Trump vs Obama - a different mind set. (left click on link.)
http://www.gopusa.com/trump-
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Is a Syrian strategy developing?
Reports suggest Trump wants to rid the region of ISIS then vacate Syria which would allow Russia and Iran to dominate and threaten the Middle East and our allies. If this is his ultimate strategy it would be as bad as Obama's.(See 1 and 1a below.)
And
Hackers place pornography on ISIS site. (See 1b below.)
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Why you loved Hillary if you were a liberal, a Democrat and you had no sense of morality and/or balance. (See 2 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++Glick on the PLO and our State Department. She has the same concerns as I have had for decades. (See 3 below.)
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While my son was here we also discussed why Trump has failed to make more progress with his policies in the various agencies.
He pointed out because Trump was an outsider and had little by way of a campaign structure when he won there was a paucity of campaign volunteers to become candidates to replace Obama holdovers. Daniel said why would a volunteer spend four years working for an administration that lacked much by way of a personnel structure and which seemed it wanted to rid the party of its political leadership.
As a result, Trump has been stymied by Obama holdovers and lack of personnel to replace them. He obviously failed to consider this when he decided not to fill certain agency positions which then were taken over by Obama appointees who are gumming up the gears.
Daniel also thought Trump could have eliminated many of the posts instead of replacing them with others and also lost the opportunity to move some of the agencies out of D.C. in order to bring government closer to the people. Daniel believed had Trump, tried, he had the authority and probably would not need Congressional approval to relocate them.
My son also believes Trump did not appreciate and/or understand the political side of the presidency because he was a businessman and thus, has undercut his own effectiveness and, in the process, initially create personnel mayhem..
Perhaps Trump yielded to Bannon who wanted to rid the nation of established politicians and when he was dismissed Trump was left out on a limb.
I also believe, Trump has been under-served by an Attorney General who caved, Republican Chairpersons, of critical committees ,who have proven incompetent and party leaders who, for whatever reason, have been rolled over by renegades within their own ranks.
With Mueller in control of the investigation of the Administration it is as if Trump has basically lost his ability to govern. The only power he retains is his ability to tweet.
Furthermore, Trump has been masterful in handling the mass media but they still have the upper hand in shaping public opinion and they have put the "bad mouth" on Trump and it is harming him among the unwashed.
Obama's liberal justices have ruled against the president's authority to protect and defend, even to the point that sanctuary states and cities believe they can defy federal laws and yet, retain their right to federal funds.
Perhaps, in the back of their minds, Trump and Bannon, believe the failure of the Republican Party to get anything done and the effort on the part of the Democrat Party to thwart whatever Trump seeks to do will backfire and cause the establishment "infidels" to be thrown out for proving they are unable to govern, to do the people's bidding etc.
It would be sad indeed if Trump's political inexperience, stubbornness, which is also one of his positive attributes, and quirky personality deny him the opportunity to accomplish his goals, many of which are very worthy. Trump is willing to meet, head on, many of the problems which cowardly politicians have chosen to ignore and failed policies of former presidents have created. It is refreshing to see him call a spade a spade. The time for such is long overdue.
Time will tell whether he can surmount the obstacles thrown at him from all sides. .
Perhaps the currents stresses reveal the inability of our founding fathers to have contemplated the impact of what they could not foresee - the future. They understood the faults of a democracy ruled by a decidedly uninformed electorate and therefore took the route of a Republic with built in restraints, but in doing so they did not believe elected officials would eventually place their re-election over the good of the country.
When our nation was formed, Daniel pointed out, going to D.C and leaving an agrarian family was a hardship but when transportation improved and air conditioning was invented serving in Congress became less burdensome and politicians began to vote benefits that made serving more self-rewarding. It is an interesting theory and one I am willing to accept as credible.
The fact that neither John Conyers and Al Franken will voluntarily resign for their behaviour validates this view . As for Conyers he should , along with any other Representative who used public funds to cover up their behaviour, should be prosecuted for the crime of diverting public funds for personal use.
The above also fits in with my thesis that changes brought about by technology and its impact on human behaviour has added to the strains and exposed fissures and this, perhaps, is why most empires do not last much past 200 to 300 years before collapsing.
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Soros' long reach and his ability to fund obscure local campaigns, particularly those involved in law enforcement, is as big a threat to our Republic as anything I know.
The man is evil incarnate. (See 4 below.)
13 reasonably straightforward things most Americans wished for in previous years and this Thanksgiving and, no doubt, will be wishing for next year as well because the political turkeys that can deliver are busy gobbling. (See 5 below.)
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More reasons to love us "finger licking good" Suthners! (See 6 below.)
Even I have a "Shugah" living here at The Landings - But our Bama blew it as a superior Auburn cleaned their clock.
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Some thoughts regarding a black killing a white policeman:http://www.galganov.com/
And something satiric to contemplate:
Free at Last. Free at last Lord God Almighty, we're free at last.
Baltimore Is Now 'FREE AT LAST'Mayor Removes Confederate Statues!Praise needs to be given to the Mayor of Baltimore.For years the Black community has been under assault by 4 Confederate Monuments. These monuments were relentless in their destruction of the Black family as over 70% of Black children were born out of wedlock. So terrified by the presence of these monuments, over 60% of Black men in the city could not work a job and found comfort in fathering numerous children with numerous women that they could not feed.Just knowing that the monuments were there made Black school children have the lowest test scores in the Nation and many turned to drugs to relieve the sting of the monuments presence.
Worst of all, the mere presence of the monuments caused death.. Not being able to handle the hate and violence that the monuments represented, the Black males in the city took to killing each other by the thousands. Just in the last 2 years they have murdered 500 of their own.
(Must be a lot of monuments in Chicago)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Praise be to God and the Wisdom of the Mayor. It is a new dawn for Black Baltimoreans! The shackles have been removed and all that can be said is, Free at last, free at last, Lord God Almighty, we're free at last"
Dick
1) U.S. moves toward open-ended presence in Syria after Islamic State is routed
By Karen DeYoung and Liz Sly
The Trump administration is expanding its goals in Syria beyond routing the Islamic State to include a political settlement of the country’s civil war, a daunting and potentially open-ended commitment that could draw the United States into conflict with both Syria and Iran.
With forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies now bearing down on the last militant-controlled towns, the defeat of the Islamic State in Syria could be imminent — along with an end to the U.S. justification for being there.
U.S. officials say they are hoping to use the ongoing presence of American troops in northern Syria, in support of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to pressure Assad to make concessions at United Nations-brokered peace talks in Geneva. The negotiations there are set to resume at the end of this month after sputtering along for more than three years without result.
Assad’s forces, with crucial aid from Iranian-sponsored militias, have regained control over much of the rest of the country in their separate war with Syrian rebels fighting to end the president’s autocratic rule.
An abrupt U.S. withdrawal could complete Assad’s sweep of Syrian territory and help guarantee his political survival — an outcome that would constitute a win for Iran, his close ally.
To avoid that outcome, U.S. officials say they plan to maintain a U.S. troop presence in northern Syria — where the Americans have trained and assisted the SDF against the Islamic State — and establish new local governance, apart from the Assad government, in those areas.
When political negotiations began in Geneva more than three years ago, the rebels — with some assistance from Western and Sunni Arab backers — controlled a hefty amount of Syria and were in a far better position to demand Assad’s removal as part of a settlement.
Russian air power and Iranian-allied ground forces, however, have sharply turned the situation to Assad’s advantage both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. Russia and Iran have also indicated they plan to stay.
In addition to extending the U.S. presence in Syria, the administration is also seeking new cooperation with Russia. Earlier this month, President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a joint statement backing the Geneva process. The two leaders spoke again by telephone Tuesday, just hours after Putin was photographed embracing Assad when the two met in the Russian resort of Sochi.
Russia, together with Iran and Turkey, is hosting its own political conference this week on Syria, a gathering that could lock in positions that would make U.S. objectives harder to achieve.
U.S. officials emphasized that an ongoing U.S. military presence in Syria is necessary to ensure that Islamic State remnants are mopped up and that repopulated communities are stabilized under local governance. “The fight with ISIS is not over,” one official said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
But the official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing planning and initiatives, described the indefinite mission of U.S. forces as “twofold.”
The Islamic State’s original expansion was enabled by the vacuum of authority left by the Syrian civil war, the official said. “That vacuum was created by the lack of a legitimate political process,” and the militant group, or its successors, will fill it again if the “political aspect” is not resolved.
Asked last week how long U.S. troops would stay in Syria, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said: “We’re not just going to walk away right now” before a political settlement is reached between Assad and the Syrian opposition. “We’re going to make sure we set the conditions for a diplomatic solution. . . . Not just, you know, fight the military part of it and then say good luck on the rest of it.”
The official number of U.S. troops currently deployed to Syria is 503, sent to train and assist the SDF. The actual number is believed to be far higher, including hundreds of additional Special Operations forces, forward air controllers, artillery crews and others sent for months-long temporary deployments.
Mattis said there has been no decision on how many troops will remain. They will wait until “the Geneva process has cracked,” he said. “That doesn’t mean everyone stays there. That doesn’t mean . . . certain troops are leaving.”
Plans for a continuing troop presence indicate a shift in mission from defeating the Islamic State to a broader White House strategy aimed at countering Iranian influence, said Nicholas Heras of the Washington-based Center for a New American Security.
“The conditions are there for the counter-ISIS campaign to morph into a counter-Iran campaign,” Heras said. “The U.S. has no master plan to stay, but isn’t in any hurry to leave either,” he said. “By placing no timeline on the end of the U.S. mission . . . the Pentagon is creating a framework for keeping the U.S. engaged in Syria for years to come.”
In recent months, the United States and Russia have established a cease-fire zone in southwestern Syria near the borders with Israel and Jordan. The agreement requires opposition and government troops — along with their allies from the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia — to freeze in place.
Israel has said that the agreement does not go far enough toward satisfying its concerns about Iran’s massively extended influence in Syria as a result of the civil war, which includes the deployment of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps military advisers and allied militias in large parts of the country controlled by the Assad government. Some of those forces are within six miles of Israeli-occupied territory in the Golan Heights.
Washington and Moscow also have negotiated deconfliction lines in the east, where government forces, aided by Russian airstrikes, have advanced against the Islamic State toward the border with Iraq in the same area where the SDF, with its American backers, is pushing south against the militants.
In angry statements last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian Defense Ministry accused the United States of directly aiding Islamic State forces that have come into conflict with the Syrian forces pushing toward the Iraqi border, and of allowing terrorists to escape from U.S.-backed offensives against them in both Syria and Iraq. The U.S. Defense Department just as angrily denied the charges.
The United States and Russia have chosen to emphasize different parts of the agreement between Trump and Putin, signed earlier this month when they met at an Asian regional conference, and committing their governments to support for the Geneva process.
1a) Today’s Top Story
1b) Hackers Substitute Porn on ISIS Sites
1a) Today’s Top Story
Did Israel and Syria Agree On a Demilitarized Zone?
Have Israel and Syria agreed on a 40 km demilitarized zone? An Arab media report picked up by the Jerusalem Post says this came about after Israel vowed to destroy any Iranian positions within 40 km of the border:
The source, who remains unnamed, said that during Syrian President Bashar Assad’s surprise visit to Russia last week, Assad gave Russian Premier Vladimir Putin a message for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Damascus will agree to a demilitarized zone of up to 40 kilometers from the border in the Golan Heights as part of a comprehensive agreement between the two countries, but only if Israel does not work to remove Assad’s regime from power.The report also claims that Putin then called Netanyahu to relay the message, and that the Israeli prime minister said he would be willing to accept the deal, but that Israel’s goal of eradicating Iran and Hezbollah from the country would remain.
1b) Hackers Substitute Porn on ISIS Sites
CLARION PROJECT,
A group of Iraqi hackers placed porn on encrypted message sites used by Islamic State’s ‘news agency’ Amaq.
The hacks are meant to disrupt the flow of communication between ISIS jihadis by creating havoc in the organization and mistrust of supporters for each other.
“Our intention was to flood the market with fake Amaq content in order to dilute the credibility of Amaq – a so-called news agency,” one of the anonymous hacker told Newsweek.
The hackers call themselves Daeshgram, a play on the name of the encrypted messaging application Telegram that is favored by ISIS supporters. “Daesh” is a derogatory acronym in Arabic used to refer to ISIS.
“Daesh responded by telling supporters not to trust any of the Amaq links. They even had fights among themselves about the topic and deleted each other from various groups,” the anonymous hacker said.
Hacks on other communications networks and apps have forced ISIS to rely only on Telegram in recent weeks.
Recently, another group of Muslim activists hacked into ISIS servers after the terror group announced it had upped its online security following a series of cyber attacks on Amaq.
“In response to recent events, we have imposed more stringent security measures on our systems,” ISIS announced. “We can now handle email attacks or any type of hack.”
“Challenge accepted” wrote the hacking group on Twitter. Barely three hours later, the hackers tweeted, “Challenge complete – too easy! 2000 email subscribers hacked from Amaq…What is next??”
The hackers then released the email addresses of Amaq subscribers online.
In his latest book, Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, wrote the computers of ISIS jihadis seized by the U.S. were filled with pornography.
“We looked a ruthless enemy in the eye — women and children, girls and boys, raped and exploited, the beheadings stored on a laptop next to pornography,” wrote Flynn in The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. “At one point, we actually had determined that the material on the laptops was up to 80 per cent pornography.”
Flynn said the pornographic material brutalized the psyche of the jihadists and enabled them to become desensitized enough to carry out the group’s atrocities. He also said that closing down ISIS communication channels combined was the only way to defeat ISIS.
It was also revealed that assassinated al-Qa
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2) Hillary: Corrupt, Clueless, Coddled
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2) Hillary: Corrupt, Clueless, Coddled
By David Prentice
Hillary Clinton is not complex, not at all. For her legion of personal problems -- her tone-deaf woodenness, her arrogance, her greed, her worst problem has been her Democratic Party Privilege.
Yep, that’s the fatal flaw.
It’s really her biggest problem. She’s been coddled because of her party affiliation. She’s been coddled by a media that refused to report her ugly side. She’s been coddled by a base that has been fooled repeatedly. She’s convinced them she’s highly moral, highly intelligent, highly principled, and somehow represents all women, minorities, and the average American.
Nothing could be further from the truth. She’s nothing but a propped-up caricature, propped by that Democratic privilege. Because of that privilege,the average left-leaning voter knows little or nothing about what a reprobate she is.
So far.
I do think she’s about to be taken down, and thrown under the bus. The Democratic Party and the media will have no choice in the next year or so to come to that realization. But I digress.
The specifics:
A big issue is her part in enabling Bill with his sexual predations. She not only looked the other way as he hit on anything with a skirt, she led the charge against all the women whom he used and abused. She led the bimbo eruptions effort, destroying the women as being sluts or nuts while her husband ran rampant. She led the media to defend the indefensible. And try as they might to defend the Clintons now, in the new race to virtue signal, the media is finally admitting their mistake.
Her ill temper and horrifying personality behind the mask of being nice has been chronicled by one of her major Secret Service defenders and others. She was censured long ago for being dishonest and mean spirited by her own chairman during the Watergate hearings long ago. Her money lust and greed were there to see in her cattle futures gains. Whitewater was a manifestation of this character flaw, gaining personally because of political connections. Fast forward and you have the attempted heist of White House belongings. You have them dangling the bait of their political influence to gain money from the second they left the White House.
With the silence of the media, the Clintons amassed a fortune through speeches, books, and donations. The threat of their power and the cloak of their privilege kept them riding high. The final coup de gras was their Clinton Foundation. That they took donations for Haiti that never got to the recipients was criminal. That they got cover from the Bush family and the media was atrocious. I think this was the signal that corrupted the GOP so deeply. They saw they could get a piece as well.
Clinton Democratic Privilege. It led to more and more influence peddling. The hundreds of millions of dollars donated to their foundation and campaigns from illicit people simply continued. Everyone turned a blind eye to the obvious quid pro quos, corruption, and aggrandizement of power.
Uranium One, with the direct huge speaking fee to Bill, and the well over one hundred million dollars sent to the Foundation by those who benefited from this transaction was despicable. The irony of all this was the money came from those dratted Russians, hiding behind “the Russian reset.” It has to be one of the best cons ever. All ignored by the media and the Democratic Party. As has been asked - who anywhere would think it was a good idea to sell control of 20% of our Uranium to a foreign adversary? And of all people, to the Russians.
Greed, corruption, and as said before, it’s the Mother of All Scandals. I’m betting it takes them down. The hint to follow is that Mueller’s indictment of Manafort was going after the Podestas, and not Trump.
There’s so much more to say about her corruption. The Democratic Party’s willingness to spy on others began with her successfully pilfering (illegally) secret FBI files long ago (“a bureaucratic snafu”). Paying for the phony Russian Dossier, her rigging the Democratic Party primaries, and so much more of despicable her.
Moving from her greed to her ineptness is easy, because she has never accomplished anything good. An empty suit if there ever were one. Once again, ineptness hidden because of her Democratic Privilege.
Examples: Her decision to help Bill beat the sexual predator rap with Monica. It continued with her carpet bagging win of her Senate seat, in itself just a bit tainted. But it was the fact that she did nothing of consequence with that seat, had no signature legislation, and simply used her seat as a celebrity stepping stone to the power she really wanted: the first woman President. Unfortunately for her, in the first run for the prize, she lost to someone who out-
demagogued her, and out-flanked her in leftist identity politics. As Bill Clinton so inartfully put it, she lost to a guy who should have been fetching their coffee.
demagogued her, and out-flanked her in leftist identity politics. As Bill Clinton so inartfully put it, she lost to a guy who should have been fetching their coffee.
Her experience as Secretary of State, as Trump so deftly noted, was totally without success. Carly Fiorina boiled it down as follows: “Like Hillary Clinton, I too have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the globe. But unlike Hillary Clinton, I know that flying is an activity, not an accomplishment.” Hillary successfully helped destroy Iraq by watching as Obama pulled the troops early, and set the Arab world on fire with her horrific policies. She almost destroyed Egypt by installing and giving billions to head that country with a Muslim Brotherhood leader. They watched ISIS metastasize, sometimes helping. Their failure at pulling out the Benghazi ambassador months earlier, as all other major countries did, was lethal. Their non-response to Ambassador Stephens’s pleas for better security, was unprecedentedly stupid, despicable, and deadly. Instead of owning up to it, she spread the lie that a video was at fault. Lying to the nation and the victim families’ faces.
Her entire reign was a failure. One after another.
Her campaign failure: Russia obviously suggesting she not campaign in the industrial Midwest.
“Now having said all this, why aren’t I up fifty points you might ask?” was her best imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Add that to her “deplorables” gaffe, and her disgusting inability to speak to her supporters the night of her election, and the mask should have come off for her true believer followers.
Her arrogance pushing the idea that everyone else was at fault for her loss is unprecedented in American politics. Her egocentric fail at being unwilling to let it go was capped by Trump’s tweet this week. He’s right, she’s good for the GOP. Heck, she’s a huge problem for the Democratic Party. A guest who stayed too long, drank too much, and wouldn’t leave.
A clueless guest.
As stated earlier, I think the Clintons are about to be thrown under the bus, and end up being the face of scandal for years to come. The Democratic Party will feign ignorance. The only thing in doubt is just how far the Clintons will fall, and how far the left will go to defend their scandals as they are all engulfed.
The final cluelessness of the obnoxious guest who wouldn’t leave: Her Democratic privilege is ending, and she is still going around trying to blame everyone else for her shortcomings. Along with their media enablers, the Clintons have no idea how bad they look. When their privilege evaporates, and it will, they will be left without the drugs that have fueled them: power, money, and influence.
The first hint of their undoing: The Podesta Group folding. The second: Donna Brazile. The third: The media is making up sob stories of how they shouldn’t have excused Bill’s sexual predations.
The next shoes are going to drop. And drop and drop and drop.
They are toast. The end is near.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, that’s the saying.
That’s the story of Hillary.
Stripped of her privilege, she’s nothing but a corrupt, inept, and clueless felon.
This fall will be hard, long, and wide-ranging.
Watergate. Meh. Teapot Dome. Meh. This is a brave new world of fraudulent heroes tumbling over their clay feet, witnessed by a shocked world.
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3) Holding the PLO (and the State Department) accountable
By Caroline Glick
Is the PLO’s long vacation from accountability coming to an end? How about the State Department’s?
5)
3) Holding the PLO (and the State Department) accountable
By Caroline Glick
Is the PLO’s long vacation from accountability coming to an end? How about the State Department’s?
In 1987 the US State Department placed the PLO on its list of foreign terrorist organizations. The PLO was removed from the list in 1994, following the initiation of its peace process with Israel in 1993.
As part of the Clinton administration’s efforts to conclude a long-term peace deal between the PLO and Israel, in 1994 then president Bill Clinton signed an executive order waiving enforcement of laws that barred the PLO and its front groups from operating in the US. His move enabled the PLO to open a mission in Washington.
In 2010, then president Barack Obama upgraded the mission’s status to the level of “Delegation General.” The move was seen as a signal that the Obama administration supported moves by the PLO to initiate recognition of the “State of Palestine” by European governments and international bodies.
Whereas Obama’s PLO upgrade was legally dubious, the PLO’s campaign to get recognized as a state breached both of its agreements with Israel and the terms under which the US recognized it and permitted it to operate missions on US soil.
The operation of the PLO’s missions in the US was contingent on periodic certification by the secretary of state that the PLO was not engaged in terrorism, including incitement of terrorism, was not encouraging the boycott of Israel and was not seeking to bypass its bilateral negotiations with Israel in order to achieve either diplomatic recognition or statehood. Under Obama, the State Department refused to acknowledge the PLO’s breach of all the conditions of US recognition.
Angry at the administration’s facilitation of PLO breaches, in 2015 Congress mandated stricter and more precise conditions for continued operation of the PLO’s mission in Washington. Starting in 2016, the PLO was explicitly banned from advocating the prosecution of Israelis by the International Criminal Court. In 2015 the PLO joined the ICC with the explicit purpose of advocating the prosecution of Israelis. And in conformance with this purpose, in his speech before the UN General Assembly in September 2017, PLO/PA chief Mahmoud Abbas called for the ICC to prosecute Israelis for building communities in Judea and Samaria.
Given his experience with US administrations since Clinton, Abbas had every reason to believe that he would suffer no repercussions for his statement. No US administration had ever called the PLO/PA to account for its open breach of the terms of US recognition. So it isn’t surprising that Abbas and his advisers were utterly shocked when on Friday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter to the PLO mission in Washington informing PLO envoy Husam Zomlot that he could not renew certification of PLO compliance with US law in light of Abbas’s statement in September.
The only way for the mission to remain in place is if President Donald Trump certifies within 90 days that the PLO is engaged in “direct, meaningful negotiations with Israel.”
One of the primary functions of the PLO mission in Washington is to promote and fund the boycott movement against Israel – in contravention of the terms of its operation and the terms of its agreements with Israel.
In written testimony to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa in February, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies revealed that the mission is “said to be actively promoting campus BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] activity in the US.”
“PLO operatives in Washington, DC,” Schanzer said, “are reportedly involved in coordinating the activities of Palestinian students in the US who receive funds from the PLO to engage in BDS activism. This, of course, suggests that the BDS movement is not a grassroots activist movement, but rather one that is heavily influenced by PLO-sponsored persons.”
In April 2016, Schanzer informed Congress that the PLO consulate in Chicago is a major funder of the BDS campus group Students for Justice in Palestine. The chairman of the US Coalition to Boycott Israel, which among other things funds BDS, is Ghassan Barakat, an official at the PLO’s Chicago consulate. His colleague, Senan Shaqdeh, is a member of the coalition. Shaqdeh also claims to be the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, the antisemitic BDS group that operates on campuses throughout the US.
As Schanzer noted, in 2014 Shaqdeh traveled to Ramallah to meet with Abbas and PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.
Aside from the fact that the US has refused to hold the PLO accountable for its actions for a quarter century, the PLO has another good reason to be shocked by Tillerson’s letter: the US consulate in Jerusalem operates as almost a mirror to the PLO mission in Washington.
The US consulate in Jerusalem has the same status as an embassy. Like the US ambassador in Tel Aviv, the US consul general in Jerusalem reports directly to the State Department. He is not accredited to Israel. His area of operations includes Jerusalem and its environs within and beyond the 1949 armistice lines, including Beit Shemesh, Mevasseret Zion, Judea and Samaria.
Israeli citizens who live within the consulate’s area of operations are not permitted to receive consular and visa services from the embassy in Tel Aviv. Among the over a million Israeli Jews that are required to receive US consular services from the consulate rather than the embassy are tens of thousands of Jewish dual nationals.
And yet, as Yisrael Medad has exhaustively documented, the Jerusalem consulate maintains an effective boycott of both these dual nationals and Israeli nationals who live in its area of operation. All of the consulate’s activities for US citizens are directed specifically and openly toward “Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and the West Bank.”
Consul General Donald Blome similarly directs all of his efforts toward reaching out to the Palestinians, ignoring as a regular practice the millions of Jews who live in his area of responsibility.
The consulate also openly rejects the notion that Israel and Jews have ties to its area of operations. For instance, Blome went on a hike around Judea and Samaria in July where he effectively erased the Jewish heritage sites in the areas. The consulate echoed UNESCO’s Jew-free version of the history of the land of Israel in a press release that celebrated his walk along the “Masar Ibrahim Al-Khalil” trail in celebration of “the connection of the people with the land.” Jews were not mentioned in the press release. And the historical name of the route he took is “Abraham’s path.”
Scholarships to study in the US and jobs listed on the website are open to “Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and the West Bank.”
In other words, while the PLO missions are pushing the BDS agenda in the US, the US consulate in Jerusalem is implementing it on the ground in Israel.
Tillerson’s letter to the PLO mission on Friday came two weeks before Trump will have to decide whether or not to sign a related waiver. On December 1, Trump will either allow the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act to come into force or he will sign a waiver postponing the embassy move for yet another six months.
In a congressional hearing on the issue of moving the embassy to Jerusalem on November 8, Rep. Ron DeSantis said that transfer of the embassy may be delayed due to the Trump administration’s “efforts to pursue a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.”
DeSantis argued that until the embassy is moved the Trump administration should take “incremental steps” that move it toward the goal.
Among the steps he advocated, DeSantis said “the American consulates in Jerusalem should report to the American embassy in Israel, not directly to the State Department.”
Tillerson’s letter to Zomlot was shocking because it represented the first time since 1993 that the PLO has been held accountable for its actions. The time has come for the State Department, too, to be held accountable for its behavior. And the best way to start this process is to follow DeSantis’s advice, subordinate the US consulates in Jerusalem to the US ambassador and end their boycott of Jews – US citizens and non-citizens – who live in the Jerusalem area, in Judea and Samaria.
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4)
The Soros District Attorney-Buying Binge An investment from the subversive billionaire can cripple local law enforcement for years. Matthew Vadum
Posted By Ruth King
Left-wing currency manipulator George Soros’s push to radically reshape the judiciary and elect extremist district attorneys across the country to weaken law enforcement and protect lawless sanctuary cities is bearing fruit.
Soros has been pouring money into local elections because he supports local efforts to resist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and wants to cripple police in order to advance the neo-Marxist abstraction known as social justice that simplistically breaks the world down into race, class, and sex or gender. Radicals claim that American laws and institutions are inherently corrupt and that these systems protect, for example, wealthy, white, native-born, non-disabled males at the expense of everyone else.
Soros wants prosecutors to empty prisons and coddle the prisoners who remain, scale back drug prosecutions, lower bail, and eliminate alleged racial disparities in sentencing, among other things.
Getting people who share Soros’s worldview into public office at every level is key to promoting his ugly vision of how America, which he calls “the main obstacle to a stable and just world order,” should look.
Soros’s backing helped elect radical leftist Lawrence (Larry) Krasner (D) as Philadelphia DA this month. Krasner, who quipped that his track record as a civil rights lawyer made him “completely unelectable,” somehow managed to best seven other candidates in the primary election.
“Krasner, who has represented Occupy Philadelphia and Black Lives Matter, and has sued the police department more than 75 times, had a major fundraising advantage that was provided almost exclusively by Soros,” the indispensable Joe Schoffstall reported at the Washington Free Beacon.
On the campaign trail, Krasner promised never to seek the death penalty in any criminal case and to keep Philadelphia a lawless sanctuary city. A segment of his platform titled “Resist the Trump Administration” spelled out his plan to “protect immigrants,” “reject the drug war,” and “stand up to police misconduct.”
“As District Attorney, he will work to maintain Philadelphia as a ‘sanctuary city’ and protect the Fourth Amendment rights of all residents, cooperating with federal authorities only to the degree required by law,” according to his campaign website.
“Because legal proceedings can affect the status of immigrants and therefore relations between communities and law enforcement, Larry will take those effects into account when making prosecutorial decisions and setting prosecutorial policy. He will oppose renewal of ICE’s access to the PARS database, a city police database used by ICE to identify ‘deportable’ immigrants.”
In April, Soros gave $1.45 million to the Philadelphia Justice and Public Safety PAC, which was created to support Krasner and listed its address as the Democrat law firm Perkins Coie in the nation’s capital. Soros threw another $214,000 the super PAC’s way in May, bringing his pro-Krasner donations to $1.7 million, “an unusual[ly] high [amount] for the average district attorney race.” It was also the first time a PAC had ever backed a candidate for Philly DA.
The Republican candidate that the William Kunstler wannabe ultimately crushed by a 3-to-1 margin, prosecutor Beth Grossman, spoke in August of her concern that a Krasner win would make the City of Brotherly Love a murder-plagued war zone.
“I have concerns, if he gets elected, my opponent, I don’t want us to turn into a Baltimore,” Grossman said. “I don’t want us to turn into a Chicago.”
Grossman lamented that Soros “knows nothing” about public safety issues in Philadelphia yet he was hurling bushels of cash at her “far-left” opponent.
What really disturbs me is I feel like he’s an outside individual who knows nothing about Philadelphia and its specific public safety issues or whatever public safety crisis it’s facing comes in with his agenda and backs a far-left candidate who has never prosecuted a criminal case in his 30 year career as a criminal defense attorney.
“Everyone is entitled to the best defense that they can get,” she said, “but this individual, my opponent, has also sued the Philadelphia police department in the city over 75 times and he dislikes law enforcement.”
A district attorney’s office should “enforce the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania justly and fairly, and to protect the constitutional rights of everybody: victims, witnesses, as well as those accused of crime,” not conduct a “grand social experiment,” as Soros wants to do in Philadelphia, she said.
The Soros modus operandi is the same in almost every locality, Schoffstall observes. “The financier will establish political action committees, pour money into local races, then turn around and shut them down once the election is over.”
Last year Soros bankrolled the Texas Safety and Justice PAC and threw his support behind Morris Overstreet in the Democrat primary for district attorney in Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston.
When Overstreet, a former judge who was the first black elected to statewide office in Texas since Reconstruction, lost to Kim Ogg, a white woman, Soros put his money on Ogg. Soros associates developed her television ads, and with $878,000 from Soros’s custom-made PAC, she took out the GOP office-holder, Devon Anderson, in the general election.
As a Daily Signal article almost a year ago stated:
On Jan. 1, Ogg will begin to try fulfilling the vision she ran on, promising a “significant culture change” defined by taking a more lenient approach to marijuana possession cases, focusing tax dollars on punishing violent criminals, and making it easier for defendants to get out of jail on bond in a county where 70 percent of inmates cannot afford to free themselves before trial.
According to a Daily Signal analysis, in the 2016 election cycle Soros shelled out almost $11 million in 12 DA races. Democrat candidates backed by Soros ended up winning in 10 of those dozen contests. Soros has also funded district attorney candidates in Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico.
Soros’s plans for sweeping local district attorney races in 2018 was discussed last Friday at the four-day meeting of the super-rich leftists of the Democracy Alliance at upscale La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, Calif.
The Democracy Alliance, which Soros co-founded, is a donors’ collaborative whose members secretly fund left-wing political infrastructure projects, such as think tanks, leadership institutes, and activist groups.
Democracy Alliance president Gara LaMarche, a former Soros lieutenant, wrote in a letter to conference attendees that President Trump’s victory a year ago was “the most cataclysmic election of modern history.”
There was a 55-minute “Talk with George Soros” listed on the official schedule obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, as well as an hour-long discussion titled, “Prosecutor Races — Winning Big in 2018?”
The entry for the hour-long panel reads:
Progressive prosecutors are winning – from Florida to Pennsylvania, Texas to Illinois. Bold reform candidates have been propelled by movement players and driven record voter turnout of African-Americans, Latinos, and Millennials – and shifting the political narrative. This caucus will share an early peek at more than 30 hot races, many overlaying other key 2018 battlegrounds! Special guests will explore deeper learnings, hard questions, and how to take the movement to the next level: People’s Action Director of Strategic Initiatives Daniel Espinosa, 215 People’s Alliance Co-Founder Bryan Mercer, Color Of Change Executive Director Rashad Robinson and Texas Organizing Project Deputy Director Brianna Brown.DA Partner Chloe Cockburn will moderate.
Texas Organizing Project, by the way, is the successor group to the Texas branch of the criminally corrupt Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which filed for bankruptcy in 2010.
What exactly was said at the “Winning Big” gabfest has not been reported.
Democracy Alliance members received sad news Nov. 15, the opening day of the organization’s semi-annual investment conference. They learned that Democracy Alliance member and Soros ally Steve Mostyn, 46, a big-spending Texas trial lawyer, had died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
Mostyn and his wife Amber gave millions of dollars to pro-Obama and pro-Hillary Clinton super PACs. Mostyn was a major contributor to groups promoting gun control, abortion, turning Texas Democrat blue, and opposing tort reform.
With Soros, no victories are ever enough to satisfy him.
The Left already dominates large swaths of the courts and the legal profession, but that’s not good enough for Soros. He funds efforts to encourage states to fill their respective supreme courts with judges recommended by invariably left-wing lawyer-driven commissions, as John Gizzi wrote for Capital Research Center (my employer) in 2010.
State courts are powerful and influential. According to the American Justice Partnership, “Approximately 95 percent of civil disputes in America wind up in state courts, giving the judges who hear these cases enormous power over our lives, property, and business affairs.”
State courts led the way in institutionalizing same-sex marriage, ordering jurisdictions to allow it long before the U.S. Supreme Court had the final word with its 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that compelled all 50 states to recognize a fundamental, constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
In recent weeks 87-year-old Soros saturation-bombed his Open Society Foundations philanthropy with an $18 billion donation, likely guaranteeing OSF will remain one of the most important players in left-wing activism for decades to come. According to the New York Times, this is “one of the largest transfers of wealth ever made by a private donor to a single foundation.”
Even after forking over that huge donation, Soros is still worth $8 billion, according to Forbes, and he is bound to make billions more before he shuffles off this mortal coil.
And then George Soros’s five adult children, Robert (54), Andrea (52), Jonathan (47), Alexander (32), and Gregory (30), whose political views don’t appear to be much different from his own, will be free to continue funding radical causes with their father’s money.
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