Friday, November 20, 2015

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, November 20, 2015


Happy Friday, folks!

Newsbites on their way!

Hey... by the way... if you've found your way here - to my blog - you should "friend" me on Facebook and check out my commentary there as well as what I write here.

 
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5 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_MALI_ATTACK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-11-20-06-51-24

Islamic extremists armed with guns and throwing grenades stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital Friday morning, killing at least three people and initially taking numerous hostages, authorities said.

* OHH... THAT'S NOT GOOD! (I'LL BE STAYING AT A RADISSON BLU IN DECEMBER! NOT THE ONE IN MALI THOUGH...)

The Brussels-based Rezidor Hotel group that operates the hotel said early on that the assailants had "locked in" 140 guests and 30 employees.

Malian troops reacted quickly. As people ran for their lives near the hotel along a dirt road, the soldiers in full combat gear pointed the way to safety. Within hours, local TV images showed heavily armed troops in what appeared to be a lobby area. Malian state TV reported that 80 people in the hotel when the assault began have been freed.

Malian special forces were freeing hostages "floor by floor," Malian army commander Modibo Nama Traore told The Associated Press. Still, Rezidor Hotel group put out a new statement saying 125 guests and 13 employees were still in the hotel.

* GEEZUS...

Traore said at least one guest reported that the attackers instructed him to recite verses from the Quran before he was allowed to leave the hotel.

* THANK GOD HE WAS ALLOWED TO LEAVE AND NOT MURDERED!

It was not immediately clear which Muslim extremist groups might be behind the attack, which unfolded one week after the attacks on Paris that killed 129 people. A handful of jihadi groups seized the northern half of Mali - a former French colony - in 2012 and were ousted from cities and towns by a French military intervention.

Traore said 10 gunmen had stormed the hotel shouting "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," in Arabic before firing on the guards. A staffer at the hotel who gave his name as Tamba Diarra said over the phone that the attackers used grenades in the assault.

* GEEZUS...

The U.S. Embassy in Mali told citizens to shelter in place amid reports of an "ongoing active shooter operation" at the hotel in Bamako.

* WHAT FRIGGIN' SENSE DOES THAT MAKE? (ANYWAY...)

In March masked gunmen shot up a restaurant in Bamako that is popular with foreigners, killing five people.

About 1,000 French troops remain in the country. The Netherlands also has troops working with the UN mission in Mali. According to the Dutch defense ministry, some 450 Dutch military personnel are taking part in the mission along with four Apache and three Chinook helicopters. Most of the Dutch force is based in Gao, but there are a few officers at the U.N. mission headquarters in Bamako.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

November 20, 2015 at 9:35 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/19/obama-actions-shield-most-illegal-immigrants-from-/

President Obama’s marquee deportation amnesty has been stalled by the courts, but the rest of his executive actions on immigration, announced exactly a year ago, are moving forward — including his move "protecting" more than 80% of illegal immigrants from any danger of deportation.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The amnesty, dubbed Deferred Action for Parental Accountability was supposed to grant full tentative legal status — including work permits, Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses — to more than 4 million illegal immigrants. It has been halted by a federal appeals court, and its fate will soon rest with the Supreme Court.

* AND WE KNOW WE CAN'T COUNT ON THEM...

(*SIGH*)

* AGAIN... I SUSPECT CERTAIN MEMBERS - CERTAINLY CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS - HAVE BEEN "COMPROMISED." ONE WORD: BLACKMAIL.

But the rest of the dozen actions Mr. Obama announced on Nov. 20, 2014, are still advancing, including a far-reaching set of priorities that effectively orders agents not to bother deporting nearly all illegal immigrants.

* GEEZUS...

“There are 7 or 8 or 9 million people who are now safe under the current policy. That is a victory to celebrate while we wait for the Supreme Court,” said Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who was among the chief cheerleaders pushing Mr. Obama to go around Congress and take unilateral steps last year.

* IT'S NOT JUST GUTIERREZ, FOLKS. REMEMBER... OBAMA COULDN'T GET AWAY WITH WHAT HE'S BEEN DOING ABSENT WIDESPREAD REPUBLICAN "COOPERATION." (LACK OF OPPOSITION? CALL IT WHAT YOU WILL.)

The actions — often mislabeled by the press as executive orders — also included changes to the legal immigration system, such as making it easier for spouses of guest workers to also find jobs...

* "GUEST" "WORKERS" SHOULDN'T BE BRINGING THEIR WIVES AND CHILDREN WITH THEM TO AMERICA. IF THEY'RE HERE TO WORK - AS TEMPORARY "GUESTS" - THEN ONLY THEY SHOULD BE HERE. WHAT'S OCCURRING IS A FARCE - A SCAM.

...allowing foreigners who study science and technology at U.S. universities to remain and work in the country longer; pushing legal immigrants to apply for citizenship; and waiving the penalty on illegal immigrant spouses or children of legal permanent residents so they no longer have to go to their home countries to await legal status.

* OBAMA HAS NO AUTHORITY TO "WAIVE" THE PENALTY. THE PRESIDENT HAS CONSTITUTIONAL PARDON POWER - WHICH IS A FAR DIFFERENT POWER THAN THE POWER TO SIMPLY RE-WRITE EXISTING LAW AS HE SEES FIT AT HIS UNILATERAL DISCRETION.

* FOLKS... THE U.S. IS NO LONGER A NATION UNDER RULE OF LAW. WE HAVEN'T BEEN IN SOME TIME.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

November 20, 2015 at 9:54 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

On enforcement, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson...announced changes that would let most rank-and-file illegal immigrants off the hook and instead focus deportation efforts on serious criminals, gang members and other security threats, and only the most recent of illegal border crossers.

* FOLKS... THE SUPREME COURT'S ARIZONA DECISION A FEW YEARS BACK WAS A DELIBERATE BLOCK TO STATE ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS. AGAIN... THE FIX WAS IN... AND THE FIX IS STILL IN. WE'RE NO LONGER A CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC - WE'RE BASICALLY A PRESIDENTIAL DICTATORSHIP.

Deportations, which peaked at nearly 410,000 in fiscal year 2012, dropped to about 230,000 in fiscal year 2015, which ended Sept. 30.

* FOLKS... AS SOME OF YOU MAY RECALL... THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION MOVED THE STAT GOALPOSTS BY INCLUDING BORDER ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS (TURNING ILLEGALS AWAY AT THE POINT OF ENTRY) AS "DEPORTATIONS."

* AGAIN, FOLKS... THE MOTTO OF WASHINGTON IS "HOW CAN WE LIE TO YOU TODAY?"

“The enforcement priorities announced last year, if strictly enforced, do protect the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants from being deported, because most immigrants have been here a long time and haven’t committed a serious crime,” said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the institute’s U.S. immigration policy program.

* "SERIOUS" CRIME...

(*SNORT*)

The secretary had said even some illegal immigrants with serious criminal offenses on their records should be allowed to stay if they had mitigating factors, such as deep family or community ties.

(*SIGH*)

Obama's Homeland Security has issued proposals to carry out the "leniency program" for illegal immigrant spouses and children of green-card holders and to allow foreign students in science and technology to stay longer. Both of those still need to be finalized, as does a proposal expanding hardship waivers.

November 20, 2015 at 9:54 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://nypost.com/2015/11/19/hillary-cant-run-from-the-messes-she-and-obama-made/

Michael Goodwin writing in the New York Post

* * *

Hillary Clinton’s speech Thursday was billed as her plan to combat the Islamic State. In truth, her plan was to combat the idea that she is another Barack Obama.

* WHAT HRC IS... IS A LIAR... A FRAUD... A TOTAL INCOMPETENT... A SUPREMELY DISHONEST PERSON...

(*SHRUG*)

She failed.

(*NOD*)

Clinton can run from Obama, but can’t hide from the unholy mess he — and she — made.

As his first secretary of state, she was part of the team that botched the wars in Iraq and Syria and helped birth the Islamic terrorism now rattling the world.

* LIBYA... LIBYA... LIBYA... LIBYA...

* AND BENGHAZI IS ONLY PART OF THE TRAGEDY!

The slaughter in Paris and fresh threats against America make it urgent that she erase her fingerprints from the calamity. That’s impossible, so she settled for putting some daylight between herself and Obama. Daylight... but not too much daylight. For as a Democrat trying to succeed him, she needs Obama’s support, and especially the black vote, to win the general election.

* OBAMA DOESN'T WANT THE CLINTONS BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE. WHAT HIS ULTIMATE GAME PLAN TO PREVENT THAT IS... I'M NOT QUITE SURE. (I STILL SUSPECT - AND FEAR - THAT HE HAS AL GORE TEED UP TO ENTER THE FRAY AS THE "SAVIOR OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY" AT THE LAST MOMENT AFTER HE'S FORCED CLINTON OUT.)

So she was careful to invoke his name only when she agreed with him, as when she joined him in knocking down the straw man that the solution requires a large deployment of combat troops.

“Like President Obama, I do not believe that we should again have 100,000 American troops in combat in the Middle East,” she said.

Nobody on the GOP side advocates that, either, but she had to find something nice to say about Obama. Not an easy thing to do, but necessary for her. (After all, there’s also the not-so-small matter of the FBI investigation into her mishandling of classified material on her private server. With a wink or a nod, Obama can call off the hunt, or give it the green light.)

* YEP. OBAMA HAS A CARROT TO OFFER IN THE FORM OF PROVIDING CLINTON COVER IF SHE COOPERATES... OR... THE STICK OF LEGAL PROSECUTION IF HE NEEDS TO GO THAT FAR.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

November 20, 2015 at 10:14 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

It all adds up to a complex minefield, one Clinton couldn’t navigate in a single speech, even though she displayed her knowledge of the issues and players.

Reading from a teleprompter, she checked off the complications with Turkey, Iran, Russia, the Kurds and the Arab states. She talked about Sunnis and Shias, threw in Hezbollah and Hamas, dropped Osama bin Laden’s name twice and claimed to have warned that the Arab Spring could lead to disaster.

Take that, Donald Trump!

Indeed, large parts of the speech seem intended only to show off her "experience"...

* "EXPERIENCE" IN SCREWING UP EVERYTHING SHE TOUCHES!

...without actually committing to details that could be dissected.

Several times, she looked ready to declare herself, only to stop short on a note of caution.

She said Vladimir Putin “is actually making things somewhat worse,” before throwing on the brakes to add, “Now, to be clear, though, there is an important role for Russia.”

At another point, she endorsed Obama’s nonsensical refusal to call Islamic terrorism what it is, saying, “It gives these criminals, these murderers more standing than they deserve.” Then she praised a Muslim man who protected Jews in the kosher-supermarket attack in Paris earlier this year.

Which is it — is Islam relevant or not?

One refrain was the need for American leadership, a clear rebuke of Obama’s dereliction, but of course she never mentioned his name in that context.

“We must lead the world to meet this threat,” she said near the beginning, and soon added, “This is a worldwide fight, and America must lead it.”

She ended by saying America must resolve that “we will do all we can to lead the world against this threat that threatens people everywhere.”

That’s the obvious and right message, but each time she said it, another doubt came to mind. Does she mean it?

* AGAIN... HILLARY CLINTON'S ACTUAL RECORD PROVES SHE'S NOT QUALIFIED TO BE A VILLAGE DOG-CATCHER!

There’s the ultimate rub. Clinton has proven herself to be such a stranger to truth that nothing she says can be taken at face value. She’s a political weather vane.

* IT GOES BEYOND THAT; SHE'S CRIMINALLY DISHONEST.

She’s the one who bragged in 2008 that she was ready to answer the 3 a.m. phone call. But when the call came from Benghazi, she was nowhere to be found, and forever damaged herself by insisting in public, and to the families of the four Americans who died, that an anti-Muslim video was to blame. Yet we know now, thanks to the congressional hearing, what she was saying in private - that it was a planned terrorist attack.

(*NOD*)

That’s the real Hillary — the one who will say whatever is best for her at the moment. In that, and in that only, we can trust.

* WHAT SORT OF SCUM WOULD SUPPORT SCUM LIKE CLINTON? IT TRULY BOGGLES THE MIND. BERNIE SANDERS? I GET IT. EVEN AL GORE. BUT HILLARY CLINTON? UNFRIGGIN'BELIEVABLE!

November 20, 2015 at 10:14 AM

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