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Pick Up Five AK-47 Bullets for a Buck, al-Qaeda Magazine Tells Jihadists By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

A new English-language al-Qaeda magazine urges would-be jihadists to take advantage of the low price of bullets while instructing them how to avoid detection online.

The fourth edition of al-Risalah, which is published by al-Qaeda in Syria, features a full-page graphic of a grenade composed of typewriter keys with the quote, “Half of jihad is media.”

That’s attributed to Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden’s late mentor and the co-founder of al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan.
(Facebook screenshot) (Facebook screenshot)

And like other al-Qaeda media, al-Risalah encourages jihadists with features on current jihadi operations and how-to guides. It was posted on al-Qaeda Telegram channels and on a Facebook page that appeared to have been created just for the magazine’s promotion.

The profile picture was of a smiling jihadist holding up an American passport: Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a Floridian who died as a suicide bomber in Syria in 2014. The Facebook profile has since been removed.

A full-page graphic in the middle of the 24-page glossy magazine states, “You can buy 5 bullets for an AK47 assault rifle for less than $1.” Underneath this is a quote attibuted to Muhammad: “Whoever spends in the path of Allah, it would be multiplied for them 700 times.”

An article on steps to correctly use the Tor browser, which keeps a user’s browsing history and location anonymous, is bylined Kybernetiq, the name of a cyberwar magazine for jihadists launched a year ago. A new Twitter account named Kybernetiq — with the hashtag #WeAreNotISIS in the bio, along with “made in Bavaria” — advertises the al-Qaeda magazine and tweets in German.
(Al-Risalah magazine) (Al-Risalah magazine)

“The Tor browser bundle designed by the Tor project is one of the most important devices in our defensive weapons arsenal,” the article states. “It covers and anonymizes our origin and makes us nearly invisible from being monitored; bypasses the firewalls and serves as a gateway to an uncensored internet. However using it negligently can expose and leave you vulnerable to e-incursions by the intelligence agencies,” the article states.

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5 Things You Should Know About Trump VA Pick David Shulkin By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

In his press conference on Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump announced his selection for U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He chose the current Undersecretary of the department, David Shulkin.

“We’re going to straighten out the VA for our veterans,” Trump declared. “Because our veterans have been treated very unfairly.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has fallen under fire in the past three years, for its record of shoddy care, long lines, and rampant corruption. The horror stories keep on coming: In November, an Iraq veteran committed suicide after the VA told him he’d have to wait months for treatment. In May, the current VA secretary, Robert McDonald, dismissed long wait times by comparing them to ride lines at Disney. In October, a veteran died with maggots in his wound at the VA, causing four employees to resign.

As a result of these horror stories, Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), a nonprofit group focused on VA reform, denounced the problem as cultural, and called for more health care choices for veterans and more accountability for staff at the VA.

“It is no secret that the VA has been failing veterans for years,” CVA Executive Director Mark Lucas said in a statement following Trump’s announcement. “While Shulkin already holds a leadership position at the VA, as Secretary, he will now have ultimate responsibility over the agency and we are hopeful he will take it in a new direction. CVA will seek to partner with Shulkin on urgently needed reforms, such as empowering veterans to access care outside the VA when the VA is failing them.”

“We are cautiously optimistic that Shulkin will turn things around and we want to give the Trump administration the opportunity to partner with us on choice and accountability reforms,” An anonymous source at CVA told PJ Media. “It must be noted, though, how horribly the VA has done under McDonald. So we hope Shulkin brings a fresh start now that he is in full control.”

So who is Shulkin? Here are 5 things you should know about Trump’s VA pick.
1. He is a medical doctor.

Shulkin graduated with an M.D. from the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1986, and did his internship at Yale School of Medicine. He completed his residency and fellowship in General Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Presbyterian Medical Center. He served as chief medical officer for multiple hospitals and hospital systems.

2. He was appointed by Obama.

Shulkin was nominated for Undersecretary of Health at the VA by President Obama in March, 2015. He would be the first member of the Obama administration chosen by President-elect Trump to join the new administration. He was confirmed unanimously by the Senate in June 2015, a sign that he might be Trump’s first uncontroversial pick as well.
3. He was a successful businessman.

Shulkin is an entrepreneur. He founded a health care information company called DoctorQuality. When he joined the VA, he resigned from a private sector position with an annual salary of $1.3 million, and now only makes $170,000 a year at the VA.

4. He is not a veteran.

Notably, Shulkin has never served in the military, although he has an extensive record in health care. As NPR’s Quil Lawrence reported in December, the VA has always been headed by a veteran. He will be the first non-veteran VA secretary.
5. He has presided over the VA scandal.

For good or ill, Shulkin’s tenure at the Department of Veterans Affairs has continued to be plagued by scandal. It is possible he would champion reforms to allow veterans more choice in health care, and that he might turn around the culture of unaccountability which plagues the VA, but scandals have continued under his watch. In January 2016, Shulkin launched a “VA Shark Tank” to target innovations and improvements to the VA medical centers. Still, it seems the fundamental problems are persisting.

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We Deserved Better Than Obama for Our First Black President By Walter Hudson

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

His legacy, a failure. His opportunity, a waste. His impact, division.

President Barack Obama addressed a tearful crowd of 20,000 supporters in his hometown of Chicago on Tuesday, reflecting upon his two terms in the White House and calling for action to preserve his legacy. From NBC News:

Obama warned that “if every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hardworking white middle class and undeserving minorities, then workers of all shades will be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves.”

Obama also warned that “Democracy can buckle when we give in to fear. So just as we, as citizens, must remain vigilant against external aggression, we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are.”

Obama leaves office as a failed president. Unable to lead as a statesman and work with Congress to secure consensus legislation, Obama built his legacy on a combination of executive orders and administrative rule-making. The incoming Trump administration will be able to reverse as much of that as they wish, all but erasing Obama’s presidency.

The failure extends beyond statecraft. As the nation’s first black president, Obama had an opportunity that will never again present itself. He was given a chance to set the tone for American race relations for the 21st century. With that opportunity, he could have done anything. He might have chosen to lead the nation toward a truly post-racial worldview, fulfilling Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a world where individuals are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Instead, Obama used his bully pulpit to drag us back to the 1960s.

There will no doubt be another black president someday. But there will never be another first black president. That unique opportunity to set a post-racial tone will never again manifest. Instead, the next black president will start from a disadvantage, inheriting the divisive baggage of Barack Obama.

On the bright side, the chance remains for the first female president to emerge as an inspiring and unifying figure. Had Hillary Clinton prevailed, she would have no doubt wasted the opportunity in much the same way Obama has. Americans of either gender and all racial backgrounds deserve better. CONTINUE AT SITE

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What unsubstantiated ‘news stories’ about Democrats would you like to see? By Ed Straker

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

The media has created a new standard for reporting “news”: it is appropriate to report anything, anything at all, as long as you preface it by saying it is “unsubstantiated.” That is the new standard for reporting about Donald Trump. But what if the media applied the same reporting standard to Democrats?

1) Would Politico post unreliable reports about Congressman Charlie Crist and his alleged relationship with a certain Green Iguana?

2) Would the Washington Post hypothesize about whether George Stephanopoulos is still mentally ill?

3) Would The New York Times suddenly change its tune and start speculating about where Obama was really born and what his real religion is?

4) Would ABC News run with speculation about who Vera Baker is, and what her alleged relationship with President Obama is or might have been?

5) Do you think we could expect to see unsubstantiated reports about Senator Cory Booker’s dating preferences?

6) Might the media published unsourced documents detailing Hillary Clinton’s alleged involvement in Vince Foster’s death?

7) Would the media publish claims from an anonymous source about the precise nature of the relationship between Hillary and her “body woman,” Huma Abedin?

8) And whom has Bill Clinton been violating lately? Wave some cash around hookers in Harlem and report whatever they say!

Can you imagine the media doing any of this? No, of course not. Because these are all Democrats, and the media holds them to a different standard; they never publish damaging personal information even if they are sure of the veracity.

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A Look Back at the First Disastrous ‘Two-State Solution’ By Victor Sharpe

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

In the 11th hour and the 59th minute of his miserable term in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama struck his knife deep into the heart of the embattled Jewish state.

With the appalling anti-Israel passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, engineered by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry, the blame for the Israel-Palestinian conflict was falsely imparted upon the easy target: Israel and the so-called “settlements.”

There were no “settlements” before the 1967 Six-Day War, when the Jewish state survived yet another Arab war of genocide and freed the embattled nation from the existing 1947 nine- to 15-mile-wide armistice lines, which Israel’s then minister of foreign affairs, Abba Eban, called the Auschwitz lines.

It is not from 1967 that the conflict with the Arab and Muslim world or the so-called Palestinians began. To fully understand its origins, we must go back to the early years of the 20th century.

In 1920, Great Britain was given the responsibility by the League of Nations to oversee the Palestine Mandate with the express intention of reconstituting within its territory a Jewish national home.

The League of Nations created a number of articles in line with the original intent of the Balfour Declaration of November 29, 1917. At the last minute, however, a new article was introduced by the British Colonial Office: article 25.

It became apparent that its inclusion directly enabled Great Britain in 1921-22 to tear away all the vast territory east of the River Jordan and give it to the Arab Hashemites. The territory to become Trans-Jordan, led by the emir Abdullah.

British officials claimed that the gift of Mandatory Palestine east of the Jordan River was in gratitude to the Hashemites for their contribution in helping defeat the Turks. However, T.S. Lawrence described in derisory terms the Hashemite role as “a side show of a side show.”

Ironically, Britain was aided far more by the Jewish Nili underground movement in defeating the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which had ruled geographical Palestine for 400 years.

This was the first partition of Palestine, the first two-state solution, and created the new Arab entity nearly 97 years ago called Trans-Jordan, covering some 35,000 square miles, or nearly four fifths of the erstwhile Palestine Mandate. Immediately, Jewish residence in this new Arab territory was forbidden, and it is thus historically correct to state that Jordan is Palestine.

In 1923, the British and French colonial powers also divided up the northern part of the Palestine Mandate. Britain stripped away the Golan Heights (with its ancient biblical Jewish roots) and gave it to French-occupied Syria.

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‘Leaderless Jihad’ — Hardening Targets to Thwart Lone Wolf Attacks By Stephen Bryen

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

After the January 8th truck attack by a terrorist in Jerusalem that killed four young soldiers (three of them women) and injured more than 15 others, the Israeli government has started putting in cement barriers to try and head off similar attacks in future.

Israel is trying to deal with a relatively new, harder to track kind of terrorism called “leaderless jihad.” In 2005 jihadist military theorist Abu Musab al-Suri (AKA Mustafa Setmariam Nasar) published an online book titled The Call to Global Islamic Resistance focusing on the importance of “solo jihadi terror work.” According to al-Suri, solo jihadi attacks will exhaust the enemy and cause him to collapse and retreat.

In the West, these are commonly called “lone wolf” attacks, but this is misleading and the terminology makes it sound as if the lone wolves are not part of a terror network. The truth is that such terrorism is organized and takes advantage of the Internet and social media as a key way to pass messages sending their adherents on terrorist missions. Many of the wannabe terrorists who take up these calls for action already have been proselytized, often in local mosques​ and schools​ or by terrorist operatives in their communities. Some of them even publish personal manifestos on social media though often under nom de plumes but with photos and other information giving important clues to near-term threats. The Ft. Lauderdale shooter, Esteban Santiago, used the​ pen​ name Aashik Hammad. The shooters in San Bernardino, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, almost certainly were trained in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Tashfeen Malik had a social media account under a pseudonym. The FBI insists these terrorists were “self-radicalized,”​ a claim that does not in any way align with the overwhelming evidence they were not only Jihadi but also Wahhabi trained.​

Leaderless jihad is a means to try and avoid tracking by intelligence agencies and law enforcement. It presents a particular problem in anticipating and thwarting attacks. Like “lone wolf” therefore, “leaderless” jihad is not really leaderless at all. Rather the leadership function is hidden​ to a degree​.

When faced with a threat that is hard to anticipate through intelligence and law enforcement tracking, it is important to try and make it as difficult as possible for terrorists to be successful. The most immediate steps that can be taken is to harden places that are vulnerable to attack.

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Trump: The Outsider Moves Inside by Christopher Caldwell

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

The entire publicity apparatus of the media and government was enlisted to make a vote for him appear futile. Now poised to take power, many previously silent supporters will come out of the woodwork. His prospects of political success may be correspondingly larger.
In early December, when President-elect Donald Trump’s post-election “Thank You Tour” arrived at the US Bank Arena in Cleveland, someone hollered out of the audience, “We love you, Donald.” Trump yelled, “I love you, too”—one of the oratorical innovations of Barack Obama’s successful campaign for president in 2008 that few politicians have been able to resist imitating. But then, Trump pointed to the working-class fellow in the audience who had hollered in the first place. Trump said, in his unsyntactical way, “Guy. Some guy. Look at this guy. And I do love him. He’s a rough-looking cookie, though, I tell you. Love. We love. And there’s going to be a lot of love in this country.”

In a strange sense, spreading the love may be the biggest policy challenge Donald Trump faces as he approaches the presidency. His opponents are predicting catastrophe. Some of them are actively wishing for it. Hillary Clinton’s campaign backed an attempt to undo his election through legal challenges in three states. Not since Ronald Reagan has an American president arrived in the White House amid such widespread anxiety over his basic competence. Although Reagan was re-elected easily after four years, it took a long time to disabuse his detractors of the notion that he was too stupid to be president. And Donald Trump has a particular challenge. He was elected on an explicitly nostalgic campaign slogan—“Make America Great Again”. No politician can keep a promise to turn back the clock. Failure of one kind or another seems inevitable.

Yet Trump scored a triumph just days after his election. Carrier, an air-conditioning manufacturer that had been a special target of Trump’s bile on the campaign trail, agreed to cut in half a plan to move production facilities to Mexico. The initiative will keep 1100 jobs in Indiana. Newspapers have mocked Trump’s plans to bring industrial jobs back to the United States. “The reality is more complicated,” says the Los Angeles Times. Maybe so, but the Carrier deal is a sign that Trump is stronger than he looks. Voters who have had their credulity abused by politicians extolling capitalism’s theoretical benefits are likely to be patient with him. “They forgot that it was the American worker who truly built the country,” Trump said of the experts during his Cincinnati speech. Even if Trump cannot re-establish the high-paying manufacturing jobs of half a century ago, they are a symbol that he will not forget working people.

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India’s Best Friend: Protector of the Free World by Jagdish N. Singh

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

Israel has always been appreciative of New Delhi’s security imperatives. New Delhi, however has yet to be fully appreciative of Israel’s security imperatives.

New Delhi has yet to be morally conscientious enough openly to back Israel in multilateral fora such as the United Nations. One hopes Prime Minister Modi would show the statesmanlike leadership at which he is so expert and which makes him so admired.

Israel stands and fights for openness, diversity, truth and its existence, just as India does. India must back Israel. New Delhi also needs Jerusalem in combating Islamist terrorism, one of the greatest threats to its unity and territorial integrity.

The operational code of anti-India Islamist forces’ behaviour is similar to that of Israel’s Palestinian counterparts: spread the culture of hatred and violence against the free world. Israel knows better than anyone it how best to protect it against such elements.

Ever since former Indian Prime Minister P. V. Narsimha Rao decided in January 1992 to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel, relations between the two democracies have flourished in all fields. Socially, there have been unprecedented people-to-people exchanges. Today over 40,000 Israelis travel to India annually. Since the Israeli poet Amir Or translated the famous Indian epic he Mahabharata into Hebrew in 1998, more books of Indian poetry have been translated into Hebrew.

Economically, technologically and militarily, relations between India and Israel also have moved from strength to strength. In 1992 trade between the two nations stood at a meagre $100 million. Today this stands at $5 billion with the possibility of its being tripled if a free trade agreement is concluded between the two nations.

Israel has always been appreciative of New Delhi’s security imperatives. Jerusalem stood by India in its wars in 1965, 1971 and 1999, and The was helpful to India in winning the Kargil war of 1999.

During India’s “Kargil War” of 1999 Israel came to India’s assistance. Since then, India has increasingly turned to Israel for advanced weapons systems.

India has emerged as Israel’s second largest Asian trading partner, after China. Today Israel is India’s second largest arms supplier, after Russia. The Indo-Israeli relationship in this sector has developed into the formation of joint military ventures for the development of specific weapons systems and technologies.

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The UN Holocaust: More Lies and Treachery on the Way? by Yves Mamou

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

The launch of this diplomatic attempt to gut Israel will start on January 15, in Paris, at a “peace conference” — which should immediately be postponed a week.

“Led astray from their primary mission, these organizations [such as the United Nations] have become tools of corruption or terrorism, reinforcing global Islamic power… Their latest resolutions do not only confirm the victory of jihadism and illiteracy: they also express the success of the years of effort made by this post-war Europe that continues to destroy, defame and delegitimize the Jewish State in the name of Islamic justice.” — Bat Ye’or, prizewinning historian.

With a UN now run as if it is the universal caliphate, assisted mostly by dictators and despots, it is hard to see much good ever coming from it. No one has yet been made accountable for the $100 billion “oil for food” scandal, and peacekeepers still dole out food to children in exchange for sex.

“The beginning of this long journey dates back to 1967, in France… Europe rushed to adopt the French position in 1973 and, along with the OIC, planned political measures designed to destroy the Jewish State by denying its sovereign rights and its cantonment on an indefensible territory. Resolution 2334 is now the icing on the cake of this policy, which forms the basis for a Euro-Islamic policy…” — Bat Ye’or.

All freedom loving nations would be wise to abandon the UN, or, second-best, defund it. Sadly, that is the only language the UN seems to understand. Countries imagining that in Donald Trump they have another pushover, watch out. You will be in for quite a shock.

Israel, this tiny country in the heart of Middle East, has become the new target of diplomacy-abuse at the United Nations, headed by the Americans, the Europeans (mainly France) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — 57 Islamic states plus “Palestine”, which at the moment forms the largest bloc at the UN.

On December 23, 2016, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334, which effectively sets the boundaries for the Palestinian state at the 1949 armistice lines. The Arabs had previously refused to accept the armistice line as a border, presumably because agreeing to it might preclude the Palestinians from trying to get the rest of “Palestine”, defined by them as “from the river [Jordan] to the sea [Mediterranean]” — meaning all of Israel. Just look at any Palestinian map — It is identical to the shape of the entirety of Israel.

According to Res. 2334, not only are Jewish settlements are illegal, overnight, effectively making their Jewish residents criminals, but the Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City — the heart of Judaism for nearly 4,000 years and the seat of Christianity for more than 2,000 years — are now grotesquely considered “occupied territory”.

As Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer noted:

“It’s as if the U.N. passed a resolution declaring Mecca and Medina to be sovereign Jewish or Christian territory. It’s absurd. It’s an insult to the intelligence of the world and is supremely damaging to the Israeli claim to its own holy places.”

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Germany Sees Sharp Fall in Asylum Seekers While the number of asylum seekers declined in 2016, a slow pace for deporting rejected applicants may harm security By Andrea Thomas

Posted By on January 12th, 2017

BERLIN—The number of asylum seekers entering Germany fell by about two thirds last year but the proportion of rejected applicants who left remained low, the government said Wednesday, raising fears that criminals or extremists may remain in the country.

The influx of migrants from war-torn or poor economic regions has raised security concerns, particularly after last year’s terror attacks in Germany. In December, rejected asylum seeker Anis Amri killed 12 and left scores wounded.

Government data showed that roughly 280,000 people entered Germany last year in search of asylum, down from a record of about 890,000 in 2015. But only 80,000 left Germany either voluntarily or were deported.

“The development of the asylum figures show that the German government’s measures have an effect. We have succeeded in regulating, steering the number of people coming to us,” said Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière. However, the number who left was too low, given the number of rejected asylum claims, he said. “We are in talks with the states to further increase the number of these returnees.”

The number of filed asylum claims, which lags behind the number of newly arrived migrants, rose to 745,545 in 2016 from 476,649 in 2015. The biggest group of applicants came from Syria, followed by Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, and more than half received asylum or refugee status.

Mr. de Maizière called on European Union countries to continue with their efforts to establish a harmonized asylum policy as the rate of granting asylum or refugee status differs greatly among member states.

“It’s not too much to ask that countries should agree on how to assess the political situation in Somalia, Nigeria and Pakistan,” he said. “Entry criteria and the length of asylum procedures should be more streamlined in Europe. The level of welfare benefits should also be awarded within a certain range.” CONTINUE AT SITE