NCRenegade

Rep. Nancy Pelosi says Democrats can recapture control of the House in 2016 by riding Hillary Clinton’s coattails.

“Yes, we can win the House,” the California Democrat said during a sit-down interview in her Capitol office.

“If she runs, she will win the nomination. And if she’s our nominee, she clearly — I mean, the campaign, the joint effort — would be one that could not only take her into office but would [pull Democrats to victory],” Pelosi said.

“There’s opportunity, all kinds of statistics now about if the Democrats have a presidential candidate who … wins by 52 percent — that’s over 20 [House] seats,” Pelosi added. “And so 53 [percent] is a victory [for House Democrats].”

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Do you think that even she is starting to believe her own lies? Keep paying tribute so that your government can continue to buy votes to stay in power.

David DeGerolamo

Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in the Florida Keys if British researchers win approval to use the bugs against two extremely painful viral diseases.

Never before have insects with modified DNA come so close to being set loose in a residential U.S. neighborhood.

“This is essentially using a mosquito as a drug to cure disease,” said Michael Doyle, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, which is waiting to hear if the Food and Drug Administration will allow the experiment.

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Radical leftists have been catapulted to power in Greece, and that means that the European financial crisis has just entered a dangerous new phase.  Syriza, which is actually an acronym for “Coalition of the Radical Left” in Greek, has 36 percent of the total vote with approximately 80 percent of the polling stations reporting.  The current governing party, New Democracy, only has 28 percent of the vote.  Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras is promising to roll back a whole host of austerity measures that were imposed on Greece by the EU, and his primary campaign slogan was “hope is on the way”.  Hmmm – that sounds a bit familiar.  Clearly, the Greek population is fed up with the EU after years of austerity and depression-like conditions.  At this point, the unemployment rate in Greece is sitting at 25.8 percent, and the Greek economy is approximately 25 percent smaller than it was just six years ago.  The people of Greece are desperate for things to get better, and so they have turned to the radical leftists.  Unfortunately, things may be about to get a whole lot worse.

Once they formally have control of the government, Syriza plans to call for a European debt conference during which they plan to demand that the repayment terms of their debts be renegotiated.  But the rest of Europe appears to be highly resistant to any renegotiation – especially Germany.

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One 4×8 sheet of plywood will make two training barricades. Framing not detailed. Highly recommended for carbine training: positions, stances and equipment evaluation.

From the M16/M4 Handbook

h/t DanMorgan76

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will represent the United States at the 70th anniversary ceremony for the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on Tuesday—rather than President Barack Obama or Vice President Joe Biden—while other countries are slated to send their heads of state.

Tuesday’s ceremony will likely be the last major anniversary where a significant number of survivors of the Nazi camp are present. About 300 are expected to attend, and most of them are in their 90s or older than 100. Nazi authorities killed 1.1 million people at the camp, mostly Jews, which was liberated by the Soviet army in January 1945.

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Isn’t this how all Muslims treat the people of Judah?

David DeGerolamo

Amid the devastation of yesterday’s Mariupol artillery strikes which killed or wounded dozens, which was promptly blamed by both sides on the “adversary” – and has been proclaimed by both ‘sides’ (more on that later) as more violent than before the truce – an ‘odd’ clip has emerged that appears to provide all the ‘proof’ a US intelligence officer would need to surmise that US military boots are on the ground in Ukraine. As the following clip shows, a Ukrainian journalist approaches what she thinks is a Ukrainian soldier (since he is wearing a Ukrainian military uniform and is carrying an AK) and asked him as they run through the battlezone, “tell me, what happened here?” His response, which requires no translation, speaks for itself.

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The war in Ukraine has escalated with the Putin backed “rebels” on the offensive in a major campaign. So why are the media and our “leaders” ignoring this conflict?

David DeGerolamo

Greece just completed one of its shortest electoral campaign periods which — for the first time since 1964 — occurred right after the winter holidays. The polarized climate was coupled with the resounding absence of any concrete proposals for a wide array of issues such as pensions, public administration, national security and foreign policy — with the exception of Greece’s relationship with its creditors. Despite the single-issue campaign over Greece’s debt and its relationship with the Troika, the intentions of certain parties remain vague and even obscure. Parties instead invested in manipulating symbols and tapping into voters’ emotional world, including references to Greece’s civil war after World War II. This was expected given the conditions in the economy and the underlying cleavage in dispositions: on the one hand, the disillusionment, anger and need for change; on the other, a preference for stability and fear of the unknown.

The Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) has been consistently leading in the polls. The incumbent New Democracy (ND) appears still hopeful that the undecideds will side with it, but a reversal seems unlikely. To Potami(The River), at the center of the political spectrum, Golden Dawn, at the extreme right; the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK); and the Communist Party of Greece (ΚΚΕ) will all likely make it into the Parliament. Independent Hellenes (ANEL), an anti-memorandum right wing party, and the Movement of Democrat Socialists (KIDISO), founded by the former prime minister George Papandreou and son of PASOK’s founder, are polling close to the 3 percent threshold and may enter the Parliament, as well — though this appears more likely for ANEL. Finally, it is unlikely that Democratic Left-Greens and Popular Orthodox Rally (both junior coalition partners in the pro-memorandum governments from which they later defected from) will make it into the Parliament.

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Do not think think that the events happening in Europe will not have an impact here. As the world transfers their money into dollars and precious metals for safety, the price of the dollar on the world market impacts our exports and inflates our stock market. When the petrodollar collapses, you will see 40% of your wealth evaporate over the course of a few days as Europe’s Euro has collapsed.

David DeGerolamo

h/t Jim D

Since last May (and likely long before) when the topic of “de-dollarization” was first uttered in official circles (and not just tin-foil-hat-wearing blogs), the rest of the world (un-isolated as they are) has been warming to the idea that perhaps – just perhaps – it is time to de-dollarize (more or less depending on the despotic region in question). From currency swap agreements to bi-lateral trade agreements to selling US Treasuries and greatly rotating USD reserves into gold, the world’s nations (small and large) appear less and less comfortable holdings dollars in this tempestuous world. Among the supporters of that first “de-dollarization” meeting were China and Iran and while the former continues to work down its exposure, the latter – Iran, according to Tasnim news agency, has almost entirely eliminated USDollars from its reserves and is no longer using dollars in foreign trade.

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Unexpectedly, at the height of the Ukrainian winter, war has exploded anew on a half-dozen battered fronts across eastern Ukraine, accompanied by increasing evidence that Russian troops and Russian equipment have been pouring into the region again.

A shaky cease-fire has all but vanished, with rebel leaders vowing fresh attacks. Civilians are being hit by deadly mortars at bus stops. Tanks are rumbling down snowy roads in rebel-held areas with soldiers in unmarked green uniforms sitting on their turrets, waving at bystanders — a disquieting echo of the “little green men” whose appearance in Crimea opened this stubborn conflict in the spring.

The renewed fighting has dashed any hopes of reinvigorating a cease-fire signed in September and honored more in name than in fact since then. It has also put to rest the notion that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, would be so staggered by the twin blows of Western sanctions and a collapse in oil prices that he would forsake the separatists in order to foster better relations with the West.

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Sorry for the language. Sometimes reality requires a WTF moment.

David DeGerolamo

Iran has produced an intercontinental ballistic missile  — an act that poses a threat to the United States due to its expanded range, according to a report.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Iran has a missile measuring 27 meters in length (88.5 feet) on a launch pad just outside its capital city of Tehran. The missile had never before been seen in public, reports the Post.

“The missile and the launch pad indicate that Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is moving forward at full throttle,” the Post writes.

“The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States, as well,” according to the newspaper.

Iran has been steadily improving its ballistic missile capabilities, despite ongoing talks  between the Obama administration and Tehran to keep the country from acquiring nuclear weapons. Tehran insists that its nuclear enrichment program is for domestic use only, and wants sanctions imposed on it by the West lifted. The administration favors the lifting of  sanctions in return for a deal.

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Our RON (Remain-Over-Night) is hidden well up the mountain in a draw, deep in the tangled nightmare of a laurel thicket, known to the locals as an “Ivy Hell”. The name speaks for itself.

Andy spotted the potential location as the four of us patrolled slowly following the spur northwest, first in a diamond formation then later, as the trees and vegetation thickened, into a Ranger file formation, down from the ridge line of the mountain behind us.

Andy was walking point and, as the compass man, reading the terrain and keeping us on course. Al, the second man in the patrol, was keeping the pace count. Andy noted, as he frequently looked back, that Al was maintaining a good interval far enough back to be just barely visible to Andy.

Passing the large laurel thicket about 500 meters down in the draw he stopped, turned to Al, and made eye contact with him. Andy slowly raised his support hand to shoulder level, palm open, fingers pointed up, and moved them in a tight circular motion, then pointed to the thicket. Rally point.

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Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) will file legislation on Friday to ban American citizens who fight alongside the Islamic State (IS) and other terror groups from returning to the United States, where they pose a significant terror threat, according to sources in the senator’s office.

Cruz, who first proposed the legislation last year, seeks to strip those Americans who travel abroad to fight with IS (also known as ISIL or ISIS) of their U.S. citizenship rights and stop them from coming back stateside.

The bill, known as the Expatriate Terrorist Act (E.T.A.), tightens and updates existing regulations by which a U.S. citizen effectively renounces his or her citizenship.

Cruz said that he is filing the bill partly in response to President Obama’s Tuesday State of the Union address, which he described as “detached from reality” on the foreign policy front.

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So much for due process of law.

David DeGerolamo

What do you call someone whose defense in a slander case is to state that Dr. Eichenbaum’s character is in question for associating with me and attending PATCON?

I guess that I have to get in line and file a lawsuit also.

David DeGerolamo

h/t Chris T

Former Vice President Al Gore and former Mexican President Felipe Calderon are pushing for $90 trillion in spending to ban cars from every major city in the world and make them more dense.

Gore and Calderon presented a report from the Global Commission on the Economy & Climate (GCEC) and argued that fighting global warming will require making cities more compact and wholly reliant on public transit. This is the only way to make sure urban areas don’t contribute to global warming, the two politicians argued.

Calderon and Gore argued that $90 trillion is going to be spent anyways in the coming decades upgrading cities around the world. They argue that it should be spent on making cities more climate friendly.

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h/t Roger K

The tyranny of mob rule will never respect the smallest minority – the individual human.

Originally posted on WRSA