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January 2020

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Stampede kills 56 at funeral for Iranian general slain by US Iranian state TV says a stampede at the funeral for a top general slain in a U.S. airstrike has killed 56 people and injured 213 others

By on January 7th, 2020

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/thousands-prepare-bury-iranian-general-killed-us-68109548?cid=clicksource_4380645_null_headlines_hed

By NASSER KARIMI, AMIR VAHDAT and JON GAMBRELL

TEHRAN, Iran — A stampede broke out Tuesday at the funeral for a top Iranian general slain in a U.S. airstrike, and at least 56 people were killed and more than 200 were injured as thousands thronged the procession, Iranian news reports said.

The stampede took place in Kerman, the hometown of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, as the procession began, said Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran’s emergency medical services.

There was no information about what set off the crush. Online videos showed people lying apparently lifeless, their faces covered by clothing. Emergency crews performed CPR on others as people wailed and cried out to God.

“Unfortunately as a result of the stampede, some of our compatriots have been injured and some have been killed during the funeral processions,” Koulivand said.

State TV reported the death toll of 56, with 213 injured, citing Koulivand.

Soleimani’s burial was delayed, with no new time given, because of concerns about the massive crowd that had gathered, the semi-official ISNA news agency said.

A procession in Tehran on Monday drew over 1 million people in the Iranian capital, crowding both main avenues and side streets in Tehran. Such mass crowds can prove dangerous. A smaller stampede at the 1989 funeral for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed at least eight people and injured hundreds.

Soleimani’s death in a drone strike Friday has sparked calls across Iran for revenge against America, drastically raising tensions in the Middle East. The U.S. government warned ships of an unspecified threat from Iran across the region’s waterways, crucial routes for global energy supplies. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force launched a drill with 52 fighter jets in Utah, just days after President Donald Trump threatened to hit 52 sites in Iran.

Earlier in the day, Hossein Salami, the new leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, vowed to avenge Soleimani’s death as he addressed a crowd of supporters gathered at the coffin in a central square in Kernan.

“We tell our enemies that we will retaliate but if they take another action we will set ablaze the places that they like and are passionate about,” Salami said.

“Death to Israel!” the crowd shouted in response. Israel is a longtime regional foe of Iran.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Enemy Combatant Terror Commanders Are Fair Game, Regardless of Whether Their Attacks Are ‘Imminent’ By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on January 7th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/qasem-soleimani-strike-enemy-combatant-terror-commanders-fair-game/

Last week, Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was killed in a targeted strike by U.S. forces authorized by President Trump. This preemptive attack has spawned a curious debate over whether Soleimani posed an imminent threat at the time he was taken out. The suggestion, mainly by partisan Democrats, is that it was illegitimate for the president to use lethal force without congressional authorization absent proof that Soleimani was on the cusp of killing Americans — or, better, killing even more Americans.

The debate puts me in mind of the early-to-mid 1990s, when our counterterrorism laws were dangerously flawed. Back then, sensible Democrats — as most of them were — knew that these defects had to be addressed. Rather than sound like apologists for anti-American jihadists, they took admirably expeditious action.

The problem emerged in the investigation of the proto-Qaeda terror network guided by the so-called Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman. I was then a federal prosecutor and took over that investigation in Spring 1993. At the time, having just bombed the World Trade Center, the jihadists were actively plotting something even more monstrous: simultaneous attacks on the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and the United Nations complex on Manhattan’s east side. The jihadists were also scouting additional landmarks in the city, including U.S. military facilities and the FBI’s downtown headquarters.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Tel Aviv’s mayor should be drowning in tears Ruthie Blum

By on January 7th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/tel-avivs-mayor-should-be-drowning-in-tears/

An unfathomable tragedy struck a young couple, and what followed were statements of self-defense and partisan squabbling, instead of proper sorrow for two families.

The response of Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai to the unfathomable death of a young couple in his city over the weekend is nothing short of a disgrace. When details emerged of the way in which 25-year-old childhood sweethearts Din Shoshani and Stav Harari lost their lives on Saturday, Israelis across the nation were shocked, horrified and in tears. All except for Huldai, that is, who was too busy defending himself to express any remorse.

The unfathomable tragedy struck when Shoshani and Harari left their apartment in Shchunat Hatikva—a poor neighborhood in the southern part of the city that has become increasingly attractive to students and struggling artists—and took the elevator to the underground garage, where their car was parked. They had moved into the brand-new building only a couple of months earlier, renting the “penthouse” on the top floor.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Europe Under Siege from People-Smuggling Gangs by Soeren Kern

By on January 7th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15270/europe-people-smuggling-gangs

Current conditions in Hungary are ripe for a repeat of the migration crisis in 2015 and… the country is now in a “state of crisis”…. More than 100,000 migrants are now gathered in the Western Balkans and although “the situation is still under control,” it is “beginning to look like the big crisis in 2015.” — Szilárd Németh, a senior official at Hungary’s Defense Ministry, December 1, 2019.
Illegal immigration throughout Europe continues unabated. In France, for instance, nearly 20,000 migrants have been arrested so far in 2019, according to the police website France Bleu, which also reported that 189 people smugglers have been arrested since January 1.
In Britain, The Telegraph newspaper reported that Albanian people smugglers were posting advertisements on social media platforms, including Facebook, promoting their ability to get people into Europe. The ads are accompanied by TripAdvisor-style feedback comments from “satisfied” customers…. people smuggling gangs generate profits of up to £6 billion (€7 billion; $8 billion) a year…
The light sentences reflect the leniency of the Spanish justice system, which appears to encourage, rather than deter, people smuggling gangs.

Hungarian police recently discovered two tunnels used to smuggle migrants into Hungary from Serbia. The tunnels were found at the same time that Hungarian police reported a five-fold increase in the number of migrants attempting to enter Hungary.

Hungary is not alone: Border authorities in countries across the European Union are struggling to stanch renewed flows of illegal migration. More than 126,500 migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East illegally entered the EU during 2019, according to the International Organization for Migration.

On November 29, Hungarian police detained 44 migrants who were found walking along a highway near Ásotthalom, a village in southern Hungary. Police later learned that the migrants had crossed into Hungary from Serbia by crawling through a 34-meter (112-foot) hand-dug tunnel.

The oval tunnel, only 50 cm (20 inches) wide and 60 cm (24 inches) high, had been dug as deep as six meters (20 feet) underground. It had gone undetected because of thick foliage in the area and because the soil that was dug out of the tunnel was dumped into a nearby canal.

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MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: ON ANTISEMITISM

By on January 7th, 2020

Antisemitism is rearing its evil head throughout the world. Rallies and parades are welcome expressions, but so often, like the linked arms solidarity marches that follow atrocities, they don’t accomplish anything powerful and lasting.

When Zeev Jabotinsky , the greatest Zionist leader in history,  organized self-defense units in Jewish communities across Europe, his slogan was:

“Better to have a gun and not need it than to need it and not have it!”

His pithy advice reverberates now. rsk

P.S. If guns “trigger” goosebumps at least consider classes in self defense.  That beats dialoguing endlessly anytime.   rsk

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Climate Hysteria Is A Backdoor For Imposing Personal Interests On The Public

By on January 7th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/01/07/climate-hysteria-is-a-backdoor-for-imposing-personal-interests-on-the-public/

The “fight” against global warming is not a selfless movement wholly focused on saving our world but a means for activists to impose their personal desires on the rest of us. They want to shut down farms, stop homebuilding, dictate what we can eat, and are eager to financially reward politically favored groups.

Our first stop on this tour of private crusades is in the United Kingdom, where Ian Boyd, a former chief scientific adviser for the government, is claiming, according to a recent British Guardian report, that “half of the nation’s farmland needs to be transformed into woodlands and natural habitat to fight the climate crisis and restore wildlife.”

“We need a large, radical transformation and we need to do it quickly, in the next decade” said the good professor.

Continued Boyd: “If anybody asked me: ‘If there is one thing I can do to help save the planet, what would it be?’ I would say just eat a lot less meat. It’s the easiest thing to do. I’ve done it.”

And we are therefore supposed to be impressed by his commitment and inspired to follow the great man.

Of course he’s not making the sacrifice alone. Others have chosen to cut back or eliminate their meat intake in the name of saving us from global warming. None were easily found at the last United Nations climate conference in Madrid, where “U.N. bureaucrats chow(ed) down on burgers – while attacking meat.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Reasons to Be Wary of War Rhetoric Julie Kelly

By on January 7th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/06/reasons-to-be-wary-of-war-rhetoric/

It’s imperative that the president knows his leash is short. The neoconservatives that have compounded the mess in the Middle East have torched their credibility and their usefulness. We won’t be fooled again.

Before we address the killing of Qasem Soleimani and the controversial monologue from Tucker Carlson that followed, let’s recap 2019 as a backdrop.

A series published in the Washington Post just before Christmas detailed how our top military, national security, and political leaders have lied about the war in Afghanistan for nearly two decades. The exposé, based on thousands of documents and hundreds of interviews, is an infuriating account of the failed conflict, which killed 2,300 servicemen, wounded more than 20,000, and cost $1 trillion.

“Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public,” the Post reported. “They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul—and at the White House—to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.”

More lies: A report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller confirmed that despite the political class’s two-year crusade to convince the American people that the president won with coordinated help from a foreign foe, Mueller could not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to steal the 2016 presidential election.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

NY Times Embarrasses Itself Again – On Iran-9/11 Ties No wonder the president calls them “fake news.” Kenneth R. Timmerman

By on January 7th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/ny-times-embarrasses-itself-again-iran-911-ties-kenneth-r-timmerman/

The sloppy New York Times is once-again embarrassing itself. In a prominent “fact-check” piece appearing on Friday, cub reporter Zach Montague ripped into Vice President Mike Pence for a series of tweets that described the terror-drenched record of the ex-Quds Force commander, Qassem Suleymani.

At issue was Pence’s account of Suleymani’s links to the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. In one tweet, the vice president noted that Suleymani and his terrorists “assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the Untied States.

Assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) January 3, 2020

This prompted the NY Times to snipe, “How Mr. Pence arrived at this number and this account is unclear” since there was nothing in “public United States intelligence” [sic] linking the two, or indeed, anyone in Iran to the 9/11 attacks.

Montague could have consulted former NY Times Philip Shenon, whose 2008 book about the 9/11 Commission reprised a story I revealed several years earlier about the discovery by Commission staff of some 75 highly classified NSA intercepts that spelled out in great detail the help Iran offered al Qaeda in furtherance of the 9/11 plot.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Bernie compares Soleimani to a Russian dissident By Andrea Widburg

By on January 7th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/bernie_compares_soleimani_to_a_russian_dissident.html

One of the things that became very obvious about the Left beginning with 9/11 is that Leftists consider anyone who hates America to be virtuous in some way. It’s irrelevant to them that some America-haters are, within their own countries, people who are legitimately fighting for freedom, while others are actively seeking to impose totalitarianism wherever they can. To a Leftist, America hating is the beginning and the end. Actors’ ideologies and motives are irrelevant.

This world view is how Leftists can come out with statments that are morally blind. Many of us remember that Michael Moore compared the 9/11 killers, who dreamed of a world subordinate to sharia’s brutalities, to America’s Minutemen, who dreamed of a world of small government, individual liberty, and religious freedom. 

We also see this moral blindness Bernie Sanders, one of the Democrat frontrunners. In an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN about Trump’s decision to terminate Soleimani, Bernie Sanders likened Soleimani, with the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hand, to a dissident in a totalitarian country fighting against his or her own repressive government:

. . . but this guy is, you know, was as bad as he was, an official of the Iranian government. And you unleash . . . then, if China does that, you know, if Russia does that. You know, Russia has been implicated under Putin with assassinating dissidents.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

President Trump trolls Democrat-run cities’ serious mismanagement By Andrea Widburg

By on January 7th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/president_trump_trolls_democratrun_cities_serious_mismanagement.html

Because World War III has not yet started (and we don’t believe that the targeted killing of a terrorist will start it), President Trump is turning his gimlet eye and wonderful sense of humor back to domestic issues. Monday night, he had a message for Democrat-run cities, mostly in California. 

It’s no secret that West Coast Democrat-run cities are having disastrous problems with rampant homelessness. As a West Coast native, I know that some of it has to do with the temperate climate. It’s easier to live on the streets with a temperature range between 50°F and 80°F than it is when the lows drop below freezing and the highs are near 100°F.

Temperature alone, though, does not account for the homeless crisis in California cities, as well as similar crises in other Democrat-run cities such as Seattle or New York. The problem is one of management.

In each of these cities, either state or local Democrat governments made conscious decisions to stop enforcing quality of life laws, such as preventing execratory functions in the street, and to allow low level crime, such as public drug use and small dollar thefts to become formally or informally decriminalized.

In California, voters agreed that property thefts under $950 should be considered petty theft and therefore misdemeanors. Crime soared throughout the state.

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