Obama proposes new military partnership with Russia in Syria

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Smoke rises from a warplane bomb that dropped in Aleppo, Syria, on June 4. (Uncredited/Civil Defense Directorate in Liberated Province of Aleppo via Associated Press)

By Josh Rogin June 30 at 7:01 AM 

The Obama administration has proposed a new agreement on Syria to the Russian government that would deepen military cooperation between the two countries against some terrorists in exchange for Russia getting the Assad regime to stop bombing U.S.-supported rebels.

The United States transmitted the text of the proposed agreement to the Russian government on Monday after weeks of negotiations and internal Obama administration deliberations, an administration official told me. The crux of the deal is a U.S. promise to join forces with the Russian air force to share targeting and coordinate an expanded bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, which is primarily fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Under the proposal, which was personally approved by President Obama and heavily supported by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the American and Russian militaries would cooperate at an unprecedented level, something the Russians have sought for a long time.

In exchange, the Russians would agree to pressure the Assad regime to stop bombing certain Syrian rebel groups the United States does not consider terrorists. The United States would not give Russia the exact locations of these groups, under the proposal, but would specify geographic zones that would be safe from the Assad regime’s aerial assaults.

Putin: Russia doesn't want a new Cold War

 

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During a question and answer session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, President Vladimir Putin said Russia did not want a new Cold war with the West and did not like to think it was slipping into one. (Reuters)

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter was opposed to this plan, officials said, but was ultimately compelled to go along with the president’s decision. For many inside and outside the administration who are frustrated with the White House’s decision-making on Syria, the new plan is fatally flawed for several reasons.

“One big flaw is that it’s clear that the Russians have no intent to put heavy pressure on Assad,” said former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford. “And in those instances when the Russians have put pressure on, they’ve gotten minimal results from the Syrians.”

There’s not enough reliable intelligence to distinguish Jabhat al-Nusra targets from the other rebel groups they often live near, Ford said. And even if the Syrians agreed not to bomb certain zones, there would be no way to stop Jabhat al-Nusra and other groups from moving around to adjust. Moreover, increased bombing of Jabhat al-Nusra would be likely to cause collateral damage including civilian deaths, which would only bolster the group’s local support.

“It makes no sense to me,” said Ford. “If they are trying to destroy al-Qaeda in Syria, do they really think bombing them is the way to do it? F-16s do not solve recruitment problems with extremist groups.”

One administration official complained that the plan contains no consequences for the Russians or the Assad regime if they don’t hold up their end of the bargain. Fifty-one U.S. diplomats signed a dissent letter this month calling on the White House to use targeted military force against the Assad regime as a means of increasing the pressure on Assad and giving the U.S. real leverage.

Kerry has been threatening for months that if Assad doesn’t respect the current cease-fire, known as the “cessation of hostilities,” that there was a “Plan B” of increasing arms to the Syrian rebels. But the White House has now scuttled that plan in favor of the proposed Russia deal, which could actually leave the rebels in a far worse position.

Because most Jabhat al-Nusra fighters are fighting Assad, if the plan succeeds, Assad will be in a much better position. Meanwhile, the other Sunni Arab groups that are left fighting Assad will be in a much weaker position, said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The strategy could allow Assad to capture Aleppo, which would be a huge victory for his side in the civil war.

“If the U.S. and Russia open up on Jabhat al-Nusra, that changes the dynamics on the ground in Aleppo and Idlib,” he said. “It would definitely benefit the Assad regime and it could potentially benefit the Kurds and ISIS.”

For Russia, the deal is not just about Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin sees increased military cooperation as an acknowledgment of Russian importance and a way to gradually unwind Russia’s isolation following the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. That’s why Carter was initially opposed to the plan, officials said.

“The Russians have made it very clear that they want military-to-military cooperation with the U.S., not just to fight terrorism, but to improve their world standing,” said Tabler. “It is a way to be welcomed back into the fold.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on the specifics of the proposal but defended its basic principles.

“We have been clear about Russia’s obligations to ensure regime compliance with the cessation of hostilities. We have also been clear about the danger posed by al-Qaeda in Syria to our own national security,” he said. “We are looking at a number of measures to address both of these issues.”

For the White House, the priority in Syria is not solving the Syrian civil war, which most White House officials believe is intractable, or forcing the ouster of Assad. Senior administration officials admit that Russia and Assad are violating the cease-fire and failing to show the will to advance the political process. But the White House has decided not to go back to the plan of increasing pressure on the Assad regime.

“Analytically speaking, the path of military escalation by one side or the other is not likely to lead to a final outcome in Syria,” one senior administration official told me. “It’s essentially a stalemate.”

The White House wants to keep the cease-fire in place for as long as possible, despite the violations, and wants to keep the political process going, despite the lack of progress.

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“We want to keep the violence as low as possible for as long as possible,” the official said. “What we have to look at is, what is the alternative? And the alternative is either the levels of violence that we saw months ago . . . or we could see the violence get even worse.”

CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations that Russia is “trying to crush” anti-Assad forces and that Moscow has not lived up to its commitments regarding the cease-fire or the political process in Syria. Nevertheless, Brennan said, the United States needs to work with Russia.

“There’s going to be no way forward on the political front without active Russian cooperation and genuine Russian interest in moving forward,” he said.

If the price of getting Russia on board with the Syrian political process is to further abandon the Syrian rebels and hand Assad large swaths of territory, it’s a bad deal. It’s an even worse deal if Russia takes the U.S. offer and then doesn’t deliver on its corresponding obligations.

The Obama administration is understandably trying to find some creative way to salvage its Syria policy in its final months. But the proposal that Obama offered Putin will have costs for the U.S. position vis-à-vis Russia as well as for the Syrian crisis long after Obama leaves office

Obama: I Am The Populist, Not Donald Trump

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Reuters

by CHARLIE SPIERING29 Jun 20163,755

President Barack Obama defied the notion that Donald Trump was leading a populist revolution, quibbling with the media’s branding of the historic rise of the billionaire’s run for president.

“Maybe somebody can pull up in the dictionary quickly the phrase ‘populism’ but I’m not prepared to concede the notion that some of the rhetoric that’s been popping up is populist,” Obama said.

The president made his remarks at the end of a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Neito after the North America Leaders’ Summit.

Obama argued that his 2008 campaign and his entire presidency was more about populism, arguing he cared more about poor people and working people.

“I suppose that makes me a populist,” he said confidently.

He alluded to people like Trump who worked against some of the policies pushed by liberal Democrats.

“They don’t suddenly become a populist because they say something controversial in order to win votes,” Obama said. “That’s not the measure of populism. That’s nativism or xenaphobia. Or worse. Or it’s just cynicism.”

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Obama told reporters to “be careful” about referring to the rising anti-elitist sentiment fueled by dissidents to his liberal agenda as “populist.”

“Where have they been? Have they been on the front lines working on behalf of working people?” he asked.

He admitted however that Sen. Bernie Sanders was a populist, because he had “worked in the vineyard” of making life better for poor people.

Obama warned voters to avoid political figures offering simple solutions to fixing the economy.

“Sometimes there’s simple solutions out there, but I’ve been president for seven and a half years, and it turns out that’s pretty rare,” he said.

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Scrambling Liberals Don't Know Who to Blame for the Istanbul Airport Attack

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June 29, 2016

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Now, you realize this attack in Turkey at the Ataturk airport -- by the way, Ataturk is the guy Turkey was named after.  He was a big, big, powerful, mean dude, something like Frank Ataturk.  I don't know what his first name was.  Anyway, do you know that the guy that runs Turkey now, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, although it's not pronounced that way.  I've only heard Erdogan pronounced correctly once, and I don't remember how.  The guy has practically implemented Sharia law throughout Turkey. 

This is the point.  And if he hasn't completed it yet, that's the objective.  Turkey is gonna become full-fledged Sharia, and yet ISIS still hit them, still hit them at the airport. 

Greetings, my friends, and great to have you here.  Oh, yeah.  Sorry.  Dittocam's on.  Forgot to take -- can't do it all here.  You know, it's up to me, why doesn't some of this stuff end up being automated in this era?  Anyhow, sorry.  It's on now.  It's 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program, and the email address,ElRushbo@eibnet.com. 

So as I was saying, the death toll, we're up to I think almost 50 people dead, 239 people wounded at the Ataturk airport in Istanbul, which is one of the major airports of the world.  Three terrorists broke through security with rifles and then set off bombs in their vests, killing at least 50.  The death toll keeps climbing. 

And since it is awkward to try to blame guns for this attack, given that Turkey practically has banned its citizens from owning firearms, the Drive-Bys and the rest of the Obama administration are scrambling to come up with somebody to blame here.  The media is pretty much ignoring the attack altogether, just assuming that this is the new norm now. 

But really, they can't go after guns here.  They can't go after guns.  This is one of the reasons why the Drive-Bys, you might expect this to be wall-to-wall coverage.  It's a terror attack.  And Trump has said some pretty powerful things about it.  You would think they'd -- but they're not.  Why are they not wall-to-wall with this? 

Now, they might have been in certain places last night, but you have to admit, they didn't cover this like usual, normal terror attacks.  I'm telling you one of the reasons why -- you can be snarky all you want, you can be cynical all you want -- is because there's no way to advance the gun control agenda here.  Even in Turkey, they're on the way to having Sharia law.  It's practically impossible for law-abiding people to get guns in Turkey anyway.  So this just kind of illustrates what will happen if gun control, if they eliminate the Second Amendment here, it's not gonna stop acts of terror.  It's not gonna stop acts of crime. 

It isn't going to stop anything like this, and the Democrats and the media, they all know that, folks.  It's just misdirection.  They want guns out of everybody's hands for reasons unrelated to what they claim to be interested in.  They want to save lives.  No, it's not about that.  They want to reduce crime.  No, it's not about that.  That's not why they want to get rid of the Second Amendment, and that's not why they want you to have to give up your gun. 

You notice the gun control efforts are always aimed at the law-abiding?  Has it ever struck to you as strange gun control efforts aimed at the law-abiding, and here in Turkey since there's no way to advance the gun control agenda here in the US, it's sort of a ho-hummer.  Oh, well, you know, it's ISIS. It's basically an Islamic country.  So maybe there's things going on that we're not aware of.  Not quite a ho-hummer, but still isn't a big deal. 

Now, John Kerry, by the way, served in Vietnam, has come up with an explanation.  In fact, he's even leapt to conclusions and said that ISIS was behind the attack.  Now, Kerry calls them Daesh because he wants to seem smarter than everybody else.  You and I call it ISIS. Obama calls it ISIL, and Kerry calls it Daesh, D-a-e-s-h, because that's the term the French like.  I'm not making that up.  Daesh is the term that the French like, so that's what Kerry uses, and because it's, in his mind, much more sophisticated to use the term Daesh. It also conveys more respect for the group than to simply call them the derisional ISIS. 

But the real kicker is that John Kerry, who once served in Vietnam, said this latest attack is proof that ISIS is losing.  Well, because they're getting desperate.  They're getting desperate.  They had to attack a country they practically run anyway.  It shows how desperate they are. 

Now, the irony is that is exactly the kind of thing US generals used to say during the Vietnam War.  In fact, the generals at the time said that the Tet offensive was a sign of how desperate the North Vietnamese and Vietcong were. And actually they were telling the truth, unlike Kerry, but in reality the North Vietnamese only won because of defeatists like Kerry.  I don't want to get sidetracked with that, but that was a victory that was a defeat snatched from the jaws of victory by the likes of John Kerry, who served in Vietnam. 

Now, in terms of a proper response, I haven't heard much love and empathy from the Obama Regime, even though Loretta Lynch said just a couple of weeks ago that this is the only way to respond to terrorism, which is what?  Now, I don't know, ISIS apparently didn't get the message.  You know, ISIS, there was a memo that went out, sort of like a rah-rah memo, the leaders of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, actually, sent a memo out, "From now on, acts of terror, make sure you hit white people.  Do not attack people of color, do not attack minorities, because in America the media will blame the Tea Party for it, and you won't get credit." 

No, no, no.  Folks, I'm not making this up.  Al-Qaeda actually sent out an operational memo to its jihadist groups urging them in further acts of terror, do not kill, do not hit minorities. Because if you hit minorities they're gonna blame conservatives, Second Amendment, guns, and the terrorists won't get their due credit.  So from now on acts of terror, only hit white people, because hate crimes against them are permitted, and the media will play it up. White people deserve to be hit, deserve to be the victims of crime and acts of terror because they have for so long been the unfair, unjust, immoral majority throughout most of the nations that are imbued with Western civilization.  If you think that's an exaggeration, it isn't.  That is exactly how the Democrat Party of today and the American left looks at things. 

White Christians who found America, they deserve all this grief because they caused so much for so many hundreds of years.  I'm not... It's the only way that you can understand the true motivation of these people.  In other words, it's impossible for minorities, impossible for people of color to be ever guilty of hate crimes.  Because their only crimes are justified.  Their crimes are justifiable.  It's retribution and payback for years and decades and maybe even centuries of oppressive behavior at the hands of the white majority.

Not just here. Not just here. 

The UK, all throughout Western civilization.  That is the mode of thinking.  Why do you think immigration is happening?  Why do you think only certain kinds of people are allowed to legally immigrate?  Have you noticed that when it comes to immigration we ride herd on legal immigration pretty damn hard, and who is it that really is subject to most of the limits there?  Have to say it's white immigrants. But when it comes to illegal immigration and open borders, if you happen to be a minority or person of color or whatever?

"Come on in! Come on in! Because it's time for you to get your payback now for all the ways you've been mistreated by the evil people that founded and ran the United States of America for so long." It was Mustapha Kamal Ataturk, the founder and first president of Turkey.  I was wrong when I said it was Frank.  (I mean, I knew it wasn't Frank.)  Mustapha Kamal Ataturk.  Let me tell you something, the guy was a bad actor. You didn't want to mess with him.  I mean, he's a serious, serious...

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Have you noticed in the aftermath of the terror attack at Ataturk airport, they don't do that?  There aren't any vigils?  There aren't any candlelit ceremonies; there aren't any pictures of whatever. They haven't stopped everything to have an ongoing memorial. 

They just got back up and picked up the pieces and started operating the airport again as though that was yesterday, which it was.  Not even the Drive-Bys have noticed this.  in fact, grab audio sound bite number seven.  Don't worry.  I know I've interrupted myself, but I have not lost my place.  Audio sound bite number seven, CBS This Morning.  This is Holly Williams reporting about the terror attack at the Ataturk airport in Istanbul.

WILLIAMS:  If you look behind me, you can see what appears to be damage from one of the blasts, but come over here and you can see that the airport is operational.  Less than 24 hours after this attack, it's full of passengers.  This is one of the busiest airports in the world.  If you look over here, you can see that there is a lot of shattered glass in this area.  It's not clear whether this is from gunfire, whether that's a bullet that's done that or shrapnel from one of the blasts.  Now, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yildirim, said there are indications that this was the work of ISIS, but so far there's been no claim of responsibility.

RUSH:  Now, folks, I'm telling you that's noteworthy here that these Muslim countries don't spend any time on vigils, lighting candles, singing songs, laying wreaths of flowers. They don't spend days and days trying to figure out the motive. They didn't convene any on-the-spot seminar saying, "Why do they hate us?" 'Cause they already know why this happened. They already know who did it. They already know why, and everybody's up and back to their business here.  (interruption)

No, No, no, no, no, no.  I'm just noting the difference.  Do not assume I'm criticizing anyone.  I'm just noting the difference.  If this happens in an American airport, you know full well there are candlelight vigils, there are wreaths of flowers, there are pictures, there's... It'd be going on for weeks.  It's one of the ways we grieve.  They don't.  They just... Did you notice also in this report that Holly Williams, in describing the damage from the blast, wasn't sure if it was from a bullet or shrapnel from a bomb?

Oh, they're praying it was from a bullet so they could focus on the guns, but everybody knows bomb control doesn't work.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Look, I don't want to mislead anybody.  Ataturk is actually... It's a name that denotes "father of the Turks," and the name was granted to Kemal Ataturk in 1934 and forbidden to any other person by the Turkish Parliament.  Now, the reason Ataturk, Kemal Ataturk was and is so highly reputed, is he was attempting to modernize... That's not the right word.  Well, it is.  For lack of a better way of saying it, he was trying to make Islam compatible with the modern twentieth century world. 

There are a few such Islamic leaders who have attempted to do so, and they don't last long.  The terrorists get into gear; the militants like Al-Qaeda and ISIS target them.  But that's who he is.  And I'm now reliably told that the correct pronunciation of the current president of Turkey's last name is Erdogan.  It's E-r-d-o-g-a-n, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is what it looks like, but it's Erdogan.  And he is attempting to implement Sharia throughout the country.  It's what makes this attack interesting to me. 

I mean, they think it was ISIS, and ISIS attacks infidels and nonbelievers, so there's some political problem that ISIS has with Turkey.  It could involve the Syria war and who's funding here, who's buying oil from who, and who isn't.  So this may have ramifications simply beyond the tenets of Islam, not excluding aspects of Islam in the attack, but it may be a little bit more than that.  I guess we just rely on what Kerry said, that it just means they're losing, that they did this, and that they're desperate, is why they did this.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  President Obama is in Ottawa, Canada.  Do you know he called Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan?  He didn't call Rick Scott in Florida after Mateen blew up the gay bar in Orlando.  Took him awhile.  But he called Erdogan right off the bat.  Anyway he's in Ottawa, North American Leaders Summit.  And after a meeting with the Mexican president, Enrique Pena Nieto, President Obama spoke with reporters about the terror attack in Istanbul. No, he didn't blame it on a video.  Not this one.

OBAMA:  I had a chance to speak to President Erdogan earlier today to discuss with him not only how heartbroken we have been by the images of the injured and those killed, but also to reaffirm our strong commitment to partner with Turkey, with NATO, with the broad-based alliance that we structured around the world to fight ISIL.  It's an indication of them being unable to govern those areas that they've taken over; that they're gonna be defeated in Syria, they're gonna be defeated in Iraq.

RUSH:  It's the same thing Kerry said. It all adds up to proof that they're losing.  You know, when I hear this guy speak now, his reaction to a terror attack... I'm sorry. Because of what happened yesterday, I can't get Benghazi out of my mind, and there's something else I can't get out of my mind.  I really can't come to grips even now with the fact that this administration got away with so many abject lies.  The big one about a video being responsible for it. And furthermore, that some absolutely clueless...

This guy Nakoula Nakoula? They found this guy somewhere in California. They put him in jail. They put the producer that nobody ever heard of... They put him in jail.  They scared the daylights out of him. He went along with it. He was acquiescent as he could be.  The things lining that just didn't happen in this country, and were they to happen somebody else they would be impeached. 

But to jail an innocent person on a false, bogus charge to carry forth a lie that is designed to protect yourself as president and your campaign? So now when I hear this guy speak about terrorism and the aftermath of attacks, I just don't believe anything.  "We cringe, we cry, we join you in tears for the loss of life," and so forth?  It sounds like he's more upset about what happened in Turkey that he's upset when these things happen in this country. 

Sorry.  It just comes across that way to me. 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  You know, if ISIS is losing, I would hate to see what happens when they're winning.  I'd hate to see what that looks like.  But Obama and Kerry say they're losing.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, I want to expand on a point that I made in the first hour of the program about Turkey and ISIS.  I found it fascinating that ISIS, if it is ISIS -- and everybody thinks it is -- hit Turkey, because Turkey has been one of the biggest allies ISIS could have ever had.  Are you aware of that?  (interruption) You're not?  Now, that's interesting, 'cause you are a news junkie like I am, and you're not aware of this.  Well, let me run through some things for you. 

Turkey was a helpful ally in ISIS' ongoing war in Syria and Iraq.  Turkey has been helping ISIS in their destabilization efforts throughout the region.  Turkey allowed the oil trucks that are owned and operated by ISIS to cross Turkish borders so that ISIS oil can be sold.  That is how the ISIS leadership, that's how the ISIS movement is being funded in part, which is a point Trump has made.  What the hell?  Why don't we own that oil?  We're the ones that liberated it.  Why didn't we take it?  Why aren't we in charge?  Why is ISIS?  We need to blow up their depots. We need to blow up their trucks. 

And everybody, "Oh, my God, the guy is dangerous, oh, my God."  But Turkey has been assisting ISIS in a wide variety of ways.  At times Turkey has denied us the use of their airspace in Iraq and in other theaters of war.  Turkey has been an off-and-on ally, quote, unquote, you know, as Obama has drawn red lines and then moved the red line.  Turkey has wanted to present themselves as an ally of ours.  But make no mistake about it.  President Erdogan is aiming Turkey at a Sharia nation.  That's where he wants to go.  He is a Sharia law, full-fledged, one percent Islamist. 

So what's ISIS doing hitting him?  What's ISIS doing blowing up the Ataturk airport in Istanbul?  Now, the reason I ask this is because our shortsighted, incompetent leadership in this country actually tells us that we can prevent more terrorist attacks against us if we would become more tolerant them.  Do they not?  We cannot call them Islamist terrorists.  We cannot call them radical Islamist extremists.  We cannot even say that they engage in terrorism.  We have gone to the realm of impracticality and impossibility to avoid offending these people, or worse, whatever might be going on. 

But regardless, Obama and his State Department and even the defense department are bending over backwards to give these people the benefit of the doubt.  Whenever there's a terrorist attack, it's not.  Whenever ISIS does it or militant Islam does it, no, they didn't.  We do seminars trying to examine what we have done to cause them to hate us so much.

And if they hit Turkey, if they hit the Istanbul airport, the Ataturk airport in Istanbul, in a country that is on the road to becoming full-fledged Sharia, then how in the world is the strategy Obama and Hillary employ gonna be effective at all in stopping them here?  And you know what their strategy is?  Take away your guns. 

So we have the latest attack, which is the attack on the gay club in Orlando, and, no, we're not gonna call 'em, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.  He was radicalized.  He was an American citizen and he was a fine young man until he got radicalized by that out of control internet.  Islam had nothing to do with it, militant or otherwise.  No, no, no.  The religion of peace, they don't do these kinds of things.  Instead, we need to take your guns away.  That is the Obama and Hillary solution to these things, oh, yeah, and not saying "radical Islam."  Oh, yeah, and not saying "radical Islamic terrorism." 

Oh, yeah, doing all that, by closing Club Gitmo, yeah, we close Club Gitmo, we apologize for the photos that we took at Abu Ghraib.  That's supposed to dial them back.  Really?  Well, if they blew up an airport in Istanbul in a country with a leader who believes entirely in Sharia law, then how in the world can we stop them?  I mean, using the same philosophies and strategies Obama and Hillary have put into place. 

Obviously it's a joke.  They don't know what they're doing.  Well, I take it back.  Obama knows what he's doing, and maybe Hillary, too.  But the point is, what they want us to believe they think they're doing is totally ineffective.  It doesn't have a prayer of working.  You know, Hillary's out there saying, we need smart diplomacy.  We need to do smart power.  And that means empathizing with our enemy, understanding their grievances, like we understand the grievances of homosexuals, like we understand the grievances of African-Americans.  We must learn to understand the grievances of ISIS. 

Why?  Because ultimately everything's our fault.  Everybody who hates us has legitimate reasons for hating us, according to Obama and Hillary.  We've been too big for our britches, we've been too rich, and our riches came from theft and colonialism, not from genuine accomplishment and achievement.  You didn't build that.  Then go through these things, my blood's boiling here as I remind myself of what these people tell us, and I remind myself how they think about us. 

If Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot placate ISIS, how are we ever gonna be able to?  And placate is clearly what John Kerry, who once served in Vietnam, and Barack Hussein O and Hillary Clinton think is the only thing we have to do is placate them.  Because we're at fault, see.  Our attitude all these years, our braggadocios pomposity, our overly confident, bigger than the rest of the world attitude has justified all this kind of stuff.

So we gotta find a way to placate them, let them know that it's a new day in America where our current leadership does not hate them and, in fact, agrees with them on many of their grievances about the United States.  And that's supposed to mollify them.  It's supposed to tame them.  It is supposed to cause them to stop attacking us. 

It hasn't.  We've had a major attack every year of Obama's Regime.  I guess they're telling us the truth.  ISIS and Al-Qaeda and whoever else, that is the only way they stop is after we convert.  That's what they say.  The only way this stops is when the infidels convert. Well, that's not happening. 

So what are we gonna have to do?  We're not gonna convert.  If this nation ever goes Sharia, it's gonna be because of the aggressive use of force.  You know, I take that back.  There is a segment of this population already that would surrender.  I have no doubt that there's a segment of the population that would surrender rather than fight it.  But we're not yet anywhere near a majority of Americans with that attitude.  

US airstrikes kill at least 250 ISIS fighters in convoy outside Fallujah, official says

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Published June 29, 2016

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Iraq: Fallujah 'fully liberated' from ISIS

A series of American airstrikes killed at least 250 ISIS fighters driving in a convoy outside Fallujah on Wednesday, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News.

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The strikes occurred on the outskirts of the Iraqi city in "southern Fallujah," a second U.S. defense official told Fox News.

"There was a strike on a convoy of ISIS fighters trying to leave a neighborhood on the outskirts of southern Fallujah that we struck," the official said.

At least 40 vehicles were destroyed in the airstrikes, a U.S. official told Reuters, which was first to report the air assault.

The U.S. airstrikes come roughly 24 hours after the Istanbul airport bombings where ISIS is considered the prime suspect, according to top U.S. officials.

CIA Director John Brennan on Wednesday said the attack "bears the hallmarks of ISIL's depravity."

"If anybody here believes the U.S. homeland is hermetically sealed and that ISIL would not consider that, I would guard against it," Brennan said, using another acronym for the group.

Earlier this month, Brennan told Congress that the U.S. battle against the Islamic State has not yet curbed the group's global reach and that they are expected to plot more attacks on the West and incite violence by lone wolves.

He said ISIS has a large cadre of Western fighters who could potentially act as operatives for attacks in the West.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Clinton’s Private E-Mail Use Said to Frustrate Top Aide Huma Abedin

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Both witnesses to Abedin’s testimony described her as cooperative.

A top aide to Hillary Clinton said the former secretary of state’s use of a private e-mail server to conduct government business on at least one occasion got in the way of Clinton’s work and left the aide frustrated, according to two people who witnessed the aide’s deposition Tuesday.

Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and now the vice chair of her presidential campaign, was being deposed about the context of a November 2010 e-mail she sent Clinton that they “should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam.” Prompting the note, according to the e-mail chain releasedlast week by the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act, was a missed scheduled phone call, one of a number of communications mishaps detailed in Clinton's 55,000-page e-mail record. 

Clinton responded in the 2010 exchange that she could get a “separate address or device” but said she didn’t “want any risk of the personal being accessible,” according to the e-mail chain. Abedin replied that the missed communications were “not a good system.” 

Abedin testified that “the personal” referred to non-government messages Clinton was also exchanging via the e-mail address rather than any improper treatment of government records, according to one of the people who witnessed the deposition. Abedin, whose close relationship with Clinton has led her to be described as a surrogate daughter, was one of a handful of aides to have her own account on the clintonemail.com server.

Both witnesses to Abedin's testimony described her as cooperative. A spokesman for the Clinton campaign, Brian Fallon, didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. A lawyer for Clinton, David Kendall, declined to comment. A lawyer for Abedin, Miguel Rodriguez, declined to comment.

The deposition was conducted as part of a lawsuit brought by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which sued the State Department under FOIA in 2013 to obtain access to records regarding Abedin’s simultaneous employment at the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, and a consultancy that catered to international clients. (Abedin’s lawyers say she didn’t do work that would have posed a conflict of interest.) As part of that lawsuit, the presiding judge granted Judicial Watch permission to engage in what he called “limited” discovery into the server and department records practices.  

The server set-up has dogged Clinton’s presidential run and provided a frequent attack line for her opponents, including presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Trump has suggested she compromised U.S. secrets with her communications practices and should face jail.

The testimony came on the same day that Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee, which helped uncover Clinton’s e-mail practices,released their final report. It criticized State Department decision-making surrounding the attack on a diplomatic facility in Libya in 2012 that killed four Americans, but contained few revelations about Clinton.

QuickTake Benghazi

On Monday, Judicial Watch released a cache of e-mails from Abedin that contained messages between her and Clinton. Like some released earlier, the documents were obtained by Judicial Watch as part of other FOIA litigation and contained some e-mails not found in the messages Clinton’s lawyers had sent to the State Department. Clinton has publicly said she gave the State Department all relevant e-mails.

Fallon on Monday said Clinton had turned over “all potentially work-related emails” still in her possession when she received the 2014 request from the State Department, according to the Associated Press. “Secretary Clinton had some emails with Huma that Huma did not have, and Huma had some emails with Secretary Clinton that Secretary Clinton did not have,” Fallon said last week, according to AP.

The president of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton, said the e-mails released Monday show Clinton “did not turn over all” records in her possession and raised questions about what other records should have been produced.  “I keep on asking, What else is out there?” Fitton said.

In one message released Monday from early in her tenure, Clinton appeared to fret about records management practices.

“I have just realized I have no idea how my papers are treated at State,” Clinton wrote to Abedin in March 2009. “Who manages both my personal and official files?”

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, “Secretary Clinton’s paper files were appropriately filed and archived.” Toner repeated in a statement that Clinton had said repeatedly that the 55,000 pages represented “all federal email records in her custody.”

During his June 23 deposition in the matter, Bryan Pagliano, a former Clinton aide who helped maintain the server, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, according to a transcript released by Judicial Watch. He refused to answer more than 100 questions on issues including how the server was set up, whether it was used to thwart the Freedom of Information Act and whether Clinton deleted government records. A lawyer for Pagliano, Mark MacDougall, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Records released by Judicial Watch show Abedin and Pagliano discussing maintenance of the server and detail on at least one occasion a possible hack attempt.

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Mattress Girl Emma Sulkowicz Given ‘Woman of Courage’ Award

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by CHARLIE NASH28 Jun 2016268

Feminist icon Emma Sulkowicz, known for her infamous “Mattress Girl” rape allegations and protest demonstration, was awarded the 2016 Woman of Courage award by the National Organization for Women last week.

In 2014, Sulkowicz carried her dormitory mattress around campus in protest after she claimed that a fellow student raped her at the college in 2012. The mattress was carried everywhere, including to Sulkowicz’s graduation, prompting a huge media storm surrounding the student who media dubbed “Mattress Girl.”

However, in early 2015 it was reported that Sulkowicz had repeatedly told her “rapist” she loved him through leaked text messages after the “attack”, with the alleged rapist Paul Nungesser eventually being pardoned by the campus due to lack of evidence. Nungesser was repeatedly threatened, harassed, and assaulted during the lengthy campus trial, and Nungesser reported multiple rescinded job offers and missed opportunities due to the accusations.

Sulkowicz claimed that Nungesser had beaten her in bed after agreeing to mutually consensual sex, before he allegedly forced anal upon her. Nungesser, however, denied this story and claimed that their sexual encounters were entirely consensual. Nungesser theorized that Sulkowicz’s claims against him were due to the fact that he had decided to split up with her shortly after the encounter.

After gaining mass media attention, Sulkowicz broke into the spotlight again in 2015 after releasing a supposed recreation of the rape in a bizarre sex tape form, where she could be seen performing fellatio on an overweight man before being beaten in what she claims to have been a consensual tape.

Two days after the alleged assault,Sulkowicz texted Nungesser saying “I feel like we need to have some real time where we can talk about life and thingz because we still haven’t really had a paul-emma chill sesh since summmmerrrr”. The following month, Sulkowicz messaged Nungesser saying “I want to see yoyououoyou”, and on her birthday in October after Nungesser had wished Sulkowicz a happy birthday, the infamous Mattress Girl replied with “I love you Paul. Where are you?!?!?!?!”

Numerous other inconsistencies in Sulkowicz story, including the texts above, meant that the campus trial was eventually thrown out, though not before it permanently tarnished Nungesser’s name and reputation. And now Sulkowicz is being rewarded for it.

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“Sulkowicz did what many rape victims cannot do; she channeled her fear into a public demonstration and brought attention to her rapist’s despicable act and highly inadequate punishment” announced National Organization for Women president Terry O’Neill. “Emma is an inspiration to all of us.”

“I never imagined that someday I would be honored by such an immensely important organization. It feels like a dream” said Sulkwicz to artnet News. “It’s truly humbling. People should check out NOW’s amazing history, because we really do owe so many of our rights to that organization.”

Despite the lack of evidence and the fact that the case was dismissed by credible authorities, Sulkwicz still maintains her story on the alleged assault, and is still hailed as a feminist icon.

Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech and former editor of the Squid Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.

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ISIS STRIKES AGAIN!!! 'Nearly 50 Killed' In Istanbul Airport Attack

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'Nearly 50 Killed' In Istanbul Airport Attack

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Close Play video "Police With Guns Enter Airport"Video: Police With Guns Enter Airport

Nearly 50 people have been killed in an attack on the main airport in Istanbul, a senior Turkish official has told the Associated Press.

Initial indications suggest Islamic State was behind the attack, the official said.

Three suicide bombers opened fire before blowing themselves up at the international terminal of Ataturk Airport, Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin told NTV television.

A weapon lies on the floor of the airport following the attack

Several witnesses reported two explosions but Mr Sahin said authorities believed there were three bombers.

He said some 60 people were wounded. Six of those sustained serious injuries, the state-run Anadolu Agency said. 

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Gallery: Explosions Hit Istanbul Airport

Suicide bombers opened fire before blowing themselves up Istanbul's Ataturk Airport

A weapon is seen on the floor of the airport

Pic: @ruchankayrim

Two of the attackers detonated their explosives when police fired at them, a second official said, citing information from the interior ministry.

A witness told NBC News that he saw a police officer diving to tackle one of the attackers - who then detonated his bomb.

The attack is understood to have happened near the airport entrance - before the assailants would have gone through security checks.

Speaking in the Turkish parliament earlier, justice minister Bekir Bozdag said he could only confirm one attacker, based on initial information.

"According to information I have received, at the entrance to the Ataturk Airport international terminal a terrorist first opened fire with a Kalashnikov and then blew himself up," Mr Bozdag said.

Play video "Panic Inside Istanbul Airport"Video: Panic Inside Istanbul Airport

Pictures posted on social media showed wounded people lying on the ground inside and outside the terminal buildings.

"There was a huge explosion, extremely loud. The roof came down. Inside the airport it is terrible, you can't recognise it, the damage is big," said Ali Tekin, who was at the arrivals hall when the attack took place.

A German woman named Duygu, who was at the airport, told Reuters: "Everyone started running away. Everywhere was covered with blood and body parts. I saw bullet holes on the doors."

Another passenger told the Associated Press that she hid under a counter after hearing an explosion and a loud bang.

A Foreign Office spokesman said it was "urgently seeking further information" following the attack.

"Our staff in Istanbul and London stand ready to support any British nationals affected," he said.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the attack was aimed at undermining Turkey through the killing of innocent people.

"It is clear that this attack is not aimed at achieving any result but only to create propaganda material against our country using simply the blood and pain of innocent people," he said.

Flights to the airport have been diverted.

British Airways flight BA680 from London Heathrow to Ataturk was returned to the UK in the wake of the blasts.

In recent months Turkey has suffered several attacks linked to Kurdish or Islamic State group militants.

The attacks include two bombings targeting tourists in Istanbul, which authorities blamed on IS.

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