Let’s talk about the heroes of Umpqua instead of the psychotic killer. 30-year-old Army veteran Chris Mintz was shot seven times by the killer as he struggled to protect students. His aunt Sheila Brown told NBC News he served 10 years in the military, and had just started classes at the college. She also said he was on the wrestling team and had experience as a cage fighter. Several sources say Mintz was stationed at Fr. Lewis in Washington, and was deployed during his Army service.
by John Hayward2 Oct 2015, 8:07 AM PST0
The Obama administration is complaining that Russian president Vladimir Putin promised he would help to “deconflict” Syria and is now violating those promises.
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 8:02 PM PST0
Turkey was surprisingly quiet during the first day of Russian bombing in Syria, but they were certain to denounce the action, because they have long criticized the regime of dictator Bashar Assad and have insisted his removal was crucial to resolving the Syrian crisis. The Turks are not terribly fond of the Russians either.
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 6:25 PM PST0
A former prisoner of the Islamic State says in a interview that he personally witnessed ISIS jihadists carving organs and stealing blood from prisoners in order to help wounded jihadis survive.
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 4:30 PM PST0
China’s success at perpetrating massive cyber-attacks against the United States – including arguably the biggest hack in history, the Office of Personnel Management raid – without any repercussions means cyber espionage is here to stay. It’s too easy, too effective, and too deniable to be stopped.
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 2:43 PM PST0
On Wednesday morning, a member of the al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, posted a photo online of a colleague posing with his “brand-new U.S. machine gun,” which he claimed was handed over by the U.S.-trained Division 30. He even threw in a jaunty quote from Scarface: “Say hello to my little friend.”
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 11:26 AM PST0
Iranian ground forces are pouring into Syria and preparing for action under Russian air cover, in an effort to help Syrian military forces recapture ground taken by rebels, including al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front.
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 10:59 AM PST0
The House Homeland Security Committee released a report on domestic terrorist recruitment on Tuesday that found the largest number of American ISIS recruits came from Minnesota, with California and New York vying for second place.
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 9:23 AM PST0
The Norwegian embassy in Israel has condemned a comic strip in the Dagbladet newspaper that compared Israel to Nazi Germany and North Korea as a “nation of murderers.”
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 9:12 AM PST0
The village of Nanping in China has been learning the hard way that good fences make for good neighbors. They have a bad fence, just three meters of barbed wire, and they live next to some of the most unruly neighbors in the world: North Korea. Nanping has become a virtual ghost town because North Korean soldiers have been crossing the border to rob and murder the Chinese.
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 8:50 AM PST0
The Russians are still insisting their air campaign is targeting the Islamic State, but U.S. officials say the bombs have been dropping on CIA-backed rebel groups.
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 8:26 AM PST0
Many of the documents in this new release were “born classified,” under a presidential order that treats all foreign government information as confidential by default – a protocol Hillary Clinton was thoroughly instructed on, and would have been re-briefed on several times during her tenure as Secretary of State. One very good reason for the “born classified” rule is that the U.S. government doesn’t want foreign officials to be reluctant to share such information.
by John Hayward1 Oct 2015, 6:46 AM PST0
CNN reported Wednesday that a U.S. official has confirmed that “the United States is pulling spies from China as a result of the cyberattack that compromised the personal data of 21.5 million government workers.”
by John Hayward30 Sep 2015, 10:35 PM PST0
In his remarks before the U.N. General Assembly, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a large increase in aid money for Middle Eastern refugees, but notably declined to allow migrants to resettle in Japan.
by John Hayward30 Sep 2015, 7:09 PM PST0
“The Defense Department’s second-in-command told the Senate on Tuesday the agreement came as a surprise to military intelligence and Pentagon teams are scrambling to make sure classified intelligence from the U.S. does not make its way into the hands of Russian, Syrian or Iranian authorities,” says a report at Defense One.
by John Hayward30 Sep 2015, 2:38 PM PST0
Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry described Russian action in Syria as a potential “opportunity” for the United States, suggesting the Russians ought to follow President Obama’s agenda in Syria.
by John Hayward30 Sep 2015, 10:38 AM PST0
The inventory of aircraft and weapons Russia moved into Syria includes advanced air supremacy fighters and surface-to-air missiles, which would have no conceivable use against the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, or any other Syrian rebel group, as none of them have an air force. The planes were slipped into Syria using clever subterfuge designed to defeat satellite surveillance, which is something else no element of the Syrian rebellion has.
by John Hayward30 Sep 2015, 6:33 AM PST0
The masked gunmen who kidnapped 16 Turkish construction workers from their job site in Baghdad at the beginning of September have released a video of their hostages, showing them alive and well, and they claimed that the captives will be released soon.
by John Hayward29 Sep 2015, 10:15 PM PST0
The Obama administration has thrown in the towel on a plan to spend $500 million on training “moderate” Syrian rebels to fight ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the regime of Bashar Assad.
by John Hayward29 Sep 2015, 9:41 PM PST0
One of the worst of Barack Obama’s many bad ideas is surrendering control of Internet domains to a shadowy multi-national organization, a move undertaken largely out of embarrassment over Edward Snowden’s exposure of NSA surveillance techniques. Under Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution, only Congress has the authority to transfer control of such government property, so Obama’s attempt to give it away to foreign bodies without congressional consent would be unconstitutional.
by John Hayward29 Sep 2015, 7:13 AM PST0
After days of insisting that all American gear was under the “positive control” of U.S.-trained New Syrian Force rebels, the Pentagon finally admitted over the weekend that al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front seized vehicle and ammunition from the token “moderate” force.
by John Hayward28 Sep 2015, 6:58 PM PST0
At the U.N., Obama Refuses to See the Chaotic World He Has Made
by John Hayward28 Sep 2015, 12:18 PM PST0
Trump’s unveiling of the tax plan was a tremendous performance. Part of the secret to his success is that he sounds like what many people imagine they would sound like, given a megaphone to shout their discontent into the faces of the U.S. political establishment. That’s why Trump’s popularity doesn’t seem to take much of a hit when he gets rough with likable competitors, such as Senator Marco Rubio, who he dismissed as something akin to a hapless child during his press conference on Monday.
by John Hayward28 Sep 2015, 10:09 AM PST0
President Obama’s address to the United Nations on Monday presented an elaborate apologia for his foreign policy, including something very few people would attempt to defend as a success: the overthrow of dictator Moammar Qaddafi in Libya.
by John Hayward28 Sep 2015, 8:38 AM PST0
This is a remarkable interview for several reasons. It ought to be a bombshell moment for Albright, a figure of considerable reverence in the Democrat pantheon as a trailblazing woman, to pronounce Hillary Clinton’s email arrangement unacceptable. Are Clinton dead-enders going to start insisting Madeline Albright doesn’t know what she’s talking about?
by John Hayward28 Sep 2015, 6:30 AM PST0
