US SPECIAL FORCES REPORTEDLY IN COVERT COMBAT FOR MONTHS AGAINST ISIS

Bloomberg View reported that a special operations task force staffs an operations center in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil to support such missions. The report, which cited U.S. and Kurdish officials, claimed that the task force has worked in recent months to identify and locate senior leaders of ISIS. Members of the group also participated in last week’s raid, during which Army Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler was killed. Wheeler became the first American to die in combat since the launch of anti-ISIS operations last year.

At a Pentagon briefing in Baghdad Tuesday, spokesman Col. Peter Warren answered a question about whether U.S. forces in Iraq were in combat against ISIS in no uncertain terms.

“We’re in combat,” Warren said. “I thought I made that pretty clear … That is why we all carry guns. That’s why we all get combat patches when we leave here, that’s why we all receive [an] immediate danger badge. So, of course we’re in combat.”

http://www.infowars.com/us-special-forces-reportedly-in-covert-combat-for-months-against-isis/

Operation Choke Point: The Government’s Covert War on Small Business

Banks are sending notices of account closure out to small businesses across the country, to clients they’ve done business with for years, even decades. The reason? They often don’t provide one.

But a growing number of business owners believe they know why they’re being cut off from the financial system. It’s Operation Choke Point, ostensibly an attempt to crack down on fraudulent businesses, but in reality a dragnet that has ensnared innocent entrepreneurs unfairly classified as “high-risk” players.

Earlier this year, FDIC chairman Martin Gruenberg told Congress that Choke Point was over, but many business owners believe the FDIC and DOJ has passed enforcement duties along to a newly created independent agency: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the brainchild of progressive senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The CFPB operates under the guidance of the Federal Reserve and doesn’t rely on Congress for funding, which critics say allow it to operate without any meaningful checks on its power.

Reason TV profiled two business owners who believe they’ve been targets of Choke Point and its legacy: a payday lender in Southern California and a hookah seller in North Carolina. Brian Wise of the U.S. Consumer Coalition, an organization that’s been compiling Choke Point stories from across the nation, also appears in the video.

Watch the video above for a deeper look into the covert financial regulation affecting small businesses across the nation.

Approximately 10 minutes. Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Alex Manning, Josh Swain, Todd Krainin, and Weissmueller. Music by Podington Bear and Chris Zabriskie.

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https://reason.com/reasontv/2015/08/21/operation-choke-point-the-governments-co