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To be frank, I have never particularly cared for Dick Morris. However, he was well connected when it comes to the Clinton's and though he no longer is one of their insiders, he does have a long history of following and being engaged with them. They no longer have any love lost between them. Morris.made this information public recently. (See 1 below.)
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This is how Obama will spend his remaining year in office. By working with federal agencies he will continue to impose his will through these agencies. By forcing these agencies to do his bidding and , engage in extensive over reach, Obama will continue to change America and mold it into a nation we will no longer be able to recognize. But then "what difference does it make" (See 2 below.)
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Three diverse and interesting articles. (See 3, 3a and 3b below.)
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Will the movie "13 Hours" along with the various FBI investigations finally drive a stake into Hillarious' campaign from which she cannot recover? Time will tell.
Americans are unique. They are generous, sentimental, slow to react but eventually come around. As we become an increasing melting pot of those who come more driven by economic reasons with less intent to Americanize, as with past immigrants, will what it means to be an American, change our character? Again, time will tell. (See 4 below.)
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Our air force cashes out ISIS. (See 5 below.)
and
Israel's sub fleet. (See 5a below.)
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This would have made a far better speech than Obama's SOTU: https://www.youtube.com/embed/
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The brainwashed will believe anything and that iswhy education, truth and logic are more important than ever. (See 6 below.)
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Strange how Obama constantly emphasizes how Muslims are always being attacked, need protection and we must respect Islam. Yet, there are far more attacks on Jews and Israelis than on Muslims and never a peep from our Prez..
Obama never mentions this because it would undercut his empathetic orthodox viewpoint. (See 7 below.)
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Off to Atlanta for a shower for the daughter of our very dear friends. Have a great weekend.
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Dick
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1)By Dick Morris, former political advisor to President Bill Clinton.
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If you happen to see the Bill Clinton five minute TV ad for Hillary in which he introduces the commercial by saying he wants to share some things we may not know about Hillary’s background, beware as I was there for most of their presidency and know them better than just about anyone. I offer a few corrections:
Bill says : "In law school Hillary worked on legal services for the poor."Facts are : Hillary’s main extra-curricular activity in 'Law School' was helping the Black Panthers, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a 'Federal Agent'.She went to Court every day as part of a Law student monitoring committee trying to spot civil rights violations and develop grounds for appeal.
=Bill says : "Hillary spent a year after graduation working on a Children's rights project for poor kids."Facts are : Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party. She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take an internship with him.
=Bill says : "Hillary could have written her own job ticket, but she turned down all the lucrative job offers."Facts are : She flunked the D.C. bar exam, 'Yes', flunked it, it is a matter of record, and only passed the Arkansas bar. She had no job offers in Arkansas, 'None', and only got hired by the University of Arkansas Law School at Fayetteville because Bill was already teaching there. She did not join the prestigious Rose Law Firm until Bill became Arkansas Attorney General and was made a partner only after he was elected Arkansas Governor.
=Bill says : "President Carter appointed Hillary to the Legal Services Board of Directors and she became its Chairman."Facts are : The appointment was in exchange for Bill's support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy. Hillary then became chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter's choice to be chairman.
=Bill says: "She served on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital."Facts are: Yes she did. But her main board activity, not mentioned by Bill, was to sit on the Wal-Mart Board of Directors, for a substantial fee. She was silent about their labor and health care practices.
=Bill says : "Hillary didn't succeed at getting health care for all Americans in 1994 but she kept working at it and helped to create the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provides five million children with health insurance."Facts are : Hillary had nothing to do with creating CHIP. It was included in the budget deal between Clinton and Republican Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott.I know; I helped to negotiate the deal. The money came half from the budget deal and half from the Attorney Generals' tobacco settlement. Hillary had nothing to do with either source of funds.
=Bill says: "Hillary was the face of America all over the World." (LOL)Facts are: Her visits were part of a program to get her out of town so that Bill would not appear weak by feeding stories that Hillary was running the White House. Her visits abroad were entirely touristic and symbolic and there was no substantive diplomacy on any of them.
=Bill says : "Hillary was an excellent Senator who kept fighting for Children's and Women's issues."Facts are : Other than totally meaningless legislation like changing the names on courthouses and post offices, she has passed only four substantive pieces of legislation.One set up a national park in Puerto Rico. A second provided respite care for family members helping their relatives through Alzheimer’s or other conditions.And two were routine bills to aid 911 victims and responders which were sponsored by the entire N.Y. delegation. Presently she is trying to have the US memorialize Woodstock.
========================================================================Here is what bothers me more than anything else about Hillary Clinton. She has done everything possible to weaken the President and our Country (that's you and me) when it comes to the 'War on Terror'.1. She wants to close GITMO and move the combatants to the USA where they would have access to our legal system.2. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of suspected Al Qaeda phone calls to/from the USA.3. She wants to grant constitutional rights to enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.4. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of money transfers between suspected Al Qaeda cells and supporters in the USA.5. She wants to eliminate the type of interrogation tactics used by the Military & CIA where coercion might be used when questioning known terrorists even though such tactics might save American lives.One cannot think of a single 'Bill', Hillary has introduced or a single comment she has made that would tend to strengthen our Country in the 'War on Terror'.But, one can think of a lot of comments she has made that weaken our Country and makes it a more dangerous situation for all of us.Bottom line: She goes hand in hand with the ACLU on far too many issues where common sense is abandoned.Share this with everyone you know, ask them to prove Dick Morris wrong.Think about it - he's (Dick Morris) said all of this openly, thus if he were not truthful he'd be liable for 'Defamation of Character' !And you better believe Hillary would sue him.Her winning in 2016 means the final death knell for America! Her whole public life has been a LIE.
2)
AFFH-world comes to Iowa
In discussing the radical implications of President Obama’s “Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing” rule (AFFH), I typically point to what happened in Westchester County, New York as a sneak preview. But Stanley Kurtz directs our attention to an even more chilling example — Dubuque, Iowa.
In Westchester County, Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development forced the local government to build low-income housing in an upscale community and to encourage people outside the County to move into these units. This struck me as radical, considering that moving people from jurisdiction to jurisdiction is a hallmark of totalitarian governance.
In Dubuque, however, the feds have taken this one step further. It is forcing the city to build low-income housing for folks in Chicago, Illinois.
Kurtz cites a report by Deborah Thornton, a policy analyst for Iowa’s Public Interest Institute:
The report tells the story of how Dubuque was pressured to cede large swathes of its governing authority to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has forced the city to direct its limited low-income “Section 8” housing resources, not to its own needy citizens, but to voucher-holders from Chicago.
Dubuque has plenty of needy citizens. As Kurtz points out, unlike Westchester County, it is not an upper-middle-class suburb, but rather a small and economically struggling city:
At $44,600, median income in Dubuque is well below the state median of $51,843. Like other nearby Mississippi river towns with aging populations, Dubuque is hard-pressed to provide good jobs and decent housing for the low-income people already there: poor families with children, retired elderly, and disabled adults.The city’s priority is to revive its economy by keeping its young people from moving away, and by attracting new residents who are willing and able to start businesses. Like any city, Dubuque’s first obligation is to see to the needs of the citizens who already live there, vote, and pay taxes. Or so it was in pre-AFFH America.
In AFFH-America, the federal government forces Dubuque to provide low-income housing for Chicago residents. Unlike, say, an elderly Dubuque resident, the folks from Chicago have never paid a dime of taxes in Dubuque. Their only claim on Dubuque’s resources is their low-income status and, of course, their race. In other words, they have no legitimate claim.
How, then, did they obtain the right to move into Dubuque housing units ahead of Dubuque residents? Kurtz explains:
Our story begins about eight years ago. Just as Dubuque was reeling from the effects of the 2008 recession and dealing with an uptick in its own low-income housing needs, the city was hit with a wave of “Section 8” low-income housing voucher applicants from Chicago. A few years earlier, Chicago had systematically demolished its most drug- and crime-ridden high-rise public housing facilities, using grants from HUD. Yet through its own mismanagement, Chicago had failed to properly replace its now depleted low-income housing stock, leaving many Chicago residents looking to use their Section 8 vouchers elsewhere.With many more Section 8 applicants than it could house, Dubuque instituted a low-income housing point system granting preference to Dubuque residents, county residents, state residents, and out-of-state residents, in that order. [Note: What could be more reasonable?] Although HUD’s rules ostensibly allow localities to craft their own housing priorities, Dubuque’s point system was deemed unacceptable by HUD. The feds undertook a review of Dubuque’s housing policy that effectively treated the city as part of greater Chicago.
That Dubuque is 200 miles from Chicago and in a different state was no obstacle to the Washington bureaucrats at HUD. To them, race trumps geography (and everything else):
[B]y effectively treating Dubuque and Chicago as part of the same “region,” HUD was able to declare Dubuque’s low-income housing point system discriminatory. Since the vast majority of Section 8 applicants from Chicago were African-Americans, Dubuque’s preferences for citizens of its own city, county, and state were deemed racist. HUD insisted that Dubuque would have to admit housing applicants in conformity with the demographics of the larger (HUD-defined) region.
How did HUD make its disregard of geography, common sense, and the right of local self-government stick?
Having previously accepted HUD funding through the Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) program, as well as HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program, Dubuque was formally obligated to “affirmatively further fair housing” in whatever way HUD defined that obligation. Refusal to submit to HUD’s dictates would have led to the withdrawal of federal funding, a lawsuit for supposed discrimination, or both.The cowed elected officials of Dubuque accordingly signed a “voluntary” (in truth, forced) consent agreement that effectively ceded control of the city’s housing policy to HUD for at least five years.
This is why Kurtz is calling for a nationwide campaign to persuade local officials not to accept HUD money. It’s a deal with devil for any locality that wishes to preserve its right of self-governance. As Kurtz points out:
The feds have essentially commandeered Dubuque to solve Chicago’s public housing shortage. HUD’s diktat also imposes a huge administrative burden on Dubuque, with monthly, quarterly, annual, and five-year plans to be filed and followed up on. (Yes, a “five-year plan.”) Having “voluntarily” consented to a federal takeover, Dubuque is now obligated to follow HUD’s every command for at least five years.
And this is what’s in store for the rest of the country under HUD’s AFFH rule. How unfortunate that Speaker Ryan caved on the Gosar Amendment that would have defunded AFFH.
To my knowledge, no GOP presidential candidate has injected AFFH into the race, despite its radical application in Iowa, where the first rest of candidate strength will occur very soon.
In fairness, Marco Rubio sponsored an equivalent of the Gosar Amendment in the Senate, and I’m told that Ted Cruz is aware of, and concerned about, this issue. It’s time, though, to push the matter into the presidential race. The upcoming GOP debate wouldn’t be a bad time for candidates to lay down a marker.
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Harakat al-Sabirin, an Iran-backed Palestinian jihadist organization, announced on Thursday that it had extended its operations from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank and Jerusalem. Hisham Salim, the group's founder, said, “We have an armed branch whose goal is to wage war on the Israeli occupation everywhere…Within this framework we have members in the West Bank and Jerusalem who will soon receive financial and military support from us.” The group, whose name means "movement of the patient ones," has a flag that is nearly identical to that of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist organization in Lebanon, depicting an outstretched arm clutching a rifle that is formed by the Arabic letter alef. Salim said the organization is directly financed by Iran and when asked about whether he was on the side of Saudi Arabia or Iran with regard to their current crisis in relations, he unambiguously stated that the group stands with Iran.
Journalist Ehud Yaari reported in September that the group, which splintered from Palestinian Islamic Jihad in 2014, is alleged to receive “an annual budget of $10 million from Iran, typically smuggled in suitcases through the tunnels along the border with Egypt.” In addition, Times of Israel correspondent Avi Issacharoff wrote in December, citing a Channel 2 report, that “Tehran is also channeling funds to woo recruits to the organization through the familiar path of philanthropy…school equipment and household goods [are] purchased with Iranian money for needy Gazans.” Some of the goods bore a photo of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The group’s publications have referred to the U.S. as “the source of superpower terrorism.” While Salim is careful to deny claims that he is Shiite, he has said in the past that “the road to the liberation of Palestine goes through Karbala,” a Shiite holy city in Iraq.
In December, al-Sabirin claimed responsibility for the detonation of an explosive device along the Israeli border with Gaza, which caused no injuries or damage.
3a) The head of the Iranian armed forces called Tuesday’s seizure of two American naval vessels and their crews a “lesson” to members of Congress, Iran’s semi-official PressTV networkreported on Wednesday.“We hope the incident in north of the Persian Gulf, which will not be probably the American forces’ last mistake in the region, will be a lesson to those seeking to sabotage [Iran’s nuclear agreement] at US Congress,” said Major General Hassan Firouzabadi.
Firouzabadi accused congressional critics of the nuclear deal with Iran of ignoring the best interests of the American people. He touted the incident as an example of U.S. “vulnerability” in the Persian Gulf and praised the vigilance of the Iranian military, which monitors U.S. activities in the region.
PressTV also quoted Admiral Ali Fadavi, the Navy chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who boasted of Iran’s efforts to keep American forces at bay during the incident. Fadavi, who said that the two boats entered waters near Iran’s Farsi Island due to problems with their navigation systems, claimed that while the IRGC naval forces seized the two vessels and their crews, “the US Navy and [a nearby] aircraft carrier resorted to unprofessional behavior as well as aerial and seaborne provocations in the area, which were deflected through the IRGC’s timely action.”
Fadavi’s language echoed a statement made by U.S. Central Command spokesman Cmdr. Kyle Raines after an Iranian ship fired rockets in the vicinity of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman at the end of December. “Firing weapons so close to passing coalition ships and commercial traffic within an internationally recognized maritime traffic lane is unsafe, unprofessional and inconsistent with international maritime law,” Raines said following the incident.
Fadavi also boasted that the IRGC navy has “full control” over both the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz, through which most of the world’s oil is transported.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon acknowledged that Iran was holding two American crafts and their crews. The vessels and sailors werereleased on Wednesday, but there are growing concerns that Iran violated international law by arresting the personnel and broadcasting their images. (via TheTower.org)
3b) Agili-C, a revolutionary cartilage regenerating technology from Israeli startup CartiHeal that could revolutionize treatment for cartilage damage and osteoarthritis, is preparing for a 2017 launch in the European market. In addition to its original indication for patients with knee cartilage damaged by traumatic injury, the biological scaffold is now being tested for effectiveness in certain cases of osteoarthritis. This would widen its potential market significantly. ISRAEL21c’s first report on CartiHeal’s revolutionary technology two years ago generated much interest from around the world – not surprising, considering that patients suffering from cartilage degeneration have few options. Cartilage, the flexible soft tissue that cushions joints – especially in the knee – cannot self-heal once damaged, because it lacks blood vessels. The Agili-C surgical implant is a biological scaffold onto which the body’s own stem cells grow and regenerate the damaged bone and cartilage naturally. Gradually, over six to 12 months, the scaffold is replaced with a top layer of hyaline cartilage and a bottom layer of bone identical to the body’s own tissues in a normal joint.
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4)“13 HOURS” — THE MOVIE AND THE POLITICS
Last night, I attended a showing of “13 Hours,” Michael Bay’s movie about the Benghazi attacks. The movie will be out next week. I believe our readers will find it very much worth seeing.
Let’s start by discussing “13 Hours” qua movie and then move on to the politics of it.
“13 Hours” succeeds as cinema despite (or maybe for me because) it doesn’t follow the usual Hollywood formula. There is no romance, though one very attractive female appears in a minor role. There is no tension among the main characters — the special contractors who provided security at the CIA annex. (There is plenty of tension with the CIA station chief, but it is one dimensional). There is little emphasis on character development.
Instead, the movie is essentially a combat film. A big chunk of it consists of fighting in one form or another.
It is also an attempt to tell a true story — that of the Benghazi attacks and the valiant and successful efforts by the contractors to save the lives of Americans under attack. Bay relied on the accounts of several of the contractors as presented in their book. These contractors also worked as consultants and the film. As such, from what I understand, they insisted on a faithful recreation of the core events, as they saw them.
The combat sequences are as riveting as they are horrifying. Bay has done a phenomenal job of presenting the surreal killing field from which the CIA annex was attacked. Offhand, I can’t think of anything I’ve seen in cinema quite like it, though Sergio Leone comes to mind.
But what really makes “13 Hours” frightening is its portrayal of a city in which the protagonists have no way to tell who the enemy is. As one critic says:
Friend, foe and non-interested spectator are indistinguishable on crowded streets. Ambush always seems likely. The feeling of dread permeates Bay’s depiction of Benghazi and sets up the foreboding feeling that the CIA mission there is hopelessly in over its head.
The last sentence of this quotation brings us to the politics of the movie. Variety says that “’13 Hours'” is light on politics but sure to stir political controversy.” I agree, though I would substitute “subtle” for “light.”
This is Hugh Hewitt’s take:
The movie mentions neither the president nor the then secretary of state by name, and no expressed argument is made as to what the two did or didn’t do to assist their embattled ambassador, his staff, and the CIA Benghazi outpost on Sept. 11, 2012. But the overwhelming impression of the huge number of people certain to see the first big release of the year, will be that they did not do enough.
In fact, it will be that they did nothing at all. Nothing.
The early sequences of the movie show that security at the Benghazi consulate and annex was obviously and woefully inadequate. The conclusion is inescapable that Hillary Clinton’s State Department should either have closed the consulate or beefed up security substantially.
These are, respectively, the “during” and “before” components of the Benghazi scandal.
The “after” component also makes an appearance. Towards the end of the attack on the annex someone picks up on media reports that this began as a video-related protest. A security man at the consulate says, simply, that he saw no protest.
“13 Hours” is unsubtle in its insistence that the CIA station chief unreasonably directed the contractors not to try to rescue Ambassador Stevens and others at the consulate. It has the chief telling them to “stand down.”
This account is disputed by the station chief. Moreover, the contractors failed to persuade either the Democrats or the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee that there was a “stand down” order. Their sworn testimony fell short, in the view of Committee staff.
In any event, this question has no political relevance (though casual viewers may assume otherwise). No one has suggested that the station chief was getting orders from the Obama administration; in fact, one of the contractor-authors told Sean Hannity he doesn’t think the order came from above. The chief’s “stand down” order, if given, was his idea.
The politically relevant “stand down” was the failure to deploy U.S. assets in relatively nearby countries to aid the embattled heroes trying to defend the annex. At one point, this is presented graphically through an image of inactivity at a U.S. air field.
Hillary Clinton explains the failure by citing “the fog of war.” Others cite logistical complexities.
These sound like plausible excuses, and maybe they are. But when you watch the movie, they feel terribly inadequate. As Hugh says:
“13 Hours” is going to tell everyone who is interested — and millions will be interested, and riveted, by the intense gunfight that breaks out early and never lets up until the dead are sent home — that the cries for help from the brave civilians and soldiers of Benghazi were many and urgent throughout the hours of attack. But the response was … silence.
Apart from issues of culpability, the movie has political implications because it reminds people what the Benghazi fuss is about. The Democrats’ line is: why are we still talking about Benghazi. More than three years after the attack and with numerous investigations into the matter, this line may be working.
But when one sees “13 Hours,” one understands the legitimacy of the quest for answers. And one can easily conclude that the answers provided by President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and their apologists haven’t been good enough.
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5)
ISIS Suffers Financial Blow as US Airstrikes Destroy Cash Warehouse
In its ongoing effort to rid the world of the threat that is the Islamic State (ISIS), the United States dropped two 2,000 pound bombs on a cash storage facility in the city of Mosul, Iraq on Monday.
According to the Associated Press, a US defense official revealed this particular facility housed “millions” of dollars meant as financial support for the terrorist regime. The funding pays for all ongoing ISIS operations, including its militants, deadly weapons, and propaganda.
The airstrike consequently destroyed all moneys that were held there.
Despite its close proximity to civilians, none were hurt in the bombing. This is due to intense investigation on the part of the United States which watched the site for days, determining when the fewest number of civilians would be in the area.
This is at least the second occasion the United States has bombed ISIS cash piles in its battle against the radical Islamist group. Most efforts are currently concentrated on destroying funding and oil-reserves which allow the militant group to carry out their terrorism.
Since it began its airstrikes in 2014, the US-led coalition has succeeded in pushing back the ISIS threat, recapturing 40 percent of its territory in Iraq and 20 percent in Syria, according to spokesman Colonel Steve Warren.
In addition to airstrikes, the coalition has also trained soldiers in Iraq to recapture territory in both Syria and Iraq. Most recently, the Iraqi city of Ramadi was reclaimed at the end of December. The resistance has their sights set on recapturing the city of Mosul, which they say would be a huge victory and would effectively destroy ISIS’s foundation in the country.
In a recent press conference, Warren confidently told reporters, “The enemy is weaker and on the defensive. They have not gained one inch in Iraq since May.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, obsessed with his Holocaust fears and motivated by his political agenda, could not resist Tuesday hinting what has been so clear to the rest of the world for two decades – the fact that the Israeli submarine fleet was mainly established for the purpose of deterrence and, according to foreign reports, to grant Israel the capability of a second nuclear strike.
On Tuesday, the Israel Navy’s fifth submarine anchored at Haifa Port after a 3,000 kilometer voyage from the German shipyards in Kiel where it was built.
“Above all, our submarines serve to deter enemies that aspire to destroy us,” Netanyahu stated at the ceremony.
The decision to build a significant submarine fleet was a result of strategic thinking and advantage of the circumstances.
In the 80s, Israel feared, as it does today, that the Middle East was going nuclear with Iraq’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb. At the same time, Israel was attacked by Iraqi Scud missiles during the first Gulf War in 1991.
It turned out that German companies had supplied Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, with technology and materials for a suspected chemical weapons program.
To cleanse its conscience, Germany agreed to finance the manufacturing of the first new Israeli submarines.
According to foreign reports, this led to further German consent to subsidize more submarines for Israel as long as they were built in the Kiel shipyards, thus also helping the German economy.
Thus, fat Germany financed half the cost of the Israeli submarine fleet.
According to foreign reports, Israel has upgraded the submarines to conform to its own unique needs, turning them into platforms to launch nuclear-tipped missiles.
Navy experts, led by the late admiral Avraham Botzer, estimated that it would require at least nine subs to make the Israeli navy strategically effective. They argue that at any given moment three subs will be on routine missions, three at docks for maintenance and three always available to carry out strategic assignments.
Indeed, until recently, the Israel Navy was on its way to accomplish its strategic vision and mission as Germany agreed to subsidize the manufacturing of the sixth sub, according to foreign reports.
But then a new reality emerged. IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, under budgetary pressure, decided to postpone the purchase of the sixth sub – a decision that was only natural since it coincided with recent developments regarding Iran since the naval build up was primarily aimed to be a deterrence against Iranian efforts to achieve nuclear capabilities.
Once Iran’s aspirations were suppressed by the nuclear agreement reached last summer with the world powers, Israel had more leeway and breathing space, so it was decided that the purchase of sixth sub would be delayed to take place by 2020.
In the meantime, the submarine fleet will continue to perform its other capabilities in long-range intelligence and clandestine missions in the Mediterranean, and according to foreign reports, in the Red Sea and even the Indian Ocean leading to the Persian Gulf.
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