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U.S. Army Purchases Israeli Spike NLOS Missiles How Obama’s perfidy led to the marriage of an Israeli missile with an American gunship. Ari Lieberman

Posted By on January 21st, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/us-army-purchases-israeli-spike-nlos-missiles-ari-lieberman/

The United States Army announced that it will purchase the Israeli Spike Non-Light-Of-Sight missile (NLOS) for its fleet of AH-64 Apache attack helicopters (and possibly for its MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial platforms) as an interim solution for a missile with greater standoff capabilities. Built by Raphael Advanced Defense Systems, the Spike NLOS has a range of 25 kilometers, which is more than double than that of the American Hellfire missile.

The missile, which features an advanced tandem warhead design is capable of penetrating reactive armor as well as the latest variants of composite armor. The “Non-Line-Of-Sight” is a reference to the Spike’s “over the horizon” capabilities, which enables the missile to engage an enemy target through indirect, standoff positions. This feature, along with the Spike’s range makes the pilot much less vulnerable to air defense systems, including anti-aircraft missiles and anti-aircraft artillery.

The Spike NLOS can be guided via a laser designator or real-time wireless data link. The operator can also abort the mission after launch or change targets. This is an important feature that enables the operator to limit collateral damage should civilians suddenly appear or alternatively, to direct the missile toward a more valuable or dangerous target. The dynamic and fluid nature of the modern battlefield makes this feature invaluable. The Hellfire does not have this capability.

Israel produces a wide variety of Spike missiles with different ranges for different combat situations. Some variants are light-weight and can be shoulder fired while other variants are heavier and can be launched from combat ships and areal platforms. Variants of Israel’s Spike are in service with 31 militaries worldwide but there is no better advertisement for the Spike than getting the U.S. Army’s imprimatur.

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Beware the Fool’s Gold of Diplomacy Negotiation only gives the Mullahs time. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on January 21st, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/beware-fools-gold-diplomacy-bruce-thornton/

The killing of Qassem Soleimani by a U.S. drone strike, and Iran’s accidental downing of a Ukrainian commercial airliner, have both humiliated the mullahs and exposed their lethal incompetence. Continuing protests by Iranian citizens against the feckless and corrupt regime reveal deepening fissures in the Iranian political order, as President Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Iran’s economy continues to bite deeper.

But while we should be pushing harder on the tottering regime, the same old voices of idealistic internationalism are calling for “diplomatic outreach” and “negotiations” to rewrite the nuclear deal. President Trump’s goal of that pressure, at least rhetorically so far, is also to renegotiate the nuclear deal and give it teeth, though he has put the burden on Iran to take the first step. And Britain, France, and Germany have triggered the nuclear agreement’s “dispute mechanisms” which could lead to broader “snap-back” sanctions on Iran. They too are calling for a renegotiated agreement.

But instead of yet again mining the fool’s gold of diplomacy, we should resist this glittering fraud. Diplomatic “engagement” with Iran will achieve nothing other than to give Iran time to spin its centrifuges, and inch closer to a nuclear weapon and the missiles to deliver them.

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During the busy Lunar New Year, an aggressive coronavirus is on the move By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on January 21st, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/during_the_busy_lunar_new_year_an_aggressive_coronavirus_is_on_the_move.html

A growing viral threat in China reminds us that there’s a very thin line between civilization and disaster. Moreover, it tells us that our government should be focusing on disease preventing and not on whether boys should be using girls’ bathrooms. But first, a little history to put things in perspective.

The world’s biggest die-off in recorded history – known as the Black Death, the Great Morality, the Pestilence, or the Great Plague – got its start thanks to a period of global cooling following the life-giving force of the Medieval Warming Period (950-1100 A.D.). During the warming period, land became more productive, and the population grew and expanded into formerly barren lands. (Greenland was once actually green.) When the climate began to cool, though, crops diminished, leading to starvation and weakened immune systems. War was normative.

The plague started in China, as rodents fled areas that were drying out in the cooling world. In 1347, Genoese traders were in the port city of Kaffa on the Crimea (now in Ukraine), when the Mongol hordes, who were looking for greener pastures, laid siege to the city. The plague-ridden Mongol army engaged in biological warfare by catapulting corpses into the city. The Genoese traders who escaped carried the plague to Sicily, and from there it spread to the rest of Europe. Best guesses are that 75 to 200 million people died.

Now that the stage is properly set, here’s the news from China today, and it’s way better than the news from China in the 14th Century:

An outbreak of a never-before-seen coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan dramatically worsened over the last few days—the case count has more than tripled, cases have appeared in new cities, and authorities have confirmed that the virus is spreading person to person.

The World Health Organization announced Monday that it will convene an emergency meeting on Wednesday, January 22, to assess the outbreak and how best to manage it

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Mitch McConnell proposes a swift impeachment proceeding. By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on January 21st, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/mitch_mcconnell_proposes_a_swift_impeachment_proceeding.html

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a “Resolution to provide for related procedures concerning the articles of impeachment against Donald John Trump, President of the United States.” The plan calls for such streamlined proceedings that the whole impeachment could be resolved by the end of next week, before President Trumps State of the Union address on February 4.

These are the main terms in the 4-page document:

The House shall file publicly available evidentiary materials that the House Judiciary Committee produced or that others submitted to it.
The Senate shall vote on whether “to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses or document.” 
Depending on the vote, the House may have admitted into evidence some or all of the materials in the record.
The deadline for the House and the President to file motions other than evidentiary motions is 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, January 22.
Motion responses are due by 11:00 a.m. on the same day.
Oral argument on the motions will be held at 1:00 p.m. on the same day.
After a ruling upon the motions (if any are made), the House will have a 24 hour time period over the course of two days to make its case.
The President will then have the same amount of time (24 hours over two days) to present his defense.
Senators will then have 16 hours to question both parties.
Following questions, each side is allowed no more than 2 hours to argue whether or not addition witnesses or documents should be subpoenaed. The Senate shall immediately rule on those arguments.
If the Senate votes to allow more evidence, the witnesses shall be deposed and only then will the Senate decide which witnesses will testify.
And then the Senate votes.

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Contrary to leftist hopes and conservative fears, the Richmond rally was peaceful By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on January 21st, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/contrary_to_leftist_hopes_and_conservative_fears_the_richmond_rally_was_peaceful.html

Leftists craved the thought of violence occurring at Monday’s Second Amendment in Richmond, Virginia, while Second Amendment supporters were concerned that groups such as Antifa would use false flag operations to make trouble. Fortunately, as Fox News reported, “A gun-rights rally in Richmond that brought thousands of people from across the country to protest a push by Virginia Democrats for comprehensive gun control ended peacefully without any major incidents.”

The rally exposed deep faultlines in America when it comes to guns. On the conservative side, gun rights activists note that the first shots the American revolutionaries fired, on April 19, 1775, were to prevent the British from acting on orders to seize and destroy arms and munitions hidden in Lexington and Concord. From the start, America has been about the people’s right to keep and bear arms.

After the Americans had routed the British, the Founding Fathers remained focused on the fact that the only defense against a tyrannical government is the People. To minimize the risk that could arise from a federal government with a standing army, James Madison, writing in Federalist #46, spoke of the best bulwark against a tyrannical government’s troops:

To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands . . . fighting for their common liberties. . . . It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it.

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Gun Owners Rally in Richmond . . . and the Predictions of Violence Look Like Panic By Jim Geraghty

Posted By on January 21st, 2020

Perhaps the police presence kept everyone on their best behavior. Or perhaps it was the presence of all of those armed citizens. Perhaps the hateful types decided to stay away — or perhaps they were never that likely to show up in significant numbers at all. Governor Ralph Northam enacted unprecedented emergency security measures out of fears that racists will be in attendance. Because if we Virginians know anything, it’s that Ralph Northam would never tolerate anything racist.

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One and a half hour after the rally officially ended, one woman was arrested for wearing a mask. According to police, she was warned twice; charged, and then released on her own recognizance. As the Richmond Times-Dispatch notes, quite a few rally attendees wore ski masks; the day was frigid.

The day went, by almost every measure, exactly the way Second Amendment advocates and law-abiding gun owners hoped it would . . . well, by almost every measure. Apparently the leaders of the new Democratic majority in the state legislature think getting 22,000 people to attend a rally outside the capitol on a frigid morning is no big deal:

Democratic lawmakers — including House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn and Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw — told AP the rally wouldn’t impact their plans to pass gun-control measures, including universal background checks and a one-handgun-purchase-a-month limit. Democrats say tightening Virginia’s gun laws will make communities safer and help prevent mass shootings like the one last year in Virginia Beach, where a dozen people were killed in a municipal building.

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ELECTIONS ARE COMING: SEAN PARNELL FOR CONGRESS (R-PA-DISTRICT 17)

Posted By on January 21st, 2020

https://www.seanforcongress.co/

Who  is Sean Parnell?

Army Ranger, combat infantryman with the elite 10th Mountain Division, and veteran of 485 days of fierce fighting along the Afghan-Pakistan border, Captain Sean Parnell’s unique leadership skills welded his platoon into one of the most fierce and effective American fighting units in modern military history. Repeatedly outnumbered and outgunned by a foe whose avowed purpose was to overrun his platoon, Sean’s “Outlaws” battled furiously in the most rugged terrain on the planet—the towering Hindu Kush Mountains. Eighty-five percent of his platoon received Purple Hearts for wounds incurred in battle, but his men gave far more than they received. Outlaw Platoon killed over 350 enemy fighters in some of the biggest firefights of the Afghan War. His platoon remains one of the most decorated Army units since 9-11.

Since leaving the Army, Sean has penned the New York Times best-selling book, Outlaw Platoon, which is the story of his platoon’s crucible of combat in Eastern Afghanistan. He is a regular guest on Fox News and has appeared on dozens of national TV and radio shows. He is a subject matter expert on Afghanistan, the insurgency we face there, leadership and how to use it to inspire and motivate men and women to achieve common objectives.

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Pennsylvania House Races Serve as 2020 Harbinger By Salena Zito

Posted By on January 21st, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/pennsylvania-house-races-serve-as-2020-harbinger/

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — Eugene DePasquale and Sean Parnell couldn’t be more different politically. DePasquale is a seasoned statewide-elected official and Democrat from York County, Pennsylvania, while Parnell is a western Pennsylvania Republican newcomer who has never run for office. Yet they share one very important thing this year: They are both challenging incumbent members of Congress in Pennsylvania districts President Donald Trump won in 2016.

Both of their races tell the story of not just how truly uncertain the Keystone State is politically but also how completely divided it is.

They also show us how hard it is to predict results in this state, both for the presidential election and for which party might eventually hold the majority in the Pennsylvania congressional delegation — or whether it will remain split, with some of the partisan office holders rearranging seats.

“Interestingly, Pennsylvania is the only state that currently has an exactly split (U.S.) House delegation by party,” noted Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“The split is a good illustration of how divided Pennsylvania is,” he said of the 9-9 partisan split. The state has swung wildly since 2006 in terms of who holds the state House and congressional majorities, with the trends often serving as a harbinger for the entire country.

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Progressive Petards When the Left has to live according to its own rules, it will rue the loss of the civilization it destroyed. Victor Davis Hanson *****

Posted By on January 20th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/19/progressive-petards/

Since at least 2016, CNN has mostly ceased being a news agency, but that hasn’t stopped it from being an active participant in #TheResistance. The network is so caught up in the fervor of this movement that many of its guests and regular hosts have been fired, reprimanded, or apologized for threats to the president or general obscene references (e.g., Reza Aslan, the late Anthony Bourdain, Kathy Griffin).

Many of its marquee reporters have resigned, were fired, or reassigned for fake-news bias (e.g., Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau, and Lex Haris), or came under fire for false reporting (Jim Sciutto, Marshall Cohen, and Carl Bernstein) or have had to offer retractions and/or apologies (Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper, and Brian Rokus.)

Its anchors have apologized for obscenity (Anderson Cooper) or simply making up false statements (Chris Cuomo), while analysts have been caught in a number of contradictions about their own role in on-going scandals (James Clapper).

The common denominator has been the new journalistic ethos that aborting the Trump presidency justifies any means necessary to achieve such noble ends. Throughout CNN’s descent into parody, progressives still smiled at the usefulness of CNN for the larger project of delegitimizing the Trump presidency. Few understood the Thucydidean concept that once nihilists destroy norms and protocols of ethical behavior for perceived short-term advantage, they usually rue the loss when they themselves become victims of their own biased zealotry and are in dire need of the civilizational help they recently ruined.

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Violent Muslim Antisemitism In Europe Isn’t “New” Andrew Bostom

Posted By on January 20th, 2020

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2020/01/violent-muslim-antisemitism-in-europe-isnt-new/

“[A] Jew [is] of that most contemptible of religions, the most vile of faiths…They [Jews] both the ancient and modern* [*defined below] are altogether the worst liars…They are the filthiest and vilest of peoples, their unbelief horrid, their ignorance abominable…The vilest infidel ape [i.e., Jews; per Koran 5:60, 2:65, 7:166]; Do not consider that killing them [Jews] is treachery.”

I recalled those words (above) from my The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, newly re-issued,in light of a Der Spiegel report on January 14, 2020, and the recent Der Spiegel interview of French philosopher, Alain Finkielkraut, published December 28, 2019.

 

Spiegel’s online news website reported 1/14/20 the arrest of suspected Chechen jihadist men, aged 23 to 28, who had surveilled Berlin’s historic “New Synagogue”, and made video recordings of the building, in preparation for an apparent attack. (Indeed, some 3-months earlier, on October 5, 2019, a knife-wielding Syrian Muslim, identified as Murad M., screaming the jihadist war cry,“Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is Greatest”],  and “Fuck Israel,” was tackled and disarmed at the entrance to the same Berlin New Synagogue.)

 

During his 12/28/19 Der Spiegel interview, Finkielkraut opined that Germany was “encountering a different, new antisemitism.” He observed, accurately, that, “hatred of the Jews is very widespread in the Arab countries,” and “Germany has recently opened its doors wide to a large number of immigrants from these countries.” Finkielkraut then re-emphasized what has become a standard trope: the ostensible sui generis nature of this Muslim strain of Western European Antisemitism, dubbed “new” Antisemitism:

“Will Germany withstand this? Will Germany react to the new antisemitism with exactly the same harshness and relentlessness as against the emergence or reappearance of neo-Nazism? We’ll see about that. Germany may find this just as difficult as France.”

Past as prologue, the opening quotes I cited—within their appropriate doctrinal and historical context—underscore this pervasive modern ignorance (and/or denial) about the millennial legacy of canonical Islamic Jew-hatred, and jihadism, in Europe. Ibn Hazm (d. 1064), an important Muslim jurist, and Abu Ishaq el-Biri, a prominent mid-11th century Muslim poet, made the opening observations about Jews, while residing in mythically “ecumenical,” Muslim-controlled Spain. As analyzed by the pre-eminent scholar of Islam’s Medieval anti-Jewish polemic, Moshe Perlmann, their inflammatory rhetoric, particularly the Koranic epithet “ape” for Jews, was common parlance, which ultimately precipitated the mass slaughter and destruction of the Jewish community in Granada, during a 1066 pogrom by rampaging Muslims. It is estimated that up to four thousand Jews perished, making it the largest anti-Jewish pogrom, till then, in European history.