The media is sure the “strategy” against ISIS has failed & the time has come for boots on the ground in Iraq again, but the real game is a much longer player & the intention is to sell the American public on arming more militants. We’ll break it down.

The Senate fails to reform NSA spying & the Patriot Act is set to expire this Sunday. We’ll explain where things are at & why regardless of anything, the larger transgressions by the NSA are being left untouched.

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The Senate Fails to Reform NSA Spying, Votes Against USA Freedom Act

A last-minute bid to reform NSA spying before lawmakers break for a week-long recess failed early Saturday morning after hours of debate and filibuster overnight when Senate lawmakers voted 57-42 against the USA Freedom Act.

Senator Mitch McConnell then tried to lead an effort to extend the key provision in the Patriot Act that has been used to justify NSA spying, which is set to expire on June 1. But that vote also failed. Temporarily, that means the government’s bulk collection of phone records from U.S. telecoms is on hold.

USA Freedom Act aimed to put an end to that program, first uncovered by USA Today in 2006 and re-exposed in 2013 by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The bill called for records to be retained by telecoms and would have forced the NSA to obtain court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to gain access to them. It also would have required the agency to use specific search terms to narrow its access to only relevant records.

A companion bill passed in the House earlier this month by a landslide vote of 338 to 88 but encountered trouble in the Senate where opponents said it would handicap the fight against terrorism and harm national security.

Proponents of the bill were pushing to get it passed before lawmakers could vote on whether or not to re-authorize sections of the US Patriot Act. Section 215, which the government has long said legally justifies its collection of phone records, is set to expire at midnight June 1.

• On Patriot Act Renewal and USA Freedom Act: Glenn Greenwald Talks With ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer – The Intercept

Unlike many privacy and civil liberties groups, the ACLU has refrained from endorsing the USA Freedom Act and instead is advocating for allowing the Patriot Act provisions to sunset — i.e., to die a long overdue death rather than being “reformed.” Meanwhile, almost all of the 86 “no” votes in the House were based on the argument that the USA Freedom Act either does not go far enough in limiting the NSA or that it actually makes things worse.

• Defeat in Senate

The USA Freedom Act was rejected by the U.S. Senate on May 22, 2015. By a vote of 57-42, the Senate did not pass the bill that would have required 60 votes to move forward, which means that the NSA must start winding down its domestic mass surveillance program this week. The Senate also rejected, by 54-45, also short of the necessary 60 votes, a two-month extension for the key provision in the Patriot Act that has been used to justify NSA spying, which is set to expire on June 1, 2015.

Inside the battle for Ramadi: Iraqi soldier speaks

He believes that the order to withdraw was a betrayal. The Iraqi government has said it launched an investigation to find out what went wrong and how the order was issued, but so far, no one has given a viable explanation.

“I want to quit the army, I would, if I thought I wouldn’t get into trouble,” Al-Yassiri says. “I want to join the militias and go back to the fight.”

Ramadi Fell to ISIS Fighters Even Though They Were ‘Vastly Outnumbered’ by Iraqi

The city of Ramadi is controlled by “hundreds” of ISIS fighters who were able to seize the city after Iraqi military commanders ordered the withdrawal of several thousand Iraqi troops from the city.

That’s according to a U.S. official who also confirmed that the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Ramadi may have been prompted by the unexplained pullout of the elite Iraqi counterterrorism force based in the city.

The pullout of the Iraqi counterterrorism unit from Ramadi first appeared in the Kurdish news agency Rudaw.

• Ramadi – Wikipedia

Ramadi occupies a highly strategic location on the Euphrates and the road west into Syria and Jordan. This has made it a hub for trade and traffic, from which the city gained significant prosperity. Its position has meant that it has been fought over several times, during the two World Wars and again during the Iraq War and Iraqi insurgency. It was heavily damaged during the Iraq War, when it was a major focus for the insurgency against occupying United States forces. Following the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in 2011, the city was contested by the Iraqi government and the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and fell to ISIL in May 2015.

The King of Tech Talk Showed Everyone a (His?) Naked Dick

This particular incident occurred on May 24th, during an explanatory segment on Apple’s new Photos app. Most of the clip is the same sort of David Pogue explainer-mush that’s been Laporte’s bread and butter for years. While clicking through his photo library, Laporte brings up a grid of imported images: family, friends, food, and an erect penis.

The Tech Guy Leo Laporte Accidentally Shows A Penis Photo During His Live Tech Program! See The Awkward Moment HERE!

Wikileaks reveal massive haul of 1978 Documents

Today WikiLeaks has released more than half a million US State Department cables from 1978. The cables cover US interactions with, and observations of, every country.

1978 was an unusually important year in geopolitics. The year saw the start of a great many political conflicts and alliances which continue to define the present world order, as well as the rise of still-important personalities and political dynasties.

The cables document the start of the Iranian Revolution, leading to the stand-off between Iran and the West (1979 — present); the Second Oil Crisis; the Afghan conflict (1978 — present); the Lebanon–Israel conflict (1978 — present); the Camp David Accords; the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and the subsequent conflict with US proxies (1978 — 1990); the 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia; the Ethopian invasion of Eritrea; Carter’s critical decision on the neutron bomb; the break-up of the USSR’s nuclear-powered satellite over Canada, which changed space policy; the US “playing the China card” against Russia; Brzezinski’s visit to China, which led to the subsequent normalisation of relations and a proxy war in Cambodia; with the US, UK, China and Cambodia on one side and Vietnam and the USSR on the other.

Through 1978, Zbigniew “Zbig” Brzezinski was US National Security Advisor. He would become the architect of the destabilisation of Soviet backed Afghanistan through the use of Islamic militants, elements of which would later become known as al-Qaeda. Brzezinski continues to affect US policy as an advisor to Obama. He has been especially visible in the recent conflict between Russia and the Ukraine.

WikiLeaks’ Carter Cables II comprise 500,577 US diplomatic cables and other diplomatic communications from and to US embassies and missions in nearly every country. It follows on from the Carter Cables (368,174 documents from 1977), which WikiLeaks published in April 2014.

The Carter Cables II bring WikiLeaks total published US diplomatic cable collection to 2.7 million documents.