| Republicans enabled the impeachment process they're now criticizing Posted: 25 Oct 2019 12:05 PM PDT  The biggest problem with Republican critiques of the impeachment inquiry is that Democrats in the House are following a playbook for investigations that was first written by Republicans in large part over the past several years.
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| 'He led from his soul': Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton remember Elijah Cummings in Baltimore Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:31 AM PDT  Former presidents and world leaders delivered powerful eulogies at the funeral for Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who died on Oct. 17 at age 68.
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| Violence during Ethiopian protests was ethnically tinged, say eyewitnesses Posted: 26 Oct 2019 07:02 AM PDT  Much of the fighting seen during protests in Ethiopia this week was ethnically tinged, eyewitnesses said on Saturday, describing attacks by young men from the Oromo ethnic group against people from other ethnic groups. There were clashes in several cities in Oromiya, Ethiopia's most populous province, underscoring the spectre of ethnic violence that the United Nations says has already internally displaced more than 2 million people. After activist Jawar Mohammed said police had ringed his home in Addis Ababa and tried to withdraw his government security detail, his supporters quickly took to the streets on Wednesday and Thursday to protest against his treatment.
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| Millions face power cuts as California fires spread Posted: 26 Oct 2019 12:17 PM PDT  Californian officials warned Saturday that "extreme" wind conditions were set to fan wildfires across the north of the US state as residents were ordered to evacuate and millions faced power cuts. About 50,000 people were ordered to flee their homes in Sonoma county, north of San Francisco, as the Kincade Fire spread to cover 25,455 acres (10,300 hectares) after breaking out on Wednesday. The blaze, which is burning in remote steep terrain, threatens 23,500 structures and had already forced the evacuation of the small community of Geyserville and nearby vineyard operations.
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| Flynn’s Lawyer Claims FBI Tampered with Interview Notes, Demands Charges Be Dropped Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:06 PM PDT  Former national-security adviser Michael Flynn's lawyer claims in a new bombshell court filing that the FBI tampered with notes from his 2017 interview, during which Flynn pleaded guilty to lying.In a 37-page motion, attorney Sidney Powell called on the court to "dismiss the entire prosecution for outrageous government misconduct" over allegations that FBI agents manipulated a form summarizing Flynn's statements to investigators.The interview dealt with Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. In December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to charges that he lied to the FBI about his Russia contacts during his brief stint as national-security adviser. He is expected to be sentenced in December."Those changes added an unequivocal statement that 'Flynn stated he did not' — in response to whether Mr. Flynn had asked Kislyak to vote in a certain manner or slow down the UN vote [on sanctions]," Powell wrote. "This is a deceptive manipulation because, as the notes of the agents show, Mr. Flynn was not even sure he had spoken to Russia/Kislyak on the issue. He had talked to dozens of countries.""That question and answer does not appear in the notes, yet it was made into a criminal offense," Powell wrote in the motion. "The draft also shows that the agents moved a sentence to make it seem to be an answer to a question it was not."One of the FBI agents involved in the interview was Peter Strzok, who was fired from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team when text messages disparaging President Trump were discovered between him and FBI colleague Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.FBI brass sent Strzok and another agent to conduct an "ambush-interview" of Flynn explicitly to trap him into making statements they could claim were false, Flynn's defense team alleged."This amounts to conduct so shocking to the conscience and so inimical to our system of justice that it requires the dismissal of the charges for outrageous government conduct," Powell said.Flynn's defense team has also accused prosecutors of withholding classified information and other evidence favorable to Flynn."The government continues to hide evidence of the original 302 [the interview notes], other exculpatory texts, and other forms of information completely," Powell wrote.
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| Convicted Russian agent Maria Butina released from prison and deported Posted: 25 Oct 2019 06:19 PM PDT  Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina released from prison and left Miami on a flight to Moscow Friday night.
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| Lion Air crash report points to Boeing, pilots, maintenance Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:59 PM PDT  Indonesian investigators found plenty of blame to go around for a Boeing 737 Max crash that killed 189 people a year ago. Investigators said in a report issued Friday that a combination of nine main factors doomed the brand-new Boeing jet that plunged into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff on Oct. 29, 2018. Many of the problems had been previously disclosed in a preliminary report that Indonesian authorities issued last year and in recent findings by U.S. and global safety experts who were privy to the investigation.
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| China's Military Parade Proves That Beijing Is Ready To Fight America Posted: 26 Oct 2019 02:30 AM PDT  Will the Pentagon's modernization initiatives be enough?
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| Steven Mnuchin may have gone against IRS warnings to help a friend get a major tax break Posted: 26 Oct 2019 11:12 AM PDT ![Steven Mnuchin may have gone against IRS warnings to help a friend get a major tax break]( "Steven Mnuchin may have gone against IRS warnings to help a friend get a major tax break") Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin may have used his position to help a billionaire friend earn a significant tax break and subsequent profits, despite the Internal Revenue Service warning against it, The New York Times reports. The Treasury Department, reportedly at the personal instruction of Mnuchin, made an area of land in Nevada owned by financier Michael Milken, who was reportedly an inspiration for the character of Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street, eligible for a federal tax break that it did not previously qualify for after alleged pressure from Milken's business partner other landowners. The IRS expressed its doubts about the decision, arguing in an internal memo obtained by the Times that "failure to apply the designation standards equally across the board will call into question the legitimacy of the process by which the designations were made." The memo also stated that the appearance of "arbitrary" Treasury standards like this one could open the "door for accusations that the determination process was influenced by political considerations or bias." Spokespersons for both Mnuchin and Milken, who are reportedly longtime friends, said the two men did not discuss the matter and Mnuchin had no knowledge of Milken's investments in Nevada. Regardless, the report has already spurred criticism. Read more at The New York Times. > THREAD: Let's start with this smoking-gun memo-obtained by The New York Times. Treasury at direct order of Sec. Mnuchin took what staff at IRS warned would be seen as a overtly political act & one could undermine the integrity of a multi-billion dollar Trump-era federal tax break pic.twitter.com/XrToQiBa1r> > -- Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) October 26, 2019> And the bottom line is that Mr. Mnuchin directed his staff to take a move that many strongly objected to, and which some saw as overtly political, and which stood to benefit his billionaire friend, Milken. (Nevada Gov sent in this letter 45 minutes after phone call with Mnuchin) pic.twitter.com/CnlzVcDAxF> > -- Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) October 26, 2019
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| In Trump pitch at black college, its students were largely absent Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:54 PM PDT  What if Donald Trump was set to make a grand speech to black students, but no one was allowed to come?
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| Execution of killer who boasted how he made victim suffer is delayed due to lethal injection drug shortage Posted: 26 Oct 2019 06:41 AM PDT  A prisoner who killed his cellmate with a makeshift knife, and a padlock in a sock, has had his execution delayed because Ohio has run out of lethal injection drugs.James Galen Hanna, 65, boasted that he made cellmate Peter Copas, 43, "suffer pretty good" after stabbing him in the eye with a modified paintbrush before beating him for two hours.
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| Pope, ending synod, says will re-launch study of women deacons Posted: 26 Oct 2019 10:52 AM PDT ![Pope, ending synod, says will re-launch study of women deacons]( "Pope, ending synod, says will re-launch study of women deacons") Pope Francis said on Saturday he would reconvene a commission to study the history of women deacons in the early centuries of the Catholic Church, responding to calls by women that they be allowed to take up the role today. Francis made the announcement at the end of a three-week assembly of bishops from the Amazon, known as a synod, that discussed issues facing the vast region, such as the shortage of priests, environmental protection and an expanded role for women. Deacons, like priests, are ordained ministers, and as in the priesthood, must be men in today's Church.
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| Mexican town turned to war zone fears new era of narco violence Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:29 PM PDT  Culiacán (Mexico) (AFP) - The bullet holes splashed across the walls are an unnerving reminder to residents of Culiacan: There is no telling when the narco violence that terrorized the Mexican city last week could return. People in Culiacan are used to living alongside drug traffickers. It is, after all, the state capital of Sinaloa, home to the powerful drug cartel of the same name and its jailed kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
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| A 14-year-old girl in Virginia disappeared 4 days ago with her mom's 34-year-old ex-boyfriend Posted: 25 Oct 2019 07:00 AM PDT  Isabel Hicks was last seen early Monday morning at her home in Bumpass, Virginia. She is believed to be with her mother's ex-boyfriend, Bruce Lynch.
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| Woman drives motor home into Las Vegas-area casino after she was kicked out, police say Posted: 26 Oct 2019 10:41 AM PDT  A custodian suffered critical injuries in the incident at the Cannery casino but is expected to survive, according to authorities.
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| Georgia high court declines to hear appeal or halt execution Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:05 PM PDT  Ray Jefferson Cromartie, 52 is scheduled for a lethal injection Wednesday at the state prison in Jackson. Cromartie maintains his innocence, and his lawyers asked the Georgia Supreme Court for permission to appeal a lower court's rejection of a request for DNA testing and a request for a new trial. Cromartie still has other requests for relief pending in the courts.
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| Entire Chinese submarine crew suffocated to death Posted: 26 Oct 2019 08:01 AM PDT  On April 25, 2003 the crew of a Chinese fishing boat noticed a periscope drifting above the surface of the water. The fishermen notified the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) which promptly dispatched two vessels to investigate to find all of the crew members dead.
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| Tulsi Gabbard goes on Hannity, calls the impeachment inquiry secretive, says she's not seeking re-election Posted: 24 Oct 2019 11:28 PM PDT ![Tulsi Gabbard goes on Hannity, calls the impeachment inquiry secretive, says she's not seeking re-election]( "Tulsi Gabbard goes on Hannity, calls the impeachment inquiry secretive, says she's not seeking re-election") In a podcast last week, Hillary Clinton said an unidentified female 2020 Democratic presidential candidate is being groomed by Republicans to challenge the eventual Democratic nominee and help President Trump, with support from "a bunch" of Russian "sites and bots." Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) assumed (correctly) that Clinton was referring to her, and she really poured on the umbrage.To prove Clinton wrong, Gabbard went on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Thursday night -- she and Hannity both touted mistaken initial reporting that Clinton had claimed Russia, not Republicans, were "grooming" her for a third-party run -- and blamed Clinton (a former senator and secretary of state) for the last 18 years of U.S. wars, then echoed Republican complaints about the "transparency" of the House impeachment inquiry. "I don't know what's going on in those closed doors, we in Congress don't have access to the information that is being shared," said Gabbard, who isn't among the 59 Democrats and 48 Republicans who do have access.Gabbard did dodge some of Hannity's questions on Hunter Biden and Russian election interference, apparently getting Hannity to endorse paper ballots in national elections.After Hannity aired, Gabbard tweeted that she's "fully committed to my offer to serve you, the people of Hawaii & America, as your president & commander-in-chief. So I will not be seeking re-election to Congress in 2020." Since she's polling at 1.3 percent in the Democratic primary race, according to the RealClearPolitics average, that almost certainly means she's at least temporarily retiring from politics after she's passed over for the Democratic nomination -- or that she will, you know, run for president on a third-party ticket.
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| Why the U.S. Has Nuclear Weapons in Turkey—And May Try to Put the Bombs Away Posted: 25 Oct 2019 12:39 PM PDT  By publicly confirming that the weapons were in Turkey, Trump has raised the political stakes should he try to remove them, and made it more difficult for the United States and Turkey to strike a quiet deal to that effect.
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| Russia expects woman convicted by U.S. of being agent home on Saturday Posted: 24 Oct 2019 10:47 PM PDT  Russian national Maria Butina, who was jailed in the United States in April after admitting to working as a Russian agent, will be released from a U.S. prison on Friday and arrive back in Moscow the next day, Russia's foreign ministry said. Butina pleaded guilty in December last year to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Russia, prompting Moscow to accuse Washington of forcing her to confess to what it described as ridiculous charges. The case has been an irritant in fraught relations between Moscow and Washington that are strained over everything from Syria to the arrest in Moscow of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine held on spying charges that he denies.
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| Kellyanne Conway defends heated phone call: 'I didn't say anything in that phone call I haven't said publicly before' Posted: 25 Oct 2019 09:13 AM PDT  Kellyanne Conway on Friday defended her heated phone call with a Washington Examiner reporter, denying criticism that she bullied or abused the journalist. "I didn't say anything in that phone call I haven't said publicly before," the counselor to the president told Fox News.
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| Birmingham couple charged with murder after abducted 3-year-old's body found in dumpster Posted: 26 Oct 2019 09:34 AM PDT  An Alabama couple have been charged with capital murder in the suffocation death of 3-year-old Kamille "Cupcake" McKinney who was found in a dumpster
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| The Latest: Human remains found within LA-area burn zone Posted: 26 Oct 2019 03:59 PM PDT  Authorities say human remains have been found within the burned area of a large wildfire that scorched at least six houses in Southern California suburbs. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department says Saturday that it's too soon to know if the death is connected to the fire in Santa Clarita. The blaze is 25% contained and authorities have lifted nearly all evacuation orders.
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| Hizbollah leader warns of civil war after days of Lebanon protests Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:21 AM PDT  The leader of Hizbollah on Friday warned Lebanon that nationwide protests calling for the overthrow of the government could lead to chaos and civil war. Hassan Nasrallah praised protesters for achieving "unprecedented" economic reforms but also suggested foreign intervention had a role in the demonstrations. Over a quarter of Lebanon's population are reported to have taken to the streets in anti-corruption protests over the past week. Hizbollah supporters have in recent days organised counter-attacks on the protests, which have so far remained largely free of sectarian division. The powerful Shiite group, which is backed regionally by Iran, is in coalition with the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Speaking to the nation for the first time on day nine of the mass protests, Nasrallah warned that he had "intelligence" of foreign "conspiracies" to drag Lebanon into civil war. Lebanon has been swept by more than a week of nationwide protests against the political elite Credit: AFP The leader claimed that the protests had started spontaneously, but were now being funded and organised by local and foreign actors who were exploiting the naivety of protestors. His speech echoed those given earlier this week by Mr Hariri and Michel Aoun, the country's president. On the streets, protesters appeared unmoved. "All of them means all of them" they chanted, in reference to the demand for the country's entire cabinet to be replaced. For the second day, security forces had to create human walls between the protestors and Hizbollah supporters in attempts to stop scuffles. "We are not going to stop our protests until we get what we want. We have been suffocated in these conditions for years. They have to go. All of them means all of them," said Hieba, a 42-year-old restaurant owner.
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| North Korea tells U.S. not to ignore year-end deadline on Trump-Kim friendship: KCNA Posted: 26 Oct 2019 02:31 PM PDT  North Korea said on Sunday there has been no progress in the North Korea-United States relations, and hostilities that could lead to an exchange of fire have continued, according to North Korea's state news agency KCNA. Kim Jong Un has set an end-of-the-year deadline for denuclearization talks with Washington.
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| After woman set ablaze at Taco Bell in Florida, police investigate string of other fires Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:08 AM PDT  Tallahassee police responded to the Taco Bell Wednesday after a suspect allegedly doused the woman in gasoline and lit her on fire.
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| Undecided 2020 voters like Andrew Yang and Joe Biden the most of all the Democratic candidates Posted: 25 Oct 2019 07:05 AM PDT  The former vice president and the former entrepreneur respectively represent the establishment and the insurgency of the Democratic Party in 2020.
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| Facebook pledged $1bn to help California's housing crisis. Can't they pay their taxes instead? Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:00 AM PDT  The goodwill offer will buy temporarily for the tech behemoth which has wreaked havoc on democracies across the worldFacebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. 'After Facebook offers up the billion, perhaps Zuckerberg will consider paying more taxes.' Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty ImagesOn Tuesday, Facebook announced it would contribute $1bn toward fixing California's existential housing crisis. This is a seemingly large number that will buy, temporarily, some goodwill for the tech behemoth, which has wreaked havoc on democracies across the world and hoovered revenue from news organizations.The $1bn in grants and loans would be used over the next decade. Elements include a $250m partnership with the state of California for mixed-income housing, $150m for subsidized and supportive housing for homeless people in the Bay Area, and $250m worth of land near Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters. It follows a $1bn pledge Google made earlier this year for a similar effort.Tech companies like Facebook have inexorably driven up rents in California's urban core, fueling wide-scale displacement and homelessness. Along with overly restrictive zoning, a failure of local municipalities to build more housing, and tenant laws that, until recently, were much friendlier to landlords, big tech's colonization of once affordable communities has ruined the lives of the working class and poor who can no longer afford to live near where they work.Yes, it's better that Facebook contributed $1bn to housing than nothing at all. But that fat round number is a sliver of California's $215bn budget and about 1/70th of Mark Zuckerberg's net worth. One billion, spent over a decade, will not significantly alter the lives of the people suffering most from the crisis. It amounts to little more than a PR salvo from a company in desperate need of a change in narrative.Were Facebook serious about paying reparations to the communities it has damaged, it would propose a figure far larger than $1bn. Zuckerberg would put his profits on the line to save California. But we know that won't happen. He is an oligarch of the new order, trying his best to mask his sin with a progressive sheen. He can't quite do it as well as he used to.After Facebook offers up the billion, perhaps Zuckerberg will consider paying more taxes. One of Facebook's great "accomplishments", as the Los Angeles Times reported in 2016, is dodging taxes. The tech giant offshored assets to Ireland, dropping its effective tax rate from 40 to 27% , beyond what was then the federal corporate rate of 35%.Paying more in taxes could help state and federal governments, which are actually accountable to voters, fund affordable housing initiatives. Locally, Facebook could make an actual difference by joining the titanic fight, set for November 2020, to repeal the hard limitation on raising California's property taxes that has existed since 1978.Affluent homeowners and commercial properties both see their increases capped annually; progressive policy wonks have long dreamed of increasing taxes on the major businesses, like Facebook, who pay relatively little to the state. There are businesses in California that have been paying property taxes based on assessments that haven't changed in 40 years.Facebook has been silent on repealing what is known in California as Proposition 13. If Facebook has any interest in doing more than carving out a crumb of its fortune for a meager housing initiative, it can start paying a tax bill commensurate with its civilization-altering wealth.If Facebook, however, inevitably joins other corporations in battling against raising taxes on businesses that could provide a windfall for schools and municipalities, it will, once again, expose itself for what it is: a hypocritical succubus on the body politic.
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| Funeral set for girl abducted, killed in Alabama Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:14 AM PDT  A funeral service is set for this weekend for a 3-year-old Alabama girl who was abducted from a birthday party and asphyxiated, and officials said Friday they are establishing a permanent reward fund in her memory. The service for Kamille McKinney was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, with burial to follow at Elmwood Cemetery. The funeral is planned for New Beginning Christian Ministry, where pastor Sylvester Wilson said the church has a 700-seat sanctuary and can use its fellowship hall as an overflow auditorium.
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| The Suwalki Gap Is NATO’s Achilles’ Heel and the Place Where Russia Could Start War Posted: 26 Oct 2019 02:11 AM PDT  Mladen Antonov/GettyThey came trundling through the town of Voronezh in western Russia in broad daylight on Oct. 3. Green army vehicles on flatbed train cars, apparently heading west, toward Russia's borders with Ukraine and Belarus.The next day, social media users spotted Russian-made armored vehicles speeding down a highway in Belarus. "The local forest is literally crammed with armored vehicles," reported Charter '97, a Belarusian news website.NATO Fearful as Trump Flip-FlopsRussia, like all major military powers, frequently moves its military forces around its own territory and deploys them to allied countries for exercises. The Belarusian and Russian armies as recently as September conducted a major military exercise involving 12,000 troops and 950 vehicles. What's remarkable—and, for many, worrying—about the October sightings is where they took place: near the Suwalki Gap, where two NATO countries, Poland and Lithuania, have a roughly 40-mile border running through heavily forested territory that separates close Russian ally Belarus from Russia's enclave on the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad. As tensions between Russia and the West escalate and Russia cements its land-grab in Ukraine, U.S. and allied military planners have cast a nervous gaze on this contentious bit of real estate. If the new cold war turns hot, the Suwalki Gap just might be where the fighting starts.For NATO, that's a problem. The Suwalki Gap, which some experts also call the "Suwalki Corridor," is on the alliance's territorial fringes, where European military might is at its thinnest. But it butts up against a major concentration of Russian forces in Kaliningrad. "The Suwałki Corridor is where the many weaknesses in NATO's strategy and force posture converge," Ben Hodges, Janusz Bugajski, and Peter Doran explained in a 2018 report for the Center for European Policy in Washington, D.C..Hodges, for one, knows what he's talking about. A retired U.S. Army general, Hodges from 2014 to 2017 commanded thousands of American ground troops in Europe. Right before retiring he organized NATO's first major exercise along the Suwalki Gap. "The gap is vulnerable," he warned at the time.With 29 member states including the United States, NATO possesses far more military power than Russia. But many of NATO's reserves of troops and tanks are based hundreds or, in the case of American forces, thousands of miles from potential battlefields such as the Suwalki Gap. Russia, on the other hand, has concentrated troops and vehicles in its Western Military District, just a short trip by road or rail to the Suwalki Gap.The imbalance is striking. In 2014 and 2015 the California think-tank RAND simulated a Russian attack across the Suwalki Gap. The Russians should be able quickly to mobilize 25 battalions—around 10,000 ground troops—for the assault, RAND calculated. NATO would be able immediately to mobilize just 17 battalions with around 6,800 troops.But the troop-count belies the true balance of power. Every battalion Russia could call up for the attack possesses armored vehicles, including heavy tanks. Just one of NATO's nearby units has any armored vehicles at all. And those vehicles are Stryker armored cars belonging to a U.S. Army reconnaissance unit. The Stryker's biggest weapon is a 30-millimeter-diameter cannon. Russian tanks pack 125-millimeter-diameter guns with an order of magnitude more explosive power.When RAND gamed out the Suwalki Gap battle, the results were chilling, if not surprising. "NATO's light forces were not only outgunned by the much heavier Russian units, but their lack of maneuverability meant that they could be pinned and bypassed if the Russian players so desired," RAND explained. "By and large, NATO's infantry found themselves unable even to retreat successfully and were destroyed in place."In RAND's admittedly extreme case-study, Russia quickly closes the Suwalki Gap, creating a territorial bridge between Belarus and Kaliningrad and cutting off NATO states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from the rest of the alliance. Such a move could incite a major war. Indeed, for Russia that could be the point—to start a fight that it views as inevitable, and to do so on its own terms. "While Russia is unlikely to start a military campaign just to capture Suwalki, it would undoubtedly try to secure this territory if conflict were to emerge in the region," Agnia Grigas, a Lithuania-born American political scientist and Russia expert, told The Daily Beast.There would be warning signs of an impending Russian attack, the experts at RAND and the Center for European Policy explained. Russian battalions could speed in and out of the Suwalki Gap, temporarily holding sections of the border and testing NATO's resolve. The possibility of Russia launching small-scale incursions as a prelude to a bigger assault helps to explain the alarm over the October troop-sightings. But secret probes are equally likely. These could involve the same type of "hybrid" Russian forces—basically, intelligence operatives and special forces commandos in disguise—that appeared in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula right before Russian tanks rolled in. These so-called "little green men" could scout out invasion routes, mobilize pro-Russian locals and prepare to seize government buildings and set up checkpoints. Detecting these interlopers is critical for NATO's defense. "NATO has to watch not only Russian build-up in Kaliningrad and Belarus but also Russia's soft power and intelligence operations in Suwalki," Grigas said.Ground Zero in the New Cold WarBut there's a problem. Lithuania controls one side of the Suwalki Gap. Poland controls the other. Both countries are NATO members, but they haven't always gotten along. "Poland and Lithuania are cooperating allies today but they have a history of tensions and conflict over territory and minorities," Grigas explained.The Kremlin could exploit those tensions, Grigas said. Russia might count on Lithuania and Poland refusing to share information as more and more little green men appeared in each other's territory.After years of war games, simulations and studies—and occasional scares such as Russia's October troop movements—NATO is well aware of its problems along the Suwalki Gap. And the alliance is taking steps to try to solve them.The U.S. Army has begun installing heavier weapons and other new gear on the Stryker armored vehicles that would be the first to fight any Russian invasion force. The Army has announced that in early 2020 it will practice deploying 20,000 troops from the United States to Europe in order to "build readiness within the alliance and deter potential adversaries." NATO in September set up a new headquarters in Germany whose sole job is speeding reinforcements around alliance territory. As for those Russian vehicles in the woods in Belarus? "I have no idea what is going on or whether it's significant," Pavel Podvig, an independent expert on the Russian military, told The Daily Beast. "I hope it's not."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Walmart’s Early Black Friday Deals on Tech Have Begun Posted: 25 Oct 2019 12:07 PM PDT  Save on electronics, home appliances, and more for the holidays.
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| Russian woman convicted by U.S. of being agent returns home Posted: 26 Oct 2019 01:44 AM PDT  Russian national Maria Butina, who was jailed in the United States in April after admitting to working as a Russian agent, arrived in Moscow on Saturday, greeted by her father and Russian journalists who handed her flowers. "Russians never surrender," an emotional Butina told reporters at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, flanked by her father and the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman. Butina pleaded guilty in December last year to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Russia by infiltrating a gun rights group and influencing U.S. conservative activists and Republicans.
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| Another black eye for Boeing Posted: 26 Oct 2019 03:15 AM PDT ![Another black eye for Boeing]( "Another black eye for Boeing") The smartest insight and analysis, from all perspectives, rounded up from around the web:Boeing's 737 Max jet now faces even more trouble, said David Gelles and Natalie Kitroeff at The New York Times. Last week, Boeing gave the Federal Aviation Administration a transcript of messages from 2016 that reveal that the jet's automated systems had raised alarms more than two years before two fatal crashes. In the messages, Mark Forkner, one of Boeing's top pilots, complained of "egregious" erratic behavior in flight simulator tests of a troubled automated system known as MCAS. In earlier discussions, Forkner had left the FAA -- which agreed to let Boeing drop any mention of MCAS from the pilots' manual -- with the impression the system was rarely used, and he had not told the agency that it was in the midst of an overhaul. "I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly)," Forkner wrote in another message. The newly disclosed records "strike at Boeing's defense that it had done nothing wrong" and that regulators were to blame for the crashes.The new information gives ammunition to lawmakers who were already "ratcheting up scrutiny of Boeing's leaders," said Andrew Tangel and Andy Pasztor at The Wall Street Journal. Boeing's engineers often played dual roles "designing certain systems on behalf of the plane maker and then certifying the same systems as safe" on behalf of the FAA. Investigators recently uncovered a three-year-old survey "showing roughly 1 in 3 employees who responded felt 'potential undue pressure' from managers regarding safety-related approvals."Families of the crash victims aren't just seeking damages -- they want regulators to order a complete re-certification of the Max, said Jim Zarroli on NPR's Morning Edition. "Such a move would be an enormous financial challenge for Boeing," which was counting on getting the Max back in the air by the end of this year. But "the possibility the 737 Max could be flying again soon has stirred" victims' families into collective action, including a call for a "soup-to-nuts examination of its design" by regulators. While that's unlikely to happen, the FAA's response after this latest news was "not encouraging," said Chris Isidore at CNN. Any further delay in the approval process "will be more than another black eye" for Boeing. It could shut the assembly lines for the 737 Max, until recently Boeing's best-selling plane. The company already has a backlog of more than 400 planes that have been built but can't be delivered until the plane is ready to fly again.Boeing continues to dig itself into a deeper hole, said Brooke Sutherland at Bloomberg. Forkner's messages are bad; worse, the FAA, like the rest of us, is "only now finding out" about them, even though Boeing knew for months. Yes, the company did recently unveil an "organizational overhaul" intended to improve safety and transparency, and it stripped CEO Dennis Muilenburg of his chairman's title. But "for all of Boeing's talk about recommitting itself to safety, the company appears reluctant to fully come clean."
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| Beto O'Rourke 'open to the idea' of letting people use AR-15s, AK-47s at hunting clubs, gun ranges Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:41 PM PDT  Beto O'Rourke on Friday left the door open for allowing some people to keep assault-style weapons like AR-15s and AK-47s at gun ranges and hunting clubs.
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| White House sends warning letter to impeachment inquiry witness Posted: 25 Oct 2019 08:17 AM PDT  The White House has declared that the executive branch will not cooperate with the House's impeachment inquiry, but some officials have nevertheless provided testimony to Congress about what they know about whether President Trump's attempts to pressure the Ukrainian government into investigating his political rivals were a quid pro quo in return for aid.
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| Giuliani associate will have tough time keeping documents from prosecutors: experts Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:20 AM PDT  On Wednesday, Lev Parnas pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court to using a shell company to donate money to a pro-Trump election committee and illegally raising money for a former congressman as part of an effort to have the president remove the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, has said Parnas and his co-defendant Igor Fruman helped Giuliani's push to investigate the president's Democratic political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Biden's son's work in Ukraine.
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| Bishops urge Pope to open priesthood to married men in Amazon Posted: 26 Oct 2019 12:40 PM PDT  Catholic bishops gathered at a special Vatican assembly called on Pope Francis Saturday to open the priesthood to married men in the Amazon, as well as giving women a greater role to play and making damaging the environment a sin. The bishops issued a list of recommendations at the close of a three-week "synod" on the Pan-Amazonian region which highlighted challenges such as the destruction of the rainforest, the exploitation of indigenous peoples and a scarcity in priests. The text could have repercussions not only for the vast, isolated territory, but the whole of the Roman Catholic Church.
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| Russian soldier kills 8 fellow servicemen in Siberia Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:03 AM PDT  The Russian Defense Ministry says a soldier killed eight of his comrades and wounded two others in a shooting outburst at a base in Siberia before being apprehended. The two wounded soldiers reportedly were in serious condition. Russia's Investigative Committee said it had opened a murder case against the suspect, whom it identified as 20-year-old Ramil Shamsutdinov.
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| Kansas prosecutor retires amid protests over murder case Posted: 25 Oct 2019 09:56 AM PDT  A Kansas prosecutor is retiring amid calls for her to step down after a Missouri judge overturned the double murder conviction of a man whom she helped send to prison more than two decades ago. The Douglas County, Kansas, district attorney's office said in a statement this week that Chief Assistant District Attorney Amy McGowan is transitioning her cases to other attorneys in preparation for her Nov. 1 retirement. McGowan didn't immediately return a message from The Associated Press left for her through the prosecutor's office.
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| Meet the K-9 Thunder: South Korea's Giant Artillery Gun (Aimed at North Korea) Posted: 25 Oct 2019 06:00 PM PDT  Kim won't like this, not one bit.
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