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One of the Clintons’ oldest and most trusted legal advisers has urged Hillary to hire a criminal defense attorney to represent her in case she’s indicted for mishandling classified documents on her private e-mail server and for lying under oath. The adviser, who has been a Clinton confidant for more than 30 years, laid out his concerns about Hillary’s legal exposure in a wide-ranging interview. “This e-mail thing is spiraling out of control,” he said. “To paraphrase John Dean of Watergate fame, it’s a cancer on her candidacy. “Frankly,” he continued, “I am used to my advice on legal matters...

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said he favors committing U.S. ground troops to a multinational military coalition that would enter Syria and create safe zones for refugees fleeing the war-torn nation. Johnson, a first-term Republican, spoke Friday at Madison-Kipp Corp. in Madison, at an event to mark Wisconsin Manufacturing Month. -snip- Johnson said he doesn’t know how many U.S. ground troops would be required for the effort. Russia’s recent involvement in the region may complicate it, he added. -snip- Johnson’s Syria stance puts him in line with other hawkish GOP senators, including Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain...

In March, an investigation by ProPublica and Gawker revealed that a “secret spy network” that was not on the State Department payroll, run by longtime Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal, was “funneling intelligence about the crisis in Libya directly to the Secretary of State’s private account starting before the Benghazi attack.” Now the WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s clandestine service in Europe who was working directly with Blumenthal as a member of Clinton’s spy network, was concurrently working as a consultant to CBS News and its venerable news program 60 Minutes. According to...

Three days into its bombing campaign in Syria, Russia on Friday at last targeted Islamic State positions, striking at the defacto capital of the terror organization and at least one other site. The Russian strikes at the Islamic State came after two days in which its aircraft attacked locations belonging to other fighting groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad, including CIA-supported rebels, sparking calls for the Obama administration to do something to protect fighters it had trained and equipped. But President Barack Obama made clear that the U.S. had no plans to deepen its role in Syria. “We’re not...

Russian Defense officials reported its air force carried out 18 airstrikes this Thursday. They also destroyed a “terrorist” training camp. Russian Su-34 warplanes attacked and destroyed an Islamic State group command center and training camp Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported. The center is located in Maarat an Numan.

U.S. President Barack Obama warned Russia on Friday that its bombing campaign against Syrian rebels will suck Moscow into a "quagmire," after a third straight day of air raids in support of President Bashar al-Assad. At a White House news conference, Obama frequently assailed Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he accused of acting out of a position of weakness to defend a crumbling, authoritarian ally.

WASHINGTON — The already fragmented battlefield in Syria grew even more complicated on Friday, as Russia and Iran expanded their military efforts to defend the beleaguered Syrian government in defiance of President Obama, who predicted that their actions would lead only to a “quagmire.” In his first comments since Russia began airstrikes on Syrian targets this week, Mr. Obama said that Moscow was acting “not out of strength but out of weakness.”

Russian forces bombed targets in Syria for a fourth day despite international concerns over Moscow's intentions in the war-torn nation. The Russian defense ministry said its soldiers bombed nine ISIS positions Saturday near the terror group's de facto capital in Raqqa.

Colonel of the Speech General Andrei # Kartapolov concerning actions of the Russian air grouping in # Syria. October 3, 2015 "Starting from September 30, the Russian aviation has performed over 60 sorties on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic to engage over 50 # the ISIS infrastructural objects. These are command centres, explosives and ammunition depots, communications, mini-plants aimed for production armament for terrorist attacks, training camps of militants. Th e strikes have been performed 24 a day from hours the # Hmeymim airbase at the full depth of the Syrian territory. It is to be underlined that...

(Original title too lengthy: The Largest US Foreign Policy Blunder Since Vietnam Is Complete: Iran Readies Massive Syrian Ground Invasion) On Thursday, in “Mid-East Coup: As Russia Pounds Militant Targets, Iran Readies Ground Invasions While Saudis Panic”, we attempted to cut through all of the Western and Russian media propaganda on the way to describing what Moscow’s involvement in Syria actually portends for the global balance of power. Here are a few excerpts that summarize what’s taking shape in the Middle East: Putin looks to have viewed this as the ultimate geopolitical win-win. That is, Russia gets to i) expand...

Hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria to join a major ground offensive in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government, Lebanese sources said on Thursday, a sign the civil war is turning still more regional and global in scope. Russian warplanes, in a second day of strikes, bombed a camp run by rebels trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the group's commander said, putting Moscow and Washington on opposing sides in a Middle East conflict for the first time since the Cold War. Senior U.S. and Russian officials spoke for just over an hour by secure video conference...

Russian jets are bombing ISIS targets, and Western nations (the US, France and Britain) are denouncing Putin for those attacks. It is obvious some governments of the Western world want ISIS to win and take over the Middle East. For Heaven's sake, Putin is the only major world leader who is outspoken in defending the Christians in the Middle-East. Western governments do not care about Christians, whether in the Middle-East, or in America and Europe.

We attempted to cut through all of the Western and Russian media propaganda on the way to describing what Moscow’s involvement in Syria actually portends for the global balance of power. Here are a few excerpts that summarize what’s taking shape in the Middle East: Putin looks to have viewed this as the ultimate geopolitical win-win. That is, Russia gets to i) expand its influence in the Middle East in defiance of Washington and its allies, a move that also helps to protect Russian energy interests and preserves the Mediterranean port at Tartus, and ii) support its allies in Tehran...

Russia on Friday bombed a major strategically important Syrian city - Qaryatain, held by the Islamic State militants, according to Reuters. It is reported that the area is heavily populated. More details of the bombing are still awaited. The Sunni terror group captured Qaryatain, located 130 km northeast of Damascus in August, after expelling the forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. Then last month, the Sunni terror group gave an ultimatum to the Christian population living in Qaryatain to either pay exorbitant taxes, convert to Islam or leave. Qaryatain is said to be a strategic town located along a road...

Russian forces bombed Syrian targets for a fourth day despite international concerns over Moscow's intentions in the war-torn nation. The Russian defense ministry said its soldiers bombed nine ISIS positions Saturday near the terror group's de facto capital in Raqqa. In the past 24 hours, the air force conducted 20 airstrikes near Raqqa, the defense ministry said. Tactical bombers destroyed various militant facilities, including ammunition and oil depots, and all-terrain vehicles, the defense ministry said in a statement.

President Obama is pushing back against the idea that he’s been outmaneuvered in Syria by Russian President Vladimir Putin since the two met at the United Nations on Monday. Obama appeared frustrated by the suggestion during a press conference this afternoon, dismissing it as a notion only talked about in the Washington D.C. “Sometimes the conversation here in the Beltway differs from the conversation internationally,” Obama responded. Obama accused Putin of acting in Syria “out of weakness,” repeatedly referring to Russia’s weakening economy. He also compared his coalition to act against ISIS in Syria to Putin’s unilateral decision to prop...

Iran is expanding its already sizable role in Syria’s multi-sided war in the wake of Russia’s airstrikes, despite the risk of antagonizing the U.S. and its Persian Gulf allies who want to push aside President Bashar al-Assad. Politicians in the region close to Tehran as well as analysts...say a decision has been made, in close coordination with the Russians and the Assad regime, to increase the number of fighters on the ground through Iran’s network of local and foreign proxies. The support also could involve more Iranian commanders, military advisers and expert fighters usually assigned to these units, these people...

In Washington’s ongoing attempt to discredit Russian airstrikes in Syria, a senior US Air Force official has claimed Moscow lacks the technology for precision-guided missiles. Footage of the strikes proves his statement to be demonstrably false. Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151002/1027943624/USAF-Slam-Moscows-Dumb-Bombs.html#ixzz3nS4vsfYD

"Do you realize now what you have done?" So Vladimir Putin in his U.N. address summarized his indictment of a U.S. foreign policy that has produced a series of disasters in the Middle East that we did not need the Russian leader to describe for us. Fourteen years after we invaded Afghanistan, Afghan troops are once again fighting Taliban forces for control of Kunduz. Only 10,000 U.S. troops still in that ravaged country prevent the Taliban's triumphal return to power. A dozen years after George W. Bush invaded Iraq, ISIS occupies its second city, Mosul, controls its largest province, Anbar,...

The Islamic State terror group cancelled Friday prayers in the Syrian city of Raqqa and emptied mosques there out of fear of further Russian airstrikes, according to activists and city residents. According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 12 Islamic State militants were killed Thursday in Russia’s first airstrikes carried out in the group's de facto capital in Syria. "Last night, Russian strikes on the western edges of Raqqa city, and near the Tabqa military airport, killed 12 IS jihadists," Abdel Rahman, head of the observatory, told AFP. Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151003/1027946193.html#ixzz3nS3O0cnR