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Iraq Inks Deal to Pave Way for US Return

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Photo Credit: Getty ImageBy Kristina Wong and Justin Sink.

The Obama administration secured two diplomatic concessions from Iraq’s government on Monday: an immunity deal for U.S. special operations forces and a commitment from Iraq’s prime minister to begin forming a new government.

The immunity agreement paves the way for 300 special operations forces to begin training and advising Iraq’s army, which has repeatedly folded in the face of a charge by the radical Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that has taken over a territory stretching across both countries.

The president has said the soldiers will assist Iraqi forces staring down the rapidly advancing Sunni Muslim group, which over the weekend captured a pair of pivotal border crossings with Syria and Jordan.
Officials say the advisers will also play a crucial role in improving American intelligence in the region, were the president to decide at some point to authorize military action.

Separately, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had agreed Monday to begin the process of forming a new national government by July 1.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Brendan Smialowski / Getty ImagesU.S. and Iraq agree on immunity for American troops

By Andrew Tilghman.

The U.S. and Iraqi government have hammered out a controversial deal granting U.S. troops some immunity from prosecution in the fledgling Iraqi court system, clearing the way for up to 300 special operators to begin deploying to Iraq, a defense official said Monday.

President Obama last week said he would send up to 300 military advisers into Iraq to collect intelligence and assist the Iraqi security forces in their fight against extremist militias aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, an al-Qaida offshoot.

But those deployment plans stalled temporarily amid negotiations between Washington and Baghdad over who gets legal jurisdiction in the event of alleged misconduct by a U.S. service member, a defense official said.

The U.S. troops deploying to Iraq will be armed and authorized to use lethal force in self-defense. U.S. officials want to ensure that any alleged misconduct by American service members would be handled under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

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Full Crisis Mode: Obama Administration Now Saying the Bergdahl Deal Was Chuck Hagel’s Call

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Photo Credit: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais, PoolWhite House officials on Monday attempted to distance President Obama from the decision to exchange five Taliban officers for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl by claiming that it was Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s call, a likely response to recent polls indicating that most Americans disapprove of the deal.

Members of the House of Representatives, who are still furious that the Obama administration failed to give them 30-day notice of the prisoner swap, were told during a closed-door briefing on Monday that the entire exchange hinged on Hagel’s approval.

Following the conclusion of the private meeting, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, recounted what he learned.

“Now wait a minute, are you saying it was Secretary Hagel that made this decision, or was this the president of the United States?” McKeon told reporters. “It was the president of the United States that came out with the Bergdahls and took all the credit. And now that there’s been a little pushback, he’s moving away from it?”

Indeed, as noted by the Weekly Standard, there’s a major flaw in the White House’s attempt to pin the deal on the defense secretary: Hagel already said during a June 1 interview on “Meet the Press” that the final decision to trade five Taliban officers for Bergdahl came from Obama.

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3 Times The Obama Administration Has Been Humiliated By Foreign Leaders Since 2013

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Kevin LamarqueIn Obama’s America, foreign officials often disrespect top U.S. leaders…

In terms of how America is viewed by citizens of foreign countries under Obama, polling doesn’t quite yet reflect that America is viewed worse under Obama than George W. Bush, but one suspects that it might shortly. While a 2013 Pew global attitudes poll showed most countries viewing Obama’s America more favorably than Bush’s, it also revealed that America’s image in the world has been falling steadily in a majority of countries surveyed since the euphoria of Obama’s first year in office. In some countries — perhaps most hilariously Kenya — Obama’s America in 2013 was viewed less favorably than Bush’s America at the end of his term in 2008…

1.) Karzai refused to meet with Obama

President Obama made a surprise trip to Afghanistan over Memorial Day Weekend, but despite being commander-in-chief of the world’s only superpower, he couldn’t secure a meeting with the country’s outgoing leader, Hamid Karzai, according to reports.

The ungrateful Afghan leader is currently at loggerheads with the Obama administration, so far refusing to sign a bilateral agreement that would allow a contingent of American forces to remain in the country past 2014.

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5 Times The Obama Admin Leaked Crucial National Security Information

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Photo Credit: RedFlagNewsThis is not the first time the Obama administration has compromised national security with leaks, either purposeful or inadvertent.

SEAL Team Six. After the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Obama administration steadfastly refused to say which element of the US military had participated in the assault. Until Vice President Joe Biden decided to talk about it on national television, that is. Speaking at Washington’s Ritz Carlton Hotel in the days after the Bin Laden kill, Biden stated, “Admiral James Stavridis is the real deal. He can tell you more about and understands the incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his Navy SEALs and what they did last Saturday… I was in absolute awe of the capacity and the dedication of the entire team, both the intelligence community, the CIA, the SEALs.”

This put a target on the backs of the SEALs. That target came with consequences, when a SEAL team helicopter was downed in Afghanistan, killing 17.

Al Qaeda Tapes. On August 3, 2013, the Obama administration closed 22 embassies around the world based on intelligence supposedly received about potential al Qaeda attacks. That drew blowback thanks to the juxtaposition of the closings with news of the National Security Agency surveillance of Americans. Then, on August 7, 2013, Eli Lake and Josh Rogin of the Daily Beast reported that the Obama administration had taped a conference call with al Qaeda and revealed details of that call – details that CNN had not released after a “request from an Obama administration official not to publish or broadcast additional details because of the sensitivity of the information.”

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Drone Wars: Memo Justifying Strikes on Americans to be Revealed

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Photo Credit: REUTERSThe Obama administration has signaled it will publicly reveal a memo explaining its legal justification for using drones to kill American citizens overseas, a U.S. government official confirmed to Fox News Tuesday.

The official said the Justice Department has decided not to appeal a Court of Appeals ruling requiring disclosure of a redacted version of the memo under the Freedom of Information Act.

The decision to release the documents comes as the Senate is to vote Wednesday on advancing President Obama’s nomination of the memo’s author, Harvard professor and former Justice Department official David Barron, to sit on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., had vowed to fight Barron’s confirmation, and some Democratic senators had called for the memo’s public release before a final vote.

The key Democratic holdout against Barron’s nomination, Sen. Mark Udall D-Colo., announced Tuesday night he will now support Barron because the memo is being released.

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Obama Blames GOP For His Failed Administration

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Photo Credit: RedState

Photo Credit: RedState

As we observed during the Clinton Administration, once you have rid yourself of any sense of shame the world is your oyster. If you can’t be deterred from an action by shame then there is no action you can’t undertake. Barack Obama has shown us that when it comes to shamelessness, Bill and Hillary Clinton are rank amateurs.

On Wednesday, Obama gave another in his unending series of fundraising speeches. This one on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

As usual, Obama fell back on his four point style of governance: deny everything, admit nothing, blame others, and make counter accusations.

But here’s what’s more disconcerting. Their willingness to say no to everything — the fact that since 2007, they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress — has actually led to an increase in cynicism and discouragement among the people who were counting on us to fight for them. The conclusion is, well, nothing works. And the problem is, is that for the folks worth fighting for — for the person who’s cleaning up that house or hotel, for the guy who used to work on construction but now has been laid off — they need us. Not because they want a handout, but because they know that government can serve an important function in unleashing the power of our private sector.

The Washington Post has already demolished his bizarre claim of 500 filibusters by Republicans, the dense and gullible Glenn Kessler awarding it Four Pinocchios…

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Obama Administration’s ‘Culture of Intimidation’ Seen in Nevada Ranch Standoff

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Photo Credit: JASON BEAN

Photo Credit: JASON BEAN

Sending scores of armed agents along with helicopters and dogs to confront an elderly Nevada rancher over grazing fees may seem like overkill, but critics say it’s not inconsistent with the federal government’s recent approach to environmental enforcement.

The simmering truce between the Bundys and the Bureau of Land Management comes after high-profile raids last year by armed federal agents on small-time gold miners in tiny Chicken, Alaska, and guitar makers at the Gibson Guitar facilities in Tennessee.

That doesn’t include more subtle threats, such as recent efforts by the Obama administration to raise grazing fees or pressure permit holders to transfer their water rights as a condition of renewal, said Ryan Yates, director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau.

“Some have called it a culture of intimidation,” Mr. Yates said. “It’s issue after issue, threat after threat. It’s becoming harder and harder to keep those operations in business.”

The atmosphere was quiet but tense Tuesday at the Bundy ranch near Bunkerville, Nev., just days after Bureau of Land Management chief Neil Kornze pulled federal agents off the property and returned about 400 head of cattle to rancher Cliven Bundy.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Feds accused of leaving trail of wreckage after Nevada ranch standoff

By William La Jeunesse.

The federal agency that backed down over the weekend in a tense standoff with a Nevada rancher is being accused of leaving a trail of wreckage behind.

Fox News toured the damage — allegedly caused by the Bureau of Land Management — which included holes in water tanks and destroyed water lines and fences. According to family friends, the bureau’s hired “cowboys” also killed two prize bulls.

“They had total control of this land for one week, and look at the destruction they did in one week,” said Corey Houston, friend of rancher Cliven Bundy and his family. “So why would you trust somebody like that? And how does that show that they’re a better steward?”

The BLM and other law enforcement officials backed down on Saturday in their effort to seize Bundy’s cattle, after hundreds of protesters, some armed, arrived to show support for the Bundy family. In the end, BLM officials left the scene amid concerns about safety, and no shots were fired.

The dispute between the feds and the Bundy family has been going on for years; they say he owes more than $1.1 million in unpaid grazing fees — and long ago revoked his grazing rights over concern for a federally protected tortoise. They sent officials to round up his livestock following a pair of federal court orders last year giving the U.S. government the authority to impound the cattle.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: George Frey / Getty Images

Photo Credit: George Frey / Getty Images

Nevada Rancher’s Son: Harry Reid ‘Needs To Be Kicked Out Of Office’

By CBS Las Vegas/AP.

The son of a Nevada rancher who battled the federal government over the roundup of his cattle believes it’s time for Sen. Harry Reid to be kicked out of office.

“If he doesn’t have enough moral fiber in his bones at all to see what happened, that we the people got together and made something right, then I don’t think there’s any hope for him and he needs to be kicked out of office, even if he is the Senate majority leader. It doesn’t matter,” Ammon Bundy, son of Cliven Bundy, told Fox News, responding to Reid’s comments that “it’s not over.”

Ammon Bundy says federal authorities used a stun gun on him.

Cliven Bundy, whose family has operated a ranch since the 1870s southwest of Mesquite a few miles from the Utah line, does not recognize federal authority on the land that he insists belongs to Nevada.

On Saturday, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management released about 400 head of cattle it had seized from Bundy. The operation had been expected to take a month to collect as many as 900 cattle.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ex-CBS Journalist Active in Covering Benghazi, Fast & Furious Describes ‘Chilling Effect’ Obama Admin. Has on Reporting

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Former CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson took a swing at her former employer Sunday and described the “chilling effect” she says the Obama administration has on reporting.

“I didn’t run into that same kind of sentiment (at CBS) as I did in the Obama administration when I covered the Bush administration very aggressively,” Attkisson told “Media Buzz” host Howard Kurtz.

“It never runs,” she continued. “Or it dies the death of a thousand cuts, as some of us say. If it’s something they don’t want it will be changed and revised and shortened and altered so much that it’s a shadow of its former self if it does air.”

Attkisson, who had been active in covering the aftermath of the Benghazi terror attacks and the Fast and Furious scandal, abruptly announced she had resigned from CBS News last month. According to Politico, sources said Attkisson had grown increasingly frustrated by what she perceived as a liberal bias at CBS News.

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Report: Obama Admin Released Tens Of Thousands Of Illegal Immigrant Criminals

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Obama’s Department of Homeland Security caught then released 68,000 aliens who had previously been convicted of a crime, a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies shows.

The report, provided to Breitbart News ahead of its late Sunday evening release, reviews internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) metrics to conclude that the Obama administration released 35 percent—or 68,000—convicted criminal aliens back into the U.S. general population when they could have been deported. “The criminal alien releases typically occur without formal notice to local law enforcement agencies and victims,” CIS’s Jessica Vaughan, the report’s author, added.

By “criminal,” ICE means people who have been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony that is not a traffic violation. For instance, traffic violations like Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol or even vehicular manslaughter do not count toward this description of “criminal alien.” As for the definition of “alien,” ICE mostly means illegal aliens, though some are legal aliens when they are considered deportable legal aliens—which is possible for legal immigrants who have committed a serious crime, like a felony.

The documents also show ICE only deported a small fraction of the aliens they encountered overall.

“In 2013, ICE targeted only 195,000, or 25 percent, out of 722,000 potentially deportable aliens they encountered,” CIS’s Vaughan wrote. “Most of these aliens came to ICE’s attention after incarceration for a local arrest.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia Sends Troops, Obama Administration Sends A Selfie

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Photo Credit: Getty (left) and Twitter (right)

Photo Credit: Getty (left) and Twitter (right)

Russian leader Vladmir Putin sent in troops and tanks to invade neighboring Ukraine and the Obama administration is coming to the rescue with . . . selfies!

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was mocked Thursday after posting a photo of herself on Twitter holding a sign that read #United­For­Ukraine @State­Dept­Spox.”

Psaki, who has worked closely with President Obama since his 2008 campaign and is the chief communications adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry, is smiling and giving a thumbs-up in the photo.

But the cheerleading for beleaguered Ukraine wasn’t trending or scaring off bully Putin, said critics in the blogosphere.

“Presenting The Latest US Strategy to Counter ‘Russian Aggression,’ ” a snarky blogger posted on zerohedge.com. “#Selfies!”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

At Obama-Putin Phone Call, A Whole Lot Of Talking And Very Little Listening

By Soopermexican / IJ Review.

While we’ll never know exactly how the phone call went, if you read how the Obama administration described the conversation between Putin and Obama, and how the Russians described it, you’d think they were two completely different phone calls. Here’s the readout from the Obama admin:

President Obama underscored to President Putin that the United States continues to support a diplomatic path in close consultation with the Government of Ukraine and in support of the Ukrainian people with the aim of de-escalation of the crisis. President Obama made clear that this remains possible only if Russia pulls back its troops and does not take any steps to further violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. President Obama reiterated that the United States has strongly opposed the actions that Russia has already taken to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Every sentence begins with words making it appear that he was in charge, “underscoring,” “making clear,” and “reiterating” his demands to Putin. Now here’s Russia’s version:

Vladimir Putin drew Barack Obama’s attention to continued rampage of extremists who are committing acts of intimidation towards peaceful residents, government authorities and law enforcement agencies in various regions and in Kiev with impunity.

Read more from this story HERE.