Even w/ the all the ISIS propaganda and past finance of them hasn't gotten Americans as a whole to want to get deeply involved despite the major economic interests are so gun-ho in favor of intervention. Many in the GOP have been juiced up by non-stop Fox coverage of ISIS for intervening somehow and w/o Rand Paul saying his piece, this number would be even larger. I hardly doubt Americans will give a crap about what's going on over in the southeast Asian territories if they are even aware of what is going on. Of course, the government usually does what it does in spite of the populace at times so who knows.

I share the same sentiments as Dafar but this is the perfect kind of thread to summon numb nuts out of their layer.

Big GOP donors shun Rand Paul over foreign policy and Israel

WASHINGTON — Some of the biggest donors and fundraisers in the Republican Party, still uncertain who should get their support in 2016, are sprinkling their money around a presidential field that grows by the day.

The largesse born of their indecision has a notable exception: Rand Paul.

The Kentucky senator has aggressively tried to raise money around his effort to curtail the surveillance powers of the National Security Agency, emailing supporters and posting messages on social media imploring people to “celebrate this victory” with their cash.

In doing so, he’s exacerbated the perception among some of the GOP’s most generous donors that his positions on foreign policy make him an unacceptable choice for the White House. This is especially so to those who consider an aggressive posture abroad and support for Israel paramount.

“I do not know of a single person in Mitt Romney’s donor network who will be with Rand Paul,” said Phil Rosen, a Manhattan attorney and top fundraiser for the 2012 Republican nominee. Rosen said he met with Paul and politely told him he wouldn’t be supporting him “because of his isolationist and libertarian policies.”

Rosen hasn’t settled on his choice in next year’s primary contest but expects to decide soon from a short list. Other prominent donors are doing the same, with some willing to give money to multiple candidates in the early stages of the campaign, but not to Paul.

Among them: Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson, New York hedge fund pioneer Michael Steinhardt and Ken Abramowitz, founder of a venture capital firm in New York. All three have given money to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who announced his presidential campaign on Monday by saying he wants “to be president to defeat the enemies trying to kill us.”

More...http://nypost.com/2015/06/02/big-gop-donors-shun-rand-paul-over-foreign-policy-and-israel/

The first-ever "female Viagra" came one step closer to coming to market,  as a key advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration voted Thursday afternoon to recommend that the FDA approve the drug with conditions.

The committee voted 18-6 to recommend that the FDA approve flibanserin, a drug designed to boost the low sexual desire of otherwise healthy women.

The FDA usually follows the recommendations of its advisory committees, but not always. Its decision is expected by the end of the summer. The agency has already rejected the drug twice, saying the potential side effects of fainting, nausea, dizziness, sleepiness and low-blood pressure outweighed its benefits. Even on Thursday, the committee described the drug benefit as "moderate" or "marginal."

But after an afternoon of emotional testimony from women who suffer from low sexual desire, a condition called Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, the majority of committee members said that, with proper warning labels and education, the drug, even with a moderate benefit, should be made available to women who now have nothing.

More...http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/06/04/widely-varying-views-of-female-viagra-emerge-at-fda-hearing/

I wonder if the price shifts according to whether the woman spits or swallows..? Doesn't matter really, consider that the average blowjob is like 5-10 mins or less so do the math and everyone is happy be it the employer or the blower after a full shift when all is tallied up. Yet, it's sounding like a labor intensive job via the mouth doing this sort of thing on such a shift at any weekly rate. The servers must love what they do despite the scum that they blow or can they discriminate...?

Great sig campaign, always paid on time w/ no issues. Like clockwork.

Ancient underground tunnel that links Colosseum with remains of gladiatorial training barracks could be restored with donation from Kuwait

An ancient underground tunnel that links the Colosseum with the remains of a gladiatorial training barracks could be restored and opened to the public thanks to a donation from Kuwait.

Generations of gladiators lived and trained in the Ludus Magnus or Great Gladiatorial Training School, the largest such facility in Rome, which was located just a few hundred yards from the amphitheatre.

The remains of the training school can still be seen, squeezed between two busy roads in the shadow of the Colosseum and frequently littered with rubbish.

The authorities in Rome have long wanted to restore the archaeological site and open up the tunnel which leads from the barracks into the bowels of the Colosseum.

Gladiators would don their helmets and armour and collect their weapons before walking through the torchlit passageway to emerge onto the sandy arena of the amphitheatre, in scenes depicted memorably by the Ridley Scott film Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe.

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11651780/Gladiator-school-to-be-restored-in-Rome.html

Looted Drugs Fueling Deadly Turf Wars in Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore’s top cop confirms what WJZ has been reporting – -almost 200,000 narcotics are on the streets of Baltimore, and police say they’re fueling deadly turf wars.

Police believe stolen prescription drugs are driving the violence sweeping the city.
“There’s enough narcotics on the streets of Baltimore to keep it intoxicated for a year,” Commissioner Batts said.

More than 175,000 units or doses of drugs were looted from 27 pharmacies and two methadone clinics during the April 27 riots. Almost half of those businesses haven’t even finished assessing what was stolen.

More...http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/06/03/batts-enough-stolen-drugs-on-the-streets-to-keep-baltimore-high-for-a-year/

Crazy, it didn't even dawn on me that pre-x drugs were to blame for all the violence after the hoodlums ransacked these pharmacy stores until this story said the obvious. Can you imagine all the percecet, oxy and whatever else these lowlifes got ahold of? Free product instead of messing w/ the same old street stuff and look what happens!

When you're deeply immersed in black ops, be it intelligence or shenanigans, you tend to think laws or some sort of morality don't apply to you. I mean, if you're a CIA agent, you certainly don't worry about that which normal citizens think/worry about. You're on a specific project and usually it is all about cultivating relationships in shitholes and leveraging that to do your bidding. Eventually, you become almost a mirror of what you're tasked to run off.

Secret societies have inflated impressions of themselves and being CIA is the pinnacle of that w/ unlimited money at your disposal w/ no accountability to worry about in most instances.

On the two-year anniversary of when his leaks detailing secret spy operations at the National Security Agency first emerged, landing like a thunderclap around the world, the former intelligence contractor appears more confident than ever that his actions have permanently altered the surveillance debate.

"The balance of power is beginning to shift," Snowden said in a statement provided to select news organizations by Amnesty International and Privacy International. "With each court victory, with every change in law, we demonstrate facts are more convincing than fear."

Snowden has good reason to be riding high after the Senate broke a logjam this week to pass the first significant reform to government surveillance practices since the nation began supercharging its spying powers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The USA Freedom Act, which was swiftly signed into law by President Obama, will effectively end the NSA's bulk collection of U.S. call data—the first program exposed by a Snowden-fueled article in The Guardian on June 5, 2013.

But the Freedom Act only deals significantly with one of the NSA's many spying operations—one that has been deemed illegal by a federal appeals court, ineffective by two government review panels and not even that desired by some high-ranking officials.

More...http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/edward-snowden-is-not-going-away-20150604

Chris Christie at the bat: New Jersey Gov. shows gutsy moves at all-star NYPD fundraiser, earns MVP

It was Christie at the bat.

He’s no Bambino, but New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie didn't look too out of place Wednesday night while swinging for the fences at Yankee Stadium.

Even if his uniform was stretched to its physical limits, Christie looked smooth in the field at the "True Blue" celebrity softball game to honor Wenjian Liu, Brian Moore and Rafael Ramos, NYPD officers killed in the line of duty.

Christie wore No. 41, played third base and batted sixth, behind the not-so murderers row of Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan and radio hosts Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton, who organized the event.

Christie made a gutsy play in the field for an out in the first and, despite a smattering of boos, gave the ball a ride in his first at-bat -- a fly out to left field.

More and you gotta see the pics of this guy...http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/chris-christie-bat-gutsy-moves-nypd-fundraiser-article-1.2245998

Leaked trade deal stops countries from saying where your data goes

There's been a fair share of leaked trade deals raising hackles in recent memory, but the latest could have some big repercussions for your data privacy. WikiLeaks has slipped out details of the in-progress Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), and one of its clauses would prevent the US, European Union and 23 other nations from controlling both where your data is stored as well as whether or not it's accessible from outside of the country. Germany, for example, couldn't demand that Facebook and Google store residents' account information on local servers.

The pact might also be bad news if you're a big fan of open source programs. One article would ban countries from requiring access to the code of "mass-market" software in order to provide services related to that software. A TISA partner could still use Linux, OpenOffice and other software with easy-to-dissect code, but it couldn't require that kind of software.

Negotiations for TISA are happening behind closed doors, and it's not clear whether or not these measures would make the final cut. However, they're definitely problematic. The restrictions on exports would prevent Russia-like control over data that makes it easier to censor and snoop on your communications, but they'd also make it hard to stop your info from traveling overseas. Likewise, while the open source clause would allow for more flexibility in software, it also risks weakening security by making it harder to check for spy agency back doors. As a whole, the agreement's tech-related elements favor businesses over privacy rights and transparency.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/03/tisa-limits-data-exports-and-open-source/

WikiLeaks releases documents related to controversial US trade pact
Document dump regarding Trade in Services Agreement comes day after organization put $100,000 bounty on documents from series of US trade treaties

WikiLeaks on Wednesday released 17 different documents related to the Trade in Services Agreement (Tisa), a controversial pact currently being hashed out between the US and 23 other countries – most of them in Europe and South America.

The document dump comes at a tense moment in the negotiations over a series of trade deals. President Barack Obama has clashed with his own party over the deals as critics have worried about the impact on jobs and civil liberties.

On Tuesday, WikiLeaks put a $100,000 bounty on documents relating to the alphabet soup of trade treaties currently being negotiated between the US and the rest of the world, particularly the controversial Trans-Pacific trade agreement (TPP). The offer, announced yesterday, has already raised more than $33,000.

Wednesday’s leak is the third time that WikLeaks has published sections from secret trade agreements. In January it leaked a chapter from the TPP related to the environment. In November 2013 it made public a draft of the agreement’s intellectual property chapter, containing proposals that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said would “trample over individual rights and free expression”.

More...http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jun/03/wikileaks-documents-trade-in-services-agreement

Perry joins presidential pack with emphasis on military service, leadership

ADDISON – Rick Perry launched his second presidential campaign on Wednesday, standing before the type of plane he flew as an Air Force captain and surrounded by Navy SEALs.

Speaking of the dangers in the world, Perry reinforced a key distinction he has among the pack of GOP candidates – his military service – and underscored that as Texas governor, he was tested by crisis, including Hurricane Katrina, a porous border and the Ebola outbreak.

“Now is the time for clear-sighted leadership,” he said, adding that the nation has suffered under a president elevated for his rhetoric and not his record.

This is the election where voters will ask, “ ‘Where have you led?’ It’s not a speech on the Senate floor. It’s not what you’ve said; it’s what you have done,” Perry said, a poke at such contenders as first-term senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

More...http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/06/perry-poised-to-join-presidential-pack.html/

Apparently, the writer didn't realize or simply forgot that Rand just led massively on the privacy issue recently or just plain thought he was a villain for it.

I'm not standing up for these boobs but the good news is that 15-20% of Hillary's favs have eroded over the last 6-9 months so that's a plus. The two bolded incidents are highly forgotten or unaware of by virtually all of those folks like they never happened. And when it comes to Benghazi or military stuff in general, much of the left is totally either unconcerned or so detached from any of it that there's no personal relation to it at all. Yet, much of the right is obsessed w/ military matters and the neocons want that to be paramount despite the record high debt which typically consumes the minds of only the conservative/libertarian base.

EXCLUSIVE: Clinton charity took up to $10 MILLION donation from African church which called homosexuals 'devils' - despite Hillary's support for gay marriage

Hillary Clinton's charity accepted a substantial donation from an anti-gay African church which has likened homosexuals to the Devil, Daily Mail Online can reveal.

The 2016 Presidential candidate took money for her sprawling health nonprofit from the Cameroon Baptist Convention whose official policy is that being gay 'contradicts God's purpose for human sexuality'.

The devout Christian organization has in the past compared being gay to committing incest and human trafficking. Its leaders have also railed against US attempts to promote gay rights in Cameroon.

Despite this, the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board gave between $1million and $10million between 2010 and this year, according to the latest list of donors from the Clinton Health Access Initiative.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3110165/Clinton-charity-took-multi-million-donation-African-church-called-homosexuals-devils-despite-Hillary-s-support-gay-marriage.html#ixzz3c97dqlII

You’re a Criminal in a Mass Surveillance World – How to Not Get Caught

Sometimes you just get lucky.

I was in Amsterdam when the Snowden story broke. CNN was non-stop asking politicians and pundits, “Is Edward Snowden a traitor?” Those who said he betrayed America also said something else: Mass surveillance is only an issue if you’re a criminal. If you’ve got nothing to hide then you’ve got nothing to fear.

The Snowden story hit me upon my return from – of all places on earth – the Secret Annex of the Anne Frank House. The Secret Annex is where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis for two years. It was during this period of hiding in terror that Anne wrote her world-famous diary. In it she confided, “I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met.”

I say I was lucky because the cosmic unlikeliness of my Secret Annex visit coinciding with Snowden’s mass surveillance revelations led to some revelations of my own. My understanding of law, criminality, and mass surveillance coalesced into a horrifying picture.

It turns out we’re all criminals in a mass surveillance world. The only question is whether we’ll get caught. Let me explain.

What Makes a Criminal?

Merriam-Webster defines crime as “activity that is against the law.” Law is defined as a “set of rules made by the government.” Thus a criminal is someone who breaks government rules.

The law as a whole is an ever-expanding collection of rules that politicians (“lawmakers”) decree and occasionally repeal. Laws are as moral as the politicians who make them.

Simply put, laws are the rules politicians make up, and criminals are people who break them.

It floored me to realize: Anne Frank was, in fact, a criminal. She was a fugitive of the law.

We can express outrage at the designation since Anne did nothing wrong. And we can debate which rules of any particular regime are tolerable or repugnant. But our opinions don’t change the fact that “criminal” is a government-defined standard imposed on us, the governed.

A law-abiding citizen was obligated to turn Anne into the police. To assist her was a crime. In America the Fugitive Slave Law obligated law-abiding citizens to turn in runaway slaves, and assisting them was punishable by 6 months in jail and a $28,000 fine (in today’s dollars).

In early colonial America masturbation, blasphemy, and homosexuality were crimes punishable by death. Virtually any act you can think of has been criminalized by one regime or another. Being a law-abiding citizen only means you comply with whatever rules politicians have imposed on you.

Throughout history we observe only a slight overlap between the endless supply of laws governments impose on people and the handful of acts we all agree are morally wrong: theft, assault, rape, murder.

More...https://bananas.liberty.me/youre-a-criminal-in-a-mass-surveillance-world-how-to-not-get-caught/

Americans are just going to have to trust the EPA’s 44 years of experience dealing with environmental issues when it comes to figuring out ways to cope with man-made global warming, says the agency’s chief.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told Big Think in an interview that while there are limits to how much the federal government can do for issues like global warming, the public needs to trust how the EPA translates the “complicated” science into real-life actions.

“Well I think we all have to recognize the strengths and limitations of government action,” McCarthy said. “But here’s what I think we can do at the federal level more effectively. We can speak to the science because it’s complicated and we do a lot of research and we do a lot of translation of the science into what it means for people so that the decisions can be made on the basis of real science and on the basis of a real technical understanding.”

“That’s how it has worked in EPA’s career for 44 years at EPA is we’ve listened to the science and the law and we have let solutions take off in the marketplace which is where the cheapest, most effective always win,” McCarthy said. “That’s why EPA can move environmental standards forward so effectively and grow jobs at the same time.”

...

http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/03/epa-chief-just-trust-us-on-climate-science/#ixzz3c7WpS8kC

Graham: 'Don't vote for me' if you're 'worn out by war'

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Americans on Thursday not to vote for him in the 2016 presidential election if they are worn out by war.

The 2016 GOP presidential candidate appeared on Fox News’s "Fox & Friends," where co-host Steve Doocy questioned his past war hawk rhetoric.

“It’s a tough message,” he told Graham. “A lot of people are just worn out by war.”

"Well, don’t vote for me," the Republican senator responded. "Don't vote for me, because I’m telling you what’s coming: Barack Obama’s policies leading from behind are going to allow another 9/11."

"[ISIS] is large, rich and entrenched,” he added, referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “If I’m president they will be poor, small and on the run.”

Graham also said that U.S. ground forces were necessary for defeating ISIS before they could reach targets on American soil.

“I’m trying to tell the American people and the Republican primary voter — the only way I know to defend this country is to send some of us back to Iraq and eventually to Syria to dig these guys out of the ground, destroy the Caliphate, kill as many of them as you can, hold territory and help people over there help themselves,” he said.

Graham further tied President Obama’s counterterrorism strategy to Hillary Clinton, his former secretary of State and the Democratic presidential front-runner.

“I think it’s the lack of confidence in her ability to distinguish herself from Barack Obama,” he said when asked about Clinton’s lack of media availability on the campaign trail.

“Her biggest nightmare is for someone to ask her, ‘Hey, do you think the war on terror is going well? Do you agree with Barack Obama’s foreign policy?’” he said. “’If you don’t, tell us why.’ ”

Graham added that Clinton’s perceived secrecy would likely cost her voters next year.

“Well, it’s easier to talk to the North Korean guy than it is her,” he quipped, comparing Clinton to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “At the end of the day, when 57 percent of people don’t trust you, you’ve got a problem,”

Graham officially launched his 2016 presidential campaign on Monday from his hometown of Central, S.C.

He has already made a muscular foreign policy a key theme of his bid. “I want to be president to defeat the enemies trying to kill us, not just penalize them or criticize them or contain them, but defeat them,” he said on Monday.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/244022-graham-dont-vote-for-me-if-youre-anti-war

Congressman Thomas Massie introduces and endorses Rand Paul at StandWithRand Rally in KY - 5/30/15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=12&v=BI2yg9mCcv8
Great analogy by Massie, Rand is like a UFC fighter coming into a "Pro Wrestling" match.