Smaller NATO Mission Has Big Job to Train Afghan Army in Time
U.S. Army Major Eric Lightfoot, serving at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan, knows NATO has its work cut out to prepare local forces to go it alone against Taliban insurgents once its...
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Smaller NATO Mission Has Big Job to Train Afghan Army in Time - Video
In this Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014 file photo U.S. President Barack Obama, fourth from left, is seated at a table with, from left to right: France's President Francois Hollande, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi during a NATO summit at Celtic Manor in Newport, Wales. Leaving combat operations in Afghanistan behind, NATO is shifting its focus to Europe in 2015 and the creation of its new ultra-rapid reaction force, designed as a deterrent to Russia. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)(The Associated Press)
In this Dec. 28, 2014 file photo, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Gen. John Campbell, right, and ISAF Gen. Hans-Lothar Domrose attend a ceremony at the ISAF headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. Leaving combat operations in Afghanistan behind, NATO is shifting its focus to Europe in 2015 and the creation of its new ultra-rapid reaction force, designed as a deterrent to Russia. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini, File)(The Associated Press)
In this Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014 file photo, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gestures while speaking during a media conference prior to a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Leaving combat operations in Afghanistan behind, NATO is shifting its focus to Europe in 2015 and the creation of its new ultra-rapid reaction force, designed as a deterrent to Russia. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)(The Associated Press)
In this Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014 file photo, a Romanian military helicopter flies as troops from the United States Marine Corps Forces Europe watch, during a joint US-Romanian military exercise in Cincu, central Romania. The Joint Effort 2014 exercise is designed to test the rapid reaction capabilities of joint NATO troops and simulates the defensive strategy of an imaginary country confronted with an insurgency supported militarily by one of its neighbors. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)(The Associated Press)
In this Friday, Sept. 5, 2014 file photo, U.S. President Barack Obama listens to opening comments during a round table meeting of the North Atlantic Council at a NATO summit in Newport, Wales. Leaving combat operations in Afghanistan behind, NATO is shifting its focus to Europe in 2015 and the creation of its new ultra-rapid reaction force, designed as a deterrent to Russia. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)(The Associated Press)
BRUSSELS Leaving combat operations in Afghanistan behind, NATO is shifting its focus to Europe in 2015 and the creation of its new ultra-rapid-reaction force, designed as a deterrent to Russia.
The priority for the 28-member alliance will be to get the new agile expeditionary force into operation, but also settling the question of who will pay for it, analysts say.
The multinational force, often called the "spearhead," was ordered into existence by President Obama and other NATO leaders in September so it could be deployed to reinforce alliance members feeling threatened by the actions or ambitions of Vladimir Putin's Russia.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has called the new force and other components of the reboot of alliance capabilities "the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War."
Stoltenberg, now in his third month as the alliance's top-ranking civilian official, said it is his "top priority to implement this plan in full and on time."
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In 2015 NATO shifts its focus to Europe and creation of fast-reaction 'spearhead force'
The US commander of international forces in Afghanistan has hailed the achievements of 13 years of fighting against the Taliban, as NATO formally ended its war at a ceremony in Kabul.
'Together ... we have lifted the Afghan people out of the darkness of despair and given them hope for the future,' General John Campbell told assembled NATO soldiers.
'You've made Afghanistan stronger and our countries safer.'
On January 1, the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) combat mission, which has suffered 3485 military deaths since 2001, will be replaced by a NATO 'training and support' mission.
The ceremony was arranged in secret because the threat of Taliban strikes in the Afghan capital, which has been hit by repeated suicide bombings and gun attacks over recent years.
'I hope you take great pride in the positive impact you've made and will continue to make upon the Afghan people,' Campbell said in a speech released by ISAF on Twitter as live broadcasts were banned for security reasons.
'The road before us remains challenging, but we will triumph.'
The ceremony completed the gradual handover of responsibility to the 350,000-strong Afghan forces, which have been in charge of nationwide security since the middle of last year.
But recent bloodshed has undermined claims that the insurgency is weakening and has highlighted fears that Afghanistan faces spiralling violence.
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Fifth Amendment: The Movie
Learning about the fifth amendment...
By: marie219219
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On March 3, at 10 a.m., the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Los Angeles v. Patel, a fascinating case about the proper structure of a Fourth Amendment challenge.
Los Angeles has an ordinance that requires hotels to maintain certain records about their guests and to produce those records for police officers upon request which is to say, the officer need not necessarily have a warrant or any particular suspicion. Hoteliers claim this regime violates the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Oddly, though, the hoteliers have chosen to challenge the ordinance on its face. They do not allege that any particular search was unreasonable; indeed, they do not present the facts of any particular search at all. Los Angeles contends that this facial challenge is improper: In its view, a Fourth Amendment challenge must be an as-applied challenge. (Los Angeles has the great good fortune to be represented, in part, by our own co-Conspirator Orin Kerr; the Los Angeles brief is available here.) The case thus presents the question of whether a Fourth Amendment challenge can be purely facial or must be as-applied.
On the surface, this is merely a technical question about proper pleading of a Fourth Amendment case. But on another level, this case is of enormous theoretical importance far beyond the Fourth Amendment. I have argued that this vexed distinction between facial and as-applied challenges is actually a window into the basic constitutional structure of judicial review.
In that regard, I have filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Manhattan Institute(with MIs Jim Copland), arguing that a Fourth Amendment challenge must always be as-applied. Here is the summary of argument:
A Fourth Amendment challenge is inherently an as-applied challenge for the simple reason that the Fourth Amendment binds the executive branch and restricts the paradigmatic executive action of searching and seizing.
Courts have not always been perfectly clear about the distinction between facial and as-applied challenges, and this case presents a perfect opportunity to clarify the distinction. What a close reading of the cases reveals is that this distinction simply turns on who has allegedly violated the Constitution. A facial challenge is a challenge to legislative action. An as-applied challenge is a challenge to executive action.
The Constitution empowers and restricts different officials differently. A constitutional claim is a claim that a particular government actor has exceeded a grant of power or transgressed a restriction. But because different government actors are vested with different powers and bound by different restrictions, one cannot determine whether the Constitution has been violated without knowing who has allegedly violated it. The predicates of judicial review inevitably depend upon the subjects of judicial review. Courts sometimes write, euphemistically, of challenges to statutes or ordinances, thus obscuring the subjects of constitutional claims. But the Constitution does not prohibit statutes and ordinances; it prohibits actionsthe actions of particular government actors. Thus, every constitutional inquiry properly begins with the subject of the constitutional claim. And the first question in any such inquiry is the who question: who has allegedly violated the Constitution?
The who question establishes the two basic forms of judicial review: facial challenges and as-applied challenges. In the typical constitutional case, the legislature will make a law, the executive will execute it, and someone will claim that his constitutional rights have been violated. The first question to ask such a claimant is who has violated the Constitution? The legislature, by making the law? Or the executive, by executing the law?
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Volokh Conspiracy: Los Angeles v. Patel and the constitutional structure of judicial review
COLLEGE PROFESSOR: REPEAL THE "STUPID SECOND AMENDMENT"
COLLEGE PROFESSOR: REPEAL THE "STUPID SECOND AMENDMENT" Please click here to subscribe to my channel for latest news / Economy / money / Economic collapse / ...
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COLLEGE PROFESSOR: REPEAL THE "STUPID SECOND AMENDMENT" - Video
HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) - A proposed bill is looking to change the zero-tolerance policy South Carolina schools have toward guns by requiring specific second amendment curriculum.
"The second amendment should be freely debated in schools and instead the second amendment is being squelched in our schools," said Rep. Alan Clemmons, R - Horry County.
Rep. Clemmons said he first thought of the idea after hearing about the Summerville student who was punished for turning in a fictional story about shooting his neighbor's dinosaur.
The Second Amendment Education Act of 2015 would give students the opportunity for reasonable expression of the second amendment at school without fear of punishment.
"If we let that go unchecked, the second amendment will cease being a freedom enjoyed under the United States Constitution," Rep. Clemmons said.
Three weeks of a high school student's coursework on the Constitution would be dedicated to learning about why the right to bear arms was included in the Bill of Rights.
The state superintendent of education would be responsible for developing the three-week high school curriculum using the National Rifle Association as a resource.
Clemmons is also proposing making December 15 "Second Amendment Awareness Day" for students at all grade levels. Students would be encouraged to submit essays and posters highlighting the second amendment to the General Assembly Sportsman's Caucus to judge.
"At one point we just got so afraid of anything that had the word gun in it that we pulled it away from children, and I think it's time that we get back into it and bring it back," said Robert Battista, owner of 707 Gun Shop in Socastee.
However, some say what schools really need is more gun safety education rather than spending classroom time on solely the second amendment and its history.
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Further Reading Back in 2011, the Supreme Court handed down a momentous decision enshrining video games as speech with full First Amendment protections, invalidating a number of attempts by states to ban sales and rentals of violent games to unaccompanied minors. But if one Justice had voted with her personal feelings rather than with her understanding of the law, things might have gone very differently.
Speaking at a forum hosted by Princeton University back in November, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan called Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association the toughest case she'd ever been part of. Kagan responded to an audience question by saying that she is "not usually an agonizer," but in deciding this case she was "all over the map... Every day I woke up and I thought I would do a different thing or I was in the wrong place."
The problem, it seems, is that Kagan's personal feelings on the law conflicted with the direction the First Amendment and established legal precedent were pointing her decision. Speaking about the decision, Kagan halted numerous times to reassemble her thoughts, saying, "I have to say, everything in myit should be that you should not be ableif a parent doesn't want her kids to buy violent video games, that should be the parents'it should be that this law was OK, I guess is what I'm saying."
"But I could not figure how to make the First Amendment law work to make it OK," she continued. "It's clearly a content-based distinction [and] that's usually subject to the strictest scrutiny. There was no very good evidence, not of the kind one would normally need, that the viewing or playing of violent video games was harmful [to minors]. And so I just couldn't make it work under the First Amendment doctrine that we have and have had for a long time."
While seven justices ended up voting to overturn the law under discussion in California, Kagan was one of just five justices that voted to essentially pre-empt any future legislative attempts to restrict game sales. She said there was no clearly established state interest that satisfied the necessary "strict scrutiny" as a First Amendment matter.
In a narrower, concurrent opinion, Justices Alito and Roberts agreed that California's law was too vaguely worded to pass legal muster, but they seemed more open to the idea that a better-written law might serve a valid state interest in helping parents limit their children's access to harmful games."I certainly agree with the Court that the government has no 'free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed,'" Justice Alito wrote. "But the California law does not exercise such a power. If parents want their child to have a violent video game, the California law does not interfere with that parental prerogative."
Furthermore, Alito and Roberts seemed to think that there could be some reason to treat games as legally different from other works of speech. "There is certainly a reasonable basis for thinking that the experience of playing a video game may be quite different from the experience of reading a book, listening to a radio broadcast, or viewing a movie," Alito wrote. "And if this is so, then for at least some minors, the effects of playing violent video games may also be quite different."
If Kagan had voted based on what she says she felt "should be OK" rather than the state of the law, she could have easily joined with Alito and Roberts (along with Thomas and Breyer, who thought the California law was fine as is) in leaving the door open for future laws restricting game sales to minors. In that world, it's easy to see others states trying to succeed where California had failed, attempting to craft a law that was narrow and specific enough to pass muster for that slim majority of the court.
"I kept on going back and forth and back and forth, and we ended up being sort of 5-4 on that important issue," Kagan said during the Princeton forum. "I was in the five that said that the law should be invalidated. That is the one case where I kind of think I just don't know. I just don't know if that's right."
For all the success gaming has had in establishing its place as an art form and social force in recent years, it's worth remembering just how close the medium came to at least partially losing its most important legal victory in the US courts. Gamers would do well to remember and praise Justice Kagan's apparent decision to vote with her interpretation of free speech law rather than her personal feelings in this landmark case.
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Supreme Court justice second-guesses decisive vote in gaming free speech case
The virtual exchange of cryptocurrency Bitcoin has always proved to be tricky business, with many still unsure of whether to adopt the intangible money form or not.
The temporary suspension of Europe's leading Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp's services -- a result of a hack yesterday -- does nothing to dispel hesitations.
In a statement released today, Bitstamp revealed that some of its operational wallets had been compromised on 4 January, leading to a loss of no less than 19,000 BTC (3 million).
Officals at Bitstamp ensured that the emergency response to the breach on 4 January was swift, with rapid-fire notifications being released to all customers, instructing them to no longer make deposits to "previously issued Bitcoin deposit addresses.
While the 3m loss may seem serious, Bitstamp says the breach is only a "small fraction of Bitstamp's total bitcoin reserves", the rest of which are "held in secure offline cold storage systems".
Since its inception in 2008, the nascent Bitcoin industry has caused both excitement and trepidation.
The untraceable nature of the cryptocurrency is a characteristic that has often been exploited by darker forces looking for anonymous payment methods.
The clampdown on black market website Silk Road -- which only accepted Bitcoin payments -- in late 2013, along with the invention of a Dark Wallet in 2014 have already dampened the initial hype around the virtual currency.
For the moment, Bitstamp's services are still down, and despite the assurances of Bitstamp representatives, this current breach follows in the wake of cyber attacks in February 2014, which prevented withdrawals for a number of days.
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Some, however, are not buying this explanation.
"Don't believe Bitstamp. It's a matter of liquidity," Jeffrey Robinson, author "BitCon: The Naked Truth about Bitcoin" wrote to CNBC. "Who's next? It's as if Bitstamp realized they couldn't internalize the risk anymore so just decided, Let's suspend operations until everything settles down."
Others are in agreement that Bitstamp's issues may go well beyond security. A commentary in the Financial Times posited that the issues could lie in the company's financials becoming unhinged by the falling price, or the economics of mining taking their toll on the exchanges.
Read MoreMarc Andreessen: I still stand behind bitcoin
The price of bitcoin dropped into the $250-range on Sunday after trading for weeks in the mid $300s.
No matter what the cause of the service halt, Monday's news will be of key importance for the future of the cryptocurrency, according to "Fast Money" trader Brian Kelly.
"This is a critical moment for Bitcoin. As Adam Smith said, 'all money is a matter of confidence' and the reaction to this potential hack will either serve to undermine or bolster confidence," he wrote.
While Mt. Gox, the bitcoin exchange that fell apart in 2014, may have seen mismanagement, Bitstamp has a "highly capable venture capital team," according to Kelly.
Here's what Bitstamp CEO Nejc Kodri had to say over Twitter:
Cold storage basically means that the wallet numbers have been recorded off of a hackable server (anything from being written on a piece of paper to stored on a USB drive).
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Anarchast Ep. 183 Tatiana Moroz: Liberty in Music!
Jeff Berwick, in Anarchapulco interviews libertarian songbird Tatiana Moroz from the beach in Sydney, Australia. Topics include: Ron Paul, the liberty movement, bitcoin brings new hope, Bitcoin...
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Stuart Scott is Dead and the Price of Bitcoin has Crashed Again
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Biggest ever bitcoin transaction Indonesian villa sold for $600,000 in bitcoins
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Bitcoiner talks about Bitcoin theft and security
Leo Treasure describes his experience of getting hacked a three figure sum of bitcoins.
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Bitcoin How It Works Part 3
Program for Dec, 28, 2014. BitCoin how it works Part 3.
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per liberarci dalla schiavit del denaro truffa generato dalle banche centrali gestite da una elit di privati Il Bitcoin spiegato dall #39;economista Giacomo Zucca.
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Bitstamp Bitcoin Exchange Hacked, Trading Suspended: About $5.1M Suspected Stolen
European bitcoin exchange Bitstamp suspended trading Monday after the site #39;s operators began to suspect that one of its active, operational bitcoin storage wallets was "compromised" over the...
By: WochitGeneralNews
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Bitstamp Bitcoin Exchange Hacked, Trading Suspended: About $5.1M Suspected Stolen - Video