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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 3/13/2016 11:11:33 AM
	Hillary IT Specialist Singing Like a Bird to the FBI BY RICK MORAN MARCH 12, 2016 Bryan Pagliano, a former State Department employee who helped set up and maintain a private email server used by Hillary Rodham Clinton, departs Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015, to give his deposition to a House panel on the Benghazi investigation. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) A source close to the FBI investigation into the use of Hillary Clinton's private email server says that the IT specialist who worked for Clinton and who has been granted immunity by the Justice Department is revealing key details about how and when Clinton and her aides accessed the server. The source characterized Bryan Pagliano as a "devastating witness." Fox News: "Bryan Pagliano is a devastating witness and, as the webmaster, knows exactly who had access to [Clinton's] computer and devices at specific times. His importance to this case cannot be over-emphasized," the intelligence source said. The source, who is not authorized to speak on the record due to the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation, said Pagliano has provided information allowing investigators to knit together the emails with other evidence, including images of Clinton on the road as secretary of state. The cross-referencing of evidence could help investigators pinpoint potential gaps in the email record. "Don't forget all those photos with her using various devices and it is easy to track the whereabouts of her phone," the source said. "It is still boils down to a paper case. Did you email at this time from your home or elsewhere using this device? And here is a picture of you and your aides holding the devices." A source close to Pagliano did not dispute the basic details of what was provided to the FBI, but said the highly skilled former State Department IT specialist had met with the bureau on a "limited basis" and was at best a "peripheral" player in the investigation. At a Democratic debate Wednesday evening, Clinton brushed off the question when asked by the moderator whether she would withdraw from the presidential race if faced with criminal charges. Univision’s Jorge Ramos asked, "If you get indicted, will you drop out?" Clinton responded, "My goodness. That is not going to happen. I'm not even answering that question." She then added her now standard explanation that nothing she sent or received was marked classified at the time. While technically correct, the distinction appears misleading. The January 2009 classified information non-disclosure agreement signed by Clinton says she understood that classified information could be marked and unmarked, as well as verbal communications. Classification is based on content, not markings.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel

1162

61587

Lima

RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?

3/13/2016 1:55:34 PM

Iraq: Beware the liberation of Mosul

What would happen if ISIL lost control of Iraq's second largest city tomorrow?

13 Mar 2016 07:21 GMT | Politics, War & Conflict, Middle East, Iraq, ISIS

Demonstrators chant pro-ISIL slogans as they carry the group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul [AP]

On February 26, US Marine Lieutenant-General Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that Mosul would probably not be recaptured by the Iraqi security forces (ISF) in 2016.

Stewart's comments are unsurprising. Military planners are by their nature pessimistic. But, as a result, the one scenario that military planners often overlook is that of unexpectedly rapid success.

In the case of Mosul, the least studied scenario - and potentially the most dangerous - is what might be termed "catastrophic success": the collapse of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group's control in the city before stabilising forces and plans are in place to fill the vacuum.

Planners should spend time on this scenario because it is slowly moving from the improbable to the plausible.

Liberation of Mosul

On-the-ground progress towards the liberation of Mosul is moving faster than expected. Elements of four Iraqi army brigades are positioned around 40km southeast of Mosul and another two are on their way.

At least two US-equipped Kurdish Peshmerga brigades will be available by mid-March to support an assault on Mosul, and a range of other Peshmerga forces are already ringing the city's northern and eastern arc.

US-backed special forces raids are beginning on the edges of the ISIL defences around Mosul. On February 13, US forces backed by Apache gunships smashed ISIL defensive positions at Kisik and Badush, northwest of Mosul, and seized the movement's chief chemical weapons specialist.

Intelligence-backed air strikes on Mosul are also accelerating. Mosul city has replaced Ramadi as the most struck location in Iraq or Syria. Kurdish intelligence networks within the city provide a rich tapestry of information on ISIL.

There are even signs of localised resistance in the forms of a regular drumbeat of assassinations and attacks on ISIL forces in Mosul. Such resistance is likely to grow as liberating forces draw closer and their activities become more visible to the residents.

The long 80km perimeter of Mosul city poses a major security challenge to ISIL because residents, spies, and anti-ISIL resistance fighters will be able to sneak in and out with increasing regularity as a liberation operation becomes imminent.

As in Fallujah and a range of smaller cities where ISIL has been forced to brutally suppress dissent, there is strong potential for anti-ISIL uprisings in Mosul. In fact, the very size of Mosul - a factor often cited as an obstacle to its liberation - poses a severe challenge for ISIL.

Figuring that there are perhaps 7,000 committed ISIL fighters inside Mosul, the movement is outnumbered at least 50 to one by local military-age males.

What if Mosul self-liberates?

The make-up of Mosul's population poses a challenge for the liberators, too.

In prior years, there were estimated to be over 7,000 former military officers in the city, plus 103,000 other former soldiers in circulation in Mosul. There is at least one AK-47 for all of the city's 450,000 or so military-age males and probably very many more, plus heavy weapons hidden away from ISIL.

Prior to 2014, Mosul was the most active insurgent hub in Iraq. A patchwork of Sunni militant groups ran the large-scale organised crime networks in the city, dominating real estate and profiting from mobile phone networks and trade. These networks are currently submerged and not entirely under the control of ISIL.

This all points to the question: If an anti-ISIL uprising began in Mosul, who would be the rebels? Would they be as immoderate as many of the "moderate Syrian opposition" fighters in Syria? Would the new leadership of Mosul include the old al-Qaeda in Iraq elements who refused to join ISIL - in effect, the Iraqi version of al-Nusra Front?

The problem is not necessarily that Iraq, the United States, and other Coalition allies would lack the ability to identify these armed elements that would inherit Mosul "the day after" an ISIL collapse.

The problem would be de-conflicting the actions of the ISF, Kurdish forces, Shia militias, anti-ISIL Sunni militants, police, armed civilians and possibly even Turkish and Iranian forces in the hectic period after the ISIL defence collapses.

This kind of follow-on conflict might just be avoided if Iraqi and coalition military planners craft political agreements and carefully manage a gradual neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood liberation of Mosul that slowly unfolds over the next 12 months.

But what if ISIL control collapsed much sooner - before intracoalition agreements are in place and before the ISF and other troops are ready to enter?

What if the self-liberators of Mosul try to militarily prevent the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces from entering the city? The destruction of Syrian cities like Aleppo and Homs - and decades before, the fate of Beirut - show just how bad such interfactional fighting can become.

Michael Knights is the Lafer Fellow with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has worked in every Iraqi province and most of the country's hundred districts.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Knights

Michael Knights is the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He specialises in the politics and security of Iraq. He has worked in every Iraqi province and most of the country's hundred districts, including periods embedded with Iraq's security forces.

@mikeknightsiraq

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

Luis Miguel

1162

61587

Lima

RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?

3/13/2016 2:41:18 PM

Donald Trump on Black Protesters: "These Are Not the People That Made Our Country Great"

By Zak Cheney-RiceMarch 11, 2016 4:39 PM

As of 2:30 p.m. Eastern on Friday, no fewer than three separate protests had interrupted Donald Trump's rally inside the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis.

One group of demonstrators held up signs that read "Not Your Lazy Black" and "AmeriKKKa" before they were removed by security, all while the crowd cheered and shouted, "USA! USA! USA!"

Source: Mic/YouTube

Shortly before they were escorted out, Trump pointed at the protesters — all of whom were black — and said, "These are not the people that made our country great."

Source: Mic/YouTube

"Go home and get a job," he added. Near the beginning of the rally, another protester had been removed after letting out a dramatically overwrought fake laugh at one of Trump's jokes:

Source: Mic/YouTube

Aside from the irony of telling people whose enslaved ancestors largely built the U.S. that they are "not the people" who made this country great, the St. Louis rally was marked by the same kind of violence that's come to be expected wherever Trump's followers gather.

MSNBC reporter Trymaine Lee tweeted live Friday from outside the opera house. It wasn't pretty:

Meanwhile, St. Louis has been in the public spotlight over the past two years as a site of racial tension. The shooting of black teenager Michael Brown in the nearby suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014 sparked days of protests, which were swiftly met by Ferguson police with armored cars, riot gear and tear gas.

Source: Jeff Roberson/AP

Protesters are regularly and often violently removed from Trump's rallies. At a gathering Wednesday in Fayetteville, North Carolina, one black man was already being escorted out by security when he got sucker punched in the head by a white Trump supporter.

Source: YouTube

Yet Trump's often hateful and racist rhetoric continues to draw throngs of supporters:

Trymaine Lee

✔‎@trymainelee

Trump rally. Literally the longest line I've ever seen.

11:53 AM - 11 Mar 2016 · St Louis, MO, United States

Trump has also received endorsements from prominent white supremacists. David Duke, a one-term Republican Louisiana state representative and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, said on his radio show in February that "voting against Donald Trump at this point, is really treason to your heritage," according to BuzzFeed.

Trump is currently the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 3/13/2016 4:52:52 PM
	Anguish as Kabul family buries 10 drowned migrants By Guillaume DecammeMarch 12, 2016 11:26 AM Afghan mourners carry the coffins of members of a family who drowned trying to cross the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, during a funeral ceremony in Kabul on March 12, 2016 (AFP Photo/Wakil Kohsar) View Gallery "It was God's will," says Mohammed Ashraf, a tear rolling down his weathered face as he looks at the lifeless bodies of five male relatives, brought back to Kabul after they drowned trying to reach Europe. The coffins sit open in the courtyard of the family home in Kart-e-Seh, a middle-class neighbourhood in the Afghan capital, the bodies of four boys and one older man wrapped in black material but their faces exposed. One coffin is notably smaller than the others. It belongs to Faiz, who was just nine months old when he drowned in the Aegean Sea last week along with nine other members of his family. "You can see that the bodies are being washed now," says Ashraf, a cousin of the family, as half a dozen men tend to the corpses in an Islamic funeral rite. One, seemingly at the end of his strength, murmurs a prayer. Another bites into his scarf to suppress a sob. Only men are allowed to participate in this ceremony for their male relatives. Two houses along, the women of the family are doing the same for the five women and girls who drowned on the same crossing between Turkey and Greece. View gallery Afghan mourners carry the coffins of members of a family who drowned trying to cross the Aegean Sea … Of the members of the Skanderi family who attempted the voyage, only the father of the five children who drowned has survived. "He is in a hospital in Turkey," Ashraf explains. "We are all from the same village, from the same neighbourhood. We grew up together," he says as the tears begin to flow again. - Hundreds like them - The scene reveals the tragic human story behind statistics from the International Organization for Migration showing that between January and mid-February alone, 320 people died crossing the Aegean. More than 130,000 people have travelled to Greece via Turkey since the start of the year, according to the same group, most of them Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis fleeing conflict and a bleak economic climate. View gallery Afghan mourners surround the bodies of members of a family who drowned trying to cross the Aegean Se … Of those, 42,000 are stuck in Greece, a series of border closures in the Balkans blocking them from continuing further into Western Europe. "Life is very hard in Kabul. That's the reason why they left. I work in a hotel-restaurant and the money is too tight," says Atiqullah, a cousin of the family who did not wish to give his full name. Ashraf is less certain. "We all know that Afghanistan faces a lot of challenges. But they (the Skanderis) did not face huge problems. They lacked nothing. It was fate that pushed them to leave. It was God's will." An uncle of the family and General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Afghan first vice-president and former warlord, both contributed towards the cost of repatriating the bodies. The Skanderis left Kabul a month ago and set out on the now notorious route to Europe via Iran and Turkey, before their boat sank on Friday last week. Like most of the thousands of Afghans who migrate to Europe, the family paid "thousands of dollars" to people smugglers, according to Qadir, a relative. "They took a mortgage to pay for their trip," he says.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 3/13/2016 5:08:21 PM
	Trump considers paying legal bills for man charged at rally By BILL BARROW1 hour ago ATLANTA (AP) — Republican presidential primary leader Donald Trump says he will consider paying the legal fees of a North Carolina man captured on video sucker-punching a protester at one of the billionaire's signature mass rallies. Related Stories Man charged with assaulting protester at Trump rally in North Carolina: report Reuters Will Donald Trump Actually Pay His Violent Supporters' Legal Fees? Huffington Post Elderly US man punches protester at Trump rally AFP Black protester gets punched in the face at Trump rally. Will it hurt Trump? Christian Science Monitor Donald Trump's ideology of violence Vox.com "I don't accept responsibility. I do not condone violence in any shape," Trump told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. But when asked whether he'd financially back the supporter, who was arrested and charged with assault, Trump says he's "instructed my people to look into it, yes." Trump, meanwhile, rejected calls to modify his campaign rhetoric amid increasing instances of violence at his events. Instead he blamed Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders for sending supporters to disrupt Trump events and noted that many of the protesters who clashed with Trump supporters in Chicago on Friday night carried Sanders signs. Sanders on Sunday vehemently denied Trump's accusations. "To suggest that our campaign is telling people to disrupt his campaign is a lie," Sanders said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." Trump Calls Cancelled Rally "Planned Attack&q …Play video Trump said his rallies are "peaceful," and accused news reports of exaggerating the violence. He demurred on multiple Sunday talk shows when reminded of his litany of incendiary statements: he'd "punch" a protester "in the face," ''we need a little bit more of" hitting back and encouraging the crowd to "knock the crap out of" protesters. On several Sunday talk shows Trump said in one instance, he was simply defending himself against the possibility of being hit by a tomato, which he insisted could do "real damage" if hurled by someone "with a strong arm." There have been no reports of a tomato being hurled at any Trump event or of one hitting the candidate. Trump has rallies scheduled Sunday in Illinois, Florida and Ohio ahead of Tuesday primaries that likely offer GOP rivals their last shot to derail Trump from reaching the 1,237 delegates required for the Republican nomination. The GOP leader's rivals — in both major parties — are more vocal in their criticism of Trump's rhetoric, calling it dangerous and divisive, from calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and "criminals" to his repeated cracks about "punching" protesters and taking them "out on a stretcher." Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a distant third in the GOP delegate count, compared Trump to third-world "strong men," and said the tone of the campaign "is really going to do damage to America." Trump Supporters, Protestors Clash in ChicagoPlay video Rubio said on CNN that Trump is arguing to voters: "Don't put your faith in yourselves. Don't put your faith in society. Put your faith in me." On the Democratic side, Sanders said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that he has "millions of supporters," some of whom "will do what they do." Sanders said on CNN that Trump "is a man who keeps implying violence, and then you end up getting what you see." On the possibility of paying legal fees for his North Carolina supporter, Trump says he wants "to see the full tape" before deciding whether to back John Franklin McGraw. Trump suggested McGraw, who is white, punched Rakeem Jones, who is black, after Jones held up his middle finger to the crowd. McGraw "got carried away," Trump said on NBC's "Meet the Press," but "frankly wants to see America made great again." Video of the immediate moments before McGraw threw the punch does not show the "taunting" from Jones that Trump describes. Trump hits Kasich Ahead of Ohio PrimaryPlay video Jones has told The Associated Press that he and others went to the event as observers, not protesters. He says someone swore at one in their group, and by the time they tried to object, the police were escorting him out. Trump appeared intent Saturday not to draw criticism for instigating any problems. At a morning rally in Ohio, he was suddenly pulled midspeech into a protective ring of U.S. Secret Service agents after a man rushed the stage. "Thank you for the warning," Trump told the crowd after he resumed his speech. "I was ready for 'em, but it's much better if the cops do it, don't we agree?" ___ Follow Barrow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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