ISIS claims responsibility for London Bridge attack

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/30/isis-claims-responsibility-london-bridge-attack/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_campaign=pushnotify&utm_medium=push

The Islamic State officially claimed responsibility for Friday’s terror attack in London.

A statement Saturday from its news agency Amaq was translated and posted to Twitter by Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times.

Attacker Usman Khan — who recently was released from prison after serving six years for plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange — was acting in its name, the terror group said.

Khan “carried out the attack in response to calls to target the nationals of Coalition countries,” the ISIS statement said.

Two people were stabbed to death and several others injured before police shot Khan dead on the London Bridge.

France: “We Want to Regain Control of Our Migration Policy” by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15151/france-control-migration-policy

“The number of asylum applications in France increased by more than 20% in 2018 while it is declining everywhere else in Europe. Why is it declining elsewhere and increasing in France? Maybe we need to ask the question, why is this ‘French Eldorado’ being promoted everywhere?” — MP Emmanuelle Ménard, French Member of Parliament.

Critics noted that Philippe’s measures will not resolve the underlying problem — that the French government refuses adequately to secure the country’s borders to prevent illegal migrants from entering France in the first place.

“The government has decided nothing. There will always be 255,000 legal aliens per year, plus 100,000 asylum seekers, plus all the illegal immigrants that no one has even considered counting, plus thousands of unaccompanied minors.” — Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally party.

Meanwhile, illegal immigration to and through France continues unabated.

French police recently cleared more than 2,000 migrants from makeshift encampments in northern Paris. The crackdown comes after the government announced a series of measures to curb illegal immigration.

The migration crackdown appears to be aimed at blunting the rising popularity of the anti-mass-migration party National Rally and its leader Marine Le Pen. She has dismissed the government’s actions as a “political swindle” that will increase, not decrease, immigration.

On November 28, police began removing hundreds of migrants from a camp at Porte d’Aubervilliers in the 19th arrondissement in northeastern Paris. The clearance operation was delayed by a week due to an insufficient police presence to guarantee security. An estimated 2,000 migrants are living in the camp in squalid conditions.

The End Looks Near For Iran’s Ayatollah Regime Alireza Jafarzadeh

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/11/29/the-end-looks-near-for-irans-ayatollah-regime/

Since November 15, protests have swept through Iran, erupting in at least 165 cities. Ostensibly triggered by a gasoline price hike of up to 300%, the unrest soon found a new focus: the overthrow of the ruling regime in its entirety.

The speed with which the protests spread was a clear indication that the explosive society was just waiting for an opportunity to call for regime change. In the first two days, the protests spread to over 100 cities, with unified chants of “death to the dictator.” “death to Rouhani,” “death to Khamenei,” and “neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I give my life for Iran.”

The public’s thirst for change and penchant to stand up to the regime far exceed that seen in the 2018 uprising. On day one, people closed streets, tore down or burned posters of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and attacked government buildings. According to the state-run Fars News Agency affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), in only one province, 100 state-owned banks and 56 other government locations were set ablaze in the first two days; that is double the number in the entire country in 2018. According to our information, over 1,300 government buildings, banks, Bassij headquarters, and clerical seminaries have been attacked and set ablaze, unprecedented in the past three decades.

Sensing a growing fissure within the three branches of his regime, Khamenei spoke on day two, endorsing the price hike and ordering the security forces to crack down. In the first two days, at least 61 people were killed, more than all those killed in 2018.

Tehran doubled down on the use of violence after Khamenei’s ominous speech, killing at least 251, injuring over 3,700 and arresting more than 7,000 as of this writing. But the brute force failed to stop the protesters, and by the second day the regime shut down the internet despite a massive international backlash and financial losses estimated at $370 million a day.

Still, the unrest continued.

FBI Diagnosed With CIA Disease An inspector general’s report underscores how the FBI departed from its tradition of professionalism and honesty in pursuit of domestic political influence. Angelo Codevilla

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/28/fbi-diagnosed-with-cia-disease/

The Justice Department’s inspector general this month reprimanded the FBI for the manner in which it recruits and supervises its “confidential human sources.” To the layman, this seems about technicalities. In fact, it shows that one of the CIA’s deadliest dysfunctions now infects the FBI as well.

This disease consists of choosing and rejecting sources for the purpose of indulging the agencies’ and their leaders’ private agendas rather than to further intelligence work on the public’s behalf. 

Necessarily, the language of the inspector general’s November 19 report is vague: “Ineffective management and oversight of confidential sources.” This means the FBI has failed to use “adequate controls” in its validation of human sources, which has resulted in “jeopardizing FBI operations, and placing FBI agents, sources, subjects of investigation, and the public in harm’s way.”

The inspector general’s concern with the FBI’s source management stems from the investigation into the FBI’s involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign, including by taking seriously the infamous Steele dossier that it knew was a fabrication as well as, likely, some Russian communication intercepts that also should have been rejected on strictly professional grounds. In short, the FBI departed from its tradition of professionalism and honesty in pursuit of domestic political influence.

Choosing and recruiting sources, validating and managing them, is the very heart of intelligence. Doing it badly, taking sources that come easy—especially dispensing with due skepticism about the ones that contribute to one’s own agendas—is professional corruption. But doing it right is hard. To the extent that intelligence agencies find it difficult to fulfill expectations, they are tempted to substitute such corruption for the competence they lack. The pursuit of agency interests or even personal agendas takes over.

The Reign of the Prosecution And Netanyahu’s call for investigation of the investigators. Caroline Glick

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/reign-prosecution-caroline-glick/

Last Thursday in Israel, the politicians were the big story. Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman was the villain who had held the country hostage for nearly a year as he fed his narcissistic personality disorder.

The left’s latest flagship, the Blue and White Party, is all the once vibrant political camp can put together now that it has lost its ideology. With its deity of peace killed by suicide bombers and missiles, and its socialism statues crushed under the weight of bankrupt government companies, all the left has left is “blue and white.” The party stands on two planks: destroying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and eternalizing the regime of Israel’s unelected bureaucrats.

The party’s figurehead—Benny Gantz—was tempted to join a unity government with Netanyahu that would guarantee he served as prime minister under a rotation agreement. But his comrades wouldn’t let him. Joining a government with Netanyahu would be a betrayal of their very reason for existing. So, unhappily, he walked away.

And then there was Netanyahu himself. On Thursday, his supporters shook their heads in frustration and his enemies clapped their hands in glee at the sight of Israel’s greatest statesman, the leader the public wants to keep in office, unable to form a government.

The conversation about Israel’s politicians lasted less than 24 hours.

At four in the afternoon, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s office announced that at 7:30 in the evening he would announce his decision to indict Netanyahu. The underlying message was crystal clear: The day after Gantz returned his mandate to form a government to President Reuven Rivlin after he failed to get a sufficient number of coalition partners to build a government, Mandelblit ruled that there’s no point in talking about whether or not Israel is going to new elections in March.

CrowdStrike: a Conspiracy Wrapped in a Conspiracy Inside a Conspiracy The conspiracy theory that exposes the Democrats’ desperation and panic. Oleg Atbashian

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/crowdstrike-conspiracy-wrapped-conspiracy-inside-oleg-atbashian/

In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word “CrowdStrike” a lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in a crazy idea that the DNC wasn’t hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia.

A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his fans had ever heard of it until the Democrat-media complex condescendingly informed them that these are their beliefs.

Let’s look at the facts:

Fact 1. In 2016 the DNC hired the Ukrainian-owned firm CrowdStrike to analyze their server and investigate a data breach.

Fact 2. CrowdStrike experts determined that the culprit was Russia.

Fact 3. The FBI never received access to the DNC server, so the Russian connection was never officially confirmed and continues to be an allegation coming from the DNC and its Ukrainian-owned contractor.

Fact 4. Absent the official verdict, other theories continue to circulate, including the possibility that the theft was an inside job by a DNC employee, who simply copied the files to a USB drive and sent it to WikiLeaks.

None of these facts was ever disputed by anyone. The media largely ignored them except for the part about the Russian hackers, which boosted their own, now debunked, wild conspiracy theory that Trump was a Russian agent.

Impeachment Shows the Limit of Media Power Live by the lie, die by the lie.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/impeachment-shows-limit-media-power-daniel-greenfield/

After the media went all out to televise the impeachment committee hearings, a majority of independent voters switched from supporting impeachment to opposing impeachment.

In October, 48% of independents supported impeachment while 39% opposed it. Now 49% of independents oppose impeachment while only 39% still support it. The neat, almost perfect reversal, can be credited to the media’s fateful decision to televise the committee hearings across the networks.

The media’s error was entirely predictable.

The Russia investigation looked good in the media frame until the Mueller report came out and then Mueller was dragged in to testify about it. The impeachment bid looked good in the media lens until people actually watched committee hearings and didn’t see any of what the media had been touting.

Live by the lie, die by the lie.

The paradox of impeachment is that the media’s con artists invented it, but stories alone, the commanding heights of communications, can’t actually close the deal. Like every con job, at some point the mark actually wants to see the million dollars that Nigerian prince is offering, the brand-new Tesla for only five grand, and the papers for the Brooklyn Bridge. Individual marks can be strung along indefinitely, but there are limits to how much an entire nation can be conned. Even by the media.

Abe Lincoln had something to say about that. But, then again, he was a Republican.

The media has excelled at creating investigation narratives. Its take on the Russia investigation or the Ukraine investigation convinced a lot of people that President Trump really was guilty. But you can’t impeach someone in the media. Nor can you actually try them on MSNBC. And that’s the problem.

Elections are where the media’s power lies because all it has to do is convince voters to cast a ballot, without ever having to show its work or prove its claims. With impeachment, it has to do both.

Good sense from Gingrich on China Most of the problems America blames on its archrival are of its own making, argues the former House speaker David Goldman

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/11/article/good-sense-from-gingrich-on-china/

China remains what it has been for millennia, and most of America’s problems are not China’s fault but its own, former House speaker Newt Gingrich argues in his new book. Some rhetorical flourishes aside, the Republican elder statesman and Trump adviser rejects the ubiquitous American view that China is about to collapse under its own weight, or that China inevitably must become a Western-style democracy, or that the Chinese people are waiting for a wave of America’s hand to overthrow their evil communist overlords, and so forth.

He contrasts “the Western tradition of freedom under law dating back at least 3,000 years with roots in Athens, Rome and Jerusalem” to “the Chinese tradition of order imposed by a centralized system, a pattern that goes back at least 3,500 years.” Implicitly, he acknowledges that China’s political system today reflects thousands of years of its history.

Rather than blame China for America’s problems, Gingrich offers a harsh critique of America’s failings and argues that “there are a lot of steps America must take that are a reflection of America’s failures. Some of the greatest failures and weaknesses in American can’t be blamed on China. Rather, we have to look at ourselves and our own mistakes and failures. The burden on us to modernize and reform our own system is enormous.”

For example, Gingrich declares:

“It is not China’s fault that in 2017, 89% of Baltimore eighth graders couldn’t pass their math exam…

“It is not China’s fault that too few Americans in K-12 and in college study math and science to fill the graduate schools with future American scientists…

“It is not China’s fault that, faced with a dramatic increase in Chinese graduate students in science, the government has not been able to revive programs like the 1958 National Defense Education Act…

“It is not China’s fault the way our defense bureaucracy functions serves to create exactly the ‘military-industrial complex’ that President Dwight Eisenhower warned about…

“It is not China’s fault that NASA has been so bureaucratic and its funding so erratic that… there is every reason to believe that China is catching up rapidly and may outpace us. This is because of us not because of them…

Globalist Climate Candidate Michael Bloomberg and the Humanitarian Hoax of Climate Change by Linda Goudsmit

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/23539/globalist-climate-candidate-michael-bloomberg

   http://goudsmit.pundicity.com http://lindagoudsmit.com

Michael Bloomberg became a multi-billionaire by understanding global markets. He analyzed the 2020 U.S. presidential political marketplace and concluded three things:

● None of the hysterical, radically leftist Democrat candidates can beat President Trump in 2020.

● Joe Biden’s political corruption exposed in the Ukraine is irreversible and focuses unwelcome attention on the political corruption of the Clintons, the Pelosis, the Kerrys, and the Obamas.

● The single most successful humanitarian hoax and galvanizing political issue of our time is climate change.

So what does astute multi-billionaire globalist Michael Bloomberg do? He announces himself the climate candidate of the 2020 presidential election. In a November 26, 2019 article, Billionaire Buys Climate Change on Google, Brian Kahn reveals how Bloomberg plans to spend $1 billion of his personal fortune to buy Google ads that will reinforce his image as the climate candidate.

It is a brilliant political move by a brilliant market analyst because anyone opposing Bloomberg is seen as opposing climate change. The advertorial message is that Bloomberg will deliver the world from the catastrophic threat of climate change, so a vote for Bloomberg is a vote to save the planet.

Bloomberg is betting that the galvanizing message of climate change is powerful enough to overcome any anti-Semitic objections to his candidacy.

Let’s examine what it means in real terms, in real life, to the lives of real voters if this self-described climate candidate wins in 2020.

We begin by debunking the foundational premise of Bloomberg’s political ads: Climate change is the greatest challenge and threat to life in the 21st century.

I Am Thankful For Many Things, Especially The Things That Make Stupid People Sad Kurt Schlichter

On this special day, we should reflect upon the blessings we enjoy, and I enjoy nothing quite as much as stupid people who are miserable. There are a lot of stupid people who are miserable right now, and this is good. The misery stupid people cause themselves should disincentivize future stupidity – with luck, America will be burdened with less stupidity because of it. Think of it as natural selection of people who aren’t stupid.

But there are other things to be thankful for besides the pain dummies cause themselves as a result of their own dumbness. There are good things happening out there, though the media and the elite want to conceal them. You see them if you look – in the world, in our country, in your personal life.

There’s a lot to be thankful for, and it is right and proper that we be thankful. So, without further ado, here is what we should be especially thankful for at Thanksgiving 2019:

 

The Continuing Humiliation of the Fredocons: You know, it becomes clearer with every “Oh well, I never!” and every lame recitation of their liberal elite masters’ talking points about how the latest Deep State weasel’s testimony is a “bombshell” that these losers are never getting back the petty power and prestige they once possessed. The way to understand Never Trump is to see that it is solely and entirely the pathetic attempt of a bunch of has-beens and never-wases to reverse their firing as the leaders of the conservative movement by actual conservatives. Every day, these Vichy righties become less relevant and more pathetic, and thereby less likely to ever be in a position where they can lead us to failure and defeat as they did for the two decades before we fired them in favor of Donald Trump. Thanks!