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Ruth King

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The Rubio Comeback By Alexis Levinson

By on February 2nd, 2016

Des Moines — It’s all relative. That’s been the operating theory of Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, which has confounded both political analysts and the press. And yet Rubio’s team has been firm in its belief that, by under-promising and over-delivering, it can generate the sort of excitement, energy, and yes, actual delegates needed to capture the Republican nomination. They even thought that by notching a strong third-place finish, with over 23 percent of the vote, Rubio would emerge from the Iowa caucuses on Monday evening with more momentum that the winner, Ted Cruz.

That’s why Rubio, who nearly caught the longtime Iowa front runner, Donald Trump, who finished just a point ahead of him, walked on stage to deliver a victory speech here in Des Moines on Monday. “This is the moment they said would never happen,” he declared as he took the stage at the Marriott hotel downtown.

It was a moment the polls had not predicted, and a scenario that Rubio’s advisers had intentionally waved off in the days before the caucuses, when they told reporters they were hoping to reach the high teens.

And so, while Cruz may have won the caucuses, which he needed to do, Rubio did something his campaign considers more important: He defied expectations.

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David Archibald Killing Islamists Cost-Effectively

By on February 2nd, 2016

It makes little sense to squander a $250,000 missile on a simple truck, but that is how the US and its allies have been conducting their war against ISIS. There is a better and cheaper to rid the world of jihadis, plus a simple strategy to make sure they turn up for their execution.
In HG Wells’The Shape of Things to Come, published in 1933, the Air Police of the World State establish an air base in Basra, the city in southern Iraq, in 1979 and set about eliminating the Moslem religion by aerial bombardment. About 40 years behind schedule, something like that has been instituted. A number of countries now have aircraft based in the region and are bombarding the world’s most hardcore Islamists, the immolators of Islamic State.

Until Russia joined the effort in 2015, that effort was ineffectual by design. The United States has been spending US$11 million per day in wearing out their fighter aircraft and depleting war stocks of precision guided munitions. Australia has been doing the same, with expenditure appropriately at one-tenth the US level. Islamic State is aware that they are doing their bit to help bankrupt the United States, with one of their videos noting that Maverick missiles cost US$250,000 each while Islamic State uses bullets costing US$0.50 each.

The US rules of engagement are hampered by a desire to not kill civilians. As Dave Deptula, a former US Air Force deputy chief of staff for Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance and who served as the principal attack planner for the Operation Desert Storm air campaign, notes,

“There is little morality inherent in a campaign approach that limits the use of airpower to avoid the possibility of collateral damage when it ensures the certainty of continued Islamic State crimes against humanity. Today’s coalition leaders should factor into their casualty-avoidance calculus how many of the Islamic State’s intentional murders of innocents would be avoided by rapidly collapsing the structural elements of the Islamic State that the coalition now allows to operate out of excessive concern of inadvertent civilian deaths.”

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Israel-Where Providing Water Is a Crime: Evelyn Gordon

By on February 2nd, 2016

How do you build a state for people who don’t want it built? That’s the obvious question that emerges from the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of Rawabi, the first new Palestinian city. It’s a flagship project that international diplomats routinely laud as a model of Palestinian state-building, but it has won no such praise from fellow Palestinians. Instead, the very people it was meant to benefit are now accusing Rawabi’s founder of collaboration with the enemy for having committed such horrendous crimes – this is not a joke – as providing residents with electricity and running water.

Rawabi was founded with the goal of providing decent, affordable housing for middle-class Palestinians – theoretically a goal that should be welcomed by the Palestinian Authority and its residents, who routinely complain to the international community about how wretched their situation is. From the start, however, the PA did its best to undermine the project; despite repeated promises of support, it refused to provide even the basic infrastructure that most governments routinely provide to new residential developments. Thus as JTA reported last week, Rawabi’s water and sewage system, streets, schools and medical clinic were all financed, like the houses themselves, by entrepreneur Bashar Masri and the Qatari government.

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Ban Ki-moon’s outrageous op-ed: Ruthie Blum

By on February 2nd, 2016

On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon published an op-ed in The New York Times to ‎do what he does best: Pummel Israel while protesting against those who call him to task for it.‎

In the piece, Ban whined that the statements he made last week — first calling on both the ‎Jewish state and the “occupied Palestinian territories” to stop the violence, and then doubling ‎down on his assertion that Israeli “occupation” was the real culprit behind it — were unjustly ‎‎”twisted” to imply that he was justifying terrorism.‎

That the U.N. chief had said it was “human nature” for downtrodden people like the Palestinians ‎to express their frustration through violence had something to do with Israel’s adverse reaction to ‎his words, particularly since he hasn’t said such things about al-Qaida, Islamic State, Hezbollah ‎or Boko Haram. You know, the group that on Saturday night burned 86 Nigerian villagers alive, ‎among them many children.‎

But Ban nevertheless repeated his anti-Israel accusations.‎

To prove that he had been unfairly misquoted not once but twice, he clarified: “The stabbings, ‎vehicle rammings and other attacks by Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians are reprehensible. So, ‎too, are the incitement of violence and the glorification of killers. Nothing excuses terrorism. I ‎condemn it categorically.”‎

Readers did not have time to heave the slightest sigh of relief, however, since Ban proceeded ‎from there to explain why Israel is nevertheless responsible.‎

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WHO IS SENATOR TOM COTTON REPUBLICAN OF ARKANSAS?

By on February 2nd, 2016

He is part of the election of 2014 that put the GOP in control of the Senate….RSK
Tom Cotton currently represents Arkansas in the United States Senate. He is a 6th generation Arkansan who was born and raised on his family’s cattle farm in Yell County. He graduated from Dardanelle High School before going to Harvard and Harvard Law School.

The tragic attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred during Tom’s final year of law school, and he began to reconsider his future plans. After a clerkship with the U.S. Court of Appeals and a short time in a private law practice, Tom joined the United States Army as an Infantry Officer where he spent nearly 5 years on active duty.

Tom completed combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where he served with the 101st Airborne and a Provincial Reconstruction Team. Between his two combat tours he served as a platoon leader with the Old Guard at Arlington National Cemetery, the unit responsible for military honors funerals. Tom’s military decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, Combat Infantry Badge and Ranger Tab.

Prior to his election to the Senate, Tom worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co. and served one term in the House of Representatives.

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SENATOR TOM COTTON ON CLINTON E-MAILS

By on February 2nd, 2016

Cotton Statement on Top Secret Designation of 22 of Hillary Clinton’s Emails

Washington, D.C.- Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today released the following statement on the disclosure that 22 emails found on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal email account were deemed “top secret”:

“We now know Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account during her tenure at the State Department wasn’t just negligent, it was completely dangerous. Housing top-secret emails on an unsecure, personal server put our national security at grave risk. Did our enemies hack these emails? And were lives put at risk as a result? To put our country in danger for personal convenience is arrogant and irresponsible – and it’s illegal. She should face the same consequences that any federal employee who behaved similarly would face, including criminal prosecution.”

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SENATOR TOM COTTON (R-AK) INTRODUCES BILL TO UNDO REGULATION THAT LABELS ISRAELI GOODS BEYOND GREEN LINE- LORI LOWENTHAL MARCUS

By on February 2nd, 2016

U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) introduced legislation on Monday, Feb. 1, that would undo a regulation recently re-issued by the Obama administration that would ban the right to label any goods produced beyond the 1940 Armistice Line (the “Green Line”) as made in Israel.

The JewishPress.com reported last week that U.S. Custom and Border Protection re-issued a 1997 regulation – written at a very different time, under very different circumstances – which the State Department insisted it will now “strictly enforce.”

The original regulation was issued in 1997.

Prior to that time, the only acceptable designation for anything produced in the area west of Jordan, west of Syria, south of Lebanon and to the east and north east of Egypt was Israel, according to U.S. Customs. But after the Oslo Accords were signed, the State Department directed the Treasury Department to ban the label “made in Israel” for anything made in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”).

But in the intervening nearly 20 years, the Oslo Accords have failed, acting Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas announced to the United Nations that his people are no longer bound by the Accords, there is no viable Palestinian Arab leadership and there is no unity between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the Arab governing party in Gaza.

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Were Americans Seized in Saudi Anti-Terror Raids? By Bridget Johnson

By on February 2nd, 2016

The State Department said today it’s trying to verify a Saudi report that nine Americans were among 33 swept up in an anti-terrorism operation in the kingdom.

The Saudi Gazette reported Sunday that four Americans were arrested a week ago and five more were taken into custody later in the week. Also seized during that period were 14 Saudis, three Yemenis, two Syrians, an Indonesian, a Filipino, an Emirati, a Kazakh and a Palestinian.

It wasn’t clear what their terror links may have been; the Saudis have arrested many suspected ISIS members over the past several months.

On Friday, four people were killed and 36 were wounded in a suicide bombing and shooting at Al-Ridha Mosque in Al-Ahsa province. The casualty count would have been higher had security not stopped the attackers at the gate.

A surviving 27-year-old terrorist at the mosque “sustained major injuries after being thrashed by worshippers,” Arab News reported.

It’s not know if any of the detained Americans were connected to that plot. The Arab News called the terror arrests a “pre-emptive crackdown.”

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Awful Campaigner Hillary Clinton Effectively Tied with 74-Year-Old Socialist Curmudgeon in Iowa By Michael van der Galien

By on February 2nd, 2016

Politico, the Washington Post and Fox News all report that the results in the Democratic race in Iowa between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is too close to call.

Both Democratic candidates received approximately 50 percent of the vote, with only 0.1% to 0.4% separating them. In most of the data, Sanders is trailing Clinton, but the gap is so small that not one serious pundit is willing to call it for anyone, which — of course — doesn’t prevent the Clinton camp from claiming victory nonetheless.

But there’s nobody who’s running with that.

This is a situation in which a draw is actually a defeat for Clinton. And a big one too. Early last year, Hillary was leading Sanders by 50 percent. She’s lost that lead completely and is trailing Sanders in New Hampshire; chances are that the Vermont senator will pull off a clean win there.

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Cruz Tops Trump; Rubio Nearly Overtakes The Donald By Bridget Johnson

By on February 2nd, 2016

With record-high turnout in the Iowa caucus, the top three Republicans were separated from each other by just a few points.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) came in first with 28 percent, followed by Donald Trump at 24 percent. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) surged past his polling expectations to take 23 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting.

“So this is the moment they told us this would never happen,” Rubio told supporters in Des Moines. “…They told me I had no chance because my hair wasn’t gray enough and my boots were too high.”

“I’m just really honored,” Trump said at his Iowa headquarters, congratulating the others in the race. “We’re leaving tonight and tomorrow afternoon we’ll be in New Hampshire… I think we’re going to be proclaiming victory, I hope.”

Cruz was the last GOP candidate to take the stage as his victory really, accompanied by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and his father, Rafael Cruz.

“Iowa has sent notice that the Republican nominee and the next president of the United States will not be chosen by the media,” Cruz said.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton was locked in a tight race with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 49.8-49.6 percent with 95 percent reporting.

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