Sources and methods have to be protected. I think it is wrong to withhold the documents otherwise and especially for political reasons.

The Census Bureau has the "72-year rule." (click here) to protect people still living from becoming a target for whatever reason. That rule was written in 1978 when the longevity of Americans were 77.3 years for women and 69.6 years for men. Since it is a man's life in the USA, the rule was written to protect all men and some women.

October 9, 2017

By Larry Copeland

Good news, America: We're living longer! (click here)

Life expectancy in the USA rose in 2012 to 78.8 years – a record high.

That was an increase of 0.1 year from 2011 when it was 78.7 years, according to a new report on mortality in the USA from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

The news is a little better for women, a little worse for men. Life expectancy for females is 81.2 years; for males, it's 76.4 years. That difference of 4.8 years is the same as in 2011....

To some extent the USA holds an obligation to protect it's agents and their family from information that could place them in danger. So, considering women live now to the average age of 81.2 years, the "72 Year Rule" needs to be updated. The "72 Year Rule" needs to become the "82 Year Rule." 

What does this have to do with the Kennedy documents? Simple. If there are agents or sources that worked on the case, still living and vulnerable to potential danger or exploitation for whatever strange reasons exist, they should be protected. It does not mean the documents can't be released, but, the Americans involved in the investigation need to be given the protection of their work that would expose them on a personal basis in any means that manifests.

October 21, 2017

By Ian Shapira

...“It’s great news that the president is focused on this (click here) and that he’s trying to demonstrate transparency. But the question remains whether he will open the library in full — every word in every document, as the law requires,” Shenon said. “And my understanding is that he won’t without infuriating people at the CIA and elsewhere who are determined to keep at least some of the information secret, especially in documents created in the 1990s.”

Jefferson Morley, a former Post reporter who has studied the Kennedy assassination records for years, said the last tranche of material is also intriguing because it contains files on senior CIA officials from the 1960s — officers well aware of Oswald’s activities in the days before the assassination.

On Saturday morning, Stone, the Trump confidant, was rejoicing on Twitter.

“Yes! Victory!” he tweeted.                       

The diplomatic efforts of President Vladimir Putin and it's economic content.

So, hungry Russians looking for an economy have found a friend in Vladimir Putin.

No war in Afghanistan. No war in Iraq. What does the USA need all those Air Force pilots for anyway?

October 21, 2017

Moscow (click here) is for constructive dialogue between Baghdad and Kurdistan, the ministry added.

During al-Jaafari’s visit to Moscow on Oct. 23-25, the minister will also take part in the meeting of Iraqi-Russian intergovernmental commission with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin.

They plan to discuss projects of Russian oil and gas companies in Iraq during the meeting, the statement said.

Iraqi oil minister Jabar al-Luaibi said earlier on Saturday he had sought clarification from Russia’s biggest oil company Rosneft about contracts it signed with Kurdistan.

Rosneft “assured that the contracts are preliminary and not ready for implementation,” the minister said in Baghdad. Rosneft agreed on Thursday to take control of Iraqi Kurdistan’s main oil pipeline, boosting its investment in the region....                         

What in the ?????????????????

Osama bin Laden is dead.

October 21, 2017
By Morgan Winsor

The United States Air Force (click here) could recall as many as 1,000 retired military pilots to active-duty service to address an acute shortage in its ranks.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday allowing the Air Force to call back to service up to 1,000 retired aviation officers who wish to return, the White House and the Pentagon announced.

By law, only 25 retired pilots can be recalled through voluntary programs to serve in any one branch. Trump's executive order temporarily removes this limit by expanding a state of national emergency declared by President George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 as part of efforts "to mitigate the Air Force's acute shortage of pilots," according to Pentagon spokesman Navy Commander Gary Ross....

...On Friday, the government announced it was going further with a recall of retirees into active service.

"We anticipate that the Secretary of Defense will delegate the authority to the Secretary of the Air Force to recall up to 1,000 retired pilots for up to three years," Ross said in a statement Friday. "The pilot supply shortage is a national level challenge that could have adverse effects on all aspects of both the government and commercial aviation sectors for years to come,"

Excuse me? The graduates of the Aviation School at the University of North Dakota are waiting.

The Department of Aviation (click here) at the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences is your best choice when preparing for a career in aviation. We offer a liberal arts core curriculum combined with a comprehensive professional aviation education in a specialty of your choice. Here in the heartland of the United States, you will get all-season flight training that will make your learning experience at UND exciting, rewarding, and fun....

Trump is eliminating the effects of the REPUBLICAN TAX CUTS under Obama.

Due to the constrained fiscal environment of the past few years, (click here) the Air Force continues to prioritize capability over capacity. Air Force leadership has also made it clear that near-term reductions will be made in lift, command and control, and fourth-generation fighter aircraft to ensure that its top three modernization programs—the F-35A, Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), and KC-46A—are preserved. The USAF is now the oldest and smallest in its history, and as the demand for air power continues to increase, the problem of capacity limiting capability will continue to grow. Unlike some of the other services, the Air Force did not grow during the post-9/11 buildup  Rather, it got smaller as older aircraft were retired and replacement programs, such as the F-35, experienced successive delays in bringing new aircraft into the fleet....

So, Trump is returning all the spending to the military negotiated under the Republican cuts, but, abandon the ACA. The increase (not the military budget) of military spending is three times the annual military budget of Canada.

The USA is now an official banana republic. Cut Medicare, sure. Cut Medicaid, sure. Cut food stamps, sure. But, cut defense spending that is already multiple times that of any other country on Earth, never.

March 16, 2017
By Kuang Keng Juek Ser

President Donald Trump (click here) proposed drastic cuts in spending on the arts, science, foreign aid and environmental protection Thursday, in a security-focused budget blueprint that could struggle to pass Congress.

Translating hardline campaign promises into dollar-and-cent commitments, the Republican leader proposed scrapping dozens of programs like public broadcasting and climate funding, while boosting Pentagon spending by $52 billion.

Trump, in the preface to the spending proposal, described it as "a budget that puts America first," and that makes safety and security the "number one priority — because without safety, there can be no prosperity."

The State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency would be the biggest losers, seeing their funding reduced by around one-third.

Defense would be the biggest winner, with a $52 billion increase that amounts to more than three times Canada's total military expenditures in 2015. Trump's budget, if passed, would reverse an eight-year downward trend in military spending under Barack Obama....

How many generals in this administration? How many? Everyone remember SEQUESTRATION?

You know the Budget Control Act of 2011 after the Republicans gained seats in the US House and Senate? 

Remember?

Remember the crash of 2008? The global economic collapse? The collapse that plummeted USA tax revenues while the Recovery Act was necessary to help put the USA economy back on track, which it did.

Well, Trump doesn't like to be hemmed in by past Republican budgets.

March 16, 2017
By Annie Lowry

Six years ago, (click here) in the first act of a budgetary drama, a group of aggrieved legislators hung a daft gun over the mantle. Now, in its third act, it is set to fire.

The gun is the arcane fiscal tool called sequestration, and it now poses a mortal threat to President Trump’s budgetary agenda, announced in greater—if hardly great—detail today. One might think that Trump’s proposal would be easily pass through the Republican Congress, as it expands the security budget and winnows much of the rest of the government. Many Republicans are defense hawks seeking more money to fight ISIS and modernize the armed forces. Many others are budget hawks bent on cutting Washington down to size.

Yet the proposal is dead on arrival. To appropriate funding as the White House wants, Trump would need to repeal or subvert sequestration. To do that, he would need to overcome the threat of a Senate filibuster. To do that, he would need to woo some number of Democrats. To do that, he would need to overhaul his budget figures. And in doing that, Trump would almost certainly lose too many Republican votes to pass his budget....

Trump's Senate has passed a $1.5 trillion DEFICIT. Not a $1.5 trillion budget, but, a budget that will add $1.5 trillion to the National Deficit and Debt.

The Obama Recovery Act cost $831 billion over ten years between 2009 and 2019.

October 19, 2017
By Lisa Mascaro

Senate Republicans (click here) overcame internal divisions late Thursday to approve a 2018 budget that will increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years to allow for President Trump’s proposed tax cuts.

Passage of the GOP’s budget blueprint is a largely symbolic exercise, but it sets the stage for smoother passage of Trump’s upcoming tax cuts. It will include special instructions that allow for passage of a tax plan by a simple majority, without threat of a Senate filibuster to block it....

436 Afghan Children Killed due to war in first half of 2017.

Afghan women and children are the most vulnerable people to the Proxy War with Russia and Iran in Afghanistan.

$840.7 billion US 

August 23, 2017
By Steve Mufson

...Direct U.S. spending on the war in Afghanistan (click here) will rise to approximately $840.7 billion if the president’s fiscal year 2018 budget is approved, according to Anthony Cordesman, a military strategy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That includes the total cost estimated by the Congressional Research Service for the 2001 to 2014 fiscal years, and money from the Defense Department’s overseas contingency budgets for the fiscal years 2015 to 2018....

The Taliban is funded by the opium trade in Afghanistan. It was one of the reasons there was a forum with Jack Ma of Alibaba to bring a globalist economy to Afghanistan.

It can work IF Alibaba finds a way to provide raw materials so industry to produce consumer goods occurs in Afghanistan. The Afghan people need jobs. They need a normal economy that will end the opium industry.

India, as a USA ally, is looking toward peace through diplomacy for Afghanistan.

September 29, 2017

Afghanistan’s chief executive Abdullah Abdullah shakes hands with foreign secretary S. Jaishankar during the 24th Sapru House Lecture at Indian Council for World Affairs, in New Delhi on Friday. 

Afghan chief executive Abdullah Abdullah (click here) on Friday said the doors were open for talks with the rebel Taliban against the backdrop of the US announcing a reworked South Asia policy that promises to stay the course in the war-torn country and seemingly putting talks with the insurgent group on the back burner.

In New Delhi on a two-day visit, Abdullah also called on countries in the neighbourhood not to make any distinction between the Islamic State, which had established a presence in some provinces of Afghanistan, and the Taliban who have been fighting the US-backed Ashraf Ghani government in Kabul.

In an address to the Indian Council on World Affairs think tank, Abdullah welcomed the revamped US policy on Afghanistan but also stressed the importance of unity within the various sections of Afghan society.

Abdullah said that the “doors for peace talks will always be open... hopefully the groups that are fighting will be convinced to sever links with terrorism and terror networks and to work for their own country”....

The Taliban thought they would be successful in ending the economic trade show on behalf of Afghanistan. It went forward anyway.

September 27, 2017

New Delhi: Rebel rocket attacks on Kabul airport (click here) on Wednesday scuttled Afghan chief executive Abdullah Abdullah’s plans to open a one of its kind three-day India-Afghanistan trade and investment show in New Delhi on Wednesday but the event was inaugurated by Indian and US government officials.

The fair, supported by the US Agency for International Aid and the government of India, will showcase Afghan products like carpets, gems, dry fruits and marble as well as opportunities for investment in areas like education and health.

In the absence of Abdullah Abdullah, Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley and chargé d’affaires of the US embassy in Delhi, MaryKay Carlson, inaugurated the event....

Diplomacy is the only way forward for Afghanistan now. Why? Because idiotic "W" and Cheney DIVERTED the USA forces to Iraq for oil. That's why and the Taliban reconstituted in Pakistan.

As long as there are Americans in Afghanistan, there will be radicals that will come to fight. The Taliban won't accept negotiations that leave the USA military in place.

October 17, 2017

Negotiators (click here) from Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States met in Oman on October 16 to try to find ways of reviving peace talks with the Afghan Taliban.

It was not clear whether any Taliban militants had joined the talks, which have so far failed to restart a peace process that collapsed in 2015.

Taliban sources have said they would stay away from the discussions in Muscat, casting doubt on prospects for reviving the long-stalled negotiations.

Pakistani officials said the talks had resumed on Pakistan's initiative. The Pakistani team was led by Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua.

The Afghan team, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai, said the talks would focus on relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan and implementing Pakistan's commitments to fight terrorism....

The USA is running a proxy war in Afghanistan. That is all the USA is doing. There is no other reason for the USA to be in Afghanistan. NONE!

It must be The Domino Effect AGAIN! There has to be a reason somewhere in the world to keep the "War Machine Lobby" in business.

April 13, 2017
By Erin Cunningham

Kabul — Iran and Russia (click here) have stepped up challenges to U.S. power in Afghanistan, American and Afghan officials say, seizing on the uncertainty of future U.S. policy to expand ties with the Taliban and weaken the country’s Western-backed government.

The moves come as tensions have flared between the United States, Iran and Russia over the conflict in Syria, and officials worry that the fallout could hurt Afghanistan’s chances for peace. For years, Iran and Russia have pushed for a U.S. withdrawal.

Now, as the Taliban gains ground and the White House appears to lack a clear Afghan policy, Iran and Russia have boosted support for insurgents and sidelined the United States from regional diplomacy on the war.

Russia on Friday will host high-level talks on Afghanistan with Iranian, Pakistani and Chinese diplomats, the Kremlin said. But the United States, irked by Moscow’s recent outreach to the Taliban, has not confirmed whether it will attend.

Russia has “begun to publicly legitimize the Taliban,” and recent Russian and Iranian actions in Afghanistan “are to undermine the United States and NATO,” the top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Nicholson Jr., said in Senate testimony in February....

The thing is "What Domino Effect?" India? Really? Lookey thar, Iran is carrying out a two front war. In Iraq against Daesh and now in Afghanistan with Russia against the USA. Interesting. Iran? Conventional warfare to defeat the USA?

We never belonged in Iraq. 

We don't belong in Afghanistan.

We no longer do!

Helmand Province CANNOT be solved. It never could be solved.

April 29, 2017

US Marines returned to Afghanistan's volatile Helmand (click here) Saturday, where American troops faced heated fighting until NATO's combat mission ended in 2014, as embattled Afghan security forces struggle to beat back the resurgent Taliban.

The deployment of some 300 Marines to the poppy-growing southern province came one day after the militants announced the launch of their "spring offensive," and as the Trump administration seeks to craft a new strategy in Afghanistan.

Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan General John Nicholson attended a handover ceremony marking the return of the prestigious force, the first Marines in Afghanistan since 2014, an AFP photographer said.

Part of a regular troop rotation announced in January under the Obama administration, they will arrive in stages, eventually numbering some 300 who will take part in NATO's train, assist and advise mission.

Helmand for years was the centerpiece of the US and British military intervention in Afghanistan — only for it to slip deeper into a quagmire of instability.

The Taliban effectively control or contest 10 of Helmand's 14 districts, blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency....

This is a documentary these American soldiers WANTED to make to be hear. What are you all waiting for?

I think the fact General Kelly is being exposed in his grief is unacceptable.

No other father of a dead Marine, officer or otherwise, is in the spotlight to expose his grief. I think President Trump's comments were wrong, very political and indecent. The fact Trump was crude and rude does not pass the flag to Kelly to solve the tabloid facts to the media.

Current Chief of Staff John Kelly has a very important role to play in the country's protections and it's business. He needs to be left to that job and not dragged back into a personal grief.

I think if the media wants to explore the relationship the military and its families have with the country, it is a difficult and possibly impossible task.

The military has a job to do. It has, in decades since Vietnam, been asked to protect the country when there was no profound danger to the USA. The Domino Theory was the asinine reason for Vietnam. Yet, we lost over 50,000 troops and the dead in Vietnam was more than a million.

If there is to be a conversation about the USA military, it's families and the role the country has asked it to play, start there. Start with the fact the Vietnam War was AMONG the most unjustified use of the USA military. Start there and then go forward. What will be discovered is that the American citizen, in the role of a military soldier, is completely and absolutely disrespected for the sacrifice when the decision to go to war includes idiocy and greed. 

START THERE!  Not with a grieving father that happens to be a General.

Start with the fact there are times BY DESIGN when the only place for a high school graduate to find work is in military service. Then realize that soldier is defending a country that sends him or her into a war theater for the purpose of Wall Street greed. THEN, ask the families about the honor their son or daughter felt when he/she served in contrast to the the travesty of that death. Go ahead. But, don't give the American media an uptick in ratings to bolster the wrong way forward of the next idiotic war of this country!