ACLU: Drone Surveillance ‘Not Consistent With Our Nation’s Traditions’

The Bipartisan Police State

• Democrats  -  The Left praises the ACLU while working with the Right to fully fund the unconstitutional 1984 Police Surveillance State.
• Republicans  -  The Right criticizes the ACLU while working with the Left to fully fund the unconstitutional 1984 Police Surveillance State.
• Meanwhile the ACLU is in court fighting against both parties and for the 4th Amendment.

(CNSNews.com) - An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) senior policy analyst was critical of drone surveillance at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, saying that drone surveillance is “not consistent with our nation’s traditions.”

The event, titled “U.S. Civil Drone Policy,” focused on policy strategies to manage commercial, public and private unmanned aerial systems (UAS), otherwise known as drones, in U.S. airspace while supporting innovation and protecting privacy and personal freedom.

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst focusing on speech, privacy and technology at the ACLU, said that “ACLU’s primary concern when it comes to drones is that they not to be used for mass suspicion and surveillance of U.S. populations.”

“Drones are a very powerful potential surveillance technology. There are technologies out there that create persistent surveillance of entire towns, neighborhoods and cities with a single camera, ultra-high resolution camera,” said Stanley.

“The kind of tracking that can be done with that kind of technology is a very serious privacy problem when people know everywhere that you go they know a lot about you. They know where you work and where you live, but also what friends and lovers you might be visiting at what hours, what kinds of religious, political, sexually oriented establishments or meetings you might be going to and many other things about you,” he said.

“So that is our primary concern around drones, and we called for regulation of police and government use of drones to ensure that they don’t become used for mass surveillance,” Stanley added. “Unfortunately, we have a long record of law enforcement giving into temptation to collect everything all the time about everybody just in case somebody engages in wrongdoing. We believe that’s not consistent with our nation’s traditions.

“The government does not look over your shoulder without a particular suspicion that you are doing something wrong. It doesn’t watch you just because you might be able to do something wrong,” Stanley said.

Read More . . . .

NSA Architect Blows Surveillance State Wide Open

William Binney, a legendary NSA mathematician developed the revolutionary logic and architecture that is now used to spy on everybody in the world. When the NSA decided to use his programs on US citizens he became one of the biggest whistleblowers in the history of the NSA. He started the debate and the avalanche of understanding in regards to illegal surveillance, and is revealing inside knowledge on some of the biggest government secrets to date.

Jihad - Al Qaeda, ISIS Clash Along Israeli Border

Death to Everyone?

• Nusra Front joins other rebel factions fighting ISIS-linked Jaish al-Jihad battalion in Golan Heights; follows mortar fire into Israel.

(Israel National News)  -  Rebels and Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate clashed Tuesday with jihadists linked to the Islamic State group (ISIS) along Syria's border with the Israeli Golan Heights, a monitor and an opposition spokesman said.  

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that rebel groups, as well as Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, fought ISIS-linked Jaish al-Jihad in the border town of Qahtaniya in the southern province of Quneitra province.

"These are key battles, because IS now has a presence in Syria's south and because they are close to the ceasefire line with the Golan," said Abdel Rahman.  

"This is the first time these groups have clashed with each other," headed.  

2015-04-28 Islamic Front in combat with ISIS on the Golan-Heights near the border of Israel

Abdel Rahman said 12 rebels, including Al Nusra fighters, were killed and Jaish al-Jihad lost seven fighters.

"Fifteen members of Jaish al-Jihad were also taken hostage," he said.

The clashes took place as Israel announced that two mortar rounds fired from Syria struck northern parts of the Golan Heights, without causing casualties. The IDF later stated that the mortar fire was the result of errant "spillover" from the conflict, and not a deliberate attack.

Jaish al-Islam is a relatively new group but is suspected to have very close ties to ISIS, according to Romain Caillet, a French expert on jihadists.

Essam al-Rayes, spokesperson for the Southern Front coalition which is fighting Jaish al-Islam, said the ISIS-linked group had a presence in and around the town of Qahtaniya.  

Speaking by phone from Jordan, Rayes said tensions among opposition fighters in the town rose after it was suspected that Jaish al-Jihad had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

The battles erupted on Monday after Jaish al-Jihad ambushed a Southern Front convoy and killed six rebels, Rayes added.

"Al Nusra Front then joined the fight, because Daesh is our common enemy," Rayes said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

Caillet said two Saudi commanders from Al Nusra's southern battalionswere killed on Monday night.

The Southern Front had been planning a large offensive on regime-controlled areas north of Qahtaniya, but the latest clashes delayed their assault, Rayes told AFP.

Read More . . . .

Thanks to the Libertarian Republican for a heads up on this story.

Russian army could deploy anywhere in the world – in 7 hours

Fleet of heavy transport aircraft will reportedly be capable of moving a strategic unit of 400 Armata tanks, with ammunition, to anywhere in the world... at hypersonic speed

(RT News)  -  In the future, a fleet of heavy transport aircraft will reportedly be capable of moving a strategic unit of 400 Armata tanks, with ammunition, to anywhere in the world. And probably at hypersonic speed, enabling Russia to mount a global military response.

According to a new design specification from the Military-Industrial Commission in Moscow, a transport aircraft, dubbed PAK TA, will fly at supersonic speeds (up to 2,000 km/h) and will boast an impressively high payload of up to 200 tons. It will also have a range of at least 7,000 kilometers.

The PAK TA program envisages 80 new cargo aircraft to be built by 2024. This means in a decade Russia’s Central Command will be able to place a battle-ready armored army anywhere, Expert Online reports, citing a source in the military who attended the closed meeting.

Artist concept of future Russian Special Purpose Aircraft

Sprut-SD airborne amphibious self-propelled tank destroyer.
(RIA Novosti / Vjacheslav Afonin)

One of the main tasks of the new PAK TA is to transport Armata heavy missile tanks and other military hardware on the same platform, such as enhanced self-propelled artillery weapons systems, anti-aircraft missile complexes, tactical missile carriers, multiple launch missile systems, and anti-tank missile fighting vehicles.

The PAK TA freighters will be multilevel, with automated cargo loading and have the capability to airdrop hardware and personnel on any terrain.

A fleet of several dozen PAK TA air freighters will be able to lift 400 Armata heavy tanks, or 900 light armored vehicles, such as Sprut-SD airborne amphibious self-propelled tank destroyers.

“With the development of a network of military bases in the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia, which is expected to be completed during the same time period (by 2024), it’s obvious that Russia is preparing for a full-scale military confrontation of transcontinental scale,” Expert Online says.

A source who attended the closed meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission told the media outlet on condition of anonymity that he was “shocked” by the demands of the military.

According to the source, the PAK TA project has been ongoing for several years now and will eventually supplant the currently operating air freighters. But such a global mission statement for national military transport aviation has never been voiced before.

“It means for the first time we have the objective of creating an operational capability to airlift a full-fledged army to any desired place on the planet,” the source said. This means delivering a task force the size of the former NATO and the US troops in Iraq, in a matter of hours to any continent. “In the context of the current military doctrine that defies comprehension,” the source said.

The initial PAK TA specification entailed building subsonic air freighters with a conventional 900 km/h cruising speed and a moderate 4,500-kilometer range.

Read More . . . .

"At last, Russia has returned to the world arena as a strong state - a country that others heed and that can stand up for itself."

Vladimir Putin

Muslim Democrats Seek to Ban Dutch Politician Geert Wilders From US and AFDI Conference

Wilders and Pamela Geller

Muslim Democrats to Silence Free Speech

No criticism of Islam is allowed

(Pamela Geller.com)  -  Look at the reportage on this free speech putsch from the lefist elites,”Democrats Want to Ban Islamophobic Lawmaker From the U.S.”. Democrats? How about lawmakers with blue pants? It’s Muslims seeking to impose the vicious and oppressive sharia here in the US. Oppose jihad? Oppose sharia? Then you are “Islamophobic”.

It is revealing that these Muslim congressmen would show themselves to be enemies of free speech and free discourse. They cannot refute Wilders and don’t dare debate him. All these little authoritarians can do is try to prevent people from hearing his message. That is the sharia.

Wilders is coming to America to speak at the AFDI Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest. It’s one for the history books. I hope you have your tickets.

This article in Foreign Policy magazine, a citadel of leftist power and influence, sounds like it could have been written by ISIS.

“Democrats Want to Ban Islamophobic Lawmaker From the U.S.,” By John Hudson, Foreign Policy, April 28, 2015

In a letter obtained by Foreign Policy, two Democratic members of Congress are urging President Barack Obama’s administration to ban a Dutch lawmaker from entry into the United States due to his controversial views on Islam.

The Dutch lawmaker, Geert Wilders, is scheduled to speak at a reception on Capitol Hill this month at the invitation of Tea Party firebrand Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). In recent years, Wilders has become internationally famous for his bombastic broadsides against Islam, which include calls to ban the Quran in the Netherlands and to arrange for the removal of Moroccan immigrants from his country. In 2010 and 2011, Wilders was formally charged in the Netherlands with inciting hatred and discrimination and is currently facing charges for hate speech.

“We respectfully request that the U.S. government deny Mr. Wilders entry due to his participation in inciting anti-Muslim aggression and violence,” wrote Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and André Carson (D-Ind.) in the April 23 letter. “Mr. Wilders’ policy agenda is centered on the principle that Christian culture is superior to other cultures.”

The letter, addressed to Secretary of State John Kerry and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, calls on the officials to deny Wilders entry under the authority of the International Religious Freedom Act, which empowers the State Department to ban the entry of a foreign leader responsible for severe violations of religious freedom.

The somewhat obscure 1998 law has only been used to deny the entry of a foreign official once, when Narendra Modi, the current prime minister of India and former chief minister of Gujarat, was accused of failing to protect Muslims during communal rioting in 2002.

Wilders has called Islam the “ideology of a retarded culture,” and his writings were favorably cited by Anders Breivik, the Norwegian white supremacist responsible for murdering 77 people in the Oslo area in 2012. He was most recently in the news for recording a two-minute video titled “No Way,” in which he tells migrants not to come to the Netherlands.

Read More . . . .

Obama rejects calls for help as Taliban advances on major Afghan city

Obama Golfs as World Burns

Afghan calls for help are rejected as the Taliban marches.

(AFP News)  -  Intense fighting flared in northern Afghanistan as security forces battled Taliban insurgents advancing Tuesday on a major provincial capital, officials said, with terrified residents fearing the fall of the besieged city.

Hundreds of militants closed in on Kunduz city (population 300,000) after attacking outlying police and army checkposts on Friday, just hours after the Taliban launched their annual spring offensive.

The battles are raging as close as six kilometres north of Kunduz city in Imam Sahib district and nearby villages in the east and south, officials said.

"The Taliban have surrounded the district and if reinforcements don't arrive... the district will fall to Taliban," Imamuddin Quraishi, the district governor of Imam Sahib, told AFP.

"They are attacking us from three directions. We don't have enough forces to contain them," he added.

The streets of Kunduz city were deserted, with shops closed and local administration officials deserting government buildings, residents said as fears of a Taliban takeover grew.

"We are really worried that the city could slip into the hands of the Taliban... and all the gains over the last 13 years will be lost," Ahmad Luqman 35, a shopkeeper in the city, told AFP.

"We don’t want to go back to the civil war."

The fall of a provincial capital would be a major setback for the Afghan government, which has been fighting a resilient Taliban insurgency since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Quraishi said the provincial government had asked NATO for air support but the appeal had been rejected on the grounds that it may cause civilian casualties.

Read More . . . .

Internet Poverty - 60,000 Travel Agents Lose Their Jobs, Are You Next?

The "Evil" Internet Gnome Brings Poverty.

Welcome to Eternal Poverty

• Year 2000  -  There were 124,000 full-time travel agents in a U.S. with a population of 281 million people.
• Year 2014  -  The Internet reduced full-time travel agents down to 64,000 while the U.S. population grew to 320 million.
• The Internet, robotics, computers and outsourcing are abolishing jobs by the millions.  Meanwhile the political hacks import millions of brand new legal and illegal workers to compete against American citizens for the few jobs that are left.

(Pittsburgh Post Gazette)  -  Bill Katz’s Squirrel Hill home is adorned with mementos from his travels: a silk screen from China in the living room, a painting from Mexico in the television room and the beloved collection of elephant statuettes assembled by his wife, Phyllis. After 54 years running Pittsburgh travel agency Atlas Travel, Mr. Katz can tell you a little bit about a lot of places and how to get where you need to go.

At one time Atlas Travel had offices in Erie, Greensburg, Steubenville and Ross, in addition to the main office in the former Kaufmann’s building Downtown.

Mr. Katz downsized over the past several years, deciding the hours spent driving between the five offices was too much. He focused primarily on his main office Downtown. Then, after some health problems last year, he streamlined further, moving operations to his home office.

Bill Katz owned five travel agency offices in Pennsylvania.
The Internet forced them all to close.  Now he works
alone out of a home office. 

He’s not the only travel agent to go with a streamlined approach to operations, according to the Alexandria, Va.-based American Society of Travel Agents.

Telecommuting and “virtual” agencies have become a trend in the travel industry, according to ASTA spokeswoman Melissa Teates, with about 40,000 currently operating as one-person shops. Some agents go digital for cost savings, but others run their businesses online while traveling themselves to keep up with the latest in destinations in real time.

No question the travel industry has undergone a lot of changes since Mr. Katz opened his first office in 1960.

Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a steady decline in the number of agents since 2000, when there were more than 124,000 working full-time. As of 2014, there were just over 64,000 full-time travel agents in the U.S.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the number of travel agents will continue to decline by about 12 percent through 2022, with those agents who specialize in a niche of the industry likely to fare the best.

Read More . . . .

Automation - Human workers are not needed.

It's Back To The Future
kk
The poverty of the 1930s Great Depression is coming back.  The moronic politicians and TV talking heads blunder forward thinking the future will look like the past, and they talk about new jobs and economic recovery.
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Those of us still able to think for ourselves see the writing on the wall.  Technology, robotics, the Internet and outsourcing are permanently abolishing jobs by the millions.  At some point the consumer economy will collapse as people with jobs to buy products simply vanish.
,
The successful political party of the future will run on a "Jobs for Humans" platform.  It will be a  return of the Luddites as millions of people permanently made unemployable by machines demand help just to live.

Muslim threatens to behead UKIP candidate for Parliament

David Robinson-Young is standing for Newcastle East

Chop - Chop says the Repigion of Peace

• A man has been charged in connection with an alleged threat to behead a UKIP candidate in Newcastle.  Aftab Ahmed has been charged with threats to kill after David Robinson-Young claimed he received a phone call from a constituent complaining about the Middle East.
• And the deliberate importation of Muslims goes on and on.

(The UK Express)  -  David Robinson-Young, an ex police officer, received the call from a man “ranting” about the British government bombing Muslim countries.

Northumbria Police are investigating the angry phone exchange, which went on for 20 minutes and was made by a man calling himself Mr Khan.

Mr Khan is claimed to have said he lived in Newcastle upon Tyne East - the seat Mr Robinson-Young is campaigning for in the General Election.

Mr Robinson-Young said the phone call was “chilling” in light of recent terror attacks.

The Ukip candidate said:"He said the Muslim community is really annoyed with the British government supporting bombing Muslim countries and that the community here just wants to get on with their family lives."

After 20 minutes of "ranting", Mr Robinson-Young said he warned he would end the call.

He said: "Mr Khan then swore at me saying, 'you had better f*** off or you will be beheaded next'.

"After the terrible Lee Rigby incident I am very concerned about this threat, particularly at this time in an election campaign."

Mr Robinson Young said the caller said he phoned the Ukip office after receiving one of the party's leaflets.

He added: "I'm not a man who is easily intimidated, I'm an ex-policeman and I've been subjected to numerous physical threats in the past. I left the police service because of injuries received in an assault on duty.

"I found this man's threats to be particularly chilling and it has really shaken me. However I will not let this incident prevent me from continuing in the campaign to try and change our country for the better."

Read More . . . .

Warning to American Readers

Please do not be frightened of the ballot below for the upcoming British elections which features seven political parties for voters to select from.  In the rest of the world this is called free elections.

.

Meanwhile back in the U.S. voters are force-fed a phony "choice" of only two corrupt Washington D.C. / Wall Street funded parties.  Maybe we should try free elections in the United States.

The Upcoming 2015 Election

General Election 2015: Newcastle upon Tyne East
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Nick Brown
	Conservative	Duncan Crute
	Green	Andrew Gray
	TUSC	Paul Phillips
	Communist	Mollie Stevenson
	Liberal Democrat	Wendy Taylor
	UKIP	David Robinson-Young

G

See More:  

Newcastle upon Tyne East - Parliament constituency

Georgetown University tries to censor OFF-CAMPUS conservative event

Universities Embrace Big Brother

Think what we tell you to think.  

Only watch what we tell you to watch.

(The Daily Caller)  -  Officials at Georgetown University are putting pressure on an off-campus group to edit an April 17 lecture posted on YouTube because parts of the video show the militant feminist student protestors and other students, according to the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.

The Luce Lecture series video shows a lecture by resident American Enterprise Institute scholar Christina Hoff Sommers entitled “What’s Right (and Badly Wrong) with Feminism?” The Luce Policy Institute and the Georgetown College Republicans organized the lecture.

One of the militant feminist students described Sommers as “an extremist anti-feminist speaker that dismisses and denies survivors of sexual assault and the real harm of rape culture.

A handful of feminist students demanded “trigger warnings” prior to the speech by Sommers, another feminist.

Lauren Gagliardi, Georgetown’s assistant director for the center for student engagement, informed the campus College Republicans via email that the school would “step in” if Luce, an independent conservative women’s organization, refuses to edit the YouTube video. […]

“Our response is that we will not edit the tape,” Luce Lecture director Laurel Conrad told TheDC. “While many universities are accustomed to bullying students until they bend to a leftwing point of view, a conservative women’s organization named after the courageous Clare Boothe Luce is not impressed or moved by such bullying.” […]

“We are very surprised to learn about this demand,” Conrad added. “It was clearly a public event and the camera was in plain view. It should be a shock to no one that they were on camera. As protesters, you would figure their whole mission was to get attention.”

Conrad said she believes the students or Georgetown’s administration “must be embarrassed by what happened and how dumb they looked.”

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Obama backed Islamists seize key Syria city

Members of jihadist group Al-Nusra Front (AFP Photo)

The "war " against ISIS is a fraud

• In 2013 Obama tried to unconstitutionally wage war against Syria but backed down when people demanded that Congress vote.  When that war effort failed we saw ISIS "magically" appear as a threat with expensive weapons appearing out of thin air.
• Now we see Obama using the ISIS "threat" to continue his unconstitutional war against Syria.
• Reports have been coming in (see below) of  CIA provided U.S. weapons being given to the Islamist Al-Nusra Front. 

(McClatchy News)  -  Rebels, including members of U.S.-backed groups and al Qaida’s Nusra Front, captured the strategic town of Jisr al Shughur in northwest Syria on Saturday, the second major setback for the government of President Bashar Assad in Idlib province in a month.

The loss of Jisr al Shugur all but closes the government’s land supply routes to two major bases in the west of Idlib, Mastuma and Ariha, both of which are surrounded by rebel forces and can now be supplied only by air. Rebels captured the provincial capital, Idlib city, on March 28.

The latest rebel victory came surprisingly quickly, apparently aided by U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank missiles. Islamist groups announced the battle only Wednesday. The government troops fled to the neighboring provinces of Latakia and Hama.

Gen. Ahmad Rahhal, who defected from the Syrian army and now works with the moderate rebels, called it a strategic victory for the anti-Assad forces that would strengthen their ability to move their own supplies between three provinces – Idlib, Hama and Latakia. But he told McClatchy the forces “still have a lot of work to do” and noted the government still has hundreds of troops in the two bases under siege.

This image posted on the Twitter page of Syria's al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front on Saturday, April 25, 2015, which is consistent with AP reporting, shows Nusra Front fighters in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, Idlib province, Syria.  (AP photo)

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/04/25/264444/us-backed-rebels-team-with-islamists.html#storylink=cpy

The precise role of the moderate rebels and Nusra in the battle was in dispute, though accounts of the fighting made clear that U.S.-supplied rebel groups had coordinated to some degree with Nusra, which U.S. officials declared a terrorist organization more than two years ago.

Videos posted on social media showed that U.S.-supplied TOW missiles played a critical role, destroying dozens of government tanks and vehicles. The opposition run Masar News Network reported that rebel forces captured dozens of regime troops as well as three tanks and three other armored vehicles.

Berri said the main factor behind the victory was surprise. The government forces were expecting the attack to target the town of Ariha from the east. Instead, the rebels, including fighters from the Islamist Ahrar al Sham group, opened the fight from the west and cut the supply routes quickly.

Government forces withdrew to the west and south to Jourin and other towns in the mountains of Latakia.

The cooperation between U.S.-supplied rebels and Nusra in the battle could prove controversial. The U.S. in recent months has severed relationships with some moderate rebel groups that had surrendered weapons to Nusra.

Video posted on social media Saturday showed fighters from two major groups that still receive U.S. support, Division 13 and the Sukur al Ghab Brigades, participating in the fighting, including firing TOWs.

Among the moderate rebel groups deployed, Berri said, were the The Coastal Division, Division 101, Division 13 and Sukur Al Ghab Brigades.

Activists sympathetic to the moderate rebels said Ahrar al Sham, an Islamist group that also has links to al Qaida but has not been designated a terrorist group, played a more important role than Nusra. Another group that took part in the fighting was the Rahman Brigade, which is affiliated with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

The battle itself was announced by the Fateh Army, an umbrella group that Ahrar al Sham and other groups established on March 24, just four days before they and the Nusra Front seized the city of Idlib.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/04/25/264444/us-backed-rebels-team-with-islamists.html#storylink=cpy

Read More . . . .

Al-Nusra terrorists execute several civilians in Syria.

Republicans in Half-Trillion-Dollar Debt Binge

Big Government Republicanism is Alive

• We do not need two Leftist Democrat Parties in the U.S.  This is why I am a Conservative RINO if you will.  The Leftist, open borders GOP has fully adopted the entire Democrat platform.  I have no party and the elections are rigged.

(Bloomberg News)  -  Republicans in the U.S. Congress who came to power pledging tight-fisted budgeting are going on a tax-cut and spending binge that would boost federal deficits by a half-trillion dollars.

In part, they’re doing it by sidestepping their own warnings about the perils of ringing up even more national debt. Instead, they’re choosing tax cuts and the promise of long-term savings -- and some of the Tea Party members who came to Congress on the pay-as-you-go promise are going along.

So are some Democrats, but it’s the Republican majority that has pushed these bills forward for a mix of motives -- to show voters they can cut taxes and get things done, and to avoid looking like the Party of No. Even some Republicans say it’s wrong.

“How are you going to balance the budget when you are spending all of this money?” said Republican Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican. “We were the party that advocated less government and less spending. We aren’t keeping our promise.”

The House last week voted to repeal the estate tax, paid by only 0.2 percent of U.S. estates, and to permanently extend tax deductions for state and local sales taxes -- without offsetting the cost of either measure. Those moves would combine to expand the deficit by $311 billion over 10 years.

Another $141 billion will be added over 10 years in a measure signed by President Barack Obama last week that leaders of both parties touted as a sign of getting something done in Congress. The law will permanently fix how physicians who treat Medicare patients are paid. The measure also included a two-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program past its current Sept. 30 expiration.

Other deficit-expanding moves include House passage of a bill to revive a lapsed tax break for small businesses that encourages them to purchase equipment, which combined with other language would cost the government $79 billion over a decade in forgone revenue.

And there are congressional efforts to extend other tax breaks without offsets, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Republicans also have proposed increasing military spending beyond the caps agreed to in 2011, through a separate budget line called overseas contingency operations.

Senator Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican who opposed the Medicare payment bill, said he wasn’t surprised that conservatives went along without much of a fuss, saying their desire to get something done won out.

“I think people recognized the significance of the entitlement reform that took place in the bill and recognized the need for a well-thought, long-term solution instead of a year-by-year, kick-the-can-down-the-road approach,” Gardner said in an interview at the Capitol

Read More . . . .

..
While I favor tax cuts for all, the open borders GOP bends over for the rich while importing millions of legal and illegal aliens to drive down wages for American citizens.

Fear in Damascus after U.S. backed Jihadist gains

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

The Obama Legacy

"If the jihadists enter Damascus they'll massacre people."

Hashem, resident of Damascus

• It is a world gone mad.  -  The Russians are arming the Syrian government that protects Christians while warmonger Democrats and Republicans arm Islamist monsters to illegally overthrow the Syrian government.

Damascus (AFP) - Some Damascus residents now fear the worst after Islamist coalition gains against the military in northern Syria. Despite regime reassurances, could jihadists infiltrate the capital?

"We are trembling with fear. If the extremists get in there'll be fighting in the streets. Everything will be destroyed," said marble merchant Mohammed Ayman in the Damascus city centre.

There are few outward signs of the trepidation felt by many. The traffic is as bad as usual, and the shops are all open.

However, morale is low among many residents because the news from the front is not good.

On Saturday, Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front fighters and other rebel groups took the key regime town of Jisr al-Shughur in the northwest less than a month after seizing Idlib, capital of the province of the same name.

These latest losses in the north can be added to important rebel gains in the far south in Daraa province, where both the ancient town of Bosra al-Sham and the main border crossing with Jordan have fallen.

"I heard on an Arab TV channel that the rebels will be in Damascus in 90 days. We're in a trap," said hawker Salim Afghani.

"No one in the world can help us. Damascus could be destroyed, just like Jisr al-Shughur."

State television has reported the fall of both Jisr al-Shughur and Idlib, despite the "heroism" of soldiers in the face of "the arrival of thousands of terrorists who came from Turkey".

"If the jihadists enter Damascus they'll massacre people they see as close to the regime and the others will have to flee," warned tailor Hashem.

Read More . . . . 

Teenage Soldiers and Homemade Grenades: Ghosts of Aleppo 

The Syrian city of Aleppo, under constant bombardment by air and threatened by both Syrian regime forces and Islamic State militants on the ground, is now one of the most dangerous places in the world. In addition to fighting the enemies at the gates, Aleppo’s rebels have to contend with adversaries within the city, including armed gangs of criminals and pro-Islamic State infiltrators.