IN THE mid-1990s a celebrated Syrian playwright captured the anguish of living under an Arab autocrat with the lament, “We are condemned to hope.” Almost 20 years later, even hope has withered.

The Middle Eastern order sustained by the United States has collapsed. Civil wars are devouring Syria, Iraq and Libya. Black-robed jihadists from Islamic State (IS) have carved out a caliphate. Vying with Iran for regional influence, Saudi jets are strafing Shia rebels in Yemen. Peace may not return to the Middle East for a generation.

For most Arabs, including presidents and kings, the lesson is that American power has had its day. For most Americans, including the man in the White House, the lesson is that outsiders cannot impose order on chaos. Both claims are exaggerated. The Middle East desperately needs a new, invigorated engagement from America. That would not only be within America’s power, it would also be in America’s interest.

The starting-point is to understand what has gone so disastrously wrong in the Arab world. Democrats in Washington will tell you that the villain is George W. Bush, who invaded Iraq in 2003, creating a bloodthirsty Sunni insurgency and, across the region, a hunger for rebellion. Republicans insist that the fault lies with Barack Obama for letting Iran dominate Iraq and failing to curb the villainy of Syria’s Bashar Assad.

In fact there is more than enough blame to go round. As that Syrian playwright suggested, the roots of the Arab malaise run deep. After the second world war, centuries of infantilising colonial rule gave way to woeful self-government. Arab economies were regulated, subsidised and planned so clumsily that they failed to provide for Arab citizens. Leaders, lacking legitimacy, took refuge in Arab nationalism and came to depend on coercion instead of consent. Young populations without prospects found comfort in religion, some in the zealotry peddled by the likes of IS. For years America propped up its client states in this failing order. But the Arab spring showed that the stability Mr Bush shattered at such great cost was already doomed. Mr Obama’s inaction only added momentum to an unfolding catastrophe (see article).

All the more reason to stay out, perhaps. Except that America has interests in the Middle East. Today’s chaos is trashing human rights and torching values that many, including this newspaper, look to America to defend. Not everyone will agree—some Americans are tired of their country acting as a global policeman, and others rightly point out that its geopolitical priority is China’s growing ambition (see Banyan). But even allowing that, the Middle East still matters.

Terrorism in places like Libya or Syria sooner or later ends up striking at the West. IS’s successes in Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria attract money and fighters. Minimising the threat means doing more in places where jihadism flourishes.

More...http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21653612-why-america-must-stay-engaged-middle-east-entangled

 

Of course, this is just for mundane little people and not the likes of Hillary who should be facing thousands of counts of obstruction for wiping untold thousands of emails off her server, which was illegal to use anyway as an official in the state dept.

Khairullozhon Matanov is a 24-year-old former cab driver from Quincy, Massachusetts. The night of the Boston Marathon bombings, he ate dinner with Tamerlan and Dhzokhar Tsarnaev at a kebob restaurant in Somerville. Four days later Matanov saw photographs of his friends listed as suspects in the bombings on the CNN and FBI websites. Later that day he went to the local police. He told them that he knew the Tsarnaev brothers and that they’d had dinner together that week, but he lied about whose idea it was to have dinner, lied about when exactly he had looked at the Tsarnaevs’ photos on the Internet, lied about whether Tamerlan lived with his wife and daughter, and lied about when he and Tamerlan had last prayed together. Matanov likely lied to distance himself from the brothers or to cover up his own jihadist sympathies—or maybe he was just confused.

Then Matanov went home and cleared his Internet browser history.

Matanov continued to live in Quincy for over a year after the bombings. During this time the FBI tracked him with a drone-like surveillance plane that made loops around Quincy, disturbing residents. The feds finally arrested and indicted him in May 2014. They never alleged that Matanov was involved in the bombings or that he knew about them beforehand, but they charged him with four counts of obstruction of justice. There were three counts for making false statements based on the aforementioned lies and—remarkably—one count for destroying “any record, document or tangible object” with intent to obstruct a federal investigation. This last charge was for deleting videos on his computer that may have demonstrated his own terrorist sympathies and for clearing his browser history.

Matanov faced the possibility of decades in prison—twenty years for the records-destruction charge alone.

Federal prosecutors charged Matanov for destroying records under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law enacted by Congress in the wake of the Enron scandal. The law was, in part, intended to prohibit corporations under federal investigation from shredding incriminating documents. But since Sarbanes-Oxley was passed in 2002 federal prosecutors have applied the law to a wider range of activities. A police officer in Colorado who falsified a report to cover up a brutality case was convicted under the act, as was a woman in Illinois who destroyed her boyfriend’s child pornography.

Prosecutors are able to apply the law broadly because they do not have to show that the person deleting evidence knew there was an investigation underway. In other words, a person could theoretically be charged under Sarbanes-Oxley for deleting her dealer’s number from her phone even if she were unaware that the feds were getting a search warrant to find her marijuana. The application of the law to digital data has been particularly far-reaching because this type of information is so easy to delete. Deleting digital data can inadvertently occur in normal computer use, and often does.

In 2010 David Kernell, a University of Tennessee student, was convicted under Sarbanes-Oxley after he deleted digital records that showed he had obtained access to Sarah Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account. Using publicly available information, Kernell answered security questions that allowed him to reset Palin’s Yahoo password to “popcorn.” He downloaded information from Palin’s account, including photographs, and posted the new password online. He then deleted digital information that may have made it easier for federal investigators to find him. Like Matanov, he cleared the cache on his Internet browser. He also uninstalled Firefox, ran a disk defragmentation program to reorganize and clean up his hard drive, and deleted a series of images that he had downloaded from the account. For entering Palin’s e-mail, he was eventually convicted of misdemeanor unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and felony destruction of records under Sarbanes-Oxley. In January 2012, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit found that Kernell’s awareness of a potential investigation into his conduct was enough to uphold the felony charge.

http://www.thenation.com/article/208593/you-can-be-prosecuted-clearing-your-browser-history#

Graham isn't serious about running for Prez, he just wants to be up on the debate stage so he can troll Rand's realist foreign policy and drive the meme that he's out of the party's mainstream. Rand has become more dangerous to the status quo and that's why they want to turn this primary into a debate on foreign policy rather than on domestic economic issues and jobs which is what mainstream America desperately cares about. TPTB want the Hillary v. Jeb/Rubio matchup so the show keeps on rolling as is.

What Matt Drudge Can Do for Rand Paul

...
Drudge's readership skews almost entirely American, heavily Republican, and older than Internet users who get their news from Facebook. A 2012 study found that 41 percent of Drudge readers identify as Republicans—a higher share of conservatives than other big news sites. That said, people who read Drudge religiously are much more likely to be Republican primary voters. So if Drudge deems one Republican candidate deserving of more positive or negative coverage than the rest of the field, it carries enormous influence on the small subset of the population that determines the Republican presidential nominee.

Drudge Report is the most influential news aggregator on the political Internet. Business Insider has estimated the site to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. With the help of one or two other people, Drudge updates the famously bare-bones site throughout the day with ALL-CAPS headlines and links to news outlets. It receives 2 million daily unique visitors and roughly 700 million monthly page views, according to Intermarkets. The Associated Press website receives more than half of its traffic from Drudge. Aside from search and social, the Drudge Report was the No. 1 traffic referrer to CNN, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Politico, and National Journal.
...

http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/what-matt-drudge-can-do-for-rand-paul-20150604

Barron's Cover Story has Rand in Top Tier, but thinks he is "isolationist libertarian rerun"

Loath to be outdone by Fox’s winnowing, we’ve narrowed the field further, to seven we think will still be in the running for the nomination next March, after 57% of the 2,470 GOP delegates have been selected. They include Jeb Bush, a former two-term Florida governor who hasn’t campaigned since 2002, and who, we are told, will try branding himself merely as “Jeb”; former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who had a second career on Fox News; and first-term Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a conservative hero noted for his debating skill and his support from the conservative billionaire Koch brothers.

Also in the running are crusty two-term Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who also spent 18 years in Congress and is the most experienced candidate; first-term Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, an isolationist libertarian rerun of his father, former Rep. Ron Paul; and first-term Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the most charismatic candidate and a brilliant campaigner, who has billionaire Miami auto dealer Norman Braman in his camp.

http://online.barrons.com/articles/who-will-win-the-gop-nomination-1433557143?mod=BOL_hp_highlight_1

Not highlighting link considering it's a major hitpiece on Rand while glorifying Jeb and Rubio. The writer is a major DC establishment hack.

At least the maintenance signifies that management over there is seriously protecting their product against potential impending issues if left unchecked.

Considering the users have Xapo wallets I wonder how things will progress going forward considering Life Lock is suing Xapo.

At U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's first town hall meeting since announcing his run for president, Graham assured the audience he was in favor of gun rights, after Aaron Dorr, director of Iowa Gun Owners questioned his past votes.

"Check me out. Check my rating with the NRA. Come to my house. I will show you my AR-15," Graham said.

At the Sheraton Hotel in West Des Moines Friday, Graham was questioned about his vote approving Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch in April 2015 and confirming Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in August 2010. He was also questioned about confirming Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2009, as well as a $250,000 contribution from Michael Bloomberg in 2014, who has long been an advocate for gun control.

More....http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/candidates/2015/06/05/lindsey-graham-gun-rights-west-des-moines/28549999/

Such a troubling security and the end game is hard to believe at this point. It seems at this point that this isn't legit but it will be something to see if it works out well.

Scott Walker embraces the worst king of corporate welfare

Walker, who is running for president, is largely seen as a strong fiscal conservative. His recent announcement should surely put that idea to rest.

I would advise him to read the lessons of free market economist Frederic Bastiat, who in 1850 wrote the incredible piece “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen.”

More...http://www.redstate.com/diary/freedomrepublican/2015/06/07/scott-walker-embraces-worst-kind-corporate-welfare/

Rene Plummer hosted dinner for Rand in NH tonight

Portsmouth power broker who seems to know just about everybody, and it was her ability to leverage those connections that helped her to fill the office buildings at Pease when it was an up-and-coming business park.

Plummer is vice president of marketing for Two Interna- tional Group, a commercial real estate development firm that was one of the driving forces leading the successful transformation of Pease International Tradeport from a shuttered Air Force base into a thriving business and industrial park.

Since 1997, Two International Group has built 16 buildings with 850,000 rentable square feet and developed more than 70 acres at the tradeport, which is widely lauded as one of the most successful military base redevelopment projects in the country. The company also owns One and Two Harbour Place in downtown Portsmouth.

When Two International Group was breaking ground on its first tower at Pease, it faced a daunting task: they were building on spec without any tenant commitments, not to mention pessimism from some observers that the base wouldn’t be able to attract businesses. So Plummer had an idea – she phoned a Wall Street Journal reporter, and was able to convince him to write an article on the redevelopment at Pease. The article created a buzz, tenants began to show interest “and the rest is history,” said Plummer.

Of course, the many high-powered contacts that Plummer had made through her numerous volunteer pursuits and political activities didn’t hurt, either. For years, she had been involved with Exeter Hospital’s Fashions by the Sea fundraiser, through which she met many corporate executives (who would ask Plummer to secure good seats for their wives).

more...http://www.nhbr.com/February-21-2014/Renee-Plummer-2014-Outstanding-Woman-in-Business/

19 Things in Rand Paul’s New Book No Other GOP A-Lister Would Be Caught Dead Saying

One of the main selling proposition in the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) is that he's "a new kind of Republican." In fact, that's the title of Chapter 5 in his new book Taking a Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America, which continuously makes the argument that the GOP needs to attract several new constituencies if it is to ever again win a national election.

As Paul puts it in a chapter about his outreach to inner-city voters:

Right now, the Republican brand sucks. I promised Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, that I would stop saying the GOP sucks, and I will (except for this last time). But both Reince and I know that the same old begets the same old. I believe the Republican Party and minorities have common ground. The Republican Party can rightly serve minority communities if we stay true to our core, be open to new ideas, and boldly profess what we believe in.


https://reason.com/blog/2015/06/05/19-things-in-rand-pauls-new-book-no-othe

How Harry Reid just helped out Rand Paul

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) might have just done Rand Paul a solid.

Allow us to explain.

Reid's home state, Nevada, has the chance to be a major player in the 2016 presidential nominating contest. That's because in 2008, then-Majority Leader Reid successfully maneuvered to make Nevada one of four early nominating states for Democrats. Not to be left out, Republicans followed suit.

There was one catch: Nevada's parties would hold a caucus -- the better to not upset New Hampshire, which understandably waned to maintain its status is the first state to hold a primary. (Nevada was originally scheduled ahead of New Hampshire, though today it holds its caucuses after the Granite State.)

The problem: A caucus is more difficult to put on than a primary and has lower turnout. It's also much more unpredictable. Across the nation, caucuses generally draw 5 percent of voters, while primaries can draw anywhere from 15 percent to 25 percent, Darrell West, an elections expert with the Brookings Institution, told me this spring.

[How Rand Paul may have just gotten lucky in Vegas]

In 2012, just about 8 percent of the state's Republican voters participated in the Nevada caucus, the AP's Nicholas Riccardi reported. That's higher than your average caucus, but Nevada is supposed to be a crucial state, where one would expect higher turnout.

...more...http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/06/03/how-harry-reid-just-helped-out-rand-paul/

Meet Rand Paul’s Nerd Army: Like Mathletes, but for Liberty

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/03/meet-rand-paul-s-nerd-army-like-mathletes-but-for-liberty.html

Behind every good liberty-loving crusader is a liberty-loving posse.
When Senator Rand Paul left the Capitol on Sunday evening, after successfully causing the temporary death of several provisions in the PATRIOT Act, he and Congressman Justin Amash piled into a shiny, black Tesla, driven by Congressman Thomas Massie.

With his opposition to mass government surveillance on the American people, Paul stands alone in the wilderness among his Republican colleagues in the Senate. In the House, however, Paul has a band of cheerleaders—and they seem to follow him everywhere.

Amash and Massie had spent the duration of Paul’s lengthy speech observing from the benches in the back of the Senate chamber and out in the hallway, promising to block any measure the Senate sent to the House in the event that they were able to get something passed before the PATRIOT Act expired at midnight. Amash said he and Massie—along with members of the Liberty Caucus—had remained in D.C. last week to “guard the House” from any leadership attempts to pass the renewals.

More...http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/03/meet-rand-paul-s-nerd-army-like-mathletes-but-for-liberty.html

Ron talks about Rand on CNN w/ Michael Smerconish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVNlTTzSCms

Ron tells it like it is like he always has. Very supportive of Rand, his son.

HUNDREDS PACK MANCHESTER OFFICE TO HEAR RAND PAUL BASH ‘ARROGANT WASHINGTON MACHINE’: ‘THEY DON’T READ THE BILLS’

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — At least two hundred people packed into a tiny office space in downtown Manchester to hear 2016 GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)93%
 bash the “Washington machine” and hammer both parties in Congress for failing to read legislation like Obamatrade before voting on it.

He also touted his big victory this past week against the National Security Agency (NSA) bulk data collection program, and the PATRIOT Act—which he forced to expire. Paul said as the crowd of hundreds—which started arriving more than an hour before the senator came—cheered:

Tonight we’ve got a message, a message for the Washington machine: We’ve come to take our liberty back. Some in Washington say that you have to trade your liberty for security so we had a big grand debate, 10 and a half hours on one day then we came back for a few more hours. Now some in the Washington machine didn’t want me to be there and they didn’t want to be there. They wanted to be on vacation. We caused them to give a little bit of their vacation up to have a very important debate: Can you have your liberty, can you keep your liberty and can you also have security?

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/05/hundreds-pack-manchester-office-to-hear-rand-paul-bash-arrogant-washington-machine-they-dont-read-the-bills/

Rand Paul seeks to tie Pentagon funding to release of classified 9/11 docs

The Kentucky Senator and GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul filed an amendment to a military funding bill, demanding the release of 28 pages from the 9/11 report that have been classified since 2002 and allegedly link Saudi Arabia to the attacks.

Paul originally submitted a separate bill, titled the “Transparency for the Families of 9/11 Act” (S.1471), earlier this week, with the backing of Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York). On Friday afternoon, however, he said there would also be an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – a bill funding military operations for the next fiscal year.

“For over 13 years, the family members of the victims of September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks have been deprived of the details surrounding the redacted 28 pages of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry,” Paul said. ”I firmly believe the American people deserve a government that instills trust and a restoration of their sense of security, and think my amendment is a step in the right direction.”

While the wording of the amendment is not known, Paul says it would “require” the President to declassify the pages within 60 days of the NDAA’s adoption.

More...http://rt.com/usa/265375-rand-paul-28-pages-pentagon/

EXCLUSIVE — RAND PAUL SLAMS RUBIO OVER OBAMATRADE: ‘WE SHOULD READ LEGISLATION BEFORE WE VOTE ON IT’

MERRIMACK, New Hampshire — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is opening fire on Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and everyone else who backed or is backing Obamatrade without reading the text of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) that Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) would fast track.

In an interview on Saturday morning, when asked about the revelation that Rubio and others in the Republican Party voted to fast-track the TPP in the Senate—and many in the House GOP leadership have been pushing it—without reading the text of the TPP in the secret room inside the Capitol, Paul went ballistic.

“The American people are frustrated by Congress—Congress has about a 10 percent approval rating,” Paul said. “I think part of that is that they don’t think we’re taking the amount of time to do an adequate job to read the legislation. It’s sort of twofold: They don’t give us enough time, and they also make the bills too long. I have a bill called Read The Bills Act, and in it there’s a requirement that you have to wait one day for every 20 pages of legislation. So 800-page legislation [like Obamatrade] would wait 40 days. You’d wait 40 days so we’d have adequate time to read it. Yeah, I’m a believer that we should read legislation before we vote on it.”

Paul’s interview with Breitbart News came inside Joey’s Diner, where several presidential candidates campaign. Paul gave brief remarks to kick off an event with local conservatives, then shook hands, talked with patrons, and took pictures with them.

Paul also said that “absolutely” President Barack Obama should immediately release the TPP text, instead of keeping it hidden from the public.

...

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/06/exclusive-rand-paul-slams-rubio-over-obamatrade-we-should-read-legislation-before-we-vote-on-it/

[Video] Rand Paul speaks at "Pints for Liberty" event in Greenville, SC - 5/29/15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeEJMO-jT2A

Full House! Rand heavily invokes the 9th Amendment and the 4th, 5th and 6th.