ISIS captures 5 villages from ‘moderates’ as Al-Nusra continues shelling Aleppo – Russia’s MoD
ISIS terrorists have captured a number of villages from the “moderate” opposition in the Aleppo province, as a fragile Russian-US brokered truce is holding despite regular provocations and onslaught by terrorist groups that aren’t part of the ceasefire.
In Saturday’s press release the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria reported that the Islamic State terror group (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) has retaken five villages in the vicinity of Azaz in northwestern Syria, roughly 20 miles of the city of Aleppo.
“Militants of the Daesh terrorist organization carried out the attack on the Free Syrian Army positions near the town of Azaz, Aleppo province and established control over [several] settlements,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a daily bulletin. The statement added that the terrorist advances were halted by the Kurdish militia in the vicinity of Ain Dakna.
Besides the IS faction, another equally notorious terrorist group Jabhat Al-Nusra continues to attack government-controlled areas. According to the Center, Al-Nusra is continuing to assault Aleppo using rocket launchers and mortars.
“Units of al-Nusra Front international terrorist organization continue their provocative actions aimed at disrupting the ceasefire. In the past 24 hours [the group] attacked the settlement of Handcart, Aleppo’s neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsood and Halidia, as well as Nayrab airport, with mortars and multiple rocket launcher systems,” the ministry said.
At least four civilians were killed in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, including two children, SANA reports. The shelling injured at least 18 others. Additional casualties were reported in al-Midan residential neighborhood and al-Ashrafiyeh neighborhood.
Earlier this week, the Russian General Staff warned that Al-Nusra is receiving daily arms shipments across the border from Turkey. The Russian side estimates that more than 6,000 terrorists are now running freely in the Aleppo province.
As terrorist resilience to the government-led forces continues around Aleppo, another three settlements joined the reconciliation agreement in that province, bringing the total number of towns observing the truce to 125. Sixty armed opposition groups have now officially joined the Syria-wide ceasefire regime. According to the latest bulletin, only two violations of truce by ceasefire parties have been registered in Damascus province Friday-Saturday.
The ceasefire introduced on February 27 does not apply to internationally-recognized terror groups such as IS and Al-Nusra Front, which means strikes can be delivered against their outposts. The Russian reconciliation center noted that Russian and Syrian air force have not carried out any sorties against the opposition groups which have joined the truce.
Despite their close tie to recognized terror groups and reported massacres, the groups such as Ahrar Al-Sham Jaish al-Islam have been spared from blacklist and are even considered by Washington as parties to the truce, although neither of them ever applied to join the ceasefire. According to the bulletin, Jaish al-Islam has yet again shelled the town of Marj al-Sultan as well as government positions near the village of Harasta in the east of Damascus.
Amid the Islamic State and Al-Nusra offensive this week in close proximity to Turkish border, the UN refugee agency reported that some 165,000 civilians are trapped between near the town of Azaz between the violence in northern Aleppo and Turkey.
“The UNHCR is deeply concerned about the plight of some 165,000 displaced persons reportedly massing near the Syrian town of Azaz in northern Syria,” saidthe UN refugee agency, as it called on Ankara to opens its borders. “People have started to flee due to heavy fighting in northern Aleppo. Fleeing civilians are being caught in cross-fire and are facing challenges to access medical services, food, water and safety.”
\The UNHCR says it has alerted Turkey of the situation and reiterates the rights to refugee protection and safe passage, as enshrined in international law.
The Human Rights Watch, on Friday also lashed out against Turkish unwillingness to help refugees get to safety.
“While the world speaks about fighting ISIS, their silence is deafening when it comes to the basic rights of those fleeing ISIS,” the NGO said. “The fact Turkey is generously hosting more than 2.5 million Syrians does not give it a right to shut its border to other endangered Syrians.”
U.S. commander warns that Iraqi forces may face resistance in key urban fight
ReplyDeleteSmoke rises from Islamic State positions at the front line as Iraqi government forces fight the extremist group for Fallujah on Saturday. (Khalid Mohammed/AP)
By Missy Ryan and Mustafa Salim May 28 at 4:36 PM
BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces’ ability to deal a swift blow to the Islamic State in the city of Fallujah could be slowed by local support for militants, the U.S. commander in Iraq said, suggesting a key battle may be a longer, tougher fight than Iraqi leaders are predicting.
Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, who commands U.S. and allied forces in Iraq, said it was too soon to know how the battle within Fallujah would unfold. But he struck a more cautious note than Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and other senior officials have in rallying Iraqis around what they say will be a rapid, decisive campaign in the besieged city.
“We really haven’t fought a battle like this,” MacFarland said in an interview this past week. The general said that the western city is home to some of Iraq’s “early adopters” of the Islamic State’s radical cause and that others have been indoctrinated. “You could have a fairly large percentage of a fairly large city that’s hostile to us,” he said.
While Iraqi police and army forces, fighting alongside Shiite militias and Sunni tribesmen, have secured areas surrounding Fallujah since the operation was launched nearly a week ago, Abadi has not yet given the order to storm the city....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/as-fallujah-battle-gets-underway-us-commander-warns-of-risk-from-locals/2016/05/28/ab1ee6fa-24de-11e6-b944-52f7b1793dae_story.html
Members of al Qaeda’s branch in Syria have a surprising advocate in the corridors of American power: retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus.
ReplyDeleteThe former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been quietly urging U.S. officials to consider using so-called moderate members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front to fight ISIS in Syria, four sources familiar with the conversations, including one person who spoke to Petraeus directly, told The Daily Beast.
The heart of the idea stems from Petraeus’s experience in Iraq in 2007, when as part of a broader strategy to defeat an Islamist insurgency the U.S. persuaded Sunni militias to stop fighting with al Qaeda and to work with the American military.
The tactic worked, at least temporarily. But al Qaeda in Iraq was later reborn as ISIS, and has become the sworn enemy of its parent organization. Now, Petraeus is returning to his old play, advocating a strategy of co-opting rank-and-file members of al Nusra, particularly those who don’t necessarily share all of core al Qaeda’s Islamist philosophy.
However, Petraeus’s play, if executed, could be enormously controversial. The American war on terror began with an al Qaeda attack on 9/11, of course. The idea that the U.S. would, 14 years later, work with elements of al Qaeda’s Syrian branch was an irony too tough to stomach for most U.S. officials interviewed by The Daily Beast. They found Petraeus’s notion politically toxic, near-impossible to execute, and strategically risky.
It would also face enormous legal and security obstacles. In 2012, the Obama administration designated al Nusra a foreign terrorist organization. And last year, the president ordered airstrikes on al Nusra positions housing members of the Khorasan Group, an al Qaeda cadre that was trying to recruit jihadists with Western passports to smuggle bombs onto civilian airliners.
Yet Petraeus and his plan cannot be written off. He still wields considerable influence with current officials, U.S. lawmakers, and foreign leaders. The fact that he feels comfortable recruiting defectors from an organization that has declared war on the United States underscores the tenuous nature of the Obama administration’s strategy to fight ISIS, which numerous observers have said is floundering in search of a viable ground force.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/31/petraeus-use-al-qaeda-fighters-to-beat-isis.html
QUESTION
DeleteWhich member of your family would you like to die or get maimed for life under the command of one os our “Thank you for service” motherfuchas, like David Piraeus?
He had the ingenious idea to give our tax dollars to The Insurgency so they would come over to our side.
DeleteWhich they did.
In Word
Taqiya, anyone?
OOrah assholes, OOrah.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeletePetraeus is another example of a guy who should be in jail but isn't.
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(CNN) Donald Trump on Friday suggested that the United States should bomb ISIS in Libya, a decision that would mark a serious escalation of the U.S. military campaign against the terrorist group. It's also a new position for Trump, who has argued both in favor of and against military intervention in Libya over the past five years.
DeleteClaiming that ISIS controls oil fields in Libya, the presumptive Republican nominee questioned during a rally here why the United States isn’t "bombing the hell out of" ISIS in Libya.
"ISIS has the oil. And then you say if ISIS has the oil, why aren't we blockading so they can't sell it? Why aren’t we bombing the hell out of --" Trump said, stopping short as he pivoted to slamming President Barack Obama as "grossly incompetent."
THERE IS MORE
Anaheim (CNN)Donald Trump pressed his case Wednesday that Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president by trashing Clinton's support for U.S. military interventions that he also backed.
"She doesn't have the temperament to be president. She's got bad judgment. She's got horribly bad judgment," Trump said. "If you look at the war in Iraq, if you look at what she did with Libya, which was a total catastrophe."
Clinton as a U.S. senator from New York voted in 2002 to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. And in 2011 as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, Clinton forcefully argued in favor of military intervention to overthrow Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Trump, despite his repeated claims to the contrary, also supported both the Iraq War and the U.S.-involved military intervention in Libya those same years.
Asked about his views on the possible war a month before Clinton and 76 other senators voted to authorize military force in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, Trump voiced his support.
"Yeah, I guess so," Trump told radio show host Howard Stern in September 2002. "You know, I wish the first time it was done correctly."
Petraeus and Hillary, sitting in a cell, shucking and jiving, and lying like Hell.
DeleteA Short Tale Of Two Prisoners
DeletePetraeus and Hillary
Sittin' in a cell
Shuckin' and jivin'
An' lyin' like Hell
by Doug of Maui
Victor Davis Hanson: The Lessons Of Pearl Harbor 75 Years Later
ReplyDeleteThis year marks the 75th anniversary of the December 7, 1941, Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that killed more than 2,400 Americans.
President Obama is visiting Hiroshima this week, the site of the August 6, 1945, dropping of the atomic bomb that helped end World War II in the Pacific Theater. But strangely, he has so far announced no plans to visit Pearl Harbor on the anniversary of the attack. The president, who spent much of his childhood in Hawaii, should — given that many Americans have forgotten why the Japanese attacked the United States and why they falsely assumed that they could defeat the world’s largest economic power.
Imperial Japan was not, as often claimed, forced into a corner by a U.S. oil embargo, which came only after years of horrific Japanese atrocities in China and Southeast Asia. Instead, an opportunistic and aggressive fascist Japan gambled that the geostrategy of late 1941 had made America uniquely vulnerable to a surprise attack.
By December 1, 1941, Nazi Germany, Japan’s Axis partner, had reached the suburbs of Moscow. Japan believed that the German army would soon knock the Soviet Union out of the war...
http://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/victor-davis-hanson-the-lessons-of-pearl-harbor-75-years-later/
All the other Pentagon-trained Syrian rebel factions, from their costly and largely ineffective foray into training, have either defected or been destroyed. The last little group, which holds the Tanaf border crossing between Iraq and Syria, is now on the brink.
ReplyDeleteThe rebels pushed their way in and surprised a small number of ISIS forces at the border, which is the southern-most crossing between Iraq and Syria, but now with ISIS conducting counter-offensives in the area, it seems only a matter of time before they face another attack.
The rebels complain they aren’t getting much support from the US, which they described as a “dereliction of duty,” saying that they are debating whether or not to flee rather than simply wait for the inevitable rout from the much-larger ISIS force.
Who in your family would you want to get in on this?
DeleteJust a question:
What have we spent on Syria, which has a direct connection to our outstanding work in Iraq?
DeleteBy Lydia Tomkiw - On 03/14/16 AT 4:02 PM
The U.S. has spent approximately $11.5 million a day in its fight against the Islamic State group since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve in August 2014.
http://www.ibtimes.com/how-much-has-syrian-civil-war-cost-russia-us-2336199
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DeleteOf course, what is reported isn't necessarily what is actually spent.
The US spends about $60 billion a year on black ops programs and I would have to think a chunk of it is being spent in Syria.
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DeleteWhat's really great is that this is just a continuation of what Bush started in 2001. It's been estimated al Qaeda spent between $400,000 and $500,000 on the 911 operation. It's also been estimated it cost us 10,000,000 times that much in fighting the WOT.
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Clout Research
ReplyDeletePolling Memorandum
The survey of Oregon voters statewide showed that, in a prospective General Election match-up between presumptive Republican Party nominee Donald Trump and likely Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump leads by a small margin, 44% to 42%, with 13% yet undecided. The Trump lead is statistically insignificant, but shows the Oregon electorate is deeply split about the direction in which the country should move. Both candidates have solidified much of their own political bases, winning about four of every five partisans, but Trump has a massive lead among Oregon independent voters, winning 53% support compared to just 26% support among independents for Clinton. Another 21% of independents said they are yet undecided....
http://cloutpolitical.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2016/05/OR-Statewide-Poll-Memorandum-5-18-2016.pdf
DeleteMay 29, 2016
Hillary campaign fundraising email reveals signs of panic
By Thomas Lifson
In the massive Brooklyn Headquarters of the Hillary campaign, they know something is happening, but they don’t know what it is (to paraphrase Bob Dylan’s taunting lyric). A fundraising email sent out by campaign manager Robbie Mook is startlingly honest in admitting they have a problem. Ben Wolfgang of the Washington Times got ahold of a copy and explains:
Faced with sagging fundraising numbers, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on Friday appealed to supporters and admitted it was wrong in assuming Donald Trump couldn’t possibly win a general election contest.
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told supporters in an email that the campaign took for granted that donations would pick up once aClinton vs. Trump November match-up became certain.
Instead, the campaign says fundraising numbers in May have dropped, and the Clinton operation’s assumption that voters would reject Mr. Trump have been proven wrong.
That sounds to me like a sinking ship. Here is the text of the email so hyou can judge for yourself:.....
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/hillary_campaign_fundraising_email_reveals_signs_of_panic.html#ixzz4A40tmZIy
$11.5 million dollars a day to fight ISIS isn't much if you divide it by the number of men, women and children in the USA.
ReplyDeleteDo the math.
Everyone here expected it to be over by Memorial Day of last year, according to the prediction of one of our military cognoscente..
May 29, 2016
ReplyDeleteThe October surprise to end all October surprises
By Leo L. Algminas
There may be more than one surprise in the works this year, given the dismal remaining candidates in the U.S. presidential race. But the true game-changer could come from an unexpected source: Vlad Putin, the chief mourner of the passing of the Soviet Union.
In Putin's scheme for a world where Russia is again a superpower, there has to be one favorite among the current finalists still in the race. Deep down, Bernie may well be his soul mate, but Putin knows there is little he can do to move Comrade Bernie up in the delegate count, and he could do considerable harm by openly endorsing him.
He knows Hillary, and the best he can expect from her victory is same-old, same-old – too slow and clumsy to get out of his way in re-establishing Russian dominance of Europe and beyond. After all, Putin is getting up in years. Before he replaced Hillary's reset button to work as his toilet-flusher as a reminder of her naiveté, he used it as a map-pointer to shift his troops to Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
To Putin, Donald Trump is a surprise and not necessarily the negative buffoon he was expecting. What is not to like if he will dismantle NATO as promised? When The Donald learned that Georgia, contentious and an irritant to Putin, borders not Tennessee, but rather the obscure Azerbaijan, he said, to hell with both of them, not my problem! Best of all, Putin knows he has the key to Hillary's excess baggage. The question that remains is when to use it.
The 10,000 or so emails from Hillary's home-brew server in Russian hands, hacked without much difficulty, even without disclosing their content, would sink her candidacy. Making them accessible to independent observers would be proof that she violated security laws and that proof could not be ignored by DOJ. Indicted or not, even pardoned by Obama, that kind of criminal negligence could not be left hanging anywhere near the White House.
Putin and his cronies know this. They also know that releasing Hillary's emails too soon would give the Democrats enough time to go to Plan B – namely, Biden. One term for him with the Cherokee woman as his running mate would do much to unite the Donks and defeat the demoralized GOP in the November election.
Now, if only the media cooperates and shields Herself for a bit longer – long enough for the Dem National Convention to anoint her as their candidate. By the month of October, Hillary should be slightly in the lead in the opinion polls, and as she starts to list the objects to add to her already extensive personal W.H. souvenir collection, a headline in mid-October in NYT: HILLARY'S HOME SERVER HACKED! A month later: THE DONALD MOVES HIS INAUGURATION TO TRUMP TOWER.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/the_october_surprise_to_end_all_october_surprises.html#ixzz4A4cEXuOA
Strikes in Syria
ReplyDeleteBomber, attack, and fighter aircraft conducted nine strikes in Syria:
-- Near Raqqah, two strikes struck an ISIL vehicle bomb factory and an ISIL weapons storage center.
-- Near Manbij, four strikes destroyed 11 ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL ammunitions facility and an ISIL heavy machine gun.
-- Near Mar’a, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL tactical vehicles and an ISIL vehicle.
Strikes in Iraq
Attack and fighter aircraft conducted 21strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:
-- Near Baghdadi, two strikes destroyed an ISIL vehicle bomb and an ISIL weapons cache.
-- Near Fallujah, a strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL vehicles, two ISIL mortar systems, an ISIL vehicle bomb, an ISIL weapons cache, an ISIL tunnel entrance, and an ISIL heavy machine gun.
-- Near Habbaniyah, two strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, 12 ISIL rocket rails, and an ISIL bunker.
-- Near Hit, a strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL heavy machine guns, and an ISIL boat.
-- Near Kisik, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL headquarters and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Mosul, 12 strikes struck eight separate ISIL tactical units and an ISIL headquarters, damaged an ISIL assembly area, suppressed three ISIL tactical units, and destroyed 15 ISIL assembly areas, an ISIL supply cache, five ISIL weapons caches, four ISIL vehicles, and two ISIL command and control nodes.
-- Near Qayyarah, a strike destroyed five ISIL rocket rails with rockets.
Kurdish Women
ReplyDeleteyoutube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvrHEpoedcU
40% of all Kurdish fighters opposing ISIS are women.
Also here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vq_kBYXI9g
They kill themselves rather than being taken prisoner.
May 29, 2016
DeleteTurkey on the Road to the Precipice
By Alex Alexiev
A few days ago, Turkey hosted something called the World Humanitarian Summit, shortly after its parliament passed a bill that would allow its government to lift parliamentary immunity and throw in jail members of parliament whose opinions do not agree with those of its increasingly dictatorial Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This puts paid to any remaining pretensions Turkey had of being a democracy and guarantees that this NATO member is headed for disaster. To understand why this is now inevitable, a closer look at this pernicious bill and the background to it are needed.
After coming to power with a huge majority in 2003, Erdoğan, who never hid his ultimate intentions to pursue the radical Islamization of Turkey, introduced a number of policies that were well received. One of them was to enter into reconciliation talks with the large Kurdish minority and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) representing it, which had been the key factor motivating the bloody Kurdish insurrection that claimed 40,000 victims in the 1980s and 1990s. Two of these policies, the ability to use the Kurdish language and elect their own mayors in the vast Kurd-dominated southeastern part of Turkey, were particularly popular, and the PKK unilaterally declared cease-fire in March 2013 after months of negotiations between Ankara and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
In the meantime, however, the geopolitical circumstances of the large Kurdish minorities in the region had changed dramatically, encouraging greater strivings for autonomy. The Kurds in northern Iraq had de facto become independent and had also distinguished themselves as the only military force capable of standing up to ISIS. Something similar happened in northern Syria, where Bashar Assad withdrew his forces early on and the majority-Kurdish areas also became autonomous, as well as the main opponent of the Islamic State terrorists, who were tacitly or directly supported by Erdoğan.
Erdoğan's relations with the Kurds took a turn for the worst with the siege of the Kurdish-Syrian town of Kobani and the occupation of 350 Kurdish villages by ISIS terrorists in September 2014. Ankara's failure to come to the assistance of Kobani triggered violent anti-government riots across the Kurdish areas in Turkey that were brutally put down and poisoned relations further. The end of the efforts at reconciliation came after the parliamentary elections in June of 2015, when the Kurdish party, HDP, received over 13% of the vote and not only entered parliament, but denied parliamentary majority to Erdoğan's AKP.
It was at this point that Erdoğan must have decided to destroy the HDP by force by accusing them of terrorism and initiating massive repression efforts by the military, resulting in thousands of civilian victims in Kurdish towns since last fall. For the Islamist Erdoğan, the HDP represented yet another political challenge. The elections showed that the Kurds' liberal platform was increasingly appealing to secular Turks of all ethnic backgrounds.
Return to the present, and Erdoğan's strategy becomes crystal-clear. He began arguing publicly as early as January 2016 that the HDP parliamentarians were terrorists and should be tried and jailed. After that, it was only a question of time for the AKP and its nationalist allies to pass a bill on May 20, 2016 to lift the immunity of the Kurdish deputies and possibly others as well. The bill is written so broadly – i.e., "providing physical, spiritual and moral support to terrorism" – that even an opinion in favor of Kurdish autonomy or other "objectionable views" could qualify one as a terrorist.
There is no doubt anymore that Erdoğan has opted out for brutal political oppression to achieve his objective of turning Turkey into an Islamist dictatorship with himself as the unquestioned sole authority. And this may not be the end of his ambitions. As many who have followed his radical Islamist career have noted, he has never been shy in presenting himself as the hope of the entire Muslim world and Turkey as its legitimate leader, as the Ottoman Empire once was. The only question that remains to be answered is whether he will succeed.
DeleteAnd here there are serious reasons to question his prospects, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, there is little doubt that Erdoğan's brutal tactics will further enflame the Kurds, drive thousands of new recruits to the PKK, and likely to result in a major flare-up of violence, not only in the traditional Kurdish territories in the southeast, but also in the major cities of western Turkey, where Kurds now live in compact masses. This is a nightmare scenario to which there is no military solution.
No less serious are the foreign-political implications of Erdoğan's repressive tactics. It is already clear that the European Union is not going to grant Turkey the Merkel-conceived visa-free travel if it does not change its terrorism legislation, which Erdoğan will not do, since it is his main political intimidation and blackmail tool. The Europeans may also be getting fed up with being constantly abused by the Turkish president for their ostensible "slavery-and-colonial-era-mindsets." This means that Turkey will remain ostracized and politically isolated in both Europe and the Middle East as never before in its modern history.
Perhaps worse still is the looming and inevitable conflict with America in Syria. It is well proven by now that Turkey under Erdoğan has never been serious about the fight against radical Sunni terrorist organizations, such as ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, Israr al-Sham etc., but in fact has aided and abetted them. This is no longer tolerable, as the U.S. and its allies are gearing up for some decisive battles against ISIS, from Falluja and Mosul in Iraq to Raqqa in Syria. And on all of these fronts, the Kurds are America's most reliable and battle-hardened allies, from the Peshmerga in Mosul to the PYD in Syria. The latter, for instance, make five sixths of the Syrian Defense Force (SDF) of 30,000 arrayed against ISIS. The U.S. has already embedded 200 special operations troops in the PYD units (with 250 more on their way) and closely coordinates air strikes and operations with them. No amount of protestation by the Turks that the Kurds are terrorists is likely to make much difference to Washington, given the experience on the ground.
And it is the logic of the conflict that sooner or later, if not in this administration, then certainly in the next one, America will have acknowledge that Islamist Turkey had long ceased to be a friend of the West and act accordingly. It won't be a minute too soon.
Alex Alexiev is chairman of the Center for Balkan and Black Sea Studies (cbbss.org). He tweets on national security at twitter.com/alexieff and can be reached at alexievalex4@gmail.com.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/turkey_on_the_road_to_the_precipice.html#ixzz4A66JHLBv
Discussing Putin on The O'Reilly Factor about how he'd get along with Putin, The Donald says:
DeleteDeals Are People
:)
Some truth in that....one can tell a lot about a person by how she/he makes deals....how this approach works out for The Donald remains to be seen....though we know Hillary's resetting 'the reset button' didn't move the diplomatic needle....
Hindus are the most affluent and highly educated immigrants in the United States.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of Clinton, some Wall Street backers say her proposals and tougher rhetoric on banks are just a political response to Sanders, her Democratic rival. Don't bet on it.
ReplyDelete...
On trade, there is a view among some of her policy and business supporters that she really is a free trader and that her opposition to Obama's Pacific trade pact and her pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement are just political gesturing. In reality, she wouldn't back down and the TPP is dead if it isn't enacted in a lame-duck session after this year's election.
Trump lacks a lot of policy specifics, but both he and Clinton have laid out a road-map of where they want to take the country. Voters should take them seriously.
Do What They Say
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteGOP in House Seeks to Impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen
Koskinen is an exemplary public official. He should be getting an award for his service, not this type of attention. He has not done anything wrong personally. Impeachment in the absence of crimes or unethical behavior, none of which has occurred here, is a dangerous precedent that has not been part of the U.S. experience and could dissuade experienced, competent executives like Koskinen from accepting appointment to senior management positions within government...
Bull titty.
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DeleteWhy Hillary Won't Be Indicted While Obama is President
The Obama administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is “unethical” and “intentionally deceptive.”
Harsh words, right? You’d expect that kind of criticism came from a political opponent or maybe even from a conservative commentator. But no – that’s not the case.
In fact, that stinging assessment came from a district court in Texas – the same court that blocked President Obama’s unlawful Executive Order on immigration to award legal status and federal and state benefits to nearly five million aliens.
That case is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court and a decision could come at any time.
Just last week, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen issued a 28-page order, posted here, that concluded the Justice Department attorneys involved in the case were “unethical” and “intentionally deceptive” and made misrepresentations when they had “knowledge of the truth.”
In the words of Judge Hanen: “The misconduct in this case was intentional, serious and material. In fact, it is hard to imagine a more serious, more calculated plan of unethical conduct.”
The Wall Street Journal notes the assertions made by DOJ attorneys during the case simply didn’t add up:
When 26 states sued to block the order in December 2014, Justice repeatedly assured Judge Hanen that the Department of Homeland Security would not start processing applications until February 2015 at the earliest. Two weeks after the injunction came down, in March, Justice was forced to admit that DHS had already granted or renewed more than 100,000 permits.
Justice has also conceded in legal filings that all its lawyers knew all along that the DHS program was underway, despite what they said in briefs and hearings...
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DeleteJudge Hanen found the conduct of the DOJ so troubling that he ordered all agency attorneys in Washington, D.C. to “annually attend a legal ethics course.” And he ordered Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint someone within the department to ensure compliance with his order and to come up with a plan to prevent “this unethical conduct from ever occurring again.”
Good luck with that.
Under Obama, the direction is clear.
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DeleteBack to Koskinen,
It’s not the first time the government attorneys have been singled out in court for their biased behavior. Just last month, I reported on a federal appeals court judge who was hearing our case on behalf of 38 organizations which were unlawfully and unconstitutionally singled out by the IRS because of their political beliefs. At that hearing, the court was very critical of the IRS and its claim that it has instituted changes as a result of the targeting scheme. In fact, the court openly questioned whether the agency has made any significant changes to alter its unlawful behavior.
As Judge David B. Sentelle put it: “It’s hard to find the IRS to be an agency we can trust.”
And in March, another federal appeals court struck a significant blow against the IRS and ruled that the agency, along with the Justice Department, has been dragging its feet in providing key information requested in another lawsuit against the agency about the unlawful targeting scheme.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected an appeal by the administration and highlighted a very frank and telling conclusion by the trial judge:
“My impression is the government probably did something wrong in this case. Whether there’s liability or not is a legal question. However, I feel like the government is doing everything it possibly can to make this as complicated as it possibly can, to last as long as it possibly can, so that by the time there is a result, nobody is going to care except the plaintiffs. . . . I question whether or not the Department of Justice is doing justice.”
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The Judge should have started the process of disbarring all those Justice Department lawyers.
DeleteInstead he had them attend some court ethics classes.
Americans are buying record numbers of American flags....made in China.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteUS Puts Hold on Selling Cluster Bombs to Saudi Arabia
Frustrated by a growing death toll, the White House has quietly placed a hold on the transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia as the Sunni ally continues its bloody war on Shiite rebels in Yemen, U.S. officials tell Foreign Policy. It’s the first concrete step the United States has taken to demonstrate its unease with the Saudi bombing campaign that human rights activists say has killed and injured hundreds of Yemeni civilians, many of them children.
The move follows rising criticism by U.S. lawmakers of America’s support for the oil-rich monarchy in the year-long conflict. Washington has sold weapons and provided training, targeting information, and aerial refueling support to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen. It has also sold Riyadh millions of dollars’ worth of cluster bombs in recent years.
Asked about the hold on the shipments, a senior U.S. official cited reports that the Saudi-led coalition used cluster bombs “in areas in which civilians are alleged to have been present or in the vicinity.”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/27/exclusive-white-house-blocks-transfer-of-cluster-bombs-to-saudi-arabia/
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Clinton Cash
ReplyDeleteby Myra Adams May 26, 2016 4:00 AM @MyraKAdams
If anyone still doubts that the Clintons are greedy, corrupt, and morally reprehensible, they won't after this. The alleged fraud and corruption within the Clinton Foundation is, by now, old news to political junkies. It was all skillfully laid out last year in Peter Schweizer’s bestselling book Clinton Cash. Now, with the Clintons on the verge of re-occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Schweizer’s book has been made into a one-hour documentary that will clarify the depths of their iniquity and greed in the minds of voters — if it finds a distributor. In watching a review copy of the film, I was struck by the phrase, “follow the money,” which is woven like a thread throughout. Anyone who follows politics is familiar with that iconic phrase, but many may have forgotten that it was the creation of a Hollywood scriptwriter: It was popularized by the 1976 movie, All the President’s Men, itself a fictional adaptation of the famous book about how Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered the Watergate scandal. To those who would uncover the truth about the Clinton Foundation, “follow the money” seems quaint advice, considering that billions of dollars were involved — making for a scandal ten-times the size of Watergate.
Back in February, Democrat pollster Pat Caddell proclaimed as much, arguing that the Clintons “were selling out the national interests of the United States directly to adversaries and others for money.” That assertion is the core of Clinton Cash, which makes clear that the “selling out” was actively facilitated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while she held that esteemed title. The viewer is shown numerous examples of blatant pay-to-play schemes. These lucrative business deals illustrate the unofficial partnership between Clinton’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation. Every scheme is perpetrated to personally enrich the Clintons, their Foundation, or their high-powered cronies — in the name of “doing good” for the world’s poor, naturally. Clinton Cash takes us on a whirlwind tour of Rwanda, the Congo, Nigeria, Haiti, Columbia, and India.
We see how both Clintons impacted and influenced multi-million-dollar business deals involving Canada’s Keystone XL pipeline and Ericsson, the international Sweden-based communications giant. In the most headline-making, eye-popping deal of all, the Clinton Foundation made millions while Russia gained control of over 20 percent of the U.S. uranium reserves spread across Wyoming, Texas, and Utah. This was made possible by Hillary Clinton’s State Department, which approved the deal despite its obvious potential to threaten American national security. It all adds up to an ugly conclusion: Mrs. Clinton sold out the U.S. to enrich her family to the tune of $153 million in speaking fees alone — and at least $2 billion in the coffers of their foundation. More Hillary Clinton Debate Time Next Fall: An Imagining Would Thomas More Have Voted for Donald Trump? Why Both Clintons Are Such Unapologetic Liars Now you know why Caddell called the Clinton Foundation scandals “worse than Watergate.”
Has our nation gone stark raving mad even considering allowing the Clintons back in the White House? Americans deserve the chance to see Clinton Cash and answer that question for themselves before November 8. Richard Nixon was reelected in 1972, before the Watergate scandal came to light. This documentary has done us the service of making the Clintons’ scandals plain well before the polls open on November 8. A deal to air it on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in July is still being negotiated, but it remains without a theatrical distributor. Here’s hoping it finds one in time for America to avert catastrophe.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435864/clinton-cash-movie-hillary-clinton-unfit-for-presidency