Would love to know how many Taliban jihadis have take a slug to the head from one of these.

(Army Times) — The XM2010 sniper rifle is making a name for itself in Afghanistan. Officials won’t say how many are there or where they are. But at the time of the Sept. 20 contract, officials said the first 250 rifles would be ready by early December and sent directly to Afghanistan. . . .

While the XM2010 is technically an upgraded M24 sniper rifle, the upgrades are so significant that the weapon warranted a new designator. Notably, the XM2010 transitioned from the 7.62mm NATO caliber (.308 Winchester) to a .300 Winchester Magnum. This increased a sniper’s effective range from 800 to 1,200 meters.

Improvements to lethality and standoff distance were in response to feedback from Afghanistan, where snipers needed long-range capabilities. The .50-caliber M107 has a range beyond 2,000 meters, but its 2.5 minutes of angle means the round will impact anywhere within a 25-inch area at 1,000 meters. That is acceptable for a material target, but the average human torso is 22 inches.

Snipers wanted a weapon with the accuracy of the M24, which has one minute of angle, but with greater range. The XM2010 was the Army’s answer.

In addition to greater reach, the rifle comes with the Advanced Armament Corp. Titan-QD Fast-Attach suppressor. The 10-inch suppressor eliminates 98 percent of muzzle flash and 60 percent of recoil and reduces sound by 32 decibels, according to AAC, which recently was acquired by Remington.

Rails are built into the M1925 chassis. This, and a free-floating barrel, gives it tight accuracy.

Its improved 6.5-20×50 variable-power Leupold scope has an enhanced reticle within the first focal plane. That means the reticle power will scale with the zoom up to 20 power. Snipers will have to make fewer calculations as target distances change.

Keep reading…

The only thing that would have made this even better is if Monday doubled-back and kicked each of them in the face.

Via BBTV

West has the libs on Soros-funded ThinkProgress all riled up with his comments on liberal women sissifying American men.

Allen West: Liberal Women Are ‘Neutering American Men’ — ThinkProgress

And there’s almost 500 other comments on that thread, nearly all of them are spewing venom at Congressman West.

Interestingly, the same can be said for the number of terrorists cut loose by the Obama Regime.

ACORN has its marching orders.

(The Hill) — President Obama’s campaign manager stressed Monday that Democrats couldn’t rely on their 2008 game plan to win a second term for Obama in 2012.

Jim Messina, Obama’s former deputy chief of staff-turned-campaign manager, released a strategy video to supporters outlining the campaign’s initial steps toward securing victory next fall.

And the key takeaway from Messina was that he intended to throw out the 2008 model and rethink Obama’s strategy for 2012. . . .

“The 2008 campaign was the most special thing a lot of us have ever been a part of,” Messina said in a Web video. “But if we just run that same campaign, we stand a good chance of losing. We’ve got to run a new campaign.”

“This is not 2008. We’ve got to assume every single day that we’ve got to build something new, better, faster and sleeker,” Messina said. “Republicans are going to be fired up to take on President Obama, and so we all and all of you out there have to take the reins and help build this thing.”

“We ought not act like an incumbent, we’ve got to act like an insurgent campaign that wakes up every single day, trying to get every single vote we can,” Messina adds in the video.

John McCain’s “heroes.”

(The Australian) — As the military and humanitarian quagmire in Libya deepens, a clarion call has gone out to followers of the global jihadist movement in the West.

“Who wants to join the mujahidin? The gates of jihad are open in Libya!” declares a message posted on a pro al-Qa’ida internet forum monitored by Western analysts.

The message — and countless others like it — has set off alarms in counter-terrorism circles in the West, as al-Qa’ida and its allies move to exploit the foment in the Arab world, seizing on the conflict in Libya as a new cause celebre for Islamic militants. And as yesterday’s WikiLeaks release shows, al-Qa’ida suspects freed from Guantanamo Bay are at work in Libya.

A report from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation says internet jihadists are portraying Libya as the newest front in the global jihad against the West, in a policy dictated by al-Qa’ida’s top leaders.

“Senior leadership figures, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, have given a number of sermons concentrating almost solely on Libya and portraying it as the most fertile ground for their global movement,” says the report’s author, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, a research fellow at ICSR. He says Zawahiri’s call has been echoed on English-language jihadist forums.

“The Western Salafi-jihadi movement is attempting to take ownership of the rebellion on behalf of the global jihad, and is portraying anti-Gaddafi forces as mujahidin, while also encouraging Western Muslims to do all they can to reach the country and take part in a supposed jihad.”

The ICSR has monitored a stream of communications on al-Qa’ida run and backed websites and forums since the Arab spring began. A typical post says: “My brothers and sisters, we are facing a global change, Alhamdulillah [praise God]! We will see this uprising continuing in all Muslim countries and soon we will see the banner of Allah everywhere!”

The forums are full of news of the exploits of jihadist fighters who have joined “Islamic battalions” in Libya under names such as the Thunderbolt Battalion and the Islamic Army of Benghazi, and so-called exclusive pictures of fighters purporting to be mujahidin on the front lines, accompanied by messages urging new recruits to join them. They provide directions on how best to travel to Libya, along with this incentive: “The market of paradise has opened and the hoor al ayn [virgins promised to martyrs] are waiting.”

Keep reading…

The western hub of jihad.

(Telegraph) — At least 35 terrorists incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay were sent to fight against the West after being indoctrinated by extremist preachers in Britain, secret files obtained by The Daily Telegraph disclose.

Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza, two preachers who lived off state benefits after claiming asylum, are identified by the American authorities as the key recruiters responsible for sending dozens of extremists from throughout the world to Pakistan and Afghanistan via London mosques.

The leaked documents, written by senior US military commanders at Guantánamo Bay, illustrate how, for two decades, Britain effectively became a crucible of terrorism, with dozens of extremists, home-grown and from abroad, radicalised here.

Finsbury Park mosque, in north London, is described as a “haven” for extremists. United States intelligence officials concluded the mosque served as “an attack planning and propaganda production base”.

The files will raise questions over why the Government and security services failed to take action sooner to tackle the capital’s reputation as a staging post for terrorism, which became so established that the city was termed “Londonistan”.

The documents show that at least 35 detainees at Guantánamo had passed through Britain before being sent to fight against Allied forces in Afghanistan. This is thought to be more than from any other Western nation.

Keep reading…

Try to control your excitement.

(National Journal) — Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, whose outspoken libertarian views and folksy style made him a cult hero during two previous presidential campaigns, will announce on Tuesday that he’s going to try a third time.

Sources close to Paul, who is in his 12th term in the House, said he will unveil an exploratory presidential committee, a key step in gearing up for a White House race. He will also unveil the campaign’s leadership team in Iowa, where the first votes of the presidential election will be cast in caucuses next year.

Paul, 75, ran as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988, finishing with less than one half a percent of the vote. After more than a decade as a Republican congressman, Paul gave it another shot in the 2008 presidential election, gaining attention for being the only Republican candidate calling for the end to the war in Iraq and for his “money bomb” fundraising strategy, which brought in millions of dollars from online donors in single-day pushes.

Paul took 10 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses and 8 percent in New Hampshire’s primary. He finished second, with 14 percent of the vote, in the Nevada caucuses, and eventually finished fourth in the Republican nominating process with 5.6 percent of the total vote. Paul’s campaign book, The Revolution: A Manifesto also reached No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list in 2008.

Disaster.

(CFR) — The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project is out with a new poll on what Egyptians are thinking about the dramatic political changes they are experiencing. Egyptians are upbeat about their future, but they don’t look too kindly on the United States or the now three-decades-old peace treaty with Israel.

Some highlights:

• Nearly eight in ten Egyptians (77 percent) think that Hosni Mubarak’s resignation was a “good thing.”
• More than seven out of ten Egyptians have a “very favorable” (37 percent) or “somewhat favorable” (38 percent) view of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Nearly nine in ten Egyptians think that the Egyptian military has had a “very good influence” (53 percent) or “somewhat good influence” (35 percent) on the the way things are going.
• Only 20 percent of Egyptians hold a “favorable” opinion of the United States. That’s just three percentage points higher than what Pew found in its polling a year ago. Roughly two out of three Egyptians have “not too much” or no confidence in Barack Obama. So the White House has won few political benefits from urging Mubarak to step down.
• A majority of Egyptians (54 percent) want to annul Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. The poll doesn’t indicate how those who want to annul the treaty would change Egypt’s policy toward Israel.

The survey covers a lot more terrain, including insights into what Egyptians hope will come out of the ongoing political change. Not surprisingly, better economic conditions top the list. No matter the country, jobs come first.

Keep reading…

The never-ending Mohammed cartoon saga continues.

Amman (DPA) — Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and 19 other Danish journalists and editors went on trial in Jordan on Monday on charges of blasphemy over the publication of controversial cartoons depicting Islam’s Prophet Mohammed six years ago.

None of the defendants appeared in the Amman court. The judge, Nathir Shehadah, decided to conduct the trial in absentia after he considered that the publication of arrest warrants and indictments in the local press served as legal notifications, judicial sources said.

The trial was adjourned to May 8, when the tribunal will be scheduled to hear defence witnesses.

The lawsuit was filed by the ‘God’s Prophet Unites us Campaign,’ a coalition of Jordanian academics, lawmakers, unionists, journalists, lawyers and politicians.

Westergaard published 12 satirical pictures of the prophet in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005. Their publication caused outrage in the Arab and Islamic world and led to a boycott of Danish products.

One of the pictures showed Prophet Mohammed carrying a lit bomb instead of a turban on his head.

The cartoons were later published by several European newspapers.

The list of charges, which has already been approved by the Jordanian public prosecutor, includes ‘blasphemy against Prophet Mohammed and humiliation of Islam and Muslims.’ Such offences are punishable under the Jordanian penal code, the campaign’s lawyer, Tareq Hawamdeh, said.

It’s almost like people detest Congress.

(Rasmussen) — As members of Congress and the president haggle over ways to reduce the federal budget deficit, ratings for the bicameral legislature have fallen to the lowest level since late 2008.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that nine percent (9%) now say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Fifty-six percent (56%) rate the Congressional performance as poor.

Positive grades for the legislators are down from 13% last month and are the lowest measured since December 2008. The number of voters who give Congress a poor grade is up seven points from last month and is the highest negative review since Republicans took control of the House in January.

From January 2007 through December 2010, with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate, the legislature earned good or excellent marks ranging from 9% to 26%. The high water mark was reached in May 2007. Poor marks for the Democratic tenure ranged from a low of 35% to a high of 71%. That 71% negative rating was reached just before the health care bill became law.

In the four months since Republicans took control of the House, positive ratings for Congress have ranged from nine percent (9%) to 15%, while poor marks have run from 42% to 56%. Democrats continue to control the Senate.

Only 11% of Republican voters believe Congress is doing a good or excellent job, as do 11% of Democrats. Just six percent (6%) of voters not affiliated with either major party give Congress positive marks.

Then why are we funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to the ISI (roughly a third of their yearly budget)?

(Guardian) — US authorities describe the main Pakistani intelligence service as a terrorist organisation in secret files obtained by the Guardian.

Recommendations to interrogators at Guantánamo Bay rank the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) alongside al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon as threats. Being linked to any of these groups is an indication of terrorist or insurgent activity, the documents say.

“Through associations with these . . . organisations, a detainee may have provided support to al-Qaida or the Taliban, or engaged in hostilities against US or coalition forces [in Afghanistan],” says the document, dated September 2007 and called the Joint Task Force Guantánamo Matrix of Threat Indicators for Enemy Combatants. It adds that links to these groups is evidence that an individual poses a future threat.

The revelation that the ISI is considered as much of a threat as al-Qaida and the Taliban will cause fury in Pakistan. It will further damage the already poor relationship between US intelligence services and their Pakistani counterparts, supposedly key allies in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other Islamist militants in south Asia.

Relations between America and Pakistan have been tense for years. A series of high-level attempts have been made in recent weeks to improve ties after the American CIA contractor Raymond Davis killed two Pakistanis in January.

Shocker! Ok, maybe not.

(Telegraph) — The BBC is accused of being part of a “possible propaganda media network” for Al Qaeda, according to the leaked US files on the Guantanamo detainees.

The files, obtained by the WikiLeaks website and passed to The Daily Telegraph, disclose that a phone number of someone at the BBC was found in the phone books and phones of a number of extremists seized by US forces.

A detainee assessment, dated 21 April 2007, states: “The London, United Kingdom (UK), phone number 0044 207 XXX XXXX was discovered in numerous seized phone books and phones associated with extremist-linked individuals.

“The number is associated with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).” Analysis by The Daily Telegraph suggests the number is one for Bush House, home of the BBC World Service.

The assessment continues that US forces uncovered many “extremist links” to this number, suggesting that extremists could have made contact with BBC employees who were sympathetic to extremists or had information on “ACM [anti-Coalition Militia] operations”.

It says: “(Analyst Note: Numerous extremist links to this BBC number indicates a possible propaganda media network connection. Network analysis might provide leads to individuals with either sympathetic ties to extremists or possibly possessing information on ACM operations.)” . . . .

The BBC number was given in the file of Turki Mish’awi Za’id Alj-Amri, a Saudi who was “assessed to be a member of al-Qaeda, who travelled to Afghanistan to participate in Jihad”.

The file claims that Alj-Amri had “stayed at al-Qaeda facilities, received training at an al-Qaeda camp, and served under al-Qaida leadership in Tora Bora, AF. “Detainee’s pocket litter links him to significant Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) personnel and groups.”

Surprising.

(The Hill) — Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) took himself out of the running for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday.

Barbour surprised most observers by saying in a statement that he wouldn’t run for president in 2012.

“I will not be a candidate for president next year,” he said. “This has been a difficult, personal decision, and I am very grateful to my family for their total support of my going forward, had that been what I decided.”

The Mississippi governor had been seen as a favorite by political observers for his long experience in Republican politics, having served as a chairman of the Republican National Committee and, most recently, as the chairman of the Republican Governors Association (RGA) during the 2010 cycle. He is a strong fundraiser with a Rolodex filled with some of the most powerful names in GOP politics.

Then again, these bailouts were only meant to keep Obama’s union buddies in business.

(Washington Examiner) — Thank goodness we put up $80 billion to bail out GM and Chrysler. They are now building such wonderful cars that they have achieved total dominance of the Forbes “Worst Cars on the Road” list, which we could also call the “Bottom Eleven.”

GM and Chrysler account for nine of the cars among the bottom eleven. IN other news, the UAW is grateful for your generosity in keeping their union from disappearing. It appears you’ve achieved little else with your donation.

It is worth noting that all cars on this list except the Mercedes Benz S550 failed safety and/or reliability tests, in addition to being failures in such areas as value and gas mileage.

Keep reading…

And taxpayers are funding this crap.

Via Big Government:

. . . Recently, the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) sponsored two college courses: Introduction to Labor Studies and Labor Politics and Society, to be taught simultaneously through a video conference between to two campuses.

The Professors are Judy Ancel, Director of Labor Studies at UMKC and Don Giljum, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers at Ameren UE in St. Louis. (Bonus: he is a member of the Communist Party.)

In the class, the Professors not only advocate the occasional need for violence and industrial sabotage, they outline specific tactics that can be used. As one of our colleagues pointed out, its the matter-of-factness of it all that is so disturbing.

Keep reading…

Via Newsweek:

Abbas is about as affable as politicians come — even hawkish Israelis like Ariel Sharon have said so. But occasionally, he can deliver a shot of scathing criticism, usually followed by a grandfatherly smile. A week earlier, he told me bluntly that Obama had led him on, and then let him down by failing to keep pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank last year.

“It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze,” Abbas explained. “I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump. Three times he did it.” Abbas also criticized the mediation efforts of Obama’s special envoy, George Mitchell, who has shuttled between Israelis and Palestinians for more than two years. “Every visit by Mitchell, we talked to him and gave him some ideas. At the end we discovered that he didn’t convey any of these ideas to the Israelis. What does it mean?”

Keep reading…

HT: Ed M.

We won’t be great for much longer if this keeps up.

(CNS News) — President Barack Obama said that federal government spending makes America great — a claim he has made before — while speaking to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) gathering in San Francisco.

“Let me tell you something,” Obama said to applause from the crowd at Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco on Apr. 20. “I will not reduce our deficit by sacrificing the things that have always made America great. The things that have made Americans prosper.”

“I won’t sacrifice our investments in education,” he said. “I will not sacrifice those. I won’t sacrifice our investments in science and basic research. I won’t sacrifice the safety of our highways or our airports. I won’t sacrifice our investment in clean energy at a time when our dependence on foreign oil is causing Americans so much pain at the pump. I will not sacrifice America’s future. That I will not do.”

House Republican leaders recently released a budget plan, which passed in the House, and is aimed at reducing the national debt and the federal deficit. President Obama released a framework for deficit reduction but not a detailed plan.

Gross incompetence.

An NPR investigation of secret military documents from the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay details the system used to assess how dangerous the detainees would be if released.

More than 160 of the prisoners released or transferred from the Guantanamo detention camp under Presidents Bush and Obama had previously been judged as “likely to pose a threat to the U.S.” The decision to release or transfer these detainees, despite their former classification as “high risk,” contradicted the Pentagon’s own recommendation that prisoners in this category should remain in detention.

The detainee risk profiles and other classified findings are contained in hundreds of secret Guantanamo documents obtained by The New York Times and shared with NPR. The files were part of a trove leaked last year to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, but the Guantanamo files were made available by another source on condition of anonymity. No documents classified as “top secret” were included in the collection. . . .

The large number of detainees who were transferred or released from Guantanamo despite their “high-risk” assessment is nonetheless striking. Of 600 detainees known to have been transferred out of Guantanamo since 2002, at least 160 were previously in the high-risk category. The repatriation of more high-risk detainees appears likely.

The Obama administration has not yet named the 89 current Guantanamo detainees it says are due to be transferred, but only about 40 of those still in detention at the camp were assessed as “medium” or “low” security risks as of early 2009, according to the investigation by NPR and The New York Times. Some risk assessments have since been revised. The Obama administration carried out a new review of all Guantanamo detainees after it took office in January 2009, and those reports are not included in the documents reviewed by NPR.

Among the “high-risk” detainees who have been transferred from Guantanamo since 2002, NPR and the Times have identified at least a dozen who have returned to terrorism or otherwise reassociated with al-Qaida, including two Saudis who became leaders of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Keep reading…