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This post contains spoilers regarding the third episode of Game of Thrones’ eighth season. Game of Thrones’ much-anticipated Battle of Winterfell is over — and all I can say is “whoa.” Actually, that’s not true. “The Long Night” was a great episode, but I’m not the only one pointing out that the military strategy and tactics on offer — especially by the Army of the Living — were pretty awful. The opening Dothraki charge was ill-advised at best. There seemed to be few defenses on the walls of Winterfell. And why didn’t Jon or Dany use their dragons to burn...

Court documents approved for release in the lead-up to a massive Justice Department watchdog report on the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email account offer fodder for both critics and defenders of the bureau's work. The newly-unsealed court filings, obtained by POLITICO, may well serve as a Rorschach test about the Clinton email probe. They demonstrate that the FBI's investigation did not rely solely on the voluntary cooperation of those involved, since agents and prosecutors used a combination of search warrants and other court orders to gain evidence relevant to the probe. At the same time, the records do...

AL-RAQQA– Considering IS’ state and its attacks’ tactics within al-Raqqa city, it comes to light the extent to which its collapse is imminent, still, the situation should not be underestimated since victory cannot be achieved so easily.Syrian Democratic Forces have declared on June 6 the commencement of the al-Raqqa liberation from IS gangs, SDF broke into the city from the eastern and western sides after fierce clashes with IS gangs.The forces managed till now to liberate 8 neighborhoods from IS gangs which are :al-Sabahiya, al-Romaniyah, al-Qadisiyah, Huteen, Yarmouk western al-Raqqa and al-Mushlab, al-Sinaa, and al-Batani eastern of the city, and...

2016 was a great year for most of us – but just because we’ve gained the beachhead doesn’t mean we’re going to win the war. With Brexit and Donald Trump, we’ve done the equivalent of capturing everywhere from Pointe Du Hoc to Pegasus Bridge. But just like with D-Day, the worst of the fighting is yet to come. Our enemy is fanatical, determined, well organised. Plus, they still hold most of the key positions: the big banks, the corporations, the top law firms, the civil service, local government, the universities, the schools, the mainstream media, Hollywood… Give those bastards half...

It is beyond dispute that the left is winning the current culture war and doing so by a landslide. In response to this reality I’ve heard many conservatives say we just need to start making better arguments for our positions. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are not losing because our arguments are inferior. We are losing because of tactics rather than substance. Put simply, the left has learned how to do two things: 1) Control the language in the national debate 2) Get their ideas disseminated and accepted without any evidentiary basis.There is one Christian apologist who...

I don’t know what this means. Probably it’s not supposed to mean anything. I think Team Trump’s just throwing words out there now, the more sinister the better, to delegitimize the fact that Cruz is humiliating them in wrangling delegates. (We’re a week away, I figure, from Manafort comparing Cruz’s delegate operation to slaveholding.) It may even be that the more vicious Trump and his allies get, the more hyperbolic the Trump’s campaign’s accusations against Cruz will become to try to create a false sense that the race has turned equally nasty on both sides. Note that the “Gestapo” answer...

There is quite a bit out there about making "black lists" of Trump supporters. I support Ted Cruz for the nomination. I have what I believe are legitimate concerns with Donald Trump. Nonetheless, I will express those concerns at the ballot box, as part of the democratic process. If Mr. Trump should attain the nomination fair and square one has the right to withhold their support, sit it out, vote for Hillary whatever floats their boat. I myself will not. I plan on supporting him. If I held my nose and supported Romney, I think I can manage some support...

For over eight years the Israeli company SodaStream has been dealing with ongoing attacks by the BDS movement, calling to boycott it over its factory in Mishor Adumim to the east of Jerusalem that eventually it was forced to move to the Negev in late 2014. Large economic losses inflicted by the BDS boycott movement forced the company to make the move - but the big losers in the story are the hundreds of Palestinian Arab employees of SodaStream who lost their jobs and income. SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum spoke to Yedioth Aharonoth about the hardships which came to the...

Governor Terry Branstad is crediting Ted Cruz for running an "old-fashioned", 99-county campaign that yielded victory in Monday night's Iowa Caucuses, but Branstad is joining the chorus criticizing Cruz for "questionable" campaign tactics. "This thing that they distributed on Caucus night saying that Dr. Carson was likely to drop out and his supporters should support Cruz, that is, I think, unethical and unfair," Branstad said this morning. "I think there'll be repercussions to that." Cruz has apologized to Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who finished fourth in the Caucuses on Monday night. Iowa Congressman Steve King, a Cruz backer, helped spread...

There has been some revealing new information coming out recently regarding the strategy against ISIS. One aspect many find troubling is the apparent failure of U.S. and coalition forces to sufficiently target and destroy oil infrastructure located in ISIS territory, which accounts for a significant portion of the terror group's annual income. The argument goes, if we want to impact their operations, we should target their primary sources of income, and choke off their operational funds. So, why does ISIS oil infrastructure still stand? Is this the result of an intelligence failure? Negligence? Or, is there a more purposeful reason?...

Ricardo Nunez was trimming a tree outside his Echo Park home on a Sunday morning last month when a white truck pulled up and a person inside opened fire, killing the 35-year-old father. Ray Martinez, the LAPD detective investigating the case, is seeing fewer such fatal drive-by shootings. When Martinez goes behind the yellow tape, he's more commonly working on cases where a gunman has walked straight up to the victim — a walk-up shooting. As gang culture has become less overt, the killings have become more targeted — and at the same time more chilling. "They get to see...

Six years ago, then-candidate Obama was encased in sophisticated artwork that conveyed his campaign message of “Hope and Change.” Leading up to the 2014 elections he may have not abandoned change, but he certainly has abandoned hope as his guiding principle to help maintain the U.S. Senate in the hands of The Undertaker and his fellow Democrats. Faced with a fusillade of political analysis from left, right, and center, forecasting anywhere from a drubbing to an unmitigated disaster for Democratic candidates in November, Obama and his team had to develop a plan of action. Led by John Podesta (we don’t...

NOTE: I started writing this in May. Dan wrote something along these lines in August. Read it. He put it down much better than I ever could.Things to keep in mind when running for President as a Republican. Somewhere between 93% to 98% of the people who would be covering the race on behalf of the nation’s largest national and regional news media outlets will be supporting your Democrat opponent – whoever she (or he) may be. This lopsided level of support for Democrats in the news media, especially within the Beltway has been consistent for nearly half a century....

My primary goal when I’m out and about, besides whatever I went out and about to do, is to go about peaceably and not be the victim of a violent crime. To that end I carry a firearm whenever I go out as well as follow all the other standard safety practices like maintaining situational awareness, staying out of high crime areas, and avoiding confrontation. I also have a larger overall goal of making it through my life without shooting anyone. Simply put, I don’t want to be responsible, legally or morally, for another’s death. Those two goals might...

After his prominent interview on the Michael Savage show when the Boston Bombing happened, I ordered Walid Shoebat's book. It arrived a few minutes ago, and I read the intro and the first few chapters. Initially, it seems very pertinent and very insightful, but with a writing style that is unnecessarily dense and disjointed. My first impression is that the info/insights will far outweigh the problems of style though, such that in retrospect it will seem akin to a worthwhile slog through some rather thick mud.

In a minute, we'll give you four concrete steps you can take to preserve your guns and your gun rights -- and not coincidentally, make Sun-Tzu, the greatest of ancient strategists, smile. But first, an assessment of the position. We're under attack, but it's not unprecedented. It's just the usual suspects, taking delight in a crisis they won't let go to waste, frolicking in the bloody shirt. If you're young you haven't seen this before. If you're older, you saw it in the mid-nineties. A little older, you saw the 80s hysteria that led to the Hughes Amendment and the...

This post is written in anger and frustration. Angry that we continue to follow the Republican Party’s elite ignorance. A party that continues to pull defeat from the jaws of victory characterized by pompous fools who fulfill the sterotype built by the left. Frustrated that the reality of politics is this: There will be no third party capable of competing with the coalition constructed by the dems. As a result, true conservatives MUST take steps to irradicate the ignorance of the Republican Party while still adhering to the core values of our forefathers (beliefs that I discovered are considered extreme...

I’m going to assume you’re a reasonable person. You do not provoke or engage in physical confrontations for the sport of it. You are legally authorized to possess a firearm. Further, your self-defense case does not hinge upon your alcohol consumption, your right to stand your ground or some off colored remark you may have made a week ago. Regardless of all of these things, you may still end up seeing the inside of a courtroom after you fire your gun defensively and there are still three big things in particular that can land you into blistering hot, legal and...

Josh, Liz and Gabi react to a leaked Planned Parenthood document that trains their volunteers to purposefully have bad dialogues with pro-life people. A stark contrast is made between the kind of dialogue that Planned Parenthood wants us to have, and the kind of dialogue we’ve been training people to have on this show. There are also some insights that can be made on the way Planned Parenthood directors think based on things that are said in this document. Related Links: Download the leaked Planned Parenthood document we’re responding to Listen to the audio Josh referred to on goals for...

Lock picking is an important skill set that ITS Tactical has featured numerous times. They’ve discussed the practical applications of lock picking and highlighted how it may potentially save a life.