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Iran Can No Longer Rely on Shia Militias to Fight its Wars by Con Coughlin

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15368/iran-shia-militias-iraq

The President’s robust response to the recent upsurge in Iranian-sponsored violence in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East certainly appears at odds with the perception that he has no interest in conducting military operations in the Middle East, and that his main objective is to reduce Washington’s military presence in the region ahead of this year’s presidential election contest.

And it should also send a clear signal to Tehran that its reliance on Shia militias to carry out attacks on its behalf will no longer be tolerated.

The intense pressure Iran is facing over its continued meddling in Iraq is the key factor behind the recent upsurge of violence in the Middle East that has resulted in American warplanes carrying out their biggest attack in a decade on Iran-backed militias.

Ever since the ayatollahs came to power more than 40 years ago, they have sought to distract attention away from their domestic unpopularity by getting Iran-backed Shia militias to carry out high profile attacks.

From the devastating car bomb attacks the Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia carried out against American bases in Beirut in the 1980s to the more recent attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil facilities in October 2019, the Iranian regime has repeatedly used its proxy Shia militias to great effect to distract attention away from its domestic travails.

The beauty of this arrangement, so far as the ayatollahs are concerned, is that, by relying on Shia militias to do their dirty work, whether it is firing missiles at Israel or carrying out assassinations in Europe, Tehran is able to deny any involvement in wrongdoing.

No longer. By launching a series of air strikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on Sunday night, the Trump administration has made it abundantly clear that it will no longer tolerate Tehran’s denials of its involvement in attacks against the US and its allies.

Moreover, after Washington accused Iran of being responsible for the subsequent attacks against the US Embassy in Baghdad that followed the air strikes, Tehran is risking a direct military confrontation with the US if it persists with the underhand tactic of employing proxies to carry out attacks on its behalf.

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Can Taking Cannabis Cause Permanent Harm?

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15367/can-taking-cannabis-cause-permanent-harm

Gatestone Institute to examine the impact of legalized marijuana in 2020. Details to follow…

STAY TUNED!-This is a major public health issue……rsk

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

A Fracking Ban Would Trigger Global Recession Mark P. Mills

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/issues-2020-economic-consequences-fracking-ban-recession

“”A fracking ban, regardless of motivation, is anchored in magical thinking that non-hydrocarbon energy sources could fill a massive global energy shortfall if the U.S. exited the world stage as a major supplier of oil and natural gas. Both fuels will be critical for the global economy for decades to come. The key issue is not whether wind and solar can supply more energy—they can and will—but whether a future American administration would reverse the progress of the last decade in lowering energy prices and enhancing geopolitical stability.”

Reality

The extraction of oil and gas through the techniques of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (colloquially, “fracking”) has catapulted the United States into leadership of the world’s energy markets. Since 2007, fracking has doubled U.S. oil production and increased gas production by 60%. Instead of a major importer, America is rapidly becoming the largest exporter of oil and is expected to supply the majority of net new energy traded on global markets over the next two decades.

If the U.S. imposed a fracking ban, the supply disruption would trigger the biggest oil and natural gas price spikes in history—almost certainly by more than 200%—which would, in turn, tip the world into recession. Even the expectation that a ban could be enacted would destabilize markets. U.S. imports and the trade imbalance would soar, as would consumers’ spending on energy. To keep the lights on, America would have to nearly double the quantity of coal burned, as well as import up to 1 million barrels of oil per day for dual-fueled power plants that would lose access to natural gas.

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13 Hours vs 13 Minutes – That’s The Difference Between Two Presidents When It Comes To Saving American Lives…

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

https://dcwhispers.com/13-hours-vs-13-minutes-thats-the-difference-between-two-presidents-when-it-comes-to-saving-american-lives/

When the Benghazi Massacre was underway, then-President Barack Obama went to sleep. It took 13 hours for help to arrive. Sadly, that was more than enough time for militants to kill and injure Americans, including the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty since, ironically, the Iranian attack on the U.S. embassy during the Carter presidency.
This week in Iraq it took President Donald Trump just 13 minutes to give the order for help. The militants quickly scattered and lives were saved.
What a remarkable difference a different Commander in Chief can make when it comes to keeping Americans safe even in the most dangerous parts of the world.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Colleges Dupe Parents and Taxpayers The high cost of “diversity” being the highest goal of higher education. Walter Williams

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/colleges-dupe-parents-and-taxpayers-walter-williams/

Colleges have been around for centuries. College students have also been around for centuries. Yet, college administrators assume that today’s students have needs that were unknown to their predecessors. Those needs include diversity and equity personnel, with massive budgets to accommodate.

According to Minding the Campus, Penn State University’s Office of Vice Provost for Educational Equity employs 66 staff members. The University of Michigan currently employs a diversity staff of 93 full-time diversity administrators, officers, directors, vice provosts, deans, consultants, specialists, investigators, managers, executive assistants, administrative assistants, analysts and coordinators. Amherst College, with a student body of 1,800 students employs 19 diversity people. Top college diversity bureaucrats earn salaries six figures, in some cases approaching $500,000 per year. In the case of the University of Michigan, a quarter (26) of their diversity officers earn annual salaries of more than $100,000. If you add generous fringe benefits and other expenses, you could easily be talking about $13 million a year in diversity costs. The Economist reports that University of California, Berkeley, has 175 diversity bureaucrats.

Diversity officials are a growing part of a college bureaucracy structure that outnumbers faculty by 2 to 2.5 depending on the college. According to “The Campus Diversity Swarm,” an article from Mark Pulliam, a contributing editor at Law and Liberty, which appeared in the City Journal (10/10/2018), diversity people assist in the cultivation of imaginary grievances of an ever-growing number of “oppressed” groups. Pulliam writes: “The mission of campus diversity officers is self-perpetuating. Affirmative action (i.e., racial and ethnic preferences in admissions) leads to grievance studies. Increased recognition of LGBTQ rights requires ever-greater accommodation by the rest of the student body. Protecting ‘vulnerable’ groups from ‘hate speech’ and ‘microaggressions’ requires speech codes and bias-response teams (staffed by diversocrats). Complaints must be investigated and adjudicated (by diversocrats). Fighting ‘toxic masculinity’ and combating an imaginary epidemic of campus sexual assault necessitate consent protocols, training, and hearing procedures — more work for an always-growing diversocrat cadre. Each newly recognized problem leads to a call for more programs and staffing.”

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Here’s What’s Going to Happen in 2020 Kurt Schlichter Kurt Schlichter

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/12/30/heres-what-is-whats-going-to-happen-in-2020-n2558641

If you thought you can’t top the stupidity we experienced in 2019, brace yourself for 2020 because it’s going to be a pronoun-fueled weather cult pinko freakshow. But it won’t be all amusing antics – the left hates us and its ugly mask is coming off, revealing the even uglier fascist visage lurking beneath. If you listen to them, and if you aren’t an insufferable goo goo wimp who refuses to hear them, you will know that they intend to silence you, even imprison you, and deprive you of the ability to participate in your own governance. So, if you want to live as a free man or woman – if they have their way, they’ll destroy you for recognizing that unalterable binary – best be ready. 

Be motivated to engage in the cultural melee. 

Vote. 

And buy guns and ammo. As my favorite literary creation famously says, no one has ever regretted being too well armed.

With that in mind, here are my predictions for 2020:

10. Trump Will Be Impeached…Yawn: Poor, flailing Nancy Pelosi will eventually transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate, thereby actually impeaching the President. Now, whether Pelosi’s current antics constitute “impeachment” or not is irrelevant, except denying it due to her gamesmanship is fun because it owns the libs. No one cares, and to the limited extent we normal people do, this alleged impeachment is a badge of honor for the President. Her fringe-driven delay tactics make the Dems look dumber, and eventually she will send it to the Senate where Cocaine Mitch will kill it. Sure, some of the useless GOP caucus will make noises about how this clusterfark must be taken seriously because principles and honor and stuff. Saps. They just better take seriously that we in the base will electorally eviscerate them if they vote to convict. Maybe Mitt the Gimp will vote for it because he’s weak and stupid. Maybe Senator Iglookowski (RINO-AK) will too. But in the end, Trump will triumph and yet again humiliate his opponents.

9. The Economy Will Stay Strong, Disappointing Democrats: The party of the workin’ man is already in mourning because the Trump economy has finally brought some prosperity back to the workin’ man instead of concentrating wealth among the globalist liberal gentry that Obama served. The media will cheerlead for a recession; the Democrats will try to ignore the new Roaring 20s, but America’s success will remain a nightmare for liberals during 2020.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Islamic Extremism and Interfaith Dialogue in Texas By Anne Christine Hoff

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/01/islamic_extremism_and_interfaith_dialogue_in_texas.html

Interfaith initiatives have become ubiquitous in American life. In large cities and small towns, there is an expectation that community religious leaders must come together to discuss their similarities and minimize their differences. But these efforts become a hindrance when they are used to ignore and disguise extremism and hatred, rather than expose and combat it.

Over the past several months, our organization, the Counter-Islamist Grid (CIG), which focuses on Islamist extremist networks in cities across the country, undertook a project to write to members of the Richardson Interfaith Alliance, located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in order to appraise them of radical statements being made by some of their interfaith partners, most notably the Islamic Association of North Texas (also located in Richardson, Texas).

We later published an article about some of these radical interfaith participants and their public utterances and provided documentation and screenshots of the radical anti-Christian and anti-Jewish statements made by those who were supposedly true “interfaith” partners.

The responses we received to these letters have been instructive. Almost to a person, the leaders of the organizations we wrote defended and explained away the extremism, despite clear published hatred for members of other faiths.

These responses ranged from mere ad hominem attacks on our motivations to appeals to authority and citing the personal experiences of the participants as superior to actual evidence.

One lead pastor we wrote to let us know that he was friends with the imam and a layperson at East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) which made him, apparently, a superior judge of the character of Texas Islamic leaders.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

DHS to investigate driver’s licenses for illegal aliens By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

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

In the last few years, numerous states have already begun to, or soon will, issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Spurred by concerns about national security risks, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is finally investigating whether these licenses are pathways to dangerous identity fraud.

The plethora of licenses in the hands of illegal aliens has worried those concerned about voting integrity. In California, for example, the current iteration of the “motor voter” law means that anyone who obtains or renews a driver’s license is automatically registered to vote.

Technically, “Individuals with AB 60 driver’s licenses are not eligible to participate in the California Motor Voter program and are not eligible to vote.” In practice, last year the DMV admitted that it erroneously registered 1,500 drivers to vote including, it said, non-citizens (i.e., green card holder and illegal aliens). (If you’re wondering whether 1,500 is a real number, you’ll find interesting Jeff Carlson’s article about California’s overwhelming support for Hillary in 2016.)

California’s not alone. A July 2019 article from the National Conference of State Legislatures has noted the trend:

Thirteen states and the District of Columbia enacted laws to allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain a driver’s licenses. These states—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Utah, Vermont and Washington—issue a license if an applicant provides certain documentation, such as a foreign birth certificate, a foreign passport, or a consular card and evidence of current residency in the state.

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AOC to Lose Her Congressional District After 2020 Census? By Matt Margolis

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/aoc-to-lose-her-congressional-district-after-2020-census/

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be a rising star in the Democratic Party, but the district she represents could potentially not exist following the 2020 Census since New York is expected to lose as many as two House seats.

According to The City, nearly 47 percent of her district is foreign-born, and more than a quarter are not citizens—both are segments of the population that are often underrepresented in the census due to concerns of taking part in an official government count, and her district has a higher percentage than any other district. This could mean that her district could be divided up in reapportionment, meaning that she might have to face another incumbent to stay in Congress. Frank Luntz says that the state’s Democrats are actually looking to “draw out” her district.

President Trump considered an executive order to restore a question regarding citizenship to the census but ultimately backed down. Still, some say that there will be an impact on the new census, and AOC, who might be fighting for her political future, is trying hard to inform her constituents that they must participate in the census.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Yazidi Survivors Are Key to Bringing Islamic State Members to Justice By Bojan Pancevski

Posted By on January 2nd, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/yazidi-survivors-are-key-to-bringing-islamic-state-members-to-justice-11577882496

Efforts to compile testimonies from Yazidi victims offer first-hand evidence of genocide committed by the self-styled caliphate

BERLIN—Ivana says she was eight years old when she was sold as a sex slave to an American member of Islamic State after the group murdered her parents.

Five years after the terror militia sought to exterminate her fellow Yazidi, a religious minority in Iraq and Syria, Ivana’s testimony and those of hundreds of other victims offer evidence that might help bring Islamic State members to justice in the West.

European and U.S. authorities have struggled to successfully prosecute returning Islamic State members, largely because of the difficulties in collecting evidence of crimes that happened in Iraq and Syria.

But the Yazidi who survived carry detailed accounts of one of the militia’s worst crimes: The attempt to wipe out the religious minority and the mass enslavement of its women and female children. Islamic State interprets Islamic scriptures literally, using them to justify the murder and enslavement of Yazidis, who are adherents of an ancient religion that is neither Muslim, Christian nor Jewish and therefore perceived as subhuman by ideologues of the terror group. Now lawyers, activists and the United Nations are compiling these accounts to build cases against captured militants from the self-styled caliphate.

“He was horribly brutal. He and his wife owned me and another two Yazidi girls,” Ivana, now aged 13, says in a documentary about Yazidi survivors. The film, by a German-Yazidi lawyer, will premiere at the United Nations’ New York headquarters in January and is part of the documentation effort. CONTINUE AT SITE