Can you quantify the power of familial love? For one Williamsburg family, yeah—cops have assessed it at approximately $1.5 million a year in heroin sales, totally tax-free.

That’s all according to a 368-count indictment that came down Thursday afternoon. According to Brooklyn D.A. Kenneth Thompson, who announced the arrests at a celebratory press conference, the mostly-family business also employed a college drug counselor and a Manhattan court supervisor. All in all, 25 were arrested in what’s been a devastating year for mom and pop drug businesses across the city.

http://gawker.com/queens-pizzeri...

At the heart of the drug ring were the purported leader, 24-year-old Josie Tavera, his sister, his brother and at least two of his cousins. And authorities say his mother—who was probably still laundering his clothing—was definitely laundering his money. Via CBS:

“His mother helped launder the proceeds that they gained from selling this heroin,” Thompson told reporters, including WCBS 880’s Marla Diamond. “And his sister, Sheila, helped bag and transport some of their heroin.”

They reportedly hid the drugs in cereal boxes, which is smarter than selling it in little baggies marked “heroin”—I guess—but didn’t exactly help them, because police were already following them and tapping their phones. Via the New York Times:

The authorities began an investigation into the ring last year after a tip from an informer, and it grew to include wiretaps and video and physical surveillance.

Investigators found that the ring, which appeared to be based in an apartment in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, sold heroin under various names, including “Knockout,” “Killing Time,” “Gucci” and “Scorpion,” which, in one recorded phone conversation played by prosecutors, members of the ring laughed about its potent “bite.”

Only one suspect, Walter Simms, is still on the loose and has no doubt lost his spot in the Tavera Family Band.

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

As Kristin Cavallari will tell you, tonight marks Kristin Cavallari’s third appearance at New York Fashion Week. She is hosting a party for the Kristin Cavallari for Chinese Laundry shoe line, of course. But what was Kristin’s first NYFW appearance?

Here’s a hint: The photo above was taken there. You’ve already seen the rest, so here’s the story.

On September 10, 2013, Kristin traveled to New York City to host the Junk Food Presents NFL/Elements Curated by Kristin Cavallari runway show at STYLE360. In an interview at the event, she told the blog Fashionista that the idea to stage an NFL-themed fashion show was not her own. “Junk Food actually came to me,” she said.

The show itself—designed by Junk Food and “curated” by Kristin—featured “tight fitting midriff baring sweaters, pleather and puff-sleeved baby tees, embellished distressed cropped sweatshirts and even dresses—all jazzed up with a NFL logo or team name,” per Fashionista.

Here are some photos from the runway:

Before the show, Kristin posed on a step-and-repeat with famous attendees like Phillip Bloch.

After, she explained to Fashionista that none of the items modeled on the runway would be available for purchase:

Everything I did today is specifically for the runway. It’s not going to be available, so you won’t be able to buy this dress [gestures to her paneled body-con and presumably Chicago Bears-themed dress] to wear to the game unfortunately. There will be some looks that are inspired by the runway that will be available at Bloomingdale’s for a short time. But this was really fun because it’s just for the runway and I got to play it up and make it more high-end than you would see on some girl at a game.

Who wants to see some girl anyway.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

At some point in your life, you’ll have to eat at a dining establishment where there are more forks on your table then there are ties in your closet. It’s a daunting prospect, but just roll with it. You’ll be fine. We made this video to be your guide.

Most of the rules about existing in a place where you feel like you don’t belong come down to this: Just act like you’re supposed to be there. Be polite, be on time, don’t dress like a schlub, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be overwhelmed by the half-dozen forks in front of you, either: Just pick one. If you follow these instructions, you’ll be just fine and dandy. Oh, and please don’t forget to tip.

Are you, fellow New York commuter, following the correct New York Subway social media account? The answer may surprise you.

Earlier this week, one of my Gawker colleagues was delayed coming into the office (I would say “late” but that would imply that the Gawker Media office hews to any conventional definition of “on time”) because of a delay on the M line of the New York City Subway. That delay, due to “signal problems” (an increasingly common problem for our aged subway system), was reported by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on its social media platform, giving my colleague the opportunity to choose an alternate route. And my colleague follows the MTA on Twitter. Still, she missed the message. Why is that?

Because despite the fact that New Yorkers almost universally recognize the MTA as the operator of the New York City Subway—thanks in part to ubiquitous branding, automated announcements that thank subway riders for “riding with the MTA,” and nearly a half-century of local news reports cementing the association of “the subway” with “the MTA” in the minds of all New Yorkers—the Twitter account that dispenses subway service alerts (and answers questions about subway service) is not @MTA. It is @NYCTSubway.

The @NYCTSubway account is the fastest, most frequently updated, and most reliable source of subway status information. It is often updated much more quickly than the MTA’s website, and it will frequently answer commuters’ specific questions about subway service. The @MTA account, on the other hand, features PSAs, public relations material, and, naturally, a lot of information about the other agencies under the umbrella of the MTA (the Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Railroad) that daily subway riders don’t need to know about.

One problem, and the likely reason that my colleague did not follow the correct account, is that “NYCT” is not an acronym that New Yorkers have ever actually associated with the subway system. Before the MTA took over the subway system in 1968, the subway authority was the New York City Transit Authority, commonly known, as depicted on the logos plastered on every subway car, as “the TA.”

When the New York City Transit Authority was absorbed by the MTA, the original name of its subway and bus operating authority was officially retained, but at no point did the subways feature a logo employing the acronym “NYCTA.” If you follow the logo history, you’ll see that the TA logo was phased out in favor of a solitary M, which was eventually supplanted by the current MTA logo. The current New York City Subway map features the “MTA” logo, above the words “New York City Subway.” “NYCT” is nowhere in sight.

The agency that operates the subway is currently “branded” as MTA New York City Transit. But if you use Twitter’s search function to find the official MTA New York City Transit account, by, say, typing in “MTA,” the unhelpful @MTA account will, obviously, show up first, prompting most users to assume that this is the account to follow for subway status information. (The @MTA account retweets some, but by no means all @NYCTSubway alert advisories.)

Perhaps, and this is just a suggestion, the MTA could change the name of their subway status alert to something like @MTASubway.

There is currently a Twitter user named @MTASubway. They joined in 2009 and have never Tweeted. Twitter will generally give the usernames of inactive accounts to people and organizations with related trademarks. The MTA, which has been known to aggressively enforce its trademarks against artists and bagel shops, could probably convince them to hand it over.

Unless and until the MTA obtains a more sensible Twitter account name, here is a commuting tip: Follow @NYCTSubway, and check that feed before you go underground. If there is a signal problem, a sick passenger, a derailment, or a Taking of Pelham One Two Three situation delaying your train, that is where you’ll hear about it.

Images: MTA via MetroMap Art/Blingee

Are you ready for winter? There’s a chance of snow in the mountains of Wyoming today, and before you know it, everyone everywhere will start grumbling about the cold. The big question on everyone’s mind is what’s in store for us this winter, and El Niño will likely be a major player in the coming months. Most indications point to the chance that the abnormally warm water in the Pacific will have a significant effect on our weather here in the United States.

What Is El Niño?

We talk about El Niño so often that we forget that there are people who don’t know what it is, leading to the widespread misconception that the phenomenon is a destructive storm or weather pattern in its own right, that it’s something that can “hit” California, as so many news stories have falsely reported in recent months.

An El Niño is the abnormal warming of waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean around the equator. The warming is measured using regions—the most commonly used region, “Niño 3.4,” is pictured above—and the sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in these regions are used to determine whether or not we have an El Niño (sustained above-average SSTs) or a La Niña (sustained below-average SSTs).

The exact definition of an El Niño varies slightly from source to source; the Climate Prediction Center says that sea surface temperature anomalies have to be +0.5°C or greater for five consecutive three-month periods (in other words, seven consecutive months) in order to classify the warming event an honest-to-God(zilla?) El Niño.

An El Niño occurs when trade winds in the equatorial Pacific slow down or even reverse direction, allowing warmer water to pool-up on the eastern side of the ocean where it doesn’t belong. Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what triggers this process, as well as ways of more accurately predicting when this shift will occur.

How Strong Will It Get?

In its weekly update on September 14, the Climate Prediction Center’s analysis showed that average sea surface temperature anomalies in that Niño 3.4 region are +2.3°C, which is mighty toasty.

If you have a body temperature considered to be average (98.6°F), that kind of anomaly would give you a fever of 102.7°F. It’s not the same, of course, but it helps explain the way relatively small changes in temperature can have a big impact on the environment. That kind of fever could knock you down and make you see purple unicorns dancing on the neighbor’s roof, just as that kind of anomaly in sea surface temperatures can dramatically alter the atmosphere, affecting weather patterns around the world.

Most models and forecasters expect that the waters will continue warming through the winter, with the current El Niño peaking around the end of the year before slowly subsiding as we head into 2016.

We’ve seen lots of chatter about the fact that this event could be the strongest El Niño ever recorded. If these regions continue warming as models project, this could very well be the strongest one on record—exceeding the current record held by the El Niño of 1997-1998—but that’s a tricky subject because the sample size is so small. If we had hundreds of years of sea surface temperature data instead of just six-and-a-half decades of reliable information, declaring this “the strongest El Niño ever recorded” would have a little more oomph behind it. It’s still noteworthy, though, and it could already be having serious consequences on our weather.

Why It Alters Our Weather

In the Northern Hemisphere, our weather is largely affected by two jet streams—the polar jet stream and the sub-tropical jet stream. The pattern we typically see in the winter is dominated by the polar jet stream—usually centered over Canada and the northern United States—allowing strong low pressure systems and brutally cold Arctic air to sweep down and freeze us all into misery.

During an El Niño, the warmer sea surface temperatures alter our weather by nudging both the polar and sub-tropical jets north into the higher latitudes. This readjustment keeps colder, snowier weather farther north and allows the sub-tropical jet stream to generate storms that sweep across the southern half of the U.S. from west to east.

Hurricanes

While it doesn’t really deal with winter, we’re at the beginning of fall and hurricanes are the most immediate oceanic threat to the United States at the moment, so allow me to mention them for a second.

One of the well-advertised summer effects of El Niño is the potential for an above-average number of tropical cyclones in the eastern Pacific. This part of the world typically sees 15 named storms, and so far this year—with about two months left in the season—that number is up to 12.

What’s even more astounding is that 9 of those 12 named storms made it to hurricane status in the eastern Pacific (before they crossed 140°W into the central Pacific), and 6 (SIX!) of those hurricanes went on to become category four hurricanes before they dissipated. The water in this part of the ocean is very warm, and it’s warm enough to sustain a few more strong storms before the season is out.

What does this mean for the United States? The remnants of tropical cyclones that move close to the Baja Peninsula can inject atmospheric moisture into the southwestern part of the country, bringing the potential for heavy rain from southern California through Colorado.

We saw that just this weekend when the remnants of Hurricane Linda spat moisture northward and allowed showers and thunderstorms to develop in southern California. Parts of Los Angeles saw more than two inches of rain in one day, coming in as the wettest day of the year across the region.

It’s not a guarantee that we’ll see this happen again before tropical cyclone season shuts down, but with abnormally warm waters in this part of the Pacific Ocean, it’s possible we could see a few more cyclones before the year is out, and any one of them, should they track reasonably close to the Baja, could bring moisture to the southwest.

Precipitation Trends

Back to winter now. One of the classic effects of an El Niño in the United States is the uptick in precipitation in the southern half of the country. The Climate Prediction Center released a new batch of seasonal outlooks this morning, and their thinking for the December-January-February time frame heavily resembles the precipitation and temperature trends you’d see in a meteorology textbook’s chapter on El Niño.

According to their latest outlook, the agency is increasingly confident in the odds of above-average precipitation from California to the Mid-Atlantic, with the greatest odds near the borders and coasts. However, if you live in a place like California, don’t bank on the potential rain this winter to eliminate your devastating drought.

Many spots in the northern parts of the United States could see below-average precipitation, which is to be expected during an El Niño. This is terrible news for drought-stricken areas of the Rockies, where persistent dry conditions will exacerbate water troubles and the wildfire situation.

Temperature Trends

Temperature anomalies in the United States also somewhat follow precipitation trends, with cooler-than-average weather possible in the south and warmer-than-average temperatures possible along the West Coast and up along the Canadian border.

A Word of Caution

This doesn’t mean that these precipitation and temperature trends will happen, just that they could happen based on current patterns and what we know about how the atmosphere responds to El Niños. The south could see a warm, dry spell and the north could still see a few sub-zero days with blizzards.

We’re talking about the odds of certain trends, here. It’s an outlook, a general idea of what you might expect given the evidence as it stands today.

Snow? SNOW!? SNOOOOW!!!

I can see it now: the comments will be full of questions about snow. I’m not touching this one with a ten-foot shovel. The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang wrote an article on snow prospects in the capital city during strong El Niño years, and they found the city either saw beaucoup snow or nothing at all. Feast or famine. Not exactly what you want to hear, no matter which side of the snow issue you fall on.

It’s hard to pinpoint snow totals days in advance, let alone months.

Prepare for snow either way. It’s notoriously hard to see snow in the south, so the farther south you, the more you should prepare for freezing rain and sleet instead of snow. It just takes one snow or ice storm to make a humdrum winter the worst anyone in the region can remember. The chance of wintry precipitation depends on the exact tracks of storms—ask New York City how that goes.

[Images: NOAA, author, NOAA, NWS, CPC]

Email: dennis.mersereau@gawker.com | Twitter: @wxdam

If you enjoy The Vane, then you’ll love my upcoming book, The Extreme Weather Survival Manual, which comes out on October 6 and is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who was paid $20 million last year, acknowledged today that “income inequality has kind of gotten worse” in the past 20 years, but said that inequality is mitigated by the fact that “20 years ago... People didn’t have iPhones.”

http://gawker.com/jamie-dimon-vs...

Everybody hates the guy on Amtrak who talks too loudly—I assume, because I’ve never ridden Amtrak, but it seems like something people complain about. But what if that guy is a close advisor of a potential presidential candidate and is spilling need-to-know-info all over the so-called “café car?”

That is, according to the National Review, exactly what happened on an Amtrak ride from New York to Wilmington, Delaware yesterday. Per a source (or more than one? It’s not quite clear) who spoke to America’s premier home of classy racism, Josh Alcorn—a fundraiser for the “Draft Biden” super PAC and longtime confidant of Biden’s late son Beau—was overheard saying that he is “100 percent that Joe is in the race”:

Another passenger said that Alcorn was being loud enough in the café car to make it hard to work. He said that Alcorn had said on one call, “I am 100 percent that Joe is in.” He was less certain of when Biden would announce, but guessed it would be in mid-October.

The source (a person sitting in the café car who is probably friends with Ramesh Ponnuru) also said that Alcon was reporting that “that test ads were doing well in converting Hillary Clinton supporters to Biden supporters, and that money had been lined up to come in right before the announcement.”

Of course, a guy whose job it is to raise money for a super PAC dedicated to convincing Joe Biden to run for president (ensuring the continued employment of people who wish to work for a Joe Biden presidential campaign) would have several million reasons to convince rich people that Biden is definitely going to run for president, even if he might be stretching the truth.

Biden, for his part, did not tell Stephen Colbert that he’s running for president, though he also did not say that he isn’t. The first Democratic debate is on October 13, and only time will tell if you’ll be forced to learn anything about Martin O’Malley.

[image via AP]

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

The second Republican presidential debate was a very long and chaotic affair. Foreign policy and the military were hot topics this round and everyone wanted to chime in. Although much of the discussion was filled with the same re-wrapped, hyperbole-filled position statements, let’s see where the candidates failed when it came to the details.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/all-the-things...

Donald Trump on Russia’s involvement in Syria

Syria’s a mess. You look at what’s going on with ISIS in there, now think of this: we’re fighting ISIS. ISIS wants to fight Syria. Why are we fighting ISIS in Syria? Let them fight each other and pick up the remnants.

Currently, we don’t allow ISIS to take on the Al Assad regime without intervention because ISIS will continue to have a safe haven to operate from, from which it will continue to make stability in Iraq impossible. Additionally, dealing with a well established ISIS even in Iraq alone would be harder to do without also putting pressure on their seat of power in Al Raqqua, Syria.

ISIS will also continue to metastasize without attacking key leadership and material targets in Syria, and it will pose an increasingly greater threat the U.S. and our allies around the globe. Finally, this would largely mean that Trump would be fine with ISIS taking over Syria as a whole as the Assad regime continues to lose ground on its Eastern flank to the Terror State. It also means that any anti-Assad forces that are moderate would be at greater risk of being destroyed by ISIS.

Trump’s strategy is not totally invalid, but it is more complicated and invites greater risk than he seems to be willing to admit or that he knows. Additionally, Trump never addressed the issue of Russia now building up its forces in Syria, which was part of the original question, aside from his same old line that he would “get along with Putin” and that Putin will respect him.

Carly Fiorina on Russia’s involvement in Syria

Having met Vladimir Putin, I wouldn’t talk to him at all. We’ve talked way too much to him.

What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states. I’d probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the reason it is so critically important that every one of us know General Suleimani’s name is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al- Assad.

Russia is a bad actor, but Vladimir Putin is someone we should not talk to, because the only way he will stop is to sense strength and resolve on the other side, and we have all of that within our control.

We could rebuild the Sixth Fleet. I will. We haven’t. We could rebuild the missile defense program. We haven’t. I will. We could also, to Senator Rubio’s point, give the Egyptians what they’ve asked for, which is intelligence.

We could give the Jordanians what they’ve asked for...

Considering the candidates were at the Reagan Library for this debate, there is no evidence that not talking with potential foes and established foes alike improves the geopolitical or strategic situation. Reagan himself engaged with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, which was a strategy that worked.

As for rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, a point Fiorina came back to multiple times in the evening, there is some truth to the fact that America’s large capital ships, those being amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers, have not spent the time in the Mediterranean and around Europe that they did during the Cold War. As such, there aren’t anywhere as many ships temporarily within the Sixth Fleet’s purview as there once were. But capabilities and the overall size of the force have changed since the Reagan era. Most importantly, the Sixth Fleet has gotten a dramatic boost in resources recently, with no less than four destroyers now being based in Rota, Spain. These are in addition to rotational assets. You can get a good idea of what the Commander of U.S. Naval forces in Europe thinks about his own force levels here.

So while there is some truth to Fiorina’s Sixth Fleet comment, it’s not as if the Sixth Fleet is not getting anymore high-end resources, and it’s not the only place one could argue the Navy could use more assets and presence. Also, air assets can be forward deployed at a fraction of the cost of a Carrier Strike Group or a Marine Expeditionary Strike Group, but have a similar persistent effect. This strategy has been realized on the Horn of Africa and could be realized in the Mediterranean, especially in regards to Libya’s descent into civil war and Islamic extremism.

Right now America is experiencing a “carrier gap” where even having two Carrier Strike Groups deployed at one time is becoming problematic, due to the retirement of the USS Enterprise without a direct replacement.

If Fiorina wants to return to the days of task forces regularly prowling the Mediterranean we would likely have to expand our carrier fleet, which could include building smaller aircraft carriers.

When it comes to missile defense, yes, the type of systems that are to be deployed to Europe have changed, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. AEGIS ashore, based on the same anti-ballistic missile systems aboard many U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers, are being deployed to Romania, and soon also to Poland. These are the most reliable anti-ballistic missile systems we have today and are more suited at countering medium-range ballistic missiles which are the real threat to the region, especially from rogue states like Iran.

The idea of creating a missile shield that could intercept Russia’s massive stockpile of ballistic missiles is not realistic, so it isn’t clear exactly what she intends to rebuild.

She also said that she would conduct aggressive military exercises in the Baltic States. This is exactly what we have been doing as part of Atlantic Resolve for the last year. I don’t know how much more aggressive she wants to be, but so far we have thrown everything we have at some point into the region.

As for Iran’s General Sulemani traveling to Moscow, this may have been a thumb in the eye of Barack Obama, and surely it has worked to tighten relations with Russia, but Iran does not dictate Russian foreign policy. Putin’s goals of usurping U.S. hegemony in various regions are clear on their own and if anything, Russia is using Iran for this, not the other way around.

The quip about Egypt only wanting intelligence is odd. The fall in relations between Egypt and the U.S. is a very complicated and controversial one, largely centered around the fact that the current regime gained power via a coup, an act that was widely shunned by the Obama administration even though the military-led el-Sisi government (the U.S. and Egyptian militaries have long held close ties) kicked out the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood and has been very aggressive with fighting terrorism. From there, relations have cooled rapidly and have included near-term embargoes on weaponry and other resources.

Meanwhile, Russia has stepped into the vacuum, selling Egypt MiG-29s and naval vessels, and has ordered the Russian military to train alongside the Egyptian military.

So as far as Egypt’s cooling relationship with the U.S. to be about intelligence, I have no clue exactly what Fiorina is talking about.

Ted Cruz on the Iran nuclear deal

The single biggest national security threat facing America right now is the threat of a nuclear Iran. We’ve seen six and a half years of President Obama leading from behind. Weakness is provocative, and this Iranian nuclear deal is nothing short of catastrophic.

This deal, on its face, will send over $100 billion to the Ayatollah Khamenei, making the Obama administration the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism.

This deal abandons four American hostages in Iran, and this deal will only accelerate Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons. You’d better believe it. If I am elected president, on the very first day in office, I will rip to shreds this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.

As far as triaging threats to America, it’s subjective, although one could name anything from North Korea to our economic policy just as easily as you could Iran. There is quite a bit of bluster here, but saying that the Iran deal will only accelerate that country’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons is inaccurate. If the deal is executed as planned it would keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon for well over a decade, albeit once the terms of the deal conclude, Iran could restart its nuclear program.

As far as the $100 billion in funds that could end up financing proxy wars and terrorism, it’s still a debatable – but relevant – issue.

John Kasich on the Iran nuclear deal

Well, let me just say this. First of all, I think it’s a bad agreement, I would never have done it. But, you know, a lot of our problems in the world today is that we don’t have the relationship with our allies. If we want to go everywhere alone, we will not have the strength as if we could rebuild with our allies.

Now, this agreement, we don’t know what’s going to happen in 18 months. I served on the Defense Committee for 18 years. I’ve seen lots of issues in foreign affairs, and foreign — in terms of global politics, you have to be steady.

Now, here’s the — if they cheat, we slap the sanctions back on. If they help Hamas, and Hezbollah, we slap the sanctions back on. And, if we find out that they may be developing a nuclear weapon, than the military option is on the table. We are stronger when we work with the Western civilization, our friends in Europe, and just doing it on our own I don’t think is the right policy.

The idea that the U.S. could simply “slap the sanctions back on” is not entirely accurate. Right now, the sanction regime that we have in place, which includes many international partners, will most likely not last. The political will to keep them in place is wavering.

Without international partners, sanctions would largely be via the U.S. alone, which will not have nearly the same impact on Iran as the international ones that are in place today.

Trump on Syria and Obama’s red line

I wouldn’t have drawn the line, but once he drew it, he had no choice but to go across. They do bear some responsibility, but I think he probably didn’t do it, not for that reason.

Somehow, he just doesn’t have courage. There is something missing from our president. Had he crossed the line and really gone in with force, done something to Assad — if he had gone in with tremendous force, you wouldn’t have millions of people displaced all over the world.

If the U.S. had gone in with extreme force the Assad regime could have fallen, leaving a huge power vacuum in Syria, the result of which remains uncertain. It is possible that the areas that were protected under the Assad regime would have also become embroiled in a power struggle which could have led to massive migrations of refugees in an even more sudden fashion as what is being experienced today. If extremist elements were to have seized total control of the country, the result would have been catastrophic.

Marco Rubio on Obama’s red line

Let me tell you — I will tell you we have zero responsibility, because let’s remember what the president said. He said the attack he would conduct would be a pinprick. Well, the United States military was not build to conduct pinprick attacks.

If the United States military is going to be engaged by a commander-in-chief, it should only be engaged in an endeavor to win. And we’re not going to authorize use of force if you’re not put in a position where they can win.

And quite frankly, people don’t trust this president as commander-in-chief because of that.

This is a false and somewhat unnerving statement, that the U.S. military was not built to conduct pinprick attacks. The truth is the U.S. military has a full range of capabilities, from targeting a single individual to destroying entire nations with nuclear weapons. Scalability is precisely what we look for in force structure and tactics, allowing for the most options for a given scenario. Seeing the U.S. military as just a blunt hammer and anvil where full-scale war is the only speed allowed is quite frankly, disturbing.

If you enter a prolonged conflict, fighting to win, and doing so as fast as possible is commonly a good thing, but that depends on what winning means. Occupying another destroyed, socially and ethnically fragmented country without an exit strategy is not necessarily a win. Nor is decapitating a dictatorship without knowing that whatever will replace it will be any better.

Trump on knowing key foreign policy details

So I will say this, though, Hugh was giving me name after name, Arab name, Arab name, and there are few people anywhere, anywhere that would have known those names. I think he was reading them off a sheet.

And frankly I will have — and I told him, I will have the finest team that anybody has put together and we will solve a lot of problems.

You know, right now they know a lot and look at what is happening. The world is blowing up around us. We will have great teams and great people.

Later Trump elaborated:

...I will know more about the problems of this world by the time I sit, and you look at what’s going in this world right now by people that supposedly know, this world is a mess.

Trump is right, not many people know the minutia that is discussed within foreign policy oriented circles, and he is right that having good advisers is very important for any Commander-In-Chief.

The only problem is that without a good base to go from, it makes interpreting and making the right decisions in an independent manner that much harder. It also pushes a lot of responsibility and power over to advisers which were never elected to office.

Rubio on knowing key foreign policy details

I think if you’re running for president, these are important issues, because look at around the world today.

There is a lunatic in North Korea with dozens of nuclear weapons and long-range rocket that can already hit the very place in which we stand tonight. The Chinese are rapidly expanding their military. They hack into our computers. They’re building artificial islands in the South China Sea, the most important shipping lane in the world...

North Korea does have a rocket theoretically capable of hitting California, the Unha-3, but it has never been weaponized or tested as missile, nor is it thought that North Korea has the capability to build a reentry vehicle with a miniaturized nuclear warhead.

Furthermore, this is a liquid-fueled rocket, that stands on a launch pad for days at a time, and it’s not exactly a second-strike deterrent.

Trump on opposing the second Iraq war

I am the only person on this dais — the only person — that fought very, very hard against us (ph), and I wasn’t a sitting politician going into Iraq, because I said going into Iraq — that was in 2003, you can check it out, check out — I’ll give you 25 different stories.

In fact, a delegation was sent to my office to see me because I was so vocal about it. I’m a very militaristic person, but you have to know when to use the military. I’m the only person up here that fought against going into Iraq.

Trump’s often touted opposition to Operation Iraqi Freedom has morphed over the last few months. At first he continually said he had these views in 2004, almost a year after the war begun, a time when such views were not so uncommon. Now he has moved the date to 2003, a time which there is little public evidence of his supposed dissent.

Rubio on arming Syrian rebels early on

I want to go even deeper — and I want to go even deeper in that direction, because I think the belief that somehow by retreating, America makes the world safer has been disproven every single time it’s ever been tried.

Syria’s a perfect example of it. The uprising in Syria was not started by the United States; it was started by the Syrian people. And I warned at the time — this was three and a half years ago — I openly and repeatedly warned that if we did not find moderate elements on the ground that we could equip and arm, that void would be filled by radical jihadists.

Well, the president didn’t listen, the administration didn’t follow through, and that’s exactly what happened. That is why ISIS grew. That is why ISIS then came over the border from Syria and back into Iraq.

What is happening in that region is the direct consequence of the inability to lead and of disengagement. And the more we disengage, the more airplanes from Moscow you’re going to see flying out of Damascus and out of Syria...

I’m not sure it’s possible that disengagement can be “disproven” as a means to make America safer, but regardless of that, Rubio states that arming Syrian Rebels would have kept ISIS from growing. That is possible, but not a fact. The same move could have hastened ISIS’s growth as they could have gotten their hands on advanced arms sooner. This scenario remains a matter of opinion and conjecture.

As far as the idea that Moscow would increase its involvement in Syria if we decrease our involvement in the region, that remains highly speculative. There may not be a need for direct Russian involvement if the U.S. was not there in the first place.

Additionally, how much more involved in Syria would Rubio like us to be? A full-on ground invasion? The United States is flying combat missions over that country daily along with establish unmanned aircraft orbits. It is not clear exactly what Rubio would do militarily to improve the situation and keep Russian forces from propping up Assad’s regime.

Ben Carson on going into Afghanistan and Iraq

I have no argument with having a strong leader, and to be aggressive where aggression is needed. But it is not needed in every circumstance. There is a time when you can use your intellect to come up with other ways to do things. And I think that’s what we have to start thinking about.

There is no question that a lot of these problems that we have been talking about in terms of the international situation is because we are weak. It is because our Navy is so small. It is because our Air Force is incapable of doing the same things that it did a few years ago.

It’s because our Marines Corps is not ready to be deployed.

The Navy may be smaller than what Carson wants, and the Marines may be experiencing a low readiness state, but the Air Force is actually capable of doing more than it could just a few years ago, although with less frequency and magnitude due to shrinking end strength.

Rubio on intellect versus military might when it comes to fighting terrorism

But radical terrorism cannot be solved by intellect. It cannot — they require — what they need, is they need an operating space. That’s what Afghanistan was for Al Qaida. It was a vacuum that they filled, and they created an operating space.

That’s why they had to be drawn out of there. That’s why they had to be destroyed. It is the reason why ISIS has grown as well. We allowed them — we allowed a vacuum to emerge in Syria. They used it as an operating space to grow; and today they’re not just in Iraq and Syria anymore, they’re now in Libya, conducting operations in the Sinai.

They’re now in Afghanistan, trying to supplant the Taliban as the most powerful radical jihadist group on the ground there, as well. You cannot allow radical jihadists to have an operating safe haven anywhere in the world.

This is true to some extent, although today we are seeing a change in both tactics and recruitment when it comes to international terrorism. The shift from large-scale attacks that are centrally funded, and using well-trained operatives recruited using traditional methods, are dimming as the Internet and lone-wolf smaller scale attacks are becoming the tactic of choice by groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda. This change in operating doctrine does not require traditional “operating space” like we saw in the last two decades. Instead cyberspace becomes the operating space.

Fighting modern terrorism using now-dated justifications for conventional military force may be a step in the wrong direction and play more into the terrorist hands than the other way around. Which isn’t to say that denying ISIS an entire region to subjugate is not a worthy military endeavor.

Scott Walker on taking on ISIS with the 3,000 military personnel already in Iraq

To be clear, what I said the other day was that we need to lift the political restrictions that are already in play. Barack Obama’s administration has put political restrictions on the military personnel already in Iraq.

We need to lift those and then we need to listen to our military experts, not the political forces in the White House, but our military experts about how many more we sent in. And we certainly shouldn’t have a commander-in-chief who sends a message to our adversaries as to how far we’re going to go, and how far we’re willing to fight, so I’m not putting a troop number.

What I’m saying is lift the political restrictions. When you do that, you empower our military personnel already there to work with the Kurd and the Sunni allies, to reclaim the territory taken by ISIS. And to do so in a way that allows that ISIS doesn’t go back in Syria, as we were just talking about here.

That is the fundamental problem going forward. We have a president — and Hillary Clinton was a part of this, by the way, who has made political decisions for our men and women in uniform. I want the men and women at home to know, if I’m commander-in-chief, I will only send you into harm’s way when our national security is at risk. And if we do, you know you’ll have our full support, the support of the American people, and you’ll have a clear path for victory.

This is not exactly possible. Forces like those in Iraq today are not just a box of GI Joe soldiers that you can outfit as you wish to play war. Those 3,000 troops are there for force protection or as advisers today, not as combat elements. As such, more troops would have to augmented those already in country so that those already there that are actually trained to fight on the battlefield in small units can do so while other units provide force protection, supply, command and control, transportation and other necessities.

As for his clear path to victory comment, just flipping a switch and throwing 3,000 troops onto the battlefield that aren’t necessarily suited to be there is a far cry from a clear path to victory.

Fiorina on Future Force Structure

We have spent probably 12 minutes talking about the past. Let’s talk about the future. We need the strongest military on the face of the planet, and everyone has to know it. And, specifically, what that means is we need about 50 Army brigades, we need about 36 Marine battalions, we need somewhere between 300, and 350 naval ships, we need to upgrade every leg of the nuclear triad...

The army will have 35 Brigade Combat Teams by 2017, down from a wartime high of 45. Fiorina wants to add five more to the war time high number, which will be an increase of roughly 25-30% of the standing force at the time she comes into office. That is a larger army than the one that existed while we were fighting both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

She also wants 36 Marine battalions. Assuming she means Infantry battalions, this would be an additional dozen to what is planned when she comes into office, which is roughly the same increase in size as what she proposes for the Army.

The Navy is a different case, as there is already a 300-ship goal in place, and 50 more ships is a huge difference in procurement and sustainment cost compared to that goal. The cost of reaching that 350-ship goal all depends on how she would like to reach it, either bringing reserve ships back into action or to build new ships and of what type.

She did not mention the Air Force, nor did she allude to how she came up with these numbers, nor how they are justified.

As far as upgrading the nuclear triad goes, this is already underway to a certain degree with a replacement for the Ohio Class ballistic missile submarine just getting off the ground, an upgraded nuclear free-fall bomb being tested, and a new stealth bomber in development that will eventually take on a nuclear role. The land-based Minuteman missile force, although it has received small upgrades, still is rapidly aging and could use replacement or a very deep upgrade and overhaul.

Rubio on what he will use Air Force One to do during his administration

It would also fly to China, not just to meet with our enemies, not just to meet with those adversaries of ours that are there, but also to meet with those that aspire to freedom and liberty within China. I would even invite them to my inauguration.

We would also fly into Moscow and into Russia. And not just meet with the leaders of Russia, but also meet with those who aspire to freedom and liberty in Russia. And ultimately, I hope that my Air Force One, if I become president, will one day land in a free Cuba, where its people can choose its leaders and its own destiny.

I’m not really sure how he plans on flying to China or Russia to meet with key political dissidents in those countries. I don’t think Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin really invite world powers to fly into their countries so that they can prop up their political enemies.

In the end we got yet another crowded debate that was very light on facts and explanations but very high on hyperbole. Everyone wants the most powerful military in the world, and the fact of the matter is they will already have it when they step into office. Nobody even mentioned reforming the Pentagon or areas within the DoD where we could save money instead of spending it.

In all, it was a crowded stage, with eleven candidates going at it at once. This made for any meaningful policy debate almost impossible, while at the same time being highly conducive for theatrical bickering. In fact, the happy hour debate which ran before it was chocked full of policy information, especially in the foreign policy arena. A refreshing atmosphere than what we saw during the main event.

Hopefully the next debate, on October 28th in Boulder, Colorado, will have a few less people on the stage and few more substantive statements to digest.

Images via AP, transcript via CBSNews.com

Contact the author Tyler@jalopnik.com

Here is a wonderful story about the power of America’s most maligned art form: rap music. According to the mother of a young Colorado boy, her son has been inspired to go out in the world without his prosthetic eye after years of embarrassment thanks to the success of the suddenly and immensely popular rapper Fetty Wap, pictured above, who himself lost an eye at a young age.

The mom, named Brenda Vaden, posted the story about her son Jayden, who had his eye removed just weeks after his first birthday, on her Facebook page last week. According to Brenda, her son has always been terrified of being seen without his prosthetic eye, but recently found “the confidence to be different” thanks to Fetty Wap, rapper of the runaway hit “Trap Queen,” who recently became the first artist since the fucking Beatles to have his first three singles in the top 11 of the Billboard’s Hot 100 at the same time.

Rap music is great and anyone who thinks otherwise literally hates children.

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

Swords: Extremely cool. More swords: Even cooler. 3,174 swords: Uh, maybe scale it back a little, actually?

After arresting a Florida woman on several outstanding warrants this week, authorities say they discovered more than 3,000 swords, knives, machetes and hatchets in her trailer home.

“It looks like she had an obsession with them,” noted Hernando County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Denise Moloney, (astutely) adding, “It appears there was some satanic thing going on.” From CNN:

“She had pictures of pentagrams, there were fake body parts, the kind that you can buy from the Halloween store, and skeletons on the wall with knives protruding out of them.”

Nickcole Ellen Fay Dykema, 47, even “ ‘booby trapped’ many of the bladed weapons, blankets, floors inside, and even the yard outside the residence,” Moloney said.

Five deputies suffered cuts removing the weapons and required medical treatment, she said.

According to police, Dykema’s unconventional home decorations also served a practical purpose, as she attempted to stab one arresting officer in the face with “a large sword or machete type weapon” before disappearing into her trailer on Tuesday.

“Having limited visibility into the residence, deputies observed a set of feet standing in the corner of the mobile home, possibly hiding under or behind a blanket,” said the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office in a press release. “Deputies also observed a long, silver, shiny sword waving around behind the blanket.”

After bean bag rounds failed to disable Dykema, police say they were able to subdue and arrest the cutlass collector using a Taser.

“Everyone in this neighborhood was scared of that woman,” neighbor Fuzz Spisok told WTSP. “How did she get all of those knives?”

Dykema now faces three counts of probation violation and one count each of criminal mischief, resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. Currently on probation for stealing chef’s knives from a dollar store last year, Dykema is reportedly not allowed to own weapons of any kind.

[Images via the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office]

A CCTV video that landed on LiveLeak earlier this week shows a small child deploying a stealthy poop in the middle of a supermarket aisle, allegedly somewhere in Russia. To watch the boy leave what the Mirror drolly calls “his nasty deposit”—it is to laugh. But wait: there’s even more to this multi-layered treasure, and all of the layers contain doo-doo:

Citing unnamed officials, The Post and Courier reports that federal agents have arrested 21-year-old Joseph Meek, Jr., the South Carolina man who Dylann Roof briefly lived with before allegedly killing nine people at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church in June.

http://gawker.com/roommate-dylan...

It is not yet known what charges Roof’s childhood friend faces, but the Associated Press reports that Meek was sent a “target letter” last month informing him he was under investigation for lying to police and for knowing about a crime before or after it was committed and failing to report it. From NBC News:

After the murders, Meek told reporters that he and Roof had been friends in middle school, and that Roof had recently made contact.

Meek said Roof had told him he wanted “segregation” and said “he didn’t believe in what the black race was doing to the white race” in the days before the killings.

Meek, of Lexington, told AP that Roof said he used birthday money from his parents to buy a .45-caliber Glock semi-automatic handgun, which Meek took away from him the night of his drunken rant but gave back to him when Roof had sobered up.

On Saturday, The Washington Post published a lengthy profile of Meek and the mobile home he once shared with Roof.

“People think it’s my fault,” Meek told reporter Stephanie McCrummen. “Would you believe your friend if they said something like that when they were drunk? [...] You can’t tell me you would. I didn’t believe it. I brushed it off.”

Earlier this month, prosecutors in South Carolina announced they will seek the death penalty for Roof.

[Image via ABC News]

According to Reuters, 11 people were killed and 1 million more were displaced by the 8.3-magnitude earthquake that shook Chile on Wednesday. “We lost it all. It was horrible,” said a woman whose town was destroyed by surging waters. “I jumped into some stranger’s pickup truck. We left with what we had on our backs.”

http://gawker.com/tsunami-warnin...

24 students at a southwestern Virginia high school were suspended Thursday for wearing clothing displaying the Confederate flag in protest of school policy. Christiansburg High School banned the symbol after instances of “racially motivated behavior” (or “mysteriously and not at all purposefully unelaborated behavior”) back in 2001 and 2002, NBC reports.

More recently, the school created a new policy that forbid students from displaying Confederate iconography on their cars if they wanted to park in the school’s parking lot, which lead to the protest. Removing a label off your car is sticky and difficult, but removing antiquated Confederacy pride is proving to be even stickier.

“They’re trying to get rid of it, and they’re not trying to get rid of any other flags,” student and suspected Kid Rock fan Forrest Taylor told NBC affiliate WSLS.

21 of the 24 students refused to comply with dress code when asked, NBC reports. The 21 true believers who wouldn’t comply were given one-day in-school suspensions.

Then things got a little rowdy, and 15 were issued a one-day out-of-school suspension, and two got handed a three-day suspension for “threatening and abusive language.” Sources believe the two will spend their three-day suspension posting pro-Confederate flag memes to their Facebook page and getting drunk off their dad’s Bud Light.

[Image via WSLS]

On Tuesday, a Facebook user in Stockton, California uploaded a disturbing viral video showing a large group of police officers violently forcing a 16-year-old student to the ground. The teen’s alleged offense? Jaywalking.

“The kid got stopped for ‘jaywalking’ when he barely stepped out of the bus he was 2 feet away from the sidewalk,” wrote bystander Edgar Avendaño, who recorded the footage:

The cop was telling him to take a sit but the teen kept walking to his bus but the cop kept grabbing his arm & the kid took off the cop’s hand off his arm so the cop took out his baton & that’s when I started recording because everything happened too quick. He didn’t have to hit the kid with the baton & no need to call about 20 cops. And as you can see his body cam is on the floor. Smh

“For safety reasons, the officer told the young man to get on the sidewalk,” a police spokesperson later told Vice News. “After the teenager refused to comply and used obscene language, the officer went over and a there was a scuffle.”

“I feel traumatized,” said the student, Emilio Mayfield, who tells KOVR he was on his way to school at the time of the arrest. “I was beaten and slammed on the floor.”

According the station, Mayfield and his family have since met with the president of Stockton’s chapter of the NAACP.

[h/t Raw Story]

Joan Tarshis, one of 50+ women who have publicly accused Bill Cosby of rape, discussed some of the consequences of coming forward with her story on A&E’s Cosby: The Women Speak special, which aired earlier tonight.

“A woman drove by just two weeks ago and spit at me and called me ‘liar,’ which really shook me up,” said Tarshis, who came out as a rape survivor last November in The Washington Post. “Nobody likes to be called a liar. Nobody likes to be spit at, especially when you’re not lying. Why would I lie? That’s not how I want my legacy to be.”

Victoria Valentino, another Cosby accuser, verbalized the difficulty of speaking out in the first place as she told her story about Cosby. “He unzipped his fly, had me perform oral sex, then he stood me up, turned me backward, and did me doggstyle, OK?” said Valentino. “And he walked out. And if there is any question about why women don’t report rape it’s because it’s so damn humiliating you don’t ever want to talk about it again.”

Valentino and Tarshis were among the 35 women who shared their stories in an incredible, overwhelming July New York magazine piece called “I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen.” Three women who came forward after that piece ran—Charlotte Fox, Eden Tirl, and a woman who goes by the pseudonym Elizabeth—told their stories on The Women Speak. Additionally, Joseph C. Phillips, who played Denise’s husband Lt. Martin Kendall on The Cosby Show, shared his story about initially disbelieving the accusations only to come to believe them when an as yet unnamed friend of his claimed that Cosby raped her. All of their stories are below.

Kate Middleton has bangs, you guys. And they’re all over the place. Royals, they’re just like us. Minus that £1,245 Ralph Lauren shirtdress.

The 33-year-old showed off her new bangs while visiting the Anna Freud Centre in London on Thursday to learn about the center’s work with mental health care for children, the Daily Mail reports. It was her first solo public appearance since the birth of baby Charlotte, so she obviously had to look bang-able.

While at the center she shared a laugh with a young girl about their matching bangs.

She then put on some syck 3D glasses to examine her bangs and was all like lolz yay no split ends!

When she was ready to leave, her bangs respectfully parted her forehead as is tradition.

But seriously, a big cheers to the Duchess of Cambridge and her new bangs for her planned advocacy to provide kids with in-school mental health services.

[Image via Getty Images]

Thursday evening in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump didn’t bother to correct an audience member who called President Obama a Muslim, The Washington Post reports.

From The Washington Post:

To kick things off, Trump pointed at a man in the audience: “Okay, this man. I like this guy.”

“We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims,” the man said. “We know our current president is one. You know, he’s not even an American. Birth certificate, man.”

“Right,” Trump said, then adding with a shake of his head: “We need this question? This first question.”

“But any way,” the man said. “We have training camps... where they want to kill us.”

“Uh huh,” Trump said.

“That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?” the man said.

Trump responded: “We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things. You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re going to look at that and plenty of other things.”

So first off, technically, Trump didn’t call President Obama a Muslim (who is, in fact, a Christian born in Hawaii). Also technically, his response was specifically about training camps, not Muslims, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told The Washington Post.

To put this exchange into perspective, with a history of bizarre birther campaign tactics from Trump and perhaps even more bizarre claims by the right of Muslim training camps, it’s Trump’s lack of words—for once—that’s causing eyes to roll.

While in America humans talked shit about other humans, down in Australia a seal proudly rode a humpback whale. According to the BBC, animal experts say that witnessing such a partnership is rare. According to the seal and the humpback whale, love is love.

A tiny group of Target employees in Brooklyn have pulled off what no Target employees ever have before: they’ve formed a union.

http://gawker.com/targets-unoffi...

Target has been around for more than 50 years. It has nearly 350,000 employees and 1,800 U.S. stores. Yet it has never had a union in any of those stores in its entire history. (As you might expect, that is because it is a voracious and committed anti-union corporation from the top down.) That, despite the fact that Target employees have told us in sordid detail about the sort of poor pay and shitty working conditions that would make the company ripe for organizing.

The last serious Target union drive came in 2011 at a store in Valley Stream, NY. The union was voted down after a contentious campaign, amid charges of company misconduct.

But now, hot damn, right underneath everyone’s noses, a group of nine Target pharmacy workers have voted 7-2 to unionize with the UFCW. Caveats: the company is challenging the vote with the National Labor Relations Board, though they do not have a good reason to; more importantly, Target is currently selling its pharmacy business to CVS anyhow, so they won’t be Target Corp. union members for all that long; and, you know, it’s only nine people rather than an entire store. Still, this is a pretty big symbolic victory for the labor movement. It is the cracking of a facade that has previously been uncracked. And it shows that unionizing one of America’s most strongly anti-union retail chains is possible, no matter what level of fear the company is able to bring to bear on employees.

Huge corporate retail and fast food chains are probably the American companies whose employees could most benefit from unions. That’s why those companies are willing to do almost anything to keep unions out. Perhaps the balance has just tipped a tiny bit in the workers’ favor.

[Photo: AP]