Wednesday, May 25, 2016

The White Water issue is about real estate, so if anyone can find fault and law breaking in real estate Donald Trump can. I don't doubt his supporters are asking for his expertise on this. It is all internal politics in the Republican Party.

This is more about his expertise than it is about Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton has an opportunity before her to end the 'slight of hand' reputation opposition political pundits like to impose on her image.

May 25, 2016
By Steven Lee Myers and Eric Lichtblau

Washington — The State Department’s inspector general (click here) has sharply criticized Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, saying she had not sought permission to use it and would not have received it if she had.
In a report delivered to members of Congress on Wednesday, the inspector general said that Mrs. Clinton “had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business” with officials responsible for handling records and security but that inspectors “found no evidence” that she had requested or received approval from anyone at the department to conduct her state business on a personal email.
The report also said that department officials “did not — and would not — approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business.”...
...It also added new detail about Mrs. Clinton’s motivation for using the private server, which she has said was set up for convenience. In November 2010, her deputy chief of staff for operations prodded her about “putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam.” Mrs. Clinton, however, replied that she would consider a separate address or device “but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”...

To begin, this is not the FBI. The Inspector General does not have Executive Privilege or the power of the President.

This is the Inspector General of the State Department, not the President of the United States. President Barak Obama was aware of the private account by the virtue of received communications. That reality also applies to the State Department members and the Inspector General and MEMBERS OF CONGRESS as well.

I might point out the Inspector General is saving his own skin in his Congressional Report when he does not mention the fact the NEW law was not in effect during most of her term as Secretary of State.

Once she was using her private server to communicate she would continue to have communications to that server after the law went into force. That means there would have to be an exemption for the Secretary until all her communications could be directed to a different account. Even then there is the issue of extraneous communications that would not make that leap. Her email server would have to remain open regardless of the law to be sure all communications were received.

The security of the USA does not always serve the convenience of Congressional legislation. That is why Executive Privilege exists.

There is also a different reality that is inconvenient to the State Department. There are areas of the world that are not served by the methods of communication used by the State Department. That is why there are many cable/wire communications between people and the State Department and other countries. The private server, no different than major internet providers, do have access to these countries.

There is the fact all other State Department Secretaries before Hillary Clinton used private internet accounts. These Secretaries didn't have a law dropped in their laps while they were serving the USA. The law  today is used by the majority of department personnel, however, to enact that law in the middle of the Secretary's service is ridiculous to consider. The law should have been enacted in a method that would not effect established methods and after the former Secretary ended her term.

Yes, I am saying the Congress wrote a bad law as to when it would be taking effect. The US State Department is not the average internet user and cannot turn to a different account on a dime and that is the reality no one talks about. The Congress made the entire issue of communication, especially with the State Department, difficult to comply.

This is a non-issue that if enforced would have compromised the Secretary's service and/or the security she operated her State Department at the pleasure of the President.

Secretary Clinton did not compromise the security of the USA, her own security or her staff but, actually protected it by maintaining continuity.

There is also continued flooding in Texas. Just as a reminder the 2015 tornado season did not end until January 2016.

Tornado outbreaks are still the majority of tornado instances, but, the shape of the tornadoes are taking on very different shapes. These tornadoes once were feared when only one appeared in the sky. Today, they are in multiples. It is chilling to me to hear how millions of American people are in the path of still yet another tornado outbreak. Millions of Americans are in fear for their lives during extended tornado seasons. That is a sincere departure from the years of 'normal' climate conditions.

May 25, 2016
By Brian Davidson

Dodge City – Crews are evaluating the damage Wednesday (click here) after tornadoes destroyed several homes and left two people critically injured in western Kansas as a series of severe storms swept across the Plains.
Meanwhile, one person drowned in central Oklahoma after a vehicle was swept off a road and a 13-year-old boy was found safe in northeastern Arkansas three hours after falling into a flooded drainage pipe.
The most damage in Kansas was reported in Ford and Hodgeman counties, where a storm dropped multiple tornadoes during a two-hour span Tuesday night, said meteorologist Andrew White of the National Weather Service office in Dodge City. He said less damaging tornadoes were reported in two other Kansas counties....

The decision to give the father custody is not at all unusual when western women marry Muslim men.

This case is not unusual. Western women marry Muslim men in their homelands and eventually want to leave when their personal freedoms are not granted by their husbands.

The role of the mother following the divorce is at the willingness of the father to allow contact. The children are fine. There is nothing evil about their father and the children are not in harm's way. The real tragedy is when they are completely removed from contact with their natural mother, but, children adapt. This is completely about the culture western women enter when they marry in a husband's homeland. They don't bargain for what comes next and this is the result.

There are fathers that allow contact with the mother, but, custody is never provided to women by the courts.

The film crew crossed the legal borders surrounding these children and put themselves on the wrong side of the law. They are lucky the judge was sympathetic.

April 21, 2016
By Latika Bourke

Sally Faulkner (click here) with her two children Lahala, 6, and Noah, 4, in Beirut after the child recovery operation.

Beirut: The judge investigating (click here) whether charges should be laid over a failed child-abduction plot says the Nine Network's 60 Minutes crew could still be recalled to Lebanon to face charges.
Presenter Tara Brown, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Benjamin Williamson and sound recordist David Ballment left for Australia from Beirut Airport on Wednesday evening, Beirut time.
They had been detained in Lebanon for two weeks for their part in a bid by Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner to retrieve her two children from Lebanon where they have been living with their father Ali Elamine since May 2015.
Mr Elamine, who on Monday said that Channel Nine had "dropped the ball big time" and "shouldn't have gotten involved in family matters", said on Wednesday that the crew were just doing their job and did not take part in the physical abduction of his children on April 6.
He agreed to drop personal charges against the Nine crew, insisting a display of emotion from Wilkinson and not a financial settlement had sealed the deal....

This is interesting. The rebel forces in Syria are sensitive to ethnicities held captive by Daesh's " threat of death regime."

If only they could have a map of the city where the attack would be most successful and spare civilians living under oppression. The problem is that even when intelligence was gathered and USA elite units tried to free people held for ransom, they arrived too late and the political prisoners were moved. There had to be some kind of leak or the people are routinely rotated to prevent intelligence from being successful. Either way, the best plans to defeat Daesh are never completely compiled because of tactics unfamiliar to any rebel group or even the USA military. If the assault kills innocent people it is not the fault of those trying to end Daesh in Syria.

Turkey needs to maintain border strength to prevent Daesh from crossing into safe territory, HOWEVER, Turkey also needs to recognize Kurds that are supplying the largest number of armed rebels to defeat Daesh.

May 25, 2016

An American-backed alliance of Syrian militias (click here) launched an offensive against Isis (Islamic State) near their de facto capital of Raqqa city, according to a monitoring group and an official.
The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance is the main Syrian partner for the alliance battling Isis that controls large areas of northern and eastern Syria. Its most powerful component is the Kurdish YPG militia.
Aided by US-led air strikes, the YPG has driven Isis from wide areas of northern Syria over the past year or more, though its advances have recently slowed.
There has been no indication of when a full assault on Raqqa city might take place. A Kurdish official contacted by Reuters declined to say whether it was a target of the latest offensive.
Syrian Kurdish groups have previously said an attack on the predominantly Arab city of Raqqa should be led by Arab militias. Syria experts say the SDF's Arab groups are not yet ready for such an attack, however....

Australia is pre-empting banking collapse by issue pre-bailout funds.

May 25, 2016
By Clancey Yeates

Australia's major banks (click here) receive an implicit subsidy worth between $1.9 billion and $3.7 billion from the market's assumption that taxpayers would come to the rescue in a crisis, the Reserve Bank of Australia has estimated.

The funding advantage that the big four banks gain over smaller rivals from being "too big to fail" peaked in the global financial crisis, but was still present when an internal report was prepared in 2015, documents published under Freedom of Information laws showed on Wednesday.

"This funding advantage may distort competition, allowing large institutions to grow larger and perhaps pressuring smaller banks to take risk." 

Advise to small, local banks; "Don't do it!" Such issues need to be addressed in the smaller banks' charters. They should never be permitted to leverage the value of the bank.

The finding from the RBA comes as regulators around the world look to limit the risk that taxpayers will be called on bail out banks, by forcing lenders to issue more "bail-in" bonds that would force creditors to wear bigger losses in a crisis....

So, in the USA there exists an amendment to the USA Budget that allows risky investments in the financial sector, while the rest of the world attempts to protect from it.

This is ridiculous. The corrupt members of US House has to be replaced, otherwise, the USA will be losing allies one by one.

Victor Wainstein needs to return to his other clients.

May 25, 2016
By Monica Hesse

Ruth Ann Aron leaves the Montgomery County Courthouse in 1997 with then-attorneys Barry Helfand and Erik Bolog.

Feeling exiled and frustrated (click here) in her Florida condominium, Ruthann Aron decided she needed a makeover. Not of the cosmetic variety but of the cosmic - a public image redo, which would not be particularly easy nearly 20 years after the trial that put her in a Maryland prison for hiring a hit man to murder her rich urologist husband.
One step involved returning to Montgomery County, where all her troubles began and where she served on the county planning board and ran for the U.S. Senate. Another step involved hiring Victor.
Victor Wainstein, 41, is Ruthann's attorney. She hired him because, in addition to the usual qualities that one looks for - intelligence, creativity - he agreed to temporarily set aside other clients and work for her, arriving every morning at her rented townhouse and working on nothing but the rebranding of Ruthann, recasting her role in one of the most infamous cases in Montgomery County history....

I think the monetary order by a judge is far too low.

May 24, 2016
By Tobias Salinger

The parents of a New Jersey boy (click here) who fatally shot his 6-year-old neighbor must pay over $570,000 to the slain boy’s family, a judge ruled Monday.
Brandon Holt died a day after the shooting in April 2013 in Toms River. The father of the boy who was 4 years old when he shot Brandon in the head has pleaded guilty to child endangerment, but Anthony and Melissa Senatore were ordered Monday to pay $572,588 to Brandon’s family....

Parents making play dates have to add one more question to ask, "Do you have guns in your home?"

Daesh has moved into Libya and continue to kill people as a means of maintaining power.

4 February 2016
By Richard Hartley-Parkinson

New pictures (click here) have emerged
apparently showing a disabled executioner carrying out three murders in Libya.
The picture of a man in a wheelchair next to an alleged spy in an orange jumpsuit is believed to have been released from the central city of Sirte.
Further images show a man tied to a form of scaffolding after an apparent crucifixion with a note tied to his body that says ‘spy’....

There is equal opportunity for employment with Daesh.

The Syrian people want peace.

The journalists bringing the facts forward are very brave, but, they need to stay out of danger to bring the facts before the world.

Deash has enough followers to act as suicide bombers to bring about deaths of innocent people. 

25 May 2016

...“Their goal is to destroy (click here) our national unity and drive a wedge between religious confessions,” one of the locals told RT. We do not pay attention to religious affiliation. Many of Tartus’ citizens have fallen as heroes in battles. From the very beginning of the crisis Tartus has been accepting refugees from all of the provinces.”


The head of the al-Bassel Hospital , Dr. Muhammad Habib Hussein, noted that as soon as explosions were heard, “all ambulances were dispatched to the scene and began transporting the wounded to the hospital.” Once in the hospital, Hussein noted, victims were divided into different categories according to the “nature and severity of injuries.”
Following the Tartus blasts, almost simultaneously, jihadists went on to detonate three car bombs in the city of Jableh. Two of the bombs went off at the main bus station, while the third was deployed near Electricity Directorate. A forth attack in the city was carried out by a suicide bomber at the entrance to Jableh National Hospital.
At least 100 people were killed in Jableh. The Islamist “Ahrar al-Cham” terror group claimed responsibility for the attacks in both cities....

Russia's strong man politics has real victims, Nadiya Savchenko is one of them. She is a Ukraine pilot.

Russia’s mainstream media (click here) and President Vladimir Putin continue to remain silent about numerous prisoners of Putin’s undeclared war against Ukraine. Pilot Nadiya Savchenko and 30 other Ukrainian service members are still being illegally held in Russian jails. Taking hostages is one of Russia’s Hamas-style tactics against its perceived enemies – foreign and domestic. In that sense, Nadiya is much more than a prisoner. To Putin and his regime, she is the symbol of Ukraine itself: spirited, strong and unbroken. In a video of her interrogation, Nadiya said that she does not expect to return home alive, but is not afraid. The brave pilot has entered the third week of her hunger strike, during relative media silence. In the meantime, Savchenko’s attorneys are fighting an uphill battle, seeking justice in kangaroo courts of Russia’s Banana Republic....

Ukraine should be touting the fact it's prisons are just as strong as Russian prisons.

May 25, 2016
By Andrew E Kramer

Moscow — Russia and UkraineMoscow - Russia and Ukaine (click here)e) swapped high-profile prisoners on Wednesday, a move that could help ease negotiations over a settlement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian news media reported that a Ukrainian helicopter pilot, Lt. Nadiya V. Savchenko, was released from jail and was flown to the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. She was swapped for two Russians captured in eastern Ukraine — who the Ukrainians say are soldiers in Russia’s military intelligence service — and flown to Kiev in the plane of Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko, who announced her arrival in the country.

The trade touches on pivotal questions surrounding the unrest. Over the course of the two-year conflict in Ukraine, the bloodiest in Europe since the Balkan fighting a decade ago, Russia has denied sending soldiers or weapons across the border. Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine in unmarked uniforms were said to have gone there on their vacations....

This is a report from last year. The USA spends plenty of money in Afghanistan to create an economy for everyone.

I am not impressed by the USA military in Afghanistan. The USA military does not belong there. What has occurred when the USA military OCCUPIES a country, is that they become the leadership's militia. The rest of the country turns against the leadership and corruption lives on. 

President Obama needs to stop killing people and remove the troops. There is no need for the USA military in Afghanistan or any other war theater.

The Taliban has been choosing moderates to lead and bring about peace. The Taliban are a militia in Afghanistan. The Taliban is one of other militia groups on the country and region. Mansour was a moderate that was being challenged by other groups. The reason Mansour was challenged is because of ethnic and economic undertones. There is no comprehensive economy in Afghanistan and as a result there are militias that carry out crime in order to survive. The Afghanistan economy can't take shape because the USA military is very disruptive within the country. The USA military is creating it's own purpose.

Osama bin Laden is dead. 

July 31, 2015.The new Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour (click here) has a reputation as a relative moderate who favours peace talks with the government, but his leadership already faces challenges to its legitimacy.

The Taliban also announced his deputies – Sirajuddin Haqqani, who leads the Taliban-allied Haqqani network and has a $10 million US bounty on his head, and Haibatullah Akhundzada, former head of the Taliban courts.

The Taliban leadership is STATIC. The Afghan government needs to find a peace treaty with the militia groups in the country by offering a strong alternative to crime as an economy. The militia groups need to be offered a chance to build an economy within Afghanistan to stabilize the country with one governance. The first step the Afghan government can take is tell the USA military to leave the country and PROVE it means to honor it's peace treaty.
The contradictory reports come a day after the Taliban confirmed that its founder Mullah Mohammed Omar had some time ago, signifying a major shift in Afghanistan’s militant leadership.

The deaths of the Taliban leadership can occur in one violent action if President Obama wants to make an impression. The leadership is STATIC and President Obama can simply wipe them out now rather than wait until they rise to the group's leadership. The USA military is creating it's own purpose.
“Of course he wanted the foreigners out of Afghanistan, but Mullah Mansoor consistently told Mullah Omar that war was not the solution in Afghanistan“, Mujda said.
The Afghan Taliban Shura, or Supreme Council, chose Mullah Omar’s deputy,Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, as the group’s new leader, the Taliban said in a statement, adding that Mullah Omar had trusted Mansoor and that Mansoor had been handling the Taliban’s executive affairs. “Yet even by Mullah Omar’s standards, his elusiveness in his final years was remarkable”....