A candidate running to represent Michigan's 95th House district in the state legislature wants you to know that once you look past his bizarre sexual fetish and multiple felony convictions, he is a rock-ribbed conservative Republican, whose "stool of conservatism" is held up by "faith, family and freedom."

Michigan Live reported Friday that Saginaw's Jordan D. Haskins dismisses the arrests and prison time as the results of youthful indiscretion and said that he is ready to "move on from that and do what I can" to serve his state as a Republican state Representative.

"I have dreams," Haskins said to Michigan Live, "and I want to make a difference."


Haskins, 24, has served prison time in two states and is currently on parole, but there are no rules preventing him from running for the state House.

On four occasions between April of 2010 and January of 2011, Haskins broke into vehicles on public and private property, disconnected the ignition wires, then started the engine. As the wires snapped and spit sparks, Haskins would masturbate to climax in a sexualized ritual he calls "cranking."

Participants in the EU summit on Friday postponed imposing economic sanctions on Russia. The move comes a day after an advertizing campaign by two top US business lobbies warned of the negative impact on US companies.

"Preliminary consultations show that today almost no leaders of EU states find it necessary to impose trade and economic sanctions on Russia," a source in the delegation from a Western European country said with confidence to ITAR-TASS.

However the European officials carried out preparatory work on possible sanctions to implement against Russia if the situation in Ukraine demands so.

Sanctions will be most effective if the main trade partners from Europe take part, the White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. The Obama Administration doesn't want to put US companies in unprofitable conditions in terms of the competition should it introduce further sanctions against Russia, he added.

The US needs the EU as a partner in enforcing economic measures as the trade volume between Russia and Europe of $330 billion is almost ten times Russia-America trade.

A healthy democracy demands transparency from its government and privacy for its citizenry. Only if we know what our government is up to can we exercise our responsibility as citizens to ratify or veto their actions at the ballot box. And only if we can be assured that our conversations are not being monitored by government officials will we have the space to develop our critical faculties, pursue intimate associations, try out new political ideas and flourish as human beings.

However, too many government officials, even in democratic states, tend to favor secrecy for their own actions and transparency from the citizenry. When asked what measures they are employing that might threaten our privacy, officials have long responded with some version of "We can't tell you, of course... but trust us." And when facing charges that they have violated the privacy of those they represent, the government invariably argue's for the narrowest definitions of privacy (your metadata isn't private) and the broadest justifications for invading it ("fighting terrorism" generally does the trick).

Because democracy depends on government transparency and personal privacy, but our representatives too often prefer the opposite, citizens, civil society and the press must be vigilant about privacy and its threats. Absent popular resistance, the tendency of government to favor secrecy and access to its citizens' most intimate information will undermine the very foundations of democracy. For its entire existence, The Nation has exercised that watchdog role for the country with courage, conviction and persistence. This volume, consisting of essays, investigations, editorials and columns dating from 1931 to 2014, illustrates the critical importance of the Fourth Estate in checking the desires of the surveillance state.

SmartWater is normally used to track criminals who steal laptops.

Police commissioners have urged the Met to put ultraviolet dye in its new water cannon in order to track people hit by the weapons, Boris Johnson's policing boss has said.

Stephen Greenhalgh, Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, told members of the London Assembly that police and crime commissioners from around the country had advocated the use of "SmartWater" in the crowd control weapon.

The substance would remain invisible until those hit by the water had an ultra-violet light shone on them, at which point it would glow fluorescent yellow and identify them as having been at a protest or other public order situation.

So now a huge Hardcore Sunnistan stretches all the way from the suburbs of Aleppo to Tikrit and from Mosul to the Jordanian/Iraqi border - the same one that dissolved in 2003 when Shock and Awe turned into Mission (Un)Accomplished.

In an eerie echo of Dick Cheney's army's footprints reverberating in the sands of Anbar province, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and their coalition of the willing (jihadis, Islamists, Ba'athists and tribal sheikhs) now pose as the "liberators" of Iraqi Sunnis from the clutches of an "evil" Shi'ite majority government in Baghdad.

In addition, ISIS also controls the PR wars. Here, a jihadi details how any sort of possible Washington "kinetic" involvement will be interpreted as an unholy alliance between the Empire and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki against the underdogs.

From a Sunni perspective, it's down with Iraq's Counter-terrorism law; down with de-Ba'athification (with the ascent of neo-Ba'athist Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqa al-Naqshbandia -- JRTN, led by former Saddam honcho Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri); down with the Interior Ministry in Baghdad going after Sunni politicians; down with protests being crushed.

At the same time, it's the return of the US-sponsored Sahwa (Sons of Iraq) -- who fiercely fought al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2007, the mother of ISIS -- and the return of assorted Shi'ite militias (Muqtada al-Sadr not only repelled the new wave of US "military advisers" -- that's how it started in Vietnam -- but also warned that his own badass Men in Black will "shake the ground" fighting ISIS.) The mid-2000s are the new normal; it's gonna be militia hell all over again.

Mesopotamia, we got a problem. Neo-Ba'athists want nothing but a secular Iraq run by Sunnis, Saddam-style (rather former neocon darling Ahmad Chalabi.) ISIS wants a Caliphate extending all across the Levant under Sharia law. Something's got to give.

What will give will be the Iraqi nation itself -- the balkanized, protracted (intended) consequence of the 2003 invasion and occupation, finally transmogrified into Jihad Central.

A long and bloody battle has been raging near the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk despite Kiev's ceasefire. Self-defense fighters claim to have killed a whole platoon of Kiev's National Guard, while the latter claim to have destroyed a militia tank.

The Ukrainian forces shelled the outskirts of Slavyansk on Friday and hit the city with artillery fire, say reports from the scene, quoted by RIA Novosti. Following heavy shelling, Ukrainian troops took over a checkpoint seized by the self-defense overnight, witnesses said.

Several shells hit civilian houses in the nearby village of Golubovka, killing a 47-year-old woman and her 26-year-old son. The two reportedly had no time to take cover from the attack as their house was hit by the first shell that fell in the area.

Intense fighting on the outskirts of Slavyansk overnight into Friday was earlier confirmed by both sides.

The long and bloody battle centered on a checkpoint manned by the National Guard - troops loyal to Kiev that in March were formed from former and serving Ukrainian troops, Maidan self-defense squads, radical groups taking part in protests and from other volunteers, many of whom come from western Ukraine. The Slavyansk self-defense claims that the checkpoint was used as a strategic point in the relentless shelling of the city by the National Guard, which they say has continued despite the ceasefire.

Satellite imagery and photographs confirm that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have staged mass executions in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, which amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes, according to Human Rights Watch.

Radical Islamists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL) have stormed unopposed across much of northern Iraq and have taken the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, as well as capturing border posts with Syria. Their aim is to create a medieval-style caliphate in northern Iraq and eastern Syria.

Human Rights Watch report that between 160 and 190 men were killed in at least two locations around Tikrit between June 11 and June 14.

Pictures on the HRW website showed rows of men lined up in trenches who were then shot by gunmen, it also said that the death toll could be much higher, but they had no way of locating bodies or even getting to the area to carry out a full investigation.

"The photos and satellite images from Tikrit provide strong evidence of a horrible war crime that needs further investigation. They and other abusive forces should know that the eyes of Iraqis and the world are watching," Human Rights Watch emergencies director, Peter Bouckaert, said in a statement.

"ISIS is committing mass murder, and advertising it as well," he added.

The Israeli air force carried out 12 raids on the Gaza Strip overnight after militants fired more rockets at southern Israel, Palestinian security sources said Wednesday, AFP reports.

The attacks struck training grounds used by Palestinian militants, leaving two people lightly injured, they told AFP.

The Israeli military confirmed a series of overnight strikes in a statement which said it had struck five rocket-launching sites in northern Gaza, as well two other sites in central and southern areas of the strip.

The raids took place after militants fired five rockets at southern Israel, one of which hit an open area. Two were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system while the other two landed inside Gaza, the statement said.

France has warned its citizens against taking part in any economic activity in the occupied Palestinian territories, saying this may entail legal risks because the Jewish settlements are illegal under international law.

The warning is part of a joint act drafted by the five largest EU countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain, Haaretz cited a French diplomat as saying.

Italy and Spain are expected to issue similar warnings over the next few days, while the UK and Germany did so a few months ago.

The move comes after the failure of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and also following massive protests against the construction of settlements across the EU.

The notice by the French Foreign Ministry advises against investing, purchasing land, or engaging in economic activity in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights. It was published as part of recommendations for French people traveling to Israel.

1. "In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all."
-Strobe Talbot, President Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State, as quoted in Time, July 20th, 1992.

2. "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of "liberalism" they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
-Norman Thomas, for many years U.S. Socialist Presidential candidate.

3. "Today the path of total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government - a bureaucratic elite."
-Senator William Jenner, 1954