August 22, 2017, 11:05 PM
sdyMaria Chappelle-Nadal is the Missouri state senator who wrote “I hope Trump is assassinated!” on social media last Thursday
Tuesday morning, Senate Democratic Caucus leader Sen. Gina Walsh said Maria Chappelle-Nadal is a “distraction” to senators and released a statement saying she has been removed from all committees.
“It is important that the Missouri Senate conducts their work without distractions. With that in mind, Sen. Chappelle-Nadal has been removed from her committee assignments. This will help to ensure the success of the Senate, and the state, going forward,” she said.
http://hotair.com/archives/201...mmittee-assignments/August 22, 2017, 11:19 PM
rhquote:
Originally posted by trapper189:
Oh, and Camping World bought Gander Mountain earlier this year. I sent Mr. Lemonis an email, but I'm have trouble finding the email addresses for the board of directors. I'm going to miss my Good Sam's membership. I was going to check out their insurance for the new fifth wheel. He apparently has no clue who his customers are.
Camping World Holdings owns the brands: Camping World, Good Sam, Gander Outdoors ("America's Firearm Supercenter"), Overton, and they recently acquired
http://www.the-house.com/The board of directors would be the ones to contact with complaints about Mr. Lemonis, but I can't find their email addresses offhand either. The board members' names can be found here,
http://investor.campingworld.c...t.aspx?section=board which provides the email address CampingWorld@icrinc.com and phone number 203-682-8200 for investor relations.
August 23, 2017, 04:07 AM
Tubetonequote:
Originally posted by JALLEN:
There may be a good many factors that make it advisable to "be" in Afghanistan, but if we are going to, why not fight it as a war?
In the old days, a war was serious, violent, no holds barred, Large armies captured ground, sought out opposing forces, inflicted great violence on them, and made them like it.
Are there objectives? Why not attain them now?
I read that McMasters wanted 80,000 troops but the president chose a different course.
Frankly, given the history over many centuries of large, powerful forces failing to take over Afghanistan, only outright colonization with troops left in every way station and ridge would seemingly do the job - externally. The Taliban and ISIS there disappear into the hills, holes and neighboring countries to reemerge over time.
I’ll never forget so many examples of the Soviets using lumbering, bristling, huge helicopters to in the end, slink home with no real accomplishment in subjugating the people.
Since the area is a breeding ground for terrorism, it makes some sense to try to limit growth. President Trump says we are going to be there to kill terrorists, not build a nation. Tillerson says the president hopes to get the government and the Taliban to a common peaceful, stable government.
Blocking off Pakistan as an enabler may create a more effective eradication zone to degrade ISIS as it remains. That whole region embraced Western values and modernization in earlier times. Just like in Iran, those tendencies are suppressed with brutal authority but the people are not fully buying their repression.
With Osama bin Laden saying that he was a Talib, there just may be a good reason to be involved in the Afghanistan problem. That same Talib philosophy mercilessly attacked us here.
Maybe there is a way to a more modern century for the Afghan people. They now seem trapped between many centuries. In the meantime, killing terrorists may keep fighters more occupied with survival than with building a Califate, repressing their wider population or devising ways to strike here again.
Lord knows, one path Obama ignored was supporting indigenous modernizing movements when they rose in the region. To him, it seems that it just wouldn’t have been Arab Spring without repression.
An article published in May of 2017 seems a good read on some key problems we face with the Taliban and ISIS. It is found at this
LINK.
The article is long so I have cut some excerpts from it without ellipses because I’m tired. These quotes give a flavor of what facts are reportedly seen on the ground:
----
Excerpts . . .
KABUL, Afghanistan – Last summer a prominent Kabul politician, who founded a small Sufi political party that supports monarchial rule, received a letter inviting him to join the ISIS branch in Afghanistan.
Gailani is not only a known figure in elite Afghan circles, but his family members are hereditary leaders of a distinguished Sufi sect, the Qadiriya. Then eight months ago that ISIS letter was followed by the then-leader of the terrorist group, Abdul Hasib, freely venturing into Kabul to have lunch with Gailani.
Ultimately, Gailani, a former mujahedeen who fought the Soviets, declined the persistent invitation but got an insight into the group's shrewd recruitment strategy.
ISIS-K reached its membership and territorial peak in the summer of 2015, but following a concentrated military campaign by Afghan and NATO forces to eliminate the group in its entirely, it has been falling fast. Their numbers now are estimated to be around 1,000, down from a high of about 3,000 but still filled with fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Central Asia, China and beyond.
"Afghanistan is like a salad," Gailani quipped. "Everyone is here."
Commanding Officer Col. Mohammad Nader of the Afghan Border Police also told Fox News that he discovered bodies of several ISIS fighters in the Ziback district of the far northeastern Badakshan province with identification cards belonging to Iraq, the birthplace of the brutal jihadist outfit.
There remains a concern that as ISIS dwindles rapidly in Iraq and Syria, escapees or even leadership could continue the fight and regroup in other countries such as Afghanistan.
Furthermore, one high-ranking NDS official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Fox News that around 85 percent of ISIS members in Nangarhar have come from Pakistan’s mountainous Waziristan region, and many of its members belong to the Orakzai Pashtun tribe in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas. These fighters had convened mostly in Afghan’s Achin district, which is where U.S. forces dropped the MOAB last month.
"The young boys are locked in compounds for weeks -- no windows. They are made to draw gardens of naked women. They are taught to believe in paradise and that their country is invaded by infidels," the source said. "The whole process is to make them hate what they are and what they have and give them a cause to die for."
Moreover, there is apprehension the Taliban and ISIS could at some point merge or at least cooperate with each other.
"This would be very expensive for the international community," cautioned Gailani. "The Taliban is in a bad financial situation, whereas ISIS receives a lot of foreign funding -- as well as food, clothes, ammunition, which encourages people to join them. A lot can happen in a few months."
He said that while the Taliban has much greater numbers, ISIS has a much greater weapons arsenal, including captured Afghan government tanks and brand-new Jeeps and pickup trucks. Shahim, too, noted that while Taliban salaries are unpredictable and are usually in Pakistani rupees, ISIS still manages to pay its high-ranking members in euros the equivalent of $670 to $900 a month.
"And unlike the Taliban, they are not hassling for food and civilian support," Shahim said.
As it stands, the Taliban and ISIS typically fight each other in the eastern provinces and also such southern provinces as Nangahar, but they cooperate in northern areas like Badakshan and Kunduz against government forces. Nader noted that Taliban leaders even provide safe passage for injured ISIS fighters to travel back to Pakistan for medical treatment.
The U.S.-led focus on ISIS stems from the analysis that the Taliban, while a large and vicious force, is a more regional threat, whereas ISIS has more global goals to spread its "caliphate." Yet Afghan officials repeatedly emphasize that ISIS will never be properly eliminated without the squashing of the Taliban, which many refer to as the ideological umbrella to which all terrorists globally now operate.
"The ideology of the two is the same, the level of readiness to do whatever it takes is the same," Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, chief executive officer of Afghanistan, told Fox News. "The interests in the immediate term differ, but at the same time both are against the state institution and want to replace the governance with their own system."
"Remember," he cautioned. "Usama bin Laden also called himself a Talib."
