Tag Archive for: Fox News

Saudi Muslims Lead Suspects in the San Bernadino Slaughter

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Fox News reported the name of perhaps the lead suspect, “Syed Farook” that is in play as the lead suspect involved in the massacre at a Holiday party at a San Bernadino, California, Development Disabled facility late Wednesday morning, December 2, 2015.   Farook and Tashfeen Malik  were in the bullet riddled  black SUV killed by Police, they were equipped in black tactical gear, body armor, AK -47 assault weapons with 30 round clips and hand guns.  A third possible suspect was seen running away, unclear whether it might a bystander not involved with the attack.

The Los Angeles Times in late breaking news reported:

Syed Farook, an inspector for the San Bernardino County Public Health Department, had traveled to Saudi Arabia, married, had a child, and appeared to be “living the American dream,” co-workers said today. They were stunned after law enforcement sources identified a man named Syed Farook as a suspect in the mass shooting at the department’s holiday party.

CAIR National held an extraordinary late night news conference with a relative of the suspect Farook expressing concern that Farrok and  Tashfeen Malik had been missing since late morning. The CAIR news conference was endeavoring to condemn a possible terrorist attack, distancing American Muslims from an apparent Jihad attack or a rumored disgruntled former employee “going postal”. Both the San Bernadino police and the FBI are remaining circumspect for the moment pursuing leads and social networks of the suspects to determine if there is a wide network behind the attack, or an isolated, perhaps ISIS inspired cell.  FBI Director Comey had announced surveillance of 48 high risk suspects during the recent Thanksgiving holiday period. Further the FBI is investigating  1,000 ISIS influenced persons of interest in all 50 states.  70 arrests have been made so far.

The Fox News report cited the venue and circumstances that set the stage to this deadly assault:

The Inland Regional Center is one of 21 facilities serving people with developmental disabilities run by the state, said Nancy Lungren, spokeswoman for the California Department of Developmental Services. The social services agency administers, authorizes and pays for assistance to people with disabilities such as autism and mental retardation. On an average day, doctors at the regional centers would be evaluating toddlers whose parents have concerns and case workers meeting with developmentally disabled adults.

The San Bernardino facility consists of three buildings, and employs approximately 600 workers. Inland Regional Center Executive Director Lavinia Johnson told Reuters the shooting happened at a conference center her group rented out for a San Bernardino Health Department county personnel holiday party.

The shoot out in San Bernadino that claimed the lives of the two suspects in the black SUV occurred four hours after the massacre at the Inland Regional Center. It raised speculations about why the perpetrators  loitered in the vicinity for four hours , monitoring  police reports about their dastardly accomplishment or reloading for an  attack on pursuing police officers and SWAT teams. They had calmly walked into the party methodically shot and killed their victims and walked away virtually unidentified . The carnage they left behind was reminiscent of a Paris Charlie Hebdo or November 13th café or Bataclan concert hall massacre. It also was reminiscent of the Mumbai Jihadi attack in November 2008.  San Bernadino Police chief Jarrod Burguan said:

“It’s a possibility, but we don’t know that yet, “when asked at an evening news conference if the attack was an act of terrorism.”We will go where the evidence takes us. They came prepared to do what they did as if on a mission.”

The identification of suspect Syed Farook led to a raid on a townhouse in nearby Redlands, California with Police, FBI and ATF personnel sending in robots to investigate whether it was booby trapped. The police during the pursuit of the slain suspects spoke of pipe bombs being tossed out of SUV, a tactic used by Middle East terrorist groups to keep counterterrorism squads away from following them. It was the same method used by the Tsarneavs brothers when pursued by Police following the Boston Marathon Massacre

What was clear was the increasing involvement of the FBI in the investigation given suspicions that this could possibly be a terrorist event, not the deranged hostage shoot out that occurred at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado last weekend killing three and wounding nine others.

Fox News noted:

The FBI was also on hand, and spokesman David Bowdich acknowledged that “adjustments” had been made in the investigation with an eye on the possibility terrorism was involved.

“It’s a possibility, but we are not willing to go down that road yet,” Bowdich said.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

Following the events at the facility, police used a bomb squad robot to search the building for possible explosives. A device found inside was detonated, but it was not clear if it was a bomb. Burguan said at a 5:30 p.m. news conference that authorities were still going through the building and believe there could be one or more bombs there.

Tight-lipped authorities offered no motive for the attack, citing the ongoing investigation. There were reports that one may have been at the facility earlier, possibly to verify the presence of someone targeted for death, only to return with two more gunmen to unleash horror. Another report, in the Los Angeles Times, had the man getting into an argument at the party and returning with armed henchmen.

Employees, who undergo monthly training drills to prepare for active shooter situations, initially thought the incident was a drill. But when real bullets flew, several hid in closets, barricaded themselves in rooms or fled for their lives.

Now, the nation awaits further developments from both Police and FBI investigations about the missing third suspect.  There is rising concern  that the two suspects killed in their SUV in a hail of police bullets may have been Jihadis perpetrating the San Bernadino holiday party massacre. Stay tuned for developments.

RELATED ARTICLE: California jihad? San Bernadino suspects linked to Islamist’s conviction?

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Syed Farook.

There are no ‘safe havens’ from the Islamic State’s Holy War against the Free World

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French President Hollande issued a statement this morning that ISIS terrorists in six separate attacks had murdered 123 injuring 183. UPDATE:  The toll is now 129 dead and over 353 wounded, 99 critically. Perhaps it was best said by Geert Wilders in a Tweet last night, “Paris is under attack this is War. Nothing Less”.

In the unfolding bloody ISIS coordinated attack in Paris we had a special family concern. We were anxious to learn of the whereabouts of a granddaughter who was spending a fall semester at the famed SciPo in Paris under a joint program with Northwestern where she is in her junior year.  Given text message exchanges with my son who was at a meeting in his law office in Manhattan, we learned that by happenstance she was spending the weekend in Amsterdam. Our eldest granddaughter is safely marooned in Amsterdam this weekend. She has made it a habit to visit European capitals on weekends during her fall semester of her junior year. at SciPo with her Northwestern U program. We reached out to cousin Nidra Poller to find that she and Jiro were okay. On a Skype call with her last night, she spoke of the ironic coincidence completing her latest book,  The Black Flag of Jihad Stalks la Republique.

What follows is an exchange with Debra Glazer, a friend and cousin of Nidra Poller who lives in California.  Glazer is a lawyer and graduate of Yale Law School. Her  husband  is an Economics professor at a major University of California campus. . Her email letter to me was prompted by concerns about our granddaughter and her own family members in Paris.  My son, wife and younger daughter, together with his in-laws, were headed to visit his older daughter, our granddaughter, during Thanksgiving week in Paris. That trip may be in abeyance pending decisions by Northwestern University as to whether students on the special SciPo exchange program may be requested to return home in the wake of last night’s ISIS Jihadist assault on Paris and Western civilization.

Dear Jerry,

I seem to recall that one of your grand-daughters was studying in Paris.  I hope she and all her friends are safe and secure.  I did hear back from Nidra this afternoon and she and Jiro and the family are all safe.  I had been hoping that Jiro wasn’t on duty photographing the game at the soccer stadium.

The enemies are becoming more brazen.  Will this wake up America and good people everywhere?

As we have always said, what starts with the Jews doesn’t end with the Jews.  But the world doesn’t remember or acknowledge that.  And in the meantime, the best and the brightest at Yale are hyperventilating over Halloween costumes.  I would hope that universities everywhere would volunteer to donate their therapy dogs, coloring books, crayons and jars of bubbles to the people of Paris, who really need a “safe space.”

Best,

Debbie

Dear Deb:

Our eldest granddaughter is safely marooned in Amsterdam this weekend. She has made it a habit to visit European capitals on weekends during her fall semester of her junior year. at SciPo with her Northwestern U program. We reached out to cousin Nidra Poller to find that she and Jiro were okay. On a Skype call with her last night, she spoke of the ironic coincidence completing her latest book with a title about “The Black Flag of ISIS in Europe.”

My colleague Lisa Benson and I were in the throes of finalizing the lineup of guests for Sunday’s program when the news broke about the coordinated jihadi attacks in Paris. As the toll mounted in reports from Fox News affiliate Sky News and independent France 24 it became more grisly. We had eyewitness reports from survivors of the hostage massacre at the Bataclan theater rock concert by the American band the American Eagle Death group. The callous indifference of the attack was evident in three jihadis shooting cowering victims from a rostrum on the second floor punctuated by explosions from grenades tossed in the hapless crowd below. It was eerily similar to episodes during Nazi Einsatzgruppen campaign murdering milions of Jews in Russia. But then the Qur’anic imperative of Salafist supremacist the Islamic State has always dictated killing  converting or extorting Jizya hush money from Infidels whether Saturday people or Sunday people. Among the dozens killed in Paris may be American victims in the several attacks at the Soccer stadium, restaurant shootings and the Bataclan theater. Ironically the American Death Eagles band survived. So did the 40 plus escapees who made their way to the roof of the Bataclan to find a man waving at them to enter his attic window in an adjacent building thereby making their escape from the bloody charnel scene unfolding inside the theater.

Among the commentary I watched was that of Morten Storm, the Danish double agent who worked with CIA inside Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In his interview with Megan Kelly of FoxNews.  He repeated prescient warnings that he gave on the Lisa Benson Show last summer that this bloody terror spectacle by ISIS was inevitable. Especially in France with hundreds of returning ISIS fighters and horrific precedents of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and Hyper Cacher kosher market attack of last January.  Cousin Nidra Poller, French Jewish commentators Michel Gurfinkiel and Phillipe Karsenty have written of the drip by drip killings of French Jews, riots against Jewish synagogues and businesses in communities near those Muslim banlieuses, administrative suburbs, in Paris and other French cities.

French Jews, especially those who migrated from North Africa during the 1960’s, now five decades later, are leaving for aliyah to Israel or emigration to Canada and the US. In Israel they are confronted by daily Islamikaze knifings, car rammings and shootings. We have had grisly episodes here of ISIS ‘inspired events” in the US and Canada.  Geert Wilders in the midst of the murderous ISIS razzia in Paris in a blast email said, “This is war.”

Last night’s bloody spectacle perpetrated by ISIS made the comments of President Obama earlier in the day delusional suggesting that the seizure of Sinjar suburbs in northern Iraq by Kurdish Peshmerga and Yazidis units with US special ops and air support was demonstration that ISIS was being “tamed”. The US crowing about tracking and killing of ISIS executioner Jihad John by a US drone evaporated with ISIS’ jihad assault of Paris. Shades of Mumbai in 2008, the seventh anniversary looms of that Islam terrorist attack by deobandi Kashmiri and Pakistani fanatics who tortured and killed their Jews at the Nariman Chabad house.

It should not be lost the Paris jihad is the culmination of a string of catastrophic events by ISIS: the ISIS downing of Metrojet Flight 9268 with 224 passengers and crew aboard and the bombing of the Hezbollah bastion in South Beirut with dozens killed and hundreds injured. Those jihad assaults immediately preceded last night’s bloodbath in what some now call France’s 9/11. The turning off the lights in the Eiffel tower sent a clear message.  That despite the brave front of President Hollande, himself a spectator to the suicide bombings at the French soccer stadium during a friendly French German national team matches ISIS succeeding in intimidating France and the West. I am reminded of the fateful comment of British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey on the eve of WWI: “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time

President Obama can’t bring himself to face the reality of his failure to “degrade or defeat ISIS.” He and his minions in the White House are moral cowards and appeasers of Islamofascism. Moreover he, Secretary John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter have sold out to both Shia and Sunni supremacists. They persist in not recognizing the dual Shia and Sunni extremist threats to Israel and alleged Middle East Sunni allies. Moreover they have lied about supporting Kurdish Peshmerga and Syrian Kurdish forces with desperately needed arms, equipment, vehicles and unit training the only effective boots on the ground combating the Islamic State. They dither over recognizing genocide of Syrian and Iraqi Christians, Yazidis and other non Muslim minorities. Instead they have offered asylum to potential tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees to be settled in more than 180 US cities. Those Syrian Muslim refugees are virtually incapable of being vetted given the absence of documentation from the failed state. Meanwhile our State Department denies sanctuary to Christians and other minorities facing extinction.

That was the judgment of former New York office FBI supervisory agent Jim Kallstrom during a Fox News interview last night. Kallstrom assumed the post that John O’ Neil held in New York. O’Neil warned about Al Qaeda intentions following in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, only to be among the 2,700 killed on 9/11.  O’Neil was just beginning his stint as security director at the ill fated WTC complex in lower Manhattan. Kallstrom had conducted the investigations into the explosion of TWA Flight 800.

At issue is whether this country, lacking moral leadership, can resolve to recognize, gather resources and build alliances to destroy the Islamic State. It is a doubtful prospect given capitulation to Shia extremist Iran in its quest threatening Israel’s and America’s extinction equipped with nuclear missiles. Sic transit ignominia Obama mundi.

Jerry Gordon

UPDATE: Fox News reports, “Nohemi Gonzalez, 23, a student at California State University Long Beach, was identified as the first US citizen killed in Friday night’s terror attack in Paris that claimed the lives of 129. Belgium authorities have also said they arrested three in raids in Brussels after tracing a car’s license plate that was seen near the concert hall that was attacked. ”

RELATED ARTICLE: At least one man linked to Paris attacks registered as refugee in Greece: police

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

GOP Media Takedown: A Recipe for Victory

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It’s long been known that a leader can gain power by rallying the people against a boogeyman.

And it helps when that boogeyman is real.

When CNBC’s GOP debate moderators couldn’t help but be sanctimonious, supercilious, and self-important Wednesday night, they did more than provoke a response from their intellectual superiors. They did more than further reveal the Establishment Media as a left-wing monolith, further discredit themselves, and further cement in minds that they’re comic-book versions of journalists.

They quite literally revealed a strategy for GOP electoral gains.

I said many years ago that if I were seeking the presidency (fanciful thought), one of the entities I’d run against is the media. Why? Along with lawyers and politicians, the media is a group for which Americans have a fairly intense dislike. This is largely because as with the first two groups, a big part of the modern media’s business is lying, and no one likes being lied to. Moreover, outsiders Donald Trump and Ben Carson are leading contenders for the GOP nomination because people have lost faith in our institutions and are fed up with the establishment. And the Establishment Media, by definition, are part of the establishment. Thus, they’re ripe to be demonized.

To reiterate, no Machiavellian maneuvering is necessary here because the media are demonic in their deception. Along with entertainment and academia, they constitute a tripartite axis of cultural evil. They are Americans’ conduit of information, and how can citizens choose the right policies and politicians if they’re being fed misinformation? It’s as with a computer: if the input is wrong, the output will be wrong — and our nation’s actions won’t compute.

And taking on this enemy of America — as is the case when tackling any enemy — makes you a hero. Think about it: every candidate that joined Senator Ted Cruz in the phalanx against the media Wednesday seemed like an anti-establishment outsider bravely fighting the powers-that-be. This was true even of Senator Marco Rubio and Governor Chris Christie, despite the only true visible outsiders in the race being Trump, Carson, and Cruz.

Another factor is that the media are going to propagandize against Republican candidates regardless; it’s a given. But it won’t work nearly as well once you make clear you’re a mortal enemy of the media, which will be attended by the (correct) assumption that they’re an enemy of yours. Then when they run negative information on you, people will be more likely to dismiss it with “Well, of course they’d say that. They hate his guts!” In other words, there’s long been an undeclared media war on conservatives, but up until now rightists having generally taken the abuse quietly. And if you have to take the flak anyway, why not make sure the war is declared, an open and visible fight?

In contrast, when you play along with the media’s ridiculous questions, which range from juvenile to malicious, you not only cast yourself as someone who plays the game (paging John “Can’t do” Kasich) but lend those questions credibility; this is significant because people are influenced by what’s “accepted,” and a large segment of the electorate won’t truly recognize, independently, the questions’ inanity. But standing up and passionately pointing it out will be a light-bulb moment, making some of them say, “Hey, yeah! That was a dumb and unfair question!” You’re announcing that the media have no clothes.

So while some lament the media’s descent into overt left-wing advocacy, there is a silver lining in that cloud. In the days of Peter Jennings and Dan Rather, the media already constituted a leftist propaganda mill but were decidedly better at feigning impartiality. Today the media are even more artless, impatient, and infantile and far more often wear their banners openly. This not only means they tend to let their mask slip, but gives a smart candidate the opportunity to rip it off completely and expose the distorted visage beneath.

Running against the hated media also has an obvious byproduct: discrediting via guilt by association all whom the establishment media support, such as establishment candidate Hillary Clinton. To intensify this process, it should be treated as a given — not only because it’s true but also because what’s assumed is learned best — that the media and Democrat Party are joined at the hip. I’ve often used the line that the media are the Democrats’ “public-relations team,” and Rubio related this idea well Wednesday when he called the media the liberals’ “ultimate super PAC.”

Of course, all this would have to be effected boldly but artfully; if overdone, it could start to seem like whining. It’s also possible the media could be cowed somewhat by humiliation and retreat into Peter Jennings mode. After all, leftists have big egos and can’t tolerate what their own Saul Alinsky prescribed: mockery. Should this return to relative subtlety occur, it would make the media’s propaganda more effective. There is some question as to whether today’s new media guard — more emotion-driven than ever and conditioned to expect immediate gratification — could exercise such discipline. Yet I wouldn’t be surprised to see them regroup, at least for a time, in an effort to not be the bull in the china shop of leftist shilling.

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus has been excoriated for setting up the CNBC debate, but he perhaps stumbled into gold. No, taking down incompetent propagandists is no substitute for having a fair media in the first place. But, as G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you.” The media have long been launching the salvos and settling matters. It’s time to fight back in the spirit of settling their hash.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

Oh, How the Mighty Megyn Has Fallen

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Most people, including me, know that Megyn Kelly is not only gorgeous, but also smart, sassy, incisive in her interviews, and also genuinely funny. But the interview she conducted Wednesday night, August 26,  with Jorge Ramos was disgraceful––the kind of toadying and biased interrogation that should be Exhibit #1 in journalism schools across the country about how not to be a legitimate journalist.

Ramos is a reporter for Univision, the company being sued by presidential candidate Donald Trump after they terminated their contractual relationship (including television broadcast obligations) with the Trump-backed Miss Universe Organization. The official charges include breach of contract and defamation, with the plaintiffs seeking more than $500-million in damages. Univision took its punitive action after Mr. Trump said that Mexican immigrants, including criminals and rapists, were teeming over our southern border––in other words, for exercising his constitutional right to free speech.

The Kelly interview was about Mr. Trump’s ousting Ramos from a press conference the previous evening, after the candidate pointed to an audience member who had a question to ask. Instead, Ramos stood up and preempted that question, not with a question of his own, but with a virtual filibuster of grievances. And what did Ramos have the chutzpah to whine to Megyn Kelly about? That his free speech was being curtailed! Now that is rich!

Kelly had no doubt watched the film of exactly what had taken place. But not a peep out of her to give her audience the context of what had actually transpired. She also knew that Trump initially responded to Ramos’s outburst by saying repeatedly, “you weren’t called on, sit down.” Peepless.

Kelly also knew that Trump’s personal aide came out to the lobby to invite Ramos back into the auditorium. Not a peep. And she knew that the two men then engaged in a lengthy back and forth, apparently to the satisfaction of both of them. Still no peep.

Did Kelly’s viewing audience learn of any of these mitigating circumstances? Again, not a single peep from Kelly, who allowed––indeed encouraged––Ramos to go on and on in the victim role he so clearly basks in.

Did Kelly ask Ramos if it were true that his daughter works for Hillary Clinton? Would that not have been highly relevant? Not a peep!

Megyn’s interview was as dishonest as it gets in the world of what should be legitimate journalism (although in today’s America, “legitimate journalism” may be the ultimate oxymoron!). While Ramos portrayed himself as the victim of big bad Donald Trump, and himself as the virtuous believer in Free Speech and the right to be heard, Megyn put on her most sincere listening face, but failed to challenge any of Ramos’s lies.

KELLY FITS NEATLY INTO THE PACK

The pack, that is, of other TV personalities who forgot but were then reminded that they were simply employees. Both Paula Zahn and Alisyn Camerota were Fox News Network news readers, commentators, hosts, co-hosts, anchors, whatever––both delivering their commentary with a distinctly conservative flavor.

When they moved to CNN, however (Zahn in 2001; Camerota in 2014), their commentary magically became unmistakably liberal.

But it wasn’t magic at all. Both women worked for the big business of American media, with bosses who issue directives and, in essence, tell them what to say––not the exact phrasing, but certainly the slant. That’s how business works…the boss calls the shots and the employees either comply or get booted.

And if you think that the bosses have the final say, think again. The major outlets––both print and electronic––take a lot of their marching orders from the White House. That’s right, and while the government-controlled press/TV/radio didn’t begin with Mr. Obama, his regime has certainly taken it to unprecedented heights. As just one example, have we heard about one single civilian casualty in the thousand of drone strikes Mr. Obama has ordered over the past almost-seven years in the Middle East? Even one? I rest my case.

DINOSAURS

But I digress. For decades, the media have prided themselves on having the greatest influence on who gets elected and who doesn’t, particularly in the big contests for president (of which there is only one) and senators (of which there are only 100). They also like to pick their favorite spokespeople, even if those selections are completely unrepresentative of public sentiment.

Karl Rove of Fox is a perfect example. A big kahuna in the President George W. Bush years and a virtual encyclopedia of electoral minutiae, Rove likes his politicians rather tame and manipulable, and that is why he appears to call the shots for Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, who faithfully echoes Rove’s white bread sentiments.

Clearly, Rove and his Democrat counterparts–recycled dinosaurs, all––are kept on because of the pricey contracts they’ve signed. It is certainly not that they shed any light! And then along comes Donald Trump and all they can do is hurl snooty insults and wage bets against the obvious frontrunner.

Yes, that Donald Trump, the guy who tells it like it is, never fails to remind you that he knows how to negotiate and strike deals and make America great again, the guy who has learned through thousands of negotiations how to “read” people (and the language they use) with unerring accuracy.

Even before he “read” Megyn Kelly, he came out of the candidate’s box with an insult to Sen. John McCain and a virtual manifesto against illegal immigration. And how did the media––both conservative and liberal––react? With reflexive horror, well-practiced political correctness, tsk-tsk raised eyebrows, and uniform condemnation.

WE THE PEOPLE

And how did the public react––that would be me and you and all the other ignorant rubes who the media elites believe can’t hold a candle to own their immense wisdom and knowledge?

We-the-People not only gave Mr. Trump huge poll ratings, but also heaved a huge sigh of gratitude. At last, they seemed to say, a guy who speaks to our concerns and doesn’t give a damn about the political correctness that violates our First Amendment rights every minute of every day, a guy who not only wants to protect our southern border, but also do away with every aspect of the horrors we’ve experienced over the past several years, including:

  • The diminishment of our military (and the shabby treatment of our veterans)
  • The horrific socialized medicine nightmare of Obamacare
  • The ghastly dumb-down-our-kids education fiasco known as Common Core
  • The crushing national debt
  • The Mt. Everest heights of unemployment
  • The infiltration of the America-loathing and anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood into the highest reaches of our government (including State, Homeland Security, the Pentagon, Health and Human Services, and the White House itself!)
  • On and on…

We know that not a single Democrat candidate for president is speaking out on these America-destroying issues? All you hear from them is victim, victim, victim, more money, more money, more money. Nothing with the Democrats has changed in over 70 years––and nothing has succeeded!

But the Trump promise to do away with or change or fix our problems is ringing true to the American public. Why? Because he’s proved it again and again in his own business life, surmounting losses and turning them into profits, and in his personal life, weathering disappointments in his marriages––and yet his two former wives are his biggest fans, and his children are model citizens!

Yes, there is an embarrassment of riches on the Republican side, and at least four or five candidates are impressively articulate in stating their plans for a better America. But none of them has the business experience and toughness and aggressiveness (which we need right now) of Mr. Trump.

The same Mr. Trump who perceived, quite accurately, I think, that Megyn Kelly was more than provocative in the first debate, indeed in a “gotcha” mode to entrap, embarrass, and diminish him. To the entire country’s surprise, Trump fought back, accusing Kelly of being, in essence, unprofessional and of gratuitously baiting him.

The next day…poll numbers boomed for Mr. Trump!

However, Mr. Trump went a step further. He went directly to Megyn’s boss, Roger Ailes, president of Fox News and chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group, and according to the candidate’s own report, it was a productive meeting in which Ailes promised that Fox would “be fair” to him Mr. Trump. All good. And then––coincidence?––Megyn announced she was leaving for a two-week vacation.

But when she came back, Mr. Trump tweeted that Megyn was not on her game, and apparently both Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox (and The New York Post, among numerous other holdings), and Roger Ailes, decided that they would summon all their power and influence to take Trump down. Clearly, they’ve dispatched General Megyn Kelly to the front lines.

On Wednesday, the news was preoccupied by the tragic death of two young media people from Virginia who were murdered while on air. But throughout the day there was a steady drumbeat of anti-Trump commentary and innuendo on Fox.

If things continue on the same trajectory for Mr. Trump, I suspect he may end up thanking Fox for kicking his polls numbers into the stratosphere!

Will the UN Side Deal Kill Obama’s Iran Nuke Deal?

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The swirl of controversy in the wake of Wednesday’s AP exclusive story deepened yesterday with contradictory statements from IAEA director General Yukia Amano. Amano released a statement saying the report was “misleading,” that he was satisfied with the access his people will receive under the deal. Referring to the AP report Amano said “Such statements misrepresent the way in which we will undertake this important verification work.” The AP story cited drafts of a separate inspection protocol about Iran being granted control over inspections of the disputed Parchin test site allegedly involved with tests of nuclear triggers a decade ago.

The IAEA is charged with developing a so-called Road Map of prior military developments upon hinges release of over $100 billion in sanctioned funds to the Islamic Republic of Iran in December 2015. A few weeks ago , when IAEA chief Amano briefed Senators on Capitol Hill, many came away less than impressed by his presentation of the inspection regime that  Administration negotiators, Secretary of State Kerry, Undersecretary Sherman and Energy Secretary Dr. Earnest Moniz said were” intrusive and robust verification” of Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA provisions.  Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) weren’t satisfied and conducted their own due diligence at IAEA headquarters in Vienna. In an August 2, 2015 Wall Street Journal op-ed they argued that the so-called secret side deals should be released in compliance with the requirements of the Iran Nuclear Review Agreement Act. They commented:

Weaponization lies at the heart of our dispute with Iran and is central to determining whether this deal is acceptable. Inspections of Parchin are necessary to ensure that Iran is adhering to its end of the agreement. Without knowing this baseline, inspectors cannot properly evaluate Iran’s compliance. It’s like beginning a diet without knowing your starting weight. That the administration would accept side agreements on these critical issues—and ask the U.S. Congress to do the same—is irresponsible.

AP, Fox News and other media   obtained copies of Separate Agreement II leaked by an anonymous senior IAEA official revealing that the IAEA had adopted a protocol for the PMS Road Map giving Iran complete authority over soil sampling, video and photographic evidence at the disputed Parchin Site.  Armin Rosen of Business Insider revealed the text in his report:

Separate arrangement II agreed by the Islamic State of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency on 11 July 2015, regarding the Road-map, Paragraph 5

Iran and the Agency agreed on the following sequential arrangement with regard to the Parchin issue:

1. Iran will provide to the Agency photos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.

1. Iran will provide to the Agency videos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.

1. Iran will provide to the Agency 7 environmental samples taken from points inside one building already identified by the Agency and agreed by Iran, and 2 points outside of the Parchin complex which would be agreed between Iran and the Agency.

1. The Agency will ensure the technical authenticity of the activities referred to in paragraphs 1-3 above. Activities will be carried out using Iran’s authenticated equipment, consistent with technical specifications provided by the Agency, and the Agency’s containers and seals.

1. The above mentioned measures would be followed, as a courtesy by Iran, by a public visit of the Director General, as a dignitary guest of the Government of Iran, accompanied by his deputy for safeguards.

6. Iran and the Agency will organize a one-day technical roundtable on issues relevant to Parchin.

Rosen went on to write:

The final text confirms that at least one aspect of the IAEA’s road map — the agreement meant to resolve the agency’s numerous outstanding questions on the status of Iran’s nuclear weaponization program — was settled on terms favorable to Iran.

Iran has barred IAEA inspectors from Parchin despite nearly a decade of requests for access. The roadmap, which is meant to settle years of unanswered questions about Iran’s nuclear weaponization drive, apparently doesn’t change that.

If the Parchin investigation is happening on Tehran’s terms, it raises the possibility that the rest of the roadmap inquiry will be carried out under a process that Iran can strongly influence or even control.

This is by design: As Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency told regime-linked media in early August, one of Iran’s negotiating objectives was limiting the IAEA’s reach inside of the country, according to a report from the Washington Institute for Near East Studies:

We do not have an optimistic view of the [IAEA]. There is no doubt that they will release the information [that we are giving them]. We need to be careful in the information that we supply to them …We are not only dealing with the agency and these spies. We are dealing with all the countries that own nuclear programs. There are formulas and methods to prevent supplying information to the agency’s inspectors. We did not know about these methods in the past and supplied some information that should not have been supplied.

Iran’s “formulas and methods” for limiting the IAEA’s reach are now apparent, at least as Parchin is concerned. Whether the Parchin arrangement is part of a larger trade off to ensure IAEA access to other, possibly more important sites is currently unknown — the other implementation agreement governing whom IAEA inspectors can talk to and what facilities they can visit as part of their investigation is still secret.

Yesterday, State Department spokesperson, Admiral John Kirby was besieged with journalists’ questions about the relinquishing of IAEA inspection to Iran on development of the Road Map. He endeavored to repeat Administration claims of being “confident and comfortable” that the Inspection regime adopted via the IAEA would provide the information for the Roadmap. Besides, as he is often wont to say, ‘we have enough evidence of what went on at Parchin and other known sites”.  The skepticism of inquiring journalists was risible. I am reminded of I.F. Stone, the radical alleged KBG agent and US Journalist during the Vietnam anti-War era in Washington, whose eponymous weekly report was emblazoned with this masthead quote: “all governments are led by liars don’t believe a word they say”.

Watch this C-Span video excerpt of yesterday’s State Department briefing on the Parchin prior military developments inspection protocol:

There are those of us like Stephen and Shoshana Bryen and my colleague Ilana Freedman and this writer  suggest that the IAEA will never be able to inspect the more likely venue of Iran nuclear weaponization experimentation since 2003, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Given the revelations of the AP  and other  media news stories, Members of both Chambers of Congress  who favor the President’s position might reassess their positions and request  vigorous due diligence  gathering  all of the side agreements  for the JCPOA, prior to casting a vote by the mid-September  on the pending resolution .  Otherwise, they might, as Senator Menendez warned in his Seton Hall University address this week, they might find having   their names added to Iran’s bomb.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of IAEA Director General Yukia Amano and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Tehran, July 2, 2015. Source: Europhoto.

2016’s Winners and Losers

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Alarm bells should be going off within the GOP establishment-class. A recently released poll of Iowa GOP voters showing Donald Trump in the lead with 22% support and Dr. Ben Carson in second place with 14% is a stinging rebuke to the political class. In analyzing this poll I came to the nearly irrefutable conclusion that Americans are looking for a dramatically different type of leadership, because the one trait these two candidates have in common is their lack of a political resume. Voters are beyond fed up with the “managed decline” attitude emanating from political insiders.

CNN Poll of Iowa: GOP Race 2016

I saw this phenomenon up close and personal during my campaign for congress and thought it had reached a crescendo, but I may have miscalculated the anger of the electorate. With this in mind I would like to cover the race for the GOP presidential nomination from an issues-based perspective rather than a candidate-based perspective. There are a number of well-done analyses on Conservative Review covering the gamut of candidate characteristics and voting records, but in this piece I want to cover what issues are winning and losing. For example, extrapolating from the results of the aforementioned Iowa GOP poll, it’s clear that long political resumes are no longer an asset. Therefore, term limits may be a “winner.”

Here are some other issues that are “winning” over the GOP electorate thus far, and some that are “losing:”

WINNER: Accountability

Hillary Clinton’s tanking poll numbers with regard to her “trustworthiness” are an ominous sign for the Democratic frontrunner, but they demonstrate that increased accountability is a winner in the eyes of the American people. After the Clinton email scandal, the IRS scandal, the terror attacks in Benghazi, the VA scandal, the GAO scandal, the Fast and Furious scandal, the AP / Fox News phone records scandal, the awful Iran “deal”, the Kate Steinle murder, and the Obama amnesty scandal, Americans of all political stripes are fed up with elected officials and government bureaucrats living by a separate set of “rules,” which would get the average American fined, arrested, and publicly humiliated.

WINNER: Conservative Immigration Reform

The establishment wing of the GOP, and some of their crony capitalist backers, have GROSSLY underestimated the importance GOP voters place on border security and a legal, and orderly, immigration process. Voter outrage is especially enflamed in the wake of President Obama’s lawless executive actions going undefeated in Congress. After watching the first GOP debate, and observing the GOP polling trends, I cannot see any GOP candidate who supports amnesty winning the GOP nomination.

WINNER: Tax Reform

A number of the GOP candidates on the debate stage, and in their campaign platforms, have eloquently spoken about a number of bold, serious, pro-growth-oriented tax reforms which would jumpstart job and wage growth, including the fair tax, a flat tax, a marginal income tax rate cut, and the elimination of economically-distorting, insider tax-deductions. With the recent release of another series of disappointing job numbers and stagnant wage growth, the GOP is again positioned to frame itself as the party of broad-based prosperity if we can relay our message clearly and concisely.

LOSER: Common Core

There are few issues which engender the degree of bipartisan revulsion the way that Common Core does. There are a couple of things you just don’t mess with and the education of our children is one of them. Jeb Bush’s weak defense of Common Core actually served to make the case for dumping Common Core in favor of local education standards, which suit the students of the local school districts, not the interests of power-hungry Washington D.C. bureaucrats.

LOSER: Planned Parenthood and Abortion-on-Demand

After being caught red-handed on videotape, harvesting and trafficking the organs of aborted children, this sick organization may be single-handedly responsible for creating a new generation of pro-life young Americans. The organ trafficking scandal put the issue on the center stage of the national political debate and forced America to confront the horror of abortion without the flowery talking points the far-left has used for years to disguise the genuine horror of what is happening. Also, the laws of political gravity are beginning to reestablish their preeminence with the Trump campaign after his puzzling response to a question about the taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. Supporting, in any fashion, a policy which forces the taxpayers to fund this horrible organization is a complete and total loser among GOP voters.

LOSER: Political Correctness

Whether you support or revile Donald Trump, you cannot ignore him. His attack on our increasingly politically correct culture generated thunderous applause from the audience during the GOP debate. It generated applause because Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians, and moderate Democrats are seething with frustration and disappointment at the far-left’s determination to generate false outrage and divide up America using PC word policing. These self-appointed authorities randomly declare people “racist,” “sexist,” and worse, for speaking out against bad policies. The circle of what the far-left declares to be “acceptable conversation” has been shrinking for years as they fascistically categorize a growing number of words as off-limits, and a growing number of Americans as racists, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes, and worse. As this “acceptable” circle shrinks, and the number of people allowed inside lessens, those on the outside, designated extremists by the media-progressive alliance, will viciously fight back in support of forces willing to take on this alliance.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review.

Soviet Fascism in the 21st Century: Inside A Gigantic Network of Falsehood

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It is very true—history repeats itself. When I immigrated to the U.S. and my English improved, I became a Republican. And the first phrase introduced to me about the party was “GOP has never missed the opportunity to miss the opportunity.” Today, thirty four years later, I am a witness of that and it is painful to watch how instead of exposing the Democrats, who are destroying America the Beautiful, the GOP destructs itself from within. Instead of identifying the real enemy of our country and expose the Democrats, the Republicans are missing the opportunity to do so.

This is not the first time, I observed a similar situation in 2008 as well, when I was writing: What is Happening to America?

“When a medical doctor treats a patient, he or she fights the disease and its causes. As a rule, after finding the causes a doctor deals with the disease. That way the patient is cured, his body is healed. These physicians are knowledgeable professionals with experiences to make the right diagnosis. We could establish a parallel with our politicians who unlike the latter specialists, treat the symptoms of the diseases not the disease itself. In this case the patient will never be cured and the treatment will never bring healing. This is somehow similar to the politicians on the world stage today—the leaders of the Western civilization.”

Fox News moderators from left, Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier warm up the crowd before Republican presidential candidates New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Ben Carson, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Donald Trump, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ohio Gov. John Kasich take the stage for the first Republican presidential debate at the Quicken Loans Arena, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Fox News moderators from left, Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier warm up the crowd before Republican presidential candidates New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Ben Carson, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Donald Trump, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ohio Gov. John Kasich take the stage for the first Republican presidential debate at the Quicken Loans Arena, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The Republican debates on August 6, 2015

I have no words to describe the pride I felt, watching the majestic seventeen conservatives, their energy, eloquence, and desire to save America at the two Republican debates in August 6, 2015. Yet, it ended up with an unpleasant smell of disunity. Of course, debates are debates and the different ideas are supposed to be presented and argued for one fundamental reason—to expose and defeat the Democrats in the upcoming election of 2016. It did not happened. Moreover, something typical had occurred—the Republicans had tried to defeat their own.

For your information, I like Megyn Kelly, she is definitely a beautiful woman, a very smart one, with eloquence and knowledge of the country’s law. As a lawyer myself, I saw something unusual in her behavior, she was nervous and very aggressive against Donald Trump. A journalist, who is extremely successfully on Fox News, she was not supposed to be nervous—an unethical assignment made her nervous. This is my conclusion on what I saw at the debates. And these the exact circumstances that forces me to return to my main topic—Soviet Fascism.

I do not know the exact reason behind Kelly’s behavior. Maybe the owners of the Fox know more than I do, or maybe it was an attempt to show the Democrats that Fox can do the job at a Democratic debate as well? At any rate, it was not a “good journalism.” Yet, listening to Trump, I got the impression that he knows more about my topic of Soviet Fascism than other politicians. His remarks about the issues of a dreadful condition in the world, gave me that impression. For me, the big picture of the debates presented the dark room with cockroaches in it; Trump enter the room and turned light ON…

The best example is a nuclear deal with Iran. All the components of the deal are under suspicions as the manufactured ones and not corresponded to the real situation of the world. Moreover, the five secret attachments are not known to the vast majority of Americans. Maybe history repeats itself. Those politicians who know the history of WWII, perhaps remember the Molotov/Ribbentrop agreement of the 1939 that preceded and facilitated the war. I am afraid that Obama creates a similar predicament in the world by helping Putin and his satellite Iran to wage a successful next war against Western civilization.

obamaismObama/Putin Joint Venture—Destruction of the American Republic

A famous Russian dissident Vladimir Bukowski once said: “when a Socialist comes to power, you can expect concentration camps.”  He was right—violence is the main feature of Socialism. The perspective for the future Socialist world Karl Marx expressed in his slogan Proletarian of the world unite, which meant a violent world war. One hundred years later Joseph Stalin developed the Socialist intent in a more politically pronounced manner by camouflaging violence: One world Government under the Kremlin auspices. We, the former citizens of the Socialist countries went through that development, called a Mature Socialism. It was a war by the government against its own citizens–a multi-facet war with different fronts, methods, shapes, and forms.

It was Mature Socialism that ended up with the collapse of the Soviet Union and therefore seemed the entire Socialist world. Yet, many Americans are still infected by a virus of Stalin’s Socialism. The question is how it was possible that a fraud, as I identified Stalin’s ideology of Socialism, could survive for almost a century and still seduced a lot of people in the world today? This is the question I have been researching and investigating for many years discussing multi-faceted methods and devices of the Stalin’s social model—its modus operandi.

Living in America for more than thirty years together with other Americans, we are constantly hearing on the radio, TV, and internet two words—Political Correctness, none of the issues of public domain can do without. Does anybody in America or the world knows the architect of PC, its concept or the fundamental agenda behind it? Does anybody know the nature and crucial role those two words played in their lives for decades? The answer to the question will unite us: the former citizens of the Socialist countries and all of the people in the 21st century, as we all together in different times have been manipulated and brainwashed by these two words—Political Correctness.

The predicament in the world requires me to remind you the architect of and the nature of those two words, which seems very neutral indeed. In fact, they are not peaceful, on the contrary they represent the psychological tools or methods to transform a political system by fraud, while simultaneously fighting the ideological opponents. In all my writings I have already introduced a vast majority of Stalin’s methods and devices, however, this concept is the crucial one. To my knowledge Stalin was the author of those two words that were published for the first time in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia in1933, the time when the major transformation was going on in the Soviet Union. He called Politically Incorrect the leaders of the opposition. The American educator confirms my information:

“In the early-to-mid 20th century, contemporary uses of the phrase “Politically Correct” were associated with the dogmatic application of Stalinist doctrine, debated between formal Communists (members of the Communist Party) and Socialists. The phrase was a colloquialism referring to the Communist party line, which provided for “correct” positions on many matters of politics. According to American educator Herbert Kohl writing about debates in New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s. “

Writing about Stalinism and watching its ubiquitous application in the 21st century, I was offering my vision of the matter in the preceding columns:

“… Political Correctness is a Stalinist policy, driven by the political agenda, a skillfully crafted design of quintessential system of leis and a long-term strategy of war against Western civilization and creation of One World Government.”  It is an addition to many other pages written by me in my books and articles about Stalin’s incredible ability to mislead, lie, and defraud. I have to remind you again, Stalin was such a skillful political intriguer that vast majority of people in the Soviet Union not only believed him, but adored him as a Messiah. Nobody could compete with him in the art of intrigues. Political Correctness had no opponents and reigned in the country—we lived inside a gigantic network of falsehood…

Look at America today. Due to the constant efforts of Obama/Putin joint venture America is drastically transformed, like us, living in the Soviet Union, America lives today inside a gigantic network of falsehood created by Political Correctness. And this is not the end of the resemblances: our economy is going down the tube, our morals are in its lowest level ever. Where is our patriotism, when 55 percent of young people planned to leave the country? Perhaps this is the time to remind you also of a prediction made in the end of 1940s or in the beginning of 1950s. “America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.” Joseph Stalin.

There are three major components acknowledged by Stalin; American Patriotism, our morality, and our spiritual life. If you analyze them and the following statement you will see a criminal intent in the author’s mind—the negative outcome is the desire to undermine all three. Don’t you see an obvious result of that in America today? If you don’t, you are blind and deaf. In my opinion, Trump was about to crash the fraudulent walls of a gigantic network of falsehood and the incompetent leadership of the GOP tried to prevent it. They do not know that secrecy and deception are the main strategy, two arms of Stalin’s Political Correctness.

I am for Trump, because he is frustrated like I am and millions of Americans, We all together with Trump want to prevent the destruction of America the Beautiful that is going on before our eyes every day under the treacherous leadership of Obama and his party called Democratic. The nuclear agreement with Iran is the epitome of Stalin’s Political Correctness. It illustrates quintessential lies in form and substance and criminal desire to undermine the security of America and Western civilization. It assists, promotes, and furtheres a final “crack-up of the world” as Trump claims.

Maureen Dowd is one of the victims of Political Correctness like many other Democrats. She is very wrong describing Obama as ”a charming new comer like Barack Obama, ascending like a political Pegasus…” Ms. Dowd is one of many blind and the deaf individuals characterizing Obama this way. Using her words, I would call him “a pig in the poke or a pig who pokes.”  I have to admit those are very soft words, my real opinion on Obama you will find in my books and articles.

To be continued at www.simonapipko1.com.

Megyn Kelly, Queen of Narcissism, Gets a Pass

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Robert Ringer is a motivational speaker with a national following, and has authored several best-selling self-help books – both ventures has allowed him to combine philosophy, reality, and critical thinking in a unique style that challenges those who dare to read or listen to what he shares.  It is the critical thinking and reality dimensions Mr. Ringer presents that attracts me most; both of which are quickly going out of style, no longer taught in schools, much less communities of higher learning like universities.

Mr. Ringer’s commentary below will not disappoint those who still value critical thinking as well as choose to live in reality; rather than obtain their thoughts through social media and associated venues, sipping their latté and regurgitating opinions from their peers spewing “original thought” from social media.  Constructive criticism should not be mean-spirited.  Constructive criticism might sting, but should always cause the recipients to confront themselves and take an inventory so improvement can be celebrated later.  I pray this is the case with Mr. Ringer’s comments.

Subject: Megyn Kelly, Queen of Narcissism, Gets a Pass

Megyn Kelly is razor sharp, impeccably prepared, relentless, tough, verbally skilled, and, to boot, a pretty good looker. She’s also an egomaniacal smart-aleck who seems intent on following Glenn Beck down the path to mediocre celebrity status.

When Kelly is on her game and acts like a broadcast professional, there’s no one better. She’s at her best when she’s going after radical–left liars like Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby, Planned Parenthood’s criminal elite, and just about everyone who perpetuated the “Hands up, don’t shoot” lie.

But she’s at her absolute worst when her cranial inflammatory condition — Beckitis — flares up and “I,” “me,” “my” come rolling off her tongue in nonstop fashion. Well … come to think of it … she’s at her very worst when she’s interviewing her “hunk” of a house-husband and artificially boosting one of his novels into a New York Times bestseller. I think George and Ira Gershwin had him in mind when they wrote “Nice work if you can get it.”

Borrowing from her ex-husband’s comments about his marriage to Kelly, her current spouse appears to be the wife she’s always wanted. As her ex (Dr. Dan Kendall) put it, “We both needed someone to cook and clean.”

But let’s not get personal here. I have no dog in this fight — I’ve never even met Donald Trump — but starting what is supposed to be a serious debate about serious issues by asking a flagrantly loaded question aimed at one participant — under the dishonest guise of its being for all the participants — is a perfect example of why people dislike the media almost as much as they do politicians.

But for me, Kelly’s loaded question was almost secondary. I was already annoyed by her giddy, self-absorbed blather long before the candidates came out of their bunkers to do battle.

I felt like I wanted one of her colleagues to grab her by the arm and tell her to calm down and act like she’s been in the end zone before. When she showed a video of what she was doing just before the debate (It sounded like a bunch of childish gibberish, so I didn’t really even understand what she was talking about.), it was clear that she was going to seize her moment in the spotlight to focus on her main love: Megyn Kelly.

It reminded me of her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s show some time ago when she made a complete ass of herself — giddy off the charts — talking about her experiences at the White House Christmas party and how awkward she felt meeting the Obamas. (No, I don’t watch Jimmy Kimmel, but — as you would guess — she actually played the video on her show. It’s fortunate for her ego that the universe is expanding.)

But back to the debate. After Trump told her, “You’re not doing a very good job,” Kelly looked like an embarrassed little girl who had been slapped on the wrist, immediately frowned and looked down, and remained stone silent for a few glorious moments. With all her smarts, I found myself wondering why she would think she could get away with taking a swipe at the toughest street fighter on the planet.

In any event, whatever else one might think of Donald Trump, he was right on when he told Kelly that she wasn’t doing a very good job — because she wasn’t. As to the blood comments, that whole brouhaha is so stupid that it’s not worth discussing.

Now, let me answer my own question as to why Kelly thought she could get away with taking a swipe at Donald Trump: It’s because she has the ultimate Teflon shield around her — Brit Hume and his wife, Bill O’Reilly, and, most important of all, Roger Ailes. Ailes quickly went on the record by saying that Kelly “is a brilliant journalist and I support her 100 percent.”

Big mistake, Roger. It’s like rewarding a spoiled, pampered child. So it was no surprise when Kelly began her Monday broadcast by saying, “You may have heard there was a dustup involving yours truly and presidential contender Donald Trump.”

Read more.

robert ringerABOUT ROBERT RINGER

Robert Ringer is an American icon whose unique insights into life have helped millions of readers worldwide. He is also the author of two New York Times #1 bestselling books, both of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time

Trump’s Megyn Kelly ‘Blood’ Comment : A CNN Reporter Gets Bloodied!

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Trump on Megyn Kelly comment. Watch how a CNN reporter get schooled by a female Trump Supporter from New Hampshire.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Megyn Kelly is by AP/Richard Drew/Salon.

Iran: We Defied UN Travel Ban, sent Quds Force Commander to Moscow

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Qassem's Reach for quds Force NY Post(1)We posted yesterday on Fox News reporting the visit of Iran’s Special Forces Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani to Moscow in defiance of UN travel bans to visit Russian President Putin.  We also noted that he also visited with senior Defense Ministry officials. FoxNews today cited an Iranian news agency confirmation of  Gen Soleimani’s visit in defiance of UN travel bans,  the new Fox report  also confirmed  that he visited with Russian Defense Minister, Gen. Sergei Shogui regarding delivery of the advanced S300/S400 air defense system, “ Iran confirms trip by Quds Force Commander to Moscow to discuss arms shipments”:

Iranian officials confirmed Friday that General Qassem Soleimani, the heavily sanctioned Revolutionary Guard Quds Force commander, traveled to Russia last month and was conducting weapons deals, including discussion of the S-300 missile system, according to Reuters.

[…]

According to two separate Western intelligence sources, Soleimani arrived in Moscow on Iran Air flight 5130 from Tehran on July 24, ten days after the nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers was announced that included a provision to lift the arms embargo on Iran.

Three days later, Secretary of State John Kerry testified about the Iran nuclear deal before the Senate Armed Services Committee, assuring Congress pressure would remain on Iran’s shadowy general.

“Under the United States’ initiative, Qassem Soleimani will never be relieved of any sanctions,” Kerry told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In Moscow, Soleimani met with President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s defense minister.

In June, Russia announced it would send S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran by next year according to officials.

Watch this latest Fox News report on Quds Force General Soleimani:

In January 2015 we noted in an NER/Iconoclast post the visit of Russian Defense Minister Shogui to Tehran to meet Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Dehghan to sign a mutual defense treaty and the delivery of the updated S300 system objected to by the US and Israel in 2010 and subsequently banned under UN Security Resolution 1929 on conventional arms and ballistic missile technology.  Gen. Shogui is an intimate member of President Putin’s inner circle and some observers indicate could be a possible successor.  TAAS reported the US studying the announced Russian –Iranian military agreement, but specifically objecting to possible shipment of the S-300/400 air defense system. Russia might finally ship Iran the advanced S-300 air defense system that both the US and Israeli successfully lobbied former Russian President Medvedev in 2010 to cancel.  Immediate payment by Iran of $800 million for the S-300 system may have cemented the deal.

Administration scrambles to explain Iran’s sanctions violation.

Fox News noted the comments of Administration officials about this breach of UN sanctions:

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Friday the U.S. is very concerned about the development.

“Qassem Soleimani is subject to a UN travel ban and this travel ban requires all states to prohibit Qassem Soleimani from traveling to their nation and the only exception to that is if the Iran sanctions committee grants an exemption,” she said at UN headquarters in New York.

The White House did not specifically blame the Russians for hosting the Iranian general.

“I can’t confirm these specific reports but it is an indication of our ongoing concerns with Iran and their behavior,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday at the daily press briefing.

Reactions from former House Republican Intelligence Committee and Presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX):

Mike Rogers, former chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, weighed in late Friday afternoon.

“We should not underestimate what this means to our national security,” he said. “A leading general in Iran just told the world that the United States of America is irrelevant and Russia welcomed him with open arms. Not only do Russia and Iran not fear us, they do not respect us. And that is dangerous.”

Soleimani’s Moscow visit elicited a reference during the Republican debate Thursday night.

“He’s directly responsible for the murder of over 500 American servicemen in Iraq and part of this Iranian deal was lifting international sanctions on Gen. S – the day Gen. S flew back from Moscow to Iran was the day we believe Russia used cyber warfare against the joint chiefs,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

While the Administration and media tries to portray this latest episode as evidence of hard liners in Iran trying to upend the JCPOA, we are not buying any of these explanations.  It illustrates how incompetent the Administration has been in conducting its diplomatic initiatives with two geo-political autocrats, Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei and Russia’s President Putin.  The import of the Russian commitment to deliver the S300 air defense system is not lost on Israeli PM Netanyahu and Sunni US allies in the Middle East as it calls into question the credibility of any conventional military option for dealing with Iran’s nuclear weapons program.  This episode should be another clear  demonstration  to wavering Democrat  US Senators and Representatives that Iran will cheat on its agreements under the JCPOA to further its ambitions become a nuclear threshold and state supporter of  global terrorism.  The Iran nuclear pact announced in Vienna on July 14th was virtually shredded ten days later on July 24th with Gen. Soleimani’s arrival in Moscow. His visit to finalize arrangements for Russian weapons deliveries was in defiance of not only his travel bans but also UNSC Resolution 1929 banning purchase of conventional weapons and missile technology five years ahead of its sunset under the Iran nuclear pact.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

UN Security Council Unanimously Endorses Obama Iran Nuclear Pact

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Flash!! Obama makes end around Congressional review of Iran Nuclear agreement that was submitted yesterday to Congress for a 60 day review and vote. He played Monday morning quarterback by having the UN Security Council unanimously endorse the Comprehensive Joint Plan of Action with Iran endangering the US, Israel, Middle East allies and the world. This is a “faithless execution of his oath of office to protect this country against all enemies both foreign and domestic.”

Fox News reported this breaking news, saying:

The U.N. Security Council unanimously endorses the landmark nuclear deal established between Iran and six world powers, in a first step toward ending U.N. sanctions on the country’s economy.

Note this comment by Bard University Historian Walter Russel Mead in The American Interest, “Obama Lights a Firestorm on Capitol Hill:”

This is not likely to end well. President Obama was stretching both his Constitutional powers and his political mandate when he decided to short circuit the treaty process for one of the most important decisions that American foreign policy has taken in many years. There is precious little doubt that the Founders would have considered this a threat to the system of checks and balances they wrote into the Constitution. In modern times, presidential authority has expanded, largely because American foreign relations have become so complex and the world moves so quickly that it would be impractical to subject every significant agreement between the United States and other countries to the treaty process. But given the length of this negotiation process and the enormous stakes involved, the Iran agreement really ought to have been framed as a treaty. The President, to be fair, knew very well that he could never get a two thirds vote in the Senate for this agreement, and, believing as he does that this step is necessary to the safety of the United States, he framed the deal as an executive agreement to avoid exactly the scrutiny and vote that the Constitution requires.

Congress grudgingly went along with that, passing the Corker-Menendez law as a way of regularizing the President’s irregular choice. This tilted the playing field toward the President, as opponents would need a two thirds majority in both houses (instead of only a one third majority in the Senate) to block the deal for good.

That the President is blowing off this concession by Congress is a serious matter—more serious perhaps than the White House realizes. He is really requiring Congress to accept a permanent and significant diminution in its power for the sake of an Iran deal that few members view with enthusiasm. The precedent he is setting changes the Constitution, essentially abrogating the treaty power of Congress any time a President can get a Security Council resolution to incorporate the terms of an executive agreement.

Regardless of the merits or demerits of the Iran deal, this is the wrong way to proceed. If President Obama chooses to go this route, he is provoking a constitutional crisis in order to get sanctions relief to Iran sixty days faster than would otherwise happen. The Congressional Democrats calling on President Obama to refrain from this mischievous and foolhardy course are quite right; this is a bridge too far.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image of the UN Security Council chambers is courtesy of Wikipedia.

Islamic State Inspired Terrorism in Boston

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Two news stories have suddenly brought attention to ISIS-inspired terrorism in Boston and vicinity. One involved  ISIS –inspired suspects plotting to behead police officers resulting in one killed in a shooting incident and two others arrested by Boston area police. The second involves the death of an American citizen in an air attack in Iraq’s Anbar province who was technically educated and radicalized at Mosques in the Boston area.   He  fled the US to ultimately become one of the top leaders in ISIS running their highly effective social media propaganda arm.

Fox News reported the shooting death early Tuesday of 26 year old Usaama Rahim, an assailant, who threatened Boston Police officers with an 8 inch knife in an attempted beheading plot. It is believed to be ISIS-inspired terrorism. Rahim and two others were under surveillance by the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI  in Boston.  Fox Newsreported that Rahim was hired in 2013 as a security guard at the Islamic Cultural Center of Boston (ISBCC) controlled by an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim American Society.   The Cambridge Mosque affiliated with ISBCC was attended by convicted terrorism felons including Pakistani Al Qaeda bio warfare expert, Aafia Siddiqui, Tarek Mehanna and the Chechen refugee Tsarneav Brothers who perpetrated the Boston Marathon Bombing.

Fox News noted the other suspects involved in the plot to behead police officers:

Authorities arrested another suspect, David Wright, in connection with the case, police said.

“We believe the intent was to behead a police officer,” one official told The Boston Globe. “We knew the plot had to be stopped. They were planning to take action Tuesday.”

Rahim, Wright and an unidentified third person met Sunday on a Rhode Island beach to discuss plans, the affidavit, which was released Wednesday, said. Wright, who waived his Miranda rights, told the FBI the plans included an attack on a victim in another state, the court papers said. Hours prior to the shooting, Rahim told Wright he had changed plans and was going to “go after” the “boys in blue,” the court papers said.

“I’m going on vacation right here in Massachusetts. I’m just going to  go after them, those boys in blue,” Rahim said in the phone conversation, according to the affidavit. Authorities believe the word “vacation” stood for violent jihad in their conversations. Wright encouraged him to delete any information on his cell phone or computers, the affidavit said. Wright is accused of conspiring with Rahim to impede the investigation and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

The affidavit said one of the officers outside the CVS instructed Rahim to drop his weapon and Rahim responded, “You drop yours.”

Tuesday, the Boston Herald reported the death in Iraq  of a top ISIS social media expert on the FBI’s ten most wanted  terrorist list, 33 year old Ahmad Abousamra, a dual Syrian/American citizen from Stoughton, Massachusetts.  Abousamra wasoin the FBI’s Most Wanted Top Terrorist lists. He was killed in an air attack in Anbar province apparently along with another American national.  According to the Boston Herald report:

Abousamra was raised in Stoughton and attended Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood but left to graduate from Stoughton High school in 1999.

He studied computer science for three semesters at Northeastern University between 1999 and 2001, a school spokeswoman said. Abousamra graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston with a degree in computer science in December 2006, the school confirmed.

Abousamra, who was a co-defendant of convicted Sudbury terrorist Tarek Mehanna, had federal charges pending in Boston on conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to murder American soldiers abroad and making false statements to authorities.

Mehanna, 31, a former pharmacist, is serving a 17-year sentence at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill.

Watch this Boston Herald video on the FBI hunt for Abousamra:

Abousamra’s father Abdulbadi Abousamra (Abousamra Sr.) was an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who was actively engaged in establishing a network of Mosques in the Metropolitan Boston area that brought in a number of radical extremist Imams. A Truth Revolt report in 2014 by Ilya Feoktistov of Americans for Peace and Tolerance  noted:

Abdulbadi Abousamra, Sr. served as a president or board member of several mosques, Islamic schools, and Muslim political organizations in Massachusetts from the mid-1990s. In fact, he is still the president of an Islamic elementary school in Sharon, MA. Abousamra Sr. had used his leadership position in multiple Boston Islamic institutions to import extremist and terrorist-affiliated imams to Boston. One of these imams, Hafiz Masood, appears to be the one who radicalized his son, Ahmad Abousamra (Abousamra Jr.).

Until 2007, when Abousamra Jr. was first questioned by the FBI over a plot to provide assistance to Al Qaeda in Iraq and  massacre shoppers at the Emerald Square Mall in North Attleboro, MA, his father, Abousamra Sr., was vice-president of the Boston branch of the Muslim American Society (MAS Boston). According to federal authorities, the Muslim American Society was created to be “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” MAS Boston operates the largest Islamic center in the Northeast, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC). The Boston Marathon bombers attended the ISBCC’s sister mosque in Cambridge. Both mosques have a long history of Islamic extremism and terrorism.

In 1994, Abousamra Sr. joined the Islamic Center of New England (ICNE), another Muslim organization that runs two mosques in the Boston suburbs of Quincy and Sharon. By 1998, he became its president.  Abousamra Sr.’s passion lay with influencing the religious education of the Center’s youth. He personally founded two schools at the ICNE: the Islamic Academy of New England elementary school in 1999 and the Al Noor Academy secondary school in 2001 – the latter with $100,000 in seed money he received from the Islamic Society of Boston. Even though Abousamra Sr. left the country shortly after the FBI put a bounty on his son, he is still the president of the Islamic Academy of New England.

Enter the Radical Imam with connections to the 2008 Mumbai Massacre terrorist group:

In 1998, Abousamra Sr. hired Mohammed Hafiz Masood to be the new Imam at the Islamic Center of New England and a teacher at the Islamic Academy of New England. At that time, Masood was in the United States illegally.

Mohammed Hafiz Masood was deported for immigration violations. After his deportation, it turned out Masood was not an ordinary radical.

Masood is the brother of Pakistani terrorist Hafiz Saeed, who founded and runs Lashkar-e-Taibah (LeT), one of the largest and most violent terrorist groups in Pakistan, and who has a $10 million FBI bounty on his head. Saeed’s terror group is responsible for the 2008 Mumbai massacre, which targeted India over the conflict in Kashmir and left 166 people dead.

After the Mumbai massacres, The Times of India reported that Masood was using his status as Imam at the Islamic Center of New England to raise funds and recruit local Massachusetts Muslims for Lashkar-e-Taibah. Now living in Pakistan, Masood has become the spokesman of his brother’s terror group.

The radical Imam’s son turned informant leading to the  arrest of Abousamra and Tarek Mehanna:

Hafiz Masood’s son, Hassan Masood, allegedly conspired in terrorist plots with Abousamra Jr. He turned informant and testified against Abousamra Jr. and his captured co-conspirator, Tarek Mehanna. According to Muslim community members, Tarek Mehanna and Abousamra Jr. were “thick with Masood” and had been radicalized by his preaching.

The Tarek Mehanna/Abousamra Jr. partnership and Mehanna’s subsequent arrest has spawned a popular radical movement that lobbies, among other things, to free Tarek Mehanna from prison. It is called the Tarek Mehanna Support Committee – and it has a large presence in Boston. Many of its members are former students of Hafiz Masood.

Watch this NECN interview with Ilya Feoktistov  of Americans for Peace and Tolerance on the Abousamra MAS radical connections in Boston:

This is a cautionary tale to show how sophisticated members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)  immigrated to  the US to create networks of mosques. Mosques controlled by MB affiliates  to engage immigrant radical Imams to educate young  American Muslims  in  Da’wa – the call to extremist Salafist Jihad ensnaring them into a life of Islamic Terrorism.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Dr. Abdulbadi Aboulsamra and son the late Ahmad Aboulsamra, an Islamic State top leader.

Kill Bill III — O’Reilly Defiles Islam says UK Imam

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mosesAccording to UK Imam Anjem Choudary, Bill O’Reilly has defiled Islam by displaying the image of the Islamic Prophet Isa (Jesus) in his movie and Killing Jesus. Choudary stated, “The depiction of Mohammad, Moses, or Isa requires the death penalty.”

The The United West team, who was a direct target of the two Islamic terrorists that were fatally shot by police for trying to murder us and other attendees in mass execution style in Garland Texas, has recommended that Bill O’Reilly, “donate all his profits from his book and movie to an Islamic charity in order to appease Islam.”

Note: Bill O’Reilly has denounced the sponsors and attendees of the draw Mohammad event in Texas as, “being stupid” for insulting Islam.

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Bibigate – The Contretemps over Netanyahu’s Speech to Congress on Iran’s Nuclear Program

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Last Saturday night a retired U.S. Navy officer said “I’ll bet you even money that Bibi will withdraw from the proposed speech before a joint session of Congress”. I joshed him and said “I wouldn’t count on it.”

Sunday, I received suggestions that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu should have a Plan B given the rising contretemps in the media over US House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to talk about Iran before a Joint Session of Congress. There  was a welter of criticism from the White House, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and mainstream media talking heads  included David Brooks of the New York Times and  Chris Wallace and Shepherd Smith of  FoxNews.  They were admonishing Speaker Boehner and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer with terms like “dicey, wicked more for photo op” and “partisan politics” and “unwise for Israel.”  It was ostensibly about the lack of courtesy shown the President by not giving prior notice to the White House of the invitation extended to Netanyahu.  There was pique by certain unnamed senior officials in the White House over what some might call Bibigate.

However, let us remember there was increasing  bi-partisan support for new Iran nuclear sanctions legislation despite  the President’s warning that he would veto it if it was passed. New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez was particularly incensed at the President for his questioning his motivations.  Menendez said: “The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran. And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization, when they are the ones with the original sin.”  Lest, we forget, the President had threatened a veto if increased Iran legislation passed.  It was abundantly clear in the January 16th Joint Press Conference at the White House when the President Obama agreed with UK PM David Cameron’s remarks, urging Senators on Capitol Hill not to take up new sanctions legislation at a “sensitive time”. Thus, one could speculate that Speaker Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu on January 21st to speak to a Joint Session of Congress in early March was a rebuttal to the President.

The rancor over Bibigate was visible in the final week of January into February.  Wednesday, January 28th, CNN released a clip of Fareed Zakaria’s February 1st GPS interview with President Obama.  Obama suggested that a visit with Netanyahu was “inappropriate,” as it was too close to the upcoming March Knesset elections.  The President said, “I’m declining to meet with him simply because our general policy is, we don’t meet with any world leader two weeks before their election, [I] think that’s inappropriate. And that’s true with some of our closest allies.”  Those comments engendered another rebuttal that the White House may have been giving tacit support to the involvement of Presidential Campaign aide Jim Byrd in advising the Labor-Hanuat opposition to Netanyahu in the Knesset general elections.

Friday, January 30th, Jeffrey Goldberg published an interview in The Atlantic with Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, a former US Republican strategist and member of the Netanyahu’s inner circle.   Dermer discussed the background for Boehner’s issuance of the invitation to Netanyahu to speak to Congress on Iran. Dermer suggested that while the Prime Minister “meant no disrespect towards President Obama … Netanyahu must speak up while there is still time to speak up”.

That led Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson on the blog Legal Insurrection to opine that Obama’s not offended; he just wants Bibi out of office.

The Hill round up on the Sunday Talk shows had comments from Rep. Paul Ryan on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Arizona Senator John McCain on CNN’s “State of The Union.”  Over the issue of Speaker Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu Ryan said,” The Invitation to Israeli prime minister was ‘absolutely’ appropriate. I don’t know if I would say it’s antagonizing”.  McCain drew attention to the new low in U.S. – Israel relations under Obama saying, “It’s the worst that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”

Virtually out of nowhere, Sunday, February 1st, commentary from an “Insight” blog post of the Israeli Institute for National Security Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University shed light on a bizarre theory of what was behind Bibigate.  The author of the INSS post, Zaki Shalom, suggested:

The backdrop for the Administration’s expressed dissatisfaction with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s intention to present his position on negotiations with Iran to Congress, creating a rather transparent linkage between Israel’s positions on negotiations with Iran and sanctions, and U.S. willingness to assist in combating the Palestinian attempt to exert international legal and diplomatic pressure on Israel.

On Thursday, January 30, 2015, the Senate Banking Committee voted out a ‘softer’ version of the Kirk –Menendez Sanctions legislation by a vote of 18 to 4, including six Democrats.  As reported by The Hill, the legislation:

… Would impose sanctions on Iran if a comprehensive agreement to roll back its nuclear program is not reached by June 30 and would allow the president to waive sanctions indefinitely for 30 days at a time.

However, the bill would be shelved until March 24th for a possible floor vote.  Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) said, “All of us understand it’s not going to be voted on before March 24”. While the measure may portend a possible override vote should President Obama veto it that still requires Senator Menendez to keep the group of 17 Democratic Senators who support this version of sanctions legislation in the bi-partisan alliance.

Israeli concern over a weak final agreement by March 24th  is reflected  in a Times of Israel report published  Sunday, February 1st,” US sources deride Israeli ‘nonsense’ on Obama giving in to Iran.”  Israeli  sources contend that Iran is likely to get 80 % of what it is seeking- the ability to continue enrichment with  upwards of 9,000 centrifuges, especially the advanced IR-2s. The Israelis believe that would give Iran nuclear breakout within weeks.  Add to that mix Iran flaunting pictures in a ToA  report of a Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) capable of covering all of Europe. That is to be followed in 2015 to 2016 by one cap ICBM range. Of course there a number of us who believe that Iran may already have purchased nuclear weapons from rogue regimes, but may lack nuclear warheads, which are likely to be supplied by North Korea to be mounted on those ICBMs.

Especially as the President observed, there is less than a 50/50 chance of reaching an agreement. Then assuming the current polls are correct and Bibi retains the ability to form a new Knesset coalition after the March 17th election, he may speak with both authority and strength.

As a usual astute observer of Israel from Europe, Imre Herzog, opined when I wrote him on my side bet “you might win the bet”.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Washington Times File Photo  5-24-2011.

“There is No Justice in Argentina”

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Yesterday, the late Argentine Prosecutor, Alberto Nisman was laid to rest in the La Tablada Jewish Community in Buenos Aires amidst a veritable firestorm of controversy that stretched from Argentina to Israel. There were signs of “Justice for Nisman” and “Thank You” in the throng of hundreds outside La Tablada cemetery. Nisman was appropriately interred in the Martyrs Section reserved for the Jewish victims of the July 18, 1994 AMIA blast. A separate section in La Tablada is reserved for suicides. The obituary in La Nacion contained the Hebrew abbreviation z”l of blessed memory.’ Many in the Argentine Jewish Community considered that appropriate as they deemed him the “86th victim” of the AMIA blast. In effect his burial in the Martyrs section repudiated initial official assessments from President Cristina de Fernandez Kirchner and the investigating prosecutor that he may have been a suicide. Kirchner quickly changed her story to a likely murder by rogue intelligence elements who had “manipulated” Nisman.

Among the mourners at his funeral were his two daughters 7-year old Ila and 15 year old Kala, his sister, mother and ex-wife, Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado. The Times of Israel (TOI) report noted:

“This is burying part of our republic,” said Patricia Bullrich, an opposition member of Congress, before entering the cemetery. “It’s a day of reflection and sadness for all of Argentina.”

A farewell letter written by Nisman’s daughters to their father was published Thursday in Argentine papers. “We hope now you can rest in peace. We will guard in our hearts the beautiful moments we lived together,” they wrote.

In a separate funeral notice, Nisman’s ex-wife Salgado said she felt “profound sorrow” for their daughters. “I say goodbye to you, hoping you find the peace that your dedication to your job did not let you fully enjoy,” it said.

The Guardian reported:

Hundreds of protesters, convinced that he was a victim of foul play, gathered in front of the cemetery, some holding placards demanding “Justice for Nisman”.

“It is a great injustice. He was threatened,” said Cristina Paredes, 53, who said Nisman’s death “is the straw the broke the camel’s back” for Argentineans fed up with Kirchner and accusations of corruption by her administration.

The death was mourned as far away as Israel, which hailed Nisman – son of a textile merchant who had studied law at the University of Buenos Aires – as “courageous”.

A friend in Geneva, Switzerland, Imre Herzog, who had forwarded several of our Iconoclast posts on Nisman death to members of the Argentine Jewish community, reported a woman commenting, “There is no Justice in Argentina.”

Nisman was found dead shot with a .22 caliber pistol delivered to him on January 17th by Diego Lagomarsino, the IT manager of the Special Investigative Unit. Lagomarsino, the last person to see Nisman, told a news conference the Prosecutor “didn’t trust his security detail.” Moreover, as the TOI reported, Nisman had chilling evidence of a threat on his life from alleged Iranian sources. He played a recorded voice message recorded while one of his daughters visited him. Ironically, Lagomarsino is being accused of violating Argentinean laws regarding conveying unregistered weapons. Nisman’s death on Sunday January 18th occurred on the cusp of his scheduled testimony at a Congressional hearing on a 289 page Compliant his Special Investigative Unit had prepared.  It contained accusations of a cover up  by President Kirchner and Foreign Minister Timerman of a trade deal with Iran in exchange for dropping charges against Iranian officials involved in the 1994 AMIA Bombing. Nisman’s murder might have been by members of his security detail on orders of shadowy Argentine opponents or a professional hitman from Hezbollah. Iran and proxy Hezbollah have operatives in the Triple Frontier border zone, where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet considered the Iron Triangle of terrorism in Latin America.

The 1994 AMIA blast that created the Martyrs section in the La Tablada cemetery was attributed to 29 year old Lebanese Hezbollah suicide bomber, Ibrahim Hussein Berro, who was driving a Renault Trafic van packed with 275 kilograms of shaped explosives using ammonium nitrate fertilizer and a fuel oil mixture.  Eighty-five were killed and hundreds were injured in the blast that tore off the façade of the Jewish community facility causing it to collapse. The explosion spread death, havoc and injuries in the street in a crowded Buenos Aires central commercial district.  Berro had been identified by his brothers in Michigan as a Hezbollah member. They gave Nisman a photograph that matched an artist rendering of a description from other eye- witnesses who had briefly glimpsed Berro driving to his fateful end.  Nisman remarked, “The brothers’ testimony was substantial, rich in detail and showed that he was the one who was killed”.

Nisman’s relentless pursuit of who organized this pre-9/11 action led him to obtain an Interpol red tag warrant for the arrest and prosecution of senior Iranian officials and Hezbollah terrorist mastermind, Imad Mughniyah. Mughniyah was brought to justice when on February 12, 2008 he was killed in a car bombing when he stepped into his Mitsubishi Pajero leaving a celebration of the 1979 Islamic Revolution at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria. Many believe that this may have been by Mossad in retribution for Mughniyah’s role in planning and executing both the 1992 Israeli Embassy and 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombings in Buenos Aires. Others identified in the 2007 Compliant, approved by a majority vote of the Interpol Assembly meeting in Morocco, were several Iranian officials including former President Rafsanjani and current President Rouhani. They had all been present at a meeting in Mashad, Iran in August 14, 1993 that authorized the operation with the proviso that it “kill without leaving a trace”- the title of a book  on Nisman’s investigations by Israeli-Argentinean Gustavo Perednik. The animus for these murderous attacks against Israelis and Argentineans is alleged to be Argentina’s suspension of a nuclear transfer agreement that same year that began during the era of the late Shah. Immediately following the AMIA blast, a Panamanian commuter flight on August 19, 1994 was blown up in mid-air by an Arab passenger carrying forged Columbian documents. All 21 passengers and crew were killed, including 12 Jewish businessmen bound for Panama City from Colon. Panamanian and US investigators deemed that a terrorist action.

One aspect of the Nisman saga affects the US, as well. In an interview with Lou Dobbs of Fox News, Claudia Rosett, Journalist- in- Residence at the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies told of Nisman being barred by the Argentine Justice Ministry from appearing at a 2013 Congressional Hearing on Iranian-Hezbollah terror networks. Networks as Rosett pointed out that originated in the Triple Frontier, spread throughout all of Latin America to Mexico and even here in the US. Think of the Quds Force deal with a Mexican Cartel and an Iranian émigré in Texas seeking to arrange the assassination of the Saudi Ambassador to the US at a Washington, DC restaurant.  Despite Nisman being barred from testifying before the Congressional Committee, an empty chair with a place card bearing his name was placed in front at the Hearing. A testament to the esteem and his courage in warning us of Iran’s long reach of state sponsored terrorism that have claimed over hundreds of lives of innocent victims and  now, Nisman.  His legacy cries out for independent Argentine/US/Israeli filings before the International Criminal Court at The Hague to finally bring to justice Iranian officials who organized the crimes and corrupt Argentinean officials complicit in the monstrous cover up.

Watch the Fox News Lou Dobbs interview with Claudia Rosett:

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of th funeral cortege for late Alberto Nisman La Tablada Jewish Cemetery 1-29-15 in Buenos Aires. Source: AP.