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2016

Israel Watches Ominous Developments in Syria with Weary Eye Rising enemies in a volatile region. Ari Lieberman

Last Friday, a senior Iranian general confirmed that the Islamic Republic was manufacturing weapons including rockets in Aleppo and that some of those rockets were transferred to Hezbollah, bolstering the terror group’s already formidable stockpiles. The revelation of Iranian military production facilities in a foreign country was the first such acknowledgement by a senior Iranian official.

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Army, Major General Mohammad Bagheri noted that Iran’s production of missiles in Syria began in 2002 and that rockets manufactured at the Aleppo facility were transferred to Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War also known as the Second Lebanon War. During that 33-day conflict, Hezbollah fired in excess of 4,000 rockets at Israel. Since the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah, primarily with Iranian assistance, has increased its rocket and missile arsenal tenfold, from 12,000 to an estimated 120,000.

The general’s acknowledgement provides us with some sense of how entrenched the Iranians are in Syria and how they’re utilizing Syrian resources to supply their proxies. It is believed that the Iranians are employing between 7,000 to 10,000 Hezbollah operatives in Syria. Hezbollah represents one of four foreign pillars propping up the Assad regime and his flagging army. Iran maintains a military force of between 13,000 to 16,000 soldiers and, aside from Hezbollah, is believed to have recruited some 40,000 foreign fighters from Middle Eastern and Central Asian states. Russia maintains a sizable air and naval presence in Syria, supplemented by Special Forces and electronic warfare specialists.

Israel is watching these developments with keen interest. The Israelis are cooperating closely with the Russians to ensure that that their respective military forces, particularly their air forces don’t mistakenly tangle over the skies of Syria. The last time Israel dueled with the Russians was in July 1970 over the skies of the Suez Canal, during the height of the Cold War. Five Soviet MiG-21 fighters were shot down by Israeli F-4 Phantoms and Mirage jets. But so far, the Israelis and the Russians have managed to avoid hostile encounters with each other due to unprecedented cooperation between their respective military and political leaders.

Al-Qaeda Slams Obama for ‘Astonishing and Deceptive’ Inaction on Climate Change By Bridget Johnson (???!!!)See note please

The color green is mentioned in the Koran and it is prominent in the symbols and flags of Hamas , Hezbollah
Image result for flag of hezbollah
Image result for hamas flag

and other assorted vermin……rsk

Al-Qaeda slammed the Obama administration for being all talk and no action on climate change and protecting the environment in a new issue of their English-language how-to magazine for lone jihadists.

The new special issue of Inspire, published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Al-Malahem Media, is titled “The 9/17 Operations” — the Sept. 17 attacks on a race in New Jersey, a street in Manhattan and a shopping mall in Minnesota. ISIS claimed responsibility for the third attack, in which nine people were stabbed.

But Inspire editor Yahya Ibrahim said of the pressure-cooker attacks on the East Coast: “This time Al-Qaida did not come out to declare responsibility for the operations, this is because America is witnessing a new form of operations and new form of tactics … They are indeed the heroes of Lone Jihad.”

Inspire said the timing of the attacks “has both a political and security dimension, this is because carrying out an operation during the same days of the 9/11 anniversary increases the sense of fear, insecurity and brings back the past memories in details; especially when the operation targeted the same place – Manhattan.”

They theorized that “because preparing a single pressure cooker bomb may take at least a week, it is likely that preparations for the operation took more time than anticipated” and may have been planned closer to the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Al-Qaeda praised all of the operations as an “exceptional success” for achieving a goal of “reviving fear and terror at a time when successive American administrations lie to their people, convincing them that they have crushed ‘terrorist’ groups and disrupted their capabilities and therefore the American citizens live in a peace, safe and stable life.”

They panned, though, the use of a timer for the New Jersey bomb; runners were not injured in the explosion as the race had been delayed. “In this case, we prefer the use of a remote control detonator as used by the Tsarnaev brothers in the Boston Marathon.”

They suggested that a restaurant in Chelsea would have been a better target than a Dumpster, and cautioned jihadists who don’t plan on committing suicide to be careful about leaving fingerprints. “It was better to put the bomb in a place where people are gathering and standing around it, such as a shopping center,” said the review of the attack. “This is because people pass by quickly besides garbage containers and they don’t normally stand beside them. This explain[s] the result of the injured in the operation.” Thirty-one people were injured in the blast.

The issue reviews pressure-cooker bomb construction, locations and camouflage in order to cause the most harm.

The magazine also notes that U.S. airstrikes against al-Qaeda leaders doesn’t degrade the group but makes the terrorists “more committed to their principles.”

As al-Qaeda has previously done in the pages of Inspire, this issue tried to appeal to African-Americans by highlighting police shootings of black men.

Donald Trump was not specifically mentioned in the new issue. President Obama’s final address to the United Nations General Assembly in September was slammed as rehashing U.S. policies such as support for Israel that carry over regardless of the administration. “Some of them say that they will wait for the next president who might give them hope and best handle their issues… Undoubtedly, the kitchen that draw most of the American foreign and internal policy is the same one, the parties rotate to play the same roles and the president executes the outcomes. Therefore, the role that the president is playing is just an executive role.”

“We admit to say that America has ruled the world for the past two decades, and is still considered the most powerful nation in the world,” states the review of Obama’s speech. “And America has to admit to us that we have insulted and subjugated its arrogance.”

Al-Qaeda makes clear that they don’t care about party affiliation. They do, however, make a pitch against climate change.

“The environment has suffered from America’s policies. In latest official statistics of International [sic] Health Organization, it mentions that 92% of the world population are breathing polluted air. Moreover, 6.5 million people are dying annually because of air pollution,” the magazine says. “One of the main cause of pollution results from American factories, which produce 36.1% of greenhouse gases. Despite that, up to this day America hasn’t taken any tangible steps to reduce these harmful gases.” CONTINUE AT SITE

NY Times Publisher Tells Readers the Paper Will ‘Rededicate’ Itself to Honest Reporting By Rick Moran

New York Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. sought to limit the damage done by the paper’s relentlessly biased reporting of the presidential election by penning a letter to readers that promised the Times would strive “to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you.”

Does he really believe that load of crap?

I’m afraid he does. Sulzberger and the media in general live in a bubble where they may try to understand how the rest of the country thinks but have no clue because of a built-in bias against ideas that do not comport with their static and rigid ideology. I’m sure there are many reporters who believe they are being objective when they express disapproval for a worldview that is alien to their experience. The election exposed the media as acting — deliberately or not — as surrogates for the Democratic Party.

Will they learn anything? Sulzberger’s letter to readers was at least partly in response to a scathing analysis of the Times’ election coverage by public editor Liz Spayd:

Certainly, The Times isn’t the only news organization bewildered and perhaps a bit sheepish about its predictions coverage. The rest of media missed it too, as did the pollsters, the analysts, the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign itself.

But as The Times begins a period of self-reflection, I hope its editors will think hard about the half of America the paper too seldom covers.

The red state America campaign coverage that rang the loudest in news coverage grew out of Trump rallies, and it often amplified the voices of the most hateful. One especially compelling video produced with footage collected over months on the campaign trail, captured the ugly vitriol like few others. That’s important coverage. But it and pieces like it drowned out the kind of agenda-free, deep narratives that could have taken Times readers deeper into the lives and values of the people who just elected the next president.

In other words, The Times would serve readers well with fewer brief interviews, fewer snatched slogans that inevitably render a narrow caricature of those who spoke them. If you want to further educate yourself on the newly empowered, check out the work of George Packer in The New Yorker. You’ll leave wiser about what just happened. Times journalists can be masters at doing these pieces, but they do them best when describing the lives of struggling immigrants, for example, or those living on the streets. CONTINUE AT SITE

New York Times Promises to Lie No More ……except when it involves “hard data”. By Henry Percy

On Friday, Pinch Sulzberger, publisher of the NY Times, wrote a letter to his newsroom apologizing for their coverage of the Clinton/Trump campaign while simultaneously asserting they were completely unbiased. As non-apologies go, his is a classic. It took him 279 words to say the equivalent of “We told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about both candidates — and we promise to stop lying about Trump in the future.” He sounds like a kid caught shoplifting: “I didn’t’ steal nothin’, and I’ll give back anything that wound up in my pockets, honest I will!”

And then the very next day Pinch’s “newspaper of record” published a story wherein Hillary blames her loss on James Comey:

Mrs. Clinton’s contention appears to be more rooted in reality — and hard data. An internal campaign memo with polling data said that “there is no question that a week from Election Day, Secretary Clinton was poised for a historic win,” but that, in the end, “late-breaking developments in the race proved one hurdle too many for us to overcome.”

So an “internal campaign memo” from Hillary’s campaign is now “hard data”? And this just 24 hours after your letter to the newsroom? Your “journalists” just can’t help themselves, Pinch.

When the Left-media Becomes a Crying Cult By James Lewis

In July of 2011, when North Korea’s butcher-dictator Dear Leader Kim Jung-Il died, all the NK Communist Party members in the land were ordered to cry hysterically, to ululate in grief at the death of Dear Leader, in public, altogether, on command. You can see it in this video, the Party cadres lined up on the hard snow in military platoon formation, men and women, bursting into tears when the command was given.

The BBC wondered at the time whether all that public crying was real or not, since Dear Leader controlled every human being in that country, by sending any wrong ‘uns to his vast concentration camps to be starved and worked to death. Every tear-stained face in those black-clad platoons knew with absolutely certainty that they would be arrested and sent to death if they failed to show enough dramatic grief. Some unconvincing mourners were undoubtedly grabbed and taken away to the camps.

North Korea’s national cry-in for the loss of Dear Leader is an important lesson about human politics: the power of closed cult indoctrination. Turns out you don’t even need death camps. The famous Stanford Prison Experiment showed how it could be done with legally free Stanford students in the prime of life, able to walk away from the experiment any time they liked, without murderous guards armed with guns. All you needed was a Stanford grad student wearing a white lab coat. A whole series of experiments showed the same kind of thing.

The iron key to mind control is having one source of “real” information, and shutting off any competing ones. It’s all Scientology has to deliver for its faithful followers to stay in that imaginary world. Most of the more fanciful religious and non-religious cults on the web have followers who indoctrinate themselves. The Five Star Movement in Italy started as an internet cult in the ‘90s telling teenage kids about airplanes spreading out chemtrails to control the minds of Italians; today the Five Star Cults controls a plurality of votes in the Parliament in Rome. Today “brain hackers” are no doubt using the same dark arts on the more gullible of their webizens. It’s one reason why teenage kids a decade ago started to put metal objects through their ears, lips and noses. To them those were magical symbols as surely as a reversed swastika was an object of power to the Hitlerjugend.

Cults are human universals. A lot of tribal groups are nothing but cults: The key is always restricting information, and crushing dissent. That’s why U.S. cults often block communication between members and their families.

Trump and International Security by Richard Kemp

In fact, it is the EU, not Donald Trump that threatens to undermine NATO and the security of the West.

An EU defence union will also present a direct threat to NATO, competing for funds, building in duplication and confusion, and setting up rival military structures.

This is breath-taking hypocrisy from the defence minister of Germany, which spends less than 1.2% of GDP on defence against an agreed NATO minimum target of 2%, while freeloading off the America’s 73% contribution to NATO’s overall defence spending.

European leaders would do well to recognize that they need the US more than the US needs them, and that real, concrete, committed defence from the world’s greatest military power is more beneficial to them than a fantasy army that will have plenty of flags, headquarters and generals but no teeth.

Trump should also prioritize both practical and moral support to anti-Islamist regimes in the Middle East, such as Sisi’s Egypt.

Trump described Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran as ‘the worst deal ever negotiated’ and has vowed to counteract Iran’s violations, if necessary hitting them with tough new sanctions and perhaps tearing up the deal altogether.

Rather than spreading fear and false propaganda about Donald Trump, they should be praying that he will provide the strength that is so desperately needed today, and working out how best they can support rather than attack him.

Since Donald Trump’s election, media-fuelled panic has engulfed Europe, including over defence and security. We are told that World War III is imminent, that Trump will jump into bed with Putin and that he will pull the US out of NATO. Such fantasies are put about by media cheerleaders for European political elites, terrified that Trump’s election will inspire support for populist candidates in the forthcoming elections in Germany, the Netherlands and France.

In fact, it is the EU, not Donald Trump that threatens to undermine NATO and the security of the West. In recent days EU president Jean-Claude Juncker, his foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen have suggested that Trump’s election should give greater impetus to a European defence force.

Trump’s Difficult Ally in Ankara by Burak Bekdil

They will have to deal with a man who says he does not mind being called a dictator.

Most recently, the World Justice Project placed Turkey 99th out of 113 countries on its Rule of Law Index 2016, performing even worse than Myanmar and Iran.

Turkey is also now the world’s biggest jailer of journalists and academics. It also claims the title of the world’s biggest jailer of opposition politicians.

There is little Europe can do about the new dictatorship emerging at its doors. Germany is offering dissidents asylum. But asylum can only be an individual, tentative solution for a few Turks when at Erdogan’s target are millions.

Bilateral relations with NATO ally Turkey are probably not on president-elect Donald Trump’s top-50 priority list. All the same, when Trump’s diplomats will have to work with Turkey on issues that may soon gain prominence — such as Syria — they will have to deal with a man who says he does not mind being called a dictator.

Instead of resembling a Western democracy in the European Union — to which Turkey has long been struggling to join as a full member — Turkey increasingly looks like Kim Jong-Un’s North Korea. Most recently, the World Justice Project placed Turkey 99th out of 113 countries on its Rule of Law Index 2016, performing even worse than Myanmar and Iran. The index measures nations for constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement and civil and criminal justice.

Turkey is also now the world’s biggest jailer of journalists and academics.

It also claims the title of the world’s biggest jailer of opposition politicians. A dozen lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish, opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were detained on November 4 because they refused to give testimony in criminal proceedings. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that democratically elected officials normally can only be forced from office in an election, but those officials who mix with and encourage “terrorism” must face legal proceedings. Turkish prosecutors began probing more than 50 HDP members of parliament after the legislature voted to scrap immunity in certain cases. Turkish officials say HDP lawmakers were detained because they refuse to testify in their cases.

Daryl McCann: Gloriously Unhinged by President Trump *****

When a fabulously wealthy entertainer claims victimhood purely on the strength of her skin’s melanin content and a very shady lady extols XX chromosomes as a prime qualifier for the White House, PC orthodoxy needed a good kicking. The incoming president just administered one.
In the July, 2016, edition of Quadrant I agreed with the notion that for many Americans their country now felt like an express train speeding toward the abyss. Donald J. Trump was the fellow bold enough to propose pushing the Emergency Stop button in a carriage full of frightened and cowed passengers. Trump was the anti-PC candidate in a nation ruled over by a P.C. Establishment.

The concept of Political Correctness is something weightier than mere annoyance or absurdity. It is the ideology of a Left Power Elite (LPE) – to echo sociologist C. Wright Mills’ 1956 critique of the United States – and has long held sway over the American people. The LPE itself is a caste of notable families, CEOs, celebrities, mainstream media operators, state mandarins, “progressive” lobby groups, academics, key members of the federal government and so on. PC ideology reflects the worldview and self-interest of members of the LPE and also serves to obscure or disguise their positions of advantage relative to ordinary people (or “the deplorables” as Hillary Clinton would say).

The 2016 US election cycle exposed the LPE as never before. The case of the pop music celebrity Beyoncé might seem trivial and yet it is far from that. During the 2016 NFL Super Bowl halftime show, for instance, the 36-year-old African-American singer-songwriter celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party. Beyoncé, perhaps the highest profile celebrity – amongst a plethora of high profile celebrities – to lend their glamour to the Clinton campaign, later claimed her halftime show had not been “political” (and against NFL guidelines) but instead “cultural”. In a year that would see the rise and rise of the Malcolm X-inspired Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, not to mention the New Black Panther Party, Beyoncé’s rationalisation should be considered disingenuous at best.

Hillary Clinton and Beyoncé share more than an antipathy to Donald Trump. PC Identarianism allows Beyoncé, one of the more dazzling and venerated celebrities on the planet, to play the victim card. This no-expense-spared woman, who inhabits the rarefied air of global superstardom, might have been listed by Time magazine in 2013 and 2014 as one of the most influential women in the world and by Forbes in 2015 as the most powerful female in entertainment, she might even possess a net wealth of as much as $US450 million, and yet Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter self-identifies as a victim. The melanin in her skin allows this revered idol to pose as a member of the modern-day Left’s rainbow of discontents. It is not so much a matter of “white skin privilege” holding Beyoncé back as “black skin privilege” shielding her from accusations of extreme privilege.

The story of Hillary Clinton is a parallel one. She, too, enjoys a privileged life. Politics and public life have been rewarding – in every sense of that word – for Hillary and Bill Clinton. Public financial disclosure reports put her net worth at $31.3 million and Bill’s at $80 million, not bad for a couple in serious debt at the conclusion of their time in White House. Much of that debt, we should mention, was the cost of the legal team – organised by Hillary – to keep Bill at arm’s length from the law during the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the latter stages of his presidency. Hillary Clinton was subsequently rewarded with a seat in the Senate (2001-09) and the role of secretary of state in the Obama administration (2009-03).

Tony Thomas Finally, Warmists Find a Real Threat

Whatever else he does, President-elect Donald Trump can be counted on to shoo those green snouts out of the climate-scare trough — first by repealing Obama’s executive orders, then by re-directing from the UN to domestic environmental concerns. It’s a beautiful thing.
“I’m feeling very flat today,” snuffled Amanda McKenzie, CEO of Tim Flannery’s crowd-funded Climate Council. As she should, given that President-elect Trump will end the trillion-dollar renewable-energy scam so beloved by the council.

McKenzie continues, “Progress on climate change can feel hopeless and it’s tempting to give up and turn away.” But instead, she rattles the tin for donations of $10 a month “to allow us to undertake some massive projects next year that will power communities and everyday Australians to spearhead our renewable energy transition.” Good luck with that, Amanda.

Throughout the Western world, green lobbies are likewise oscillating between despair and self-delusion over the Trump election.

Trump’s agenda – as per his election website – includes

Unleash America’s $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves.
Declare American energy dominance a strategic economic and foreign policy goal of the United States.
Become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests.
Rescind all job-destroying Obama executive actions.
Reduce and eliminate all barriers to responsible energy production, creating at least a half million jobs a year, $30 billion in higher wages, and cheaper energy.

Trump says Obama’s onslaught of regulations has been a massive self-inflicted economic wound denying Americans access to the energy wealth sitting under their feet: “This is the American People’s treasure, and they are entitled to share in the riches.” ore than that, the president-elect’s common-sense policies make the 20,000 climate careerists and activists in Marrakech, led by Vice-President John Kerry, seem comically irrelevant. They were supposed to be implementing the feeble Paris climate accord – notwithstanding that China has just announced a 19% expansion of coal capacity over the next five years.

Among the Trump Protesters Why hit the streets? To dismantle the Electoral College—but mostly to yell.By Adam O’Neal

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters marched up New York’s Fifth Avenue on Saturday afternoon, completing a two-mile journey from Union Square to Trump Tower. The march followed days of similar rallies in Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago and elsewhere. Donald Trump has tweeted that he loves the demonstrators’ passion, while accusing many of being professional protesters.

But why protest at all, given the unambiguous results of Tuesday’s election? The demonstrators’ signs offered a few clues. The “F” word was ever-present: as in “F—”—take your pick—Trump, Giuliani, the police, family values, that guy, the electoral system, Newt, Arpaio, Trump’s Amerikkka, and even “you.” One woman carried a sign pledging that she would pay taxes only when Mr. Trump does. Other placards derided “Adolf Trump” and the new “groper in chief,” warning “tiny hands off.”

Enlightened college students carried apologetic messages: “Sorry for the inconvenience, we’re trying to change the world” or “I’m sorry my country is racist.” And “Not my president,” was a fan favorite, though many went with “Never my president.” Other slogans didn’t really add up, such as “You can’t drink oil” or one calling for Vice President-elect Mike Pence to be thrown over a fence.

It was difficult to find a unifying theme, since there was something for almost everybody: POWs are heroes, Black Lives Matter, Family MDs for ObamaCare, Steve Bannon must go.

The crowd’s chants were equally confused. Many simply expressed strong disagreement with Mr. Trump’s policy pronouncements and personal style. “Say it loud / Say it clear / Refugees are welcome here,” they shouted. Men declared, “Your body, your choice,” and women responded, “My body, my choice.” The policy-oriented crowd wasn’t entirely humorless: “Hands too small. He can’t build a wall.”

Flags—rainbow, Puerto Rican, anarchist, Socialist Alternative, Mexican, U.S. (sometimes desecrated, sometimes not)—were all present. But what unified banner were the protesters marching under?

It wasn’t a rally in support of Mrs. Clinton. Yes, her supporters made their presence known by holding up “#ImStillWithHer” signs. Referencing Mr. Trump’s “nasty woman” insult at the third presidential debate, many women affirmed that “We are nasty, yes we are.” They also chanted “We’re with her,” though that one died down quickly.

Any criticism of Mrs. Clinton’s role in losing to Mr. Trump was absent. The crowd was happy to chant, rather than ponder how Mrs. Clinton cleared the field in her primary or why the Democrats lost to one of the most disliked presidential candidates in U.S. history. CONTINUE AT SITE