Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[Munson]

Yeah, sorry, I don't love Hillary but she's still getting my vote in a second in the general election. She's far and away better than any Republican alternative.

But Bernie is a beast and is definitely getting my primary vote. He's also the first campaign I've ever donated too.

[Eagles_Legendz]

The fact that Rubio and Graham would probably be the least destructive of the GOP nominees, were they to be elected, is a scary thought. 

I agree with Rand on the most issues out of any GOP candidate, but most of his economic policies are insane and would dismantle our economic infrastructure which outweighs my agreement with him on some social stances.

[smeags]

The state of Texas is allowed to reject a license plate design that featured a Confederate battle flag, the Supreme Court ruled today.

The majority held that license plate designs are government -- and not private -- speech, and that the government is allowed to discriminate based upon content when it speaks.

[General_Failure]

Haitians fear deportation from Dominican Republic as deadline looms

Hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent faced the risk of deportation from the Dominican Republic on Wednesday as a deadline for enforcement of a new immigration law approached.

Dominican officials say anyone lacking identity documents or who has not registered for a so-called "regularization" program before the Wednesday night deadline could face deportation.

The Dominican government says the changes to its nationality and immigration laws aim to tackle illegal migration from neighboring Haiti. Human rights groups say the move is rooted in longstanding racism and xenophobia in the Dominican Republic towards darker-skinned Haitians.

Over the last century an untold number of Haitians have crossed into the more prosperous Dominican Republic to escape political violence or seek a better life, many working as sugar cane cutters, house cleaners or babysitters.

Human rights groups say the new law could impact hundreds of thousands of these migrants and a smaller number of Dominican-born people of Haitian descent who lost citizenship after a constitutional court ruling in 2013 that has faced international criticism.

That ruling reversed the right of citizenship for foreigners born in the Dominican Republic, stripping children of Haitian migrants of their Dominican nationality, human rights groups say.

[Seabiscuit36]

http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/06/pentagon-building-cruise-missile-shield-defend-us-cities-russia/115723/

I wonder how many more billions will be spent on this crap.  The Aerosat(Blimp) anchored at APG completely missed the dude on the gyrocopter who landed on the whitehouse lawn, and it was somewhere around the 3 billion dollar mark so far.  Seems like a moneypit that we're worried about incoming cruise missiles from Russia? 

Pentagon Building Cruise Missile Shield To Defend US Cities From Russia

By Marcus Weisgerber

June 18, 2015

The Pentagon is quietly working to set up an elaborate network of defenses to protect American cities from a barrage of Russian cruise missiles.

The plan calls for buying radars that would enable National Guard F-16 fighter jets to spot and shoot down fast and low-flying missiles. Top generals want to network those radars with sensor-laden aerostat balloons hovering over U.S. cities and with coastal warships equipped with sensors and interceptor missiles of their own.

One of those generals is Adm. William Gortney, who leads U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, and North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD. Earlier this year, Gortney submitted an "urgent need" request to put AESA radars on the F-16s that patrol the airspace around Washington. Such a request allows a project to circumvent the normal procurement process.

While no one will talk openly about the Pentagon's overall cruise missile defense plans, much of which remain classified, senior military officials have provided clues in speeches, congressional hearings and other public forums over the past year. The statements reveal the Pentagon's concern about advanced cruise missiles being developed by Russia.

"We're devoting a good deal of attention to ensuring we're properly configured against such an attack in the homeland, and we need to continue to do so," Adm. Sandy Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a May 19 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington.
We're devoting a good deal of attention to ensuring we're properly configured against such an attack in the homeland, and we need to continue to do so.
Adm. Sandy Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

In recent years, the Pentagon has invested heavily, with mixed results, in ballistic missile defense: preparations to shoot down long-range rockets that touch the edge of space and then fall toward targets on Earth. Experts say North Korea and Iran are the countries most likely to strike the U.S. or its allies with such missiles, although neither arsenal has missiles of sufficient range so far.

(Related: The Middle East Has Four Minutes To Act If Iran Fires a Missile)

But the effort to defend the U.S. mainland against smaller, shorter-range cruise missiles has gone largely unnoticed.

"While ballistic missile defense has now become established as a key military capability, the corresponding counters to cruise missiles have been prioritized far more slowly," said Thomas Karako, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington. "In some ways, this is understandable, in terms of the complexity of the threat, but sophisticated cruise missile technologies now out there are just not going away and we are going to have to find a way to deal with this — for the homeland, for allies and partners abroad, and for regional combatant commanders."

Intercepting cruise missiles is far different from shooting down a missile of the ballistic variety. Launched by ships, submarines, or even trailer-mounted launchers, cruise missiles are powered throughout their entire flight. This allows them to fly close to the ground and maneuver throughout flight, making them difficult for radar to spot.

"A handful of senior military officials, including several current or past NORTHCOM commanders, have been among those quietly dinging the bell about cruise missile threats, and it's beginning to be heard," Karako said.

While many of the combatant commanders — the 4-star generals and admirals who command forces in various geographic regions of the world — believe cruise missiles pose a threat to the United States, they have had trouble convincing their counterparts in the military services who decide what arms to buy.
A handful of senior military officials, including several current or past NORTHCOM commanders, have been among those quietly dinging the bell about cruise missile threats, and it's beginning to be heard
Thomas Karako, missile defense analyst at CSIS

Fast-track requests like Gortney's demand for new radars on F-16s have been used over the past decade to quickly get equipment to troops on the battlefield. Other urgent operational needs have included putting a laser seeker on a Maverick missile to strike fast-moving vehicles and to buy tens of thousands of MRAP vehicles that were rushed to Iraq to protect soldiers from roadside bomb attacks.

Last August, at a missile defense conference in Huntsville, Ala., then-NORTHCOM and NORAD commander Gen. Charles Jacoby criticized the Army and other services for failing to fund cruise missile defense projects. NORTHCOM, based in Colorado, is responsible for defending the United States from such attacks.

"I'm trying to get a service to grab hold of it ... but so far we're not having a lot of success with that," Jacoby said when asked by an attendee about the Pentagon's cruise missile defense plans. "I'm glad you brought that up and gave me a chance to rail against my service for not doing the cruise missile work that I need them to do."

But since then, NORTHCOM has been able to muster support in Congress and at the Pentagon for various related projects. "We've made a case that growing cruise missile technology in our state adversaries, like Russia and China, present a real problem for our current defenses," Jacoby said.

One item at the center of these plans is a giant aerostat called JLENS, short for the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System. The Pentagon is testing the system at Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Ground, a sprawling military complex north of Baltimore. Reporters have even been invited to see the tethered airship, which hovers 10,000 feet in the air.
We've made a case that growing cruise missile technology in our state adversaries, like Russia and China, present a real problem for our current defenses.
Gen. Charles Jacoby, former commander, NORTHCOM and NORAD

JLENS carries a powerful radar on its belly that Pentagon officials say can spot small moving objects – including cruise missiles – from Boston to Norfolk, Va., headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet. Since it's so high in the air, it can see farther than ground radars.

JLENS is in the early stages of a three-year test phase, but comments by senior military officials indicate the Pentagon in considering expanding this use of aerostats far beyond the military's National Capital Region district.

"This is a big country and we probably couldn't protect the entire place from cruise missile attack unless we want to break the bank," Winnefeld said. "But there are important areas in this country we need to make sure are defended from that kind of attack."

New missile interceptors could also play a role in the network too.

"We're also looking at the changing-out of the kinds of systems that we would use to knock down any cruise missiles headed towards our nation's capital," Winnefeld said.

Ground-launched versions of ship- and air-launched interceptors could be installed around major cities or infrastructure, experts say. Raytheon, which makes shipborne SM-6 interceptors, announced earlier this year that it was working on a ground-launched, long-range version of the AMRAAM air-to-air missile.

The improvements make the missiles "even faster and more maneuverable," the company said in a statement when the announcement was made at the IDEX international arms show in Abu Dhabi in February.

The Threat

Driving the concern at the Pentagon is Russia's development of the Kh-101, an air-launched cruise missile with a reported range of more than 1,200 miles.

(Related: The US Missile System Driving a Wedge Between China, South Korea)

"The only nation that has an effective cruise missile capability is Russia," Gortney said at a March 19 House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee hearing.

Russian cruise missiles can also be fired from ships and submarines. Moscow has also developed containers that could potentially conceal a cruise missile on a cargo ship, meaning it wouldn't take a large nation's trained military to strike American shores.
The only nation that has an effective cruise missile capability is Russia.
Adm. William Gortney, commander of U.S. Northern Command

"Cruise missile technology is available and it's exportable and it's transferrable," Jacoby said. "So it won't be just state actors that present that threat to us."

During the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American and Kuwaiti Patriot missiles intercepted a number of Iraqi ballistic missiles, Karako said. But they missed all five cruise missiles fired, including one fired at Marine headquarters in Kuwait. In 2006, Hezbollah hit an Israeli corvette ship with an Iranian-supplied, Chinese-designed, anti-ship cruise missile, Karako said.

Shooting down the missiles themselves is a pricy proposition, which has led Pentagon officials to focus on the delivery platform.

"The best way to defeat the cruise missile threat is to shoot down the archer, or sink the archer, that's out there," Gortney said at an April news briefing at the Pentagon.

At a congressional hearing in March, Gortney said the Pentagon needed to expand its strategy to "hit that archer."

An existing network of radars, including the JLENS, and interceptors make defending Washington easier than the rest of the country.

"[T]he national capital region is the easier part in terms of the entire kill chain," Maj. Gen. Timothy Ray, director of Global Power Programs in the Air Force acquisition directorate, said in March at a House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee hearing. "We remain concerned about the coverage for the rest of the country and the rest of the F-16 fleet."

Winnefeld said that the JLENS and "other systems we are putting in place" would "greatly enhance our early warning around the National Capital Region."

In an exercise last year, the Pentagon used a JLENS, an F-15, and an air-to-air missile to shoot down a simulated cruise missile. In the test, the JLENS locked on to the cruise missile and passed targeting data to the F-15, which fired an AMRAAM missile. The JLENS then steered the AMRAAM into the mock cruise missile.

But there are many wild cards in the plans, experts say. While the JLENS has worked well in testing, it is not tied into the NORTHCOM's computer network. It was also tested in Utah where there was far less commercial and civil air traffic than East Coast, some of the most congested airspace in the world. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in March, Gortney acknowledged the project is "not without challenges," but said that's to be expected in any test program.

It is also unclear whether the JLENS over Maryland spotted a Florida mailman who flew a small gyrocopter from Gettysburg, Penn., to the U.S. Capitol lawn in Washington, an hour-long flight through some of the most restricted airspace in the country. The JLENS has been long touted by its makers as being ideal for this tracking these types of slow-moving aircraft.

Gortney, in an April 29 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing about the gyrocopter, told lawmakers the JLENS "has more promise" than other aerostat-mounted radars used by the Department of Homeland Security along the border with Mexico and in South Florida. He deferred his explanation to the classified session after the public hearing.

Experts say JLENS can not just spot but track and target objects like cruise missiles, making it better than other radars used for border security.

Raytheon has built two JLENS, the one at Aberdeen and another in storage and ready for deployment.

If a cruise missile were fired toward Washington, leaders would not have much time to react.

"Solving the cruise missile problem even for Washington requires not just interceptors to be put in place, but also redundant and persistent sensors and planning for what to do, given very short response times," Karako said

[Rome]

Bobby Jindal blamed Obama for the killings In S.C.   Rick Perry referred to the incident as a "mistake."

People still vote for these motherfargers, though.

This country is diseased beyond repair.  Just end it, already.

[MDS]

our "leaders" are insultingly stupid....our citizens are that, on top of being violent pyschopaths

there's no hope

[Seabiscuit36]

I'm not even sure which thread this should go into.  The state of Maryland decided to put the renewal of the license with Excelon on hold while doing research into the damage done to bay thru sediment deposits.  Meanwhile Excelon goes to their lobbyist pals, and gets a new bill on the docket to supercede state's authority to regulate damage done by hydroelectric plants.  Seems very similar to the Fracking conversations.  I had no doubt that the state would cave on the requirements, but to have the energy company go right past negotiating and instead change the rules is just american politics at its finest.   
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-exelon-conowingo-20150623-story.html

Maryland and its economy depend on a healthy Chesapeake Bay. Right now, the state is negotiating with energy company Exelon over water quality threats posed by the Conowingo Dam — and who will pay to address them. However, Congress is considering legislation that will take away Maryland's authority to negotiate and allow Exelon to stick state taxpayers with the bill to repair any water quality damage the dam causes.

Proposed federal legislation (The Hydropower Improvement act of 2015) would strip Maryland of its authority to hold hydropower dam owners accountable for water quality violations and end critical protections for fish and wildlife at hydropower dams. This federal power grab would give Maryland's authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), an obscure agency based in Washington, D.C. that regulates the interstate transmission of natural gas and electricity.

What's at stake for Marylanders? Exelon Corporation is currently seeking a new 46-year license from FERC to operate the Conowingo Dam, located at the head of the bay near the Pennsylvania border. It needs Maryland to certify that the dam's operations will not violate state water quality standards before FERC can grant the license. Right now, our state officials and natural resource agencies have the authority to negotiate for changes to the license that benefit Marylanders and the bay. The hydropower industry would like to change that.

Nearly 200 million tons of sediment are trapped behind Conowingo, and during big storms large quantities of this sediment are flushed into the bay. Maryland is pressing Exelon to agree to clean up the dam before the state will sign off on the new license. If Congress passes the proposed bill, Maryland's authority disappears, and Exelon gets to pass the costs of dealing with the dam's pollution along to taxpayers.

Exelon, which will control about 80 percent of Maryland's electric market now that its merger with Pepco has been approved, is one of the country's largest energy corporations. Exelon is also a member of the National Hydropower Association (NHA), the hydropower industry's trade association. Perhaps not coincidentally, NHA has called for legislation that in practice would weaken federal and state agencies' authority to require hydropower companies to protect water quality and fisheries.

As Marylanders, who do we want in charge of protecting our billon-dollar Chesapeake fisheries, our clean water and our endangered species from the damage caused by hydropower dams? The professional scientists and policymakers at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Maryland Department of the Environment, who are accountable to taxpayers and the governor; or FERC, a D.C.-based energy permitting agency that has virtually no accountability to Marylanders and no mandate to protect the Chesapeake or any of the communities that rely on it?

Fortunately, the state of Maryland is fighting back. Gov. Larry Hogan and his administration understand the importance of the Conowingo Dam's Water Quality Certification and are standing up for Maryland and for the Chesapeake Bay by opposing this damaging legislation. Maryland's Secretary of the Environment Ben Grumbles and Secretary of Natural Resources Mark Belton recently sent letters to Congress pointing out that the legislation being considered would relegate states to "bystander or second-class status" with regard to protecting water quality. For defending Maryland's right to protect our waters, Governor Hogan deserves our thanks.

Maryland's congressional delegation should join with Governor Hogan in opposing this legislation. Rarely do our senators and members of Congress have to defend the bay from such a blatant attempt to roll back environmental protections. Fifty percent of the bay's fresh water flows down the Susquehanna River and over the Conowingo Dam. The new federal license for Conowingo offers Maryland a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring the dam into compliance with modern laws and standards for environmental protection. Maryland cannot afford to lose its authority to protect the Chesapeake Bay from Conowingo's pollution.

[smeags]

The Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that the Affordable Care Act authorized federal tax credits for eligible Americans living not only in states with their own exchanges but also in the 34 states with federal exchanges. The ruling is a major win for the Obama administration.

[Rome]

Guess who the three dissenters were?

People with free health coverage for life.

[Munson]

lol yeah, hard guess there. The abosolute biggest reason to make sure Hillary (or whoever is the D) wins is she's probably replacing at least 2 justices.

[MDS]

cum stain on america, that evil funhole scalia, with some very well thought out dissension points

The Act that Congress passed makes tax credits available only on an "Exchange established by the State." This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.

can he just die?

[Eagles_Legendz]

Roberts is going to start being burned in effigy by some on the right soon.

[Munson]

Fox"News" coverage of this is farging hilarious, in a really sad way. Their coverage had a somber looking and sounding host chatting with an unchallenged and unopposed Karl Rove about how terrible the ACA is and how Obama has made health care worse and etc. This is in their "America's Newsroom" hour, which I'm relatively sure they cite all the time as one of their "news" shows as opposed to  editorial.

They followed that up with talking to Napolitano, who I love when he's on the Daily Show, but who is also very slanted in his view on things. And, once again, unchallenged by anyone else.

[smeags]

class warfare