Trump Should Release Secret Report on the True Number of Palestinian Refugees - Clifford Smith

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by Clifford Smith

Whereas the number of refugees from the original 1948 Arab-Israeli war would likely number in the tens of thousands, the UNRWA also counts people generations removed from the conflict, many of whom are citizens of new countries, in addition to everyone living in their internationally recognized homes of Gaza and the West Bank.

The Trump administration is supposedly considering declassifying a State Department report that tallies up the true number of Palestinian refugees.

If Trump does this, the repercussions could go a long way to settling the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, or UNRWA, classifies refugees unlike any other organization in the world, and in a way that contradicts common sense. Whereas the number of refugees from the original 1948 Arab-Israeli war would likely number in the tens of thousands, the UNRWA also counts people generations removed from the conflict, many of whom are citizens of new countries, in addition to everyone living in their internationally recognized homes of Gaza and the West Bank.

This politically motivated definition raises the number of "refugees" to an estimated 5.3 million. And that number is used by Palestinians to claim a “right of return” to Israel for a number greater than half of Israel's entire population.

Until today, there has been no official acknowledgment of the true number of refugees. Governments and international organizations around the world instead pay lip service to UNRWA’s fiction that the number of refugees has expanded many times over since the 1948 war.

This will change if the Trump administration releases the classified report.

The origin of the report goes back to 2012, when the Middle East Forum’s Washington Project approached then-Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. with the idea that America should adopt a policy that only recognized as refugees those who would fit its own legal definition of a refugee. Kirk proposed sweeping language to appropriations legislation to that effect, but President Barack Obama's State Department objected that this would be prejudicial to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides wrote that the provision “would be viewed around the world as the United States acting to prejudge and determine the outcome of this sensitive issue.” Largely as a result, Kirk’s original language was not adopted.

But Kirk did manage to get compromise language, requiring the State Department to issue a report on the issue of the true definition, passed as part of the fiscal 2015 appropriations legislation. But then no one heard nothing more about the report for over a year. Kirk assumed the State Department had simply ignored the committee’s direction.

But as it turns out, that wasn't so. The Middle East Forum learned that the report had, in fact, been written. Committee staffers in the House of Representatives were even informed of its existence. But instead of making it public, the clear intent of the legislation, the State Department classified it. Moreover, it failed to inform Kirk’s office, which had the largest stake in the report, or relevant Senate committee staffers that it had been completed.

Upon learning this, Kirk moved in 2016 to pass another provision forcing the State Department either to produce a nonclassified version of the report, or to inform the Committee why it could not do so. State still chose not to declassify the report.

This year, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., wrote a letter to President Trump signed by 50 other members of Congress, asking that the report be declassified. Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, viewed the report, and said in a subsequent interview that "there’s no reason in the world it’s classified.”

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies also called for declassification, as did Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, saying "The American people deserve to see this reported State Department assessment, so Congress and the administration can have a transparent and productive debate about America's role in the organization.”

In July, the American Center for Law and Justice obtained a version of the report via a Freedom of Information Act request and a subsequent lawsuit. Unfortunately, it was heavily redacted and omits the most crucial information — the true number of refugees. A recent story citing State Department sources pins the total at just 20,000 refugees, nowhere near the 5.3 million that UNRWA claims and the State Department has previously adopted. The public won’t know for sure unless the Trump administration finally releases an unredacted version of the report.

Hopefully, the Trump Administration will release this report. Telling the truth about the number of refugees, rather than the fictional number provided by UNRWA, would be a big step to unraveling expansive “right of return” claims, ending a threat to Israel’s existence.
  

Clifford Smith is Washington project director for the Middle East Forum.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/trump-should-release-secret-report-on-the-true-num

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Refuting Omarosa's Trump-is-Racist Lie - Lloyd Marcus

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by Lloyd Marcus

Omarosa obviously cares more about destroying Trump than she cares about the good he is doing for her fellow blacks and fellow Americans.

My fellow Americans, I am so weary of people on the national stage willing to sacrifice the best interest of our country and people to serve their egos and personal vendettas. Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman is the latest to show her true colors. Omarosa was fired. Now she is claiming she heard Trump use the N-word.

President Trump has been awesome for minorities, sending black and Hispanic unemployment to historic lows. So what good does Omarosa's unsubstantiated claim do for anyone other than feed the American left's lie that Trump is racist? Clearly, Manigault-Newman is another ego and power-driven person making it all about herself. The American left will treat Omarosa's claim like manna-from-heaven; promoting it 24/7. The American left is so obsessed with blocking Trump from making America great again that they will use any and every despicable evil low-life tactic necessary.

The American left claims to be outraged over the possibility of Trump using the N-word. Meanwhile, their operatives freely use the N-word and racial slurs to trash patriotic blacks. For years, leftists have called me a “stupid n*****” for loving my country. The American left did not have a problem with Bill Clinton saying this about Obama, “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.” The American left was not particularly outraged when former KKK member and Democratic Senator Robert Byrd said, “I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time...”

When black Republican Michael Steele ran for U.S. Senate, a leftist defaced Steele's photo to depict him in blackface. The caption with the racist photo said, “Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house.”

The American left had no problem with the N-word when cartoonist Ted Rall declared black Secretary of State Condolezza Rice Bush's “house nigga”.

Years ago, I attended a party in which white guys were freely using the N-word, quoting lines from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction movie. It was as though the movie made it cool. I was taken aback. In my day, if a white person disrespected you by using the N-word in your presence, as a black person, you were obligated to kick their butt. But somehow, the leftist movie director using the N-word made it okay -- even cool. Tarantino's movies obsessively use the N-word -- 110 times in Django Unchained and 65 times in The Hateful Eight. The American left says, hey, it is acceptable because Tarantino is one of us.

White kids think it is okay to spout the N-word when they are quoting rap songs. Anyone caught criticizing black rappers for using the N-word is deemed “racist” by the left for not understanding black culture.

Notice the American left's glaring hypocrisy regarding who is allowed to use the N-word.

The entire Trump-is-racist-narrative is rooted in smoke, mirrors, lies, and spin. On numerous occasions I've asked fellow blacks to name one thing Trump has done to confirm he is racist. They cannot. They simply believe Trump is racist because fake news media says he is. In desperation to prove me wrong, they parrot leftists' absurd lie that “Make America Great Again” is code for turning back the clock on freedom for blacks and women.

I find it extraordinary how the American left has twisted Trumps words. For crying out loud, we live here. This is our country. Isn't it common sense that every American should want their homeland made great? And yet, leftists call the statement “hate-speech” and are physically attacking Americans wearing “MAGA” caps and t-shirts.

Along with 63 million other Americans, I knew presidential candidate Trump had a heart for his country. This is why I am the singer/songwriter of the “Trump Train” music video. In a remarkably short amount of time, Trump has brought back jobs, putting Americans back to work. Our economy is booming. Trump has put the world on notice that they can no long undermine the U.S. and expect us to shower them with money. Trump truly is a new sheriff in town, standing up for America's best interest.

Omarosa obviously cares more about destroying Trump than she cares about the good he is doing for blacks and Americans. It is time we tell these petty all-about-me people to go away.

Help Lloyd spread the Truth

http://LloydMarcus.com

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/refuting_omarosas_trumpisracist_lie.html

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China deploying new ‘push the envelope’ fighter enabling offensive warfare - Thomas Lifson

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by Thomas Lifson

Very bad news for Taiwan.

The latest military news from China signals a shift toward offensive warfare, and offers grim prospects to its neighbors in Asia, first and foremost Taiwan. (China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and threatens a military takeover if peaceful reunification fails.) An article by Kristin Huang of the South China Morning Post tells the story of a new fighter aimed at offensive warfare:

China’s air force quietly adds new J-16 fighter jets to ‘push the envelope’

Expanded line-up of multirole all-weather aircraft will help to launch strikes deep into enemy territory and destroy key strategic assets, analysts say

China’s expanding line-up of multirole, all-weather J-16 fighter jets will help the air force to launch strikes deep into enemy territory and destroy key strategic assets like airfields and bridges, military analysts say. (snip)

…the Shenyang J-16 will become a key part of PLA Air Force operations and any strategy against Taiwan or to deter US military intervention, they said.

China’s air force announced last week that a squadron of J-16s would soon be combat ready.

It is based on the Russian Sujhoi-30 fighter, but with a Chinese engine and:

While the aircraft design is largely based on the Su-30, the J-16 features a Chinese radar and tracking system. It also has a provision for in-flight refuelling – giving it the capacity to strike deep into enemy territory and greater operational range. An electronic attack version, the J-16D, is also under development. China wants that fighter jet to be equivalent to the US EA-18G Growler – the most advanced airborne electronic attack platform.

The intent is obvious and chilling:

Electronic warfare is seen as the key to winning any conflict over the Taiwan Strait, with the ability to overwhelm enemy radar systems in the first few hours considered crucial.

Military experts said the J-16, with its large payload and long range, could transform China’s defensive air force into an offensive one.

“Before the J-16, the PLA has had to rely on a limited number of Russian-built Su-30s, whereas the indigenous J-10 lacks the range and payload to qualify as a true deep-strike fighter,” said Collin Koh, a research fellow with the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

China is a far more threatening strategic rival for America than Russia, orders of magnitude larger in population and GNP, and growing far more quickly. Its ongoing large scale theft of intellectual property has powered both its economy and military weapons programs.  

In addition to building up its air force, China is building and deploying aircraft carriers and may have as many as 7 deployed by 2025. Aircraft carriers are incredibly huge and complex, and China is having some issues with its sole “combat ready” carrier deployed at present, but new ones already in the works promise more capability.  Ryan Pickrell of Business Insider writes:

The capabilities of China's current carrier force are severely limited by several serious weaknesses, making it vastly inferior to the US Navy, but the one it has in the works is where the world could start to see the Chinese navy closing the gap with its primary competitor.

Developing a carrier force to match the US globally is a much longer term challenge. China has not even come close to being able to use a nuclear reactor to power its carriers, for instance, and also faces issues in pilot training for carrier operations. But China’s current aim is regional domination, sitting as it does in the middle of the fastest-growing area of the world, a region that it dominated for thousands of years as the “Middle Kingdom.”

Virtually everyone in China looks at their country as the natural hegemon in the world, temporarily (for roughly four centuries) knocked out of its position of dominating East Asia and its status as the biggest and richest country in the world, by Western imperialism that brought mass opium addiction and social collapse. Return to the natural order of things with China on top is a goal that most tacitly, if not actively, support.

Flag/map of China via Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/china_deploying_new_push_the_envelope_fighter_enabling_offensive_warfare.html

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UN Enabling Hamas's War Machine - Bassam Tawil

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by Bassam Tawil

Any ceasefire agreement will be perceived as a reward for Hamas-sponsored terrorism and violence against Israel. These negotiations will spur other terrorist groups around the world to continue their attacks

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  This ceasefire initiative is rather disturbing: it requires no meaningful concessions on the part of Hamas. It leaves, for example, wholly intact Hamas's extremist ideology, which calls for the destruction of Israel, and does not demand that Hamas lay down its weapons.
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  A ceasefire may sound good, but in the current circumstances it will send a deadly message to Hamas and the other terror factions in the Gaza Strip: namely, that long-term terror bombardment of Israel gets you economic and humanitarian projects funded by the United Nations and Western donors, and perhaps even a seaport and airport. The ceasefire would give Hamas five to ten years to continue amassing weapons, tightening its grip on the Gaza Strip, and preparing for its next war with Israel.
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  Any ceasefire agreement will be perceived as a reward for Hamas-sponsored terrorism and violence against Israel. These negotiations will spur other terrorist groups around the world to continue their attacks with the hope of gaining legitimacy and forcing the UN and the international community to negotiate also with them.
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  Why is the UN apparently prepared to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the Gaza Strip while keeping Hamas in power and even allowing it to become stronger? Why is the UN being allowed to play the role of savior of Hamas?
The Palestinian Hamas terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip has reportedly accepted, in principle, an Egyptian and United Nations initiative for a long-term ceasefire with Israel. According to some reports, the initiative calls for a ceasefire of five to ten years in return for the easing of economic sanctions and humanitarian and economic aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This ceasefire initiative is rather disturbing: it requires no meaningful concessions on the part of Hamas. It leaves, for example, wholly intact Hamas's extremist ideology, which calls for the destruction of Israel, and does not demand that Hamas lay down its weapons. Essentially, the message to Hamas from the international community is that it will reap rich rewards for nothing more than temporarily halting its terror attacks on Israel. As the past few weeks have shown, Hamas appears to be more than willing to sit quietly in order to get the benefits and privileges offered by Egypt and the UN. Hamas has been facing a severe crisis as the result of the economic sanctions imposed on the Gaza Strip, particularly those initiated by its rivals in the Palestinian Authority government of President Mahmoud Abbas. Thus, Hamas is grabbing hold of the Egyptian and UN proposal as a kind of life-vest. Once the ceasefire agreement goes into effect, Hamas will have additional time to continue amassing weapons and tightening its grip on the Gaza Strip. Under the umbrella of the ceasefire, Hamas will be able to continue building new tunnels that will be used to infiltrate Israel to kill civilians and soldiers. Hamas will also be able to continue smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip through tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Thanks to the Egyptian and UN-brokered ceasefire agreement, Hamas will be able to do all these things without having to worry about an Israeli military response. The proposed ceasefire agreement will give Hamas five to ten years to prepare for the next war with Israel. During this period, Hamas will have recruited tens of thousands of more Palestinians into its ranks, turning them into jihadists in preparation for the jihad (holy war) against Israel. In other words, the proposed ceasefire agreement absolves Hamas, the de facto government in the coastal enclave, of its duties and responsibilities towards its own constituents. Hamas will no longer have to worry about improving the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip because the UN and the rest of the international community will be fulfilling that job. The international community and the UN will, according to the proposed ceasefire, attend to the needs of the Palestinian population and will even launch various economic and humanitarian projects in the Gaza Strip, while Hamas leaders will be sitting in their luxurious offices and homes and laughing at the duped Western donors, who will even be funding fuel and electricity supplies to the people living under its rule. Worse, the proposed agreement, now being discussed by Hamas leaders with Egyptian and UN officials, offers the Hamas rulers a seaport and airport in the nearby Egyptian peninsula of Sinai. Of course, there is no guarantee that Hamas will not use these ports to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip. Those who believe that the Egyptians will be able to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip are living under the dangerous illusion of a bribery-free Middle East. Besides, the Egyptian authorities already have their hands full with the various Islamist terrorist groups that have been operating in the Sinai Peninsula in recent years. If the Egyptian army and other security agencies have thus far been unable to root out the problem of the terror groups in Sinai, how exactly are they supposed to deal with Hamas's weapons smuggling? Moreover, what about Hamas's involvement with some of the jihadi groups in Sinai? For the past few years, reports have surfaced in several Arab media outlets about Hamas's cooperation with some of these groups in carrying out terror attacks against the Egyptian military and civilians in Sinai. Far more worrying is that any ceasefire agreement will be perceived as a reward for Hamas-sponsored terrorism and violence against Israel. Since last March, Hamas has been dispatching thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, to the border with Israel as part of the so-called March of Return. As part of these protests, Palestinian have been throwing explosive devices, petrol bombs and stones at Israeli soldiers. They have also been launching hundreds of flaming kites and balloons at Israeli communities along the border with the Gaza Strip, and causing fires that have destroyed tens of thousands of acres of agricultural fields and forests.

Pictured: The Kerem Shalom Crossing burns on May 4, 2018, after it was torched by Palestinian rioters from Gaza. Kerem Shalom is used to transfer thousands of tons of goods and humanitarian aid from Israel to the Gaza Strip. (Image source: IDF/Flickr)
As if that were not enough, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip last week again fired more than 180 rockets and projectiles at Israeli communities. Such rocket attacks are far from uncommon; they have been taking place since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005. It was then that Israel handed the entire Gaza Strip to the Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA). In 2007, Hamas violently ejected the PA from the Gaza Strip, and has been in control of the territory since then. A ceasefire may sound good, but in the current circumstances it will send a deadly message to Hamas and the other terror factions in the Gaza Strip: namely, that long-term terror bombardment of Israel gets you economic and humanitarian projects funded by the United Nations and Western donors and, if things go well, perhaps even a seaport and airport. The proposed ceasefire agreement, therefore, is nothing but a UN and Egyptian bribe to Hamas to agree to a temporary halt of terror attacks against Israel. Appeasing terrorists, however, is a recipe for perpetuating and escalating the conflict and emboldening the terrorists. In addition, it will only increase Hamas's appetite to continue extorting Israel and the rest of the world for more concessions. Negotiating with Hamas grants legitimacy to terror groups, making them appear as acceptable parties. By contrast, one might note that the UN never considered initiating a negotiated ceasefire between the US and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror group or ISIS. The current negotiations that the Egyptians and the UN are conducting with Hamas to achieve a ceasefire with Israel sends precisely the wrong message to jihadi groups around the world. These negotiations will, in fact, spur these groups to continue their terror attacks with the hope of gaining legitimacy and forcing the international community to follow suit and negotiate also with them, as they have been doing with Hamas. Is there any difference between Hamas and Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Haram, the so-called Islamic State in Western Africa? Not really. Hamas, as mentioned, is of course happy that the Egyptians, the UN and other international parties are chasing it and literally begging it to accept a temporary truce with Israel, especially under such golden conditions. Hamas has nothing to lose by agreeing to a ceasefire that will allow it further to strengthen its military power in the Gaza Strip, while not being required to cease bad behavior or do anything to help its own people. A sign of Hamas's elation can be found in a statement issued by its leaders in the Gaza Strip on August 8, 2018. The statement, which was issued after a series of meetings between Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups, added that Hamas will not pay any "political price" for the lifting of the sanctions on the Gaza Strip. So here we have Hamas itself making it clear that even if a ceasefire agreement is achieved with Israel, the terror group will never abandon its dream of pursuing the fight until Israel is replaced with an Islamist state. We are left with some questions: Why is the United Nations negotiating with a terror group that is sworn to Israel's destruction? Why, instead, are the UN and Egypt and other parties not demanding that Hamas disarm and relinquish control of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who have been held hostage for the past 11 years? Why is the UN apparently prepared to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the Gaza Strip while keeping Hamas in power and even allowing it to become stronger? Why is the UN being allowed to play the role of savior of Hamas? The next time Hamas targets Israeli civilians, perhaps the UN and all those who are now trying to appease Hamas will have some answers.
Bassam Tawil, a Muslim Arab, is based in the Middle East. Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12845/un-hamas-ceasefire Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at a memorial service for Palestinians terrorists | Photo: Palestinian Embassy in Tunisia via the Daily Mail

The Spy who Loved Feinstein - Lloyd Billingsley

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by Lloyd Billingsley

During 20 years with the California Democrat, what information did the Chinese spy acquire?

“The leader of the Russia investigation, Dianne Feinstein, had a Chinese spy as her driver for 20 years,” President Trump told an Ohio rally on Saturday, August 4. That was the first time most Americans heard of this spy but the president was not breaking the news.

In “How Silicon Valley Became a Den of Spies,” a July 27 Politico story, Zach Dorfman wrote, “Former intelligence officials told me that Chinese intelligence once recruited a staff member at a California office of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, and the source reported back to China about local politics. (A spokesperson for Feinstein said the office doesn’t comment on personnel matters or investigations, but noted that no Feinstein staffer in California has ever had a security clearance.)”

On August 1, San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross wrote a piece headlined “Feinstein had a Chinese spy connection she didn’t know about — her driver.”

A “local source” confirmed that the FBI showed up at Feinstein’s office five years ago with news that her driver was being investigated for spying. Besides driving, the unnamed Chinese spy “also served as gofer in her San Francisco office and as a liaison to the Asian American community, even attending Chinese Consulate functions for the senator.”

According to the source, “the intrigue started years earlier when the staffer took a trip to Asia to visit relatives and was befriended by someone” who was “connected with the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of State Security.” The staffer didn’t even know that he was being recruited and thought it was “some friend.” The FBI “apparently concluded the driver hadn’t revealed anything of substance.” Feinstein was “mortified,” forced the staffer to retire, “and that was the end of it.” And according to the source, “None of her staff ever knew what was going on. They just kept it quiet.”

Plenty to ponder there but for the establishment media the story became Trump “trolling” the senator, and few showed interest in the spy himself. Nothing emerged in 2013 when the FBI showed up at Feinstein’s office, but following the Trump speech details were coming to light.

For some writers, the spy’s profile fit Russell Lowe, listed as Feinstein’s “office director,” and who worked 20 years for the senator. Lowe’s bio for a February 2017 event said he had followed China since Nixon’s visit in 1972, and worked five years with Senator Alan Cranston. In this account Lowe first went to China in 1975, and other visits followed through the early 1990s. Since 1997, Lowe had visited China every year for a month at a time. One report cited a 2007 obituary of Mariam Lew claiming her son Russell Lowe was an engineer, photojournalist, community organizer and staff aide to Feinstein.

In some accounts, Russell Lowe now works at the Education for Social Justice Foundation, whose mission is “to provide education on past injustices relegated to the sidelines of history.” The only injustice on the site is Japan’s sexual enslavement of Asian women before and during World War II. Conveniently escaping notice are the massive atrocities of China’s Communist dictatorship, with casualties in the millions, and the occupation of Tibet since the 1950s.  

“Dianne Feinstein was an easy mark for China’s spy,” headlined an article by Paul Sperry, a former media fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. As Sperry notes, after Feinstein took on the staffer, the FBI detected that the Chinese government was seeking favors from the senator, who sat on key committees overseeing relations with China. The FBI warned about illegal campaign contributions and Feinstein returned more than $12,000 from donors associated with Clinton crony John Huang.  

Even so, China got extension of its favored trade status, Perry writes, “thanks in part to Feinstein.” The wealthy San Francisco Democrat played down China’s human rights violations, equating Tiananmen Square with Kent State. In 1999, Feinstein led efforts to bring China into the World Trade Organization, which “removed the annual congressional review of its human-rights and weapons-proliferation records,” a huge win for the Communist regime. 

That regime recruited a spy who enjoyed a 20-year run in Sen. Feinstein’s office. When the FBI caught on to the espionage, they duly warned the senator, but by all appearances no charges were filed and Feinstein staffers “just kept it quiet.” That was supposedly “the end of it” but questions remain. 

What information, exactly, did the spy pass on to China? Why did the “mortified” Sen. Feinstein allow the spy to “retire” rather than fire him? Why were no charges filed against an agent of a hostile foreign power? What did Feinstein know and when did she know it? And so on.

An FBI-DOJ investigation could bring some clarity for the people. An official probe, perhaps with a special counsel, would signal that FBI and DOJ bosses no longer collude with powerful Democrats against Republicans candidates.

During the administration of POTUS 44, the Comey FBI gave the Trump campaign no warning of foreign meddling. The Comey FBI cleared former First Lady Hillary Clinton of gross negligence with classified information and recommended no charges against the Democrat. The Comey FBI leaked information and used a fake dossier, financed by former Secretary of State Clinton, to place spies in the Trump campaign.

Trump won anyway but under the famous “insurance policy” special counsel Robert Mueller is prosecuting former Trump staffers for activities that took place long before the 2016 campaign.

This ongoing “witch hunt,” as the president calls it, has produced no evidence of collusion with Russia.

Lloyd Billingsley is the author of the new crime book, Lethal Injections: Elizabeth Tracy Mae Wettlaufer, Canada’s Serial Killer Nurse, and the recently updated Barack ‘em Up: A Literary Investigation.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271011/spy-who-loved-feinstein-lloyd-billingsley

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In message to Hezbollah, IDF completes 'war of the ‎future' drill in north - Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff

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by Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff

Exercise includes ‎use of drones, cyber and intelligence-gathering technology, and ‎air defense system.

An IDF tank on the Golan Heights last week     
Photo: Eyal Margolin / JINI



The Israel Defense Forces last week completed a ‎first-of-its-kind drill in the new battle order and fighting ‎doctrine it plans to use if a war ‎breaks out in the northern sector.‎


The IDF has conducted several routine drills in the ‎northern sector in recent months as part of the new ‎defense doctrine, which is based on the high probability that in ‎another war, the IDF would be required to fight on multiple fronts.‎


Last week's drill was conducted as part of a large exercise on the Golan ‎Heights, which the IDF said was "meant to improve the emergency and ‎wartime readiness of ‎the Northern Command and ‎exercise multidimensional command ‎and General Staff ‎scenarios in the sector." ‎


The drill, headed by the‎‏ ‏‎36th Armor Division – the ‎‎largest regular-service armored division in the IDF – ‎‎included the deployment of thousands of Armor, ‎Engineering and Infantry soldiers on the ground, ‎alongside the extensive ‎use of drones and other ‎‎unmanned aerial vehicle‎s, as well as cyber, ‎intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance technology, and ‎advanced air defense systems. ‎


The IDF has defined a new, ground-oriented combat ‎dimension, extending 1,000 feet into a potential ‎battleground, across which troops can use ‎intelligence drones and logistical UAVs and deploy ‎electronic warfare technology.‎


‎"We want every officer deployed in the sector to be ‎able to see the same images the commanders see as ‎they advance," a senior defense official said.‎


Another defense official said the IDF is ‎exploring the deployment of an "invisible electronic ‎net" on future battlegrounds, with the aim of detecting ‎and monitoring anything that may give out electronic ‎signals. Those will be uploaded into a smart-trigger ‎system that can process the information into a ‎viable target within minutes. ‎

Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/08/13/in-message-to-hezbollah-idf-completes-war-of-the-%e2%80%8efuture-drill-in-north/

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Exposed: the Deep State's Authorship and Publication of the Dossier - Clarice Feldman

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by Clarice Feldman

The Steele Dossier -- the gift that keeps on giving.

The Internet is full of information, some of it not well researched or considered, but every now and then a star appears on the horizon. To my mind the new star is Yaacov Apelbaum, who, using his considerable technical skills, has produced a masterpiece of well-documented analysis underscoring the nonsensical and partisan nature of the Mueller operation. He compares this effort by the anti-Trumpers to the plot line of the Dreyfus affair, where falsified evidence and suppressed evidence led to  Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s conviction for treason. 

It’s lengthy and detailed and on a lovely Sunday in summer you may not want to study it completely, but if this subject is of interest to you, I strongly suggest you bookmark the article and study it at your leisure.  I cannot do it justice in any summary, but I’ll try to hit the main points.

He concludes, after a long, substantive, technologically adept investigation:

The real dossier story is not the scandalous insinuations that it makes, but rather it’s the funding sources, the teams that worked on it, and its compilation and distribution channels. At peak capacity, the dossier team must have consisted of at least 25 individuals who worked on it for over 6-12 months. Assuming a modest $200 per hour rate per person, some first/business class travel and accommodations, media, consulting, IT, and legal services, this project most have cost an upwards of 5-10 million dollars. According to Simpson’s testimony and documents, Fusion GPS was only paid about a million dollars by the DNC and Clinton campaign, which begs the questions of what was Hakluyt’s [Ed: another private UK intelligence operation closely connected to Hillary Clinton] cut and where did the rest of the money go?

For today’s purposes, I will simply note the highlights, but the article really deserves the attention of readers, investigators, and reporters. Using open source intelligence materials, he’s pinpointed the source(s) of the deeply flawed Steele Dossier, which formed the basis for the FISA warrants used by the FBI and Department of Justice to gather intelligence on the President and his associates.

He details the organization and staffing of GPS Fusion and reports:

The political makeup of the team was exclusively democratic with many of the employees and interns having a strong political connection to the Clinton or Obama administrations. Jason Raymond, the Research Director, came from John Kerry’s press office and was affiliated with USAID; Laura Seago, a senior analyst, came from the Brennan Center for Justice and was also affiliated with USAID …the senior management had a documented history of misconduct and ethical-related issues. Glenn Simpson has a Profane Cursing and Public Intoxication conviction; Jason Felch, a former reporter and the managing partner of the LA office, was fired from the LA Times for deceitful reporting. He was also cheating on his wife on multiple occasions with his Occidental College investigative source.

As for the main author of the dossier, Christopher Steele, Apelbaum details his MI6 background and his connection along with fellow MI6-retiree Chris Burrows and Nicholas Butcher to other outfits after his cover was blown as a British spy. Also contributing to the Dossier was Nellie Hauke Ohr, wife of Bruce Ohr, and a British-French national, Edward Emil Baumgartner, who also has his own private intelligence consulting business in the UK,

Using a variety of methods and tools which he describes, Apelbaum has shown the interconnections between media figures and the dossier authors.

His research indicates:

The [Dossier] network graph analysis indicates that the fellowship of the dossier is a close-knit group; everyone knew each other long before embarking on the quest to find the alleged Russian collusion. All of the project key players are related through marriage, family relations, or work affiliations. [Snip] this team collaborated in various member configurations on many other ‘dossier projects’ and utilized the same collection methods, materials, resources, political network, and publication channels. 

He has a detailed chart of the Dossier participants.

And he documents their work with intelligence operatives inside and outside U.S.  channels. For example: 

Halper, Clarke, Downer, Smith, Dearlove, Crawford, Lobban, MI6, LAD, and Hakluyt Linkage

Steele worked with the FBI as early as 2010 on the FIFA investigation. In 2016, he met them several times including at two meetings with agent Michael Gaeta, a leading FBI ‘Russia corruption expert’, in Rome and in London to discuss the dossier. Gaeta coordinated and got clearance for these meetings from Victoria Nuland at the State Department. Gaeta was the FBI case officer in Europe and controlled Orbis, Stefan Halper, and the Hakluyt dossier assets. [snip] Baumgartner, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, and David Kramer are all Harvard alumni. Nellie Ohr knew Stefan Halper since at least 2000. Nellie Ohr also worked in the MITRE Corporation with Halper’s son Marin Halper for six years from 2002-2008.

He establishes Hillary Clinton's close associate Sidney Blumenthal’s connections to and contacts with media, which promoted the dossier charges. Glenn Simpson’s wife, Mary Jacoby, also had extensive contacts with key figures in the media and federal apparatus., including Blumenthal, with whom she had worked at Salon.

Two months before the Dossier was released, Jacoby spent several hours in the White House with five people (Apelbaum identifies them) all of whom were related to the dossier team.

Key figures in Democratic circles, detailed by the author, were heavily involved in promoting Ukrainian interests here. Also passing around unverified dirt was Strobe Talbott, who handed off Cody Shearer’s trash dossier (he’s Shearer’s brother in law, a former deputy Secretary of State for Bill Clinton and the husband of Brooke Shearer known to have dug up dirt against Bill Clinton’s accusers.)

He notes the continued mischaracterizations in the FISA warrant application of Steele’s motivation and role in an earlier FIFA investigation, for which Steele himself did no investigative work but merely repackaged work done by others but was paid $270,000 by the FBI. This is critical because in the application, these omissions undercut the credibility of the work on which the application was based.

In fact, in producing the Dossier, Steele had no direct contacts inside Russia. He relied on “[Nellie] Ohr, Baumgartner, and Ukrainian sources to generate his so-called ‘raw intelligence’.”

Almost from the start, the Dossier operatives, through their friends, were feeding tidbits of this unverified nonsense to willing accomplices in the New YorkTimes, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, MSNBC, The New Yorker, and CNN.”

As for the many ways the dossier was spread to the press -- not only were people like Baumgartner and Steele posting about it. 

One thing worth noting is that just like in the case of the core dossier network, many of these ‘receptive’ reporters such, David Corn, Joe Palazzolo, David Cay Johnston, Scott Dworkin and Evan Perez (images 32-33) had long incestuous relationships with Fusion GPS and it’s team members. [snip]

Moreover, [Evan] Perez’s, [Jake] Tapper’s, [Jim] Sciutto’s, and [Carl] Bernstein’s tweets [snip] strongly suggest that they also had early and direct access to the dossier team and were actively distributing its content as it was being written.”

Fusion appears, in fact, to have paid reporters five-digit figures in three cases. We still don’t know which publications or reporters were on the take. 

Molly Hemingway's tweet is on point: 

@MZHemingway
More
Some media fell hook, line and sinker for the Clinton/DNC information campaign -- CNN, WP, NYT, NBC among them. They are understandably embarrassed to cover the real story. But they should. Better late than never.

12:06 PM - 11 Aug 2018

As for Nellie Ohr’s ham radio license, he reveals that it only allowed her to operate in a 10-mile radius and was obviously designed to preclude NSA from recording her contacts over the phone or internet. The range of her operations was sufficient to allow her to communicate with all the offices of the federal government located in downtown D.C. And she could extend its reach up to 20 miles if she needed to.

Once you see the vast network of Democratic operatives, officials, former officials, media, foreign intelligence operatives, and former operatives involved in this Big Lie and how they used it to spy on the opposition and tar and beset the President you can only wish that the reports that he’s about to declassify what so far has remained obscured, especially the FISA warrant applications, comes to pass sooner, rather than later.

Chairman Bob Goodlatte of the House Judiciary Committee reportedly is subpoenaing Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, and GPS cofounder Glenn Simpson, as well as former FBI and DOJ officials including Jim Baker, Jonathan Moffa, and George Tosca.

If the Department of Justice balks at permitting the testimony of those still in its employ, Rod Rosenstein should be forced to give an open explanation of why this cover-up is continuing. If it’s to hide malfeasance and incompetence in the agency, as it appears to be, the President should and likely will declassify and release it all. This game has gone on too long.

Indeed, the majority of Americans want this Mueller dog and pony show (now floundering in yet another court in the Manafort “non-collusion” case) over. 

The longer this goes on, the more the FBI suffers public disaffection. 

Donald J. Trump
‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

Will the FBI ever recover it’s once stellar reputation, so badly damaged by Comey, McCabe, Peter S and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, and other top officials now dismissed or fired? So many of the great men and women of the FBI have been hurt by these clowns and losers! 

It’s impossible for me not to agree with the President’s sentiments.

Clarice Feldman

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/the_real_dossier_story.html

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The West's Defeat - by its own Hand - Anne Marie Waters

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by Anne Marie Waters

How Jihadist ideology is gaining power through the back door -- and with our blessing.

 

Last week I read a shocking statistic.  It is not a surprising statistic, but a shocking one nonetheless.  Figures now reveal that a staggering 40% of people under age five in Germany come from a migrant background.  That is to say, almost half of young children in Germany are not ethnically German. 

Some would argue that this doesn’t matter a great deal, people are people, and Germany will still be Germany.  But even if we try to persuade ourselves that this is the case, deep down we all know it is not.  Germany was German because of the German people. Now, in a couple of generations, it will be something else: the place formerly known as Germany.  This will particularly be the case if, as I suspect is likely to be the case, many (if not most) of those under fives come from an Islamic background.  That will change the face of Germany forever.  Indeed it is already doing so.

In my book, Beyond Terror – Islam’s Slow Erosion of Western Democracy – I argue that it is immigration from Muslim societies that will defeat Western civilization.  Terrorism will not.  The West will not lose a military war against the Islamists, it only needs to lose the demographic war, and the culture war, and that has already been lost.

The UK, for example, has for decades seen massive immigration from the Muslim world, and this has changed the country beyond recognition.  Female genital mutilation is now so widespread in the UK that specialist (taxpayer-funded) clinics have been established across the country to deal with the medical aftermath of this crime.  There are eight such clinics in London alone, and a new one opened last year in Wales (attended by a Labour politician, who tweeted how pleased she was to have an FGM clinic in her area).  While we build shiny new clinics, not a single person has ever been convicted of this crime. 

Police show great ‘cultural sensitivity’ to FGM, and as a result, nobody is punished.  There’s a reason for this.  The reason the police pussy-foot around FGM is the same reason they pussy-foot around forced and child marriage: because the majority of cases involve Muslims.

British society has in effect capitulated to Islam; the law is subject to the requirements of Muslim scripture and not the other way around.  Just recently in Britain it was also revealed that the Home Office (the government department ultimately responsible for both law and order and immigration) has been turning a blind eye to forced marriage for some years.  We have therefore accepted it.  We’ve accepted it because we will not offend or upset Muslims, that is the priority of our law enforcement, just as it is when 1,000s of young British girls are gang-raped by gangs of Muslim men. 

Britain and Europe are losing the battle for our moral and cultural soul, and it is this reality that is handing victory to Sharia.  The stated aim of the Muslim faith, as demonstrated throughout scripture, is the global subjugation of the non-Muslim to Sharia.  Jihadi terrorists aim to achieve this through terror, others are achieving it through immigration and the exploitation of human rights laws.  Muslim advocacy groups routinely use language of ‘human rights’, ‘inclusivity’ and objections to ‘discrimination’ in order to normalize Islamic practices in Western society.  They also demand restrictions on free speech, thereby impairing our ability to object.  We are slowly but surely reflecting an Islamic state.  A person in Britain is perhaps just as likely (if not more likely) to be prosecuted for ‘hate speech’ as for raping an underage girl.  ‘Hate speech’ will very often amount to criticism of Islam, or more importantly, Muslim immigration.

The key to saving the West from Islam is to end mass immigration, deport those immigrants who simply will not adapt to our laws (for example deporting non-British citizens who practice FGM or child marriage), and robustly apply the law to all people, regardless of their religion.

There are no signs of this happening however, and no signs either that the immigration is going to stop, or even reduce.

While we focus on terror, Islam is defeating us through the back door.  Terror is not the problem, ‘extremism’ is not the problem, Sharia is the problem and whether it is achieved via the bomb or the ballot box, Sharia will be the result.  It is that result we must prevent, and we must act now to do so, or the Western world will disappear not with a bang but with a whimper, and with our own consent. 

Anne Marie Waters is leader of UK Political Party For Britain, and author of Beyond Terror – Islam’s Slow Erosion of Western Democracy.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270983/wests-defeat-its-own-hand-anne-marie-waters

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The truth is revealed - Dr. Haim Shine

​
by Dr. Haim Shine

The protesters in the square, led by the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee in Israel – MKs Ayman Odeh, Hanin Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka – are voicing their truth. We should heed what they are telling us and stop already with the Left's foolish march of naiveté.

The Palestinian flags waving in Tel Aviv on Saturday night are the real narrative, which no amount of wording, impersonating or mountains of hypocrisy can conceal. The protesters at Rabin Square are fighting for the right of return to Sheikh Munis (Ramat Aviv), Khirbet Azoun (Raanana), and the lands of the Abu Kishk tribe in Ramat Hasharon. They want to make Nakba Day their day of independence. Their fight is over the 1948 borders, not the 1967 borders. The protesters in the square, led by the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee in Israel – MKs Ayman Odeh, Hanin Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka – are voicing their truth. We should heed what they are telling us and stop already with the Left's foolish march of naiveté.


The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people. We longed for this place, and we prayed for our return. And to liberate it we fought and sacrificed in the many thousands. We did not confiscate foreign soil; we are not colonialists in our own historic homeland, as claimed by the protest organizers, the leaders of the Arab public.

While the United Nations was deliberating over the partition plan, Jamal al-Husseini, the  Arab Higher Committee spokesman at the time, said: "The partition line will be nothing but a line of fire and blood." He was right. Immediately after the state was declared, the War for Independence erupted, and the Arabs of Israel who collaborated with hostile Arab states were forced to pay the price for their mistake. The wheels of history cannot be turned back; the Nakba flame can only ignite more hatred and spew more smoke. The Left fringe, together with NGOs funded by Germany and a pro-Palestinian Israeli media mouthpiece unbelievably lent their hands to the demonstration spearheaded by the Arab High Monitoring Committee in Israel, against the essence and character of Israel as a Jewish state.

The purpose of Saturday night's rally in Tel Aviv, unlike other protests against the nation-state law, wasn't to help scrounge up votes or economic benefits. The Arabs of Israel are voicing their one truth and I recommend we refrain from dismissing them or downplaying what they say. As early as 1915, David Ben-Gurion realized the Jewish-Arab conflict was based on an Arab nationalism, incited by the Arab elites; rather than a neighborly quarrel over the seizure of land and water.

For many years now, the Israeli Left has been gripped by a naiveté bordering on a severe inability to assess reality. This naiveté began with the intellectuals of the binationalist Zionist group Brit Shalom and morphed into Peace Now. It is now exhaustingly championed by the Meretz party and inept Zionist Union mouthpieces. These groups espouse the delusion that if we just withdrew to the 1967 borders, peace would reign. It is a persistent, dangerous lie that leads people to believe, wrongly, that prior to the Six-Day War we were all sitting around singing "Kumbayah." Saturday's demonstration makes it clear to the naive and fatigued among us that we are in the midst of a fight over Israel's essence. It is a fight between the Jewish majority and those who want Israel to be a country of all its nationalities.

Equal rights among citizens is a worthy demand; a shared Jewish-Arab national home will never happen. The nation-state law is crucial for precisely this reason, while the Arab public in Israel undergoes a radical process of Palestinization. For anyone who still has any doubt, the next elections will be about Israel's character and essence. We must win these elections for the next generations as well.

Dr. Haim Shine

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-truth-is-revealed/

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U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at a memorial service for Palestinians terrorists | Photo: Palestinian Embassy in Tunisia via the Daily Mail