Rick Perry joins Morning Joe Today! Tune in and Amy Homes does Way Too Early? I did not know that about her and it. Joe (Scarborough) is wearing his Masters Jacket from 86 or 87.
Rick Perry Announces, Gawker Unionizes, New Snowden Snooping Revelations: P.M. Links.
The FDA panel voted 18-6 in favor of approving the pill, called flibanserin, so long as its manufacturer makes a plan to limit its safety risks.
It's a far cry from "female Viagra," however.
How it works
Unlike Viagra, which helps men get and keep an erection by directing blood flow to that area of the body, this new drug, called flibanserin, is designed to help boost a woman's psychological desire for sex. In order to do that, this drug is taken daily and, over time, can affect the levels of certain chemicals in the brain.
"It's beyond ridiculous that this is being called 'female' Viagra,'" Bat Sheva Marcus, a sexual dysfunction specialist at the Medical Center for Female Sexuality in New York, told Business Insider. "This isn't about blood flow. It's got nothing to do with blood flow."
Pfizer, the makers of Viagra, tried marketing plain old "male" Viagra to women in 2004. It failed. The drug increased blood flow to women's genitals, but that had zero effect on their desire for sex.
That's where flibanserin is different.
Flibanserin targets two neurotransmitters in the brain that can help inspire sexual desire. The first is dopamine, which helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers and could help drive up our interest in sex. The second is norepinephrine, which affects parts of the brain that control our attention and our response to things in our environment and could help direct our attention to a sexual partner.
Many women — some studies estimate this number is as high as one-third of all adult women — suffer from a condition known as female hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). The essential feature of HSDD in women is a lack of desire for sex that causes distress. According to Marcus, women with HSDD still enjoy sex when they have it, but the inspiration to have it in the first place simply isn't there.
"I see this all the time where a woman, she enjoys sex and gets aroused and orgasms, but she absolutely just doesn't want it anymore — she's just not interested," said Marcus. "It's something that's going on in the brain."
This drug, which is supposed to be taken daily, would ideally target a mix of neurotransmitters so as to give that desire a boost. "It's trying to change the parts of the brain that don’t light up, the ones that aren't responding," said Marcus.
How well does it work?
People aren't sure how well flibanserin works just yet. Although it's been through several trials, its benefits are still controversial. For one thing, flibanserin comes with side effects, just as any drug would. These side effects include fainting and drowsiness, especially if taken with alcohol. Some have said these aren't severe enough to merit blocking it, while others say there could be unforeseen problems that haven't yet been accounted for. And there are concerns about potential problems with alcohol given how much the average American drinks.
Plus, its success is somewhat disputed.
Although it was effective in trials in raising the number of times a woman has satisfying sex (which the scientists label "satisfying sexual episodes") it didn't improve sexual desire — the very thing the drug was designed to do.
Women in the trials taking flibanserin saw an increase in the number of times they had satisfying sex from roughly 2.8 times per month to an average of 4.5 times per month, an increase of about 1.7 times.
Here's the problem: Women taking just a placebo in drug trials had more SSEs too, albeit by a slightly smaller number. Women taking a placebo saw their number of SSEs went up from an average of 2.7 per month to 3.7, an increase of 1.
In other words, controlling for the placebo effect, flibanserin's effectiveness amounted to roughly one extra episode of satisfying sex each month, reports David Kroll in Forbes. This was likely one of the reasons the FDA has rejected pharma companies' petitions for it twice, according to Fierce Biotech.
Yet the company making the drug, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, says this is enough of an increase to make it available to women.
And today, the FDA appeared to agree.
"It's clear to me that there were very consistent benefits in measures we understand for some portion of women," and no benefits for others, advisory committee member Kevin Weinfurt said.
China suspected in massive breach of federal personnel data. China-based hackers are suspected of breaking into the computer networks of the U.S. government personnel office and stealing identifying information of at least 4 million federal workers, American officials said Thursday. China under suspicion as US admits huge data hack AFP
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that data from the Office of Personnel Management and the Interior Department had been compromised.
"The FBI is conducting an investigation to identify how and why this occurred," the statement said.
The hackers were believed to be based in China, said Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican.
Collins, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said the breach was "yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances."
A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington called such accusations "not responsible and counterproductive."
"Cyberattacks conducted across countries are hard to track and therefore the source of attacks is difficult to identify," spokesman Zhu Haiquan said Thursday night. He added that hacking can "only be addressed by international cooperation based on mutual trust and mutual respect."
A U.S. official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the data breach, said it could potentially affect every federal agency. One key question is whether intelligence agency employee information was stolen. Former government employees are affected as well.
"This is an attack against the nation," said Ken Ammon, chief strategy officer of Xceedium, who said the attack fit the pattern of those carried out by nation states for the purpose of espionage. The information stolen could be used to impersonate or blackmail federal employees with access to sensitive information, he said. The Office of Personnel Management is the human resources department for the federal government, and it conducts background checks for security clearances. The OPM conducts more than 90 percent of federal background investigations, according to its website.
The agency said it is offering credit monitoring and identity theft insurance for 18 months to individuals potentially affected. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents workers in 31 federal agencies, said it is encouraging members to sign up for the monitoring as soon as possible.
In November, a former DHS contractor disclosed another cyberbreach that compromised the private files of more than 25,000 DHS workers and thousands of other federal employees.
Cyber-security experts also noted that the OPM was targeted a year ago in a cyber-attack that was suspected of originating in China. In that case, authorities reported no personal information was stolen.
One expert said it's possible that hackers could use information from government personnel files for financial gain. In a recent case disclosed by the IRS, hackers appear to have obtained tax return information by posing as taxpayers, using personal information gleaned from previous commercial breaches, said Rick Holland, an information security analyst at Forrester Research.
"Given what OPM does around security clearances, and the level of detail they acquire when doing these investigations, both on the subjects of the investigations and their contacts and references, it would be a vast amount of information," Holland added.
DHS said its intrusion detection system, known as EINSTEIN, which screens federal Internet traffic to identify potential cyber threats, identified the hack of OPM's systems and the Interior Department's data center, which is shared by other federal agencies.
It was unclear why the EINSTEIN system didn't detect the breach until after so many records had been copied and removed.
"DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion," the statement said.
Cybersecurity expert Morgan Wright of the Center for Digital Government, an advisory institute, said EINSTEIN "certainly appears to be a failure at this point. The government would be better off outsourcing their security to the private sector where's there at least some accountability."
Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called the hack "shocking, because Americans may expect that federal computer networks are maintained with state of the art defenses."
Ammon said federal agencies are rushing to install two-factor authentication with smart cards, a system designed to make it harder for intruders to access networks. But implementing that technology takes time.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said the government must overhaul its cybersecurity defenses. "Our response to these attacks can no longer simply be notifying people after their personal information has been stolen," he said. "We must start to prevent these breaches in the first place." Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Alicia A. Caldwell and Kevin Freking in Washington and Brandon Bailey in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Rick Perry launches comeback White House bid. This time, Rick Perry has nowhere to go but up.
Four years after his first presidential campaign was crushed by the weight of his debate gaffe and stump speech mishaps, the governor who spent 14 years presiding over Texas launched his second bid for the Republican nomination on Thursday.
"I'm running for the presidency of the United States," Perry said at a sweltering rally in Addison, Texas, where the former governor and his guests on stage could be seen sweating profusely at the midday event.
Perry reintroduced himself Thursday as a Republican with military experience that distinguishes him from other GOP hopefuls. That biography -- bookended by a poor upbringing in the small town of Paint Creek and by a job-creation record as governor -- was not shared in 2012, his advisers say, but will be in 2016.
Perry, deeming himself someone who had "led the most successful state in America", will also play up his relationships with veterans he has mentored.
At his event Thursday, he was flanked by a list of military veterans, including several Navy SEALs and Taya Kyle, the widow of "American Sniper" Chris Kyle, and Marcus Luttrell, who Perry called a "second son" — a group that allows Perry to highlight his five years in the Air Force. Perry has ditched the signature cowboy boots and added black-rimmed glasses. He's spent the intervening years recovering from health problems and boning up on policy.
Now, Perry is asking GOP primary voters for a second chance.
"Let's give them a second chance. Let's give them real leadership," Perry said, describing disillusioned Americans in a way that he could very much be describing himself.
Perry's speech at Addison Airport outside Dallas -- delivered without pause for more than 20 minutes even as sweat dripped down his face -- focused primarily on foreign policy, which has been his calling card of late on the stump. His GOP competitors emerging from the U.S. Senate have looked down on the class of governors for lacking that foreign policy experience.
Perry took on that criticism head-on, even using a line of one of those senators, Ted Cruz, against him.
"The question of every candidate will be this: When have you led?" Perry said in a slightly-edited Cruz line. Then he turned it. "Leadership is not a speech on the Senate floor. it is not what you say. It is what you have done."
Perry similarly handled the rhetoric of his political nemesis, Barack Obama. A new part of his stump speech harkens back to Obama rhetoric about healing the nation's political ruptures. On Thursday, Perry promised to bring about a new era of bipartisanship, calling Obama "a divider who has sliced and diced the electorate," language that appeared in Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention that rocketed him to stardom.
Preceding his speech, Perry first released a video online early Thursday morning, telling voters "we have the power to make our country new again." "We need a president who bridges the partisan divide rather than widen -- who brings people together. We must do right and risk the consequences."
Kyle vouched for Perry in an email to supporters inviting them to the campaign kick-off. "I got to know Rick and Anita Perry outside of the public eye, where I've had an up-close view of their humility and commitment to doing the right thing for people regardless of who gets the credit," she wrote. "Believe me, they are a breath of fresh air in a political system full of people playing games and twisting the truth." Perry struggled badly during his 2012 campaign. He entered the Republican race to great conservative fanfare in August 2011 and unseated Mitt Romney from the party's pole position — but quickly saw that status erode.
There was the "oops" moment in a CNBC debate, when Perry couldn't remember the name of one of the three federal agencies he said he wanted to abolish. There was also a New Hampshire speech where voters wondered aloud afterward whether he'd been drinking. Almost four years later, he enters the race struggling to make the top 10 in polls of a much-stronger Republican field, and with work to do to earn a second chance with voters.
After his Thursday launch, Perry will head to Iowa, where on Saturday he'll be in the city of Perry to kick off a "Ride with Rick" event that benefits the Puppy Jake Foundation, a non-profit that provides service dogs to wounded veterans.
He'll ride a motorcycle belonging to Taylor Morris, a Navy explosive ordinance disposal technician from Cedar Falls, Iowa who hasn't been able to ride it since being injured in Afghanistan. The ride will end in Boone, Iowa, where Perry will then participate in Sen. Joni Ernst's "Roast and Ride" event — and begin courting voters in the first state to hit the polls.
The state has been Perry's focal point since 2014. He's made more than a dozen visits to Iowa, where he's visited far-flung locales while remaining under the radar — and far from the media circus that followed his first bid.
Jane Jameson, an executive assistant who came to the Perry launch in Addison, said she's eager to hear the Perry pitch but isn't yet committed.
"It's going to be really hard to narrow it down to one, but Rick will certainly be in contention," she said. CNN's Ashley Killough and Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
Rick (Perry) is sounding a lot like Elizabeth Warren these days.
FIFA Paid Ireland Not To Sue Over Thierry Henry's Handball.
I also think that Hillary had one of her best days running on that Dem side yesterday. She (Hillary Clinton) calls out GOP opponents by name on voting rights.
Hillary Clinton accused four potential GOP presidential rivals by name of being "scared of letting citizens have their say" as she called Thursday for every American to automatically be registered to vote.
Clinton told an audience at the historically black Texas Southern University that she supports the concept of signing every American up to vote as soon as they're eligible at age 18, unless they specifically opt out. She called for expanded access to polling places, keeping them open for at least 20 days and offering voting hours on evenings and weekends.
For the first time in her campaign, she attacked her likely opponents by name as she laid into four GOP governors -- Texas's Rick Perry, Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Florida's Jeb Bush and New Jersey's Chris Christie -- telling them to "stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of voter fraud."
"All of these problems voting just didn't happen by accident," she said. "And it is just wrong -- it's wrong -- to try to prevent, undermine and inhibit Americans' right to vote." The former secretary of state's move to put voter access front and center in the 2016 presidential campaign highlights a contrast with laws implemented by GOP-controlled legislatures in states like North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and Florida that cut down on early voting times and tighten voter identification rules.
The Supreme Court also ruled in 2013 that a key aspect of President Lyndon Johnson's Voting Rights Act of 1965 is no longer constitutional.
"What is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other," Clinton said.
In her 2008 campaign, Clinton rarely addressed voting rights. But Democrats have fretted that policies imposed by GOP state legislatures in recent years could dissuade African-Americans and those in urban areas from voting, cutting into crucial blocs of Democratic support in swing states.
The Democratic frontrunner highlighted the issue in a heavily political speech as she received an award in the name of Barbara Jordan, a pioneer African-American lawmaker and civil rights leader.
"Forty years after Barbara Jordan fought to extend the Voting Rights Act, its heart has been ripped out," Clinton said. "I wish we could hear her speak up for the student who has to wait hours for his or her right to vote; for the grandmother who's turned away from the polls because her driver's license expired; for the father who's done his time and paid his debt to society but still hasn't gotten his rights back." Her complaints about the Republican governors: Perry signed a law that courts later ruled intentionally discriminated against minority voters; Walker signed one that made voting more difficult for college students; Christie rejected an expansion of early voting; and Bush oversaw a purge of the state's voter rolls.
And she attacked the nation's high court for its 2013 ruling on the Voting Rights Act as well as its 2010 decision on campaign finance laws.
"We need a Supreme Court who cares more about the right to vote of a person than the right to buy an election of a corporation," Clinton said.
While the speech appears to be good politics, the likelihood of achieving universal voter registration is questionable even to people who support it.
Rob Richie, the executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy, a group in favor of universal registration, said Thursday that the "very decentralized" voting systems in the United States make it "feasible" but "difficult."
The primary problem: The United States does not have a national ID system like other countries that have universal voter registration.
"There is not a simple single approach because we do not have this simple, singular ID that connects us," said Richie, noting that instead of registering to vote nationally, in the United States, you register with your state.
One solution to the problem would be to implement a national identification card, said Richie. The problem: Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and others are vehemently against a national ID, calling it a "slippery slope" to surveillance and monitoring citizens.
Clinton supports the concept of universal registration, but not a specific method, an aide said.
The former first lady has long been a supporter of voting rights: She helped register voters in Texas' Rio Grande Valley during the George McGovern's failed 1972 presidential run and as a senator introduced legislation to make Election Day a national holiday and reduce lines at polling stations.
Clinton's top campaign lawyer, Marc Elias, has also taken on the fight by filing lawsuits challenging voter restriction laws in Ohio and Wisconsin. He told The New York Times on Wednesday that "we should all want to ensure that all eligible voters can exercise their right to vote and have their vote counted."
Clinton's aides have said that they are aware of the lawsuits and are supportive of their goals.
The changes have drawn Democrats -- including lawyers close to Clinton and the Democratic National Committee -- into a voting rights fight that some African-Americans, like South Carolina Democrat Bakari Sellers, are calling "the greatest challenge of our generation."
Obama won 93% of African-American voters in 2012 and 95% in 2008, according to exit polls. Some Democrats worry that Clinton needs a similar performance with African-American voters and disenfranchisement is an issue that Democrats hope will activate that base.
The first few months of Clinton's campaign have seen a number of events and trips focused on African-American voters.
In her first speech as a candidate, Clinton called for mandatory police body cameras across the country and end "era of mass incarceration," an issue that connected with African-American activists concerned about black men dying at the hands of law enforcement.
Clinton also focused on a minority-owned business in her first trip to South Carolina, a state with a sizable African-American population that overwhelmingly picked Obama over her in the 2008 primary.
Why is Joe into Fracking so much? That FDA story is deceiving or not even because they point blank it is not rampant that fracking ingredients is lethal when it hits the water streams, but when it does, it is bad. What is the big deal here? And, again, why does he love fracking so much? Actually, let's get him to drink a glass water like the one below and then talk to me about this story and besides, we need to be straying away from that type of energy and into ones that are safer and more effeicient. That is the real debate.
Study Confirms Fracking is Polluting Water in Pennsylvania, So Why the Frack is it Still Happening?
However, while insisting he doesn't advocate "nation-building," Rubio seemed to define his policy as exactly that.
"It’s not nation-building. We are assisting them in building their nation," Rubio said of his vision for Iraq.
Watch a video of Rubio's remark below.
The exchange began when a host asked Rubio whether he agrees with other Republican presidential candidates who have criticized the extended presence of US military troops in that country.
He began by explaining that America "can't build a democracy" in Iraq, but could help the country with practical matters like infrastructure that might help them "govern" long term. The host responded by saying he seemed to be expressing support for "nation-building."
This query provoked Rubio's claim that he's not calling for "nation-building" in Iraq and is instead talking about "assisting them in building their nation."
His campaign did not immediately respond to an email from Business Insider asking them to clarify how that is any different from "nation-building."
After making his seemingly contradictory statement about "nation-building," the senator went on to explain why he believes the US has a "vested interest" in helping Iraqis govern their country.
"The alternative to not doing that is the chaos we have now," he said.
He argued that President Barack Obama's administration supported former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has been criticized for trying to consolidate power in the country among his fellow Shias while leaving out Sunni Muslims. Rubio said this behavior by al-Maliki facilitated the rise of the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Iraq.
"What happened in Iraq under this administration is they rallied around Maliki. Maliki was a Shia leader who used his power to go after Sunnis," Rubio explained. "That created the environment that was conducive for ISIS to come back in and cause all these problems."
The US-led war in that country proved extremely unpopular and questions about the government's handling of Iraq have come up on the campaign trail for both the Republicans and Democrats who are aiming to win the White House in 2016. These questions have been fueled by the fact ISIS gained a foothold in Iraq following US troop withdrawal. Last year, the US military launched operations aimed at wiping the group out.
Rubio's comments on "nation-building" are the third instance where he has seemingly stumbled while discussing Iraq. As CNN has noted, Rubio, who has made foreign policy expertise a cornerstone of his campaign, has been "vague" about whether he'd support committing ground troops to fight ISIS. And last month, in an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations, Rubio said he would not have supported the decision to invade Iraq, which was an apparent reversal from multiple prior comments he made in support of the war.
As for Martin O'Malley's campaign, the panel is discussing this 'Our Chance to Capture the Center' which was posted in the WAPO:
By Martin O'Malley and Harold Ford Jr.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
With President Bush and the Republican Party on the rocks, many Democrats think the 2008 election will be, to borrow a favorite GOP phrase, a cakewalk. Some liberals are so confident about Democratic prospects that they contend the centrism that vaulted Democrats to victory in the 1990s no longer matters.
The temptation to ignore the vital center is nothing new. Every four years, in the heat of the nominating process, liberals and conservatives alike dream of a world in which swing voters don't exist. Some on the left would love to pretend that groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist voice, aren't needed anymore.
But for Democrats, taking the center for granted next year would be a greater mistake than ever before. George W. Bush is handing us Democrats our Hoover moment. Independents, swing voters and even some Republicans who haven't voted our way in more than a decade are willing to hear us out. With an ambitious common-sense agenda, the progressive center has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win back the White House, expand its margins in Congress and build a political and governing majority that could last a generation. A majority comes hard for Democrats. In the past 150 years, only three Democrats, one of whom was Franklin Roosevelt, have won the White House with a majority of the popular vote.
What's more, political success built on the other party's failure is fleeting. Jimmy Carter won a majority in the wake of Watergate, but his own shortcomings on national security and the economy took him from majority victor to landslide loser in four years. Repudiating the other side's approach is only half the battle. Since neither side has a monopoly on truth, the hard part is knowing when to look beyond traditional orthodoxies to do what works.
Like FDR, we can build a lasting majority only by earning it -- with ideas that demonstrate to the American people that if they entrust us with national leadership, we can deal effectively with the challenges our country faces and the challenges they face in their everyday lives.
Over the past six years, we've seen what happens when an administration writes off the political center and manipulates every decision for partisan gain. Bush's failure to solve -- or even address -- America's great challenges has left our country dispirited, disillusioned and divided.
Contrast the collapse of a conservative president with the success of the last centrist president. Bill Clinton ran on an agenda of sensible ideas that brought America a decade of peace and prosperity. He was the only Democrat to be elected and reelected president in the past seven decades, and he left office more popular than almost any other president in recent memory.
Nearly seven years after Bush succeeded Clinton in the White House, America is facing challenges as great as we've ever seen -- a war against Islamist radicals who would destroy our way of life; global economic competition that demands we raise our game; and a quest for energy independence and efficiency that Al Gore has shown us could make or break our planet. To conquer such enduring problems, Democrats will need a broad, enduring majority -- and a centrist agenda that sustains it by making steady progress.
Most Americans don't care much about partisan politics; they just want practical answers to the problems they face every day. So far, our leading presidential candidates seem to understand that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. That's why they have begun putting forward smart, New Democrat plans to cap and trade carbon emissions, give more Americans the chance to earn their way through college, achieve universal health care through shared responsibility, increase national security by rebuilding our embattled military and enable all Americans who work full time to lift themselves out of poverty.
As the caucuses and primaries approach, candidates will come under increasing pressure to ignore the broader electorate and appeal to the party faithful. But the opportunity to build a historic majority is too great -- and too rare -- to pass up.
A new Democratic president will have the chance to unite Americans around solutions that will make all Americans proud of their country again. For the sake of the hardworking Americans who are depending on us to fix Washington and put our country on the right track, we pray that Democrats set out to build a majority that can last.
Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, is governor of Maryland. Harold Ford Jr. is a former Democratic representative from Tennessee and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.
In Iraq: ISIS fighters close Ramadi dam gates, cut off water to loyalist towns. ISIS has closed off a dam to the north of the Iraqi city of Ramadi -- seized by its forces last month -- cutting water supplies to pro-government towns downstream and making it easier for its fighters to attack forces loyal to Baghdad, local officials and residents said.
ISIS militants are opening only two or three of the dam's 26 gates on the Euphrates River for brief periods daily, the officials and residents said.
The head of the security council in the town of Khalidiyah, Sheikh Ibrahim Khalaf al-Fahdawi, and two residents of the nearby town of Habbaniya told CNN on Thursday that this move was to prevent river water overflowing from ISIS' side of the dam, and also to allow some water to flow downstream toward ISIS-held Falluja.
They added that the level of water in the Euphrates was now low enough that the river could be walked across, making it easier for ISIS militants to cross and attack the pro-government towns of Husaybah and Khalidiyah as well as the large security forces base at Habbaniya.
The banks of the river are defended by the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary forces, the same sources said, the majority from the Iraq-based Kataeb Hezbollah branch.
ISIS' victory in Ramadi: Five lessons:
Families flee conflict
Iraq's Federal Police announced late Thursday that 800 fighters from its elite force have been deployed to reinforce troops in Anbar in their operations against ISIS. The fighters have trained in sniping, urban fighting, dealing with suicide car bomb attacks and storming fortified barracks.
The 800 will be assigned to special combat missions against ISIS in Ramadi and other areas, a statement from the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
But residents of the towns of Habbaniya, Husaybah and Khalidiyah continue to flee, fearing an ISIS assault, according to officials and residents. Two residents said 300 families had fled as far north as Irbil, in the Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq.
There are conflicting reports as to how many families have fled Habbaniya and surrounding villages to take refuge in the town of Amiriyat al-Falluja in recent days, but officials suggest they number at least in the dozens. Pro-government tribal militias are dug in there but under frequent mortar attack from ISIS, according to Iraqi sources.
A senior security official told CNN the level of the Euphrates River had dropped by 1 meter (more than 3 feet) near Amiriyat al-Falluja.
Last week, the Iraqi government announced a major operation by Iraqi forces and the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary forces to retake Anbar province. Ramadi is the capital of the province.
Sectarian tensions are high over the fall of Ramadi. Some critics of the often pro-Shia Baghdad government suggested the regime was reluctant to arm Sunni tribes against ISIS as it mistrusts them but also reluctant to send adequate reinforcements to fight for a predominantly Sunni area.
Inside the battle for Ramadi: Iraqi soldier recalls the battle with ISIS
Humanitarian crisis looms
The United Nations warned Thursday that a lack of funding threatens vital aid operations supporting more than 8 million people affected by the conflict in Iraq.
The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, said the aid operation was hanging by a thread and that catastrophe looms if donors do not immediately make funds available.
"The crisis in Iraq is one of the most complex and volatile anywhere in the world," she said in a statement.
"Humanitarian partners have been doing everything they can to help. But more than 50% of the operation will be shut down or cut back if money is not received immediately."
US might deploy missiles in Europe to counter Russia.
The Obama administration is weighing a range of aggressive responses to Russia's alleged violation of a Cold War-era nuclear treaty, including deploying land-based missiles in Europe that could pre-emptively destroy the Russian weapons.
This "counterforce" option is among possibilities the administration is considering as it reviews its entire policy toward Russia in light of Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine, its annexation of Crimea and other actions the U.S. deems confrontational in Europe and beyond.
The options go so far as one implied — but not stated explicitly — that would improve the ability of U.S. nuclear weapons to destroy military targets on Russian territory.
It all has a certain Cold War ring, even if the White House ultimately decides to continue tolerating Russia's alleged flight-testing of a ground-launched cruise missile with a range prohibited by the treaty.
Russia denies violating the treaty and has, in turn, claimed violations by the United States in erecting missile defenses.
It is unclear whether Russia has actually deployed the suspect missile or whether Washington would make any military move if the Russians stopped short of deployment. For now, administration officials say they prefer to continue trying to talk Moscow into treaty compliance.
In public, administration officials have used obscure terms like "counterforce" and "countervailing strike capabilities" to describe two of its military response options, apparently hoping to buy time for diplomacy.
The Pentagon declined to make a senior defense policy official available to discuss the issue. A spokesman, Lt. Col. Joe Sowers, said, "All the options under consideration are designed to ensure that Russia gains no significant military advantage from their violation."
At his Senate confirmation hearing in February, Defense Secretary Ash Carter noted his concern about Russia's alleged violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces, or INF, treaty. He said disregard for treaty limitations was a "two-way street" opening the way for the U.S. to respond in kind.
The standoff speaks volumes about the depths to which U.S.-Russia relations have fallen. And that poses problems not only for the Obama administration but also for the NATO alliance, whose members in eastern Europe are especially leery of allowing Russian provocations to go unanswered.
Western leaders are meeting Sunday and Monday for a G-7 summit — from which Russian President Vladimir Putin has been excluded — where Russian aggression will be a key topic. On Friday, Carter plans to meet in Germany with American defense and diplomatic officials to map out a counterstrategy to Russia's military intervention in Ukraine and to reassure allies worried about Moscow.
The U.S. and its Western partners have tried to use economic and diplomatic leverage against Putin on a range of conflicts, including Ukraine. But they also recognize that Moscow still plays an important role in international affairs, including the nuclear talks with Iran that are among President Barack Obama's highest foreign policy priorities.
The administration is considering three options for responding militarily to Russian missile treaty violations: defenses to stop a treaty-violating missile, the "counterforce" option to attack a missile preemptively and the "countervailing strike capabilities" option that implies the potential use of nuclear forces.
One of Carter's nuclear policy aides, Robert Scher, testified in April that "counterforce" means "we could go about and actually attack that missile where it is in Russia." Another Pentagon official, Brian McKeon, testified in December that this option involved potential deployment in Europe of ground-launched cruise missiles.
Scher said another option would involve "not simply attacking" the Russian missile but seeing "what things we can hold at risk within Russia itself." Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said this could mean further improving the ability of U.S. nuclear or conventional forces to destroy Russian military targets in addition to missiles deemed to violate the INF treaty.
Kristensen said the public discussion of these options amounts to "one hell of a gamble" that Putin will back down on INF.
The Obama administration has been relatively gentle in poking Moscow publicly on the INF issue. The State Department's top arms control official, Rose Gottemoeller, has called the alleged Russian violations a "very grave concern." In December she argued against declaring the treaty dead, saying America's allies also are opposed to that approach. Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.
The New England Patriots got $675,000 from the Army National Guard for honoring American troops, including a “True Patriot” program during a halftime show at home games. “Hardly a deprived franchise,” scoffed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Thursday as he and two other lawmakers won Senate approval for a prohibition on lucrative Pentagon contracts with NFL teams for the various ceremonies honoring the military.
The Super Bowl champion Patriots weren’t the only NFL team to receive taxpayer dollars the past three years for color-guard performances, flag rollouts and other events recognizing members of the military. The Atlanta Falcons got $579,500; the Denver Broncos received $460,000.
In fact, the NFL received $7 million over three years from contracts with the Guard, according to McCain. The senator said he was “shocked and disappointed to learn that several NFL teams weren’t sponsoring these activities out of the goodness of their own hearts but were doing so to make an extra buck.” McCain, along with Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., argued wealthy teams shouldn’t be receiving taxpayer dollars when the military faces cuts in spending. By voice vote, the Senate added the measure to a sweeping defense policy bill that the Senate expects to complete next week.
More than 1,000 people gathered Thursday to honor the life of former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden at a memorial service held in the Delaware Legislative State House in Dover.
Biden, the oldest son of Vice President Joe Biden, died Saturday after a lengthy battle with brain cancer. He was 46 years old.
Mourners lined up to pay their respects to the Biden family, who shook hands and hugged guests in front of a flag-draped casket.
During the service, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell presented the vice president's late son the Delaware Conspicuous Service Cross -- a cross awarded for heroism, meritorious service and outstanding achievement.
In addition to serving as Delaware's attorney general, Biden was a member of the Delaware Army National Guard for more than a decade, serving a tour in Iraq.
This is one of many ceremonies to honor Beau Biden, including a viewing Friday and funeral Mass Saturday at St. Anthony of Padua church in Wilmington.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will travel to Delaware for the funeral, where the President will be delivering the eulogy.
"Rick Perry supporter, let’s protect our border
To hell with anyone who don’t believe in the USA / Rick Perry all the way."
Oh man, I have goosebumps.
"I won’t back up / I don’t back down / I been raised up / To stand my ground / Take my job / But not my gun."
First person to annotate this on Rap Genius gets an American-flag pin!
"Give me my right to vote / My right to tote / The weapon of my choice, don’t censor my voice."
All in favor of replacing the National Anthem with this musical masterpiece say "Oops!"
I forgot about it being the first Friday of the month which gives up the job numbers from the prior month and therefore, I will report that US non farm payrolls total 280,000 in May vs. 225,000 est.; unemployment rate at 5.5%. The U.S. economy created 280,000 jobs in May, better than expected and likely confirming hopes that growth is back on track after a slow start to the year.
The unemployment rate, however, increased slightly to 5.5 percent.
Wages also showed growth, rising eight cents an hour, equating to an annualized increase of 2.3 percent.
The jobs numbers are critical in that they will go a long way toward determining policy from the Federal Reserve. The hot jobs report sent U.S. government bond yields surging
After keeping short-term interest rates near zero for six and a half years, the U.S. central bank is looking for a liftoff point that would be confirmed not only by job creation but also by wage growth that would indicate inflation is on a positive trajectory.
While many market participants expect a rate increase this year, the Fed got a stunning jolt Thursday from the International Monetary Fund. IMF chief Christine Lagarde took the unprecedented step of advising the Fed to wait until 2016 until the inflation picture is clearer.
Nonfarm payrolls were seen rising by 225,000 positions in May after increasing by an initially reported 223,000 a month earlier, according to a Reuters survey of economists. The unemployment rate was expected to hold steady near a seven-year low of 5.4 percent.
Also, the Tony Awards are happening this Sunday evening at R.C.M.H. in New York City.
- Rick Perry formally declared his candidacy for president in Addison, Texas. He plans to play up his relationship with the military and the successes of Texas as a state.
- The latest Edward Snowden revelation: The National Security Agency (NSA) had been authorized by the Obama administration in 2012 to engage in warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic in order to look for evidence of hacking. While the searches were for computer intrusions originating from abroad, they authorized domestic surveillance.
- Employees at Gawker media have voted to unionize and will be represented by the Writers Guild of America.
- A now-former FBI special agent has been indicted on charges of stealing more than $100,000 in seized drug proceeds in California and hiding it.
- Twitter has quietly killed off Politwoops, a service from the Sunlight Foundation that archived the deleted tweets of politicians. Twitter explained it’s a violation of their developer agreement and the privacy of the users, even if these users are elected officials.
- Two brothers in North Carolina have been pardoned of their previous convictions for the rape and murder of a girl in 1983. Their convictions were already vacated (after one of them spent three decades on death row). The pardon makes it possible for each of the brothers to receive $750,000 in compensation for their convictions. Their confessions had been coerced by police when they were teens.
The FDA panel voted 18-6 in favor of approving the pill, called flibanserin, so long as its manufacturer makes a plan to limit its safety risks.
It's a far cry from "female Viagra," however.
How it works
Unlike Viagra, which helps men get and keep an erection by directing blood flow to that area of the body, this new drug, called flibanserin, is designed to help boost a woman's psychological desire for sex. In order to do that, this drug is taken daily and, over time, can affect the levels of certain chemicals in the brain.
"It's beyond ridiculous that this is being called 'female' Viagra,'" Bat Sheva Marcus, a sexual dysfunction specialist at the Medical Center for Female Sexuality in New York, told Business Insider. "This isn't about blood flow. It's got nothing to do with blood flow."
Pfizer, the makers of Viagra, tried marketing plain old "male" Viagra to women in 2004. It failed. The drug increased blood flow to women's genitals, but that had zero effect on their desire for sex.
That's where flibanserin is different.
Flibanserin targets two neurotransmitters in the brain that can help inspire sexual desire. The first is dopamine, which helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers and could help drive up our interest in sex. The second is norepinephrine, which affects parts of the brain that control our attention and our response to things in our environment and could help direct our attention to a sexual partner.
Many women — some studies estimate this number is as high as one-third of all adult women — suffer from a condition known as female hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). The essential feature of HSDD in women is a lack of desire for sex that causes distress. According to Marcus, women with HSDD still enjoy sex when they have it, but the inspiration to have it in the first place simply isn't there.
"I see this all the time where a woman, she enjoys sex and gets aroused and orgasms, but she absolutely just doesn't want it anymore — she's just not interested," said Marcus. "It's something that's going on in the brain."
This drug, which is supposed to be taken daily, would ideally target a mix of neurotransmitters so as to give that desire a boost. "It's trying to change the parts of the brain that don’t light up, the ones that aren't responding," said Marcus.
How well does it work?
People aren't sure how well flibanserin works just yet. Although it's been through several trials, its benefits are still controversial. For one thing, flibanserin comes with side effects, just as any drug would. These side effects include fainting and drowsiness, especially if taken with alcohol. Some have said these aren't severe enough to merit blocking it, while others say there could be unforeseen problems that haven't yet been accounted for. And there are concerns about potential problems with alcohol given how much the average American drinks.
Plus, its success is somewhat disputed.
Although it was effective in trials in raising the number of times a woman has satisfying sex (which the scientists label "satisfying sexual episodes") it didn't improve sexual desire — the very thing the drug was designed to do.
Women in the trials taking flibanserin saw an increase in the number of times they had satisfying sex from roughly 2.8 times per month to an average of 4.5 times per month, an increase of about 1.7 times.
Here's the problem: Women taking just a placebo in drug trials had more SSEs too, albeit by a slightly smaller number. Women taking a placebo saw their number of SSEs went up from an average of 2.7 per month to 3.7, an increase of 1.
In other words, controlling for the placebo effect, flibanserin's effectiveness amounted to roughly one extra episode of satisfying sex each month, reports David Kroll in Forbes. This was likely one of the reasons the FDA has rejected pharma companies' petitions for it twice, according to Fierce Biotech.
Yet the company making the drug, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, says this is enough of an increase to make it available to women.
And today, the FDA appeared to agree.
"It's clear to me that there were very consistent benefits in measures we understand for some portion of women," and no benefits for others, advisory committee member Kevin Weinfurt said.
China suspected in massive breach of federal personnel data. China-based hackers are suspected of breaking into the computer networks of the U.S. government personnel office and stealing identifying information of at least 4 million federal workers, American officials said Thursday. China under suspicion as US admits huge data hack AFP
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that data from the Office of Personnel Management and the Interior Department had been compromised.
The hackers were believed to be based in China, said Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican.
Collins, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said the breach was "yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances."
A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington called such accusations "not responsible and counterproductive."
"Cyberattacks conducted across countries are hard to track and therefore the source of attacks is difficult to identify," spokesman Zhu Haiquan said Thursday night. He added that hacking can "only be addressed by international cooperation based on mutual trust and mutual respect."
A U.S. official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the data breach, said it could potentially affect every federal agency. One key question is whether intelligence agency employee information was stolen. Former government employees are affected as well.
"This is an attack against the nation," said Ken Ammon, chief strategy officer of Xceedium, who said the attack fit the pattern of those carried out by nation states for the purpose of espionage. The information stolen could be used to impersonate or blackmail federal employees with access to sensitive information, he said. The Office of Personnel Management is the human resources department for the federal government, and it conducts background checks for security clearances. The OPM conducts more than 90 percent of federal background investigations, according to its website.
The agency said it is offering credit monitoring and identity theft insurance for 18 months to individuals potentially affected. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents workers in 31 federal agencies, said it is encouraging members to sign up for the monitoring as soon as possible.
In November, a former DHS contractor disclosed another cyberbreach that compromised the private files of more than 25,000 DHS workers and thousands of other federal employees.
Cyber-security experts also noted that the OPM was targeted a year ago in a cyber-attack that was suspected of originating in China. In that case, authorities reported no personal information was stolen.
One expert said it's possible that hackers could use information from government personnel files for financial gain. In a recent case disclosed by the IRS, hackers appear to have obtained tax return information by posing as taxpayers, using personal information gleaned from previous commercial breaches, said Rick Holland, an information security analyst at Forrester Research.
"Given what OPM does around security clearances, and the level of detail they acquire when doing these investigations, both on the subjects of the investigations and their contacts and references, it would be a vast amount of information," Holland added.
DHS said its intrusion detection system, known as EINSTEIN, which screens federal Internet traffic to identify potential cyber threats, identified the hack of OPM's systems and the Interior Department's data center, which is shared by other federal agencies.
It was unclear why the EINSTEIN system didn't detect the breach until after so many records had been copied and removed.
"DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion," the statement said.
Cybersecurity expert Morgan Wright of the Center for Digital Government, an advisory institute, said EINSTEIN "certainly appears to be a failure at this point. The government would be better off outsourcing their security to the private sector where's there at least some accountability."
Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called the hack "shocking, because Americans may expect that federal computer networks are maintained with state of the art defenses."
Ammon said federal agencies are rushing to install two-factor authentication with smart cards, a system designed to make it harder for intruders to access networks. But implementing that technology takes time.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said the government must overhaul its cybersecurity defenses. "Our response to these attacks can no longer simply be notifying people after their personal information has been stolen," he said. "We must start to prevent these breaches in the first place." Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Alicia A. Caldwell and Kevin Freking in Washington and Brandon Bailey in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Rick Perry launches comeback White House bid. This time, Rick Perry has nowhere to go but up.
Four years after his first presidential campaign was crushed by the weight of his debate gaffe and stump speech mishaps, the governor who spent 14 years presiding over Texas launched his second bid for the Republican nomination on Thursday.
"I'm running for the presidency of the United States," Perry said at a sweltering rally in Addison, Texas, where the former governor and his guests on stage could be seen sweating profusely at the midday event.
Perry reintroduced himself Thursday as a Republican with military experience that distinguishes him from other GOP hopefuls. That biography -- bookended by a poor upbringing in the small town of Paint Creek and by a job-creation record as governor -- was not shared in 2012, his advisers say, but will be in 2016.
Perry, deeming himself someone who had "led the most successful state in America", will also play up his relationships with veterans he has mentored.
At his event Thursday, he was flanked by a list of military veterans, including several Navy SEALs and Taya Kyle, the widow of "American Sniper" Chris Kyle, and Marcus Luttrell, who Perry called a "second son" — a group that allows Perry to highlight his five years in the Air Force. Perry has ditched the signature cowboy boots and added black-rimmed glasses. He's spent the intervening years recovering from health problems and boning up on policy.
Now, Perry is asking GOP primary voters for a second chance.
"Let's give them a second chance. Let's give them real leadership," Perry said, describing disillusioned Americans in a way that he could very much be describing himself.
Perry's speech at Addison Airport outside Dallas -- delivered without pause for more than 20 minutes even as sweat dripped down his face -- focused primarily on foreign policy, which has been his calling card of late on the stump. His GOP competitors emerging from the U.S. Senate have looked down on the class of governors for lacking that foreign policy experience.
Perry took on that criticism head-on, even using a line of one of those senators, Ted Cruz, against him.
"The question of every candidate will be this: When have you led?" Perry said in a slightly-edited Cruz line. Then he turned it. "Leadership is not a speech on the Senate floor. it is not what you say. It is what you have done."
Perry similarly handled the rhetoric of his political nemesis, Barack Obama. A new part of his stump speech harkens back to Obama rhetoric about healing the nation's political ruptures. On Thursday, Perry promised to bring about a new era of bipartisanship, calling Obama "a divider who has sliced and diced the electorate," language that appeared in Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention that rocketed him to stardom.
Preceding his speech, Perry first released a video online early Thursday morning, telling voters "we have the power to make our country new again." "We need a president who bridges the partisan divide rather than widen -- who brings people together. We must do right and risk the consequences."
Kyle vouched for Perry in an email to supporters inviting them to the campaign kick-off. "I got to know Rick and Anita Perry outside of the public eye, where I've had an up-close view of their humility and commitment to doing the right thing for people regardless of who gets the credit," she wrote. "Believe me, they are a breath of fresh air in a political system full of people playing games and twisting the truth." Perry struggled badly during his 2012 campaign. He entered the Republican race to great conservative fanfare in August 2011 and unseated Mitt Romney from the party's pole position — but quickly saw that status erode.
There was the "oops" moment in a CNBC debate, when Perry couldn't remember the name of one of the three federal agencies he said he wanted to abolish. There was also a New Hampshire speech where voters wondered aloud afterward whether he'd been drinking. Almost four years later, he enters the race struggling to make the top 10 in polls of a much-stronger Republican field, and with work to do to earn a second chance with voters.
After his Thursday launch, Perry will head to Iowa, where on Saturday he'll be in the city of Perry to kick off a "Ride with Rick" event that benefits the Puppy Jake Foundation, a non-profit that provides service dogs to wounded veterans.
He'll ride a motorcycle belonging to Taylor Morris, a Navy explosive ordinance disposal technician from Cedar Falls, Iowa who hasn't been able to ride it since being injured in Afghanistan. The ride will end in Boone, Iowa, where Perry will then participate in Sen. Joni Ernst's "Roast and Ride" event — and begin courting voters in the first state to hit the polls.
The state has been Perry's focal point since 2014. He's made more than a dozen visits to Iowa, where he's visited far-flung locales while remaining under the radar — and far from the media circus that followed his first bid.
Jane Jameson, an executive assistant who came to the Perry launch in Addison, said she's eager to hear the Perry pitch but isn't yet committed.
"It's going to be really hard to narrow it down to one, but Rick will certainly be in contention," she said. CNN's Ashley Killough and Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
Rick (Perry) is sounding a lot like Elizabeth Warren these days.
FIFA Paid Ireland Not To Sue Over Thierry Henry's Handball.
Thierry Henry’s uncalled handball in a World Cup play-off was a major reason France qualified for the 2010 tournament instead of Ireland. Today, the head of the Football Association of Ireland confirmed that FIFA paid off the FAI to avoid legal action.
In an interview with Irish radio, John Delaney corroborated what had long been rumored:
“We felt we had a legal case against FIFA because of how the World Cup play-off hadn’t worked out for us with the Henry handball,” Delaney said. “Also the way Blatter behaved, if you remember on stage, having a snigger and having a laugh at us. That day when I went in, and I told him how I felt about him, there were some expletives used and we came to an agreement.“That was a Thursday and on Monday the agreement was all signed and all done. It’s a very good agreement for the FAI and a very legitimate agreement for the FAI, but I’m bound by confidentiality for naming the figure.”
The payout has been reported as €5 million.
Delaney insisted “it was a very good and legitimate deal for the FAI.” That’s not what he said back in 2009:
In international soccer, integrity most certainly does carry a price tag.
FBI agent accused of stealing drug money to fund lavish spending.
The FBI agent’s buying spree, prosecutors say, began in August when he put down $27,500 in cash for a sports car.
He dropped nearly $44,000 in cash several days later, this time for a Dodge Challenger. More than $25,000 more went to buy wheels and sound systems.
Shortly after, there was $15,000 for cosmetic surgery for his wife, and then a luxury vacation to Las Vegas with a girlfriend, where he paid $1,000 for tickets to a boxing match.
There was one catch, according to federal prosecutors: Scott M. Bowman was funding his extravagance using drug money he had stolen. A grand jury indictment unsealed Thursday details the spending. Bowman, who was fired from the FBI in March, faces charges of stealing more than $100,000 that he and other law enforcement officials confiscated from suspected drug dealers, according to the indictment.
Bowman, 44, allegedly took cash from a series of drug investigations last year, according to the indictment.
In a few instances, Bowman pocketed several thousand dollars that had been taken off suspected methamphetamine dealers during investigations, the indictment claims. Then, in August, Bowman, along with members of an anti-gang task force to which he was assigned, discovered several hundred thousand dollars in cash during a raid on a San Bernardino house that was thought to be part of a large heroin and cocaine distribution ring. The cash was sealed in evidence bags and locked in a safe at an FBI office for the night, the indictment says.
The following day, Bowman retrieved the cash to drive it to another facility, where it was to be counted. Bowman opened the evidence bags, removed “a substantial amount” of the cash and repackaged the remaining bills in new bags, according to the indictment.
Bowman “put his own greed above the trust placed in him by the FBI and the American public,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Leslie R. Caldwell said in a statement. “Corrupt law enforcement agents not only compromise those investigations in which they are involved, but also damage the reputations of fellow law enforcement officers who are dedicated to public service and the protection of all Americans.” In addition to the thefts, Bowman, of Moreno Valley, was charged with obstruction of justice, money laundering, falsification of records and witness tampering, the statement said.
Bowman pleaded not guilty during an appearance in U.S. district court in Riverside on Thursday afternoon, said his attorney Tony Raphael. He was later released from custody on an $80,000 bond, according to Raphael, who declined to comment further.
The indictment alleges that Bowman tried to conceal the source of his new spending by falsely telling colleagues he had received a $97,000 advance on his inheritance from his sick father.
He also falsely wrote on a report that a San Bernardino police detective had accompanied him to drop off the money at the cash-counting facility, the indictment says. Bowman forged the detective’s signature on a receipt he received when he delivered the money, prosecutors allege.
After a supervisor later asked about one of the seizures, Bowman sent an email to the detective providing him with a “cover story” to give to officials if he were asked about the money, according to the indictment, which does not name the detective. The detective was told to say he accompanied the agent to the cash-counting facility but did not go in with him, and then signed a receipt the agent brought out to him, the indictment says.
Bowman’s alleged crimes have already taken a toll. Prosecutors late last year walked away from one drug case in which Bowman was an investigator, according to the attorney for one of the defendants.
David J.P. Kaloyanides said he represented Morgan Cousins, one of several men who faced a host of drug charges that stemmed from an investigation by Bowman's task force. In December, as the case was proceeding toward trial, prosecutors suddenly dropped all charges against the men without explanation, Kaloyanides said.
In March, Kaloyanides said he received a letter from the U.S. attorney's office notifying him that Bowman had been fired and outlining allegations that he had stolen more than $15,000 confiscated during the investigation into the men's alleged drug dealing.
The letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, also included mention of other misconduct that FBI officials suspected Bowman may have committed. On two occasions, Bowman is believed to have left drugs and guns that were seized as evidence beneath an office desk instead of securing them in an evidence locker as agents are required to do.
Kaloyanides said he represents two more people in pending drug cases in which Bowman was involved. He added that he knows of at least two additional people who pleaded guilty in cases in which Bowman was part of the investigation.
A spokesman for the U.S attorney’s office said prosecutors had alerted defense attorneys on cases in which Bowman may have played a role. For more news on the federal courts in Los Angeles, follow @joelrubin. He can be reached at joel.rubin@latimes.com.
Kitzhaber Whistleblower Guilty, But Won’t Be Charged. Michael Rodgers, the state employee who was suspected of leaking former Governor John Kitzhaber's e-mails to the media, will not face criminal charges for his actions, the Marion County District Attorney's office said Wednesday afternoon in a statement.
Following a lengthy investigation by Oregon State Police, the District Attorney's offices of Marion and Yamhill counties concluded that Rodgers, who worked in the state's Department of Administrative Services, was guilty of committing a a Class C Misdemeanor in the Second Degree.
This crime is punishable by a maximum of 30 days in jail and a $1,250 fine for each violation. Because the charges against him will not be filed, Rodgers will face neither.
"Under the totality of the circumstances in this case and after a thorough review of the above factors, the mutual decision of these two District Attorneys is that justice would not be served by filing criminal charges against Mr. Rogers," the statement said. "There is no actual "whistle-blower" defense in Oregon criminal statutes. Even so, the conduct of Mr. Rodgers appears precipitated by a perceived rational that stems from extraordinary circumstances seemingly unparalleled in the Oregon political landscape."
Rodgers was guilty of breaking ORS 164.405, which states that a "public servant commits the crime of official misconduct in the second degree if the person knowingly violates any statute relating to the office of the person." It was committed in the second degree and not the first because Rodgers showed "no intent to gain a personal benefit."
Stand Up For Truth: An International Week to Support Whistleblowing
June 1-7, 2015 -- StandUpForTruth.org
Thomas Drake, Dan Ellsberg, Jesselyn Radack, Coleen Rowley, and Norman Solomon are making news in Europe with these events. They will deliver this petition in Berlin. Big news there, and this is your last chance to add your name and comments: click here.
Anywhere in the world, you can participate in webcasts with whistleblowers and their supporters:
Anywhere in the world, you can participate in webcasts with whistleblowers and their supporters:
- Director of media for the Institute for Public Accuracy Sam Husseini and author and law professor Marjorie Cohn -- 9 pm ET June 4
- NSA whistleblower William Binney and NSA whistleblower Kirk Wiebe -- 8 pm ET June 5
- Media critic and RootsAction cofounder Jeff Cohen and Author and communications professor Robert McChesney -- 9 pm ET June 5
- Journalist Kevin Gosztola and EPA whistleblower Marsha Coleman-Adebayo -- 5 pm ET June 6
The webcasts will each last 60 minutes. To listen and type in questions, just point your web browser here (bookmark it now) and turn up your volume. Everyone is encouraged to use the webcast and to type in questions there. It requires a computer and will not work on a phone. If you can't use a computer, there are a limited number of lines on which you can phone in. Just call 1-844-472-8237 (toll-free in U.S.)
You can also ask these whistleblowers and truth tellers questions beforehand or during the webcasts by tweeting them to @Roots_Action.
The webcasts are sponsored by RootsAction Education Fund and ExposeFacts.
Listen to and share these two webcasts that have already happened:
Matthew Hoh and David Swanson on whistleblowers and war.
Tim Shorrock and Trevor Timm on journalism in an age of secrecy and surveillance.
Area residents can join this awesome art creation in Los Angeles on June 6th.
Find an event near you, or create an event for June 1-7 or later. We'll help you promote it.
The webcasts are sponsored by RootsAction Education Fund and ExposeFacts.
Listen to and share these two webcasts that have already happened:
Matthew Hoh and David Swanson on whistleblowers and war.
Tim Shorrock and Trevor Timm on journalism in an age of secrecy and surveillance.
Area residents can join this awesome art creation in Los Angeles on June 6th.
Find an event near you, or create an event for June 1-7 or later. We'll help you promote it.
Immelt asks GE team to weigh Connecticut pullout after tax hike. General Electric Co has assembled an "exploratory team" to look at moving its headquarters out of Connecticut after lawmakers passed a budget that includes $1.2 billion in tax increases despite protests from some of the state's biggest corporations.
In an email sent on Thursday to GE's Connecticut employees and obtained by Reuters, Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said he had asked the team to examine the company's options to relocate the headquarters to a state with a "more pro-business environment." GE has 5,700 employees in Connecticut.
Lawmakers passed a $40 billion biannual budget late on Wednesday. GE, Aetna Inc and Travelers Cos Inc as well as the state's Republicans slammed the measures, which extend a 20 percent surcharge on corporate tax and introduce a tax on group-wide income even if it originates out of state.
GE and Aetna, which also has a corporate headquarters in the state, said on Monday they would consider leaving Connecticut, but Immelt's email is the first sign a major corporation is taking concrete steps that could lead to it quitting the state.
The loss of GE would be a huge blow to Connecticut, which bled thousands of jobs after the financial crisis and has been one of the slowest states to recover from the recession.
The state's economy grew just 0.9 percent in 2013, compared with 2.2 percent for the United States as a whole, while job growth has also lagged. "If this budget would wind up driving employers out of state, it would be even harder to fund the services that this budget is intended to fund," said Jared Walczak at the Washington-based Tax Foundation.
Walczak said the budget would increase business taxes by around $500 million over two years.
Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy had trumpeted the budget as an "historic investment" in roads, bridges, rail and other infrastructure slated to reach $10 billion over five years.
Facing the growing backlash on Thursday, a spokesman for his office said: "We have spoken with GE in recent days and have been kept apprised of their thinking."
Separately, Aetna issued another statement on Thursday saying its annual $65 million state tax bill would jump 27 percent once all the budget measures were implemented.
"Elected leaders have failed to address the state's budget obligation responsibly," Aetna said. "But it's Connecticut's businesses and residents that will pay the price."
The state also increased a tax on data processing that Aetna said would "hurt our ability to remain competitive and invest in our employees and customers."
The extension of the temporary 20 percent surcharge maintains Connecticut's effective corporate tax rate at 9 percent, compared with a base rate of 7.5 percent, the fifth-highest in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation.
The budget also raises the top rate of income tax to 6.99 percent from 6.7 percent, cuts property tax credits and boosts the sales tax on luxury items to 7.75 percent from 7 percent. That includes automobiles over $50,000, jewelry over $5,000, and clothing and accessories over $1,000. (Reporting by Edward Krudy and Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Alan Crosby)
I am NOT going to discuss the Belmont Stakes. I hate horse racing. Although winning the triple Crown is a big deal in that sport. I think that horse will win it. He won those other two races pretty handily. I also think that Hillary had one of her best days running on that Dem side yesterday. She (Hillary Clinton) calls out GOP opponents by name on voting rights.
Clinton told an audience at the historically black Texas Southern University that she supports the concept of signing every American up to vote as soon as they're eligible at age 18, unless they specifically opt out. She called for expanded access to polling places, keeping them open for at least 20 days and offering voting hours on evenings and weekends.
For the first time in her campaign, she attacked her likely opponents by name as she laid into four GOP governors -- Texas's Rick Perry, Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Florida's Jeb Bush and New Jersey's Chris Christie -- telling them to "stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of voter fraud."
"All of these problems voting just didn't happen by accident," she said. "And it is just wrong -- it's wrong -- to try to prevent, undermine and inhibit Americans' right to vote." The former secretary of state's move to put voter access front and center in the 2016 presidential campaign highlights a contrast with laws implemented by GOP-controlled legislatures in states like North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and Florida that cut down on early voting times and tighten voter identification rules.
The Supreme Court also ruled in 2013 that a key aspect of President Lyndon Johnson's Voting Rights Act of 1965 is no longer constitutional.
"What is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other," Clinton said.
In her 2008 campaign, Clinton rarely addressed voting rights. But Democrats have fretted that policies imposed by GOP state legislatures in recent years could dissuade African-Americans and those in urban areas from voting, cutting into crucial blocs of Democratic support in swing states.
The Democratic frontrunner highlighted the issue in a heavily political speech as she received an award in the name of Barbara Jordan, a pioneer African-American lawmaker and civil rights leader.
"Forty years after Barbara Jordan fought to extend the Voting Rights Act, its heart has been ripped out," Clinton said. "I wish we could hear her speak up for the student who has to wait hours for his or her right to vote; for the grandmother who's turned away from the polls because her driver's license expired; for the father who's done his time and paid his debt to society but still hasn't gotten his rights back." Her complaints about the Republican governors: Perry signed a law that courts later ruled intentionally discriminated against minority voters; Walker signed one that made voting more difficult for college students; Christie rejected an expansion of early voting; and Bush oversaw a purge of the state's voter rolls.
And she attacked the nation's high court for its 2013 ruling on the Voting Rights Act as well as its 2010 decision on campaign finance laws.
"We need a Supreme Court who cares more about the right to vote of a person than the right to buy an election of a corporation," Clinton said.
While the speech appears to be good politics, the likelihood of achieving universal voter registration is questionable even to people who support it.
Rob Richie, the executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy, a group in favor of universal registration, said Thursday that the "very decentralized" voting systems in the United States make it "feasible" but "difficult."
The primary problem: The United States does not have a national ID system like other countries that have universal voter registration.
"There is not a simple single approach because we do not have this simple, singular ID that connects us," said Richie, noting that instead of registering to vote nationally, in the United States, you register with your state.
One solution to the problem would be to implement a national identification card, said Richie. The problem: Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and others are vehemently against a national ID, calling it a "slippery slope" to surveillance and monitoring citizens.
Clinton supports the concept of universal registration, but not a specific method, an aide said.
The former first lady has long been a supporter of voting rights: She helped register voters in Texas' Rio Grande Valley during the George McGovern's failed 1972 presidential run and as a senator introduced legislation to make Election Day a national holiday and reduce lines at polling stations.
Clinton's top campaign lawyer, Marc Elias, has also taken on the fight by filing lawsuits challenging voter restriction laws in Ohio and Wisconsin. He told The New York Times on Wednesday that "we should all want to ensure that all eligible voters can exercise their right to vote and have their vote counted."
Clinton's aides have said that they are aware of the lawsuits and are supportive of their goals.
The changes have drawn Democrats -- including lawyers close to Clinton and the Democratic National Committee -- into a voting rights fight that some African-Americans, like South Carolina Democrat Bakari Sellers, are calling "the greatest challenge of our generation."
Obama won 93% of African-American voters in 2012 and 95% in 2008, according to exit polls. Some Democrats worry that Clinton needs a similar performance with African-American voters and disenfranchisement is an issue that Democrats hope will activate that base.
The first few months of Clinton's campaign have seen a number of events and trips focused on African-American voters.
In her first speech as a candidate, Clinton called for mandatory police body cameras across the country and end "era of mass incarceration," an issue that connected with African-American activists concerned about black men dying at the hands of law enforcement.
Clinton also focused on a minority-owned business in her first trip to South Carolina, a state with a sizable African-American population that overwhelmingly picked Obama over her in the 2008 primary.
Why is Joe into Fracking so much? That FDA story is deceiving or not even because they point blank it is not rampant that fracking ingredients is lethal when it hits the water streams, but when it does, it is bad. What is the big deal here? And, again, why does he love fracking so much? Actually, let's get him to drink a glass water like the one below and then talk to me about this story and besides, we need to be straying away from that type of energy and into ones that are safer and more effeicient. That is the real debate.
Study Confirms Fracking is Polluting Water in Pennsylvania, So Why the Frack is it Still Happening?
A new study has found that shale drilling and fracking contaminated drinking water wells in Pennsylvania. The study represents the first peer-reviewed paper confirming that fracking can and does contaminate drinking water supplies.
The study discovered that the whitish foam seeping from the faucets and hoses in Bradford county homes was the drilling chemical 2-BE a “foaming agent” known to cause tumors in rodents. The fracking industry contaminant was present in drinking water wells closest to Chesapeake Energy shale operations.
Residents of Bradford have been complaining about contaminated water since Chesapeake Energy began drilling in 2009. Bradford is now the “most fracked” county in Pennsylvania, and Chesapeake is the largest lease holder. While Chesapeake has never admitted responsibility for water contamination, the company has paid millions in settlements to Bradford residents since 2011.
But Didn’t We Already Know That Fracking can Contaminate Groundwater Supplies?
Yes, we did. The New York Times found that the EPA knew about groundwater contamination from fracking as far back as 1987. In fact, links between shale drilling, fracking, and groundwater contamination has been well documented.
But that has not stopped an industry-funded campaign of denial on the issue. The fracking industry has spent big to keep people in the dark on the real impacts from fracking, funding front groups like Energy In Depth to obscure the science on fracking and drilling.
Where is the EPA’s Study on Fracking’s Impact on Drinking Water?
Even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been manipulated by the frackingindustry’s campaign to hide this dangerous truth. The EPA, at the behest of Congress, was tasked with studying the impacts to water supplies from fracking in 2010. This study was supposed to tell the American people what can happen to water supplies when the shale industry sets up shop. Five years and hundreds of thousands of fracked wells later, the EPA has still not given us an answer.
The EPA’s study was originally due to be released in 2012, but has been repeatedly delayed. As Inside Climate News reported, the delay may have been caused by interference from oil and gas corporations. Shale drilling and fracking companies, including Chesapeake Energy, refused to cooperate with EPA, effectively torpedoing key elements of the study. This delay has kept the American populace in the dark on the real impacts of fracking.
The confusion about who is to blame for contaminated water in Bradford County is an example of the havoc wrought by the fracking industry’s campaign of delay against the EPA’s water study. In fact, Bradford is one of the places being studied by the EPA in order to ascertain how fracking impacts groundwater. The EPA took 37 samples in Bradford in 2012, yet has not released any findings.
Documents obtained by Greenpeace show that Chesapeake Energy fought the EPA’s research in Bradford. After Chesapeake found out the EPA intended to research water contamination issues in Bradford, Chesapeake commissioned their own study intended to directly address the EPA study and rebut any potential finding of contamination. The Chesapeake study, which they claimed was “independent,” found that there had been no groundwater contamination in the area. Chesapeake stuck with their claim that Bradford water was safe to drink, in spite of reports of sick livestock and illness in children exposed to Bradford groundwater.
Chesapeake demanded that the EPA include their industry-funded research in Bradford in the overall water study, even though the Chesapeake study collected less than half of the samples collected by the EPA. As Inside Climate News reported, Chesapeake also reneged on their promises to provide access to well sites for sampling by the EPA.
This new study is further proof that fracking has real impacts to the environment and public health, impacts that the industry has successfully denied for years.
This article originally appeared on the Greenpeace blog, here.
Marco Rubio just made another confusing comment about his Middle East policy. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) offered a somewhat confusing explanation of his Iraq policy in an appearance on Fox News' "Outnumbered" on Thursday. Rubio seemed to express support for US troops being present in Iraq, but he maintained this did not represent the controversial "nation-building" philosophy that led to a protracted American military presence in that country following the US invasion in 2003.However, while insisting he doesn't advocate "nation-building," Rubio seemed to define his policy as exactly that.
"It’s not nation-building. We are assisting them in building their nation," Rubio said of his vision for Iraq.
Watch a video of Rubio's remark below.
He began by explaining that America "can't build a democracy" in Iraq, but could help the country with practical matters like infrastructure that might help them "govern" long term. The host responded by saying he seemed to be expressing support for "nation-building."
This query provoked Rubio's claim that he's not calling for "nation-building" in Iraq and is instead talking about "assisting them in building their nation."
His campaign did not immediately respond to an email from Business Insider asking them to clarify how that is any different from "nation-building."
After making his seemingly contradictory statement about "nation-building," the senator went on to explain why he believes the US has a "vested interest" in helping Iraqis govern their country.
"The alternative to not doing that is the chaos we have now," he said.
He argued that President Barack Obama's administration supported former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has been criticized for trying to consolidate power in the country among his fellow Shias while leaving out Sunni Muslims. Rubio said this behavior by al-Maliki facilitated the rise of the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Iraq.
"What happened in Iraq under this administration is they rallied around Maliki. Maliki was a Shia leader who used his power to go after Sunnis," Rubio explained. "That created the environment that was conducive for ISIS to come back in and cause all these problems."
The US-led war in that country proved extremely unpopular and questions about the government's handling of Iraq have come up on the campaign trail for both the Republicans and Democrats who are aiming to win the White House in 2016. These questions have been fueled by the fact ISIS gained a foothold in Iraq following US troop withdrawal. Last year, the US military launched operations aimed at wiping the group out.
Rubio's comments on "nation-building" are the third instance where he has seemingly stumbled while discussing Iraq. As CNN has noted, Rubio, who has made foreign policy expertise a cornerstone of his campaign, has been "vague" about whether he'd support committing ground troops to fight ISIS. And last month, in an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations, Rubio said he would not have supported the decision to invade Iraq, which was an apparent reversal from multiple prior comments he made in support of the war.
As for Martin O'Malley's campaign, the panel is discussing this 'Our Chance to Capture the Center' which was posted in the WAPO:
By Martin O'Malley and Harold Ford Jr.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
With President Bush and the Republican Party on the rocks, many Democrats think the 2008 election will be, to borrow a favorite GOP phrase, a cakewalk. Some liberals are so confident about Democratic prospects that they contend the centrism that vaulted Democrats to victory in the 1990s no longer matters.
The temptation to ignore the vital center is nothing new. Every four years, in the heat of the nominating process, liberals and conservatives alike dream of a world in which swing voters don't exist. Some on the left would love to pretend that groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist voice, aren't needed anymore.
But for Democrats, taking the center for granted next year would be a greater mistake than ever before. George W. Bush is handing us Democrats our Hoover moment. Independents, swing voters and even some Republicans who haven't voted our way in more than a decade are willing to hear us out. With an ambitious common-sense agenda, the progressive center has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win back the White House, expand its margins in Congress and build a political and governing majority that could last a generation. A majority comes hard for Democrats. In the past 150 years, only three Democrats, one of whom was Franklin Roosevelt, have won the White House with a majority of the popular vote.
What's more, political success built on the other party's failure is fleeting. Jimmy Carter won a majority in the wake of Watergate, but his own shortcomings on national security and the economy took him from majority victor to landslide loser in four years. Repudiating the other side's approach is only half the battle. Since neither side has a monopoly on truth, the hard part is knowing when to look beyond traditional orthodoxies to do what works.
Like FDR, we can build a lasting majority only by earning it -- with ideas that demonstrate to the American people that if they entrust us with national leadership, we can deal effectively with the challenges our country faces and the challenges they face in their everyday lives.
Over the past six years, we've seen what happens when an administration writes off the political center and manipulates every decision for partisan gain. Bush's failure to solve -- or even address -- America's great challenges has left our country dispirited, disillusioned and divided.
Contrast the collapse of a conservative president with the success of the last centrist president. Bill Clinton ran on an agenda of sensible ideas that brought America a decade of peace and prosperity. He was the only Democrat to be elected and reelected president in the past seven decades, and he left office more popular than almost any other president in recent memory.
Nearly seven years after Bush succeeded Clinton in the White House, America is facing challenges as great as we've ever seen -- a war against Islamist radicals who would destroy our way of life; global economic competition that demands we raise our game; and a quest for energy independence and efficiency that Al Gore has shown us could make or break our planet. To conquer such enduring problems, Democrats will need a broad, enduring majority -- and a centrist agenda that sustains it by making steady progress.
Most Americans don't care much about partisan politics; they just want practical answers to the problems they face every day. So far, our leading presidential candidates seem to understand that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. That's why they have begun putting forward smart, New Democrat plans to cap and trade carbon emissions, give more Americans the chance to earn their way through college, achieve universal health care through shared responsibility, increase national security by rebuilding our embattled military and enable all Americans who work full time to lift themselves out of poverty.
As the caucuses and primaries approach, candidates will come under increasing pressure to ignore the broader electorate and appeal to the party faithful. But the opportunity to build a historic majority is too great -- and too rare -- to pass up.
A new Democratic president will have the chance to unite Americans around solutions that will make all Americans proud of their country again. For the sake of the hardworking Americans who are depending on us to fix Washington and put our country on the right track, we pray that Democrats set out to build a majority that can last.
Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, is governor of Maryland. Harold Ford Jr. is a former Democratic representative from Tennessee and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.
In Iraq: ISIS fighters close Ramadi dam gates, cut off water to loyalist towns. ISIS has closed off a dam to the north of the Iraqi city of Ramadi -- seized by its forces last month -- cutting water supplies to pro-government towns downstream and making it easier for its fighters to attack forces loyal to Baghdad, local officials and residents said.
ISIS militants are opening only two or three of the dam's 26 gates on the Euphrates River for brief periods daily, the officials and residents said.
The head of the security council in the town of Khalidiyah, Sheikh Ibrahim Khalaf al-Fahdawi, and two residents of the nearby town of Habbaniya told CNN on Thursday that this move was to prevent river water overflowing from ISIS' side of the dam, and also to allow some water to flow downstream toward ISIS-held Falluja.
They added that the level of water in the Euphrates was now low enough that the river could be walked across, making it easier for ISIS militants to cross and attack the pro-government towns of Husaybah and Khalidiyah as well as the large security forces base at Habbaniya.
The banks of the river are defended by the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary forces, the same sources said, the majority from the Iraq-based Kataeb Hezbollah branch.
ISIS' victory in Ramadi: Five lessons:
Families flee conflict
Iraq's Federal Police announced late Thursday that 800 fighters from its elite force have been deployed to reinforce troops in Anbar in their operations against ISIS. The fighters have trained in sniping, urban fighting, dealing with suicide car bomb attacks and storming fortified barracks.
The 800 will be assigned to special combat missions against ISIS in Ramadi and other areas, a statement from the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
But residents of the towns of Habbaniya, Husaybah and Khalidiyah continue to flee, fearing an ISIS assault, according to officials and residents. Two residents said 300 families had fled as far north as Irbil, in the Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq.
There are conflicting reports as to how many families have fled Habbaniya and surrounding villages to take refuge in the town of Amiriyat al-Falluja in recent days, but officials suggest they number at least in the dozens. Pro-government tribal militias are dug in there but under frequent mortar attack from ISIS, according to Iraqi sources.
A senior security official told CNN the level of the Euphrates River had dropped by 1 meter (more than 3 feet) near Amiriyat al-Falluja.
Last week, the Iraqi government announced a major operation by Iraqi forces and the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary forces to retake Anbar province. Ramadi is the capital of the province.
Sectarian tensions are high over the fall of Ramadi. Some critics of the often pro-Shia Baghdad government suggested the regime was reluctant to arm Sunni tribes against ISIS as it mistrusts them but also reluctant to send adequate reinforcements to fight for a predominantly Sunni area.
Inside the battle for Ramadi: Iraqi soldier recalls the battle with ISIS
Humanitarian crisis looms
The United Nations warned Thursday that a lack of funding threatens vital aid operations supporting more than 8 million people affected by the conflict in Iraq.
The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, said the aid operation was hanging by a thread and that catastrophe looms if donors do not immediately make funds available.
"The crisis in Iraq is one of the most complex and volatile anywhere in the world," she said in a statement.
"Humanitarian partners have been doing everything they can to help. But more than 50% of the operation will be shut down or cut back if money is not received immediately."
US might deploy missiles in Europe to counter Russia.
This "counterforce" option is among possibilities the administration is considering as it reviews its entire policy toward Russia in light of Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine, its annexation of Crimea and other actions the U.S. deems confrontational in Europe and beyond.
The options go so far as one implied — but not stated explicitly — that would improve the ability of U.S. nuclear weapons to destroy military targets on Russian territory.
It all has a certain Cold War ring, even if the White House ultimately decides to continue tolerating Russia's alleged flight-testing of a ground-launched cruise missile with a range prohibited by the treaty.
Russia denies violating the treaty and has, in turn, claimed violations by the United States in erecting missile defenses.
It is unclear whether Russia has actually deployed the suspect missile or whether Washington would make any military move if the Russians stopped short of deployment. For now, administration officials say they prefer to continue trying to talk Moscow into treaty compliance.
In public, administration officials have used obscure terms like "counterforce" and "countervailing strike capabilities" to describe two of its military response options, apparently hoping to buy time for diplomacy.
The Pentagon declined to make a senior defense policy official available to discuss the issue. A spokesman, Lt. Col. Joe Sowers, said, "All the options under consideration are designed to ensure that Russia gains no significant military advantage from their violation."
At his Senate confirmation hearing in February, Defense Secretary Ash Carter noted his concern about Russia's alleged violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces, or INF, treaty. He said disregard for treaty limitations was a "two-way street" opening the way for the U.S. to respond in kind.
The standoff speaks volumes about the depths to which U.S.-Russia relations have fallen. And that poses problems not only for the Obama administration but also for the NATO alliance, whose members in eastern Europe are especially leery of allowing Russian provocations to go unanswered.
Western leaders are meeting Sunday and Monday for a G-7 summit — from which Russian President Vladimir Putin has been excluded — where Russian aggression will be a key topic. On Friday, Carter plans to meet in Germany with American defense and diplomatic officials to map out a counterstrategy to Russia's military intervention in Ukraine and to reassure allies worried about Moscow.
The U.S. and its Western partners have tried to use economic and diplomatic leverage against Putin on a range of conflicts, including Ukraine. But they also recognize that Moscow still plays an important role in international affairs, including the nuclear talks with Iran that are among President Barack Obama's highest foreign policy priorities.
The administration is considering three options for responding militarily to Russian missile treaty violations: defenses to stop a treaty-violating missile, the "counterforce" option to attack a missile preemptively and the "countervailing strike capabilities" option that implies the potential use of nuclear forces.
One of Carter's nuclear policy aides, Robert Scher, testified in April that "counterforce" means "we could go about and actually attack that missile where it is in Russia." Another Pentagon official, Brian McKeon, testified in December that this option involved potential deployment in Europe of ground-launched cruise missiles.
Scher said another option would involve "not simply attacking" the Russian missile but seeing "what things we can hold at risk within Russia itself." Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said this could mean further improving the ability of U.S. nuclear or conventional forces to destroy Russian military targets in addition to missiles deemed to violate the INF treaty.
Kristensen said the public discussion of these options amounts to "one hell of a gamble" that Putin will back down on INF.
The Obama administration has been relatively gentle in poking Moscow publicly on the INF issue. The State Department's top arms control official, Rose Gottemoeller, has called the alleged Russian violations a "very grave concern." In December she argued against declaring the treaty dead, saying America's allies also are opposed to that approach. Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.
Should Pentagon Pay NFL Teams to Honor Troops?
The Super Bowl champion Patriots weren’t the only NFL team to receive taxpayer dollars the past three years for color-guard performances, flag rollouts and other events recognizing members of the military. The Atlanta Falcons got $579,500; the Denver Broncos received $460,000.
In fact, the NFL received $7 million over three years from contracts with the Guard, according to McCain. The senator said he was “shocked and disappointed to learn that several NFL teams weren’t sponsoring these activities out of the goodness of their own hearts but were doing so to make an extra buck.” McCain, along with Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., argued wealthy teams shouldn’t be receiving taxpayer dollars when the military faces cuts in spending. By voice vote, the Senate added the measure to a sweeping defense policy bill that the Senate expects to complete next week.
Over 1,000 mourn Beau Biden at memorial service.
Biden, the oldest son of Vice President Joe Biden, died Saturday after a lengthy battle with brain cancer. He was 46 years old.
Mourners lined up to pay their respects to the Biden family, who shook hands and hugged guests in front of a flag-draped casket.
During the service, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell presented the vice president's late son the Delaware Conspicuous Service Cross -- a cross awarded for heroism, meritorious service and outstanding achievement.
In addition to serving as Delaware's attorney general, Biden was a member of the Delaware Army National Guard for more than a decade, serving a tour in Iraq.
This is one of many ceremonies to honor Beau Biden, including a viewing Friday and funeral Mass Saturday at St. Anthony of Padua church in Wilmington.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will travel to Delaware for the funeral, where the President will be delivering the eulogy.
Rick Perry is on Morning Joe now. The day after he announced his bid to run in that GOP Primary. That gives that field 10 candidates so far. Aside from his platforms, his love for hunting and his love for the NRA, along with his death penalty prowess, in some odd sort of a away, I like Rick Perry as a guy. He seems nice and like he would be cool to hang out with having a beer. Plus, I like what he says some times when he is NOT talking politics. But again, his platforms and whatnot are not for me. I did not think his record in Texas is that great but then again, the economy there seems to be thriving. Same with him bringing in businesses but again, I had thought it was sort of weak. I also thought his platforms with regard to education is weak but again, I am not that sure about what goes on in Texas.
Willie goes there about the 'oops' heard round the world. Willie had a bit of a smirk but he pulled that back nicely. I think if you do go there with him, it should be talked about in a serious way. Public speaking is very hard. I get why whomever would blank out we all know that when you do blank out, it is hard to recovery from and that happens in our every day life when we are not in a debate setting. However, it was very funny and at the same time, he was trying to remember from his cue cards so to speak which made it very disingenuous. That was the real issue. Not that he forgot but that he could not remember a stock answer told to him during his debate preparation sessions.
I do it is always funny for some reason when he talks about Israel. I am not sure why I feel that way or why I do not take him serious when he talks about the countries and people in that region.
I think Mika just reconfirmed how I feel about him. She called him very charming. Maybe that is what it is about him. He also seems real no matter what his stances, platforms and beliefs are in his life. Which I have said it many times. I cannot knock anyone for for being real (unless they hurt people or scam people while being real (so to speak)).
BTW, did you see the American Sniper's (the real one) wife at his Rick Perry) campaign announcement yesterday? She is way hot. I did not know that and I think she is way hotter than the one played inthat film. I forget whom it was but Ihad no clue she was that pretty.That guy (Chris Kyle) was a real man. He should not be dead today. that was just a bad death. It was so unecessary. I dont even get why that murderer killed him besides him having PSTD. Which sucks but still, can't you be depressed within yourself? Do you have to involve other people? I guess its easier said than done but when I had my depression, I stayed within myself trying to never involve any other humans. Hell. I would not even tell anyone and my P.T.S.T. was because I was in L.A. County jail for 11 hours back in 2002. I am what you would call not a real man. I am a wimp. But in defense of me being a wimp in life, I cannot stand being confined that way. It freaks me out but what am I saying here? I was in a pod of 100 people. That was the [problem because I had to deal with major criminals and I did not understand the criminal justice system back then. I learned a lot from it and I wrote about it in my first book (Three Weeks In June). I just can't stand being told what to do. Let alone by cops and those types of authorities. It freaks me out.
And, oh yeah. I forgot about that song made for Rick Perry. That was hilarious. He played it at his announcement yesterday. Let me try to find it and most of all, let me try to find the lyric content. They are priceless.
To hell with anyone who don’t believe in the USA / Rick Perry all the way."
Oh man, I have goosebumps.
"I won’t back up / I don’t back down / I been raised up / To stand my ground / Take my job / But not my gun."
First person to annotate this on Rap Genius gets an American-flag pin!
"Give me my right to vote / My right to tote / The weapon of my choice, don’t censor my voice."
All in favor of replacing the National Anthem with this musical masterpiece say "Oops!"
I forgot about it being the first Friday of the month which gives up the job numbers from the prior month and therefore, I will report that US non farm payrolls total 280,000 in May vs. 225,000 est.; unemployment rate at 5.5%. The U.S. economy created 280,000 jobs in May, better than expected and likely confirming hopes that growth is back on track after a slow start to the year.
The unemployment rate, however, increased slightly to 5.5 percent.
Wages also showed growth, rising eight cents an hour, equating to an annualized increase of 2.3 percent.
The jobs numbers are critical in that they will go a long way toward determining policy from the Federal Reserve. The hot jobs report sent U.S. government bond yields surging
After keeping short-term interest rates near zero for six and a half years, the U.S. central bank is looking for a liftoff point that would be confirmed not only by job creation but also by wage growth that would indicate inflation is on a positive trajectory.
While many market participants expect a rate increase this year, the Fed got a stunning jolt Thursday from the International Monetary Fund. IMF chief Christine Lagarde took the unprecedented step of advising the Fed to wait until 2016 until the inflation picture is clearer.
Nonfarm payrolls were seen rising by 225,000 positions in May after increasing by an initially reported 223,000 a month earlier, according to a Reuters survey of economists. The unemployment rate was expected to hold steady near a seven-year low of 5.4 percent.
Also, the Tony Awards are happening this Sunday evening at R.C.M.H. in New York City.
Regardless of it all happening in this very fast week, please stay in touch!
