BOOTS ON THE GROUND -010915

ISIS Terrorists Fire Rocket at Israel But Hit Gaza

Terrorists in Gaza fired a rocket at Israel’s civilian population early Tuesday morning, just hours before some two million Israeli students began the new school year.
The rocket fell short of its target, exploded in an open space inside the Gaza Strip. Sirens went off in several communities in the Ashkelon region.
Yair Farjoun, head of the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, announced that despite the attack, the school year will commence as scheduled. He also called on the Ministry of Defense to boost security for the southern residents.

An Islamic faction affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS) terror organization operating out of Gaza claimed responsibility for the attack.

Egypt Fights ISIS—Obama Cuts Off Egypt

A disturbing report by Avi Issacharoff, one of Israel’s leading Middle East analysts, notes that Egypt is now under assault by ISIS from two directions—from its own Sinai Peninsula to the northeast and from the state of Libya, or what’s left of it, to the West.
It was last month that 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians living in Libya were kidnapped by ISIS and subjected to a mass beheading on a beach. In response to that violent episode, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ordered airstrikes against ISIS in Libya.

Egypt Digging Fish Ponds to Prevent Hamas Tunnels

Facing Hamas terrorism, Egypt is carrying through with its campaign to cut off the vast tunnel network running from Gaza to Egypt.

Egyptian military bulldozers are digging through the sand along Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip, pressing ahead with what appears to be a renewed campaign to pressure Gaza’s Hamas rulers and stamp out terrorist activity along the border.
The project, billed as an Egyptian military-operated fish farm, effectively would fill the border area with water and is designed to put an end to the last remaining cross-border underground smuggling tunnels, Egyptian military officials said. Hamas accuses Egypt of further isolating the Strip.

White House fight to preserve Iran deal is won, Cardin says 

Key Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says the numbers will break for the president, but personally remains undecided.

WASHINGTON -- By the end of the week, the White House will succeed in securing the number of Senate votes necessary to preserve the Iran nuclear accord through a vote of disapproval, Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland said on Tuesday.

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking to constituents at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said a 32nd senator would endorse the deal by the end of the day. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, seen as wavering in recent weeks, is expected to announce his intentions in a speech at 2:00 pm EST.

Senate Dems Plot Filibuster to Dodge Iran Nuclear Deal Vote

Democratic senators supporting President Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran are cowards. They know that a majority of Americans oppose the deal. Thus, they are running for cover to avoid going on the record and voting against a resolution disapproving the deal. A filibuster to block a vote on the merits altogether is the Democratic Senate caucus’s preferred way out.

The White House is reportedly pushing the filibuster strategy even though Obama is virtually certain to have enough votes to sustain a veto of a resolution of disapproval passed by both houses of Congress. Two-thirds votes are required in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override an Obama veto. But if Obama can get out of using his veto pen and expending political capital to sustain it, he is all too happy to hide behind the filibuster fig leaf.

Retired generals and admirals urge Congress to reject Iran nuclear deal

A group of nearly 200 retired generals and admirals sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday urging lawmakers to reject the Iran nuclear agreement, which they say threatens national security.
The letter is the latest in a blizzard of missives petitioning Congress either to support or oppose the agreement with Iran, which would lift sanctions if Iran pared back its nuclear program. Letters have come from ad hoc groupings of rabbis, nuclear scientists, arms-control and nonproliferation experts — and now, retired senior military officers, many of whom have worked in the White House during various administrations dating to the 1980s.
The letter, addressed to Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate and the House, is a response to one sent last week by three dozen retired senior military officers who support the nuclear deal.

IRAN IS READY FOR WAR: The Persian nation unveils its precision-strike ballistic missiles, made for Israel

Nuclear agreement notwithstanding, Iran continues with its weapons development. The latest missile produced, the Fateh 313, is capable of striking both Israel and Europe. 
At a ceremony in Tehran attended by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the Islamic Republic unveiled its new precision-guided missile, the Fateh 313, on National Defense Industry Day on Saturday, the Iranian Fars news agency reports.
The domestically produced missile has a range of 500 kilometers and can strike both Israel and Europe.
Fars describes the Fateh 313 as “state-of-the-art” and “among the most precise ballistic missiles.”
“Iran joined the club of few countries that are capable of manufacturing solid-fuel and precision-striking missiles with a range of 500 kilometers,” the report boasts, quoting military sources as saying that the new missile was test-fired successfully. Iran’s Defense Ministry plans to begin mass production of Fateh-313 soon, they added.
This revelation comes as the US Congress is deciding on weather to vote in September in favor of or against President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, according to which the arms embargo on Iran will be lifted after eight years.

Egypt’s President el-Sisi Closes 27,000 Mosques to Fight Terrorism

Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi told attendees at Davos that Islam was in need of a “religious revolution.”

The Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowment shuttered 27,000 local mosques under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

An Egyptian administrative court on Feb. 18 upheld the Ministry of Religious Endowments’ decision issued in September 2013 to close down neighborhood places of worship of less than 80 square meters (861 square feet), a move intended to protect young people from the militancy and extremism that can prevail in such places, which lack the legal standing to hold Friday prayers.

This move sets a precedent that raises many questions about the fate of mosques in many Egyptian villages, the grounds of which are usually less than 80 square meters. In reply, opponents of the decision such as the Salafist Nour Party claimed that closing down places of worship without providing a larger alternative serves to further bolster extremist ideology, considering that the larger existing mosques cannot accommodate Friday worshippers who line surrounding streets to pray. On the opposite end of the spectrum, supporters of the decision such as intellectuals and scholars say that those mosques are time bombs that threaten national security, as they fall outside the purview of the Ministry of Religious Endowments and are used to spread subversive ideologies.

 Video of Louis Farrakhan Calling For Whites To Be Stalked and Killed

In a sermon reminiscent of the fiery rhetoric of an Islamic State preacher, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, now 82, said in Miami the time has come for 10,000 black volunteers to kill white Americans.

DANGEROUSLY INCOMPETENT: White House forced to admit that Obama made no calls night of Benghazi attack...

President Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday.

“During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had held up Mr. Obama’s defense secretary nominee to force the information to be released.
Mr. Graham said that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might still be alive because he might have been able to push U.S. aid to get to the scene faster.

The White House has said Mr. Obama was kept up to date on the attack by his staff, though after being alerted to the attack in a pre-scheduled afternoon meeting he never spoke again with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin E. Dempsey or then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

L.A. Times Columnist Calls Canadian Politics 'So Civilized It's Almost Quaint'

During a vacation to an unknown Canadian destination, one seasoned U.S. political columnist witnessed an election campaign so sedate he considered it a sobering vision of normalcy.

“Canadians don’t know how lucky they are,” writes Doyle McManus in the L.A. Times.
He called Canada’s style of politics “a reverse fun-house mirror” of sorts, one that offers a take on how democracy in America could be without “grotesque distortions of reality show personalities and unlimited donations.”

Listen to the show

 

In “The hip dullness of Canada’s politics” published Sunday, McManus breaks down the quirks in both countries’ political machines: Canada's federal campaign wraps things up in less than three months, while American voters run the media gauntlet of a two-year blitz; Canada’s campaign totals cost $40 million versus $7 billion for theirs; Prime ministers don’t have term limits, Presidents do.

McManus touched on a couple of problems facing Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, including touting an economic record staked on oil revenues and the overhanging shadow of the Mike Duffy scandal.

“Canadians have shown that free speech can flourish under strict limits on campaign spending — and Harper, whatever his shortcomings, has proved that conservatives can win under spending limits too,” the Washington, D.C.-based columnist said.
He did not acknowledge how the Conservatives have a financial edge when it comes to comparing political war chests.

In the end, the author concluded that yes, American politics is more entertaining, but that isn’t a source of pride.