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Half of Syrian rebels are hardline Islamists: British study AFP - Jihadists and members of hardline Islamist groups make up almost half of forces fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to extracts from a British defence study published in Monday's Daily Telegraph. The analysis by defence consultancy IHS Jane's, due to be published in full later this week, puts the number of rebel forces at around 100,000, the Telegraph reported. But these fighters have split into as many as 1,000 bands since violence flared two years ago, the study concluded. Of the rebel forces, IHS Jane's estimates that around...

MISSOULA, Mont. – A federal judge has ordered a Montana newlywed to be released from jail on her own recognizance while awaiting a murder trial in the death of her husband in Glacier National Park. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch said Thursday that Jordan Linn Graham, 22, of Kalispell did not pose a flight risk because of her strong community ties and did not appear to be a danger to others. Graham allegedly pushed Cody Lee Johnson, 25, face-first off a cliff to his death in the national park on July 7 after the two argued. Earlier that day, prosecutors...

Chinese diplomats in Syria as well as Beijing's embassy are under regular threat from rebel attacks, China's ambassador to Syria has confided to local media outlets. In an interview with the Global Times [ link at site], Zhang Xun, China's ambassador to Syria said that Beijing's embassy has increasingly been caught in the cross-hairs of fighting between rebel and government forces in recent months... Zhang said that in another attack last month, Syrian rebels fired mortar shells at President Bashar al-Assad's motorcade. They missed the Syrian leader but hit a building that was located just 10 meters from the Chinese...

Cairo: The Arab League will back a Russian plan to place Syrian chemical weapons under international supervision for eventual destruction, its secretary general said on Tuesday. Nabil al-Arabi told reporters in Cairo the League will 'soon issue a statement announcing its support officially' for the Russian plan... "If you remember, I always insisted that (the Syrian conflict) needs a political solution" Arabi said. But they fell short of calling for military strikes as proposed by Washington, with several members opposed to foreign intervention in Syria.

A series of fresh revelations about atrocities and war crimes perpetrated by Western-backed Syrian "rebels" had sparked alarm among analysts, further complicating Obama's already tough-push for support to launch military strikes against the Assad regime. ... the latest atrocities are being cited by critics of the warmongering as more reasons not to join the civil war on behalf of ruthless jihadists... Christian villagers quoted in new reports [URL at link] said the rebels had, among other atrocities, forced them to convert to Islam or be murdered while shouting the now-infamous "Allahu Akbar" war cry. Christian homes and churches were reportedly...

The Talk Shows September 7th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House chief of staff Denis McDonough; Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): McDonough; Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M.; Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, Peter King, R-N.Y., and Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif.FACE THE NATION (CBS): McDonough; Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., Justin Amash, R-Mich., and Elijah Cummings, D-Md.THIS WEEK (ABC): McDonough; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): McDonough; Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.; Reps. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Jim McGovern, D-Mass., Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., Barbara Lee, D-Calif.,...

Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh says the U.S. Air Force is not in an ideal place to lead a major Syria offensive...

The Mainstream (Establishment) Media is trying to once again do the Republican vs Democrat thingy: that Obama has proposed some serious (cough, laugh) changes to the NSA spying program, and those wascally wepubs (Rep. McCaul and Peter King (R-GOP-e) are trying to thwart him. I never thought that I would see a recent liberal rally where hundreds marched (not reported by the MSM-e) where a person would be carrying a sign that said Snowden, patriot and Pelosi, traitor. And even the New York Times (Editorial Board, June 6th: Obama administration has lost all credibility on the issue of the NSA...

Texas has done a lot of good for this country: the King Ranch and Texas-style chili. Dr. Pepper and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. Rick Perry and Ted Cruz. Patrick Swayze. Texas also gave America Sheila Jackson Lee. So let’s call it even. Since 1995, Jackson Lee (D.) has represented Texas’s 18th congressional district, which comprises much of inner-city Houston. Now at least one group on Capitol Hill is eyeing her for higher office: The Congressional Black Caucus is recommending that Jackson Lee replace Janet Napolitano as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Jackson Lee is one of 32 House...

Lee County, Florida Sheriff Mike Scott sent a letter to Lee County Branch NAACP president James Muwakkil explaining his disdain for the way he believes the NAACP ignores "epidemic" black-on-black violence in certain parts of Florida while allegedly trying to recast the Trayvon Martin shooting as white vs. black violence to score political points. Sheriff Scott was invited to the NAACP's "Freedom Fund Awards Banquet" and was even asked to sponsor the event financially, but as he made clear in his July 16 letter, "[he] will not be doing either." Regarding the lack of NAACP response to black-on-black violence, Scott...

(CNN) -- The George Zimmerman investigation was hijacked "in a number of ways" by outside forces, said the former police chief of Sanford, Florida. Bill Lee, who testified Monday in Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial, told CNN's George Howell in an exclusive interview that he felt pressure from city officials to arrest Zimmerman to placate the public rather than as a matter of justice. "It was (relayed) to me that they just wanted an arrest. They didn't care if it got dismissed later," he said. "You don't do that." When Sanford police arrived on the scene on February 26, 2012, after...

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — On the second day of fighting at Gettysburg, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee listened to scouting reports, scanned the battlefield and ordered his second-in-command, James Longstreet, to attack the Union Army's left flank. It was a fateful decision, one that led to one of the most desperate clashes of the entire Civil War — the fight for a piece of ground called Little Round Top. The Union's defense of the boulder-strewn promontory helped send Lee to defeat at Gettysburg, and he never again ventured into Northern territory. Why did the shrewd and canny Lee choose to...

The Talk Shows June 23th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mike Lee, R-Utah; Gabriel Gomez, Republican nominee for Senate in Massachusetts.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Reps. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., and Mike Rogers, R-Mich.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.THIS WEEK (ABC): Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency; Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas; Mike Kelly, R-Pa.; and Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,...

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced two amendments to protect the religious liberties of military service members, both of which passed last week in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Speech at Family Research Council, Washington D.C. Admiral Says "I am not backing down"

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee took to the House floor Monday night and implied that the right to health care and education exists in the Constitution. Ms. Jackson Lee, Texas Democrat, also made the case that the moral authority for such services is also derived from the Declaration of Independence. “One might argue that education and health care fall into those provisions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she said.

Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, has sued her literary agent for allegedly duping her into assigning him the copyright on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Lee says Samuel Pinkus, the son-in-law of Lee's long-time agent, Eugene Winick, took advantage of her failing hearing and eyesight to transfer the rights on the book, which has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and became an Oscar-winning film. The 87-year-old says she has no memory of agreeing to relinquish her rights or signing the agreement that cements the purported transfer.

Full title - "'You deserve to rot in hell for what you have done to me': Daughter's twitter outburst about mom who has resurfaced after being missing for ELEVEN years" The teenage daughter of a woman who secretly left her family 11 years ago says she's angry and doesn't want to have a relationship with her. Morgan Heist said Thursday that she's still trying to sort out why Brenda Heist would have decided to abandon her and her brother in Pennsylvania in 2002 and hitchhike with strangers to Florida. Morgan Heist is now a 19-year-old freshman at a community college...

Booker T. Washington, America’s great Black-American Educator wrote in 1910, 'The first white people in America, certainly the first in the South to exhibit their interest in the reaching of the Negro and saving his soul through the medium of the Sunday-school were Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.”

The Honorable* (Your Senator) (Address) "I was disappointed to see that 68 Senators did not support the Paul-Cruz-Lee filibuster. Now that the Senate has moved to proceed to S. 649, several gun control issues will be coming up - including the universal registry bill, the Feinstein gun ban, and the magazine ban. As for the Toomey-Manchin-Schumer universal registry bill, don't believe the press' efforts to sugar-coat it. If you have ever had an "Internet ... posting" on (or related to) your gun, you can sell it only by going to a dealer and filling out a 4473 and getting the...