#10
Nonetheless, as I wrote in Asia Times, “China is not planning to take over the world. It doesn’t want the world. It doesn’t like the world – that is, the world outside of China. Unlike Greeks, Romans, Muslims, and European imperialists, it does not want to plant its flag outside its borders, send its young men to conquer and defend new territories, or subject other peoples to colonial rule. Nonetheless, it may inherit the world, reluctantly and by default.”
While I agree with everything else he writes in this essay, this part shows that Goldman knows nothing about China's worldview. And as a generalist, he wouldn't - not without reading reams of Chinese history and the raison d'etat of Chinese rulers over time, objectives that go beyond mere survival and have remained a touchstone for all Chinese dynasties, the principal theme being that Chinese leaders who expand its territory are ranked among the greats, and those who don't are merely also-rans. And that is his Achilles' heel. Michael Pillsbury is an old China hand who probably understands that the Fu Manchu series merely caricatured a Chinese equivalent of then world-conquering Western imperialists. The West has given up its territorial ambitions. China hasn't.
However, I agree with his prescription - a Federal government commitment to basic science is key to continued technological supremacy. One commentator wrote the following about how art, unlike science, has natural sponsors in the private sector:
That is art and art is often at its height in tyrannical and radically fractured societies that have some cultural competition going on. Science isn’t. Even mathematics requires political stability and infrastructure because mathematicians are people, people need to eat and funding mathematicians is not a high priority for most societies. Art that pleases the tyrant on the other hand will get funded even if the peasants are starving.
The big achievement of the West is not some magically higher number of geniuses, it’s the culture of cultivation of geniuses. Godfrey Hardy used to say that discovering Ramanujan was his biggest achievement in mathematics. If he hadn’t dragged the guy out of India no one would know about his work. Hardy himself used to say that he didn’t want to do any “useful”, applied work because it could be used for war.
In England, these guys could get paid to work on their “useless” number theory which actually has found a lot of use and Hardy would probably be disappointed by how much of his innocent number theory is now used in cryptography and war. In just about any other society Ramanujan would have been dismissed as a freak and Hardy would have been considered useless. The culture that tolerates and supports an academic subculture that produces nothing that the rulers can even understand, that is a rare achievement.
#11
The West has given up its territorial ambitions*. China hasn't.
* I should note that this is after having conquered and settled four continents/equivalents - North America, South America, Australia and Russia east of the Urals, making up fully 1/2 of the earth's habitable land area. To rising powers in general, and to China in particular, the idea that current boundaries are fixed for posterity sound a lot like "Eff you, I've got mine", meaning that the West's past territorial gains are set in stone because they're set in stone - based on a tautology.
#12
Come to think of it, I don't think you have to be a China hand to understand why the current distribution of ownership of land on Earth might not be to any rising power's liking, let alone China specifically. They might view the West much as the West viewed the aborigines of the various territories annexed and settled over the past several centuries.
#13
If we look at the objective facts of what has transpired since the beginning of Western imperialism, I suspect any emerging non-Western power's view is that the Westerner's smug implicit (and perhaps even un-thought) assumption is "Having conquered half the inhabitable world, while holding on to Europe, we are now content to let current boundaries stand". That is the perennial complaint of the arriviste vis-a-vis the ancien regime.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/29/2015 19:55 Comments ||
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#15
I remember when you were just Robert R....
Those were the good old days. Tag teaming Mike Sylwester over Iraq. He was right for the wrong reasons. We were wrong for the right reasons. Given the human and financial costs to us, I'd rather have been right for the wrong reasons. What a goddamn waste.
I think we posit all kinds of reasons why various Muslim countries are more or less radical. I suspect, religion apart, a major motivating factor is that a significant number of them are located in places that look like the Star Wars planet Tatooine (filmed in Morocco) - they are either wastelands or at their Malthusian limits. China is 30% more densely populated than Europe. But half of China is desert and mountain wasteland or tundra. Which means its effective density might be triple Europe's. Add to that its traditional ethos of universal empire, the sense that the age of empires has passed it by and the rest is all too predictable. Fu Manchu was a caricature but the basic elements of the character's motivations wasn't too different from either Western imperialists of the time or the Chinese ones who conquered Tibet as recently as the 18th century.
I don't endorse this guy's views, but here's a quote you don't see often: "I had every opportunity for success in America, because America values the merit of all people, including Muslims and black folks."
#2
"If only you were nicer to Muslims then terrorists wouldn't kill you"
Right
"If Australia were ... willing to employ them instead of leaving them on welfare"
Yes - wherever there is Halal Certification there are forced discriminatory hiring practices as to get the certification you have to hire Muslims.
Muslims are positively employed by Government departments seeking to adverise diversity. Also the police made a huge pitch to advertise for Muslim recruits.
The Islamist takeover has 2 prongs:
1) the violent jihadis murder their enemies
2) the PR wing says it's all you're own fault for being Islamphobic, and racist and not nice to Muslims
That way
1) they directly kill and instill fear in their enemies and
2) they get civil society concessions to advance Islam eg blasphemy laws.
#3
He's right about one thing: Liverpool (southwest sydney) is full of proto-terrorists because of the MIA Mosque (Markaz Imam Ahmad Mosque) and probably others like it.
It happens that I'm qualified in the area he first made his name - linquistics. Where all contrary evidence to his theory was twisted to support his theories, when none of it actually did.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2015 11:08 Comments ||
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#6
I actually went and read the thing. To summarize: The Magna Carta is a bad thing because the tragedy of the commons is capitalism. There's also the issue that the original document referred to a narrow slice of English humanity, though it was expanded later in America to apply to all around 1970 or so. As of a minute ago, nobody had bothered to comment.
#13
The Nation's title for this piece is completely inaccurate. Chomsky doesn't criticize the Magna Carta in any way shape or form, let alone claim that it messed up the world. Rather, he praises it, and claims (accurately, I think) that Obama is violating it:
The constitutional lawyer in the White House has introduced further modifications. His Justice Department explained that “due process of law”—at least where “terrorism offenses” are concerned—is satisfied by internal deliberations within the executive branch. King John would have nodded in approval. The term “guilty” has also been given a refined interpretation: it now means “targeted for assassination by the White House.”
LA Times Guest Opinion piece: Bungled? No, the case was delayed for a reason.
Following an extended investigation, the U.S. Army last week announced serious charges against Sgt. Robert “Bowe” Bergdahl, the soldier who was captured by the Taliban in 2009 while serving in Afghanistan, then released last May through a prisoner exchange. The Army is seeking a court-martial on the charge of desertion plus the even graver charge of “misbehavior before the enemy.” Bergdahl, if convicted, could serve life in prison.
How strange that, only 10 months ago, President Obama hailed the soldier's return with fanfare at the Rose Garden, including photo ops with Bergdahl's parents. The White House spun the story as rare good news out of Afghanistan, the seemingly endless war that the president has been trying to wind down for years.
From today's vantage point, the administration's celebration of this POW's homecoming seems misguided, to say the least. But it seemed misguided last spring, too. Even at that time, there were dissenting voices wondering if securing Bergdahl's release, in a barter with the enemy for five prominent members of the Taliban, was actually a fair trade. Then there was the matter of how exactly Bergdahl wound up a prisoner.
It's clear that Bergdahl was mistreated by the Taliban while in their custody, yet the question of whether he collaborated with his captors, and to what extent, remains open. For years, word circulated in intelligence agencies that Bergdahl was, in fact, a defector. Some quietly considered him not worth saving at all.
Allegations of gross misconduct by Bergdahl seem to have been borne out by the very hefty charges he now faces — charges that are used rarely by military prosecutors and imply cooperation with the enemy. Initial doubts about Bergdahl's return were brushed off, with the White House doubling down in its customary fashion.
The Army's investigation was thorough and meticulous. That trial will generate major media attention, and key evidence against Bergdahl will likely include what he told Army debriefers after his return home. Intelligence information detailing Bergdahl's dealings with the enemy, which is believed to be unflattering, is not expected to be used at trial due to classification issues.
How the White House will deal with the Bergdahl case from this point on will be a crucial component of this continuing saga. Bergdahl was a 'throwaway', a convenient cover for action. His usefulness to the regime is over, terminated. From a regime standpoint, whatever happens to him now, is on him.
It is admirable to bring POWs home, no matter how they wound up in enemy hands, and charlatans deserve to come home as much as heroes do. Taliban captivity is a terrible experience. Yet it is not admirable to turn a possible deserter into some sort of public hero.
Why this White House chose to handle the Bergdahl case in such an inept manner, despite ample information indicating its official narrative was, at the least, highly selective, is a matter for future historians to ponder.
#2
Whatever this POS Administration has touched, they've bungled and/or destroyed.
Wouldn't expect anything different.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/29/2015 11:05 Comments ||
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#3
Why this White House chose to handle the Bergdahl case in such an inept manner… is a matter for future historians to ponder.
As a budding future historian allow me to explain. This case is only tangentially about Bergdahl. In reality, this is about Obama by hook or crook finding a way to close down GITMO. They were well aware of the circumstances surrounding Bergdahls’ departure. Obama disregarded warnings from senior administration, military, and intelligence and chose the advice of his political squad. The WH intentionally broke the law by not providing congress a 30 day notice of the Taliban release. Does anyone really believe that the O-Team cares if they appear “inept”?
#4
Depot Guy, appeared is the correct term here. I'm afraid that this regime is less inept than most people think. The problem is that too few really understand what they're trying to do.
They appear inept because they don't want you to know what their goals really are. The more they succeed the worse America gets...and that's deliberate.
#5
I attribute this event, the Harvard professor, bengaze, et all a product of an arrogant immature administration. Neither him or anyone on his staff have the experience to look past the "Hay this is a good idea" phase. An appropriate responce to the Bergdahl event would have been a simple press statement, "We leave no one behind, hero or traitor. PVT Bergdahl is no exception. We will conduct an investigation to the allegations of his action. Until then he will be stationed on administrative duties until the investigation is complete. No more questions will be taken,thank you."
This amateur administration, he only had a few years in politics, is the same reason I will not vote for Ted Cruz. His team will be amateurs and arrogant as well. We need an ex governor, someone not entrenched in DC but savvy enough to understand what the hell they are doing...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/29/2015 14:40 Comments ||
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#6
Indeed 49 Pan this bunch has to surround every event with a great deal of drama--a bunch of inept drama queens.
#9
I still think he plans to give GITMO to Fidel and Raul before he leaves office. Make a nice 'Robben Island' style tribute to Yankie Imperialism. I can envision the Champ giving the keynote address at the turnover.
HT to AOSHQ: "Senile Old Fool Calls For Rebuilding Nazi War Machine Gaza"
Nearly seven months after the end of the latest war in Gaza, none of the underlying causes of the conflict have been addressed. In the meantime, the people of Gaza are experiencing unprecedented levels of deprivation, and the prospect for renewed armed conflict is very real. "Why won't you Jooos just commit suicide?"
No mention of tunnels, rockets on civilians,....
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/29/2015 13:25 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
Rebuild Gaza, so we have something to bomb in the next war.
#4
They brought it on themselves. If the people in Gaza, don't like their leadership, toss them out, get Hamas out, quit lobbing rockets into Israel. Unless this happens, no money; otherwise live in the rubble which they have created. We didn't break it; why should we rebuild it.
Moved to Opinion.
[American Spectator] Bowe Bergdahl will be charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
His father, Robert, was a jihadi twitter groupie. He lobbied for the release of Guantanamo prisoners--"God will repay for the death of every Afghan child, ameen," he tweeted. Standing in the Rose Garden with President Obama, he sent his son a message in Arabic: "In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate." He worried that his son had forgotten to speak his native tongue, which he had spoken for 23 years, during the five years he was held "prisoner" by the Taliban.
His fellow soldiers claimed he was a deserter. Yet, to get him back, we sacrificed the lives of six American soldiers and released five Taliban generals so that they could return to the business of killing Americans.
In his last email prior to his "capture" he told his father that he was ashamed to be an American. His father responded, advising him to follow his conscience and "[s]tand with like minded men when possible." Then Bowe walked away from his base.
Whilst in captivity Bowe "converted to Islam, fraternized openly with his captors and declared himself a 'mujahid,' or warrior for Islam," reported Fox News.
On his return, President Obama gave Bowe a hero's welcome. Susan Rice declared that he had served with honor and distinction.
Meanwhile, American Pastor Saeed Abedini is being held in an Iranian prison, charged with performing Christian religious services. He received an eight-year sentence. His ISIS prison mates are threatening to kill him. Waiting for him at home are his wife and their two young children. I am not aware that President Obama is negotiating for his release.
For the Obama administration, it would appear that Christian lives don't matter.
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.
[Daily Caller] FBI director James Comey testified in front of a House panel on Wednesday to discuss the agency's 2016 budget, but he ended up making a profound point about the issue of concealed carry.
By Noam Chomsky
