Not The Onion: US Government Is Taking Credit For Bringing Peace To Syria

Via sauced07

State Department spokesperson John Kirby is raising eyebrows after he released a recap of 2015 “success stories” in which he credits the United States for bringing “peace” and “security” to Syria and “stepping up” to help the country’s people at a difficult time.

“The United States and many members of the international community have stepped up to aid the Syrian people during their time of need,” wrote Kirby in his laudatory year-in-review released late last week. He went on to claim that “the United States has led the world in humanitarian aid contributions since the crisis began in 2011.”

“Led by Secretary Kerry, the United States also continues to push for a political transition in Syria, and under his stewardship, in December, the [United Nations] Security Council passed a U.S.-sponsored resolution that puts forward a roadmap that will facilitate a transition within Syria to a credible, inclusive, nonsectarian government that is responsive to the needs of the Syrian people,” the report continued.

More @ Zero Hedge

Russian forces destroyed an ISIS commander’s meeting in al-Raqqa Wednesday.

Via Billy

A Russian bomber SU-34 attacked a building near the Syrian city of Raqqa where a rebel leaders’ meeting was being held as the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. He pointed out that the headquarters were destroyed in result of the attack. According to his words, the intelligence on the meeting’s place was provided by representatives of patriotic Syrian opposition forces.

“We maintained a round-the-clock air-reconnaissance for two days in that area. After the rebel leaders’ arrival at the place had been confirmed, a Su-34 performed an airstrike at the building. In the result of a direct hit with a guided air-bomb the building and everything inside were destroyed” said the Defense Ministry’s spokesman.

More @ The Gateway Pundit

FAKE Man charged with setting Houston mosque fire was a devout attendee

Via sauced07

A Houston man has been arrested in connection with a suspected arson at a mosque on Christmas Day.

A spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed that the man was arrested early Wednesday, sometime after midnight, and appeared in court 7 a.m. Wednesday.

The suspect, Gary Nathaniel Moore, 37, of Houston, appeared in court at 7 a.m., spokeswoman Nicole Strong said.

 More with videos @ CHRON

ISIS militants are Israeli soldiers: Saudi grand mufti

Via comment by genericviews on Reporter Who Spent 10 Days With Islamic State Figh...

 

It's not a parody, believe it or not. :)

Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz has claimed that the Islamic State (Daesh) militants are Israeli soldiers and the Saudi-led 34-nation military alliance of Islamic countries will defeat it.

The statement came after Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the secretive leader of the terror group, called for an uprising in Saudi Arabia and pledged to attack Israel, in an audio recording released Saturday and attributed to him, AFP reported.

More @ The Express Tribune

WACO II: "At least four of the victims appear to have been shot by police—and the criminal charges some bikers face are highly dubious."

Via WRSA
 

The criminal-justice system in Waco, Texas, continues to boggle the mind. Last month, a grand jury in McClellan County held a marathon session to consider whether District Attorney Abel Reyna had presented enough evidence to justify indictments in the shootout at a May gathering of bikers where nine people were killed. In the wake of those killings, 177 bikers were arrested. Many proclaimed their innocence, and local authorities faced criticism for jailing so many individuals using fill-in-the-blank paperwork that didn’t differentiate among the jailed.

More @ The Atlantic

A Tale of Two Plantations

 

In the 1850s, Ann Pamela Cunningham, a frail woman from South Carolina, was responsible for preserving the plantation home of George Washington, founding the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, an organization which still maintains this historic site. Thanks to her efforts, Mount Vernon remained virtually untouched during the War for Southern Independence. Arlington Plantation, the beautiful Virginia home of Robert E. Lee, however, was not so fortunate.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

How Donald Trump destroyed the Republican Party in 2015

Via Michael 

 

 Fine with me.

History will remember 2015 as the year when The Republican Party As We Knew It was destroyed by Donald Trump. An entity called the GOP will survive — but can never be the same.

Am I overstating Trump’s impact, given that not a single vote has been cast? Hardly. I’m not sure it’s possible to exaggerate how the Trump phenomenon has torn the party apart, revealing a chasm between establishment and base that is far too wide to bridge with stale Reagan-era rhetoric. Can you picture the Trump legions meekly falling in line behind Jeb Bush or Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.)? I can’t either.

More @ The Washington Post

Turkey's Murderous Assault on Kurds

Via comment by Sioux on Iraqi Commander: US Secretly Evacuated ISIS Leader...

 

• The curfews are accompanied by military assaults against civilian populations -- their homes, businesses, offices, historical monuments, reservoirs and infrastructure are being bombed and destroyed.
  
• "No one can go outside. Our water is running out. The food at homes is running out. The telephone lines have been cut. The situation here is terrible. ... After declaring the curfew, they [the Turks] deploy soldiers, police and snipers in the evacuated schools. They have piled up their ammunition inside the schools." -- Osman Tetik, a representative in Cizre of the Education and Science Workers' Union.
  
• "They are shooting bullets at hospitals and ambulances. The Ministry of Health is standing by as hospitals are turned into military quarters and as health institutions and employees become targets." -- Gonul Erden, co-President of the Trade Union of Public Employees in Health and Social Services.
  
• "All those towns will be cleansed of terror elements. If necessary, neighborhood by neighborhood, house by house, street by street." -- Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, December 15.
  
• The curfews and military assaults against Kurdish civilians have reportedly forced at least 200,000 Kurds to flee.
  
• "This reminds me of the Bosnian genocide, the mass graves where I worked, and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. People did not speak up against those mass murders, too. Later, in the face of those massacres, the state authorities were found guilty of staying silent, of looking the other way." -- Prof. Sebnem Korur Fincanci, President of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey.

The Turks have begun another massacre in Kurdistan, this time bigger than before, and imposing curfews to pin down their victims. It is the latest demonstration of Turkey's 90-year-old extermination campaign against the Kurdish population.

More @ Gatestone Institute

Syria: It's Not a Civil War and it Never Was

Via comment by Sioux on Iraqi Commander: US Secretly Evacuated ISIS Leader...

 

As Syrian forces fight to wrest control of their country back and restore order within their borders, the myth of the "Syrian civil war" continues on. Undoubtedly there are Syrians who oppose the Syrian government and even Syrians who have taken up arms against the government and in turn, against the Syrian people, but from the beginning (in fact before the beginning) this war has been driven from abroad. Calling it a "civil war" is a misnomer as much as calling those taking up arms "opposition." It is not a "civil war," and those fighting the Syrian government are not "opposition."

More @ Land Destroyer

A REPLY TO GEORGE WILL'S ANTI-TRUMP HYSTERIA

Via Red

Yawn. Another day, another hysterical article from a self-appointed Establishment “conservative” gatekeeper bemoaning the candidacy of Donald Trump and the imminent demise of the GOP and conservatism as we know it if Trump is not stopped. These have become so predictable that I didn’t even bother to read the thing before I started commenting on it on social media. They’re all the same. Trump is a buffoon. Trump is an authoritarian who doesn’t understand/respect the Constitution and the separation of powers and may even be a fascist. And best of all, authentic conservatives must support turning the United States permanently Blue through continued mass immigration and impoverishing the middle class with globalist phony “free” trade deals because of the free market… blah, blah … our values … blah, blah.

 

Well, the George Will article linked above gives us the first two, but oddly hangs its hat on the necessity of antagonism toward Putin and Russia as the reason why Trump is a mortal threat to authentic conservatism. No mention of immigration or trade deals at all. Color me surprised.

First of all, I have already addressed the issue of Trump’s demeanor in a previous article. 

Conservatives fretting about Trump’s presentation while the country spirals toward becoming irreversibly Blue due to mass immigration, is like fretting about the arrangement of the deck chairs on a rapidly sinking Titanic. If we don’t curtail immigration, then all the talk about every other issue on the conservative agenda is just beating our gums.

More @ News With Views