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Israel anticipates a big war with Hezbollah. Again, should this occur, it will be another attempt by Iran to take the pressure off its nuclear program while, at the same time, trying to send a crushing blow to Israel. (See 1 below.)
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A bucket list from a friend and fellow memo reader who believes most everyone, regardless of their political stripe, might support. (See 2 below.)
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What really seems to be the case, regarding the IRS Scandal, is there is no smidgen of e mails because they were all lost, destroyed or whatever. (See 3 below.)
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A good and decent man, Truett Cathy, founder of Chick fil A, died today. I went to Ga. Military Academy in College Park (suburb of Atlanta) and, when I could, I would go to The Dwarf House - his initial restaurant.
Chick fil A serves wonderful food, priced appropriately and Cathy was and his son is true to their religious calling. Their company and franchisee's close on Sunday and the family has given millions to good and worthy causes.
RIP Mr. Cathy. You set a great example of what it means to be a great Christian.
Liberal Hollywood types poured out for Joan Rivers' burial. Common folk will most probably attend Mr. Cathy's. (See 4 below.)
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Based on what I have been reading, Obama's Wednesday speech will make the following points. You can use these for reference:
a) Has he will finally come around to what he told us that terrorists are no longer a threat since he told us they had been defeated. Has he already begun the wiggle process by defending his past views and expressions, ie. ISIS was not referred to as a JV Team! (See 5 below.)
b) He will state we cannot do what needs to be done without other Muslim nations, Sunnis, Shias and Kurds joining our coalition. Can he form such a coalition and why, if you were a ruler of a Muslim nation why would you follow this president based on his history?
c) Destroying ISIS will take a long time. Will take longer if he does not fight to win.
d) He will ask for U.S Taxpayer money from Congress to fight a Muslim Civil War involving the security of Middle East Muslim nations as much as ours.
e) He will reiterate, no American troops will do any fighting as we expand our air attacks. A sign he tells our enemy more about what we will not do than what we will. (See 5a below.)
Because Obama disregarded the red lines he drew regarding Syria, chose not to lead in Libya, was wrong about the Muslim Brotherhood, was totally wrong about withdrawing from Iraq, was also wrong about terrorists having been defeated, ignored what he was told about the ISIS build-up over a year ago and ignored it and has demonstrated contempt for our sole ally in that region, Israel;, now he comes, with his tail between his legs, and expects me to trust and have confidence in what he proposes.
P.T.Barnum was not my father but he might as well have been because I ain't buying much of anything from President "Optics!"
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Dick
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Author: Times of Israel staff
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Just 10 days after a ceasefire ended a 50-day Israel-Hamas conflict, the Israeli army is “making plans and training” for “a very violent war” against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, an Israeli TV report said Friday night, without specifying when this war might break out.
The report, for which the army gave Israel’s Channel 2 access to several of its positions along the border with Lebanon, featured an IDF brigade commander warning that such a conflict “will be a whole different story” from the Israel-Hamas conflict in which over 2,000 Gazans (half of them gunmen according to Israel) and 72 Israelis were killed. “We will have to use considerable force” to quickly prevail over the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, “to act more decisively, more drastically,” said Colonel Dan Goldfus, commander of the 769th Hiram Infantry Brigade.
The report said Hezbollah has an estimated 100,000 rockets — 10 times as many as were in the Hamas arsenal — and that its 5,000 long-range missiles, located in Beirut and other areas deep inside Lebanon, are capable of carrying large warheads (of up to 1 ton and more), with precision guidance systems, covering all of Israel.
Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defense system would not be able to cope with that kind of challenge, and thus the IDF would have to “maneuver fast” and act forcefully to prevail decisively in the conflict, Goldfus said.
Pictured left: IDF brigade commander Dan Goldfus (screen capture: Channel 2)
Goldfus said it might be necessary to evacuate the civilian residents of the area. “Hezbollah will not conquer the Galilee (in northern Israel),” the officer said, “and I won’t let it hurt our civilians.”
He said that anyone who thought Hezbollah was in difficulties because it has sustained losses fighting with President Bashar Assad in Syria is mistaken. The report noted, indeed, that Hezbollah has now accumulated three years of battlefield experience, and has greater military capabilities and considerable confidence as a consequence.
Pictured left: Channel 2 illustration of potential rocket fire on Israel from southern Lebanon (screen capture: Channel 2)
Pictured left: Channel 2 illustration of potential rocket fire on Israel from southern Lebanon (screen capture: Channel 2)
The report said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2012 that, in a future war against Hezbollah, Israel would have to hit homes in villages across southern Lebanon from which Hezbollah would seek to launch rockets into Israel.
As with Hamas in Gaza, the report said there were concerns that Hezbollah has also been tunneling under the Israeli border ahead of planned attacks. A deputy local council chief, Yossi Adoni of the Ma’aleh Yosef Council, said dozens of border-area residents have reported the sounds of tunneling under their homes since 2006 — when Israel and Hezbollah fought a bitter conflict known as the Second Lebanon War. “We are absolutely certain there are cross-border tunnels,” Adoni said.
Pictured left: Hezbollah fighters attending a rally in Beirut, November, 2011.
(photo credit: AP/Bilal Hussein)
Pictured left: Hezbollah fighters attending a rally in Beirut, November, 2011.
(photo credit: AP/Bilal Hussein)
“There could be,” noted Goldfus, describing the tunnel threat as “one more concern… If in Gaza there were tunnels, it stands to reason that it’s possible here too.” Israel’s launched a ground offensive in Gaza in mid-July to destroy some 30 Hamas tunnels dug under the border; 11 IDF soldiers were killed during the Israel-Hamas war by gunmen emerging from the tunnels inside Israel.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I think most Americans - Republican - Democrat - Libertarian will agree with at least 75% of this list.
MY BUCKET LIST FOR 2014,15,16...
We are getting old and our tickers aren't what they used to be...so here is Our Special Bucket List for 2014,15,16....
HERE IS ALL WE WANT...
1. Obama: Gone!And NO Clinton in his place ! ! !
2. Put "GOD" back in America !!!
3. Borders: Closed!
4. Congress: On the same retirement & healthcare plans as everybody else .
5. Congress: Obey its own laws NOW!
6. Language: English only!
7. Culture: Constitution, and the Bill of Rights!
8. Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before & during Welfare!
9. NO freebies to Non-Citizens!
10. Balance the budget.
11. Stop giving away our money to foreign countries! Charge them for our help! We need it here.
12. Fix the TAX CODE!
And most of all.
13. "RESPECT OUR MILITARY AND OUR FLAG!!"
3)
This admission dropped late Friday in a classic news dump -- the purpose of which is to bury a damaging story over the course of a weekend. There was zero chance we'd allow this update to the IRS scandal to slip our minds, however. The preposterous and insulting cover-up continues apace, reports the Associated Press:
More wildly improbable "crashes," which we're blithely assured were not deliberate in nature. This time, the coincidental malfunctions afflicted a number of agents from the infamous Cincinnati office, which was initially and falsely scapegoated by DC higher-ups as the source of a narrow, local scandal. (Astonishingly, the president has continued to cling to this thoroughly debunked talking point, blaming "bone-headed" decisions by "local" employees" as recently as this year). Darrell Issa is right to say that merely trying to keep up with the IRS' ever-changing explanations and excuses is a Herculean task unto itself. Here's my stab at a Cliffs Notes version of the acrobatics performed over the last four months alone:
What we're witnessing is a powerful and feared arm of the federal government systematically punishing its ideological opponents over two election cycles, crudely destroying the evidence of its actions after the fact, and having a good laugh as it serves up risible and contradictory public excuses, even as virtually no one believes them. The IRS lied about the targeting as it occurred, lied about how the abuse was finally disclosed, lied about who was responsible for it, and lied about their efforts to secure and retrieve missing evidence. The White House changed its story nearly half a dozen times about how and when it was informed of the practice, and the administration transitioned abruptly from pro formaexpressions of outrage to a messaging strategy of smirking mockery and dismissal. Democrats ridiculed angry conservatives as conspiracy theorists fixated on a "phony scandal," muddying the waters by claiming that liberal groups were similarly targeted. (They were not). The president glibly shrugged that there's nothing to see here, declaring that not even "a smidgen of corruption" had infected the IRS. The active perpetrators of the wrongful targeting campaign and its political beneficiaries seem supremely confident that their ongoing stonewall will hold. They appear smugly convinced that serious consequences will be evaded -- thanks, at least in part, to a mainstream media whose short attention span is compounded by the realty that they're simply not especially concerned with demanding accountability over an egregious abuse-of-power scandal that endangers their preferred political party.
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4) S. Truett Cathy dies at 93; rose from poverty to build Chick-fil-A
Billionaire Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy, who rose from poverty by building a privately-held restaurant chain that famously closes every Sunday but drew unwanted attention for the Cathy family's opposition to gay marriage, died Monday at his home in suburban Atlanta. He was 93.
The company announced his death but did not disclose the cause.
Cathy opened his first postwar diner in an Atlanta suburb in 1946 and by 1967 he had founded and opened his first Chick-fil-A Inc. restaurant in Atlanta. Over ensuing decades, the chain's boneless chicken sandwich he is credited with inventing would propel Chick-fil-A expansion to more than 1,800 outlets in 40 states and the District of Columbia. By early 2013, annual sales topped $5 billion as the chain offered up a taste of the South that went beyond chicken to such offerings as sweet tea, biscuits and gravy.
Under the religiously conservative founder, the chain gained prominence for its Bible Belt observance of Sunday — none of its restaurants are open on that day, to allow employees a day of rest. Its executives often said the chain made as much money in six days as its competitors do in seven.
Those religious views helped win Cathy and his family a loyal following from conservative customers, but also invited protests when Cathy's son defended the company's donations to groups campaigning against gay marriage.
Cathy's son, Dan, who is currently chairman and president of the chain, told the Baptist Press in 2012 that the company was "guilty as charged" for backing "the biblical definition of a family." Gay rights groups and others called for boycotts and kiss-ins at Cathy's restaurants. The controversy later subsided.
Cathy's $6 billion fortune as the founder of Chick-fil-A puts him on the yearly Forbes magazine list of the wealthiest Americans in the country.
Samuel Truett Cathy was born March 14, 1921, in Eatonton, Ga., and grew up poor in Atlanta.
"I've experienced poverty and plenty, and there's a lesson to be learned when you're brought up in poverty," he said in 2007. "I had to create some good work habits and attitude."
An opportunity in 1961 led to the development of the restaurant chain's trademark chicken sandwich when a company that cooked boneless, skinless chicken for airline meals wanted to sell him pieces that were too big for the airline customer's needs. Cathy took those pieces and cooked them in a pressure cooker and served them in buttered buns.
The sandwich was sold at independent restaurants for a few years before he opened his first Chick-fil-A restaurant at an Atlanta shopping mall in 1967.
The author of several books, his 2007 book "How Did You Do It, Truett?" outlined his strategy for success that included setting priorities, being courteous, cautiously expanding a business and not being burdened with debt.
"There's really no secret for success," he said then. "I hope it will open eyes for people. They don't have to follow my recipe, but this is what works for me."
Cathy is survived by his wife of 65 years, Jeannette McNeil Cathy; sons Dan T. and Don "Bubba" Cathy; daughter Trudy Cathy White; 19 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.
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5) Truth Revolt
A project of the David Horowitz Freedom CenterAC
ACPolitiFact: Obama Lied To Chuck Todd When He Said 'JV Team' Comment Wasn't About ISISAC
Washington Post Fact Checker Agrees
By Jeff Dunetz
When asked about his "JV team" statement in an interview aired on "Meet the Press" Sunday, President Obama denied that the characterization was about ISIS. The checkers at "PolitiFact called the President's denial a lie.
During a discussion about the president's strategy for dealing with ISIS, new "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd said that Obama’s response to the terrorist group was a "long way from when you described them as a JV team," and asked, "Was that bad intelligence or your misjudgment?"
Obama responded by denyingt hat he was talking about ISIS/ISIL:
Obama: Keep in mind I wasn’t specifically referring to ISIL. I've said that, regionally, there were a whole series of organizations that were focused primarily locally, weren’t focused on homeland, because I think a lot of us, when we think about terrorism, the model is Osama bin Laden and 9/11.
PolitiFact did a little digging into the original source of the JV comment, a New Yorker profile of Obama by editor David Remnick, and came to a different conclusion:
The New Yorker published Remnick’s profile on Jan. 27, 2014. In it, he wrote, "In the 2012 campaign, Obama spoke not only of killing Osama bin Laden; he also said that Al Qaeda had been ‘decimated.’ I pointed out that the flag of Al Qaeda is now flying in Fallujah, in Iraq, and among various rebel factions in Syria; Al Qaeda has asserted a presence in parts of Africa, too."
Obama responded: "The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant." (For the nonsports fan, JV stands for junior varsity, and it usually means a high school or college's secondary team.)
Remnick confirmed to PolitiFact that the interview took place on Jan. 7 and he was referencing a specific event that had happened just days before: the overtaking of the Iraq city of Fallujah on Jan. 3.
At the time, Islamic State (often referred to as by its acronyms ISIS or ISIL) was not a household name. It was often referred to as an al-Qaeda-linked group in press reports. But reports from the time clearly indicate that the group was responsible for taking over the city.
Al Jazeera America reported on Jan. 4: "On Friday, ISIL gunmen sought to win over the population in Fallujah, one of the cities they swept into on Wednesday. A commander appeared among worshippers holding Friday prayers in the main city street, proclaiming that his fighters were there to defend Sunnis from the government, one resident said." ‘We are your brothers from the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant,’ gunmen circulating through the city in a stolen police car proclaimed through a loudspeaker. ‘We are here to protect you from the government. We call on you to cooperate with us.’ "
Officials within the Iraqi government told the "Agence France-Presse that ISIL, the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, remained in control of parts of the two cities on Thursday," according to NBC.So when Remnick referenced an al Qaeda group taking over Fallujah, it’s clear whom he was talking about.
Adding to the evidence is the fact that on Aug. 25, when White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claimed Obama’s comment was being taken out of context and that the "president was not singling out" Islamic State in that interview, but rather Islamic extremist groups in general, Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post Fact Checker also called it a lie, giving it four Pinocchios.
Kessler compared Earnest's statement to a transcript of the conversation with Remnick provided to him.
Remnick: "You know where this is going, though. Even in the period that you’ve been on vacation in the last couple of weeks, in Iraq, in Syria, of course, in Africa, al-Qaeda is resurgent."
Obama: "Yes, but, David, I think the analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant. I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian."
Remnick: "But that JV team just took over Fallujah."
Obama: "I understand. But when you say took over Fallujah –"
Remnick: "And I don’t know for how long."
Obama: "But let’s just keep in mind, Fallujah is a profoundly conservative Sunni city in a country that, independent of anything we do, is deeply divided along sectarian lines. And how we think about terrorism has to be defined and specific enough that it doesn’t lead us to think that any horrible actions that take place around the world that are motivated in part by an extremist Islamic ideology is a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade into."
Both fact checkers believe that it is fairly clear that Obama was talking about ISIS. While Remnick did not use the word, ISIS, ISIL, or Islamic State in his question, he specifically asked about the group that took over Fallujah. The transcript backs this up, as do news events from the time of the discussion.
5a)Middle East expert: Just bombing ISIS won't cut it
By Russ Jones
An expert on the Middle East is criticizing President Obama's approach thus far against the Islamic State, saying it doesn't go far enough in confronting the militant group. - See more at: http://onenewsnow.com/national-security/2014/09/08/middle-east-expert-just-bombing-isis-wont-cut-it?utm_source=OneNewsNow&utm_medium=email&utm_term=16779150&utm_content=473900308710&utm_campaign=14763#.VA48R_RDuN0
Last week Barack Obama provided what some consider to be vague military actions against ISIS, even admitting "we don't have a strategy yet." In recent days, however, he claims he has enlisted nine allies to help fight ISIS – and over the weekend he stated his intent to outline a "game plan" on Wednesday to tackle the terrorist threat.
Dr. Andrew Bowen is the scholar for the Middle East at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. He explains military action alone isn't enough in regards to militant extremists.
"In order to fully defeat ISIS you need to provide the people in Syria an alternative future that is not returning to be ruled by President [Bashar] Assad or continuing chaos," Bowen tells OneNewsNow.
"So it's one thing to just strike them militarily, which would cause them to, say, retreat from parts of the border areas," he continues. "But if the only thing you do is bomb them and they leave, then they can easily continue to get recruits and they could be welcomed back in the future."
Bowen maintains that America's commander-in-chief doesn't serve as a real threat to ISIS.
Bowen
"By only targeting these groups in Iraq and ignoring the fact that they have training bases, recruiting, and a whole host of other opportunities in Syria, across the border, it could make it very easy for them to essentially continue to thrive without ... fearing any real threat from the United States," he adds.
All the president divulged on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday was that the U.S. is preparing to go "on some offense" against ISIS – and that it would make clear to Congress and the American people "what we are doing, but also what we're not doing."
President Obama's speech is slated for the eve of the 13th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
- See more at: http://onenewsnow.com/national-security/2014/09/08/middle-east-expert-just-bombing-isis-wont-cut-it?utm_source=OneNewsNow&utm_medium=email&utm_term=16779150&utm_content=473900308710&utm_campaign=14763#.VA48R_RDuN0
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