' Palestine's' Choice To Succeed Abbas - A Convicted Terrorist Leader And Murderer

 

In view of the upcoming Fatah-Hamas unity government and the anticipated elections, a Palestinian think tank, the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion polled 1,015 of the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, the Arab occupied parts of Judea and Samaria, and Gaza as to their preference for a future leader.

Their choice? Convicted murderer and terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti, who is currently serving five life terms for his activities during the Second Intifada.

Barghouti easily won out over Hamas Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh, current Palestinian Authority dictator Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas politburo chief Khaled Masha'al. The closest one to Barghouti was Mahmoud Abbas, who Bargouti out polled 33% to 26%. The two Hamas politicos finished a lot further behind Barghouti, which makes me wonder how much of the Hamas 'electorate' in Gaza was sampled as opposed to Jerusalem and the other Arab occupied areas of Judea and Samaria.

So who is this Marwan Barghouti? What did he do to deserve five life terms in prison? And why are the Palestinians so enamored of him?

Barghouti ran the Tanzim and the al-Aksa Martyr's Brigade for Yasser Arafat during the Second Intifada, both terrorist groups affiliated with Fatah. They deliberately targeted civilians for murder,and Barghouti planned numerous 'operations', including the murder of 9-month-old Shalhevet Pas, who was shot by a Tanzim sniper while she was sitting in her stroller in a park surrounded by other children, none of whom by grace of G-d were killed.Her killer, Mahmud Amro admitted deliberately targeting the baby with his U.S. - supplied M-16 and is still in prison, drawing a salary from the Palestinian Authority.

Another good friend of Marwan Barghouti was Samir Kuntar shown here with Barghouti on your right:


This picture was taken of the two of them together at Ashkelon's Hadarim prison,when they were both serving their life sentences there.

One night in April back in 1979, Kuntar and three accomplices landed at the Israeli coastal town of Nahariya from the sea and kidnapped  Danny Haran, 28, and his daughter Einat, 4, from their home. They shot Danny dead in front of his daughter, so that was the last sight she ever saw.  Then Kuntar  murdered the four-year-old Einat by smashing the child's  head on a rock with his rifle butt.

Barghouti and Kuntar got on so well that the Palestinians made Kuntar an 'honorary Palestinian citizen' and gave him a hero's welcome when Kuntar was released in exchange for the tortured and mutilated bodies of the two Israeli servicemen who were kidnapped by Hezbollah, the act that along with Hezbollah's missile attacks on Israel precipitated the Lebanon War.

Barghouti himself was convicted in Israeli civil court of being personally involved in five murders - a shooting and grenade attack on a Tel Aviv restaurant in on March 5, 2002 that killed three Israeli civilians and wounded 15 people including 5 Arabs,some of them critically, the brutal murder of a harmless Greek monk in Ma'ale Adunim,  an attack on a gas station in Givat Ze'ev, and a car bombing in Jerusalem that murdered an Israeli woman and injured 8 people, including two children.

While he was in prison, the same Palestinians who elected Hamas by an overwhelming majority also elected Barghouti to represent them in what passed for a parliament.

Needless to say, this new poll will probably spark cries on the Israeli Left, the Eu and of course the Obama team to pressure Israel to free Barghouti. MK Zahava Gal-on from the EU funded far Left Meretz party was quoted as saying “The only figure who can replace Abu Mazen [Abbas] is Barghouti.”

“Knowledgeable people say that the only one capable of stabilizing the situation after [Abbas] is Barghouti,” Gal-on said.

Knowledgeable people...the same sort of knowledgeable people that brought Israel Oslo, who talked about Barghouti's old boss Yasser Arafat the same way they're talking about Barghouti now. The same knowledgeable people who have blood on their hands they still refuse to acknowledge.

I do take one bit of comfort from this. Now that the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians continue to make their choice for new leadership clear, it's becoming apparent to all but the most blind and clueless Israelis that the two state solution so beloved of people like MK Gal-on is simply a recipe for giving Israel's genocidal enemies a closer platform to attack them from.

The citizens of the sort of 'democratic peaceful state living next door to Israel' so beloved of those creatures still working to get Israel to retreat to indefensible borders and give away the country's birthright wouldn't choose a murderer like Barghouti to lead them if they were at all serious about peace.

A significant number of them aren't serious about it in the least. They favor Barghouti as a war chief, another Arafat - because of his record of success at Jew killing.

Such men are best suited to be the guests of honor at what the pioneers of the Old West called a necktie party under a sturdy tree. Barring that, keeping them under lock and key for the rest of their lives is a poor substitute, but it's the next best thing.

Crossposted at  Jews Down Under

This Story Could Affect You More Than Anything You'll Read Today

 

The most important and far reaching story out there today is naturally the one you're not hearing about. And it has the potential to affect you personally a great deal more than 90% of what's in the headlines.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has scored a major win.He has finally succeeded in making a large deal with China to supply the Chinese with natural gas and oil - in a non-dollar contract.

As part of the agreement, the Bank of China (BOC) just signed a non-dollar agreement with VTB, one of Russia’s largest commercial bank to allow VTB and BOC to pay each in their domestic currency, removing the need for energy trading to be conducted in US dollars and a big step towards undermining the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, something that's been true since the post WWII Bretton-Woods Agreement.

Putin's deal with China was held up for a long time simply because of price haggling.Gazprom, Russia's nationally owned energy company is anticipating that its average export price on gas this year will be around $10.62 per million Btu. The Chinese will be getting it at a substantial discount, around $10 per million Btu. Since the gas China now imports from Myanmar and Central Asia costs the Chinese about $10.15 per million Btu,the deal makes sense for them. In fact, it makes so much sense for them that they're willing to invest an estimated $25 billion to finance infrastructure costs to take in the estimated 38 billion cubic meters per year the Chinese have contracted to import from Russia, 20% of Russia's total output.The pipelines involved are scheduled to be completed by 2018.

And they'll be dealing in rubles and renminbi, not dollars...which makes the deal sanctions-proof, gives Russia a badly needed dose of hard currency, and allows Putin to thumb his nose at any EU threats of finding other sources of energy as a result of the Situation in Ukraine. And when it goes through, it accomplishes something Putin has been working to accomplish for years, bypassing the U.S. dollar as the medium for energy trades.

How does this effect you? Let's look at what that last sentence really means.

Because the U.S. dollar is the medium in which energy trades are calculated, the price of these commodities is linked to the value of the dollar, and the oil producing countries in essence import our inflation...they simply raise their prices to cover it, which also affects the prices of other commodities they import, like foodstuffs and western manufactured goods. The secret behind our relationship with the Saudis and the Gulf Emirates is that for years, they have successfully fended off efforts by Russia, Venezuela and the Iranians to ditch this arrangement.

While it's not entirely ditched yet, this is a major breach, and a lot of other OPEC members and customers will probably gleefully walk through it, depending on the strength of their currency and their need to import energy.

Since the value of anything depends on demand, how much people want or need to own it, the potential loss of the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency weakens the dollar. As this trend continues, the inflation we've been importing will now start to come home to roost as foreign manufactured items like the cheap goods we've learned to love made in China are going to cost more. So will food, and interest rates.

Your paycheck and your retirement dollars will not stretch as far either, your savings and 401Ks will be negatively impacted and travel will be likely more expensive than it already is.

This was probably inevitable, given the ridiculous policy of 'quantitative easing' and the huge amount of the $18 trillion debt and climbing President Obama and his team have run up. There's a part of me that thinks this might have been deliberate on the Obama Regime's part, seeking to weaken our currency deliberately to pay back these funds in cheaper dollar. No nation in history has ever managed it, and the ones that have tried did damage to their economy and their standard of living it took decades to recover from,if they were able to recover at all. Ask the Argentinians some time about how well that worked out for them.

Finally, if more countries abandon the dollar as a reserve currency, the U.S. will have lost a huge weapon, one we used successfully on al-Qaeda during the Bush Administration. No longer will we be able to say to foreign countries that if they do business with terrorist groups or a country we wish to impose sanctions on that U.S. banks will be barred from doing business with them,honoring letters of credit or handing their transactions.

That will still mean something because of the size of the American market, but nowhere near as much as it does with the dollar as the world's reserve currency. And losing that strategic weapon could affect Americans in a negative way in the future as well.

Pelosi Attempts to Derail The Benghazi Investigation With Hyper-partisan Democrats

Democrat Minority leader Nancy Pelosi has decided to participate in the Benghazi select committee and appointed five Democrats to serve on it after weeks of talking about boycotting the committee.

As I predicted earlier, Rep. Pelosi decided to get on board, but to appoint virulently partisan hacks to the committee in an effort to sabotage it and keep what happened that night in Benghazi a question mark.Not a single one of them has any respect for what the committee is trying to accomplish

The ranking Democrat will be none other than Elijah Cummings, who is already facing ethics charges over his behavior as ranking Democrat of the House Oversight committee.If Rep. Pelosi actually had any respect at all for what the committee is attempting to accomplish and any desire of actually getting to the truth of what happened,he's the last person she would have appointed.

“I believe we need someone in that room to simply defend the truth - defend the truth - and that is why I’ve agreed to serve,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) explained during a press conference announcing Pelosi’s decision.

'Defend the 'truth' coverup as voiced by the Obama White House, of course, at all costs.

Rep. Adam Smith is the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. He's been a loyal partisan soldier and has gone public a number of times repeating the talking points on how the entire Benghazi investigation is nothing but a “political witch hunt.”

Rep. Tammy Duckworth ( D-Il) is one of Smith's reliably partisan Democrat allies on the House Armed Services Committee.

Linda Sanchez,(D-CA)from the Ways and Means committee knows nothing about foreign policy or national security, but can be relied on to vote the way she's told.

Rep Adam Schiff(D-CA)a member of the House Committee on Appropriations is another Democrat who has already said publicly that Democrats should refuse to participate in the Select Committee because it's a 'colossal waste of time' and a partisan witch hunt.'

Today Schiff said “The decision was ultimately made that we need someone in that room to stand up for the truth and that will be our responsibility to make sure that this does not become a subcommittee on talking points,” Schiff said.

“I agree with my colleagues that this is a committee that should not have been formed,” Smith said, calling it a “purely partisan and political effort.”

Again, the same language...circle the wagons, defend the coverup and obstruct, obstruct obstruct. Nothing like going into these proceedings with an open mind and a spirit of inquiry!

He added that Democrats needed to be involved to make sure that the committee “doesn't become a circus.”

Ah, but a circus is exactly what these Democrats Pelosi picked for the committee are there to do their best to turn the committee into..a circus that dissolves in partisan shouting, and ends up making sure that the Benghazi coverup continues. That's the strategy.

What's interesting is that Speaker Boehner apparently has the power to circumvent this nonsense.

Contrary to popular belief, to a certain degree as limited by the Constitution each session of congress decides how it will function and the rules are worked out through the Rules committee.There's always a great deal of carryover from previous sessions, but Congress does vote to adopt the rules under which it operates.

A House special select committee, according to the Rules adopted by the 113th Congress on January 3rd, 2013 states explicitly that it is the Speaker of the House who appoints the members of a select committee once a resolution is passed in the House to convene one.

There is nothing in the rules that says the Speaker must accept without challenge select committee appointments from the minority leader. It's customarily done, but it is not required under the House rules.

There is nothing stopping Speaker Boehner from quietly speaking to Rep. Pelosi and telling her in no uncertain terms that given that her choices for the select committee have already publicly announced that the select committee is of no value and that their sole purpose is to obstruct it, she needs to appoint different choices...especially in the case of Cummings, who is already facing ethics violations charges for his previous behavior on the oversight committee.

And if she refuses, there's also nothing stopping him in the House rules from simply calling these appointments unacceptable and explaining why publicly. Moreover, Nancy Pelosi knows that. She certainly has an insider's knowledge of how the rules can be manipulated, based on her behavior as Speaker when ObamaCare and the Stimulus were passed.

In fact, there's nothing stopping the Speaker from doing this except John Boehner. If he fails to carry out this basic responsibility, he just made Select Committee Trey Gowdy's job a lot more difficult.

Watcher's Council Nominations - VA Blues Edition

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

The Council In Action

Debra Heine from Nice Deb has a great new piece over at Breitbart concerning Baghdad Jay Carney's lies on the VA scandal, American Legion Official Slams Jay Carney's VA Distortions: WH Spin 'Disingenuous'

Rob Miller at Joshuapundit has a new piece up at the Times of Israel, What ‘Nakba Day’ Really Means – And Why Israel And The World Should Prohibit it. If you've ever wondered exactly what 'Nakba Day' is and what it really means, this will tell you.

This week, Yourish.com, The Pirate's Cove, Maggie's Notebook and Jewish American Patriots earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out Wednesday morning

Simple, no?

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let's see what we have this week....

Council Submissions

• The Independent Sentinel – 19 Nifty Ways to End Free Speech in America


• Liberty's Spirit – The Fascist-Left and the Destruction of the Liberal Mind


• Joshuapundit-The Left's Forked Tongue Brigade Continues To Circle The Wagons On Benghazi


• The Noisy Room – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Has Uncomfortably Close Ties To The Chinese Government


• Simply Jews – Dear Canucks - please explain Doug Saunders. Please?


• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Joyeuex Anniversarie Little Satan!


• VA Right! - Cantor Trying to Hide His Record – Here is an Amazing Graphic that Shows Cantor’s Liberal Ideology


• The Colossus of Rhodey – Tim Tebow vs. Michael Sam


• The Right Planet – Alarmists Issue Fatwa on Renowned Climate Scientist


• Bookworm Room – Do you ever feel as if you've been worked over by your government?


• The Glittering Eye -Bleeding Illinois


• Nice Deb – Will Obama Reach Out To His Half-Brother Malik To Save Condemned Christian Woman In Sudan?


• The Razor – No Sympathy for Fast Food Worker Strike Here


• Ask Marion – Two Women, Two Paths… The Choice


• Rhymes With Right – Here's Why The DREAM Act Is A Problem

Honorable Mentions

• Yourish.Com - Let’s Destroy Israel. There’s an App for That


• Maggie's Notebook - Joe Biden Visits Ukraine, Creates a Job: Son Hunter Biden Gets Job With Ukraine Gas Company


• The Pirate's Cove - Good News: U.S. Ready To Evacuate Embassy In Tripoli


• Jewish American Patriots - Wonder Of Wonder

Non-Council Submissions

• Daniel Greenfield/FrontPage Mag –Never Again, Again submitted by The Independent Sentinel


• Daniel Henninger/WSJ – Bonfire of the Humanities submitted by Liberty's Spirit


• Iowahawk – In New York, Scrappy Local Newspaper Struggles For Survival submitted by Joshuapundit


• Sultan Knish –The Progressive Red Guard submitted by The Noisy Room


• Point Of No Return – Of Nakbas, fools and fingers submitted by Simply Jews


• Commentary – Want Peace? Change UN’s Refugee Policy submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• Breitbart – Rand Paul: Do We Continue to Arm the Enemies of Israel and the U.S. in Syria? submitted by VA Right!


• The First Street Journal – "I told You So!" submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey


• Mark Steyn – The Descent Of Mann submitted by The Right Planet


• The DiploMad 2.0-Shaking Hand : A memory of Pakistan submitted by Bookworm Room


• The American Interest – The Real Policy Failure in Libya submitted by The Glittering Eye


• Watts Up With That? -Scientists Respond to the Obama Administration's 2014 National Climate Assessment submitted by Nice Deb


• Casimir Yost/The American Interest –Out of the Quicksand submitted by The Razor


• PJ Tattler - A Millennial Trashes the Class of ’14 submitted by Ask Marion


• Allen B. West – Sam’s kiss was “brave?” Villanueva has a Bronze Star – now THAT’S brave submitted by Rhymes with Right


• Jews Down Under – Israel: Separated for Security submitted by The Watcher


• Kevin D. Williamson/NRO – The Narcissistic Creed submitted by Watcher

Enjoy! And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

The Left 's Forked Tongue Brigade Continues To Circle The Wagons On Benghazi

The Professional Left continues to try and disparage the Benghazi select committee investigations with all its might, and the Obama media are certainly doing their best to help by ignoring the actual facts as much as possible.The Forked Tongue Brigade is out in all their putrid glory.

Two old Leftist camp followers conveniently provide us with an overview of the sort of talking points being used to attack the committee in advance, so that its findings can be 'discredited' before they surface. Lets look at them, shall we?

Eleanor Clift is simply an old line, loudmouth Marxist whom the Daily Beast inherited from News-weak. She hasn't has an original thought in years, but pretty much parrots the usual talking points going around. However, when she does improvise, it's a real doozy. On PBS' The McLaughlin Group the other day, she actually managed to come up with one - That Ambassador Chris Stevens wasn't murdered in Benghazi..he, umm, died of smoke inhalation:




The fact that Chris Stevens may very well have been clinging to life when he was raped and beaten (we have no way of really knowing) and the violent way the other three Benghazi victims died doesn't seem to make an impact on Eleanor Clift. Using her logic, I suppose if someone sneaked into her penthouse digs, tied her up and put duct tape over the nose and mouth on her heavily botoxed face, we could say she wasn't murdered either..it was, you know, respiratory failure.

After discussing her faux pas with the usual suspects and getting a fresh briefing on the proper talking points, Ms. Clift decided to double down today in the Daily Beast (I refuse to link to this garbage but I'm sure you can easily find it).

Now her story is that she was taken out of context (she wasn't) that it was the CIA's fault, and that it was Chris Steven' fault because he 'took risks he shouldn't have'.

Next, she puts out some cock and bull tale she's sourced to an unnamed 'ambassador' about the reason for the attack being an attempt to free prisoners being held at the CIA annex. Of course, that fable doesn't account for why the consulate was attacked, rather than just the annex. And even if that was remotely true, what about all the lies on 'it was the video'? And why the subsequent cover up?

After that it's time to play 'look at Reagan'. She cites an article written by a fellow Leftist shill that calls what happened in Beirut in the 1980's 'Reagan's Benghazi'. She relates how the Democrat majority House investigated and found 'very serious errors in judgment' and recommended additional security measures, but 'did not see it as an opportunity to score political points'.

Actually, there's a pretty good reason for that. The 'serious errors in judgment' had nothing to do with the president or anyone else in DC, but the judgment of the house committee that the commanders on the ground at a time before this kind of tactic was common should have somehow foreseen that some Hezbollah jihadi would drive a truck though the barriers and set off a suicide truck bomb.

And the reason the Democrats failed to 'score political points’? Well, that's another difference between Benghazi and Beirut, Ronaldus Maximus and Barack Obama. The Left didn't score political points because they couldn't. From Day One, President Reagan was completely cooperative with the investigation. He allowed Congress complete access to all information, and instead of lying and stonewalling, the Reagan Administration was an active partner in wanting to get to the bottom of what happened.

There were no lies for partisan political purposes, no documents hastily reclassified in an effort to hide them, no witnesses or survivors hidden away. And could anyone even remotely imagine President Reagan leaving our people to fight to the death for nine hours and doing nothing to save them because he was busy resting up for a fundraiser?

A different kind of president and a different kind of man entirely. Someone the Forked Tongue Brigade could never understand.

I'm taking the time to deconstruct this because trust me, you're going to hear this kind of horse manure again and again.

As a matter of fact, none other than the junior Senator from California, Barbara Boxer, came out with her version of White House talking points today on the always amusing Huffington Post.

Good old Senator Babs is no quiz kid as anyone familiar with her record knows, but she has at least a few IQ points on Eleanor Clift, and of course, much better staffers.

The senator starts out using the standard Democrat slogan for the select committee, calling it 'a political witch hunt'. She calls it that because 'the committee 'rejected House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's offer to have a fair panel with equal representation from Republicans and Democrats' and because a few Republicans are 'fundraising off this tragedy'.

I've already dealt with that previously, but it obviously bears repeating. The 'even split' San Fran Nan wanted is something she would have rejected outright when she was Speaker after she stopped cackling. Actually, no select committee in history has ever been set up in that manner. And does anyone recall how Democrats instantly sent out fundraisers after Sandy Hook, Katrina, Columbine,the Gabby Giffords shooting and every other tragedy you can imagine? Pot, meet kettle.

And that's not all..the minority leader also insisted on some unheard changes in the committee's rules. She wanted the Democrats on the committee to have veto power over whatever subpoenas the committee issued, and over the ability of Republican members to interview witnesses separately. The ability of the Chairman of a select committee to issue subpoenas on his own authority and for the majority party to interview witnesses in camera are pretty standard items for select committees, and agreeing to Nancy Pelosi's terms would pretty much have insured that the cover-up would continue unabated. Not only that, but in Rep. Elijah Cummings' (D-MD) behavior on the House Oversight committee on IRS-Gate (for which he's currently facing ethics charges), we have an example of exactly how Pelosi's appointees would have done their best to sabotage the proceedings by leaking details of the committee's investigation to the very people they were investigation and attempting to intimidate witnesses.

Funny thing, those details didn’t make it into Bab's little HuffPo screed.

Next, she questions why we need another investigation after those 'exhaustive' 9 attempts to investigate Benghazi(actually 7)...attempts that failed because the White House has repeatedly lied about how the talking points blaming the attack on a spontaneous demonstration and a video were deliberately constructed for partisan political purposes, refused to release the documentation congress requested and actually hid documents from them.

Not only that, but let's not forget that the Benghazi survivors are still prevented from speaking congress by the Obama Administration, that Secretary Clinton has never been questioned under oath and that all of the security videos as well as the telephone recordings and transcripts of conversations between the White House, the consulate and the CIA annex are all still classified and hidden away from congress as well. Any wonder they didn't find out anything?

And then comes the real zinger..this is all the Republicans fault because they supposedly cut funds for security to our embassies and consulates. This is a deliberate lie, and even Senator Boxer knows it. Congress sets budgets, and in this case the budget cut was not for 'security' but across the board, and it was up to the State Department and none other than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's responsibility to decide where exactly to allocate the funds allotted, not Congress.

And what did Mrs. Clinton choose to spend the money on while cutting security for Benghazi? How about a fleet of overpriced Chevy Volts and a pricy electric vehicle charging station for our embassy at the notoriously dangerous post in Vienna, Austria!

These funds were allocated as part of part of the State Department’s “Energy Efficiency Sweep of Europe” initiative, which spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on green program expenditures at various U.S. Embassies at the same time Mrs. Clinton was cutting security at our embassies and consulates in Libya and ignoring Ambassador Stevens' frantic requests.

That detail didn't make it into Senator Babs' article either. But as expected, the senator goes on to mention Beirut and Reagan again, so obviously the word had gone out from the White House spin meisters to repeat this one.

The fact that these pathetic women would try and spin this in such a fashion is a disgrace, but then both of them passed the boundaries of shame long ago.

The real disgrace is that the Obama Administration would continue to try and spin the unspinnable and sweep the unforgivable under the rug.

Four Americans died through negligence, and this president and his team lied about it to protect Barack Obama's re-election, even to the point of lying to the dead men's loved ones in front of their coffins. And they continue to lie about it to this day.

As I wrote on these pages long ago, the ghosts of those men are restless and demand justice. All the the disgraceful antics of the Obama Regime and its sycophants don't change that.

And even more, in a strange way Benghazi is a battle between the country our Founders bequeathed to us and the kind of place the Forked Tongue Brigade, the Obamas, the Hillarys, the Pelosis and the Boxers want to turn it into.

They cannot be allowed that victory.

US Pressures Israel Out Of $13B Contract For Missile Sales To Poland

Israel has been forced by U.S. pressure to bow out of a contract worth $13 billion to build a missile defense system for Poland.

The Poles were interested in buying David's Sling, manufactured at Israel's state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It is an advanced system designed to shoot down heavy rockets and cruise missiles using interceptor missiles.

Since the system uses missiles that  are produced by Raytheon, a U.S. company, the U.S. quietly exercised  an 'export veto'  to force Israel to withdraw and allow Raytheon to get the lucrative contract.

Israel apparently went along with the veto even though Rafael is capable of producing its own interceptor missiles, according to what one of my Notorious Little Birdies told me. Based what a source identified as an Israeli defense official told Reuters, Israel's Rafael will be allowed to have a lesser role in a future U.S.-led arms sale to Poland.

"The Americans will be happy, the Poles will be happy, and there'll be something left over for us," he said.


Why is this story important? I just want the usual Israel haters who whine about 'all that money the U.S. gives Israel' to see some of what that $3 billion, almost all of which is spent here in the U.S. on American weapons buys.

Nor is this the only time this has happened.

Now you know one reason why America's alliance with Israel is one of the greatest U.S. foreign policy bargains in history.

President Obama's Latest - A National Sanctuary For Illegal Aliens And Drug Cartels

President Obama's latest executive order creates a 500,000 acre 'national monument' in southern New Mexico right near the Mexican border now to be known as the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. About half of that land will be set aside as wilderness, meaning it's closed to all vehicles and construction.

Aside from outcries by many local ranchers over what they see as a huge land grab that interferes with their grazing rights, the border police and local police see it as a sanctuary for illegal alien traffic and drug smuggling by the cartels that they will not be allowed to patrol by law.

“This is about opposing so many thousands of acres that is going to create nothing more than a pathway for criminals to get into this country to do their criminal acts,” Dona Ana County Sheriff Todd Garrison told The Washington Times in a telephone interview Monday.

Needless to say, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency quickly issued a statement asserting that the new national monument designation wouldn't threaten border security or their ability to police the border, saying “This designation will in no way limit our ability to perform our important border security mission, and in fact provides important flexibility as we work to meet this ongoing priority.”

You'll notice she spoke generally, not specifically about this particular area or how the border patrol would 'perform their important mission' in an area where vehicles are prohibited..nor did she clarify what she meant by 'important flexibility', something that bears hearing about in more detail given the Obama Administration's positions on amnesty, enforcing our immigration laws and illegal aliens.

Especially since the Bureau of Land Management(BLM) will administer the area, not ICE.

Needless to say, the president is once again bypassing congress, using the 1906 Antiquities Act on a scale it has never been used before in history.

Sheriff Garrison claimed that the federal government never contacted local law enforcement for their input on the matter.

"Once the land becomes a national monument, local law enforcement can no longer effectively patrol the areas. When the Obama Administration makes it a monument, the existing roads there will close down. We will not have access to the land. I can't go out and patrol the area like I do now, which lessens crime. If we cant get out there to control it, only law abiding citizens will follow the law and criminals wont."

"Local law enforcement was never brought to the table to discuss this issue," he continued. "We have one of the largest cartels right across the Mexican border, and one of the most unsafe cities in the world. Are we supposed to believe that nothing's going to happen here if we impede law enforcement authorities from doing their jobs? That's just stupid."

Zack Taylor, the Chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers called the proposed National Monument "the biggest breach of border security I have seen in the lat 20 years."

" The people don't want it, and the sheriff doesn't want it. It is an open invitation for the foreign drug cartels and transnational criminals to bring their illegal drugs and aliens into the U.S."

Again, Administration officials claim that the president's declaration will incorporate a 2006 agreement between the Interior Department and the Homeland Security Department that allows U.S. Border Patrol some access to the land. In practice, that means no routine patrolling but allows them to follow in very narrowly designated conditions of 'hot pursuit'.

Both of New Mexico's Democrat senators lauded the idea of the new monument, but Republican members of the House were a lot less positive about it.

Rep. Rob Bishop, (R-UT) chairman of the Natural Resources Committee’s public lands subcommittee, sent a letter to President Obama asking him to hold off until the border ws more controlled.

“It’s irresponsible to focus efforts on new land designations rather than finding solutions to existing criminal activities plaguing the border,” the congressman wrote.

"National Parks, monuments, and wilderness areas along our southern border have become prime drug-trafficking corridors for violent criminals and drug cartels. Restrictive environmental laws within these federal corridors limit Border Patrol access and, as a result, make it easier for drug smugglers and human traffickers to move their drugs and people in and out of the United States unnoticed."

Mr. Bishop pointed to a case that was in the headlines last week, in which a National Park Service employee at Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona detailed the vicious attack she suffered at the hands of an illegal immigrant. Authorities said the man smashed her head into a metal bathroom door and hit her head with a rock, striking so hard that the rock broke.

Just lovely.

Spy Vs. Spy...US And China In Major Confrontation

China has summoned U.S. Ambassador Max Baucus ( you remember, the guy who admitted in his confirmation hearings he didn't know much about China) over criminal charges the U.S. government filed against five Chinese military officers, accusing them of hacking into American nuclear, metal and solar companies to steal trade secrets.

Formally 'summoning' the ambassador of a foreign country is a fairly serious diplomatic step, signifying major displeasure and designed as a message to the diplomat's country that all is definitely not well.

The fact that Baucus was summoned by the assistant foreign minister, Zheng Zeguang rather than the foreign minister Wang Yi is another message from the face conscious Chinese:

Zheng "protested" the actions by the United States, saying the indictment had seriously harmed relations between both countries, the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.

Zheng told Baucus that depending on the development of the situation, China "will take further action on the so-called charges by the United States".

It was the first criminal hacking charge that the United States has filed against specific foreign officials, and follows a steady increase in public criticism and private confrontation, including at a summit last year between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Zheng also accused the United States of being 'overbearing' and 'hypocritical', which is probably a pretty fair statement given what's come out about the Obama Administration's spying on other nations and even world leaders as well as its own citizens.

China's defense ministry also followed up with a fairly blunt statement denying the accusations and demanding that the charges be dropped.

China has also made its displeasure felt by suspending its cooperation with a joint group working on cyber-security.

The reality is that this was yet another abysmally stupid move by the Obama Administration, although at least no one appears to have gotten killed because of it - yet.

Is China spying on the U.S.? Undoubtedly. Are we spying on them? Of course we are. Great powers, even allies let alone enemies have used spies in all likelihood since the tribal days of the old Stone Age.
It's simply how things have been done for thousands of years.

The normal procedure for most nations when such spies are found out is simply to expel them from the country if they're foreigners or try them under espionage laws if they're citizens of the host country. And it happens all the time, under the euphemism of this or that military attache or diplomat being 'reassigned' or declared 'persona non grata' for whatever reason, or simply by having a foreign national's visa revoked.

Criminal charges, especially against foreign nationals of a nation we're not at war with, who are not in U.S. custody and whom China is certainly not going to extradite is an amateur and futile move that simply ratchets up tension for no good reason. It's especially a bad move when thanks to the debt the Obama Administration has racked up in 5 years, China now holds $1.27 trillion of our U.S. Treasury bonds and is our biggest foreign creditor.

Perhaps someone in the Obama regime will realize how stupid and futile this is and it will be allowed to fade away. One can always hope.

Good-o! Australia Slashes Funding For 'Climate Change' Programs By 90%

 

Good old Oz! You can always depend on them to do the common sense thing eventually.

Under former PM Julia Gillard (whom I still retain certain personal liking for despite her politics), Labour's governing coalition was dependent on appeasing the Greens and other progressive fascists, who insisted on massive government programs based on global warming, including a hugely unpopular carbon tax and onerous regulations on energy creation. Just like the one's President Obama's EPA is putting in place here, this resulted in a huge surge in energy and fuel prices with an accompanying rise in the price of food and goods.

Australian PM Tony Abbot and the conservative Liberal coalition (yes, in Australia they still understand what the word 'liberal' really means) campaigned on repealing the carbon tax and today announced that they are slashing the budget for the remaining 'climate change' programs by 90%, from $5.75 billion this year to $500 million, over the next four years.

The Labour and Green members of Australia's senate are stopping repeal of the carbon tax so far,but the arrival of new senators in July will likely change that.

I love this quote from Tony Abbot, who referred to the carbon tax as "an act of economic vandalism."

“You can’t trust (Labor) anywhere near an economy.”

True enough, and Australians have only to look back at Labour's dismal record during the Rudd/Gillard years to see it.

Israel And China Sign New Agreement To Increase Trade, Cooperation

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and Chinese Vice premier Liu Yandon signed a new agreement between China and Israel to increase ties, trade and economic cooperation.

The two gave a joint press conference today in Jerusalem:

Netanyahu began by welcoming Liu, and praising the "great success and growth of the Israeli-Chinese cooperation and relationship." He noted that the relationship continues to grow.

"A year ago, I visited China," he began. "I had excellent meetings with President Xi and Premier Li."

"We have expanded our cooperation in many ways," he continued. "China is Israel's largest trading partner in Asia and fast becoming perhaps Israel's largest trading partner period as we move into the future."

"We see the great success of China," he reflected. "We admire China and we think there are complementary things that Israel brings to this relationship. One of them is innovation."

Netanyahu then noted that the meeting is not only symbolic, but a practical move to sign an agreement increasing cooperation between China and Israel.

"What we're going to sign today is an agreement for expanding innovation in cooperative efforts between our two countries - and equally our Health Minister will sign an agreement to help advance our cooperation in times of emergencies," he said. "This is one of many, many things that we're doing together and I think the possibilities are limitless."

Vice Premier Liu Yandon, on her very first trip to Israel was equally enthusiastic in her remarks, and revealed an interesting personal connection to Israel and the Jewish people:

"I want to thank your government's gracious invitation for me to come to this beautiful country that has a time-honored history and beaming with vitality," she began. "And I also want to convey the best greetings from myself and the Chinese government through the media to the government and people of Israel."

"As you rightly pointed out, Mr. Prime Minister, our two peoples are rooted in a tradition of friendship," she continued. "The Jewish and the Chinese peoples are peoples of great wisdom. We bracket Asia and we respectively created our splendid cultures that stretch thousands of years of history. And we both made enormous contributions to human civilization. Yesterday afternoon I visited the Israel Museum and also the Old City of Jerusalem and I was so amazed at the beauty of this country."

Liu also added a historical aspect to Netanyahu's observations - specifically, the special role of Shanghai for the Jews during the Second World War.

"Especially during the Second World War, we fought shoulder to shoulder against the world's fascism and we stood together through the dark time," Liu stated. "I spent 18 years in Shanghai. Actually, everywhere in Shanghai people tell the good stories of harmonious coexistence between the Chinese people and Jewish people."

Liu has a particular connection to the Jewish community in Shanghai.

"I want to mention in particular here that in 1942, a Jewish doctor by the name of Jacob Rosenfeld came to a place in Shanghai where my father fought against the Japanese aggressors," she stated. "And Dr. Rosenfeld and his team members saved the lives of thousands of Chinese people. This is a group photo of Dr. Rosenfeld and this is my father here, and one of the founding generals of China, General Xin Yi, named Dr. Rosenfeld as one of the heroes against Japanese aggression. Unfortunately in 1952, when Dr. Rosenfeld visited Israel, he passed away. So when my father was around, he vowed to visit Israel and to see the hometown of Dr. Rosenfeld to express his appreciation, and his dream was realized by his daughter."

As President Obama's ambition of 'daylight' between America and Israel becomes more pronounced, Israel and China's relationship has warmed and the two countries have developed increasingly closer ties on trade, joint projects and security.

In many ways, the two countries are a natural fit. Israel's advances in irrigation, bio-science and technology and high tech are important to a country like China that is still a developing nation in many areas, and an oil and gas hungry China is also interested in Israel 's major energy resources. China is already Israel's chief trading partner in Asia as Netanyahu noted, and along with India can be expected to eclipse the EU as trade partners for Israel in the future. And the harbors and commercial railways Israel and China are now constructing linking Israel's Red Sea port of Eilat with its Mediterranean ports of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Haifa will change the nature of container shipping trade between Asia and the West, providing a cheaper and more stable alternative to the Suez Canal.

The two countries also share a number of cultural affinities as both Netanyahu and Liu mentioned, and security cooperation between two non-Muslim countries bracketed by restive Muslim populations is also a win for both nations.

Especially given the new, more pro-Israel government in India, look for the trend of Israel finding new best friends outside the U.S. to continue...yet another legacy of the Obama Regime.

Forum: What's The Biggest Change You've Noticed In America Over the Past 20 Years?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: What's The Biggest Change You've Noticed In America Over the Past 20 Years?

 The Independent Sentinel : In the last twenty years, America's Republic has been successfully attacked by far-left ideologues passing themselves off as mainstream Democrats, moderate Republicans, college intellectuals, journalists, religious people, and union and corporate leaders. They've infiltrated unions, political parties, churches, colleges, the media, corporations, government at all levels and they are slowly, successfully inalterably changing the way we think about freedom, morals, and individualism.

The majority of us no longer value rugged individualism, we are collectivists.

Morals are all relative. There is no evil, just excuses.

We no longer pride ourselves on self-reliance because we can get things for free; we invite people here for freebies and wonder why we have a nation of people expecting, no, demanding, to live off the government dole.

We have transformed Palestine into the image radical terrorist groups want us to have and we have made Israel into the enemy. We are cozy with the very people who want us dead and our values obliterated from the face of the earth.

Our representatives rob us of our freedoms and are making government into our god. As Mr. Obama accelerates the process, he is cheered by Democrats in Congress while too many Republicans look away.

People are losing their freedom of speech but because we don't like those people, it's okay. We can even send them to re-education camps if they have dissenting opinions or we can punish them severely for private conversations. We've replaced common sense with PC, which is just another tool to rob us of free speech.

They want our guns so we can truly be completely powerless victims.

Our privacy is gone.

States' rights are evaporating and there's little pushback.

Where once we considered anyone trying to tear down our capitalist system an enemy of the state, we now allow them to do their damage publicly. They are no longer vilified. They are mainstream and no one dare say anything out of PC-ism or out of fear we will be called conspiracy nuts.

Mr. Obama has said he is disarming us so we can never again be a powerful military force in the world, and Americans now like that idea as if all the hatred and violence aimed at us will go away if only we aren't mighty.

An absurd and extreme interpretation of climate warming - change - chaos - disruption allows the government to steal private land, close coal plants, greatly restrict oil and gas and gives full rein to a corrupt green energy industry. It is lowering our standard of living.

The rise of big government is driving us towards bankruptcy but we were so okay with it, we voted for its worse purveyor twice though some of our votes were to atone for slavery and civil rights abuses in a warped notion of justice.

Our leaders lie to us and spread propaganda, our Supreme Court acknowledges it but is comfortable with a certain level of it, and Americans don't seem to care all that much. Mr. Obama will tell lie-after-lie, seriously impacting our way of life, destroying our healthcare system, and he will violate law after law without much opposition. His popularity and the popularity of the Democrats has suffered little. He released tens of thousands of criminal illegals - his voting block - and it's hardly produced the anger it should be producing.

The outside forces of totalitarianism from every other nation in the world are closing in and we now accept tyranny from our own leaders.

We aren't even going to be Democratic Socialists at the end of this, it will be much worse and it won't be Utopia.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The Razor: If you want to see how things have changed watch Blazing Saddles, Airplane! or a few episodes of Hogan’s Heroes. Now imagine those movies and TV show being made today. If you’re like me you can’t. Why is that?

We now live in an age of social McCarthyism where we all must censor ourselves to avoid offending certain groups, although Christians, white men and Southerners can still be safely degraded or made fun of. As a writer I’ve found myself censoring myself more today than at any other time in the past 20 years to avoid provoking needless firestorms of hatred. Self-censorship is a form of tyranny for writers and artists, and it is one that has grown over that time period.

What’s ironic is that while we have lost our freedom to express ourselves in regard to ideas, we do have more freedom to express our sexuality. But I don’t take comfort in that. Ideas are much more important than sex, and in a way sex is a distraction or safety valve along the lines of the Orwell’s 2 Minutes of Hate in 1984. Contrary to what Gender Studies professors might believe, no regime has ever been overthrown by a sexual revolution. No elite has been replaced, no economies liberalized. Such changes originate from ideas, and with those under siege by leftist censors (in contrary to 30 years ago when the censors were of the Right Tipper Gore excepted), everything is stagnating. As a result today’s art, be it music, movies, painting or what have you is complete rubbish. Can the stultifying political correctness that pervades our society today be blamed? Absolutely.

We live in a Victorian age of sorts, where opinions must be kept to ourselves unless they agree with everyone else’s. As a child in the 1970s I used to disparage that decade for being an era of high crime, high inflation, and bad music (Punk, New Wave and some art rock excepted). But now I remember that era and the ‘80s that followed as one where we had much more freedom to think and express ourselves in ways that are discouraged today. We live with mental straitjackets. It’s insidious and it disgusts me.

Simply Jews : As the time goes by, JFK (the airport, I mean) gets dirtier, the food less palatable, the employees get more hostile, and less and less of them speak English.

The Glittering Eye: I'm not sure this is what the question is getting at but I think the biggest changes I've seen are a consequence of the World Wide Web, specifically the availability of broadband Internet connections affordable for the average business or home user.

Those have changed the way we interact with each other, the way we do business, the way we work, way we shop, the way we learn, and the way we play.

Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain

Ask Marion : After making a list of everything that has changed over the past 20+years, it came to me that what is really missing is hope and the average American’s turn inwards instead of outward that it caused; virtually everything else is intertwined or a symptom of our loss of hope and then our reaction to it; a process that slowly began closer to 60 years ago that has come to fruition in the past 20-years… and even more so for many people after President Obama’s promises turned out to be lies.

Taking a country of people, who felt they saved the world in the name of freedom, after WWI and WWII and lived through the most amazing 100 years of change and inventions in all of history combined, to where we find ourselves today is a long process and was certainly no accident.

The evil that lies at the heart of those that aim to control the rest of us… the ruling elite, the globalists, the NWO proponents who spawn ideologies and oppressive systems like Progressivism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Statism … never rests and slowly whittles away at every attempt by the common man to rule himself or even to have input that blocks their paths. The Great American Experiment was their greatest thorn. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams warned us… in order for a republic to survive you must have an educated and engaged populace. We have been neither for far too long!

The Babyboomers, indulged as they (we) were by parents and grandparents of ‘the greatest generation’ who wanted to spare their kids from the hard times and realities they lived through, thought they could change the world… Then they changed focus and thought they would all be rich and successful, spoiling and simultaneously hovering over their children along the way, and now many of them find themselves without savings, without pensions and either taking care of their aging parents and jobless children or having to move in with their parents because they have lost their own home… leaving few with hope, feelings of accomplishment or even a possibility of ever retiring. As a group, the Babyboomers went from Spoiled Dreamers to Hippies, to Yuppies, to Helicopter Parents and Grandparents to disenchanted Seniors who may never retire.

Fast forward to the Millennials, ages 18 to 34, many of whom have several degrees and the student loans sans jobs to pay them to prove it, who voted for President Obama en mass, and you find a group even more disillusioned with government than those boomers who worked and voted for Nixon after giving 18-year-olds the vote were after Watergate.

If we look back over the past 20-years, the past 50-years, there have been more disappointments than moments that stirred Americans’ patriotism and dared them to dream. And politics aside, of all the presidents during that time, only Ronald Reagan inspired us as a nation with both his words and his actions and didn’t disappoint us with a scandal, something that was evident by the throngs of Americans of all ages and from both parties that lined the streets of Ronald Reagan’s funeral procession after having been out of office and out of the public eye for so many years.

What should have happened to people who had so much and lived in a country full of possibilities is that we reached out to each other, joined hands and got involved in our communities, in politics, in our kids’ education and in our churches. Instead we became isolated and pulled away from community activities, politics and hands-on involvement in our schools… and we stopped going to church. We have also let the Internet, social media and electronics rob us of the conversations and the rich values of personal interaction; many Millennials prefer texting to talking. Letters have been reduced to a #hashtag. We stopped instilling the values and traditions that made our country great and we focused on ourselves, thought we could manage our own little worlds and we filled our spare time with mind-numbing activities that helped dumb us and our children down… all supported by the under-current of those with a Progressive agenda, the Alinskyites, the focused parents and grandparents of those who are in power today.

Courage like love must have hope for nourishment; somehow Americans lost their hope and along with it their courage and drive to fight back! The change hope would bring could save America… the question is can we dig deep enough to find it and elect the politicians that would bring real hope and change in time for the elections of 2014 and 2016?

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” …Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 JoshuaPundit: There are a number of changes I could mention..but to me the biggest single change is digital electronics. It has been both a blessing and a curse, and frankly I'm not sure which way the scales tilt.

The positives are obvious - simply being able to do a search and access a large amount of knowledge on any topic imaginable is incredible. And it has been a major source of commerce.

The negatives are immense,and not nearly so obvious.Privacy is a thing of the past, and monitoring the population in a way Hitler or Stalin could only have dreamed of is a reality. Our freedom has decreased a great deal as a result.The American people have turned inward and the internet has been used effectively to spread propaganda and even slander of individuals as well as information, with the line between the two getting fuzzier each day.Objective journalism is largely disappearing and the 24 hour news cycle the internet made possible has infected our politics to the point where we now live with a permanent campaign.

Digital electronics has also been a major boon to crime (there's a whole new category of so-called cyber-crime) plagiarism, copyright infringement and pornography, which has also infected the culture in negative ways. As a side note (pun intended), it pretty much destroyed the music business in terms of both livelihood and actual content, aided by the greed of the corporate interests that essentially purchased the industry.

The biggest negative to me is that digital electronics have made us incredibly dependent and vulnerable. At this point,communications, commerce, the food supply, power, transportation, banking, the very functioning of our society are centered around the idea of a bunch of little microchips working correctly. I don't believe we have ever had a technological advance before that society was this dependent on, together with such limited safeguards against misuse or even major assaults like an EMP attack. Let's hope our luck holds.

GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD :It's the tolerance for intolerance. Ad Hominum argumentum versus any true debates. Getting called all kind of phobic or racecardist names when e'r one has some worthy points to point out about the worthiness or worthlessness of ideas shoots down debate faster than a WWI observation balloon.


Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

A Coup In Libya? Looks Like it

 

Since President Obama's  ill advised U.S. war in Libya to overthrow Moamar Khadaffi and protect  al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood Islamists headquartered in Benghazi, the country has effectively been a basket case, not really a state at all.

The weaponry Khaddaffi had stockpiled in his arsenals went to the jihadis and was used in Mali, in Sinai, in Algeria and inSyria. Various terrorist militias have taken over different parts of the country, The parliamentary government based in Tripoli has no control over the rest of the country, and the rule of law is pretty much non-existent.

Literally thousands of Libyans have died because President Obama's Libyan adventure, as as renowned reporter Eli Lake reported, al-Qaeda and various Islamist militias have now made it their home base. Aside from Ansar al-Sharia,the al-Qaeda allied militia that attacked the Benghazi consulate, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Algerian jihadis the Al-Mulathameen Brigade, part of the forces of Algerian terrorist Mokhtar BelMokhtar have all established bases and turf in Libya.

The easy availability of weapons and ammo, the easily penetrated borders high unemployment among young man and the absence of a functioning police force or national army have all made Libya into “Scumbag Woodstock”, as Lake quoted a U.S. military contractor calling it, because of the A-list of jihadis whom now call it home.

That may be changing, and the actors involved are the same one as in Egypt, the military.

A Libyan commander, Gen. Khalifa Hifter moved troops under his command suspended parliament Sunday after earlier leading a military assault against lawmakers in Tripoli.

Gen. Mokhtar Farnana, speaking on a Libyan television channel on behalf of Hifter’s troops announced that they had set up a 60-member constituent’s assembly ( whatever that meant) to take over for parliament. Farnana said Libya’s current government would act on as an 'emergency Cabinet'. He also said Sunday’s attack on Libya’s parliament was not a coup, but “fighting by the people’s choice.”

“We announce to the world that the country can’t be a breeding ground or an incubator for terrorism,” said Farnana, who wore a military uniform and sat in front of Libya’s flag.

Gen.Hifter, a one-time rebel commander, led troops backed by truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns, mortars and RPGs to literally attack parliament, which of course promptly vacated the premises.

Hifter is mainly said to be targeting al-Qaeda and Islamist lawmakers whom he blames for Libya's status as a failed state. He's reportedly backed by members of the al-Qaaqaa and Sawaaq militias, the largest in Tripoli.

Needless to say, the current unelected Libyan parliament were not pleased by this turn of events.

“The government condemns the expression of political opinion through the use of armed force,” Libyan Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani said in a statement. “It calls for an immediate end of the use the military arsenal … and calls on all sides to resort to dialogue and reconciliation.”

That'll learn 'em. Meanwhile, Hifter's troops have set up checkpoints at various strategic locations in Tripoli, including the roads to the airport.

Hifter's forces also made an attack on Benghazi, killing at least 70 people.

Libya is a highly tribal country, and the various militias are mostly tribally based. The country is split between Islamist and non-Islamist factions with various militias allied with each.

Interestingly enough,Gen. Hifter is himself an Easterner who hails from Benghazi but was also Khaddaffi's military chief of staff before he turned against him and joined the opposition.

This suggests to me that he might have enough widespread support to put together some kind of centralized government, which is what a lot of Libyans are craving right now anyway. At any rate,what they ended up with thanks to Barack Obama obviously isn't working.

We'll see what happens...stay tuned.

More Good News On India - Modi And The BJP Are Strongly Pro Israel!

 

As I reported previously, India has moved decisively to the Right in its new elections, with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)winning by a landslide large enough to preclude the BJP having to form a coalition.

India's economy has stagnated, with the growth rate slowed, inflation as a major problem and massive corruption and over-regulation from India's bureaucracy. And ineffectual leadership by the quasi-socialist Congress party was also a major campaign issue. This sounds suspiciously like the United States at the end of the Carter years.

The BJP and India's new prime Minister Narendra Modi, considered the right wing of Indian polics, ran on economic growth, a pro-business administration, fiscal responsibility, a more muscular foreign policy and clean, honest government.

Part of that will almost certainly be increased and stronger ties with Israel, since Modi and the BJP have a strongly pro-Israel stance.


One of the things Modi campaigned on was his record of economic success as Chief Minister of Gujarat State, something Israel had an important role in:

Part of his success was due to a public relations campaign and financial incentives to encourage investment in development within Gujarat. Israel was reportedly one of Modi's greatest allies in economic progress according to the International Business Times. He has visited Israel in the past and has publicly supported it.

Modi came to power as leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has supported his close political and financial ties with Israel, who invested billions of dollars in Gujarat during Modi's time as its leader.

Not only was Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu one of the first world leaders to call Modi to congratulate him on his victory, but Israel and Modi have a personal history because of his virtual ostracizing by the Obama Administration and the EU:

Though popular throughout much of the nation for his charisma and economic success, Modi is a highly controversial political figure since riots in 2002 in Gujarat when 1,200 people were killed in violence between Hindus and Muslims. (NB - for the  most part, this was determined to be mostly Muslim on Hindu rioting)

Modi was accused of complicity in the violence and though he was absolved of all accusations by India's Supreme Court, the US and European countries rejected visas for Modi in sanctions meant to punish the leader for not doing enough to end the violence.

Israel gained Modi as a business partner and political supporter when he saw that attempting to find financial investment from the US and Europe wasn't politically viable.

Yet, it isn't only for financial gain that Israel finds itself naturally partnered with Modi's BJP. Anti-Pakistan and anti-Islamic rhetoric from BJP officials over the years has drawn India closer to Israel politically and ideologically as they also search for ways to cooperate in fighting terrorism.

Israel's relationship with India has always been friendly, (you can travel to Goa and other cities in India and see signs in Hebrew because of all the Israeli tourists) and Israel remains India's chief supplier of military hard ware. But the relationship was always tempered by two things - the need of the Congress Party's coalition to cater politically to India's Muslim minority, about 10% of the population and the need for oil and gas to fuel India's economy.

Modi and the BJP have no need to enter into that kind of coalition politically, Israel is a promising new source of oil and gas as well as badly needed investment and the two countries, both surrounded by more or less hostile Muslim states are natural allies against Islamist terrorism.

I predicted some time ago that  the Obama Administration's attitude towards the American-Israeli relationship would lead to Israel finding some new best friends overseas.  Watch as Israel's relationship with China continues to warm up as well.

Peaceful Palestinians Firebomb School Bus Full Of Jewish Girls

There's all kinds of media for the two Palestinians shot by Israeli soldiers while participating in a violent 'Nakba Day' riot. The same goes for the non-violent vandalism of 'price tag' incidents, a number of which have been traced back to the Arabs themselves as the perpetrators.

But here's something you won't about anywhere but one place...the firebombing of a school bus full of Jewish school girls,  sixth-graders out on a field trip.

The girls were on a school trip to Hebron to visit the Cave of Machpela, where Abraham and Sara are buried Hebron is one of the oldest Jewish communities in history  until it was ethnically cleansed by the Arabs in 1929, when the Arab residents of the town turned on their neighbors on orders of the British appointed Grand Mufti and began raping and murdering them - while the British troops who were supposed to be keeping order did absolutely nothing to stop them.




The Israeli's peace partners set up a well planned ambush and targeted the clearly marked school bus as it returned from Hebron. One of the mothers on the bus described what happened:
.
"This was a bat mitzva trip that had been approved by the Ministry of Education, which included a visit to Rachel's Tomb. The buses were bulletproofed and had an armed guard,” she said.

Chananel, the woman's son, whose sister had been on the bus, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday: “Three firebombs exploded on the bus. It was a direct hit. The bus was engulfed in flames and the girls and the mothers in the bus screamed, cried, leaned down toward the floor. There was a smell of burnt plastic.

"This time, it ended without injury. The driver stepped on the gas and the bus was fortified. The traumatic effects are not known at this point... I don't even want to write how it could have ended."

Yes, this time. Others haven't been so lucky. Meanwhile, Israel gets demonized just for building homes. 

The israelis are looking for the four bombers.Needless to say, the Palestinian Authority claims to know nothing about it and as always, will never arrest anyone for killing or attempting to kill a Jew.

These are the sort of people the Obama Administration, the Eu and the UN are salivating to give a state to - violent, hateful barbarians who think targeting and murdering children is a holy act. This is what your tax dollars finance. These are the sort of people they expect Israel share a border with..'two states, living in peace next to each other.'

That's the narrative - and that's why you won't hear about it. (H/T Professor Bill At Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion )

India Changes Hands

 

This is a very important story you're not hearing much about.

India's government has changed hands radically as the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the elections in a landslide, displacing the Congress party coalition that had ruled the world's most populous democracy for a decade. This was a massive election that took five weeks and involved tallying over 550 million votes.

Not only did the BJP win decisively,but they apparently have won enough mandates in India's 543 seat lower house, the the Lok Sabha to rule without having to form a coalition (The Lok Sabha is diorectly elected by India's people, while the upper house, the Rajya Sabha consists of members appointed by India's president and elected by thv ariuose state and territorial legislatures).

This means that India's Prime Minister will be Narendra Modi.

 

In his victory speech, he pledged to create a “shining India” that will make the 21st century “India’s century.”

“India’s social differences will come together and make a flag, just like different threads come together to weave a cloth,” Modi said. “People rose above caste rhetoric, a new foundation has been laid and will build a new shining India in the coming days.”

Modi is from one of India's lower castes.

Some of the key issues in the election were corruption, economic stagnation and ineffectual leadership by the quasi-socialist Congress party. India's growth rate has slowed, inflation is a major problem and investment has been curtailed by corruption and over-regulation from India's bureaucracy.

Modi promised voters a pro-business administration, fiscal responsibility, a more muscular foreign policy and clean , honest government.His record of economic growth in his home state of Gujarat was amjor selling point. His election sent the Indian stock market, the Sensex, soaring, and the rupee strengthened against the dollar.

A key question is how the Obama Administration is going to get along with Modi and the BJP. Relations between America and India plummeted to a new low.

One of the first things President did was to hammer on the Indian government about how they needed to 'make a settlement on Kashmir'. This shocked the Indians, who responded forcefully that the status quo was fine as far as they were concerned and the president (this is almost a direct quote) was 'barking up the wrong tree. He further angered them by excluding India from any meaningful input on Afghanistan, and by making a disgraceful deal with terrorist David Headly, AKA Daood Gilani. Headly, you might remember was the 'point man' for the hideous 2011 Mumbai terrorist attacks promulgated by Lashkar-e-Tiaba and Pakistan's ISI, scouting out targets in advance and recording coordinates for the terrorists on a GPS. The Obama Administration refused to even let Indian intel interrogate Headly directly, let alone extradite him. The President's conduct while in India where he refused to visit the Golden Temple further alienated India, and the recent disrespectful handling and arrest of one of India's diplomats last December in New York pretty much destroyed whatever was left of any good relations between India's previous Singh government and the U.S.

The Obama Administration has similar problems with Modi, mainly because the BJP's Hindu Nationalist stance was felt to be 'anti-Islamic'. However, the president took the initiative to telephone Modi, congratulate him on his election and invite him to visit the United States.

In a sense, Modi appears to be on the path to be India's Reagan. A populist, he faces the same challenges in many ways economically that President Reagan did, and his historic election appears to have been sparked by the same issues.

This is an historic change for India, and hopefully one for the better.

Obama Dept. Of Agriculture SWATS Up With Machine Guns And Body Armor

Under this president, over 70 federal bodies have put together heavily armed SWAT teams, complete with automatic weaponry, drones, MRAPS and other accouterments suited for waging what amounts to domestic warfare. It's already a matter of record that these agencies,including Fish and Game and the EPA have ordered billions of rounds of ammunition and the DHS has ordered training targets designed to 'overcome resistance' to shooting fellow civilian citizens.

The latest buy involves the Federal Department of Agriculture, who also now has their own SWAT team and as some of you know, recently ordered a bunch of submachine guns with 30-round magazines.

Their latest acquisition? Body armor to go along with their new firepower:

A May 7th solicitation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeks "the commercial acquisition of ballistic vests, compliant with NIJ 0101.06 for Level IIIA Ballistic Resistance of body armor."

According to the solicitation, "The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General," seeks "Body Armor [that] is gender specific, lightweight, [having] trauma plate/pad (hard or soft), [and] concealable carrier." The order includes "tactical vest, undergarment (white), identification patches, accessories (6 pouches), body armor carry bag, and professional measurements."

"All responsible and/or interested sources may submit their company name, point of contact, and telephone number." The solicitation says those sources received in a "timely" manner "shall be considered by the agency for contact."

Now, ask yourself. Why on earth would the Department of Agriculture need a heavily armed SWAT team?

My guess would be that none of these governmental SWAT teams have anything to do with the actual purpose of their agencies, but are designed to operate as that domestic security force President Obama said way back when that he wants in place of our military, 'just as well trained, just as well funded':



The thought also comes to mind..is the Obama Administration planning on taking over agriculture, perhaps even instituting food rationing of some kind?

If a government controls food, medical care, transportation and communications, it controls the populace. Medical care is already under control, and the president already has the authority to shut down the internet whenever he wants. And transportation is the easiest to control of all.

The only thing left is food..that, and disarming the populace while putting a heavily armed domestic 'security force' on the streets to 'keep order'.

Far fetched? Unlikely? Perhaps. But definitely possible, especially considering what's going on in Washington these days.

An Interesting Point On Benghazi That May Prove The WH Is Lying

Here's an interesting point that may just prove once and for all that the Obama White House is lying about what went on in Benghazi.

I've mentioned a number of times on this site that aside from phone contact and real time camera feeds from the consulate, there was an ex-Navy SEAL at the CIA annex well within sight of the consulate with a laser site calling in coordinates for targets.Now, my first impression was that he was calling in targets for what he thought would be forthcoming U.S. aid or to target the jihadis for a line of fire from the annex.

Fox News is finally reporting on this:

The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Specter gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours — enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive.


But BlackFive raises an excellent point that didn't occur before to me (emphasis mine):

Having a back and forth with a former legendary Delta operator. Here is the gist of what he is implying:

Having spent a good bit of time nursing a GLD (ground Laser Designator) in several garden spots around the world, something from the report jumped out at me.

One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target. That means that Specter WAS ON STATION! Probably an AC130U. A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser. You do not "paint" a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station.

Only two places could have called off the attack at that point; the WH situation command (based on POTUS direction) or AFRICOM commander based on information directly from the target area.

If the AC130 never left Sigonella (as Penetta says) that means that the Predator that was filming the whole thing was armed.

(NB: Which clears up something I had been wondering about, by the way..why send an unarmed drone to a terrorist attack? Obviously, if this is true than it wasn't an unarmed drone as we were told by the White House)

If that SEAL was actively "painting" a target; something was on station to engage! And the decision to stand down goes directly to POTUS!

Unless, of course the commander-in-chief was otherwise engaged and voted present. That, actually has always been my innate feeling about this. I don't think the White House deliberately left the SEALs to die (although Ambassador Stevens might have been a different matter). As then SecDef Leon Panetta said, the president 'left it up to us'. President Obama never issued the directive he claimed he did, which is why there's no record of it. Instead, he was simply absent for whatever reason, or unwilling to give the necessary orders. And neither Panetta nor any of the others were able to get the authority to order our assets to attack the jihadis during that crucial 4 hours when the men on the rooftop of that CIA annex stood them off alone, waiting for help that never came.

If this is true, there are people in the military who know it...the members of the platform crew who were receiving calls for assistance, had a clear target marked out for them and would have been ordered by someone to stand down. There are also videos, communications records and phone logs..all of which have been marked classified by the Obama Administration.

This would seem to be a fruitful area for the Benghazi House select committee to get its teeth into.