The things that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says and does seem completely indefensible, but ABC News Anchor David Muir somehow found a reason to protect Trump for one of his most horrific qualities: his blatantly obvious racism. And unfortunately for him, he did it in front of the WRONG person.On Wednesday night, Muir interviewed Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren at the Democratic National Convention to talk about her ongoing feud with the brash Republican nominee. In asking Warren about Trump s latest attack on her in which he (once again) called her Pocahontas, Muir basically baited the iconic liberal into calling Trump a racist and then criticized her for telling the truth when she did.When Muir asked Warren if Trump calling her Pocahontas was racist, Warren had responded: Donald Trump has proven that he is a thin-skinned racist Muir scolded her and said, But is that calling him a name, too? It was the wrong thing to say to Warren, because she fired back with pure logic and gave him the education that he so desperately needed. She said: No, it fits the facts. Come on. Then she provided, off the top of her head, a list of some of Trump s greatest, most racist hits: Look at what he has said about Mexicans. Look what he has said about Muslims. Look what he says over and over. As a matter of fact, you don t have to quote me on this. When he had rulings against him over Trump University he tried to attack the judge on the basis of his Mexican-American heritage. Muir should really be thanking Warren for helping him put a childish nickname and an actual prejudice and human rights offense into perspective. There is no defending Trump for all of the disrespectful things he has said about minorities, and we all need to be better educated in calling his bigot remarks out instead of brushing them off, or worse yet, likening them to smaller offenses.You can watch Warren school Muir in the clip below:


Environmental activist Tom Steyer endorsed Hillary Clinton on Wednesday for U.S. president a day after she secured the Democratic nomination to run in the Nov. 8 election. "Hillary Clinton is an experienced leader who will lead us to victory because she embodies the best values of our country," Steyer, a former hedge fund manager, said in a statement. "Now is the time to come together to defeat Donald Trump, who is utterly unfit to be our next president."


U.S. immigration enforcement officers are proposing that fingerprints be taken from all people claiming custody of children who have entered the United States illegally without an adult relative, a measure that opponents said could keep thousands of families apart. As a new wave of unaccompanied Central American children pours across the U.S.-Mexico border, the proposal underscores the sometimes conflicting goals of federal agencies in dealing with undocumented immigrants, a volatile issue on the presidential campaign trail. Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is ultimately responsible for finding housing for migrant children, told Reuters they have no plans to change fingerprinting policy. They said the proposal — made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in an internal memo seen by Reuters — would delay family reunions and infringe upon the parent-child relationship. "One of our goals is to place children with an appropriate sponsor as promptly as we can safely do so. And so any delay for placing the child with their parent is time that we're keeping a parent and child separated," said Bobbie Gregg, deputy director for children's services at HHS's office of refugee resettlement. The memo by ICE officials, drafted in response to a February Senate hearing, proposes expanding fingerprinting, now limited to non-parents, to include parents. ICE says that would allow fingerprints to be checked against an FBI database of criminals to verify the identities of people who say they are parents while ensuring that children do not go to parents who have criminal histories. The proposal is preliminary and could change. It was unclear whether it would ultimately win the backing of the White House. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — which oversees ICE — and the Justice Department advise HHS on its practices and have a role in enforcing overall immigration policy. The White House declined to comment on the proposal. Asked about the documents that describe the fingerprinting proposal, a Homeland Security spokeswoman said the agency does not discuss internal deliberations. Neither ICE nor HHS would comment on whether they have had discussions on the proposal. From January 2014 to April 2015, more than 31,000 parents claimed children who entered the United States from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, according to a study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog unit. They made up 60 percent of those who claimed children, with most of the rest claimed by other relatives. Only 161 non-relative sponsors claimed children. U.S. authorities are required to find housing for illegal immigrant minors while they await a trial to determine whether they will be deported, a process that can take years. Under current law, people who appear at child migrant holding facilities saying they are parents must show the child's birth certificate to prove the relationship. If that is not available, the parent and child must undergo a DNA test. Immigration advocates say the ICE proposal would discourage parents from sending for their children and claiming them, fearing that ICE would use fingerprinting to trace undocumented immigrants for possible deportation. "It could keep parents away from their children if they think it is going to land them in a lock-up somewhere," said David Leopold, a Cleveland lawyer who formerly headed the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The ICE officials also said in the memo that the agency supports expanding immigration-status checks to all sponsors, including parents. ICE acknowledged that conducting immigration checks on parents claiming children could "reduce the likelihood that sponsors would come forward to take custody of children." Illegal entry into the United States by unaccompanied minors has surged in recent years. Most are Central American children who make the dangerous journey across Mexico and the U.S. border without their parents, fleeing poverty and violence. In the six months through March 2016, almost 28,000 unaccompanied children were apprehended crossing into the United States, close to the record-high number hit in the same period in 2014. (Graphic on unaccompanied minor crossings and relationships to sponsors: tmsnrt.rs/1NmGQQI) An investigation by the Associated Press in January found that HHS had placed some migrant children in homes where they were sexually assaulted, starved or forced into labor for no pay. None of the known abusers had claimed to be parents. A Senate panel in February asked authorities to improve screening of adults claiming custody of child migrants. The document from ICE is a draft of answers to questions Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley submitted for the record following the hearing. After the AP investigation, HHS said it began doing 30-day follow-up checks on households to which it had assigned a child, while also giving an emergency hotline phone number to all children before they are discharged from HHS custody But ICE's response to Grassley said HHS should go a step further, noting that many state and local child protective service agencies routinely fingerprint parents who reclaim children after periods of separation.


The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee will vote next week on a bipartisan proposal that would make it easier to penalize operators of websites that facilitate online sex trafficking, the panel said in a statement on Wednesday. U.S. technology companies including Alphabet's Google and Facebook have long opposed legislation that would amend what is known as Section 230 of the decades-old Communications Decency Act, arguing it could thwart digital innovation and prompt endless litigation. The vote is a setback for the internet industry, which is witnessing shifting political fortunes in Washington on a range of policy issues after decades of relatively little regulatory scrutiny. Silicon Valley companies generally consider Section 230 a bedrock legal protection because it helps shield companies from liability for the activities of their users. The legislation from Republican Senator Rob Portman and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal in August came after years of law-enforcement lobbying for a crackdown on the online classified site backpage.com, which is used for sex advertising. The measure would make it easier for states and sex-trafficking victims to sue social media networks, advertisers and others that fail to keep exploitative material off their platforms. In a statement, Portman said the lawmakers should "act with urgency to hold online sex traffickers accountable and give survivors the justice they deserve." The bill has attracted bipartisan support from about a third of the Senate. A companion measure has similar backing in the House of Representatives. Republicans control both chambers. Technology lobbyists in recent weeks have engaged in negotiations with lawmakers supportive of the bill in an attempt to narrow its impact.


Among the more disgusting practices Donald Trump has said he wants to bring back in the presidency is the use of torture by the American military. Despite evidence that has shown it doesn t work, and the fact that it smells of moral depravity, Trump told his ravenous crowds during the election that he would allow waterboarding.But now Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is telling Trump flatly that this isn t going to happen.Sen. John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said at the Halifax International Security Forum that any attempt to bring back harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning, would quickly be challenged in court. I don t give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do or anybody else wants to do. We will not waterboard. We will not do it, McCain said to applause during a panel discussion.McCain is a hardcore conservative from Arizona, but he is also one of the few people serving in public life at the federal level who has actually experienced torture. McCain was shot down over Vietnam and tortured while he served as a prisoner of war.In a previous exchange with Trump, the former reality star denigrated McCain s service record and said he didn t like soldiers who were captured during war.McCain rescinded his endorsement of Trump during the election when audio surfaced of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women.Trump has repeatedly attacked McCain, who was among the more prominent Republicans who criticized Trump during the campaign.While McCain has a poor record on many topics, he has been consistent in his opposition to torture, even as he has been described by liberals as a warmonger.McCain was Barack Obama s opponent in the 2008 presidential election, and lost in a landslide to the current sitting president.


Fortune released their The World s 19 Most Disappointing Leaders list on March 30. Coming in at number one on the list is Michigan s Republican governor Rick Snyder.Fortune gave Snyder the Don t Blame Me, I m Just The Governor Award for his failures over his handling of the Flint water crisis. Fortune writes:Snyder and his team sparked national outrage after an attempt at cost-savings left the impoverished city of Flint, Mich. with a lead-tainted water supply that is being blamed for illness and brain damage, especially among its youngest residents. Called to testify before Congress, Snyder, who touted his competence in his gubernatorial campaign, labeled the experience the most humbling of his life then attempted to shift blame. He described it as a failure of government and blasted the Environmental Protection Agency for its dumb and dangerous rules on allowable amounts of lead in water systems.Because you don t win an award like that and not offer a response, Ari Adler, a spokesman for Snyder, said that Snyder is concerned with fixing problems, not internet polls. The rank of each leader received was based on internet votes. Though, the 19 leaders in the poll were chosen by Fortune s editorial staff.Adler also said: The decision on whether to use corrosion control in the Flint water supply was not about saving money, but rather was a mistake made by bureaucrats who misinterpreted a flawed federal rule. Gov. Snyder is the only leader at all levels of government involved in the Flint water crisis who has been willing to stand up and apologize, take responsibility for what happened on his watch, and tackle the problems head on to fix what happened in Flint and fix the system that caused it to happen. It s responses like this that make one wonder how much money Snyder has wasted after he hired two PR firms while the nation raged against him. You can t say that you have accepted responsibility for a crisis right after you blame other people for that crisis.There is also the fact that the Flint water crisis did not happen in a bubble. It happened while the Snyder administration worked fervently to erode democracy in Michigan. It happened while Detroit s and other communities school systems and critical infrastructure were left to ruin.That s why Snyder s sorry-not-sorry is even more disingenuous than it might seem at first glance. He has at no point even acknowledged that his administration s system-wide dismantlement of local governments and austerity measurements that have proven to be fatal, have anything to do with the crisis. The only thing Snyder kind-of-but-not-really acknowledges is that his administration is in charge and, therefore, shares some of the responsibility for the Flint water crisis on the basis of Snyder being Michigan s figurehead.So here s to Snyder s latest achievement. Let it be the first of many.Featured Image: (Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)


The United States is probing North Korea to see whether it is interested in dialogue and has multiple direct channels of communication with Pyongyang, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Saturday. "We are probing, so stay tuned," Tillerson told a small group of reporters during a trip to China. "We ask: Would you like to talk? We have lines of communications to Pyongyang. We're not in a dark situation."


Indiana Governor Mike Pence said on Friday he would vote for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz in the state's primary next week, calling him a "principled conservative" who represented the ideas of former Republican President Ronald Reagan. In announcing his decision to back Cruz, Pence praised Republican front-runner Donald Trump and said he would work hard to get the eventual Republican nominee elected in November.


The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to review a lower court decision that invalidated part of a former U.S. labor board official's tenure, in a case that could curb the next president's power to staff top positions in his or her administration. The justices will hear an appeal of a 2015 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit saying that once President Barack Obama nominated Lafe Solomon in 2011 to be general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Solomon should not have continued to fill the position on a temporary or "acting" basis pending Senate confirmation. The appeals court said a 1998 federal law bars anyone from serving in an acting role while they are the nominee unless they were previously the "first assistant" to that post. The Supreme Court's ruling in the case could decide if the White House can temporarily fill high-level administration positions with nominees waiting for confirmation, which could take on added importance if the next president faces protracted nomination battles in the Senate. The case will give the Supreme Court a second chance to weigh in on executive branch authority related to filling positions at the NLRB. In 2014, the court in NLRB v. Noel Canning ruled that three 2013 appointments Obama made to the board while Congress was in recess were invalid. Although Obama withdrew Solomon's stalled nomination in 2013, about six current high-level officials are serving on an acting basis while they await a Senate vote, including officials at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency, the NLRB said in its petition for review. Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also tapped officials to permanently fill the posts that they were manning in a temporary capacity, the NLRB said. Clinton, Bush and Obama all relied on an interpretation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act that viewed the restriction on first assistants as only applying to people who automatically become acting officers under a chain of command, rather than those nominated by the president, the NLRB said. But the D.C. Circuit, as well as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2016 ruling, have disagreed. The case is NLRB v. SW General Inc, No. 15-1251, in the U.S. Supreme Court.


U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer on Monday said lawmakers from his party insist Puerto Rico be included in any supplemental federal disaster relief packages for hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Hurricane Maria slammed Puerto Rico last week, tearing apart buildings and infrastructure, flooding communities and downing communications to nearly all of the U.S. territory s 3.4 million residents. Puerto Rico has taken a serious punch to the gut, Schumer said during his opening remarks on the Senate floor. They need our help they, need it now. Schumer also urged his constituents to add the U.S. Virgin Islands, which were ravaged by Hurricane Irma several weeks ago, and western U.S. states ravaged by wildfires to future hurricane-related federal relief packages. He asked for additional aid packages to be prepared quickly. President Donald Trump signed a bill on Sept. 8 extending the government debt limit for three months and providing about $15 billion in aid for states struck by Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Irma. Puerto Ricans are U.S. residents but they do not pay federal income tax or vote in presidential elections. There is a growing movement by residents to have their island become the 51st U.S. state, giving them more access to federal funds and the right to vote for U.S. president.


Remember when Mooch thought having #CrookedHillary back in the White House wasn t in the best interest of our nation? Yeah neither does she. Maybe someone should remind her as she hits the campaign trail to drum up support from Black female voters. I wonder if anyone is gonna miss this racist freeloader and her regular attacks on anyone whose last name isn t Obama? We sure aren t going to miss 5-Star Mooch, her mooching mother or her embarrassing spouse https://twitter.com/TEN_GOP/status/776879408724541444


McCain s war hero status is not in question with the American voter, but his service to our nation as a Senator is clearly an issue Donald Trump leads the GOP presidential field again this week, though controversial remarks about Sen. John McCain may have dented his popularity among RepublicansDonald Trump s rise in the Republican contest for the 2016 presidential nomination doesn t appear to have been slowed much at least not yet by the recent controversy over his criticisms of Arizona Sen. John McCain s war record last weekend. In fact, although Trump s favorable ratings among Republicans have declined, he is still ahead and far ahead when Republicans are asked to choose among the 16 currently announced candidates.In last week s poll, Donald Trump received the highest favorable ratings of any candidate from Republicans, apparently helped by his tough position on illegal immigration. This week, however, Trump s favorable ratings dropped 11 points, and his unfavorable rating has risen 15 points.DONALD TRUMP AND JOHN MCCAINA separate YouGov poll completed Wednesday suggests a reason why the McCain controversy may not have affected Trump as much as some expected. Two out of three Republicans view McCain as a war hero. But fewer say they have a favorable opinion of him. In fact, Republicans in that poll gave both Trump and McCain similar ratings.The differences between the Trump favorable ratings in the Economist/YouGov Poll and the daily poll are not significant.In addition, while a majority of Republicans (54%) think Trump should apologize for this statement about Trump: He s not a war hero. He s a war hero cause he was captured. I like people that weren t captured. OK? Perhaps he was a war hero, but now he s said some very bad things about a lot of people. 32% of Republicans believe he doesn t need to apologize. In fact, more Democrats than Republicans want Trump to apologize.Even more striking, veterans and those currently in the military are more likely to have favorable views of Trump than to have favorable views of McCain. 41% say they have favorable views of McCain, while more than half are favorable to Trump.Veterans are divided on whether Trump owes McCain an apology.While a core of Republicans appear to have coalesced around a Trump candidacy, the New York businessman has yet to cross the threshold of being viewed as a likely winner with many Republicans. More than three times as many Republican-identifying registered voters view Bush as the likely Republican nominee than say Trump is that person. 36% call Bush the likely winner, 11% choose Walker, and just 10% name Trump.


It would be better for the United States to carefully review the 2015 Iran nuclear deal rather than unilaterally withdraw from it, Nikki Haley, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, said on Wednesday. "I think what would be more beneficial at this point is that we look at all the details of the Iran deal, we see if they (the Iranians) are actually in compliance. If we find that there are violations that we act on those violations," Haley told lawmakers at her Senate confirmation hearing.


The National Bureau of Economic Research published a paper on Monday showing how widespread unemployment pushes many American men and women towards deadly drug addictions. [Titled "Macroeconomic Conditions and Opioid Abuse," the report says: We use mortality data for the entire U. S. from and state and county level ED data covering from a subset of states. We find that as the county unemployment rate increases by 1 percentage point, the opioid death rate (per 100k) rises by 0. 19 (3. 6%) and the ED visit rate for opioid overdoses (per 100k) increases by 0. 95 (7. 0%). We also uncover statistically significant increases in the overall drug death rate that are mostly driven by increases in opioid deaths. These results also hold when performing a state, rather than county, level analysis. In most specifications, the results are primarily driven by adverse events among whites. Additionally, the findings are relatively stable across time periods they do not pertain only to recession years, but instead represent a more generalizable and previously unexplored connection between economic development and the severe adverse consequences of substance abuse. That is a remarkably consistent and steep relationship between unemployment rates and deaths from opioid drug abuse, The painkiller drugs have become an important contributor to the growing mortality among whites because it is theorized that prescription painkillers are heavily dispensed to and white people, who can become dependent on them or graduate to illegal substances. Use of pain medication among unemployed men approaches fifty percent, according to some studies. To be sure, not everyone using pain medication, even potent prescription drugs, is abusing it. There are people in significant distress who need medication. The tremendous increase in both drug use and mortality rates is the problem. It's sobering to see that problem linked as firmly and precisely to unemployment rates as in the National Bureau of Economic Research study. Also, given the generosity of welfare programs, it really is a question of needing work rather than money, with all of the physical and spiritual gains delivered by productive activity. Of course there are many individuals who can cope with unemployment in healthy ways, but projected across a vast population, the decline of the workforce casts a distinct Grim Reaper shadow. Another intriguing study is called "When Work Disappears: Manufacturing Decline and the Falling Value of Men. " Here again, the researchers have calculated a pronounced relationship between unemployment and an unhealthy social trend: single parenting. It's difficult to discuss single parenting as a social phenomenon because individual single parents and their children are not comfortable with the notion there is something "wrong" or inferior with the arrangement. Of course there are many single parents doing well, and children raised in such households who flourish. Our society has been conditioned to devalue traditional marriage and reject the notion that it has inherent advantages. But again, the negative trend across large populations is indisputable, as authors David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson acknowledge in their introduction, and describe more extensively in the body of the report: As predicted by a simple model of marital under uncertainty, we document that adverse shocks to the supply of 'marriageable' men reduce the prevalence of marriage and lower fertility but raise the fraction of children born to young and unwed mothers and living in in poor households. The falling value of young men appears to be a quantitatively important contributor to the rising rate of childbearing and childrearing in the United States. In other words, it's not a good thing for society to be producing large numbers of young single women struggling to raise children. It is objectively good for stable young couples to have children and raise them. (Yes, it's important for them to have children at fairly young ages because demographic growth demands a sizable number of families with three or more children, and that's very difficult to achieve if couples don't meet and marry when they're young.) The introduction of the study also quotes a but vitally relevant, observation from William Julius Wilson in When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor: The consequences of high neighborhood joblessness are more devastating than those of high neighborhood poverty. A neighborhood in which people are poor but employed is different from a neighborhood in which people are poor and jobless. Many of today's problems in the ghettos — crime, family dissolution, welfare, low levels of social organization, and so on — are fundamentally a consequence of the disappearance of work. This is proving to be universally true of human nature, in both urban and rural environments, for people of every racial and cultural background. The loss of manufacturing jobs is painted as especially significant by Autor, Dorn, and Hanson, which is very different from the conventional view that such lost jobs are easily replaceable by Information Age employment. Their study argues that manufacturing jobs have some unique virtues, one of which is giving men the kind of earnings advantage that makes them attractive marriage partners to women. That observation will not sit well among elites now crazed for "gender neutrality" and determined to use whatever policy hammers and chisels are needed to outlaw male and female biology by next year. Those elites will find it difficult to argue with the data presented in this report, which portrays a cascade of damaging social ills descending from the loss of male earning power relative to women: "Shocks to manufacturing industries are particularly destabilizing to . " The authors are quite blunt about what the decline of the manufacturing sector has done to American society: Adverse shocks to local employment opportunities stemming from rising international competition from China in manufactured goods yield a fall in both male and female employment a reduction in men's relative earnings, particularly at the lower tail of the earnings distribution an increase in the rate of male mortality from risky and unhealthful behaviors a reduction in the net availability of males in affected labor markets a reduction in the fraction of young adults entering marriage a fall in fertility accompanied by a rise in the fraction of births to teen and unmarried mothers and a sharp jump in the fraction of children living in impoverished and, to a lesser degree, households. If that paragraph doesn't sail far enough into politically incorrect waters for you, the authors later argue that shocks to industries "have more modest effects on overall fertility but reduce the share of births to teens and unmarried mothers, thus raising births and reducing the fraction of children living in households. " (It should be noted, as the authors do many times throughout the course of the paper, that these relationships between employment and marriage for the two sexes are significant but not and other forces often come into play.) Negative trends multiply each other in a downward spiral. The demise of stable homes sends a growing number of children into life with huge economic disadvantages. Dissolution of the family also dissolves family wealth, such as property passed from parents to children. Men who don't have wives and children in their lives are missing important resources when they confront midlife despair. Young people are missing bright examples of what the future could hold for them, contributing to the growing sense that "the American Dream is over. "


Breitbart Senior Editor MILO appeared on Judge Jeannine Pirro's show on Saturday night to discuss the aftermath of the UC Berkeley riots.[ MILO appeared on Judge Jeannine Pirro's show on the Fox News channel on Sunday night to discuss the protests that occurred this week at UC Berkeley. MILO called on President Trump to follow through on a tweet he put out in which he mentioned pulling funds from UC Berkeley for failing to protect MILO's First Amendment protection to free speech. If U. C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view — NO FEDERAL FUNDS? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017,


Pardis Stitt still remembers the grocery shopping trips of her childhood in Birmingham, Ala.: loading into the family car, a silver Oldsmobile station wagon with a maroon interior and an player, and wandering the store aisles as her mother tracked down the ingredients for dishes like kuku sabzi, the Persian frittata densely packed with an array of green herbs. "Back in the day, you couldn't find dill and cilantro at the Piggly Wiggly," said Ms. Stitt, 51. "There was one Asian market, or else we had to drive two hours to Atlanta. " Most cooks would omit the cilantro from a recipe before making a trek in search of it. But for Ms. Stitt's mother, who moved to the United States from Iran with her husband in 1963, preparing food without herbs would be unthinkable. Fresh herbs, both raw and cooked, lie at the foundation of Iranian cuisine. Leaving them out would be like making Italian food without tomatoes or Japanese food without seaweed. In other words, nearly impossible. This is especially true during Nowruz, the Persian New Year, a celebration that begins on the first day of spring. The holiday, which is secular, begins as families come together to count down to the precise moment of the equinox, even if it falls before dawn. (This year it will arrive on Monday at 6:29 a. m. Eastern time.) During Nowruz (pronounced ) everyone gathers around a haft sin, a table spread with seven items, including sprouts, which symbolize rebirth, and apples, which represent health and beauty. Family members may play music, pour fragrant drops of rose water into one another's palms, or eat a bite of sweet baklava to usher in the holiday with all of their senses. Then comes the feast — lunch or dinner, depending on what time the equinox falls — followed by 11 days of meals and teatime sweets. On the final day, it's traditional to retreat outdoors for a day of picnicking. The dishes of the Nowruz table are verdant and flavorful, like the kuku sabzi that Ms. Stitt loves. (Though she runs four restaurants in Birmingham with her husband, the chef Frank Stitt, she still calls her mother to request it.) Yet Iranian cuisine remains stubbornly unfamiliar in the United States, even as Americans have become more interested in Middle Eastern ingredients and foods like hummus, tahini and pomegranate molasses. There is a dearth of Persian restaurants outside the Los Angeles, New York and Washington areas, where a significant percentage of the nation's Americans of Iranian descent live. ("Iranian" refers to nationality and "Persian" to ethnicity, and many use the terms interchangeably. Ms. Stitt suggested that this was in response to the 1979 crisis at the American embassy in Tehran. "That's when we all switched from saying we were Iranian to saying we were Persian," she said. "If you said Persian, people didn't really know what that was. ") But even Persian restaurants rarely offer the most distinctive Iranian cooking, which is labor intensive and often involves chopping great quantities of herbs. Instead, they tend to focus on kebabs and rice. Until recently, the best chance most Americans had to experience the food of Iran was to score an invitation to the home of an Iranian friend. There may not exist a better ambassador for cooking with herbs than Hanif Sadr. Nearly every dish the chef serves includes mint, dill, parsley, tarragon, cilantro and tareh, a type of chive. Mr. Sadr, 34, grew up spending Nowruz on his family's farm in the Gilan province in northern Iran, where he'd harvest herbs and forage for wild fruits and nuts for the holiday dishes. When he moved from Tehran to California for graduate school in 2013, he found the similarities in climate and landscape disorienting. "The first few days after moving to Berkeley, I couldn't tell whether I was in California or northern Iran," he said. "In the hills, I found and foraged the same wild hazelnuts, Persian hogweed, citrus and green plums we have in Iran. " After a temporary cooking job led him away from his studies and into the kitchen, Mr. Sadr founded Komaaj, a roving Iranian restaurant and catering company, in 2015. At dinners and "Caspian tea parties" around the Bay Area, he serves dishes like khiar dalar, cucumbers spread with a shockingly green paste of wild mint, pennyroyal, cilantro and salt. Or baghali ghatogh, a dill and fava bean stew scented with garlic and saffron, in which eggs are poached. Promptly after arriving in Berkeley, Mr. Sadr planted an herb garden. He's now working with farmers and foragers in northern Iran to begin importing herbs, edible flowers and teas that he can't find here. "It's crazy!" Mr. Sadr said as he stared down a pile of cilantro, dill, parsley and tarragon on his cutting board, waiting to be chopped for use in bij, the mixture of chopped herbs, walnuts and pomegranate molasses that forms the base of many northern Iranian dishes. Besides the sheer quantity of the herbs — in Iran, they are measured by the kilogram rather than the bunch — the thing that distinguishes Persian cuisine is the multifaceted role those herbs play. Whether they are wilted, stewed or fried, fresh herbs transform as they cook, first mellowing and then sweetening in flavor. Americans generally encounter herbs in the form of a condiment, puréed into a sauce like pesto or sprinkled raw over a finished dish, and may not think of them as cornerstone ingredients. Mr. Sadr often meets diners who are incredulous that mint and cilantro can be cooked, with delicious results. "By the time you have finished dinner, you have eaten two whole bunches," he tells them. "Herbs are not just a garnish for us. " This year, Komaaj will host Persian New Year events in Berkeley and San Francisco. It's traditional to eat fish, a symbol of life, so Mr. Sadr folds a little fish roe into bij, then stuffs the mixture into trout that he has drizzled with sour orange molasses. After a short turn in a hot oven, the fish emerges with crisp, brown skin. The sweet and sour herbs contrast with the delicate, flaky fish without overwhelming it. "This is a rich, ancient way of cooking, and people here are so excited about our ingredients, our herbs," he said. "I really want to win people's hearts with the food I'm cooking. " For Mana Heshmati, an engineer in Detroit who runs a restaurant called Peace Meal Kitchen, the taste of Nowruz is sabzi polo, an herbed rice dish that represents prosperity and rebirth. "The color of the food, and the symbolic meaning behind it, is as exciting as it tastes," she said. Ms. Heshmati, 27, and her family moved around the Midwest after coming to the United States in 1993, but the dish was a constant at the holiday table every year. The rice for sabzi polo is cooked in two stages. The rice is parboiled and then tossed with an abundance of herbs and leeks and layered into a preheated pan coated with butter and oil. As the mixture is spooned into the pan, the bottommost layer of rice sizzles, turning into the crust known as tahdig, while the rest of the rice gently steams until the grains are fluffy. Ms. Heshmati said her mother added an extra flourish: "She always puts a handful of whole garlic cloves in the rice, because we used to fight over who got those. " Instead of salad, nearly all Persian meals are accompanied by sabzi khordan, a heaping platter of fresh herbs, radishes, walnuts and feta cheese served with flatbread. Guests delight in making perfectly balanced mouthfuls of pungent herbs, spicy radishes, salty cheese and crunchy nuts wrapped in pieces of warm bread. Sometimes, Mr. Sadr turns sabzi khordan into a salad for diners who are not accustomed to eating handfuls of undressed raw herbs. Ms. Heshmati started Peace Meal Kitchen about a year ago to share her Iranian cooking, like ghormeh sabzi, a fragrant herb, bean and beef stew scented with dried limes. "I love ghormeh sabzi," she said. "But I took it once for lunch in elementary school and then never again because I got made fun of. I even had a boyfriend in college who made fun of it. " She now regularly prepares ghormeh sabzi for her guests, some of whom drive from Canada or from suburbs over an hour away. At a recent event, she sold out of 80 servings in 90 minutes. "Iranian food is delicious," she said. "It's hard to hate on it. " Recipes: Herbed Rice With Tahdig | Fish Stuffed With Herbs, Walnuts and Pomegranate | Herb and Radish Salad With Feta and Walnuts | More Nowruz Dishes


Turns out there's no free lunch, even if you're among those lucky few dining at the Harvard Faculty Club. The New York Times is feasting on the delicious uproar created by Harvard professors who are now outraged to be hit with higher health care costs as a result of ObamaCare. I hardly know where to start on this one. Perhaps with the fact that the article appears in the New York Times? I will let that one go for the moment. Here's what's clear: Health care costs at Harvard are going up. Immediately. And they are rising directly as a result of ObamaCare. The explanation written right at the top of Harvard's health care enrollment guide for 2015 states that the university "must respond to the national trend of rising health care costs, including some driven by health care reform." The guide even highlights, in a special little box in the margin, the exact "Impact of Health Care Reform," explaining that "The Affordable Care Act has brought new benefits and opportunities to many people but with added costs to sponsors." Say what?? Who could have predicted that? Anyone who can do math. Still, the special little box goes on to point to such benefits as keeping offspring on your plan until they are 26 and the Cadillac tax as added costs. And as a result, they say premiums and deductibles are rising. One French history professor gasps without a hint of irony that rising premiums are tantamount to a pay cut! Welcome to our world. Still the rising costs aren't necessarily news to everyone. Several years back, Harvard's own provost, Dr. Alan M. Garber, sent an open letter to President Obama praising the Cadillac tax as a way to rein in health care costs and premiums. In subsequent interviews, he's defended his stance and the higher costs he and co-workers are now facing. I'm betting he's having a hard time finding a tablemate at the Harvard Faculty Club this week. Provost Garber should not be confused with another economist with a similar sounding name working about a mile down the Charles River at MIT, Jonathan Gruber. Gruber infamously counted on the "stupidity of the American voter" to overlook the obvious math that's now confronting Harvard's staff. Harvard faculty may be a lot of things, but stupid ain't one of them. In fact, Meredith Rosenthal, a professor of health economics and policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, told the Times she was "puzzled by the outcry. The changes in Harvard faculty benefits are parallel to changes all Americans are seeing. Indeed they have come to our front door much later than others." No, I don't think these folks are surprised by the math. I am a graduate of the Harvard Economics Department, and I have sat in these classrooms. I would bet the faculty just didn't believe they would have to foot the bill. Costs may rise, but they would somehow be absorbed in the system. Donors, someone … someone else, that is … would pay. And that is, in fact, one of the main problems in American politics. We all want life to be better for everyone. Who wouldn't want all of their fellow Americans, or all of humanity for that matter, to have good health care? But are you willing to personally take a pay cut to pay for the policy you are advocating? That's the hard question the president and proponents of ObamaCare did not want you to grapple with, because they were afraid your reaction would be akin to the screams now echoing through Harvard Yard. Melissa Francis is the host of "MONEY with Melissa Francis" (2 PM/ET), a program that breaks down the day's top stories and how they impact the American taxpayer. Like her on Facebook at MelissaFrancisFOX and follow her on Twitter@MelissaAFrancis. Click here for more information about Melissa.


Senate Republicans will move this week to speed the confirmation of President Trump's cabinet, an effort that has been stymied by the combination of lax preparation by Mr. Trump's transition team, his many unorthodox nominees and Democrats spoiling for a fight, albeit with few cards in their deck. On Monday, the Senate will vote on the confirmation of Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, after Democrats used one of the few procedural maneuvers left to them to force a debate on his inevitable approval. Republicans had hoped to push through Mr. Pompeo and others last Friday, but were able to confirm only two: James N. Mattis for defense secretary and John F. Kelly to lead homeland security. President Obama had seven nominees approved on his first day in office. Also on Monday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote on Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, whose road to confirmation has been bumpy. Mr. Tillerson received a lift on Sunday when two Republicans, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said they would support him, after weeks of public hedging. Mr. Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has drawn scrutiny over his business connections with Russia and his personal relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, has hinted that he might join Democrats in rejecting Mr. Tillerson, which would lead to the unusual spectacle of a nominee facing the full Senate without a positive recommendation from the committee that held his confirmation hearing. Other nominees have been impeded by attempts to untangle their conflicts of interest, a process that Mr. Trump's transition team started far later than its predecessors and that has led to embarrassing revelations. A committee vote for Betsy DeVos, a billionaire who is Mr. Trump's nominee for education secretary, has been delayed by a week to give senators more time to review her voluminous ethics paperwork, which was released after her hearing last week. Other nominees have been delayed for similar reasons. Last week, Representative Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, Mr. Trump's choice for White House budget director, disclosed that he had failed to pay more than $15, 000 in payroll taxes for a household employee. Steven T. Mnuchin, Mr. Trump's Treasury secretary nominee, failed to list nearly $100 million in assets on his federal disclosure forms, an oversight that gave Democrats a club with which to beat on him in his Finance Committee hearing last week. "Advise and consent doesn't mean ram it through," Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "If I were the Republicans, of course I'd want to ram a cabinet like this through. " Whether these mistakes will thwart the eventual confirmation of any nominee remains in doubt. For all the intraparty rancor and " " during the campaign, Republicans appear to have closed ranks on Capitol Hill to protect their unusual president and his cabinet choices, for now. They have, when possible, prevented Democrats from grilling the nominees too hard, as was the case with Ms. DeVos, when Republicans shut down the hearing after one round of questions from eager lawmakers. Ms. DeVos had been struggling through a series of befuddling answers that raised questions about her grasp of federal education policy, including one flourish — replayed widely on social media and cable television — in which she suggested that school officials should be armed to protect against prospective grizzly bears on the premises. In other cases, Republicans have rushed to the defense of nominees under fire, as when Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, suggested during Mr. Mnuchin's hearing that Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, needed to take a Valium. For their part, Democrats showed the frustration that is likely to surface repeatedly now that they have lost the White House and do not have the filibuster available to them. But their approach in confirmation hearings, raw and blunt after a bitter election defeat, probably presages the tactics that lawmakers are already learning in the Trump era — and the defensive maneuvers Republicans will employ. Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, excoriated the civil rights record of Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and Mr. Trump's pick for attorney general, breaking with a Senate custom of comity in the chamber. Democrats lobbed hours of questions at Representative Tom Price of Georgia, the nominee for secretary of health and human services, about his trading of stocks in health care companies that may have benefited from his legislating, keeping Mr. Price on the defensive heading into another confirmation hearing this week. "I've noticed that the questioning frequently has an edge to it," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. "That is not to say that there aren't legitimate questions to be asked of the nominees. But it's the way they're asked that I've found to be different this time. " The Senate typically confirms nearly all of a president's cabinet, and many Democrats, if not most, will vote for the bulk of Mr. Trump's nominees. Democrats changed Senate rules when they were in power to make cabinet nominees subject to a mere majority — rather than 60 — vote threshold, empowering Mr. Trump to send up more conservative and unusual choices. Their numbers limited, Democrats have opted to put Republicans on the defensive as much as possible. Mr. Booker's decision to testify against a fellow senator particularly rankled opponents, who accused him of grandstanding. In other moments, Republicans have chafed more at Democrats' tone than at the content of their remarks. Democrats are eager to argue the irony of any complaints about partisanship and obstructionism. Many remain bitter over Republicans' blockade of Merrick B. Garland, Mr. Obama's choice for the Supreme Court in his final year in office. "The Republican majority in the United States Senate refused a hearing and a vote on a nominee to fill a vacancy in the U. S. Supreme Court," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, after Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, chastised Democrats for refusing to consent to a speedy confirmation of nominees on Friday. "That position on the highest court in the land remained vacant because of the specific political strategy of the Republican leader on the other side. " Others have pointed to the relentless inquiries into Hillary Clinton and the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, wondering aloud why only a single round of questions was allowed in hearings for Ms. DeVos and Mr. Price. After going over his allotted time questioning Mr. Price, Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, grumbled that he would cede time in the nonexistent second round. Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was not amused. He later noted that Mr. Price had been questioned more than any nominee to the post in more than two decades. "You may be here by yourself," Mr. Alexander told Mr. Franken. "The Benghazi hearing was 11 hours," Mr. Franken shot back. "That's all I'm saying. " Paul C. Light, a professor of public service at New York University who has worked on Capitol Hill as an adviser on transitions, said the confirmation process had made clear that standards for acceptable nominee conduct have changed. "There doesn't seem to be any controversy about things that used to be controversial," he said. "We've lowered the bar in terms of offenses that would have taken out nominees. "


Crunched for time but still want to see a show in New York? Here are five productions this month that will take about a "Homeland" episode of your time, with room enough for dinner — or a "Walking Dead" binge — afterward. Running time 1 hour I don't know about you, but I'm way too busy to spend more than an hour a day contemplating my own death. That's where this show fits in nicely. Written by the Pulitzer playwright Will Eno, "Wakey, Wakey" stars Michael Emerson as a man in a wheelchair who reflects on his life knowing that death is around the corner. There are existential echoes of Beckett and Albee in this contemplative work that's part TED talk, part show and tell. Our critic praised it as a "glowingly dark, profoundly moving new play. " [Read the review] At the Pershing Square Signature Center, through March 26 Running time 1 hour 10 minutes Yeah, yeah, yeah: You want to see "Hamilton. " But you don't have A) the time, B) the connections or C) the tickets. This "Hamilton" parody, from Gerard Alessandrini, the creator of the "Forbidden Broadway," is the next best thing. (O. K. maybe more like the next available thing.) If the lyric "In New York, you can be a real ham" sounds like a sidesplitter, this one's for you. (If not, stay far away.) Our critic called it a "smart, silly and often convulsively funny thesis, performed by a cast that is fluent in many tongues. " At Stage 72, the Triad, through May 14 spamilton. com Running time 1 hour Marin Ireland, of Amazon's "Sneaky Pete," stars in Martín Zimmerman's drama about a university professor whose child is killed. Inspired by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings of 2012, it's a solo show on a bare stage, with a story that takes a surprising direction. The play "approaches the subject of American gun violence from a startlingly original perspective," according to our critic. [Read the review.] [Watch our Facebook Live chat.] At the Black Box Theater, Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theater, through April 2 Running time 45 minutes For parents of small children, this one's a . Based on Oliver Jeffers's book of the same title, "The Way Back Home" is about an adventurous boy who makes an unexpected landing on the moon and has to summon the courage to find his way home. Told with puppets, it's a great way to introduce children as young as 3 to the visual treats of the theater. And tired parents can do it in less time than it might take to put their kids to bed. At the New Victory Theater, March Running time 1 hour 20 minutes Ok, so the reviews for David Mamet's new play weren't great. "Cynical and morose" is how our critic put it. But if you've never seen the dark work of this provocative American playwright ("Glengarry Glen Ross") now's your chance. This one's about a psychiatrist who refuses to testify on behalf of a gay client accused of a horrific crime. If you don't like it, soothe yourself with a killer cupcake from Billy's Bakery around the corner from the theater. At the Atlantic Theater through March 26


Hillary Clinton has revealed the person she would love to appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court if she becomes president in 2016 is none other than current President Barack Obama.The prospect of a Justice Obama reared it s head during a campaign event in Deocorah, Iowa on Tuesday. A voter asked Mrs. Clinton is she would consider appointing Obama to SCOTUS if she were made President, and it put a huge smile on her face. She told the 450-strong crowd: Wow what a great idea I love that! Wow! Adding later, I mean, he s brilliant, and he can set forth an argument, and he was a law professor. So he has all the credentials. Now we do have to get a Democratic Senate to get him confirmed so you re going to have to help me on that, OK? This isn t the first time that a future place on the Supreme Court for Mr. Obama has been raised. Sadly, he was a little cold on the idea, put to him by The New Yorker in 2014: I love the law, intellectually, he said at the time. I love nutting out these problems, wrestling with these arguments. I love teaching. I miss the classroom and engaging with students. But I think being a Justice is a little bit too monastic for me. Particularly after having spent six years and what will be eight years in this bubble, I think I need to get outside a little bit more. But who knows? Once he s had a chance to get some quality time with the Obama women, played a lot of golf, and wound down from the presidency that hunger that drove him to the White House might propel Obama onto the Supreme Court.What is certain is that the prospect of Justice Obama is going to strike fear into the heart of every gun-loving, woman-hating, gay-bashing, conservative in the country. First the notorious RBG, and now this.Featured Image via Flickr Creative Commons


A Florida man whom deputies say entered the U. S. illegally allegedly broke into a woman's home and almost choked her to death Sunday. [Deputies say Juan 36, faces felony charges including attempted murder and burglary in connection with the incident, WFLA reported. Polk County deputies responded to a call at a home in Davenport at around 4:06 a. m. about a suspected burglary. One of the victims told deputies that Orozco got into bed with her while she was asleep and followed her down a hallway as she yelled for help. Orozco allegedly grabbed her neck with both hands and said, "Shut up, shut up or I'm going to kill you. " The first victim said Orozco squeezed her neck so tight that she could not breathe and felt like she would faint. She added that she was afraid he would kill her. WOFL reports that the victim told authorities that there was no sexual contact between her and the suspect. Another victim heard screaming upon entering the house, according to deputies. The second victim noticed Orozco attempting to flee and tried to capture him, but the suspect pushed the victim away and fled the home through the front door. WFTS reported that deputies found Orozco's vehicle parked in front of the home. Deputies allege that Orozco entered the residence without permission, choked one victim with the intent to kill her, and intentionally shoved the other victim. "This is an example of an immigrant in our country illegally committing serious and violent crimes," Sheriff Grady Judd said. "He also has a criminal history, and should have been deported after committing his earlier crimes. " Orozco has a criminal history that includes five felony charges and two misdemeanors dating back to 2004. Orozco is being held at Polk County Jail without bond, and an ICE hold will be placed on him.


Monday on CNBC, former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) said due to the sexual misconduct accusations leveled against former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, he should step aside in his campaign for the U.S. Senate.Bush said, This is not a question of innocence or guilt like in a criminal proceeding, this is a question of what s right and what s wrong. Acknowledging that you re dating teenagers when you re 32-years old as assistant state attorney is wrong. It s just plain wrong. Breitbart NewsWatch:Texas woman Roslyn Corrigan claims that former President George H.W. Bush groped her when she was just 16 years old.According to Corrigan, the groping occurred in November of 2003 at an event in The Woodlands, Texas. This is the sixth woman to publicly accuse the 41st president of grabbing her butt without consent.Speaking to Time magazine, Corrigan, who is now in her early 30s, said, My initial action was absolute horror. I was really, really confused. The first thing I did was look at my mom and, while he was still standing there, I didn t say anything, she said. What does a teenager say to the ex-president of the United States? Like, Hey dude, you shouldn t have touched me like that? Like the other five incidents, Corrigan claims it happened when she was posing with Bush for a photograph. Bush was then 79 years old. As soon as the picture was being snapped on the one-two-three he dropped his hands from my waist down to my buttocks and gave it a nice, ripe squeeze, which would account for the fact that in the photograph my mouth is hanging wide open, Corrigan told Time. I was like, Oh my goodness, what just happened? Breitbart


Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki of Alt Right Blogspot, Jay Dyer from jaysanalysis.com, Randy J, and Shawn Helton of 21Wire for the 69th episode of BOILER ROOM. Dim the lights, dawn the headphones and indulge in some Boiler Room with the crew. Tonight we re further deconstructing Cointel Pro with Jay and Shawn, discussing cults & Zen Gardner s recent admission of his involvement with the Children of God. A scathing analysis of the mainstream media being remiss in talking about the new Russian deal with Iran as well as the theater of absurdity that is the US State Department and much more.Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY!Reference Links:


U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reflected on her religious faith on Thursday during the first of a series of speeches her campaign said would focus on her values and vision rather than those of Republican opponent Donald Trump. The shift comes as opinion polls tighten between Clinton, the former secretary of state and U.S. senator, and Trump, a New York businessman, ahead of the Nov. 8 election. Clinton has focused many of her public remarks on criticism of Trump, including his provocative comments on illegal immigrants, Muslims and women. Trump has criticized Clinton's record in public office and questioned her honesty and qualifications for the White House. But the Clinton campaign acknowledged she had to spend more time focusing her remarks on herself so voters could see the "aspirational" vision she hopes to enact if she becomes the first woman elected U.S. president. "We believe we have to work extra hard to make sure that the positive notion of what she wants to do breaks through given the amount of interest that there is (in Trump) and what he says and also in what we say about him," Clinton's communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, told reporters on her plane. Clinton will do that with speeches on the economy, children and families, and national service in the coming weeks. She started on Thursday night with an address to the National Baptist Convention, made up primarily of African-Americans, that focused on her own religious life. Clinton spoke of teaching the occasional Sunday school class and being married for more than 40 years to former President Bill Clinton, a Southern Baptist, despite being a lifelong Methodist herself. She told the crowd about her gruff Navy father praying by his bed every night and her mother, who experienced love during a tough childhood that grounded her faith. Reflecting on her Christianity, Clinton said Jesus Christ's greatest command was to love. "We're not asked to love each other. Not urged or requested. We are commanded," she said. "Some days it's really hard for me," she said to laughter. Clinton does not speak frequently about her faith, although she discussed its importance to her in a televised town hall event in February during her battle with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination. Her words on Thursday seemed to connect with members of the mostly black audience, who applauded and raised their hands in affirmation of many of her comments. Clinton polls strongly among black voters. "I've learned to be grateful not just for my blessings but also for my faults, and there are plenty," she said, noting the importance of humility among leaders.


KABUL, Afghanistan — A Afghan police chief with deep experience in Afghanistan's long conflict with the Taliban was killed in a blast on Sunday in the country's eastern Nangarhar Province, which has been under threat from the Taliban and affiliates of the Islamic State. The police chief, Gen. Zarawar Zahid, was visiting an outpost in the Hisarak district when explosives placed near the outpost detonated, according to Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar. One of General Zahid's bodyguards was wounded, Mr. Khogyani said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing, according to a statement by the insurgency's spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid. The attack came a week after twin bombings outside Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense killed at least 40 people, including several senior security officials. Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, has faced mounting security perils over the past couple of years, with new Islamic State affiliates complicating the threat from the Taliban. Zabihullah Zmarai, a member of the provincial council, said the Islamic State posed a danger in five districts, despite repeated operations by the Afghan Army. "Out of the 22 districts, only six are secure," he said. The Taliban's presence across nearly a dozen districts varies, Mr. Zmarai said. But the Hisarak district faced a collapse in recent weeks. That drew the attention of General Zahid, who had gone there to supervise a counterattack. Over the past decade, he rose from a bodyguard to a police chief of several volatile provinces. His postings included two stints as the police chief of southeastern Ghazni Province, and one term each in Zabul and Paktika Provinces. General Zahid was seen as a commander, often arriving at the front lines unannounced. When a major cultural event drew world leaders to the ancient city of Ghazni, the general was photographed riding around the city on the back of a motorcycle to check on security measures. He had been wounded twice and had lost two brothers during the decades of war in Afghanistan. In June, he took part in clashes with Pakistani forces that erupted on the border. In a Facebook video that he posted, he appeared beside two mortars and shouted to his men, "Strike hard enough to blow up Nawaz Sharif's home," referring to the prime minister of Pakistan. Sediq Sediqqi, the spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior Affairs, called General Zahid "one of the bravest commanders of Afghan police. " "He lost his life on the front line of duty in the fight against terrorism," Mr. Sediqqi said.


Many humans are discovering they have unique abilities that science can't explain, suggesting that we may have untapped potential beyond our wildest dreams. Since the majority of people have yet to realize this potential, there is a certain mysticism surrounding this phenomenon, which is why many perceive people with special capabilities as "superhumans." One of the more recent superhumans to share his talent with the world is Nong Yousui , a young boy from Dahua, China. Nong Yousui and His Superhuman Eyesight Like many babies, Nong Yousui was born with blue eyes; however, Nong's eyes have a certain brightness that set him apart from other blue-eyed children. Later in life, he discovered that the colour of his eyes wasn't his only unique attribute, as he claims to have perfect vision in complete darkness. Naturally, his father brought Nong to the hospital in search for answers. As his father explained , "They [doctors] told me he would grow out of it and that his eyes would stop glowing and turn black like most Chinese people but they never did." Even though Nong can see clearly in the dark, he has difficulty seeing in sunlight and finds bright light uncomfortable. His teacher also claims that when light is shined directly into Nong's eyes in the dark, they reflect a neon green tone. When Nong's story first went public, a skeptical Chinese journalist decided to formally test his claim. The journalist created a set of questionnaires for the boy to complete in a controlled setting, a pitch black dark room. After completing the tests, his results clearly proved that the boy can see, read, and write perfectly in complete darkness. The World Record Academy , the organization that certifies world records, deemed Nong Yousui as the first person to be able to see in the dark and awarded him with a world record. Check out the following video about Nong Yousui and his ability to see in the dark: http://www.medicaldaily.com/chinese-boy-nong-yousui-can-see-pitch-dark-scientists-unconvinced-253207 The Scientific Debate Surrounding Nong's Night Vision Nong's story has generated a lot of publicity, mostly outside mainstream media (not surprisingly), though it has attracted attention from the scientific community as well. Many scientists remain skeptical of Nong's unique eyesight because it doesn't make sense according to human evolution. As James Reynolds , a pediatric ophthalmologist at State University of New York in Buffalo, explained, evolution is a slow process: "Evolutionarily, mutations can result in differences that allow for new environmental niche exploitation. But such mutations are modified over long periods. A functional tapetum in a human would be just as absurd as a human born with wings. It can't happen." Although evolution clearly occurred in nature, it is important to note that there are still many unanswered questions surrounding the theory of evolution and its relationship to modern-day humans. A University of Glasgow study performed in 2000 proved that modern man was not in fact descended from Neanderthals, a species believed to be our ancestors, disproving the out-of-Africa model of modern human evolution. I'm not suggesting that Darwin's work was wrong whatsoever; I'm simply reiterating the fact that it is a theory that has been applied to humans and that specific parts of it have been disproven, including the hypothesis that we evolved from Neanderthals. With that, I think it's presumptuous to state that the theory of human evolution negates the reality of Nong's night vision, when we're still searching for answers surrounding human evolution in general. Nong's night vision seems more plausible when you consider all of the other species with similar capabilities. Numerous animals including cats and those that are nocturnal have incredible night vision due to a thin layer of cells that exists in their eyes called the tapetum lucidum (as mentioned above). When light shines directly into these animals' eyes, their eyes appear to glow, similar to Nong's. What We Can Learn From Nong's Story This isn't the first time we've observed incredible capabilities in human eyes. Many people have claimed to heal their eyesight naturally and there have been studies performed on humans that have successfully improved their night vision (read our article about it here ). Eyes have also been referred to as the gateway to the soul, which means they could be used as a tool to look beyond the physical world and into the spiritual. Like Nong, many other people have come forward to share their superhuman abilities with the public — abilities for which scientists have had no explanations. Many of these people are enlightened beings, such as monks who can generate heat and have supernormal mental capabilities. Another infamous 'superhuman,' Wim Hof , can submerge his body in ice for hours while meditating and his body temperature remains stable, an ability which still baffles scientists. Why should we automatically doubt a young boy's uniqueness because science tells us to? It's time we put our scientific egos aside, accept the fact that some things are inexplicable (for now), and recognize that what we deem impossible may sometimes be possible. To read more about other people with superhuman capabilities, check out our article:


Before dawn on a Sunday late last month, a battalion of pesh merga soldiers — about 600 Kurdish men, along with a few women — gathered in the shadow of Bashiqa Mountain, on the western edge of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. They were sons, daughters, fathers, grandfathers. They wore an assortment of camouflage fatigues and traditional Kurdish flowing pants, waist sashes and head scarves. They carried antique Kalashnikovs and new assault rifles. Few had helmets, and fewer had body armor. Strapped to their backs and belts and legs were daggers, revolvers, axes. Some of them had received the call to duty only the day before and were driven to the front by family or rode overnight in taxis. With them was a column of vehicles new, old and very old: armored personnel carriers, vehicles (MRAPs) Humvees, S. U. V. s, ambulances, Soviet tanks, backhoes, bulldozers, sedans and a bestiary of retrofitted pickups and battlewagons, whose tenuous welding and argumentative suspensions told of the years Iraqi Kurds had spent fighting with and homemade hardware in one war or another. At 7 a. m. the idling engines came to life, and cries went up: "Long live pesh merga!" "Death to ISIS!" The troops started down an unpaved track that led southwest through the Tigris River valley toward the city of Mosul. As the march went on, villages gave way to occasional abandoned farmhouses, crop fields to dunes, and the sun made itself felt. A long dust cloud rose in the wake of the column, whose eventual destination was Bashiqa, a small city on the mountain's edge that was claimed by the Islamic State. The operation to retake Mosul had finally begun one week earlier on Oct. 16. The pesh merga led the charge toward the city, Iraq's and ISIS' last citadel in the country. Mosul had become the focus of the world's attention, and the battle for it had been criticized even before it began. In the second presidential debate, Donald Trump complained that in revealing its designs on Mosul, the international coalition was telegraphing its punches. This was inevitably true — not even ISIS had ever doubted that Mosul would be invaded — but it was also true that the first flurry of blows was too big to duck. Embedded in the column was a unit of American Special Forces, in a cluster of MRAPs. They were there, it was understood, to pick out targets for airstrikes. Rumbling in the distance, the bombs had deposited on the horizon a dome of inky vapor. While the pesh merga attacked ISIS from the north and the east, the Iraqi military was approaching from the south. The job of the battalion moving toward Bashiqa was to shore up the eastern front and extend a cordon around Mosul. The Iraqis' next moves would depend in part on the Kurds' success. For the moment, in other words, the progress of the central conflict in the Middle East had come down to this unlikely troop. The first ISIS mortar fire arrived in the midmorning with whizzes and thuds. It was off target, and the soldiers regarded the dirt plumes with indifference. The first incoming bullets soon followed and were cause for more alarm. They flew from a rambling, house on the crest of a slope. The gunfire split the column in two. The back portion halted behind a berm about 12 feet high and about 300 yards downslope from the house. A few soldiers climbed up the dirt and took aim. The rest got out of their vehicles and pulled out phones and cigarettes. Group photos and selfies were snapped. "Let's use the cannon," a commander suggested. A pickup mounted with an gun pulled in front of the berm. The first shot fell short a second hit the house, leaving a disappointingly small hole in the facade. When there was a pause in the fighting, a group of trucks emerged from behind the berm, raced up the track and cut right onto a hillock that overlooked the house. Some pesh merga got out and gathered. They presented a clear target for snipers and artillery, but they didn't appear to mind. They chatted, laughed, smoked, checked their phones. More group photos, more selfies. Even after two mortar rounds landed in quick succession on either side of them — a sign that a spotter was nearby, bracketing their position — they remained unhurried. Eventually they got back into their vehicles and, under fire from the house, headed straight for it. The ISIS fighters had built their own berm beside the house's exterior wall. The Kurdish soldiers backed their trucks up to it, and one of them opened up on the house with a machine gun. Others peeked over the berm, taking the occasional potshot. One walked up to a gap in the dirt and, with neither cover nor helmet, a cigarette dangling from his lips, emptied a magazine. The jammed. The fighting subsided again. The soldiers reclined at the base of the berm. Out came the phones. More selfies. Texting. A man called his mother. Another watched a video of a firefight taking place on some other front around Mosul. None of them seemed eager to storm the house. "I'm deaf from that cannon!" a soldier said. "Did you take any photos of it being shot?" another asked him. The gunner got into an argument with another soldier over whose responsibility it had been to make sure the was working properly that morning. "You were supposed to fix it!" "It's not my job!" "It's not as if you had to build an airplane. It's simple. " "You came all the way to the front in a taxi, and now all you do is talk. You just talk. " Another burst of gunfire from the house, and a soldier climbed behind the gun. "Come help me," he instructed a colleague. "I don't know how. " "If you don't get up here and help me, I'm going to do everything that's bad to you. " The gun was loaded and fired. The backblast shattered a pickup's windshield. "Bazan, where are your cigarettes?" Bazan ran to a truck and returned with a pack of cigarettes. "Who wants a cigarette?" The group lit up. "Everyone here talks like a man," a soldier said, "but no one fights like one. " There was a note of false modesty in this quip. In fact, for centuries Kurds have fought famously, taking on all comers: Persians, Ottomans, Arabs, British and the various governments of Iraq. A diffuse institution — "more an attitude than an army," as one Kurd put it — the pesh merga today contain anywhere from several tens of thousands to about a hundred thousand fighters, depending on who's counting and how proud he's feeling. Many are volunteers. Only some of them have training that would warrant the name in a major military. The one thing they all share is that they are willing to die for their land. If their tactics are negligible — and sometimes as suicidal as those of the jihadists — their bravery is not. The pesh merga are commanded by Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government. When ISIS overran Mosul in June 2014, Barzani offered the help of his army to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal who snubbed him. It was assumed Maliki worried that Barzani intended to annex whatever land his troops took. Maliki's successor, Haider may have delayed the invasion of Mosul for the same reason. But earlier this year, Barzani, Abadi and the international coalition arrived at an agreement that called for the Kurdish forces to halt their advance at Bashiqa. About six miles from the eastern outskirts of Mosul, Bashiqa was inhabited largely by Christians, Kurds and members of the Yazidi minority, most of whom fled when ISIS arrived. The city presented an added political wrinkle in the war because it is in the "disputed territories," land claimed by both Iraq and the Kurdish regional government. Certain Kurds, mainly older ones, consider Mosul theirs, too. Partly for this reason — but more because they're accustomed to fighting against the Iraqi military, not alongside it — some pesh merga worried they would be attacked, or at least mistreated, by Iraqi soldiers when the two forces met on the front lines. Speculation about a sequel war between Kurdistan and Iraq was (and still is) commonplace. But so far relations were cordial, and the Iraqi military, knowing it would have its hands full with the close combat in Mosul's ancient streets, was content to leave the Bashiqa campaign to the Kurds. "This war is very different for us Kurds," Barzani's brother, Sihad Barzani, explained several days after the campaign began. "This is the first time we've seen airstrikes that we're not afraid of. This is the first time the Iraqi Army is not trying to kill us — and we're not trying to kill them. We hope it stays this way. " He was in a large abandoned house that the pesh merga had commandeered and turned into a field headquarters on the periphery of Bashiqa. The march had brought them to the limits of the city. They had not yet entered, but they had it surrounded. "ISIS has no escape. They will have to die now. " The Barzanis are de facto royalty in Kurdistan. Massoud and Sihad's father, Mustafa, the patriarch of the incipient Iraqi Kurdish republic, led its revolution against Iraq until his death in 1979. It's common to meet pesh merga with tattoos of Mustafa's portrait. As Sihad stepped from the house, a young soldier lifted up his shirt to reveal the face of Mustafa, with his thick black mustache and checkered red head scarf, sprawled across his back. Sihad looked on approvingly. Asked how many of his own family members were fighting ISIS, he gestured at the soldiers gathered in the courtyard and said, "They're all my family. " The Tigris River valley is dotted with villages and olive groves. The ISIS fighters inhabiting it were experienced and disciplined. What they lacked in munitions they made up for in patience, as the pesh merga had learned. Some Kurds had developed a reluctant respect for their adversary. "They fight as if they want to die," it was often said. The night before, the jihadists had told the residents of Buharbuq, an village near Bashiqa, to be ready to leave at 6 a. m. for Mosul. The intent was obvious: They would be used as human shields. In the middle of the night, the village fled en masse. After leaving the headquarters, Barzani's convoy passed the refugee caravan, 80 or so cars and trucks stretched along a roadside. The residents of Buharbuq had taken everyone and everything they could: children, mattresses, blankets, grandmothers, pots, buckets, sheep, chickens. One truck contained a motorized wheelchair, another seven newborn lambs. The women were still dressed according to ISIS decree, fully covered in black hijabs and abayas. Officers with the Asayish, a Kurdish internal security agency, met the villagers on the road with a fleet of buses that would take them to a camp. A soldier pulled up with a freight truck full of crackers and water. "All of our life is wasted in this ISIS mess," a woman waiting in line said to her husband. "I feel a hundred years old. I hope ISIS goes to hell, then rots in hell. " "I'm so tired," her husband replied. There were heartsick roadside reunions. Two old classmates, one a pesh merga who had fled Buharbuq, the other a shop owner who had stayed, hugged for the first time in two years. "Life was very bitter," the shop owner told his friend. He pulled from his pocket a note, less than a dollar. "This is all my money. " A young man found his mother. She clung to his neck and wept and kissed his face again and again. "Thank God," she muttered. "Thank God. " Perhaps the bravest pesh merga are the drivers of earthmovers, who toil mere yards from ISIS positions. They are bombed, mortared, rocketed and sniped, all the while doing astonishingly fast work. Within two days of setting off toward Bashiqa, they had turned the valley into a grid of berms and trenches that prevented an ISIS breakout and cut off the group's supply lines. About 4, 000 Kurdish soldiers now occupied 100 positions and small encampments. The main camp was presided over by Barham Arif, one of the youngest and most respected generals in the pesh merga. Tall and taciturn, he led his men into battle in a jaunty MRAP with a GoPro camera to the hood. "ISIS is not smart and not brave, but they brainwash stupid people," Arif said. "They give drugs to their fighters. They fight for 20 minutes and then run away. " For months, Arif had lived with his men on the pesh merga's stalemated front line, on the ridge of Bashiqa Mountain, overlooking the valley. A modest cult of personality had formed around the general, and his camp was home to foreign volunteers and soldiers of fortune. There were American medics, a Brazilian and Czech videographer couple and, constantly at Arif's side, a Scottish sniper in spectacles. On Facebook, under employer, he listed "pesh merga. " Generations of Kurds also converged in the camp. A few soldiers were in their 20s. Most were in their 30s, 40s and 50s. One soldier who had come down from the mountain with Arif was Kaefe Ahmed. Ahmed's father, also a pesh merga fighter, was killed by Iraqi soldiers when Ahmed was 4. Ten other family members had died in war. Ahmed refused to wear a camouflage uniform because, he said, "for decades the Iraqi Army destroyed our land with these uniforms. " He had fought for more than 20 of his 37 years: in the Kurdish civil war, against Saddam Hussein's forces and now against ISIS. He and his cousin Robar Ali were in a unit with a group of men, some of them related. When ISIS entered Mosul, they fought on its outskirts, before the pesh merga were ordered to withdraw. Had ISIS stopped there, Ahmed and Ali, like most Iraqi Kurds, wouldn't have worried much about the jihadists living nearby. This was a conflict among Arabs, they felt, and at first ISIS was better than Saddam's Baathists ever were. "In the beginning, the ISIS fighters were generally good with people," Ahmed said. But then ISIS pushed into Kurdistan. Ahmed and Ali fought them in Sinjar, and then in Bashiqa, before it was overrun. The fighting there was particularly bitter. "They're suicidal," he said. The oldest soldier in the camp, as far as anyone knew, was a man named Jamil Rashid. When asked about his age, he first said, "A lot. " Later offerings ranged from 61 to 78. Asked how many battles he'd fought in over the years, he said, "That notebook does not have enough paper to write them all down. " He ate what food local brought to the camp and slept wrapped in a thin blanket in a ditch. Five of his sons were in the pesh merga. One had recently been killed by ISIS. He had more grandchildren than he cared to count. "ISIS is nothing — they've been around for two years," said Rashid, who was fond of listing, in the profanest terms possible, the Iraqi premiers whose regimes he'd fought against. "Abd Qasim" — the Iraqi prime minister of the early 1960s. "I screwed his mother. Then there was Ahmed Hassan and then Saddam, and then Nuri . He was a bad guy. And now — what's his name again?" "Abadi," a young soldier said. "Right, Abadi. I fought all of them on this holy ground — for this holy ground. Our mud is holy. Whoever doesn't fight for his land takes it in the [expletive]. This land is so precious. " "Why are you talking about history, Jamil?" another young soldier asked him. "We're supposed to be discussing now. " "So what if I talk about history?" Rashid said. "It's all the same, history and now. " On Tuesday morning, Arif's men prepared to assault Omar Qapchi, a village barely a from his camp that was still under ISIS control. A commander had got hold of some villagers on a cellphone and was telling them what to do when the fighting started. "Stay together, don't separate," he said. "If you see any ISIS, call this number. Take care of yourselves. We're coming. " The armored personnel carriers and tanks and trucks filled up in moments. Far more soldiers wanted to take part in the assault than there was space in vehicles. Omar Qapchi, spreading about a mile down a slope that ended in an arterial road at the foot of Bashiqa Mountain, was made up of tightly packed and homes. Near its western gate, the column split into three smaller convoys. Arif's convoy cut across a field toward the road. Though the ground was known to be full of I. E. D. s, some pesh merga cut one another off as they careered over suspicious patches of dirt and objects, racing to get into the action. When the convoy reached the road, muzzle flashes appeared in windows, and bullets whizzed by. The pesh merga strafed the buildings with fire and grenades. At the eastern gate, the convoy hooked into the village. The streets were empty. From the residents who had phoned, it was known that about a dozen ISIS fighters were somewhere in the village. The convoy raced into the village center and suddenly found itself in a firefight with a contingent of ISIS gunmen, who, surrounded, had taken a stand at one end of a short, wide alley. The soldiers, on the other end, jumped from their vehicles, piled into the alley — directly in the line of fire — and began shooting back. There was little aiming but a lot of yelling. One man stepped into the alley with a grenade launcher. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He held the rocket inches from his nose and looked at it quizzically. As bullets hit the dirt near his feet, he slowly peeled off a piece of plastic wrapping, then lifted the launcher back onto his shoulder and tried again. This time it fired. The ISIS fighters took to their heels, and the soldiers, among them Ahmed, gave chase, eventually cornering several jihadists in a mosque. One detonated a suicide vest another was sheared in half by a rocket. By the end of the day, eight of them had died, three had escaped and one was captured. Three pesh merga sustained minor wounds. Rather than going on foot from house to house to make sure the village was cleared, they gathered outside it and celebrated. "I think I killed someone," Rashid said. "It would be a shame if I shot my rifle and didn't kill anyone. " Two days later, the wind at their backs, Arif's men moved on Faziliya, a neighboring village. The road to the village was littered with I. E. D. s, which sent up showers of gravel and tarmac. On the wall of a kiosk at the entrance to the village was : "Every ISIS man who dies goes to paradise. " An ISIS flag fluttered on a fence post, but the roofs of the houses, which ranged steeply up the foot of the mountain, bore newly hung white flags: The town's residents were eagerly awaiting the pesh merga's arrival. Then gun and rocket fire erupted from a small, windowed spire on a building near the road. A tank reduced the building to smoking rubble. The people of Faziliya streamed from their homes and into the streets. They patted their heads — a Kurdish gesture of welcome — and kissed the soldiers. Children chanted: "Long live pesh merga! Long live pesh merga!" In the village square, a group of boys tore down an ISIS billboard. Soldiers shot off celebratory rounds. "Who has cigarettes?" a man asked the soldiers. "We want to smoke!" A soldier found his wife and children — their first meeting in more than two years. His mother emerged. She took hold of her son. They sank to the ground in an embrace, their tears streaming together. Back at Omar Qapchi, the few residents who had remained for the battle were gathered outside the village next to a caged soccer pitch, where they awaited interrogation by the soldiers and Asayish officers. An elderly woman wanted to know where her brother was. A rocket had destroyed his house, and he was nowhere to be seen. "He's dead," a neighbor of hers explained, out of earshot, "but she hasn't found out yet. " An officer had already determined that one resident was allied with ISIS. The man was dragged from the group, his hands bound behind his back with a scarf. A green knit face mask was pulled down over his eyes, and he was forced to the ground. He pleaded his innocence. "Shut up, you imbecile!" a soldier yelled at him. "It's obvious he's ISIS," another soldier said. "Just look at his color. He's taken on the jihadists' color. " "I'm not with ISIS, I swear!" the prisoner said. "I'm a Kurd!" "Shut up or I'll stuff this down your throat!" the first soldier said, jabbing his rifle's stock in the man's face. The officer was from Omar Qapchi and had fled the village as ISIS approached it in 2014. From his friends who had stayed, he had heard that the prisoner had driven an ambulance for the jihadists. His son, they said, was with ISIS, too. "I haven't done anything!" the prisoner protested. "I was just told to drive somewhere. " "Hit him already," another soldier said. The prisoner's son, his hands also bound and face covered, was pushed down beside his father. "My son is a student in Bashiqa," the father said. "I'll tell you anything about him. Please don't put the gun to his head. " "I'm just following orders," the soldier said. "Don't worry," said an Asayish commander who had arrived on the scene. "We don't know if he's ISIS. We have to investigate. " "You've humiliated my son!" "So are you saying your son is ISIS or not?" the soldier asked. "He's a student! He's in ninth grade!" They were bundled into the bed of a pickup and driven away. The Islamic State, the pesh merga knew, hadn't conquered such large swaths of the country with weapons alone. It had won sympathy among many Sunni Muslims who felt neglected by Iraq's national government and abused by security forces. ISIS promised them protection and pride. Many of them saw ISIS as a way out of an already miserable existence. In a camp near Khazer, another town, an elderly farmer who'd fled the village of Topzawa, not far from Bashiqa, which the Iraqi military had taken a few days before, talked about the jihadists fondly. "Most of the young men who joined ISIS were poor," he said. "They needed the money. They had no other options. " He confessed that he had come to know some of the ISIS men in Topzawa well. They weren't foreigners, but Iraqis, ordinary ones. They were kind. They allowed him to travel wherever he wanted to sell his produce. He didn't mind that the women in his family had to put on more clothing, and he wore a beard anyway. They treated his wife and daughters with the respect that Islam required. "At the beginning of Islam, with Muhammad, there were good rules. But with democracy, there are no rules. I'm a fair person. I believe in justice. But there are rules in Islam. No one can change them. Not you, not me, not anyone. "ISIS treated us as though we were free," he went on. "We felt secure under them. In the final battle, they conducted themselves honorably. They fought until they died. " The Iraqi Army, by contrast, relied on foreign airstrikes. The bombs had killed 20 of his sheep, 10 of his chickens and 10 dogs, and when the soldiers finally arrived, they were "very, very bad. " They forced him from his home and made him come to this camp, where he endured humiliations. His hands were bound. "They attacked my honor. They told me my wife and daughters had been raped by ISIS. I was disgraced. I wanted to kill myself. " Two weeks after the Bashiqa campaign began, President Barzani still hadn't given the order to attack the city itself. Rumors about what would be found in it expanded by the day. The number of ISIS fighters supposedly hiding out there crept upward. There would be no end of I. E. D. s, people said, of suicide of snipers. There would be tunnels everywhere. At General Arif's camp, the berms had grown taller and the foxholes deeper. ISIS fighters had attacked by night, and by day they lobbed in mortar rounds and handcrafted missiles. Jamil Rashid spoke with a group of younger soldiers as gunfire rang out. "This is nothing," he said. "It's air. I like the sound of it. " Finally, the order was given. The night before the assault, Arif's troops gathered on the mountain above Bashiqa, in their old position. Ahmed and his cousin Ali were part of group of about 30 men who would descend the slope and enter Bashiqa on foot. In the morning, an armored column collected on a road outside the city. Sihad Barzani arrived to wish them luck. "We must move, but slowly," he said. For six hours, the column crept toward the city, while airstrikes and artillery pummeled it. As they waited, soldiers checked for news of the American election, the next day, on their phones. Word came down that a sniper was holed up somewhere inside. He had already killed one soldier and wounded four. On the access road into the city's east end, which climbed up the mountainside, the column drove by a pesh merga bulldozer in flames, the driver incinerated in the cab. As in Omar Qapchi, the streets were quiet. But as the vehicles turned by a small park, a grenade flew at it. Its orange fireball and white smoke trail, visible for less than a second, were terribly beautiful. The rocket exploded against the low concrete wall of the park. Another quickly followed behind it. The column made it to a central plaza. A handsome old church with a suspicious tower was peppered with fire and artillery. Jamil Rashid hopped from the front seat of a truck and took up a position outside the church. Standing in the open, his rifle dangling by his leg, he looked around and breathed in the scent of gun smoke, beaming. The column turned back along the same road it had entered. But now there was an empty white sedan in the middle of an intersection. Was this a car bomb? A roadblock? Had some innocent tried to flee and suffered a breakdown? The driver of the lead tank stuck his head from the turret hatch. A shot cracked the air, its tone higher and sharper than that of a Kalashnikov. Blood sprayed from the driver's head. He slumped over the turret. His crew mates began screaming and crying. Panic passed down the line. "Sniper! Sniper!" The column reversed course, honking and and labored back to the plaza. The tank sped from the city by a different route. At the staging point, the driver's body was lifted out and put in an ambulance. His friends bent over the tank's side skirt and knelt in the dirt, weeping. Before the driver was shot, Ahmed, Ali and their detachment had descended into the same side of the city on foot. They came under fire, retreated back uphill and took up a position. A crack. Ali lurched forward, falling over Ahmed's leg. Ahmed thought his cousin had tripped. Then he saw the blood. Three days later, Ahmed was worrying a string of wooden prayer beads in a mosque in his and Ali's hometown, Rawanduz, in Kurdistan's eastern mountains. He sat by the muezzin, who sang a death prayer for Ali, a Quran open before him on a desk stand. Old pesh merga in traditional dress and younger ones in suits and jeans filed in. They greeted Ali's father and Ahmed, their hands to their chests, saying: "May he rest in peace" and "May God forgive him his sins. " After the service, long rugs were spread on the floor, and Ahmed and the men from his unit sat down to lunch. Their part in the fight against ISIS was over, for now. Bashiqa was liberated, and the Kurdish line stopped there. But the war against ISIS was not going well for the Iraqi Army, which was still stuck on Mosul's outskirts, taking a lot of casualties. "It will be a heavy fight," one man said. Ahmed and his friends would fight in Mosul if they were ordered to, they agreed, but they wouldn't like it. They were not among the Kurds who considered the city part of the homeland. "Is it fair that a Kurd should die for an Arab?" Ahmed said. Anyway, history had taught them that another war would come soon enough. "Once you finish one fight, they prepare another one for you," a soldier said. "It makes you tired. "