The new, 'James Bond-style' assassination is the new face of crime on Mexico's Pacific Coast ...

The new, 'James Bond-style' assassination is the new face of crime on Mexico's Pacific Coast  Posted: 04 Mar 2016 09:43 AM PST Posted by DD material from Small Wars Journal and the Daily Mail Thanks to a heads-up from Dr. Robert Bunker from Small Wars Journal for this story.  Material from Daily mail is from a story by  Alasdair Baverstock In Acapulco For Mailonline As holidaymakers sunned themselves on the golden sand of Acapulco beach, a man carrying a 9mm pistol swam up to the shore, shot a beachwear seller three times in the chest, and calmly made his way back to the jet ski where his accomplice was waiting and disappeared around the rocky headland to the west towards either Playa Tlacopanocha or Playa Manzanillo.  The new, 'James Bond-style' assassination is the new face of crime on Mexico's Pacific Coast, where cartel killers are murdering gang rivals in tourist areas - and escape from the beach on high powered jet skis to get away from police. The latest such execution in broad daylight is the fourth to hit Acapulco this year. Acapulco is in the midst of its worst crime wave for a decade where there were 1,600 murders last year and already 684 in 2016 - or 12 a day.   Beachwear vendor Eduardo García, 46, bled out on the beach as the crowd and his family waited on the police to arrive on the scene. The Mexican police did not arrive for 70 minutes after the incident even though the police station was relatively close to crime scene.  His family arrived at the scene before the police even though their home is 10 times farther from the murder scene than is the police station.  Eduardo died in the arms of his family while they waited for help. Lost: Mr Garcia (pictured, surrounded by paramedics and holidaymakers), described as a 'good, family man' by those who knew him, There's very rarely an open and close murder case in Acapulco, but this new technique of escaping by sea has the police stumped. 70 minutes after the murder, a police boat traced the criminals' escape route for any trace of the killers, but all in vain. .(DD; kind of hard to trace a trail through water)  The killers who left the salesman for dead on the beach in front of hundreds of onlookers have still not been caught, the case buried under the unceasing daily onslaught of crime. WARNING;  GRAPHIC PHOTOS SHOWING VIOLENCE ON NEXT PAGE  Analysis From Small Wars Journal;  Information related to the motivation behind this targeted killing of a beach front clothing salesmen in the tourist district of the Acapulco beach front is fragmentary at best. It is apparently the fourth incident involving sicario use of jet skis for a targeted killing in Acapulco [1] and suggests that it may be related to ongoing patterns of street taxation (e.g. extortion) by local gangs and organized criminal groups against street vendors and local businesses. The brazenness of the killing is likely meant to send a message to the other individuals and groups being extorted to either pay their monthly 15% tax to the local criminals or face the consequences. Contextually, it should be noted that the jet ski related killings have taken place during a long period of rampant crime and a high level of homicides gripping Acapulco; averaging out to 12 per day or about 650 so far this year.     Vendors of beach appearal like Margarito Melio, 60, who worked alongside Garcia, have to hand over 15 per cent of their earnings to gangsters for 'protection money'.  If you don't pay they kill you (for $1.20US)  'There are a thousand reasons you can get killed in Acapulco,' says Margarito Melio, 60, a beach salesman who worked alongside Eduardo and says he knows no reason why his friend would have become a target for the brutal local gangs. 'He was a good family man,' he told MailOnline. 'His wife and kids arrived to see their father die long before the police, and they live at ten times the distance. It was heartbreaking.'  'Perhaps Eduardo wasn't paying his dues, or perhaps he was selling drugs on the side, or maybe one of his brothers is a gangster and a rival cartel is making his family suffer,' he told MailOnline.  Acapulco's municipal police refused to comment on the case when approached by MailOnline. 'It was over so quickly, and I'm not just talking about the killing,' Jaime Mendez, who manages the beach furniture rentals where the crime took place, told MailOnline.  'Ten minutes after the body was taken away, things were back to normal. Murder has become a daily fact of life in Acapulco.' The brutal murder of Mr García, pictured here being carried away on a stretcher, was in broad daylight in front of other beachgoers. However, 20 minutes after his body was removed, holidaymakers were back sunbathing as if nothing had happened     Acapulco is in the midst of its worst crime wave for a decade. A large spate of murders in mid-February was blamed on Pope Francis' five-day visit to Mexico, when the majority of the military and federal police forces that normally guard the city, were removed to ensure the pontiff's safety. More than 100 murders took place in Acapulco during those five days - and the town's municipal police force was left in charge. 'Ironically, there was a lot of blood while the pope was here talking about putting an end to it,' said Fransisco Robles, a local crime reporter who spends his evenings following the police radios to the latest crime scenes.  'It may look like paradise, but this place is hell,' says beach furniture rental manager Jaime, who came to Acapulco from Mexico City three years ago looking for a change of scene.     After nearly a month Eduardo's jet-ski killers remain on the loose, his family forgotten who held their dead father in their arms forgotten, and the brutal daily average of four homicides has rumbled on unabated. Arturo Martinez from Iguala, where 43 students went missing at the hands of local police in 2014, had unwittingly allowed his brother to bury him in sand on the same spot where Eduardo had been gunned down a month before. 'It makes no difference to me,' he told MailOnline, smiling with his family for the camera. 'If you went around Acapulco terrified of every spot where a murder had happened you'd never leave your hotel room, or maybe you'd never even enter it.' 'There are cartel lookouts on every corner, local taxi drivers get involved in kidnappings and it's better not to discuss anything concerning organised crime because you never know who you're talking to.' '50 per cent of the murders here are cartel related,' says Fransisco, the local reporter,  After that 30 per cent are to do with extortion. Every business in town has to give part of their earnings to the cartel, if you don't pay up, or they think you're paying less than you should, they kill you.' 'After that, about 20 per cent of murder victims simply get killed in the crossfire, wrong place at the wrong time stuff,' he told MailOnline. 'The cartels are so well equipped that it's very easy for a loose bullet to claim a second life after their target is dead.' Despite a recent fall in tourism, millions of holidaymakers still jet off to Acapulco's idyllic shores every year. With hotels costing around £35 a night, and a two course meal with a glass of wine costing as little as £15, it was once the prime destination for Americans looking for a cheap break away. But far from its beaches lined with holidaymakers on sunbeds, many of Acapulco's poorer residents have been forced to make their homes on the other side of the hills, in sprawling slums that have become loosely known as the 'Periphery'. It's here, in the Acapulco the tourists don't see, that the majority of the violence occurs. Jimena Gomez, 17, who lives in the Periphery slums, told MailOnline of the violence she witnesses on a daily basis.   'I sleep right through the gunfire these days and have learned to look away when I see a murder happening in the street,' she said standing outside her house that overlooks the Periphery. 'If the killers see you looking then you're likely to get a bullet for good measure.'                          While the security presence along Acapulco's beach is heavy, government forces in the Periphery are minimal.  The only Mexican military soldiers permitted in the slums are those who are posted outside local primary schools to prevent the kidnap of students and teachers, a business which saw a surge when the drug cartels got hold of public school salary lists. The phenomenon of kidnapping teachers came to a head five years ago when local criminal cartels began abducting the highest earners, demanding many year's worth of payment in exchange for their safe return. One teacher who was kidnapped in 2015 alongside her daughter from the Carlos Carrillo Primary School in the Periphery fled Acapulco immediately following her £10,000 release, vowing never to return.  The soldiers who now guard the school say they regularly see expensive cars with blacked-out windows driving past their posts at the school's entrance, which now more resembles a prison than a primary school, with razor wire, security cameras and 24-hour military security. Since the death of the 'Boss of Bosses' Arturo Beltran-Leyva, and the subsequent break-up of his Beltran Leyva Cartel which once controlled the whole of south-west Mexico, Acapulco has been fought over by the CIDA (Independent Cartel of Acapulco) and the Devil's Command (AKA Barredora) cartels. Acapulco is a valuable territory for organised crime. Guerrero state is the country's largest producer of raw opium and the majority of this, as well as the refined heroin into which it is made, arrives in southwest Mexico's largest port city before it is sent northwards to be sold to other cartels, who move the narcotics into the US. Coupled with the local drug and extortion rackets that the tourism industry lends itself to, Acapulco has become southwest Mexico's most profitable cartel territory, and the brutality of the gang wars has come to reflect this. 'In regions controlled by a single cartel you'll generally see less brutality, but given the war for dominance in Acapulco the killers have to send a messages every time they murder,' says Francisco.  'I generally come across more decapitations, mutilations and torture victims than straight executions in my daily work.' 'I never go further than 100 yards from my hotel, but now it seems even the beach isn't safe from the violence,' said Bryna Freidman from Toronto, 64, who says she has noticed a large drop in visitors to the Pacific resort over the 35 years she's been an Acapulco regular.  'The authorities simply aren't doing enough.' And for those die-hard Acapulco holidaymakers like Bryna, the toll that Acapulco's cartel war has taken on the city no longer justifies the thousands of dollars she pays to come here for her holidays. 'I still love it here,' said Bryna, as she looked out over the same ocean that has soaked up so much blood over the years, 'But only because of the memories I have of how it was before.'

While on the lam, El Chapo entered the U.S. twice, "betrayed" by El Mayo...

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While on the lam, El Chapo entered the U.S. twice, "betrayed" by El Mayo Posted: 04 Mar 2016 09:58 PM PST Lucio R. Borderland Beat republished from The Guardian Note: Newly identified daughter, must be one of the half dozen children father by El Chapo outside his marriage.  He entered into only one legal marriage, that being with his first wife, Alejandrina Salazar.  His second was a common law wife named Griselda Lopez, and the most recent common law wife, Emma Coronel.  So far he has fathered 10 children from these three unions. Outside these relationships Chapo fathered 6-12 children. The person in this article says she is the daughter of El Chapo, and she appears to have been well vetted, as you will be read about in the article. He would have been 19 when she was born. As for the claim the Sinaloa Cartel leader would have chanced sneaking into to the U.S. while on the lam….twice, I would say highly doubtful, if not for his carelessness exhibited by him while on the run….See what you readers think. The drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán bankrolled the election of senior Mexico politicians and twice secretly entered the United States to visit relatives, according to his eldest daughter. Rosa Isela Guzmán Ortiz (right)) said that shortly after an interview with Hollywood star Sean Penn last year, her father dodged a massive manhunt with the complicity of corrupt Mexican officials and evaded US border controls to sneak into California – despite being one of the world’s most wanted fugitives. She also accused senior Mexican politicians of accepting donations from El Chapo when they ran for office, and said that in return officials turned a blind eye to his escapes from prison. “My dad is not a criminal. The government is guilty,” she told the Guardian. The explosive allegations made by Guzmán Ortiz could not be independently verified and are likely to be vigorously contested by Mexican and US authorities. Guzmán Ortiz, 39, made the claims in a series of interviews which she said were given in consultation with her father. Earlier this week, he instructed his lawyers to drop their attempts to fight extradition to the United States in the apparent hope of negotiating a lighter sentence. Guzmán Ortiz said the drug lord had planned to hand the reins of the Sinaloa cartel to her half-brother, Iván Archivaldo, but was betrayed by a cartel colleague, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada – and by the Mexican government, which she said had broken an agreement to protect El Chapo. It is the first time the cartel leader’s daughter has spoken to the media. The Guardian has seen several documents confirming her identity, including her birth certificate and Mexican voting card.  Guzmán Ortiz’s identity was also confirmed by Francisco Villa Gurrola, an evangelical minister in El Chapo’s hometown of Badiraguato, who is a close friend of the drug lord’s 87-year-old mother Consuela Loera. Her claims about El Chapo’s visits to California will raise questions about US intelligence and border security. As head of the world’s biggest and richest criminal syndicate he was the drug war’s most prized target. Guzmán Ortiz said her father crossed the border in late 2015 to visit relatives and to view her home, a five-bedroom house with a large garden which he bought for her and her four children (one son is with Chapo at left). She granted the interview on condition its location not be disclosed. “My dad deposited the money in a bank account with a lawyer and a while after he came to see the house, his house. He came twice.” She declined to specify how he criss-crossed the heavily guarded frontier, saying only: “I asked him the same, believe me.” José Reveles, the author of a string of books about the Mexican underworld, said that “nothing is impossible” for El Chapo, pointing out that Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel pioneered the use of sophisticated tunnels to smuggle drug shipments – and cartel members – into the US. “Everything indicates that El Chapo would be able to visit the US: he’s very smart, he has well-trained operatives and he has experts in building tunnels,” said Reveles. Guzmán Ortiz is not the only member of El Chapo’s family to have approached the media, suggesting a concerted attempt by the capo to promote his version of events – or exert pressure on Mexican authorities.  El Chapo’s meeting with Sean Penn was enabled by the actress Kate del Castillo, who hoped toproduce a biopic of the drug lord, and his lawyers contacted at least two authors over a possible biography. In recent weeks his third wife, Emma Coronel, has granted a string of television interviews. The Escape “My dad’s escape was an agreement,” she said. At least 34 people have been charged with helping El Chapo escape, including the former director of Altiplano prison and the head of Mexico’s federal prison system. Towards the end of last year, the net appeared to be closing in on El Chapo after he arranged a meeting with del Castillo and Penn, who were under surveillance by intelligence agents. In October, the Mexican military launched a massive operation in the mountainous region between Sinaloa and Durango states, but failed to capture the cartel boss. A US citizen, Guzmán Ortiz runs a chain of small businesses in California and speaks fluent English. She compared herself to narco juniors – a Mexican term for the privileged offspring of the country’s drug lords – but said any money she received from her father was clean. “My businesses are the result of my own efforts,” she said. Rosa and Vincentillo Zambada In a sign of the closed – and arguably feudal – narco world, Chapo told his daughter he wanted her to marry Vicente Zambada Niebla, (at left) also known as El Vicentillo, the 16-year-old son of another drug lord, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Both fathers were annoyed, however, when she became pregnant before the marriage.  Guzmán Ortiz had a second child with El Vicentillo after they married. In May 1993 her father’s profession almost cost both their lives. They were in a parking lot at Guadalajara airport, she said, when a group of hitmen dispatched by the rival Tijuana cartel targeted the wrong car, killing a Roman Catholic cardinal, Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, and six other people. “On the day of the assassination I was in a car with my father when they started shooting from every direction. We didn’t know who it was that got killed, but later we heard it was the cardinal. My father had nothing to do with it,” she said. Amid national outrage over the massacre Chapo sent his daughter to live with an aunt in California, who she had visited regularly from an early age. He was caught a few weeks later and spent the next eight years directing his growing empire from behind bars.  Read entire article by linking here and the related article by linking here

RAYLENE BROOKS: CALIFORNIA CITIZENS: KEEP THIS COP-KILLER IN PRISON -- WRITE THE PAROLE BOARD TODAY !

One Citizen Speaking...

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RAYLENE BROOKS: CALIFORNIA CITIZENS: KEEP THIS COP-KILLER IN PRISON -- WRITE THE PAROLE BOARD TODAY Posted: 29 Feb 2016 07:34 PM PST Once again we are faced with a killer who is playing a politicalized system to escape the consequences of their actions – actions which left parents, bothers and sisters, a widow and his children forever unable to experience the love of a son, brother, husband and father. This is a simple matter of justice. Anyone who would participate in the execution killing of a police officer deserves the death penalty – and because that is not available in this case, to serve their full term in prison without perks, privileges, parole, or pardon.  Woman Gets 2 Life Terms in Killing of Officer - May 17, 1991 A 20-year-old woman was sentenced Thursday to two consecutive life prison terms for her part in a shooting spree in which a Los Angeles police officer was killed. But the woman, Raylene Brooks, will be eligible for parole in less than 18 years, a prosecutor said. Brooks was convicted last December on three attempted murder charges for a gang drive-by attack that injured three people. She was also found guilty of manslaughter in the killing of the police officer, Daniel Pratt, who responded to the shooting. <Source> From my law enforcement friends … Tell Parole Board to Deny Freedom for Cop-Killer The Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs calls on the state parole board to turn down freedom for Raylene Brooks who was convicted in 1988 of the assassination of an LAPD officer.  On the night of September 3, 1988, Officer Daniel Pratt and his partner, Officer Veronica Delao Jenkins, were undercover in South Los Angeles when they heard what they thought was gunfire. They then encountered the headlights of the car that, just minutes before, had been involved in a gang-related drive-by shooting, leaving three people wounded. Upon pursuit, Brooks made an abrupt U-turn, and headed toward the officers. Brooks drove a vehicle the wrong way down a one-way street so that her gang-member boyfriend could shoot at two undercover officers.  Kirkton Moore fired at the pair from close range with an AR-15 assault rifle, killing Officer Daniel Pratt, a six-year LAPD veteran and father of four. Brooks' then boyfriend, Kirkton Moore opened fire on Officer Pratt, striking and killing him. As the driver of the car involved in the shooting, Brooks was convicted of first-degree murder of a peace officer and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. She was denied parole when she first became eligible in 2010. Brooks was not supposed to be up for parole for another two years, but petitioned for an earlier hearing. Brooks claimed she was free of discipline programs, had gone through a rehabilitation program and earned an associate's degree. The state parole board granted her request for an early hearing, which is scheduled to take place this month. Justice demands that she be denied again.  Officer Pratt is survived by his wife, Andria; daughters, Amanda and Heather; and sons, Danny Jr. and Nicholas. Also surviving him are his parents, Joyce and Roy Pratt Sr., four brothers, three sisters, and a host of other loved ones. Daniel Pratt's brother, LAPD Captain Brian Pratt, told KABC-TV that he spoke to Brooks at a hearing several years ago and she showed no remorse for the killing. "She acted like she was trying to weep, but I don't think she could even shed a tear when I was speaking to her. She just looked angry," Pratt told the station. "You can't just kill a policeman and expect to have the rewards of life that other people have." One might think that it's a slam-dunk that the parole board will deny freedom to a cop killer. Think again.  Last year, the parole board voted to release a convicted cop killer on parole, Jesus Cecena who was convicted of the "execution style" death of San Diego Police Officer Archie Buggs.  It was only by Governor Jerry Brown reversing the decision that a cop killer is not free. Any panel that can inexplicably vote to free one cop-killer can just as easily do so again. We need all of our members and members of fellow law enforcement associations to write letters of opposition to the parole board, and to urge everyone you know to do likewise.  Please make sure to cite Brooks' CDC number of W40103. The address is: Board of Parole Hearings  Attn: Pre Hearing Correspondence  P.O. Box 4036 Sacramento, CA 95812-4036   The Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALADS) is the collective bargaining agent and represents more than 8,200 deputy sheriffs and district attorney investigators working in Los Angeles County.  # # # Bottom line … The police are often the last line of defense between “We the People” and the thugs who have taken over our society. Empowered by politicians pandering to the thugocracy that underpins the racial and criminal activities in our communities. Justice demands that this person be kept accountable for her actions in killing a police officer. Enough is enough. -- steve

Much of Europe and America are fast becoming pigs! Most all of us are eating the corn now one way or another and have three sides up and come November we may have that last side in place. Then God help us all!

 

Wild Pigs - A Reminder For All

 

A thought to remember, Marx said, "Remove one freedom per generation and soon you will have no freedom and no one would have noticed."

 

There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class.

 

One day while the class was in the lab, the professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter.

 

The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a  communist regime.

 

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question.

 

He asked: "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?"

 

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. 

 

The young man said that it was no joke. "You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free food. 

 

"When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.

 

"They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side.

 

"The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

 

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."

 

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America . The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare entitlements, medicine, drugs, etc., while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time. 

 

One should always remember two truths: 

 

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

 

If you see that all of this wonderful government "help" is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to share this with your friends.

 

If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably not share this.

 

BUT, God help us all when the gate slams shut!

 

Think about this

 

Quote for today: "The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living."

 

I am hoping that the GOP reduces the infighting and produces a constitutional conservative like Ted Cruz for the presidency. Then the fight between the two ideologies, socialism and capitalism begins. With the result being up to “We the People.”...

One Citizen Speaking...

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THE JOHN OLIVER VIDEO THAT TELLS THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH ABOUT DONALD TRUMP AKA DONALD DRUMPF Posted: 29 Feb 2016 09:06 PM PST Below is probably the funniest and most accurate video that deals with the Trump phenomenon. If you support Donald Trump, this is must see TV  Petty, petulant, and definitely not presidential … Doubling down … Then lying about it … Must be the same haters and losers who the Donald wished well on the anniversary of the 9/11terrorist attack … Tit for tat: The Donald’s heritage – DRUMPF … Yes it’s true … Why Donald Trump trumps Donald Drumpf Trump’s German wine-growing ancestors were named Drumpf, according to journalist Gwenda Blair’s book “The Trumps: Three Generations That Built An Empire.” The family changed the name at some point during the Thirty Years’ War. America was first introduced to the Trump brand, however, by Donald’s father, Fred C. Trump, who named his real estate company and supermarket chains “Trump” and drove a navy blue Cadillac with “FCT” license plates.  Donald, though, took name-branding to a 5-foot-tall, shiny-brass-letters, next level. “I put my name on something when I really feel that it is going to be right,” Trump said at a 1989 news conference to announce the launch of Trump Shuttle. (Of course, Trump Shuttle was one of Trump’s great flops, along with Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump: The Game, and Trump University, embroiled in multiple fraud lawsuits and now called the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative.)  We’ve become so accustomed to the Trump brand that it’s hard to imagine The Donald by any other name. Yet, had he been born Donald Drumpf, his path might have been quite different. <Source: Boston Globe> Something is not quite right … Watch this epic John Oliver takedown of Donald Trump using facts freely available in the public venue … Bottom line … Trump the brand is certainly not Trump the man … and would be a disaster as Trump the President. We are so screwed. -- steve

HILLARY CLINTON: ANOTHER MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE CONSPIRACY THEORY? Posted: 11 Feb 2016 11:56 PM PST Look for Hillary Clinton to become sicker and older looking as the criminal complaint goes forward. It is my belief that the FBI will file a criminal complaint against Hillary Rodham Clinton and her cohorts and that the Justice Department will have little or no wiggle-room to bring charges. All of this takes time. So, say you wanted to engineer another progressive socialist democrat into the White House to follow-up the Obama presidency. How could you do it? Wait until Hillary drops out for health reasons or is removed from the race for corruption -- and then select Joseph Biden as the candidate for the Presidency and Elizabeth Warren as the candidate running mate for the Vice Presidency. Fait accompli! As for the timing, Hillary must be taken out AFTER she has secured the majority of the delegates so her delegates become unpledged at the convention where anyone's name can be entered into the race. If Hillary is indicted BEFORE securing the delegates, Bernie would be then become the presumptive nominee because he already has delegates. Bottom line … I am hoping that the GOP reduces the infighting and produces a constitutional conservative like Ted Cruz for the presidency. Then the fight between the two ideologies, socialism and capitalism begins. With the result being up to “We the People.” Whether President Obama pardons all of his cadre of progressive socialist democrats as he walks out the door is a moot point. -- steve

ISIS continued to develop its regional presence despite setbacks in Iraq and Syria in February...

ISIS's Regional Campaign: February 2016

by Claire Coyne with Harleen Gambhir ISIS continued to develop its regional presence despite setbacks in Iraq and Syria in February. The organization launched spectacular attacks to weaken security in Iraq and Syria as it faces territorial losses, declining revenue, and decreased foreign fighter inflows in both countries. ISIS meanwhile strengthened its presence in Libya, launching large-scale attacks and defending its stronghold of Sirte despite ground opposition from rival militant groups and airstrikes by the U.S. and other actors. ISIS also maintained operational capability in other regions, as demonstrated by its attacks in the Gulf, Maghreb, and the Caucasus. ISIS's military campaigns and safe haven outside of Iraq and Syria give it strategic resiliency that will ensure its longevity despite pressure on its Caliphate.