Donald Trump gives Pentagon more flexibility on Iraq, Syria troops

The White House is giving the Pentagon greater flexibility to determine the number of US troops in Iraq and Syria, in another move by President Donald Trump to shift greater power to his military leaders.

The decision will give Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to send more forces into Syria, to assist US-backed local troops as they move to retake Raqqa from the Islamic State group, which has used the city as a de facto capital.

It will also let him adjust the force numbers in Iraq, in the ongoing fight to oust IS from Mosul and stabilize it as the rebuilding begins.

The Pentagon has already been making quiet, incremental additions to the troop levels in both countries in recent months, adding hundreds of Marines in Syria to provide artillery support, and sending more advisers into Iraq to work with units closer to the fight in Mosul.

Those moves were done with White House approval, but without any formal adjustment to the longstanding troop caps that had been set by the Obama administration.

Dana White, chief spokesperson for the Pentagon, said Wednesday that Mattis has not made any changes yet to the current authorised force levels.

Under the Obama White House, military leaders chafed about micromanagement that forced commanders to get approvals for routine tactical decisions and personnel moves, and provide justification for any troops sent into war zones.

Commanders have argued that they should be able to determine troop deployments based on the military capabilities they believe are needed at any given time.

The new authority will provide greater transparency about the actual number of US forces in Iraq and Syria after several years of public confusion about the accurate totals.

Under the Obama-mandated caps, the US was limited to 503 officially deployed troops in Syria, and 5,262 in Iraq. The Pentagon, however, has closer to 7,000 in Iraq, and hundreds more than the cap in Syria, but doesn't count them because they are on temporary duty or not counted under specific personnel rules.

The change, however, could trigger concerns particularly in Iraq, where there are political sensitivities about the footprint of American and coalition troops and fears about occupation forces.

Officials worry that if they publicly acknowledge there are thousands more troops there, it could fuel opposition and problems for the Iraqi government.

Trump's decision applies only to the two countries, and so far does not affect Afghanistan, although that change has also been discussed.

"This does not represent a change in our mission in Iraq and Syria to defeat ISIS," said White, using another name for the Islamic State group.

NASA's Cassini captures closest image of Saturn's atmosphere!

The US space agency NASA has released a beautiful view of Saturn's atmosphere.

The image was captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its first Grand Finale dive past the planet on April 26, 2017.

The unprocessed image shows features in Saturn's atmosphere from closer than ever before.

Cassini spacecrfat is a joint mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

The 22-foot-tall (6.7 meter) spacecraft was launched in 1997 and began orbiting Saturn in 2004.

The spacecraft is running low on fuel, and will make a death plunge into Saturn's surface on September 15, 2017.

Good luck with that: Public editor maintains ESPN will not stick to sports, whether viewers like it or not

After news broke Wednesday that ESPN would be cutting around 100 people, mostly on-air personalities, it wasn’t long before people pointed to the sports network’s continual detours into liberal politics as a probable cause.

ESPN Public Editor Jim Brady chimed in to clarify that the layoffs were a matter of economics, plain and simple; although he did acknowledge the network’s drift to one side of the political spectrum. Hmm … wonder which side?

It was just two weeks ago that Brady published a nearly 3,000-word essay concluding that “ESPN has made it clear: It’s not sticking to sports.”

Grad students who called professor a rape apologist in letter to campus paper taken to school

William A. Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell Law School and contributor to Legal Insurrection, called on the Cornell Daily Sun to apologize and publish a retraction after the paper printed a letter to the editor from seven graduate students alleging that the chair of the chemistry department was a rape apologist, a misogynist, and unfit to serve as chair.

“How can graduate students at risk for sexual assault and bias feel safe knowing the man handling sexual harassment complaints is a rape apologist?” they wrote.

 Jacobson accuses the letter writers of taking several of Collum’s words and tweets out of context as part of a smear campaign in which the paper is complicit for not contacting Collum for rebuttal.

Jacobson notes that the students accused Collum of tweeting his support for “rape apologist” Michael Cernovich and then deleting the tweet, a charge Jacobson answered with a screen shot and this explanation:

… the sequence showed that rather than endorsing Cernovich’s 2012 date rape tweet as the letter suggests, Prof. Collum rejected the message in that tweet when called to his attention.

One or more of the letter writers surely were aware of this sequence because the first named writer, Kevin Hines, posted about the tweet and deletion on his own Facebook account contemporaneously with the deletion.

The students also took selected bits of this quote by Collum — “In an effort to stem a perceived epidemic of sexual violence against women, the Department of Education sent strong messages to universities” — to accuse him of “pushing the myth that rape on college campuses is a ‘perceived’ threat.”

“By selectively choosing one sentence from a 135-page document, stripping out the footnote, and ignoring other language in the same section,” Jacobson writes, the students managed to present him as a campus rape denier.

“I wrote to each of the original letter writers raising each of the points raised above and asking for a response. As of this writing, I have received no response,” Jacobson adds, asking the Daily Sun to consider that the original accusations will appear in search engines forever.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren accidentally BUSTS Dem narrative on charter schools

Sen. Elizabeth Warren offered her congratulations today to the 2017 National Teacher of the Year, but there’s a catch…

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is so giddy that this year’s National Teacher of the Year hails from her home state of Massachusetts.

“No surprise here that MA has the best teacher in the US,” she tweeted. “Congrats to 2017 National Teacher of the Year Sydney Chaffee from Codman Academy!”

One problem. The good lady senator left out something very important. Codman Academy is a charter school. And Democrats like Sen. Warren hate charter schools.

She voted against the expansion of charter schools in a 2016 election, explaining her opposition to Boston Magazine:

I will be voting no on Question 2. Many charter schools in Massachusetts are producing extraordinary results for our students, and we should celebrate the hard work of those teachers and spread what’s working to other schools.

But after hearing more from both sides, I am very concerned about what this specific proposal means for hundreds of thousands of children across our Commonwealth, especially those living in districts with tight budgets where every dime matters. Education is about creating opportunity for all our children, not about leaving many behind.

Charter Schools Are GOOD For Children. Of course, what Warren and her fellow Democrats won’t tell you is that in Massachusetts, charter schools are doing exceedingly well. In supporting expanding charter schools in the state, the Brookings Institution wrote: “This research shows that charter schools in the urban areas of Massachusetts have large, positive effects on educational outcomes. The effects are particularly large for disadvantaged students, English learners, special education students, and children who enter charters with low test scores.”

Of course, Twitter was quick to note the problem.

 And what has the Massachusetts Teachers Union said about Chaffee’s win? Nothing. Not one peep.

After Challenging Red Light Cameras, Oregon Man Fined $500 for Practicing Engineering Without a License

When Mats Järlström's wife got snagged by one of Oregon's red light cameras in 2013, he challenged the ticket by questioning the timing of the yellow lights at intersections where cameras had been installed.

Since then, his research into red light cameras has earned him attention in local and national media—in 2014, he presented his evidence on an episode of "60 Minutes"—and an invitation to present at last year's annual meeting of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

It also got him a $500 fine from the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying.

According to the board, Järlström's research into red light cameras and their effectiveness amounts to practicing engineering without a license. No, really. Järlström had sent a letter to the board in 2014 asking for the opportunity to present his research on how too-short yellow lights were making money for the state by putting the public's safety at risk. "I would like to present these fact for your review and comment," he wrote.

Instead of inviting him to present, the board threatened him. Citing state laws that make it illegal to practice engineering without a license, the board told Järlström that even calling himself an "electronics engineer" and the use of the phrase "I am an engineer" in his letter were enough to "create violations."

Apparently the threats weren't enough, because the board follow-up in January of this year by officially fining Järlström $500 for the supposed crime of "practicing engineering without being registered."

Järlström is now suing the state board over that fine, arguing that it's unconstitutional to prevent someone from doing math without the government's permission. He's getting support from the Institute for Justice, a national libertarian law firm.

"Criticizing the government's engineering isn't a crime; it's a constitutional right," said Sam Gedge, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, in a statement. "Under the First Amendment, you don't need to be a licensed lawyer to write an article critical of a Supreme Court decision, you don't need to be a licensed landscape architect to create a gardening blog, and you don't need to be a licensed engineer to talk about traffic lights."

The notion that it's somehow illegal for Järlström to call himself an engineer is absurd. He has a degree in electrical engineering from Sweden, worked as an airplane camera mechanic in the Swedish Air Force, and has worked in a variety of technical jobs since immigrating to the United States in 1992. In Oregon, though, all that matters is whether he has a state-issued license.

As crazy as Järlström's story is, it's not the first time the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying has been overly aggressive about enforcing their rules for who is and who is not an engineer.

According to the lawsuit, the state board investigated Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman in 2014 for publishing a campaign pamphlet that mentioned Saltzman's background as an "environmental engineer." Saltzman has a bachelor's degree in environmental and civil engineering from Cornell University, a master's degree from MIT's School of Civil Engineering, and is a membership of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

What he isn't, though, is a licensed engineer in the state of Oregon.

According to Järlström's lawsuit, the board spent more than a year investigating Saltzman's background before voting to issue an official "warning" against using the word engineer incorrectly.

In another case, the state board investigated a Republican gubernatorial candidate for using the phrase "I'm an engineer and a problem-solver" in a campaign ad. The candidate in question, Allen Alley, had a degree in engineering from Purdue University and worked as an engineer for Boeing (and, of course, wasn't trying to lie about his lack of an Oregon-issued licensed but merely was making a freaking campaign ad), but

It doesn't stop there. In 2010, the state board issued a $1,000 fine for illegally practicing engineering to a local activist who told the La Pine, Oregon, city council that a proposed new power plant would be too loud for nearby residents.

The board once investigated Portland Monthly magazine for running a story that described a young immigrant woman as "an engineer behind Portland's newest bridge." The woman in the story did not describe herself as an engineer, but the magazine's editors included that description in the headline, the board concluded.

Järlström's lawsuit isn't seeking any monetary damages. He only wants a judicial order telling the state state board to stop violating the free speech rights of Oregonians.

"Anyone should be allowed to talk about the traffic signals—if they're too long or too short or anything—without being penalized," Järlström says.

32 Surprising Sources of Toxic Heavy Metals

Heavy metal is a serious threat to the health of your body and brain. I’m not referring to Ozzy Osbourne or Metallica here, although too much head-banging has probably damaged more than a few brain cells.  I’m referring to the metals found in food, water, air and many commercially-available products. Products you or your family or pets may interact with every day.

Don’t panic—power is knowledge. Use this list of toxins, and the surprising places they might be lurking, to inform your buying decisions.

ALUMINUM

Although not technically a heavy metal, aluminum is a metal that can pose a serious threat to health, particularly with excessive exposure. It has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Aluminum is found in:

-Baby formula

-Baked goods and processed foods

-Deodorants

-Over-the-counter and prescription antacids

-Other pharmaceutical drugs as a binding agent

-Aluminum pots and pans

-Shampoo

-Skin cream

 

CADMIUM

Cadmium has serious repercussions for the brain and inhibits the body’s ability to use nutrients like iron, zinc and calcium, leaving people more vulnerable to bone and immune system disorders.  Cadmium is found in: 

-Automobile seat covers

-Black rubber

-Burned motor oil

-Ceramics

-Cigarettes

-Evaporated milk

-Fertilizers

-Floor coverings

-Fungicides

-Furniture

-Refined wheat flour (white flour)

-Silver polish

-Soft drinks from vending machines with cadmium in the pipes

  

LEAD

Linked to dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, learning disabilities, seizure disorders, aggression, hyperactivity and many other health issues.  It is found in:

-Canned food

-Cigarette smoke (firsthand or secondhand)

-Colored, glossy newsprint

-Some ceramic dishes

-Lead paint in older homes

-Lead water pipes in older buildings

-Refined chocolate

-Vehicle emissions (yes, even though lead gasoline was banned two decades ago in some countries)

  

MERCURY

Known for its speedy ability to cross the blood-brain barrier to affect the brain, mercury is linked to neurological, psychological and immunological disorders in people, including diseases like Alzheimer’s.  It has also been linked to heart arrhythmias, headaches, blurred vision and weakness. It is found in:

-Dental fillings: Many dentists cite studies that show no mercury particles were released from fillings but numerous studies show that mercury is primarily released as a vapor to gain access to the brain and blood.

-Fish: Not all fish, but many farmed varieties tend to be contaminated with mercury.

-Immunizations: Many vaccines, even those used for children contain the mercury-based preservative thimerosol in excessive amounts, for both children and adults.