Archive for October 2, 2016

Media Launches Baseless Speculation Using Parts of Trump’s Stolen ’95 Tax Returns

October 2, 2016

Media Launches Baseless Speculation Using Parts of Trump’s Stolen ’95 Tax Returns, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 2, 2016

trumpte

This story is a joke. The joke is that the media is desperately scrabbling for material. Out of sheer desperation it’s using 20+ year tax returns to headline stories claiming that Trump paid no taxes.

These stories are based on what? I’ll let the media tell it…

“Trump’s losses in Atlantic City casino projects, a Trump airline and the Plaza Hotel in New York were a staggering $916 million… Under normal Internal Revenue Service rules, those losses can be used to offset any future amount owed, but because the amount of the loss was so high Trump may have continued to avoid any tax liabilities for years… The documents do not constitute proof that Trump has paid no federal tax over such a long stretch, but it lends fuel to questions about his refusal to release his tax returns.”

Translation. We have absolutely no basis for the claims that we’re making them. But we’re not only making them, but headlining them.

Can I just point out that using the same logic, the New York Times has a large building with plenty of space to store the bodies of murdered hoboes. I have no evidence that the New York Times building is full of murdered hoboes. But the fact that it could be used for such a purpose combined with the refusal of the New York Times to let me inspect every inch of it in search of murdered hoboes certainly lends fuel to my wholly invented claim that the building is full of murdered hoboes.

An Obama parting gift to Israel?‎

October 2, 2016

An Obama parting gift to Israel?‎ Israel Hayom, Richard Baehr, October 2, 2016

(Please see also, Another area where Congress must be ready to oppose the president. — DM)

U.S. President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State John ‎Kerry all flew off to Israel and attended the funeral of Shimon Peres, the ‎last remaining ‎political figure from modern Israel’s founding generation. ‎Former Secretary ‏of State Hillary Clinton‎, ‎the current Democratic Party nominee for president‎, had at one point been listed to attend‎, ‎but did not make the trip‎.‎

The United States is fewer than six weeks away from the conclusion of what is now ‎a ‎tight presidential contest. The race conceivably could soon lean more toward ‎Clinton ‎after the widely watched first debate last Monday night (84 million viewers) ‎between Clinton ‎and Republican nominee Donald Trump, which most pundits ‎suggested she won, a ‎conclusion supported by results from the first polls released after the debate.

However, it has ‎been an unusual and surprising election contest, and there are no ‎guarantees that the ‎broader voting public saw things the same way their ‎media superiors expected it to see them. ‎

The high-level attendance at the funeral by Obama and Bill Clinton will ‎certainly be a plus for Hillary Clinton’s prospects to win a large share of ‎the Jewish vote in ‎closely contested states such as Florida and Pennsylvania. Obama ‎won ‎about seven of every 10 Jewish votes in 2012, down from about eight in 10 in 2008. ‎Bill ‎Clinton scored even higher than this in his two runs for the White House, in 1992 ‎and ‎‎1996, so Hillary Clinton can only benefit from association with presidents with far ‎more ‎popular support than she has demonstrated so far. Both Obama and Bill Clinton issued ‎statements full ‎of praise for Peres’ long career and also his commitment both to ‎keep Israel strong but ‎also to seek peace.‎

Obama’s tribute may be a harbinger of something more to come, ‎presumably in the nine ‎weeks he has left in the White House after the Nov. 8 vote has been ‎cast. ‎The president has just concluded an agreement with ‎Israel for a 10-year military aid bill. ‎The most contentious part of that agreement ‎was Israel’s acceptance that if Congress ‎votes for more assistance in the first ‎two years of the agreement than the agreed $3.8 billion ‎annual amount, it ‎would have to return the excess to the United States. There are ‎constitutional separation-of-‎powers issues that arise from the agreement, and already Trump has said ‎he does not consider himself bound by the limits, a view also ‎taken by a large ‎number of members in Congress.

In any case, with this settled, Obama ‎may feel free ‎to try his hand at some legacy-building on the Israeli-Palestinian track, an ‎area in ‎which his record of failure follows a long pattern of presidents who thought ‎they ‎had the magic elixir to achieve the two-state solution.‎

What has been rumored, with no denials offered by either the State Department or ‎the ‎White House, is that Obama may seek to obtain passage of a Security Council ‎resolution ‎in which the president offers his view on the parameters of the deal ‎between the two ‎parties who should end the conflict. As with all such two-state ‎plans, Israeli settlement ‎activity is viewed as the primary culprit in the conflict. ‎Members of the Senate, ‎anticipating some new initiative of this sort, have now sent ‎a letter to the White House, ‎signed by 88 members from both parties, requesting ‎that the president, for the duration of ‎his term, continue traditional American policy, ‎which has been to block any one-sided ‎U.N. resolutions targeting Israel.‎

‎”Even well-intentioned initiatives at the United Nations risk ‎locking the parties into ‎positions that will make it more ‎difficult to return to the negotiating table and make ‎the ‎compromises necessary for peace,” the senators wrote, ‎adding that the U.S. “must ‎continue to insist that neither we ‎nor any other outsider substitute for the parties to ‎the ‎conflict.”‎

Quoting from a 2011 address Obama gave to the U.N. General ‎Assembly in which he said that ‎‎”peace will not come ‎through statements and resolutions at the United Nations,” ‎the ‎senators reminded him that his ‎‎”administration has consistently upheld the ‎long-standing ‎U.S. policy of opposing — and if necessary vetoing — one-‎sided U.N. ‎Security Council resolutions.”‎

Longtime peace processor Dennis Ross, a likely appointee ‎to a Clinton administration if ‎she wins in November, ‎argued that the president’s willingness to try to obtain ‎a ‎resolution with a defined peace plan would be far higher if Trump wins ‎the presidential contest. Then the ‎initiative could be seen as a way to try to bind the incoming ‎president to an Obama-preferred course of action. Further ‎evidence that such a plan is in ‎the works, conceivably ‎regardless of who wins the White House, was a statement ‎by an ‎unusually angry Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry, busy as always ‎attending to his many other ‎diplomatic failures — the never-ending Syrian carnage, ‎the ‎continued appeasement and excuse offering for the ‎behavior of the U.S.’s new Iranian ‎‎”partners,” relations with ‎Russia, seemed ready to pounce once more into the ‎Israeli-‎Palestinian diplomatic wasteland by condemning Israeli ‎settlement activity, as well ‎as offering a standard (for ‎appearance of balance) criticism of Palestinian incitement. ‎

It is hard not to see this as laying the groundwork for the ‎president cynically offering the ‎‎”Obama peace plan” as his ‎final tribute to the late Shimon Peres, who was ‎always ‎committed to the two-state solution and achieving peace. ‎The United Nations is of ‎course a vipers’ nest of Israel hatred ‎with its obsessive and uniquely hostile treatment of ‎the ‎Jewish state on any number of issues. ‎

Other than a Security Council resolution that President Jimmy ‎Carter allowed to get ‎through in 1980 by abstaining on a ‎resolution calling Israel’s unification of Jerusalem ‎illegal, ‎America’s role in Security Council ‎debates on Israel has generally been to try to water ‎down ‎condemnations of Israel. Failing that, the U.S. has ‎vetoed one-sided ‎resolutions aimed at Israel. ‎

Carter’s acquiescence in the U.N. Security Council resolution ‎cost him with Jewish voters. ‎He won only 45% of the Jewish ‎vote, to 39% for Ronald Reagan and 15% for third-‎party ‎candidate John Anderson, on his way to losing 44 states, the ‎worst defeat ever for ‎an incumbent president. No Democrat ‎since 1920 has performed worse among Jewish ‎voters. This ‎presumably is why Obama’s latest attempt to squeeze ‎Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‎will come, if it does, after the presidential election, when it can do no immediate ‎electoral ‎damage to his party or preferred candidate. ‎

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Obama made ‎clear that he plans to be an activist former president, pursuing the ‎causes he cares about. Attacking police and the ‎criminal ‎justice system for their alleged racism is a near certainty. ‎Climate change ‎seems to be a big matter for Obama, as well. ‎

But eight years of bad relations with Netanyahu did not come from nowhere. Obama is ‎one of ‎the more ideological presidents the U.S. has had (Reagan, ‎Carter, and ‎Franklin Roosevelt are others). His vision of Israeli-Palestinian ‎relations comes out ‎of his “Third World” view of ‎colonialism, and the power of the strong versus the ‎weak, ‎their victims. If he can take one more shot at what he ‎regards as balancing ‎the scales and weighing in on the side ‎of the Palestinians, he will. Those last nine ‎weeks of the Obama presidency are a red-alert warning to Israel and many ‎others.‎

Internet Giveaway Proceeds After Court Rejects Suit to Halt it

October 2, 2016

Internet Giveaway Proceeds After Court Rejects Suit to Halt it, Power Line, Paul Mirengoff, October 1, 2016

We have written about President Obama’s internet giveaway and how GOP congressional leaders effectively rubber stamped it. An aide to Majority Leader McConnell even tried to blame Donald Trump for the Republicans’ gutlessness.

After Congress failed to act, four Republican state attorneys general filed a lawsuit to stop the giveaway. The four state plaintiffs were Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas. Their AGs are Mark Brnovich, Scott Pruitt, Adam Paul Laxalt, and Ken Paxton.

The suit made several arguments against the internet giveaway. Plaintiffs argued that, because it lacks congressional approval (Congress didn’t approve the action, it merely declined to block it) the giveaway amounts to an illegal ceding of U.S. government property. They also contended that the new steward of the internet domain system, an outfit known ICANN, will be so unchecked that it could “effectively enable or prohibit speech on the Internet.”

The AGs also noted that ICANN could revoke the U.S. government’s exclusive use of .gov and .mil, the domains used by states, federal agencies and the U.S. military for their websites. In a statement, Texas Attorney General Paxton said: “The president does not have the authority to simply give away America’s pioneering role in ensuring that the internet remains a place where free expression can flourish.”

The AGs’ suit did a good job of expressing key objections to Obama’s internet giveaway. Yesterday, however, a federal district court judge, George C. Hanks, Jr., rejected the legal challenge. The Obama-appointed judge found that there wasn’t enough evidence that the transfer would be harmful.

Thus, today oversight of the domain naming system has been transferred to “global stakeholders.”

The Obama Commerce Department had stressed that any last-minute attempt to abandon the giveaway would “hurt the credibility of America in the eyes of the rest of the world.” This is true. Blocking the giveaway would have upset what has become the world’s reasonable expectation that the U.S., under President Obama, is a pushover willing to cede control over key affairs to international bodies and even our enemies, and unwilling vigilantly to safeguard national interests.

Because congressional leaders are also pushovers, world expectations have been met and remain intact.

Spain: Muslim boat captain on trial for pushing six Christian refugees overboard

October 2, 2016

Spain: Muslim boat captain on trial for pushing six Christian refugees overboard, Creeping Sharia, October 2, 2016

christian-refugees-in-europe-550x350

Source: A refugees’ boat captain on trial for pushing six Christian refugees overboard

A boat captain face trial for throwing six Christian refugees overboard and murdering them. The boat carrying refugees was sailing towards Spain, when the Christian refugees were thrown into the sea on the pretext of their prayers. The incident took place in December, 2014 when the boat captain and his second in command severely beat the Christian refugees before throwing them overboard.

The boat captain identified as Alain NB, a Muslim was guiding the boat from Morocco to Spain via sea route. One of the surviving refugees stated that the captain “blamed the rough seas which were rocking the boat on the prayer led by a Catholic pastor” and “believed that the weather worsened every time they prayed.”

The prosecutors in Almeria, Spain, however argue that Alain NB should be handed a prison sentence of 90 years after being convicted of the crime. They argue that imprisonment of 15 years for each of the charges brought against him.Witnesses say that the captain and his second in command beat the six Christian refugees with wooden boards, before throwing into the rough waters. This was an inflatable boat which had a capacity of 50 men, which headed towards Spain. Dead bodies of one refugees was found off the off the coast of Granada after a week of the incident.

Moreover, the boat captain was also accused of searching the refugees for crosses and jewelry which would identify them as Christian. He was accused of singling those confirmed to be Christians for bashing. However, his second in command died in Spain, before the trail begun. During the trial the prosecution said Alain NB “was aware that the victims could not possibly survive and that they would die, either by drowning, from the cold, or from the physical injuries they had suffered.

Huma Abedin: Will She Repudiate Family’s Islamist Views?

October 2, 2016

Huma Abedin: Will She Repudiate Family’s Islamist Views? Clarion Project, Meira Svirsky, October 2, 2016

(Please see also Daddy’s Issues, which elaborates on the Islamist views of Huma Abedin’s father. — DM)

humaabedinhillaryclintonhp_3Huma Abedin (left) and Hillary Clinton (Photo: © Reuters)

Abedin, herself, worked on an Islamist journal for 12 years, beginning the year she became a White House intern. She hasn’t commented on that job.

Concerns about Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, both when she was secretary of state and now, as the Democratic presidential nominee, began surfacing in 2012. According to leaked emails, Abedin is slated to become secretary of state if Hillary Clinton is elected president.

In 2012, Rep. Michele Bachmann and four other members of Congress requested information about the influence of Muslim Brotherhood-tied groups and individuals in the U.S. government, including Abedin, who worked for 12 years as an assistant editor of an Islamist journal that spewed extremism.

Abedin’s tenure at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs began in 1996, the year she began working as an intern at the White house.

Clarion Project covered that request extensively, as the Congressional members who made it were pilloried by their colleagues. We also covered the extremism of Abedin’s mother, father and other family members.

Now more information has been uncovered regarding the Islamist beliefs of Abedin’s parents. While it is certainly possible to disavow the ideology of one’s parents, Abedin has remained silent on their extremism as well as her work with on journal. It remains to be seen whether or not she will repudiate these new findings.

Syed Abedin, Huma Abedin’s father who died in 1993, was a Muslim scholar connected to the Saudi Arabian government. According to exclusive video footage from 1971 recently obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, Syed Abedin advocated the following:

As Muslim countries evolve, he said, “The state has to take over. The state is stepping in in many countries … where the state is now overseeing that human relationships are carried on on the basis of Islam. The state also under Islam has a right to interfere in some of these rights given to the individual by the sharia.”

In addition, he is quoted as saying, “The main dynamics of life in the Islamic world are still supplied by Islam. Any institution, as I said before, any concept, any idea, in order to be accepted and become a viable thing in the Islamic world has to come through … Islam.”

Abedin’s mother, Saleha, has an especially strong Islamist ties. She is a member of the female counterpart of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Muslim World League. She leads a group called the International Islamic Committee for Women and Child, a subsidiary of a Muslim Brotherhood-led group that is banned in Israel for its links to Hamas.

In 1999 and three years after Huma began working for the journal, the journal and Saleha Abedin’s group published a book in Arabic titled “Women in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations.”

The book states that man-made law is inherently oppressive towards women, while sharia law is liberating. According to the text, Muslim women have an obligation to contribute to jihad, apostates are to be put to death, adulterers should be stoned or lashed, freedom of speech should be conformed to the boundaries set by sharia and wives must have sex with their husbands on command, “even if she is not in the mood.“

In addition, the organization led by Huma Abedin’s mother “advocates for the repeal of Mubarak-era prohibitions on female genital mutilation, child marriage and marital rape, on the grounds that such prohibitions run counter to Islamic law, which allows for their practice,” according to an analysis by the Center for Security policy.

The book advocates against laws to assure equality of women, saying, “Man-made laws have in fact enslaved women, submitting them to the cupidity and caprice of human beings. Islam is the only solution and the only escape.”

In terms of women working in high positions, the book states, “Her job would involve long hours of free mixing and social interaction with the opposite sex, which is forbidden in Islam. Moreover, women’s biological constitution is different from that of men. Women are fragile, emotional and sometimes unable to handle difficult and strenuous situations. Men are less emotional and show more perseverance.”

However, an exception does exist: “Women can also participate in fighting when jihad becomes an individual duty.”

The New York Post reports that Saleha is on the payroll of the Saudi government and part of her job is to advocate for sharia law in non-Muslim countries like the United States.

“In 1995, less than three weeks before Clinton gave her famous women’s-rights speech in Beijing, Saleha headlined an unusual Washington conference organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] to lobby against the UN platform drafted by Clinton and other feminists. Visibly angry, she argued it runs counter to Islam and was a “conspiracy” against Muslims.

“Specifically, she called into question provisions in the platform that condemned domestic battery of women, apparently expressing sympathy for men who commit abuse,” reported the newspaper.

We hope that Abedin does not hold the same opinions as her parents or the journal of which she was the assistant editor. And it would certainly be nice to have to tell us that.

Clinton Article in Spanish Hails U.S.-Latin America Unity

October 2, 2016

Clinton Article in Spanish Hails U.S.-Latin America Unity, Latin American Herald Tribune, October 2, 2016

MIAMI – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton hailed the power implicit in the geographical and cultural proximity between Latin America and the United States.

In an editorial written in Spanish and published Friday in the Miami daily El Nuevo Herald, the former secretary of state said that no other region in the world is “more important” for the prosperity and security of the United States than Latin America.

“There is power in our proximity, which means we are not only close geographically but also in our values, interests and in our common cultural heritage,” Clinton said, adding that the “interdependence” of the economies of the two regions, as well as the ties between communities and families, is a tremendous advantage.

“We shouldn’t build a wall between us because of that truth, but rather accept it,” she said, a clear reference to her rival, Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has promised more than once to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico if elected to the White House.

Clinton noted that she and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, who lived for a time in Central America, see such a potential in Latin America for vibrant democracies, a growing middle class, extraordinary natural resources, some of the world’s most diverse communities, and a sense of optimism and opportunity that it’s inspiring.

“Donald Trump looks south and sees only crime and chaos. From the first day of his campaign he has belittled U.S. Latinos, insulted and denigrated people in the entire region and promised to build a wall between us and our nearest neighbor,” she said, adding that her rival is “completely wrong.”

Latin America has made “great strides” in recent years, which have led to “historic changes,” said the Democratic candidate, who at the same time defended the need to maintain close ties with the region due to some “real threats” it still faces.

ISIS cell in Jerusalem?

October 2, 2016

ISIS cell in Jerusalem? Six Jerusalem Arabs arrested for allegedly working to establish ISIS foothold in Israel.

Uzi Baruch, 02/10/16 11:12

Source: ISIS cell in Jerusalem? – Defense/Security – News –

 

Six Jerusalem Arabs have been indicted for allegedly working to establish a cell of the ISIS terror organization inside Israel.

The six were charged in a Jerusalem court of security offenses, assisting an enemy in war-time, and association with a terror group.

The suspects are residents of the Shuafat and Anata neighborhoods.

According to the indictment, from 2015 until August 2016, the suspects made efforts to enlist in ISIS and establish an ISIS cell inside Israel. Among other activities, the six organized study sessions to spread the terror group’s radical ideology.

The indictment also revealed that some of the suspects attempted to travel to Syria to join the jihadist organization’s fight against the Assad regime.

The suspects also reportedly planned terror attacks against Jews in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

October 2, 2016

From the editors here at Warsclerotic.com

 

Direct aggression by US against Damascus to cause ‘tectonic shift’ in Middle East

October 2, 2016

Direct aggression by US against Damascus to cause ‘tectonic shift’ in Middle East – Moscow

Published time: 1 Oct, 2016 10:22 Edited time: 1 Oct, 2016 18:19

Source: Direct aggression by US against Damascus to cause ‘tectonic shift’ in Middle East – Moscow — RT News

 

FILE PHOTO Residents in Midan, a Christian district of Aleppo, hit by mortar shelling. © Mikhail Alayeddin
If the US launches a military campaign to oust the Syrian government, it would further fracture the country and have tremendous negative long-term consequence for the entire region, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned.
Read more

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov © Mikhail Voskresenskiy

If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region,” Maria Zakharova said during a talk show, which is to be aired fully later on Saturday and has been cited by RIA.

With no government in Damascus, there will be a power vacuum in Syria, which “so-called moderates, who are, in reality, not moderate at all but just terrorists of all flavors, would fill; and there will be no dealing with them,” the diplomat predicted.

And later it would be aggravated the way it happened in Iraq. We know that [Saddam Hussein’s] Iraqi Army became the basis of the Islamic State. Everything that both the [US-led] coalition and Russia are fighting now stems from it,” Zakharova said.

Russia and the US are accusing each other over the collapse of the ceasefire which was signed last month, but has failed. The US says Moscow did not do enough to win the trust of rebel forces and to prevent the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad from attacking his opponents. Russia says Washington was incapable of separating ‘moderate rebels’ from terrorist groups and keeping them in check for the truce to take hold.

READ MORE: US had never had ‘Plan A’ for Syria, West a root cause of crisis – Syrian UN envoy to RT

With the collapse of the deal, the Syrian government launched an offensive on rebel-held areas of Aleppo, a city divided between the Syrian Army and dozens of armed groups, including Al Qaeda off-shoot Al-Nusra Front.

The US acknowledged that it had not been going after Al-Nusra Front for months because the terrorists intermingled with ‘moderates’ and the civilian population. At the same time, it accused Moscow and Damascus of war crimes, citing civilian deaths caused by the renewed hostilities in Aleppo.

Russia has voiced concern that the US was deliberately shielding Al-Nusra Front from military action by Russia and Syria, hoping that the terrorist group would help oust the Syrian government.

Clinton Caught On Tape – Audio Reveals Thoughts On Sanders’ Supporters – Fox & Friends

October 2, 2016

Clinton Caught On Tape – Audio Reveals Thoughts On Sanders’ Supporters – Fox & Friends via YouTube, October 1, 2-16