SecDef Esper Calls for More Defense Dollars to Offset Gains by China and Russia

The U.S. military is ready to fight tonight, but it won't be in the future unless Congress continues to boost defense budgets, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday.

The addition of $200 billion to defense spending in recent years to a record level of $740 billion has resulted in a better-trained military that can deploy rapidly to meet current threats, Esper said, but an increase of 3% to 5% in Defense Department budgets will be vital to maintain readiness in the coming years.

"The bottom-line question we must answer is this: If called upon to fight tonight, are we ready? Today, given our efforts of the past few years, I am fully confident that the answer to that question is a resounding 'Yes,'" Esper said at a virtual Heritage Foundation forum.

But the answer will be less certain without more funding as the military continues to transition from the post-9/11 counterterrorism wars to preparations for potential conflict with China and Russia, he added.

Esper cited a range of immediate needs, including $20 billion for shipyard overhauls, and long-term goals to improve sealift and airlift, install a new and secure IT structure for force management, and protect space assets.

"The success of our efforts relies on the support of Congress," he said. "In the face of rising strategic threats, we depend on steady fiscal commitments to sustain our current force and prepare for tomorrow's challenges. … Our people must have the resources they need, when they need them, so that they never find themselves in a fair fight."

Esper did not address, and was not asked about, his own status in carrying out ambitious plans that include a 500-ship Navy by 2045.

He has adopted a decidedly low profile in recent weeks, to the point where he does not go on record with reporters traveling with him. He almost certainly will be replaced should former Vice President Joe Biden win the November presidential election.

In addition, President Donald Trump appears to have added him to a list of administration officials in disfavor since Esper in June made clear that he was against sending active-duty troops into the streets to quell protests.

On June 3, the day after Esper made that statement, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany declined to say whether Trump still had confidence in him.

"As of right now, Secretary Esper is still Secretary Esper and, should the president lose faith, we will all learn about that in the future," she said.

Esper also was not asked at the Heritage Foundation, and did not comment upon, whether troops might become involved if the election results in November are disputed, or whether they might assist at polling places.

In a National Public Radio interview that aired Monday, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said there is "zero" chance of the active-duty force becoming involved in a contested election.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/10/16/secdef-esper-calls-more-defense-dollars-offset-gains-china-and-russia.html

US, Taliban Agree to Reduce Operations After Increase in Violence

Agreement comes after heavy fighting in Afghanistan's Helmand Province

The US and the Taliban agreed to ‘re-set’ and work towards implementing the Doha peace agreement, according to the US envoy for the Afghan peace process.

“Following several meetings General Miller and I had with the Taliban, we agreed to re-set actions by strictly adhering to implementation of all elements of the US-Taliban Agreement and all commitments made,” US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said, referring to Gen. Scott Miller, the head of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

“This means reduced numbers of operations. At present too many Afghans are dying. With the re-set, we expect that number to drop significantly,” Khalilzad said.

The statement comes after heavy fighting between the Taliban and the US-backed government in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province prompted US airstrikes against the Taliban, a rare action since the peace deal was signed in February.

The fighting in Helmand was based around Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. The Taliban failed to take the city, and the Afghan government launched counter-attacks against the group along the 601 highway. The clashes displaced thousands, and government officials said at least 70 Taliban fighters were killed.

The US-Taliban peace deal calls for a total withdrawal of US forces by 2021. The withdrawal hinges on a reduction in violence, success of the intra-Afghan talks that are ongoing in Doha, and a guarantee from the Taliban not to allow ISIS and al-Qaeda to gain a foothold in the country.

https://news.antiwar.com/2020/10/15/us-taliban-agree-to-reduce-operations-after-increase-in-violence/

SWAMP THING: Right Wing Street Artists Take Aim at Biden With Hollywood Billboard Take Over

The right-wing street artist group The Faction has struck Hollywood once again, this time with a giant “Swamp Thing” billboard on Sunset Blvd.

The billboard now features former Vice President Joe Biden as the Swamp Thing, with the slogan “hide your kids, hide your wife.”

Why do we take over billboards in the middle of the night?

We’re merely doing our part to help Swampy @JoeBiden show the people who he really is! 47 more years! 47 more years!

Wanna help us fight? Our PayPal link is in our profile. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/SxEzKJMCrE

— The Faction (@TheFaction1776) October 16, 2020

“The latest iteration of the DC comics franchise, features the reanimated corpse of the former VP. The science-worshippers in the underground labs of the Democrat party were experimenting with Socialism, when a terrible accident filled Joe’s rotting husk with vile ideas like the Green New Deal and Black Lives Matter. Then, with the aid of his elder-abusing wife and family, Old Joe came alive!” The Faction told the Gateway Pundit. “With your help (and vote), he can return to haunt the DC swamp for another 47 years or until AOC can pass her GED and take over!”

Right-wing street artists also recently put up a 70-foot “Trump” sign, in the style of the Hollywood sign, near the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

The group behind the Hollywood sign said in a statement provided to the Gateway Pundit that “the idea behind this was two-fold.” First, they said that it was a “psychological terror op designed to counter the psychological terror ops that the Democrat run government of California has been running on its citizenry since the lockdown.” Second, it is a sign to other Trump supporters “that there is hope.”

http://www.hideoutnow.com/2020/10/swamp-thing-right-wing-street-artists.html

FBI secretly investigated suspected Egyptian link to Trump's 2016 election campaign for three years

Federal prosecutors spent three years investigating whether millions of dollars flowed through a state-owned Egyptian bank to Donald Trump's election campaign in 2016, it has been revealed.

The investigation, which predated and outlasted the Robert Mueller Russian collusion probe, was looking into whether an illegal donation of $10million by a foreign power was made to the presidential campaign.

Mueller, the FBI and prosecutors conducted the inquiry in secret until it was shut down by acting US Attorney for DC Michael Sherwin with no charges filed, according to CNN.

In the final days of the Trump's presidential bid in 2016, he gave a huge $10million contribution to his campaign.

The investigation centered on whether Trump had financed the donation or whether it had flowed to him via Egypt's state-owned bank.

It was kept so secret that investigators even locked down an entire floor of a courthouse so Mueller's team could fight for the records of the Egyptian bank to be revealed in closed-door proceedings.

It is not known if there was any concrete evidence of Egyptian involvement but sources said there was enough suspicion to justify a grand jury subpoena, and keep the probe open after Mueller's other investigation ended.

Questions have also been raised about Trump's decision not to include Egypt in his travel ban against majority Muslim countries in 2017.

A court filing from last month shows the Justice Department confirmed Mueller transferred his ongoing foreign campaign contribution investigation to prosecutors in Washington after his office shut down in 2019.

A source told CNN: 'The case was first looked at by the Special Counsel investigators who failed to bring a case, and then it was looked at by the US attorney's office, and career prosecutors in the national security section, who also were unable to bring a case.

'Based upon the recommendations of both the FBI and those career prosecutors, Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney, formally closed the case in July.'

Initial interest was raised after an informant suggested Trump's $10million injuection could have come via the Egyptian bank.

The investigation even went as far as the Supreme Court, the only time during Mueller's two-year probe that it reached that stage, although justices declined to hear the case.

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump 2020 campaign, said: 'President Trump has never received a penny from Egypt.'

http://www.hideoutnow.com/2020/10/revealed-fbi-secretly-investigated.html

Nomi Prins Explains That $7 Trillion the Fed Magically Created

With a long history writing about Wall Street and the economy, Nomi talks about her decision to return to finish her PhD during quarantine. Then, their conversation turns to what has been happening in the national and global economy as a result of the pandemic. Nomi contextualizes the current financial situation with a brief history of the Federal Reserve. She explains to Paul what actions the Federal Reserve has taken in the past few months and how those choices ripple out across the globe. Nomi recounts her recent trip to the Hoover Dam, holding it up as an example of a project undertaken in a moment of financial crisis that benefited the country and the planet.

https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/nomi-prins-explains-that-7-trillion-the-fed-magically-created/

The First Space Force Recruits Are Headed to Basic Military Training

U.S. Space Force may not yet have its own boot camp, but the service's very first direct enlistees are about to head to entry-level training nonetheless.

Chief Master Sgt. Roger Towberman, senior enlisted leader of the Space Force, said seven new recruits will head to basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where they'll train alongside Air Force recruits – albeit with a few distinctions.

"They needed to know they were different; that's important to us," Towberman told Military.com in an interview Thursday.

In addition to their Occupational Camouflage Pattern uniforms with service-specific blue-stitched name tapes, the recruits will each have tablets loaded with information about the fledgling service they're joining, he said.

"We've preloaded those tablets with some learning materials and different things that they can get a head start on – 'Hey, what is this Space Force thing all about?'" he said.

And while the majority of the 8.5 weeks of Basic Military Training will be spent training together with Air Force recruits, a little over 20 hours will be specialized instruction and mentoring from Space Force personnel, Towberman said.

"There's several hours where we will cull them from the herd, if you will, and bring them somewhere else and give them a very different experience," he said, emphasizing that the training approach and specialized content offered will evolve based on feedback from students.

"They'll graduate, I think, the first week of December, so I hope to be there … and thank them as they graduate, and give them a Space Force coin instead of the airman's coin that we hand all the airmen," Towberman said. "And they'll get their own salute at the end."

Following that, newly minted Space Force operators will move on to technical training in line with their job requirements.

Since Space Force was formally activated on Dec. 20, 2019, the service has welcomed dozens of new Air Force Academy graduates to its ranks. Beginning in September, it began the process of adding in thousands more troops transferring from other services.

Towberman said he was glad to no longer be the only enlisted member of Space Force.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/10/16/first-space-force-recruits-are-headed-basic-military-training.html

More than 14 million Americans have already voted - including 2M from key swing states - as thousands of people flocked to the polls to wait up to EIGHT hours to cast their ballots early

More than 14 million Americans have already voted in the presidential election, with thousands of people lining up for hours to cast their ballots early in several key swing states this week.

The coronavirus pandemic has undoubtedly raised the stakes for the 2020 presidential race which will be the culmination of a year mired with race issues as well as voter fraud allegations.

The unprecedented circumstances have also sparked debates on the early voting process during a time when going to the polls is considered a risky act.

Early voting kicked off across multiple states this week, including Texas, Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee, where thousands of people donned masks as they stood in line for hours at designated polling centers.

Nationally, 14.6 million people have already cast ballots by mail or through in-person voting, compared to roughly 1.4 million at the same point four years ago, according to the United States Elections Project. Two million of those votes were received in key swing states such as Florida.

In Georgia, which is viewed as more of a contested state this election, voters set a record for the first day of early voting with 126,876 ballots cast on Monday - amounting to 242,000 votes in the first two days.

The first day of voting however, did not go down without a hitch.

In Savannah, residents reported three-hour waits, while hundreds stood in line for up to four hours to vote in Atlanta.

In Gwinnett County, wait times at certain locations were as long as eight hours on Monday, according to Patch.

Polling centers across the state saw a particularly large turnout of black voters, many of whom saw giving up time to cast a ballot for the next president as worth the trade.

'Many individuals went through a lot, suffered a lot for this opportunity,' said Donovan Stewart, a 56-year-old military retiree, as he waited on line in Duluth.

'So I could stand in line for four hours to do my civic duty. That's what we're called to do, to vote and try to make a change.'

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said pandemic-related cleaning procedures and a large turnout resulted in the long waits voters encountered so far during early voting.

'If you look at those lines, they look like they're long, but everyone is spaced six feet out on center, and that just makes your lines look a whole lot longer,' he said during a news conference at the Capitol.

The willingness of many black voters to queue up instead of coming back another day is a measure of their determination and their skepticism about the system.

Those in Georgia acknowledged they could have voted by mail or returned to a polling place at a different time; but with no expectation of voting becoming easier in the weeks to come, they saw waiting as a necessary step to ensure their votes get counted.

Similar scenes unfolded in Texas, where some voting locations, particularly in Tarrant County, had wait times of more than an hour.

http://www.stationgossip.com/2020/10/more-than-14-million-americans-have.html

David Price Takes on the CIA Over Its Secret Torture Program, But Is He Asking the Right Questions?

A Congressman wrote to the CIA looking for answers about his state’s role in an illegal program that unlawfully detained and tortured hundreds of Muslims, but his late and limited election-time appeal smacks of political showmanship.

Democratic Congressman David Price wants the CIA to come clean about its Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation (RDI) program which detained, interrogated, disappeared, and tortured potentially thousands of Muslims at CIA “black sites” around the world from the fall of 2001 until 2009 when its discovery led to its notorious end.

In a letter addressed to CIA director Gina Haspel last week, the North Carolina representative and chairman of the Transportation and HUD appropriations subcommittee asked for more details about his state’s role in the covert operation, requesting the release of certain classified materials pertaining to the use of North Carolina facilities and residents in the rendition process.

Price raises important questions that remain unanswered despite several years of research and pressure by activist organizations and journalists into the still elusive truth about the systematic policy of kidnapping and torture instituted via a secret memorandum signed by George W. Bush only six days after the events of September 11, 2001.

Congressman Price frames his letter to Haspel in terms of concern for the people of his home state of North Carolina, which is enough to embody at least the pretense of justice. But, given the unspeakable suffering and horrors visited upon the unknown number of innocent victims of the RDI program, Price’s late and limited election-time appeal smacks of political showmanship.

Laudable as the Congressman’s efforts may be, they still fall short of probing the darkest truths behind the RDI program, which threaten to expose the American war machine and the interests that motivate it.

Vacation in Macedonia

Khaled El-Masri was about to ring in 2004 in one of the oldest parts of the old world when he was forcibly abducted by a crew of seven or eight armed men and held in a hotel for 23 days. It would mark the beginning of a heart-wrenching ordeal for El-Masri, a German-Lebanese citizen who never imagined his vacation in Macedonia would include a nearly five-month layover in a CIA torture facility.

According to investigators with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed a lawsuit on his behalf in 2007, El-Masri was chained, hooded, drugged and flown to the American-occupied city of Kabul in Afghanistan via Baghdad aboard a Boeing aircraft with a tail number registered in North Carolina. He was held in a small concrete cell inside a former brick factory outside of Kabul with no bed for the following five months, where he was beaten, tortured, and interrogated by Arabic-speaking men about his supposed and never-proven links to the September 11 hijackers. In May of 2004, El-Masri was flown to Albania and unceremoniously dumped in the foreign country to fend for himself.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/north-carolina-david-price-cia-rdi-torture/272006/

School therapist, 40, pleads guilty to having sex and sending lewd messages to a student, 17, and is stripped of her counseling license

A New Jersey school therapist has admitted to having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student and lost her counseling license.

Tara Cardinale, 40, pleaded guilty to criminal sexual contact stemming from her arrest in January.

Prosecutors said Cardinale, who worked as a youth therapist at the New Alliance Academy in Paramus, kissed the student she was counseling, exchanged lewd text messages with him and met up with him at her house on at least two occasions.

The boy told police he and Cardinale would have had sex had he not left her home.

Cardinale agreed to have her clinical social worker license revoked as a condition of her guilty plea in late August.

Under the terms of the Final Consent Order, Cardinale is permanently barred from engaging in the practice of social work, or applying for a license to practice social work in the state of New Jersey.

http://www.domigood.com/2020/10/school-therapist-40-pleads-guilty-to.html

Ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy indicted for ‘criminal association’

BFM TV channel clarified that this is the first time this charge is brought against a former leader in French history

PARIS, October 16. /TASS/. The French prosecution for financial crimes reported Friday that last Monday former President Nicolas Sarkozy faced a few hours of questioning and was later indicted as part of the investigation into alleged financing provided by Libya for his campaign in 2007. According to the prosecution, Sarkozy is charged with ‘criminal association’. BFM TV channel clarified that this is the first time this charge is brought against a former leader in French history.

Read also

French ex-president Sarkozy in custody over campaign funds — Reuters

This is the fourth charge slapped against Sarkozy in this case. He is also suspected of corruption, state funds fraud and possession of illegally obtained funds. The former president can be sentenced to 10 years behind bars under the most recent charge of criminal association. According to AFP, Sarkozy denies any wrongdoing and rejects all the charges.

Libyan authorities first went public about financing the Sarkozy campaign back in March 2011. In particular, ex-Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in an interview with Euronews demanded that then-President Sarkozy admit receiving financial assistance from the Libyan government. Independent investigations in France followed suit, confirming these claims. Sarkozy has been fervently denying all these accusations.

Sarkozy served as French president between 2007 and 2012.

https://tass.com/world/1213125

Sheldon Adelson gives Trump campaign $75 million in effort to beat Biden

The substantial donation comes as Trump has continued to lose support according to numerous public opinion polls.

Casino mogul and arch-Trump supporter Sheldon Adelson has given $75 million to a new anti-Biden super PAC called Preserve America, in a bid to keep the former Vice President from winning the 2020 US Presidential Election, according to a Friday Politico report.

The substantial donation comes as Trump has continued to lose support according to numerous public opinion polls, prompting the super PAC to release a series of anti-Joe Biden ads in crucial swing states, which are necessities if Trump were to retain his position as president.

The influx of money will account for roughly 90 percent of the group’s fundraising in September, according to Politico. Adelson thus far has given at least $176 million in the 2020 election cycles, including to various Republican candidates and committees as a means to protect the Republican majority in the Senate and try to win the House of Representatives for the party.

Adelson has also given to the Republican State Leadership Committee, which focuses on gaining victories for the Republican party at the state-level.

Other moguls to give to Preserve America include Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, who gave $5 million, investment banker Warren Stephens, who gave $2 million, and businesswoman Diane Hendricks, who gave $1 million. The vast majority of money spent by Preserve America has been utilized in attack ads on Biden, accounting for $76 million of the $77 million raised by the super PAC.

This has made the organization one of the largest spenders during the election cycle, only dwarfed by the pro-Biden super PAC Priorities USA Action and America First Action, another long-running pro-Trump group.

The decision by Adelson to give funds came despite tensions between him and Trump, as the latter accused Adelson of not doing enough to help his reelection during the summer. Trump increasing concerns over funding was also due to Biden and affiliated groups raising a record-smashing $383 million in the month of September.

https://www.jpost.com/us-elections/sheldon-adelson-gives-trump-campaign-75-million-in-effort-to-beat-biden-645973