HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

ISIS Targeting Water Supplies, Power Lines and Cell Towers By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/isis-targeting-water-supplies-power-lines-and-cell-towers/

ARLINGTON, Va. — ISIS is proving to be a “very elusive enemy” in its remaining strongholds in Syria as forces on the ground battle against omnipresent booby traps and a network of jihadist tunnels, and in Iraq where jihadists are tampering with water supplies.

Via video from Baghdad today, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Sean Ryan was asked why the Syrian Democratic Forces’ Operation Roundup, intended to clear ISIS fighters from the Middle Euphrates River Valley, seemed to be moving at a glacial pace compared to the seizure of ISIS’ capital, Raqqa.

“Raqqa and Mosul, that’s house-to-house fighting, to where this whole area is deserty area, it’s thousands of miles long. So it takes a long time,” Ryan replied. “ISIS has also been using underground tunnels, as we’ve mentioned before. And they are a very elusive enemy, there’s no doubt about. But when they’re underground, it’s very difficult.”

“I think the SDF is making very good ground right now. It just takes a long time,” he added. “And also, you have to remember, ISIS has booby-trapped and IED’d almost every area in there, to where you just can’t go rushing into these areas and clear them. You have to have the equipment and the manpower to do that. And often when you start the clearing, your equipment gets damaged when IEDs go off. So there’s not an, you know, unlimited supply of vehicles that they can use. They have to, you know, get resupplied.”

Ryan said when the SDF asks the coalition for something, “we are usually able to deliver it.”

Asked why U.S. officials have noted for many months that only 2 percent of the original caliphate still is controlled by ISIS, but that 2 percent has not been regained, Ryan replied that “it’s not about the land mass, it’s about taking away ISIS capabilities.”

“It’s not just killing ISIS fighters, it’s taking away their weapons systems, taking away their logistical support and things of that nature. So that’s happening every day,” he said.

Also, he added, “they had planned on this four years ago; they knew that they were probably going to end up in this area.”

“With the tunnels they have underneath and the tunnels that the oil companies left with food and supplies, they’re able to sustain.” CONTINUE AT SITE

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Haley: U.S. Will ‘Continually’ Remind UN That Palestinians Aren’t ‘Any State at All’ By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/haley-u-s-will-continually-remind-un-that-palestinians-arent-any-state-at-all/

The Palestinian Authority won a Tuesday vote to lead the G77 group of developing countries at the United Nations, while the United States said no such move could be supported because no Palestinian state has been admitted as a member state.

As the PA leads the G77 next year, though, it will essentially be acting like a full UN member.

The United States, Israel and Australia voted against the PA’s chairmanship, while 146 countries voted in favor, 15 abstained, and 29 countries didn’t vote.

“Australia’s decision to vote no on this resolution reflects our long-standing position that Palestinian attempts to seek recognition as a state in international fora are deeply unhelpful to efforts towards a two-state solution,” Australian UN Ambassador Gillian Bird told the General Assembly.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the UN Jonathan Cohen said that the U.S. “cannot support efforts by the Palestinians to enhance their status outside of direct negotiations.”

“The United States does not recognize that there is a Palestinian state and notes that no such state has been admitted as a UN Member State. Therefore, we strongly oppose the Palestinian election as Chair of the G77, as well as this so-called enabling resolution,” he said.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Swift Iran Decision Iranian banks have to be expelled from the global financing network.

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-not-so-swift-diplomacy-1539730896

Another trans-Atlantic showdown is looming as the Trump Administration prepares its next tranche of financial sanctions on Iran, and the puzzle is why Europe keeps backing itself into a corner. Brussels and European Union states seem ready to stage a battle with Washington over an obscure but important financial-service network—against Europe’s own interests.

The looming brouhaha concerns Swift, the Belgium-based cooperative that manages the global system that banks use to communicate with each other for cross-border transactions. The Trump Administration will soon lay out its plans for financial sanctions on Tehran to take effect in November, as Washington reintroduces sanctions lifted under the Obama Administration’s 2015 nuclear deal. One question is whether the new sanctions include Swift.

They will have to in order to be effective, because cutting Iran off from Swift’s services is one of the best ways to ensure that financial sanctions bite. Were Swift to sever ties with Iranian banks, Iranian companies and financial institutions would struggle to transfer money to and from the rest of the world.

Alternatives exist, but none offer Swift’s global reach or security. Europe’s much-vaunted “special-purpose vehicle” for trading around U.S. financial sanctions, announced last month, is expected to be little more than a glorified barter arrangement with limited scope.

Swift is particularly prone to U.S. pressure because the American financial system looms so large in the world. Swift’s board includes representatives of European and American banks, and many messages across its network travel to or from the U.S. Some Europeans believe Washington wields too much influence over a network they think should operate on a multilateral consensus like a financial EU.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Harvard, Penn and the Warren Story Why wouldn’t Ivy League schools help an employee who claimed to be Native American? By James Freeman

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-penn-and-the-warren-story-1539798838

Ivy League universities spend a lot of time talking about how much they promote diversity. But numerous Ivy law faculty now insist they didn’t lift a finger to give an edge to a woman claiming to be Native American and in fact didn’t even know she was calling herself a minority. Why not? The academic history of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) doesn’t seem to square with the policies of the universities that employed her.

On Monday Sen. Warren, who used to call herself Cherokee, presented an analysis of her DNA suggesting that she had a Native American ancestor “in the range of 6-10 generations ago.” Later that day, the Cherokee Nation in Ms. Warren’s home state of Oklahoma rejected this latest effort to justify her claim of Native American status.

One might have expected the senator to simply acknowledge the tribal statement and apologize. But a campaign website is still featuring a story about her “Native American Heritage.” And she’s not the only one who still has a few questions to answer. Her former employers in the Ivy League have offered explanations about her years as a law professor that are hard to reconcile with their schools’ stated efforts to recruit, promote and encourage minority faculty.

Here’s the Monday statement from the Cherokee Nation.:

“A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said. “Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation. Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.”

It is hard to see how the senator will be able to stick with her claim of Native American heritage when the relevant tribe has rejected it. Leaders of other federally-recognized Cherokee tribes have been more kind to Ms. Warren in their responses and specifically the chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee has lauded Ms. Warren’s policy work, but none is embracing her DNA claim. According to the Associated Press:

The DNA test that Sen. Elizabeth Warren used to try to rebut the ridicule of President Donald Trump angered some Native Americans, who complained that the genetic analysis cheapens the identities of tribal members with deeper ties to the Indian past… she’s not a member of any tribe, and many Indians take exception to anyone who claims to be part Indian without being enrolled in a tribe, especially for political purposes.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Migrant Caravan Makes Way through Guatemala Despite Trump Threats By Mairead McArdle

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/migrant-caravan-makes-way-through-guatemala-despite-trump-threats/

A caravan of close to 2,000 Honduran immigrants is continuing to make its way through Guatemala to the United States, a day after President Trump warned Central American countries that they may lose American aid if they let illegal immigrants cross the U.S. border.
Donald J. Trump
✔ @realDonaldTrump

“We have today informed the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that if they allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States, with the intention of entering our country illegally, all payments made to them will STOP (END)!”

The president also hit Democrats Wednesday morning, calling their inaction on immigration reform a “great midterm issue” for the GOP.

The migrant caravan started with a mere 160 or so travelers, but picked up people along the way and has grown to as many as 3000. The caravan’s members, which include small children and adults who have left family behind, say they are fleeing violence in Honduras, one of the most crime-ridden countries in the world. They sleep on the ground and eat whatever food townspeople can buy them.

The new caravan is larger than one that made headlines in April as asylum seekers traveled north, hoping to either settle in Mexico or make it across the U.S. border. About 1,200 people traveled in that caravan, an annual and largely ceremonial Holy Week event that attracted a particularly large group this year. In the end, only about 150 actually attempted to cross the U.S. border.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Two Minnesota Republican Candidates Assaulted By Jack Crowe

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/two-minnesota-republican-candidates-assaulted/

Two Republican candidates for state office in Minnesota have been physically assaulted in recent days, leading prominent Republican lawmakers to caution their Democratic colleagues against employing inflammatory rhetoric.

Republican state representative Sarah Anderson was punched in the arm last week after confronting a man who was destroying yard signs promoting Republican candidates.

“It was just insane. He was charging at me, saying, ‘Why don’t you go kill yourself?’” Anderson told the Washington Free Beacon. “To have someone physically coming after you and attacking you is just disheartening.”

Shane Mekeland, a first-time Republican candidate for the state legislature, suffered a concussion over the weekend after he was sucker punched while meeting with constituents at a local restaurant.

“I was so overtaken by surprise and shock, and if this is the new norm, this is not what I signed up for,” said Mekeland, who has suffered from memory loss and sensitivity to light since the incident.

Local police confirmed that a suspect had been identified in connection with both assaults and said charges will likely be filed in the coming days.

The attacks took place days after the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party suspended a communications staffer for one week for writing in a Facebook post that Democrats would “bring [Republicans] to the guillotine” in the coming elections.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Lee Smith:Ten Key Questions About the Khashoggi Affar

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/15/10-key-questions-khashoggi-affair-answer-buying-press-narrative/
The discipline shown in the messaging campaign against Saudia Arabia suggests Turkish President Recep Erdogan is managing the Khashoggi file directly.

On October 2, Saudi national and U.S. green-card holder Jamal Khashoggi reportedly walked into the Saudi consulate to resolve issues related to his marital status. Through anonymous leaks to the press, Turkish sources claim he did not leave the diplomatic facility alive. More anonymous sources claim he was tortured and murdered, allegations repeated in the U.S. press without evidence.

It is possible that the circumstances around Khashoggi’s disappearance will soon come to light. However, it’s equally likely that the passage of time will only further obscure events. To cast some light on the issue, I thought it was worthwhile asking what seem to me the central questions.
1. Is There Evidence Khashoggi Was Murdered?

Turkish sources say there is. The U.S. press has reported that unnamed Turkish officials have told them—or unnamed second-hand Turkish sources had told them—they have evidence, audio and video, that a team of Saudi officials detained, tortured, and killed Khashoggi.

However, no reporters, neither Western nor Turkish, have seen that evidence. If it exists, the Turks have not made it public. In one of the few leaks from the U.S. government, an intelligence official told CNN there is no hard evidence as to whether Khashoggi is dead or alive.
2. Why Has Turkey Asked Saudi Arabia to Join Its Khashoggi Investigative Team?

According to press reports, the government in Ankara has asked Riyadh to help investigate what happened to Khashoggi. The Turkish foreign minister recently complained that the “[Saudis] aren’t cooperating in full extent to uncover the circumstances of Khashoggi’s disappearance. We would like to see a genuine cooperation from them.”

This makes no sense. If Saudi Arabia is suspected of abducting or killing Khashoggi, its involvement in the investigation would compromise the probe, even giving a potential suspect opportunity to tamper with evidence. Further, if there is audio and video evidence that a Saudi team killed Khashoggi, as Turkish and U.S. media report, there is no need for an investigation—the case has already been solved.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Democrats’ treatment of Kavanaugh was depraved. America won’t reward them at the polls.By Marc A. Thiessen

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-treatment-of-kavanaugh-was-depraved-america-wont-reward-them-at-the-polls/

Just a few weeks ago, analysts thought that control of the U.S. Senate was in play this November and that momentum was shifting to the Democrats. Thanks to their brutal campaign of character assassination against now-Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, those chances appear to be slipping away.

Case in point is Tennessee, where Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn was struggling in her Senate race against popular former Democratic governor Phil Bredesen. In mid-September — after the first Kavanaugh confirmation hearings — a CNN poll showed Blackburn trailing by five points (in a state Donald Trump won by 26 points). But as the ferocity of the attacks on Kavanaugh grew, so did Blackburn’s poll numbers. By early October — after Christine Blasey Ford testified and Kavanaugh was accused of exposing himself to a college classmate and participating in high school gang rapes — a CBS News poll showed that Blackburn had pulled ahead by eight points. And last week, after Kavanaugh was finally confirmed amid scenes of angry protesters banging on the doors of the Supreme Court, a New York Times poll showed Blackburn leading by 14 points. That is a shift of 19 points in one month.

In other words, the Democrats’ smear campaign of uncorroborated sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh has united Tennessee Republicans behind Blackburn and poured cold water on Democrats’ chances in the Volunteer State. And rightly so. It probably didn’t help with Tennessee voters that Democrats excoriated Kavanaugh for his high school drinking and for inside jokes in his high school yearbook — as if being a beer-drinking jock was some sort of crime. Worse, Kavanaugh was publicly branded a sex offender for accusations decades old and uncorroborated by any witnesses or evidence. A man’s good name was being destroyed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

With FL, IA Races in Play, Ryan’s PAC Ponies Up . By Adele Malpass –

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/17/with_fl_ia_races_in_play_ryans_pac_ponies_up_138374.html

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, announced Tuesday that it reserved $1 million in television ads in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for two-term incumbent Rep. Rod Blum and a mid-six-figure amount for Maria Salazar, who is running against former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala in South Florida’s 27th Congressional District. Just a few months ago, these seats had been written off as flipping from red to blue; however, the combination of strengthening poll results in both districts and a narrowing of the overall enthusiasm gap has put them back into play.

Miami-based FL-27 was supposed to be an easy pickup for the Democrats after 15-term Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen announced her retirement. This is a district that Hillary Clinton won by almost 20 percentage points and is nearly 57 percent Hispanic. Throughout the campaign, Shalala, 77, has been criticized for her low-energy campaign style — with even Democrats complaining that she was in “sleep-mode.” Salazar, 56, is a well-known Spanish-language TV newswoman and a native of the district. She’s effectively landed punches on her opponent as being a carpetbagger who doesn’t speak Spanish and who won’t be effective in Washington. In an Oct. 6 Mason-Dixon Telemundo 51 poll, Salazar had a two-point lead, which is well within the survey’s four-point margin of error. RealClearPolitics rates the race as a toss-up.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MY SAY: OBAMA AND THE RAPPERS

Posted By on October 17th, 2018

The Dems and their obedient media are in a snit about Kanye West’s proximity to President Trump. Hmmm. However, when the controversial rapper Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr. known as “Common” who glorified police killers and sang about burning President George W. Bush, was invited to the Obama White House they were only mildly perturbed. President Barack Obama’s press secretary Jay Carney defended “Common” by stating that in his “poetry reading” he had a broader message.

Or, how about Obama’s invitation to the rapper Jay-Z? As Humberto Fontova pointed out:

“But for inviting a rapper who identified with Che Guevara a Stalinist mass-murderer who denounced President Obama’s co-citizens as, “hyenas fit only for extermination!” and who openly craved to incinerate millions of them with a surprise nuclear attack….well, not much. Such is the news cycle. ”

For the record:

“I’m like Che Guevara with a bling on!” (Jay-Z in his Black Album)