COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, March 21, 2016

The Russian Air Force Gives Support to the Syrian Army in the Battle of Palmyra

Syria: Russia Targets Daesh in Palmyra despite Drawdown

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –

Despite the Russian announcement of a determination to withdraw the bulk of its air force from Syria, Moscow has underlined that some planes would remain and would continue to fly missions against groups the Russian Federation considers terrorists,including al-Qaeda (Jabhat al-Nusra) and Daesh (ISIL, ISIS). Thus, on Saturday the Russian air force flew  70 missions against Daesh positions in the historic city of Palmyra (called Tadmor in Arabic).

It is not clear how many deaths these air raids produced. The Syrian Arab Army and Hizbullah, the Lebanese party-militia that fights alongside the SAA, have made advances in the past two weeks into the hills above Palmyra. 

When Daesh was strong in the Palmyra area (they took the city last May), they used it as a base for expeditions that attempted to cut the road between Damascus and Hama. That threat appears to have impelled the regime of Bashar al-Assad to strive to retake the ancient city. With regime troops and their allies now within striking distance of the city itself, the Russians are softening up the minions of the phony caliphate from the air.

At the same time, apparently in a bid to forestall reinforcements from being sent from al-Raqqa, the Daesh capital, either Russian or regime planes flew dozens of missions against al-Raqqa. The strikes left at least 39 dead, with some sites reporting deaths among women and children. The Iranian al-Alam news site maintained that high Daesh officials were killed in the bombings, including the chief judge of al-Raqqa and the city’s governor.

Al-Alam also maintains that dozens of Daesh fighters have abandoned Palmyra and are attempting to get to al-Raqqa.

Daesh is now caught in a powerful pincer movement. The YPD Kurds are moving on it from both the west and from the north. Now the regime is moving against it from the southwest.

The Syrian regime had for a long time declined to fight Daesh because Baath commanders were sure that they weren’t lethal to Damascus itself. Some argue that the regime wanted to defeat the Free Syria Army while allowing Daesh to grow, so as to present the West with a choice of backing al-Assad or of coddling Daesh. Given how beastly Daesh is, it was a sure bet that the US would take any side against it, including that of the regime.

If such a strategy once existed, it appears to be being abandoned, as the regime marches northeast to Daesh strongholds.

During the current ceasefire, the Russians and the al-Assad regime are not able to hit the remnants of the Free Syrian Army and anger the US They are therefore concentrating on Daesh, as well as on al-Qaeda, which regime planes bombed in the Ghouta region near Damascus on Saturday.
—–
Related video added by Juan Cole:

54 comments:

  1. SURELY OUR GREATEST ALLY EVER CONTINUES TO PROMOTE PEACE

    on Sunday US Vice President Joe Biden criticized the Israeli regime’s settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, describing them as an issue that raises questions about Tel Aviv’s commitment to peace.


    US Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference on March 20, 2016. (AFP)
    According to Biden, Tel Aviv’s systematic process of expanding settlements, legalizing outposts and seizing Palestinian land are eroding the prospects for peace.

    He has also called on Israeli officials to show their commitments to a ‘two-state solution.’

    Biden says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement policies are against the settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians.

    He made the comments during a gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is a leading pro-Israel lobbying group.

    Under international law, all Israeli settlements are illegal.

    Reports say some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem), among 2.4 million Palestinians.

    ReplyDelete
  2. When Turkey downed a Russian jet last November, it did so in the hopes of containing Russian efforts in Syria. Instead, it may have triggered a process that is putting Vladimir Putin in the driver’s seat in redrawing the borders of the Middle East, including Turkey’s.

    Russian support has not been limited to diplomacy and public relations. In January, Lavrov confirmed that Russia has been delivering arms to the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. Multiple sources report that Russia has been supplying weapons to Syrian Kurds.

    These moves by Russia have set off alarms in Ankara, and with good reason. Both the HDP and Syria’s PYD are offshoots of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which for over three decades has been waging an armed struggle against the Turkish Republic in the name of Kurdish self-determination. After a two-year lull, the PKK last July resumed its insurrection, putting Turkey in a state of virtual civil war as PKK militants hole up in cities throughout Turkey’s heavily Kurdish southeast and declare “self-rule.”

    As its name suggests, the PKK was founded during the Cold War and was inspired by a variant of Marxism-Leninism. Its ideological orientation, collaboration with the Soviet Union, and profligate use of terror tactics including suicide bombing alienated public opinion in the West and led the U.S. State Department and the European Parliament to label it as a terrorist organization.

    In the past year and a half, however, the PKK’s image has changed dramatically. The group and its subsidiaries have revealed themselves to be the most effective forces in the fight against the Islamic state and their secular nationalism offers a sharp contrast to the sectarianism of the Islamic state and its main foe, the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran.

    After the incident, Putin vowed that Turkey’s leaders would come to rue their action and promised to retaliate with more than boycotts of Turkish tomatoes and other economic measures. “We know what we need to do,” Putin intoned ominously.

    Putin has been delivering on his word. As part of his revenge, Putin has been expanding ties to Kurdish groups in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. In December of last year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov personally and publicly welcomed to Moscow Turkey’s leading Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chairman of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). During his visit, Demirtas proceeded to open a representative office for his party in Russia’s capital. In February, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) opened its first foreign office in Moscow, a major step forward in the group’s campaign for international legitimacy. Russia has been a consistent advocate on behalf of the Kurds at the Geneva peace talks.

    {...}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This, plus increased familiarity with the Kurds’ sorrowful modern history, have won the PKK considerable sympathy. U.S. military advisors now work closely with the PYD’s armed units and cite the fiction that the PYD is separate from the PKK in order to get around the official terrorist designation. Experts and lobbyists in Washington and European capitals call for lifting that designation altogether.

      For Turkish officials this is a nightmare, as it would hand to the PKK the most precious thing any insurgency can gain—international legitimacy—and encourage it to persist in its violent campaign to achieve self-rule and, eventually, a state of its own.

      Yet the fact is, with Russia back playing an active role in the Middle East and in a position of advantage in the war in Syria, the PKK does not need the West. Indeed, the interests of the PKK and Vladimir Putin share a synergy. By working with the Kurds, Moscow can prosecute the war against ISIS, punish Turkey, and retain influence in Syria and beyond. For its part, the PKK receives a booster that can support it not just with arms, advising, and air support, but also a U.N. Security Council member that can offer invaluable backing.
      {...}


      Little here should surprise. Russia happens to be the Kurds’ oldest great power patron.

      Russian leaders from Catherine the Great onward have grasped the importance of the Kurds to the politics just south of Russia’s borders. Tsarist armies employed Kurdish irregulars in their wars with the Ottoman Turks and Persians while Tsarist diplomats and spies encouraged Kurdish tribes to unite and rebel against their imperial overlords. On the eve of World War I, St. Petersburg was the world’s center of Kurdology, and some Kurdish leaders saw the Russian empire as their best hope for development and political independence. Bolshevik Russia in 1923 created the first ethnic Kurdish political entity, so-called Red Kurdistan, in the Caucasus, as an instrument to export revolution through the Middle East via the Kurds.

      Stalin took this one step further in 1946 when, upon ordering Soviet troops to withdraw from northern Iran he oversaw the creation of the Kurdish “Mahabad Republic” there. Although the Mahabad Republic collapsed just a year later after President Truman gave cover to the Shah of Iran to crush it, it marked the first nominal Kurdish nation-state. Kurdish activists celebrate it to this today, not least because the president of the Mahabad Republic was Mustafa Barzani, the father of the current head of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional government, Masoud Barzani.

      Some of the Soviet Union’s leading spymasters, such as Pavel Sudoplatov and Yevgeny Primakov, found the “Kurdish card” a useful instrument to destabilize Middle Eastern governments seen as too pro-Western, particularly Turkey. The PKK received Soviet support precisely for this purpose.

      Notably, Moscow did not cut its ties to the PKK after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The PKK in the 1990s continued to operate a representative office and even a “recreational-educational” camp in Russia. The Russian state had over 200 years of experience dealing with Kurds, and maintaining that relationship was a relatively cheap way to preserve leverage in the Middle East. In particular, Russia’s threat to play the Kurdish card provided a deterrent of sorts against potential Turkish support for Muslim separatists in Chechnya and elsewhere inside the Russian Federation.

      Putin’s multi-faceted Kurdish gambit thus represents not a radical departure in Russian foreign policy but a well-worn tradition that affords him considerable flexibility in projecting Russian influence and confounding Russia’s foes. Putin’s announcement of a drawdown of forces from Syria hardly translates into a withdrawal of Russian influence from the Middle East.

      {...}

      Delete
    2. {...}

      The Kurds today—in Iraq, in Syria, in Turkey, and even in Iran—are stronger and more important actors in the Middle East than they have ever been in modern history.

      A bid to establish an independent Kurdish state is ever more plausible. Success in achieving self-determination, however, rarely comes without assistance from an outside power. And unlike America, whose relationship with NATO ally Turkey blocks it from embracing full-fledged Kurdish statehood, Russia is relatively free to back the idea of a sovereign independent Kurdistan.

      Putin, in short, is in a unique position to bring Russia’s centuries-long relationship with the Kurds to a logical culmination and deal a devastating blow to Turkey in the process. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu both profess an admiration for Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II. They would do well to remember that it was during Abdulhamid II’s reign that Russian arms and diplomacy secured Bulgarian, Romanian, and Serbian independence. Kurdistan perhaps awaits its own liberator tsar.

      Michael A. Reynolds is associate professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He is the author of Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires.

      Delete
  3. So it goes with two US allies from hell, Turkey and Israel. And what goes with the third member of The Axis of Weasels?

    GENEVA — The top United Nations human rights official condemned the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen on Friday, citing repeated attacks on civilian targets in airstrikes, including an attack on a crowded village market this week that killed 106 people.

    United Nations officials who went to the site of the attack on Tuesday in Hajjah Province found that airstrikes there had killed 106 people, including 24 children, making them the deadliest episode in the coalition’s yearlong intervention.

    The Saudis are backing the contested government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi against rebels, known as the Houthis, who are aligned with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Saudis have been pressuring the United States for support in the conflict, saying that their archrival, Iran, is backing the Houthis.

    United Nations officials recorded the names of 96 people who died in the strikes, and they found 10 more bodies that were burned beyond recognition. An additional 40 people were wounded, “but that may be a low estimate,” said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. WHO PROVIDED THE WARPLANES AND BOMBS TO THE SAUDIS? MORE OF THEIR FINE WORK:

      Wed March 16, 2016
      Sanaa, Yemen (CNN)At least 78 civilians were killed and more than 100 injured when three Saudi airstrikes attacked a market in northern Yemen, three medical officials in Hajjah told CNN. The Yemeni Defense Ministry gave a higher death toll; it said up to 107 were killed and dozens injured.

      Two of the airstrikes attacked the center of Khamees Market in Mustaba'a, Hajjah, during the busiest time of the day. The third hit near its gates. The market is one of the largest in the northern region of Yemen.

      "Dozens of bodies were completely burned, and dozens others were unrecognizable after bodies were splattered in pieces from the airstrikes," said Ali AlSharafi, a local shop owner who survived the attacks.

      Among the killed were seven children. Graphic footage of their bodies was broadcast in a video released by AlMasirah TV, the outlet for Houthi rebels.

      Ahmed bin Hassan al-Asiri, Saudi spokesman of Coalition Forces and the adviser at the Saudi Defense Minister's Office, said on his Facebook page that the pictures circulating on social media are not necessarily an indication that the shelling that targeted the market is a Saudi airstrike.

      Asiri said others may be behind the bombing. He also emphasized that there will be an inquiry to investigate the claims and that the results will be published to the public.

      Medecins Sans Frontieres said on its Twitter account that at least 40 people, all civilian victims from the attack, were treated in its hospital in the Hajjah province after the airstrikes.

      Last month, at least 30 were killed when Saudi airstrikes targeted a marketplace in Nihm district, just north of the Yemen capital of Sanaa. Nearly all the victims from the Khalqah Marketplace were civilians.



      Delete
    2. Bolshevik Russia in 1923 created the first ethnic Kurdish political entity, so-called Red Kurdistan, in the Caucasus, as an instrument to export revolution through the Middle East via the Kurds....

      ...Stalin took this one step further in 1946 when, upon ordering Soviet troops to withdraw from northern Iran he oversaw the creation of the Kurdish “Mahabad Republic” there.


      Heh, the Kurds certainly have deserved a state if such diverse worthies as Lenin, Uncle Joe and Uncle Bob have supported the idea.

      ;)

      Delete
  4. If century-long trends continue, Canada will be a Muslim majority nation by 2050 - 3/21/16
    If the past 110 years is any guide. More


    American Thinker

    Maybe you should join Trump and stop moslems entering Canada, Ash, or your grand daughter may be in a burka, and you and yours will be praying to Mecca, or pay the tax and do all the work.

    ReplyDelete
  5. At the same time, apparently in a bid to forestall reinforcements from being sent from al-Raqqa, the Daesh capital, either Russian or regime planes flew dozens of missions against al-Raqqa. The strikes left at least 39 dead, with some sites reporting deaths among women and children.


    basically who cares, it's not like it's Jews killing them....

    right?

    ReplyDelete
  6. The world is over the issue of the Palestinians.

    At a time when Russia and America are bombing Sunni Moslems, when Arabia is bombing the Yemenis, Hezbollah and Assad have butchered upwards of 450+ thousand and created over 14 MILLION REAL refugees....

    No-one cares about the palestinians of gaza or Judea and Samaria, the west bank to those who don't know real history.

    Billions and billions have been given to the Palestinians and all they can do is dig tunnels and build rockets.

    Suicide by cop is now on a cultural scale, Suicide by War is the new plan.

    ISIS in the Sinai, trained, funded, supported and manpower supplied by Hamas of Gaza has killed scores of Egyptians in the last 12 months, now Egypt, is fed up, flooding the "tunnels" with seawater and digging a moat...

    No the time for the "2 state solution" is over.

    Abbas? A billionaire jokester.

    Hamas? Billionaires themselves....

    The Palestinian people? Screwed by their own leaders (again)

    and the world just doesn't care.

    In the last war with gaza?

    Israel killed 2200, most terrorists.

    Assad with Hezbollah has killed 450,000.

    How many dead in Iraq? Yemen? Libya? Lebanon? Syria?

    No the world is fed up with the fake nationalistic movement called "Palestinian Nationalism". Once it JOINED Hamas, the ISIS of the Strip, there was no turning the clock back.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What is "Occupation" Fri Sep 05, 08:00:00 AM EDT

      The bear took out airstrips in georgia that israel was going to use for an attack on iran..

      My prediction:

      Israel will attack using long range unmanned drones & missiles on command and control, nuke sites, israel will use select airwing assets to deliver bunker busters..

      Israel will hold most of it's idf airwing for attacks on long & medium range rockets in gaza, lebanon, syria and iran)

      I feel (and i am almost always wrong) that this will happen right after ramadamamadong is over


      Wrong then, wrong now.

      Sodastream is back to $14.04 per share, and falling to ...

      Delete
    2. Obama made sure Israel did not attack Iran.

      And Sodastream is still undervalued and a good investment

      Delete
  7. More news about that 3 sided box that deuce talks about...


    http://www.albawaba.com/news/south-gaza-strip-goes-dark-after-egypt-disconnected-power-lines-maintenance-814558

    South Gaza Strip goes dark after Egypt disconnected power lines for maintenance

    What you say?

    EGYPT has electric lines into GAZA!!!

    HARK!!!

    Egyptian authorities on Tuesday disconnected all power grids providing electricity to the southern Gaza Strip district of Rafah for maintenance.

    Muhammad Thabit, a public information officer for Gaza’s electricity company, told Ma’an that the grids were disconnected at 7:00 a.m. Egyptian authorities did not notify their Gazan counterparts regarding when electricity would be restored, according to Thabit.

    Thabit said an electricity line supplying power from Israel to Khan Yunis district was also disconnected at 8:00 a.m. However, the Israelis notified the Gaza company that the grid would be reconnected by 3:00 p.m., Thabit added.

    Power to the Gaza Strip has been disconnected number of times over the last month due to what Egyptian authorities have told Gaza was for maintenance or technical issues.


    Maybe instead of building billions of dollars in TUNNELS, Hamas should build power plants?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Your "box" is so 2 dimensional, "O"rdure, like your thinking.

      Anyone who resides in the 'real world' knows a box has six sides.

      Delete
  8. It was news to Quirk when I posted about ISIS and Hamas, and their co-operation.

    It was news to Quirk because he doesn't read Jihad Watch like I do.

    When I get more interesting stuff from Jihad Watch, I will post it for Quirk's sake.

    Want him to be 'up to speed'. I'm concerned and feeling like the old Q-duffer is slowing down a bit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Got a link to those data sets, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson?

      Delete
  9. http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Analysis-Hamas-playing-double-game-with-ISIS-408428

    Hamas’s military wing is playing a double game with Islamic State-affiliated forces in the area, according to recent Israeli intelligence assessments.

    Within the Gaza Strip – where Hamas rules with an iron fist – the military wing has begun an unprecedented crackdown against pro-ISIS elements that have been firing rockets into southern Israel in recent weeks.



    Now it will confuse those here at the bar that play checkers....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yet in the Sinai Peninsula, Hamas’s military wing, the Izzadin Kassam Brigades, is understood to be cooperating tactically with Wilayat al-Sinai (Sinai Province), an ISIS-affiliated terrorist organization. In recent days, the group carried out its most ambitious, coordinated and deadly attack on Egyptian security forces in northern Sinai, resulting in dozens of casualties.

      Despite a failure to receive the consent of Hamas’s political wing, the military wing maintains cooperation with Wilayat al-Sinai, giving it access to Gaza, from where the Sinai-based organization smuggles weapons and funds, and receives training.

      Hamas gains from the relationship by receiving access to the Egyptian side of Rafah, enabling it to continue smuggling efforts and bypass Israeli and Egyptian security blockades. Hamas could also use the partnership to facilitate attacks on Israel territory away from Gaza, such as rocket attacks against Eilat from Sinai.

      Delete

    2. A box has six sides, "O"rdure, even checker players know that.

      Delete
    3. If you are going to go 3-d on us?

      Then Israel controls only 3 of the 6....

      Checkmate.

      Delete
    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    5. .

      Prison: any place of confinement or involuntary restraint.

      .

      Delete
    6. .

      Perhaps, chess is your game, WiO, but it's evident that neither math nor geography are.

      .

      Delete
  10. All we have to fear is The Donald taking testosterone replacement therapy -


    March 21, 2016

    No, Trump Won’t Be Another Hitler

    By Adam Mala


    Donald Trump has been compared to Hitler by some famous and influential people lately. But rest assured, Mr. Trump will likely not cross the Rubicon and break America’s increasingly tenuous grip on Republican governance.

    For one thing, it is hard to envision how a man of almost 70 who spent his entire life working in the private sector could be a Hitler due to his age. History shows that becoming a despot is a young(ish) man’s game. Here are twenty of the worst despots of the past two centuries, along with their ages when they became the head of state, to illustrate my point:

    Mao Zedong was 55 when he assumed control of China as the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

    Joseph Stalin was 44 when he became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

    Adolf Hitler was 43 when he became Führer of Germany.

    King Leopold II was 30 when he became King of the Belgians.

    Hideki Tojo was 56 when he became Prime Minister of Japan.

    Pol Pot was 37 when he became the General Secretary of his party, and would become prime minister at 49.

    Kim Il Sung was 33 when he became the Premier of North Korea.

    Mengistu Haile Mariam was 39 when he became the Chairman of the Derg and Head of State of Ethiopia.

    Yakubu Gowon was 31 when he became the Chairman of the Derg and Head of State of Ethiopia.

    Jean Kambanda was 38 when he became the Prime Minister of Rwanda.

    Saddam Hussein was 42 when he became the Regional Secretary of the Regional Command of the Iraqi Regional Branch.

    Vladimir Lenin was 50 when he finally wrested control of Russia following the civil war that succeeded the October Revolution.

    Bashar Al Assad was 34 when he became the President of Syria.

    Hugo Chavez was 44 when he became the President of Venezuela.

    Fidel Castro was 32 when he became the President of Cuba.

    Idi Amin became President of Uganda when he was around 46, but nobody knows quite when he was born.

    Ho Chi Minh was 55 when he became the first prime minister of North Vietnam.

    Francisco Franco was 46 when he became the Caudillo of Spain.

    Benito Mussolini was 39 when he became Prime Minister of Italy.

    Hirohito was 25 when he became emperor.

    In other words, men who yearn to wield unchecked power over a country get on with it before they’re eligible for Social Security.

    So Donald Trump would be the oldest despot in the list by 14 years were he to become the head of state, and older than the average by almost 30.

    I suspect this is not a coincidence. If you’re too young, you can’t ascend to power except if it’s one of those hereditary promotions (e.g. Hirohito). On the other hand, if you’re too old you don’t have enough testosterone to want to be a dictator. The Mayo Clinic says T declines by about 1 percent a year after you’re 30 or 40, meaning that by age 70, Mr. Trump’s is probably less than 75% of his peak level.........

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/no_trump_wont_be_another_hitler.html#ixzz43YI2yKG1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's Hillary 'Livia Drusilla' Clinton we must fear.

      Livia to the gladiators:

      "Get in there and give us a good fight, you scum. There will be sweet peas and stewed carrots for the winners. If you don't give us a good fight I'll have you all wiped to death in any case. Now get out there and fight, you scum !"

      Delete

    2. It does fit the stereotype of what a "Draft Dodger" would say, doesn't it?

      Do you still want to send US troops to defend the Kurds, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson?
      It would be supporting Assad, if the US did so.
      It would be the US standing tall, against Israel.

      Where do you stand, now, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson?

      Delete

    3. Taj Kordsh, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces which is allied to the PYD, told Al-Jazeera that the Kurds were angered they had been excluded from Syrian peace talks in Geneva. “We feel the world powers are using us as a tool to push forward their agendas. It is now our right to protect ourselves. We do not support dividing Syria, but we expect an equal and fair outcome.”


      http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/TERRA-INCOGNITA-Americas-hypocritical-failure-to-support-Kurdish-rights-448596

      Delete
    4. Jack, Since I called and reported you for stalking and threats to the AZ FBI, the blog and it's readers have come to learn that you have zero credibility as a judge of anyone's character, let alone Bob's.

      You do remember trying to OUT his home address and phone number?

      You do remember you used to stalk the WRONG Jew instead of me?

      Chocolate Emporium anyone?

      Really Jack.

      Get a life.

      Or dont...

      We will await your coming death (of bile and pus build up no doubt) with anticipation.

      Let's us know where you plan to be buried so we can visit and piss on your grave...

      Delete
  11. I see our resident a-hole is back.

    Time to go to the store, and check out for awhile.

    Cheers to the rest of you !

    ReplyDelete
  12. .

    Now it will confuse those here at the bar that play checkers....

    Checkers? Sounds more like you are playing a game of Clue.

    Put up a link where Egypt is accusing Hamas of aiding ISIS in the Sinai.

    I've tried different combinations in Google and have been unable to come up with any. Yet, even though I don't mention Israel at all, dozens of links appear citing these charges by Israel.

    I'm sorry to have to ask for confirmation but let's face it, you haven't been all that credible in the past. How many times have you denied my claim that Hamas is clamping down on ISIS and other Islamists in Gaza. Now, today you put up a post stating that same thing.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just posted an article that shows Hamas is clamping down in GAZA on Isis and supporting Isis and supplying arms, training and funds in the sinai.

      Sorry if I don't live up to YOUR level of credibility but truthfully?

      You have zero.

      You don't KNOW shit about HAMAS or ISIS....

      Do your own research Quirk, learn about the Moslem brotherhood, hamas and ISIS, or don't.

      But you can take your condescending attitude? And stuff in your ass

      Delete
    2. Read Jihad Watch, Quirk, read Jihad Watch old boy.

      And American Thinker and Hot Air like I do.

      And Front Page Magazine.

      Read everything you can by Hugh Fitzgerald, old fellow.

      It's a start!

      ;)

      Delete
  13. What happens when Donald Trump runs out of campaign cash? We're about to find out

    http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-donald-trump-2016-campaign-finance-20160321-htmlstory.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe The Donald shouldn't have made quite such a big thing out of self financing.

      People may say 'heck with it, he's rich, I'm not contributing'.

      Delete
  14. OBAMA WELCOMES CASTRO'S CRITICISM OF AMERICA: 'WOULDN'T DISAGREE'.....DRUDGE


    GOOD GRIEF !

    I'll be soooo glad when he's out of the White House.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cubans are rushing RIGHT NOW to get to the USA !

      Delete
  15. Bill Clinton agrees with me ! Speaking in Spokane, Washington he says:

    “But if you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put ((((the awful legacy of the last eight years)))) behind us and the 7 years before that when we were practicing trickle-down economics and no regulation in Washington, which is what caused the crash, then you should vote for her,” Clinton said.

    I'll get the link. Some are saying Billy Goat's been tipped that Hillary is going to be indicted, or at the very least have an extremely bad report card from the FBI.

    :):):):)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DID BILL GET HEADS UP THAT OBAMA'S MOVING ON EMAILS?
      'If you believe it's more important to relitigate the past...'....DRUDGE

      Delete
    2. http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-bill-clinton-slams-awful-legacy-of-last-8-years/

      Delete
  16. Music to Deuce's ears -


    Post Politics

    Trump questions need for NATO, outlines noninterventionist foreign policy

    “I do think it’s a different world today, and I don’t think we should be nation-building anymore. I think it’s proven not to work, and we have a different country than we did then. We have $19 trillion in debt.”

    Donald Trump describing his foreign policy approach


    Trump questions need for NATO, outlines noninterventionist foreign policy

     Play Video


    By Philip Rucker and Robert Costa March 21 at 4:30 PM 



    Donald Trump speaks with Washington Post Publisher Fred Ryan, left, as he departs a meeting with the editorial board of The Washington Post. Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt is on the right. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

    This post has been updated.

    Donald Trump outlined an unabashedly noninterventionist approach to world affairs Monday, telling The Washington Post's editorial board that he questions the need for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has formed the backbone of Western security policies since the Cold War.

    The meeting at The Post covered a range of issues, including media libel laws, violence at his rallies, climate change, NATO and the U.S. presence in Asia.

    Speaking ahead of a major address on foreign policy later Monday in front of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Trump said he advocates a light footprint in the world. In spite of unrest abroad, especially in the Middle East, Trump said the United States must look inward and steer its resources to rebuilding infrastructure.



    Who are the key figures in Trump’s inner circle?
     

    Play Video2:07


    Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's key political inner circle consists of campaign veterans and some more inexperienced characters. Here's what you need to know about them. (Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post)

    "I do think it’s a different world today, and I don’t think we should be nation-building anymore," Trump said. "I think it’s proven not to work, and we have a different country than we did then. We have $19 trillion in debt. We’re sitting, probably, on a bubble. And it’s a bubble that if it breaks, it’s going to be very nasty. I just think we have to rebuild our country."

    He added: "I watched as we built schools in Iraq and they’re blown up. We build another one, we get blown up. We rebuild it three times and yet we can’t build a school in Brooklyn. We have no money for education because we can’t build in our own country. At what point do you say, 'Hey, we have to take care of ourselves?' So, I know the outer world exists and I’ll be very cognizant of that. But at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially the inner cities."

    For the first time, Trump also listed members of a team chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) that is counseling him on foreign affairs and helping to shape his policies: Keith Kellogg, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Walid Phares and Joseph E. Schmitz.

    Trump praised George P. Shultz, who served as President Ronald Reagan's top diplomat, and was harshly critical of current secretary of state John F. Kerry. He questioned the United States’ continued involvement in NATO and, on the subject of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, said America’s allies are "not doing anything."........

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-reveals-foreign-policy-team-in-meeting-with-the-washington-post/

      Delete
    2. I don't much like his outlook on NATO.

      Think of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania !

      Delete
  17. Idaho BobMon Mar 21, 06:28:00 PM EDT
    Maybe The Donald shouldn't have made quite such a big thing out of self financing.

    People may say 'heck with it, he's rich, I'm not contributing'.
    ====

    Maybe the MSM will not be quite so Donald friendly when he's running against Hillary.

    Maybe not maybe:

    It's a LOCK !

    ReplyDelete
  18. Texas Grid Plans Jump In 2016 Solar & Wind Capacity

    March 20th, 2016 by Glenn Meyers

    Additions this year to the ERCOT grid in Texas are expected to be dominated by ⅔ from wind and solar PV, according to energy research from SNL. If SNL research proves true, this will be a huge boost to the generation of renewable electricity within this historic oil-producing state.

    As Christian Roselund has written for pv magazine, “This is the beginning of a boom anticipated in Texas over the next 15 years.”

    In spite of its abundant sunshine and massive open spaces, Texas has long trailed in the US solar market, a trend now changing, ElectricityPolicy concludes:

    “Solar is poised to take off in Texas,” Peter Sopher, a policy analyst for the Environmental Defense Fund in Austin, told the Dallas News. He compared it with wind power a decade ago, when wind generated 1.4% of the ERCOT system’s electricity. For the first 11 months of 2015, wind’s share was over 11%. And in November, it was over 18%. For a warm, sunny state, Texas has been lagging in solar, as it lacks the incentives of some states and has an abundant supply of cheap energy, including natural gas. But prices for solar panels have fallen over 80% since 2009, making solar competitive with fossil fuels. Last year, solar installations on ERCOT grew almost 50%. This year, solar generation could jump six-fold, by ERCOT projections. If proposed rules to cut emissions and haze remain in place, ERCOT estimates solar will add 14 GW to the ERCOT grid by 2030—and that projection came before last month’s federal budget deal, which extended tax creditsfor renewable energy. Last summer, Austin Energy signed solar power agreements for less than 4 ¢/kWh, hailed at the time as “the cheapest solar ever.” January 14, 2016″

    ERCOT is a separate grid from the other two US grids, covering most of Texas’ territory and 85% of the state’s demand. Demand on the ERCOT grid has traditionally been met mostly with gas- and coal-fired generation. Although, in recent years, wind has met more than 10% of annual electric demand, pv magazine has reported.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But this year, a number of significant solar projects are under construction, led by those under power contracts awarded by municipal utilities in Austin and San Antonio. Austin Energy has signed contracts for 600 MW of solar PV, which has yet to be completed, and OCI Solar Power had scheduled to complete 400 MW of solar PV for CPS Energy by the end of the year.

      At this time, solar still only represent an estimated 2% of ERCOT generation capacity by the end of the year.

      Cleantechnica

      Delete
    2. .

      SNL research? Isn't that kind of like relying on The Onion?

      .

      Delete
  19. .

    Sorry if I don't live up to YOUR level of credibility but truthfully?

    You have zero.

    You don't KNOW shit about HAMAS or ISIS....

    Do your own research Quirk, learn about the Moslem brotherhood, hamas and ISIS, or don't.

    But you can take your condescending attitude? And stuff in your ass.



    :o)

    Getting a little huffy there, WiO. IMHO of course.


    I just posted an article that shows Hamas is clamping down in GAZA on Isis and supporting Isis and supplying arms, training and funds in the sinai.

    And that was the point of my comment.

    1. That story has been coming out of Israel for months. One would think if it was true, the same stories would be coming out of Egypt.

    Now, you'll notice I didn't say the story wasn't true. What I said was that at this point based on what I have seen I find it hard to credit the story. That's why I asked if you had any links to Egypt backing up the story. I couldn't find any though I tried a number of searches.

    2. You SHOUT that I 'KNOW' shit about 'HAMAS' or 'ISIS' which I find amusing given you poor record on both. For months, you have been denying my assertion that Hamas is keeping the Islamist groups including ISIS in line in Gaza. Now today, you put up a link that says the exact thing I have been saying for months.

    The only thing you seem to know about Hamas or ISIS are the assertions coming out of Debkafile, AIPAC, and Israel Hayom.

    .



    ReplyDelete
  20. .

    Idaho BobMon Mar 21, 06:42:00 PM EDT

    Bill Clinton agrees with me ! Speaking in Spokane, Washington he says:

    “But if you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put ((((the awful legacy of the last eight years)))) behind us and the 7 years before that when we were practicing trickle-down economics and no regulation in Washington, which is what caused the crash, then you should vote for her,” Clinton said."


    He agrees with you that you should vote for Hillary?

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Billy Goat and I both agree that the last eight years have been the shits.

      Delete
  21. Huma's mom! Huma's mother, Saleha Mahmood Abedin, is a sociologist known for her strong advocacy of Sharia Law. A member of the Muslim Sisterhood (i.e., the Muslim Brotherhood's division for women), Saleha is also a board member of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief. This pro-Hamas entity is part of the Union of Good, which the U.S. government has formally designated as an international terrorist organization led by the Muslim Brotherhood luminary Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

    ReplyDelete