Photo Credit: Arthur Chapman
A magnitude-5.9 quake was among several that occurred around the same location early Friday in southeast Alaska. The U.S. Geological Survey says people in Juneau, about 100 miles east, felt light shaking.
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Photo Credit: JACQUELYN MARTIN / AP
A review of the record shows, however, that the Obama administration wasn’t surprised at all.
In congressional testimony as far back as November, U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials made clear that the United States had been closely tracking the al Qaida spinoff since 2012, when it enlarged its operations from Iraq to civil war-torn Syria, seized an oil-rich province there and signed up thousands of foreign fighters who’d infiltrated Syria through NATO ally Turkey.
The testimony, which received little news media attention at the time, also showed that Obama administration officials were well aware of the group’s declared intention to turn its Syrian sanctuary into a springboard from which it would send men and materiel back into Iraq and unleash waves of suicide bombings there. And they knew that the Iraqi security forces couldn’t handle it.
The group’s operations “are calculated, coordinated and part of a strategic campaign led by its Syria-based leader, Abu Bakr al Baghadi,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Brett McGurk told a House committee on Feb. 5, four months before fighting broke out in Mosul. “The campaign has a stated objective to cause the collapse of the Iraqi state and carve out a zone of governing control in western regions of Iraq and Syria.”
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Joe Miller sounded off today on the latest Sullivan scheme to smear his primary opponents. Sullivan has long claimed to be a uniter who would not engage in mudslinging. However, his surrogates have begun the assault.
“The latest coming from Team Sullivan should surprise no one,” said Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto. “Dan Sullivan is proving to be just another dishonest establishment politician who takes credit for other folks’ work, talks a big game, and delivers only empty promises.”
The ad features a young woman from Anchorage saying, “Joe Miller troubles me,” a clear attempt to build on Lisa Murkowski’s smear campaign from 2010. It then proceeds to accuse a second establishment candidate in the race, Mead Treadwell, of “attacking Dan Sullivan.”
The Sullivan SuperPAC, Alaska’s Energy, America’s Values, is largely funded by Sullivan’s own family from Ohio, and run by Art Hackney, a longtime associate of Karl Rove. While the latest FEC report is not yet posted, information currently available reveals that almost half of its funding comes from just two individuals: Tom and Frank Sullivan. Frank, Dan’s brother, sits on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (a pro-amnesty, anti-tea party organization). Sullivan money combined with funds from another large donor from Connecticut named Donald Miller comprises more than eighty percent of the funding for this faux “local PAC,” as it is described by local blogger Amanda Coyne.
Joe Miller stated, “This is just business as usual for the Republican establishment. This is what they do. If they can’t stand on issues and arguments, they seek to smear the competition. Alaskans deserve an honest debate about the issues facing our great state, and the country, not more sleazy smear campaigns from the likes of Karl Rove and his friends.”
Photo Credit: AFP
“Allow me to explain the obvious,” Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, wrote in an open letter to Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.
“I have never encouraged, or even suggested, that anyone harm anyone. Rather, my speech was designed to educate citizens, and politicians, that it is the fact that Americans are armed that allows them to resist efforts to be dominated, intimidated, or controlled by politicians.”
His letter came after Maloney reported him to Capitol Police and the House Sergeant-at-Arms because of his statements in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.
In the interview, she alleged, “Mr. Pratt is actively encouraging his members to threaten violent action against members of Congress.”
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Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese Christian who faced death for not renouncing her faith within Sudan, is finally free. After a failed attempt to leave the country a month ago, the Italian government stepped in and used its historic ties with the region to organize her safe passage out of Sudan.
Yesterday, Ibrahim, her husband, and two children were flown to Italy on an Italian government jet. On the journey back to Italy, Italian politician Lapo Pistelli posted the picture below on his Facebook page.
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Photo Credit: TownHall
You cannot say Secretary John Kerry isn’t alert to his opportunities. He sees another chance to be a peacemaker. He is rushing to the Mideast to broker a cease-fire. Sgt. Anthony says Israel needs a victory over HAMAS terrorists who have been hiding rockets in schools and hospitals.
Kerry wants Israelis to stop trying to root out those who have sent more than 9,000 rockets into Israel. Canada’s National Post recently reported that the UNWRA—the world body’s refugee agency—closed down a school it was operating in Gaza after a cache of HAMAS rockets was discovered next door. The UN bureaucrats did what they usually do: they turned the rockets over to “local authorities.” In Gaza, that means they gave the rockets back to HAMAS. The cartoonist wasn’t kidding when he said HAMAS means “hiding among mosques and schools.”
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Photo Credit: AP
Jim Fox, the leader of the Mid-Iowa Boy Scout Troop 111, said the incident occurred earlier this month at a checkpoint along the Alaska – Canada border. The scouts and their leaders were on a 21-day trek from Iowa to Alaska – a trip that had been three years in the planning.
As their vans were moving through a checkpoint into the United States, one of the scouts snapped a photograph. Agents stopped the van and ordered all the passengers to get out. They told the underage photographer that he had committed a federal crime.
“The agent immediately confiscated his camera, informed him he would be arrested, fined possibly $10,000 and ten years in prison,” Fox told Des Moines television station KCCI.
During the search, one of the scouts tried to retrieve a bag from the roof carrier. When he turned around, Fox said a border guard had a loaded pistol pointed at the child.
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Photo Credit: IJ Review
Air Algérie lost contact with flight 5017, which was en route in northern Africa from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to Algiers, Algeria. The Boeing MD-83 jet was carrying 116 on board when it disappeared an hour after take-off over Northern Mali.
An Algerian official confirmed to Reuters that the airliner has crashed, though the cause remains unknown, as does the number of casualties. A Burkina Faso official said the plane asked to change routes because of a storm in the area.
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700 Dead or Missing This Year in Plane Tragedies
By Colleen Curry.
The numbers are stark, and chilling.
Four commercial planes have crashed or disappeared in just four months this year and, perhaps more startlingly, 700 lives have been lost.
The latest news of potential tragedy in the skies came this morning, when an Air Algerie plane flying over Africa with 116 aboard disappeared off radar.
The disappearance comes on the heels of two other high-profile incidents: the crash of TransAsia Flight 222 in Taiwan Wednesday, which killed 47, and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine last week, which had 298 aboard.
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Via The Hill (emphasis mine):
“It is al Qaeda in its doctrine, ambition and increasingly, in its threat to U.S. interests,” Brett McGurk, deputy assistant secretary of state, told lawmakers at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. “In fact, it is worse than al Qaeda.”
McGurk said the group, which splintered off from its parent, al Qaeda in Iraq, had strengthened its capabilities and was “no longer a terrorist organization. It is a full-blown army.”
Elissa Slotkin, acting principal deputy undersecretary of Defense for policy, added that the group has threatened: “We’re coming for you, Barack Obama.”
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
The gunman, Richard Plotts, of Upper Darby, opened fire at Mercy Elizabeth Hospital, just outside of Philadelphia, shortly after entering an office with the case worker, the Associated Press reports.
Witnesses said that when they opened the office door after hearing shouting, they saw Plotts with a gun. The witnesses closed the office door and called 911. Minutes later, they heard gun shots.
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