Usa Thread

[Coss]

War Gear Flows to Police Departments

 

NEENAH, Wis. — Inside the municipal garage of this small lakefront city, parked next to the hefty orange snowplow, sits an even larger truck, this one painted in desert khaki. Weighing 30 tons and built to withstand land mines, the armored combat vehicle is one of hundreds showing up across the country, in police departments big and small.

 

The 9-foot-tall armored truck was intended for an overseas battlefield. But as President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s “long season of war,†the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice.

 

During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.

 

The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units. Police SWAT teams are now deployed tens of thousands of times each year, increasingly for routine jobs. Masked, heavily armed police officers in Louisiana raided a nightclub in 2006 as part of a liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of “barbering without a license.†more.....

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html?_r=0

 

and so it goes

 

 

[Flashermac]

All the Tea Party can really manage to accomplish is destroy the Republican Party. Nowadays, Barry Goldwater would be regarded as a pinko lefty. The Tea Party has already won some primaries against shoo-in Republican moderates, only to hand the Congressional seats to the Democrats. They will also manage to ensure that the Democrats win the White House next time around. Whose side are they on?

[dean]

It's too bad that many voters don't vote in "lesser"elections, like primaries and local elections. Because the turn out is so low, a grass roots organization like the Tea Party can pick off Congressmen before the race even goes to a general election. Concerning Presidential races, the Republicans could possibly go the way of the Whigs over immigration and the rising Hispanic vote.

[Flashermac]

Hmmm ... from the Washington Post, no less.

 

ABC News’s Diane Sawyer destroys Hillary Rodham Clinton on Benghazi

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/06/10/abc-newss-diane-sawyer-destroys-hillary-rodham-clinton-on-benghazi/

 

 

Probably won't make any difference. It is a woman's turn to be president now, followed by an Hispanic, a gay, Asian etc. American politics is all sound and fury these days, choreographed by someone, somewhere.

[Steve]

Obama Chomps On Gum During D-Day Anniversary Event…

 

France Not Happy

 

 

Obama was caught on camera chewing gum while clapping during the welcome for Her Majesty the Queen. He kept chewing throughout the ceremonies, also managing to anger France. French twitter blew up (not to mention British and American reaction):

 

...

 

http://weaselzippers...iversary-event/

 

He's a smoker and trying to quit hence the gum chewing. Didn't read the link so it could have said t.

[Steve]

The Tea Party took out their biggest prize yet; House Majority Whip, Eric Cantor. I wonder if that makes a Tea Party Congressman/woman in line to take Cantor's job? I also wonder if the Speaker is worried about staying Speaker in the next Congress?

Cantor was pretty far right. The message of the Tea Party is do not negotiate, ever. Problem its impossible to run the goverment like that. Most congresspersons have their one line. Whatever it is, they will vote no. But some are secondary or tertiary and you can give and take. The Tea Party's basic tactic is don't give an inch. Ever. And if you and the opposition share the same thing and you both vote to enact, claim that you won and you made them blink and you didn't give an inch. Can't run things like that. But many are in safe districts where everyone has a bunker mentality. This is not gonna end well. Obama has gotten the fringe out since his election. Its a very hardcore fringe. Republicans are gonna disagree with him, all well and good, its normal politics to disagree with the opposition President but they seem to be doing with a religious zealotry where he's demonized to the point where to some he's not even legitimate. Its a bit scary to me. Maybe not others but to me it is. The left has thieirs as well but the difference is they don't have the power within the party.

[Flashermac]

Right now I'd say the Tea Baggers have the power to nominate candidates, but not enough to get them elected. In a way it reminds me of the recent mess in Thailand between the anti-Thaksins and the pro-Thaksins. Neither side was willing to budge, so the military did. That can never happen in the USA, so I see American politics just continuing as a battle between the extremes, who are more or less holding the government hostage.

[unit731]

Beware !

 

 

"This Friday may hold a triple terror for superstitious people. It is a combination of Friday, the number 13 and a full moon."

 

LINK

[Flashermac]

I'm not superstitious ... knock on wood.

 

Meanwhile, Time jumps in too ...

 

 

 

On Iraq, It Is Amazing What This White House Does Not Know

 

 

Obama's foreign policy team was caught totally clueless about the insurgency in Iraq.

 

There is a big harvest of bad news from the country formerly known as Iraq this June 12. The country’s armed forces have collapsed in the north and ISIS fighters are streaming south from Mosul. A vicious band of terrorists and thugs whose leaders were too bloodthirsty and unscrupulous for al-Qaeda now controls a significant swath of territory from the middle of Syria through the center of Iraq. The Kurds meanwhile have seized the moment to take Kirkuk, and they are unlikely to leave it voluntarily. A dramatically weakened government in Baghdad will now be more dependent than ever on Iran, and Jordan is now exposed to attacks from radicals along its long and poorly guarded eastern frontier. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes in terror for their lives, and gruesome executions and attacks are already being reported from the cities that have fallen to the terrorists. The foreign fighters with them, including, apparently, many Westerners, are acquiring expertise that will make them significantly more dangerous when they return to their home countries.

 

All over the world, radical jihadis now feel the wind in their sails; aimless young men will be more easily recruited into these networks, funders will be inspired to increase their support, and those already wrapped up in the movement will be “inspired†by this victory to make greater efforts in the cause. Meanwhile, huge stocks of weapons and hoards of cash have fallen into the hands of the victors; ISIS is now the richest as well as the most successful terror group in the world. It is unlikely that these victories will make its leaders more moderate in their aims or gentler in their methods.

 

Yet none of that, grim as it is, is the worst news in the papers today. The worst news about Iraq comes from Washington, where we learn in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that senior White House officials acknowledge that these events have surprised them. They apparently had no idea that the Iraqi army was a hollow shell, that ISIS was planning something, and that the sectarian war was about to take a dramatic lurch for the worse.

 

It is amazing what this White House does not know. It did not know that Putin was planning to take over Ukraine; indeed, it thought that its policy of a reset with Russia was paying off and that Russia was becoming a partner for peace. It did not know that Saudi Arabia was preparing to help the Egyptian army oust a democratically elected government the United States was determined to support.

 

One wonders what else the wizards now running American foreign policy don’t know. Do they understand what Iran’s Supreme Leader is thinking? Do they know what Beijing thinks of their intelligence and resolution, and what plans it may be forming in response?

 

One is not sure whether this morning’s harvest of news from Iraq is what President Obama would call a “single†or a “double†in what he describes as his dogged attempt to make the world a better and safer place by avoiding “stupid stuff.†For a generation of policy wonks who believe that foreign policy can essentially be boiled down to the rule “don’t invade Iraq,†it is crystal clear what America should do in response to these latest Iraq catastrophes: Blame George W. Bush and stand aside.

 

Bush certainly deserves some blame here, both for the mess in the Middle East and for the impact on a generation of American policy thinkers whose strategic instincts have been thrown off kilter by their emotional reactions to his poorly judged and poorly executed Middle East policies. But no time machines exist that can take us back to 2003, and the problems of today demand something more than reflexive rejection of the policies of a man now living quietly in Texas. One can only hope that the Obama White House will at long last step out of George Bush’s shadow and begin to see clearly, plan carefully, and act wisely in a region that remains vital to American and world security.

 

 

http://time.com/2865...gn-policy-iraq/

[cavanami]

It's called...plausible deniability...