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As the fight against the Islamic State group has progressed, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday that he believed it was in the country’s best interest to keep American forces in Iraq for well after the defeat of ISIS, Military Times reported. Mattis, joined by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman and Gen. Joseph Dunford, was outlining his request for an additional $30 billion in funding for the military in the 2017 fiscal year budget. Mattis, a former Marine, detailed a three-phase, three-year plan to prepare and refurbish the military with new equipment and more training. “Phase one...

Portland officials estimate that more than 100 asylum seekers may be cut off from the state’s General Assistance program after July 1 and question whether the city can step in to help without violating federal law. Immigrants who have come to the United States legally to seek asylum from persecution have long received General Assistance in Portland. But it wasn’t until 2015 that assistance was solidified in Maine law. However, under the new law, asylum seekers can only receive benefits for 24 months. That means some asylum seekers will become ineligible for state assistance during the fiscal year that begins...

Half of federal law enforcement arrests in 2014 were immigration-related crimes Immigration-related crimes made up half of all federal law enforcement arrests in 2014, according to a new Department of Justice report released Thursday. Immigration offenses accounted for more than 81,000 of the 165,256 arrests made by federal authorities in 2014, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found in its study. Nearly two-thirds of the total number of federal arrests occurred in the five jurisdictions that sit along the U.S.-Mexican border. The report further found those arrested along the U.S. southern border to be more likely than those arrested in any...

WASHINGTON – Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort will testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Monday, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., revealed Friday morning. Nunes, the committee chairman, also said he has asked FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers to testify in a closed session on Tuesday. They are likely to be presented with information that contradicts their testimony before the committee on Monday that they had no information to support President Trump’s claims that President Obama spied on him. While the NSA has agreed to turn over more reports on the apparent spying...

Congress no longer has the credibility to independently tackle a probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and President Trump and his associates' ties to Moscow, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday. "It's a bizarre situation, and what I think, the reason why I'm calling for this select committee or a special committee, is I think that this back-and-forth and what the American people have found out so far that no longer does the Congress have credibility to handle this alone," McCain told MSNBC's Greta Van Susteren. "And I don't say that lightly." McCain's comments come amid an...

John Podesta, national chairman of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, may have opened himself up to a Russian “influence campaign” designed to temper his views of the Kremlin, the Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF) Investigative Group has learned. Influence campaigns are conducted by many governments — including the United States — with the aim of influencing decision makers in other countries to realign their geopolitical worldviews more closely to the influencing country. Some national security experts interviewed by TheDCNF wonder if Podesta may still be membership, in which one-third of the board were top Russian businessmen...

John Podesta, national chairman of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, may have opened himself up to a Russian “influence campaign” designed to temper his views of the Kremlin, The Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF) Investigative Group has learned. Influence campaigns are conducted by many governments — including the United States — with the aim of influencing decision makers in other countries to realign their geopolitical worldviews more closely to the influencing country. Some national security experts interviewed by TheDCNF wonder if Podesta may still be a target of Russian influence. They trace the campaign back to...

Hollywood produces movies that must be designed to brainwash the American people. If the production and distribution of movies got into the hands of anyone worse than most current Hollywood producers, we would be in for an alarming reality. John W. Cones, in his book A Study in Motion Picture Propaganda, explains, “The Hollywood-based U.S. motion picture industry is controlled by a single very narrowly defined interest group. It further concludes that it is inappropriate for any such group to control a significant medium for the communication of ideas in a society that is as diverse as that in the...

North Korea will launch another nuclear test in next few days, officials say By Lucas Tomlinson, Jennifer Griffin Published March 23, 2017 FoxNews.com U.S. defense officials have seen evidence that North Korea has completed digging new tunnels around the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, but it still has to move more equipment into the area for a possible test, the official added. The Pentagon is keeping a close eye on these looming developments. NORTH KOREA MISSILE TESTS FAIL SECONDS AFTER LAUNCH, US OFFICIALS SAY North Korea’s nuclear preparations prompted the U.S. military in recent days to move a surveillance aircraft used...

Iran has been smuggling suicidal drones, similar to models developed by Israel, to Houthi rebels in Yemen. The drones are outfitted for attacks on UAE and Saudi Patriot missile batteries. The news comes via examination of seven Qasef-1 drones that were interdicted or captured in Yemen. Iran runs a fairly elaborate smuggling operation that furnishes weapons and other material to Houthi rebels in western Yemen. According to a report by Conflict Armament Research, six of the drones were captured last October along a known smuggling route that runs through Oman. Another was recovered following a February attack by Houthi...

Ukraine's largest munitions depot literally blew up yesterday, sending mushroom clouds rising and rockets flying in every direction. Most the city of Balakliya, around 20,000 people, were told to evacuate following the initial blasts, causing a chaotic exodus including gridlock traffic as secondary explosions continued to erupt at the nearby depot. At this time, no deaths have been attributed to the ongoing incident. There has been a six mile exclusion zone established around the depot and a 31-mile radius no fly zone above it. Ukraine has called on NATO to help them deal with the runaway disaster. The government...

In an admission that demonstrate the scale of the problem now posed in Europe by radical Islam, the Mayor of Brussels has admitted that all of the mosques controlled in the Belgian capital are controlled by Salafists, who believe in a radical interpretation of Islam.Mayeur admits that: “Everyone knows that all mosques in Brussels are in the hands of Salafists,” adding that: “We need to change this, we need new mosques that follow our democratic rules and that are being controlled by the government.”Salafism is a a form of religious fundamentalism, with supporters believing in a return to the ‘original...

UNREAL SWEDEN: Gothenburg City Theatre is now performing the play "Jihadisten" (the jihadist) - to better understand ISIS terrorists. With the play "Jihadisten," visitors to the Gothenburg City Theatre may now get a more nuanced picture of the Swedish IS terrorists who are traveling to Iraq and Syria to participate in the ongoing war. During Wednesday night, the theatrical play "Jihadisten" (the jihadist) premiered at the Gothenburg City Theatre. The play is about what happens to young people in Sweden when they are radicalized and eventually decide to become part of the terrorist group IS. But the play is...

Rinkeby is a suburban housing estate near Stockholm, where the Swedish welfare state keeps a large number of unassimilated migrants. 90% of the population is non-Swedish and many of these are Somalians given to crime and rioting. *snip* The police station will feature bullet proof windows, walls reinforced with sheet metal, and fencing around it, possibly with electrified barbed wire. So it will look more like a military installation than anything.

China's militarization of its man-made islands in the South China Sea and the resulting anti-access/area-denial bubbles that will cover massive swaths of that body of water in the not-so-distant future, has Vietnam shopping for weaponry that can counter Beijing's grand plans. Hanoi has already forward-deployed Israeli-built GPS-guided Extra multiple launch rocket systems to their own islands in the South China Sea—a weapon system that could rain down rockets on China's outposts with little warning. Now, Vietnam is looking towards Israel once again for its weapons needs, this time to provide an standoff multi-role cruise missile that can strike targets over...

America’s 16-years in Afghanistan has so far resulted in 2,216 dead soldiers, 20,049 casualties, and an estimated $800 billion in direct war costs -- not including veterans’ health and pension payments that could reach $400 billion before it’s all over. Add another $100 billion of USAID reconstruction costs, which is more than the cost of the Marshall Plan to rebuild western Europe, adjusted for inflation, and you’re well over a trillion dollars. The Pentagon still has 8,400 troops in place, a figure Defense Secretary James Mattis may alter, which is why it’s especially troubling that Russia has decided to flex...

Danish conglomerate A. P. Møller-Mærsk’s shipping arm, Maersk Line, has been issued with a summons by antitrust authorities in the US. The company is subject of an investigation into suspected price fixing along with a number of other large container shipping companies, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The summons were handed out during a raid on a San Francisco meeting attended by 20 bosses of the industry’s biggest companies, says the report. …

AN Islamic community centre is generously giving $5000 for this year’s CBD Anzac Dawn Service after Sydney’s arty-farty Lord Mayor Clover Moore refused a grant for our brave Diggers. Ms Moore’s City of Sydney council has a whopping $574.3 million in the bank but has rejected an application­ from the Anzac Dawn Service Trust for a measly $5000 for next month’s commemorations. At the same time the Lord Mayor has been splashing the cash among her arts mates, including a recent $14,000 grant for a weird exhibition of crochet headwear. After The Daily Telegraph highlighted the issue, Imam Hasan Centre...

Addressing the growing domestic and international demand for the French fighter aircraft, Dassault and the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA) will soon begin a six-year development phase of the next-generation Rafale F4. The French Minister of Defense, Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian, authorized the start of development of the next generation variant of the Rafale. The aircraft will introduce new capacities empowered by the modern missile and engine technologies. The new variant will follow the Rafale F3-R currently in development and scheduled to complete the qualification testing next year. Dassault now produces Rafales to fulfill French orders for 180 aircraft, along...

China plans to increase the size of its marine corps from about 20,000 to 100,000 personnel to protect the nation’s maritime lifelines and its growing interests overseas, military insiders and experts have said. Some members would be stationed at ports China operates in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and Gwadar in southwest Pakistan, they said. The expanded corps is part of a wider push to refocus the world’s largest army away from winning a land war based on sheer numbers and towards meeting a range of security scenarios using highly specialised units. Towards that end, Chinese President Xi Jinping...