Blog Heap of Links for the day 16 June 2014

The USS Mesa Verde with 550 Marines onboard has entered the Persian Gulf on Monday for a possible operation in Iraq. It comes after President Obama ruled out sending ground troops to the militant-assaulted country. [Before he ruled them back in.] The USS Mesa Verde is a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, a ship designed to carry an expeditionary force across the sea and deploy landing craft and helicopters. … Washington already dispatched the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush to the Gulf on Saturday.

'My husband told them we were Christians and they shot him in the head' …

In the space of just three days:
Images of Iraqi men being rounded up at gunpoint, beaten, herded like cattle into lorries and shot dead in a ditch by a row of masked ISIS fanatics sent shockwaves across the world.
Taliban insurgents sliced off the fingers of 11 people as punishment for voting in Afghanistan’s democratic presidential election while 60 people were killed in a series of rocket barrages and scattered attacks
The desperate search continued for three Israeli teenagers allegedly kidnapped by Hamas militants as more than 150 suspects were arrested in relation to the abduction.
Nigeria's former president admitted that the 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram militants two months ago may never be found.
Pakistani jets killed 37 militants in retaliatory airstrikes today, a week after Taliban insurgents stormed Karachi airport and opened fire in a commando-style attack that left 38 people dead.

Over the past month, the world's media has been awash with gruesome images depicting insurgent barbarism whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kenya, Palestine or Syria.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group of Islamic militants currently overrunning several large Iraqi cities, posted gruesome photos of what it boasted was a large massacre of up to 1,700 Iraqi prisoners and soldiers. The photos show ISIS soldiers marching men to roadside graves and shooting them while they lay face down in the dirt…

President Obama announced on Monday evening that US ground troops 'equipped for combat' are being sent to Iraq - just days after claiming that no American soldiers would be deployed to the war-torn country.

In a letter to Congress, the president said American troops will be returning to Iraq only three years after they left and their deployment began on Sunday.

However, Obama said that their only purpose will specifically be to protect US personnel and the US Embassy in Baghdad - and not join in the fierce fighting raging outside the Iraqi capital.

The release of al Baghadi and other jihadist insurgents from the Bucca prison, coupled with President Obama’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 rather than follow the military’s advice to leave a residual force behind, turned the smoldering embers of the once defeated al Qaeda-backed insurgency into a raging out-of-control conflagration.

Delta Flight 630 from Detroit changed course Wednesday afternoon after a controller told the pilot not to complete the landing and then said he was only kidding, [Not to worry. The President will fire the lot of them, like Reagan. Right?]

At least one person has died and scores more injured after two tornadoes struck in Nebraska on Monday. … The Associated Press reported the number of those critically injured was 16.

The man who led the charge to have Eric H. Holder Jr. held in contempt of Congress is on a new crusade: to impeach the nation’s first black attorney general. [Excuse me? What does "first black" have to do with anything, you racist?]

“There’s a total disregard for the rule of law,” Rep. Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Republican, told The Washington Times. “We can’t sit idly by here as we see the Constitution and justice being defamed right and left at the whim of the attorney general.”

An outtake from Casey Kasem during his American Top 40 days where he blows up over a long distance dedication. There's also a special guest appearance by Rick Dees. Warning: Very rough language! [Video]

…another bloody weekend in Obama's hometown of Chicago as the city celebrated Fathers day. By the time the weekend drew to a close, two were dead and 25 wounded in violence across the city….

The Nationwide Law Enforcement Memorial Foundation reports a 40-percent increase in the number of officers killed on the job this year. A total of 63 officers have been killed, up from 45 from last year this time. …attackers like those in Las Vegas, determined to die to kill police officers, are "one of the biggest challenges" officers face.

In other action Monday, the AMA said transgender people should be able to switch the sex designation on their birth certificates without having sex-change surgery. Most states make the operations a prerequisite. But the new AMA policy acknowledges that gender identity doesn't always match a person's birth anatomy. An AMA report says identification documents that are consistent with gender identity rather than anatomy is essential to basic social and economic functioning. The report also says patients deserve medical care that is appropriate to their birth anatomy even if they self-identify as the opposite sex. [And in a SHOCKING development:] The new policy won praise from the National Center for Transgender Equality. [Imagine if the AMA had gone 180 the other way and said, um, sorry, boys is boys and girls is girls and your genes don't lie, whether you imagine otherwise or how you get mutilated. Heresy! Uproar! How… un-scientific?]

And now comes word that Border Patrol agents in the most heavily-trafficked area of the surge, the Rio Grande Valley sector of Texas, recently questioned 230 illegal immigrants about why they came. The results showed overwhelmingly that the immigrants, including those classified as UACs, or unaccompanied children, were motivated by the belief that they would be allowed to stay in the United States -- and not by conditions in their homelands.

"At the risk of appearing predictable, the Bible was and remains the biggest influence on my thinking. I was raised reading it, memorizing passages from it and being guided by it. I still find it a source of wisdom, comfort and encouragement." —Hillary Clinton

When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

Why?

“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.” [From 2008]

Newly discovered audio recordings of Hillary Clinton from the early 1980s include the former first lady’s frank and detailed assessment of the most significant criminal case of her legal career: defending a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl. … include Clinton’s suggestion that she knew Taylor was guilty at the time … Clinton can also be heard laughing at several points when discussing the crime lab’s accidental destruction of DNA evidence that tied Taylor to the crime.