Wednesday Morning - The Front Page Cover

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"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
 
Featuring:
Recrimination Is Not a Plan
Peggy Noonan
"Know who you are standing with"
"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future"
~~~lll~~~
 
 GOP Still Stymied by Democrat Filibuster  
2015-02-13-e6c9bf16.jpghttp://assets.patriotpost.us/images/2015-02-13-e6c9bf16.jpg" />The Republican plan to roll back Barack nObama's immigration actions appears on the verge of collapse thanks to intra-party squabbling and a united Democrat opposition. GOP congressmen originally called for passing a budget for the Department of Homeland Security that stripped out funding for immigration enforcement. The House passed its version of the bill last month with 10 Republicans joining all but two Democrats in opposition. The legislation is now mired in the Senate, where the GOP has failed to reach cloture three times. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCon-nell will try again -- perhaps three more times. But there is virtually no possibility they can pick up the Democrat votes needed to overcome the filibuster before the Feb. 27 deadline for funding, and the Senate adjourned Thursday for a 10-day recess.
  -The Patriot Post 
 
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 Closer to Capitulation on Iranian Nukes  
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The long-running game of nuclear cat-and-mouse between Iran and the rest of the world seems to be nearing its conclusion. Both U.S. Secretary of State Hanoi John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif say talks won't be extended past the March 31 deadline. Then again, Barack nObama has long played fast and loose with deadlines when it comes to Iran's nuclear program. There are serious concerns about this prospective deal. Speaking from the left side of the aisle, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) worried such a pact could be enacted without the Senate's approval and warned, "[T]he end result [of these negotiations] is more likely to be a North Korean situation." Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, criticized the talks in remarks before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. "Nuclear talks with Iran began as an international effort, buttressed by six UN resolutions, to deny Iran the capability to develop a military nuclear option," he recounted. "They are now an essentially bilateral negotiation over the scope of that capability through an agreement that sets a hypothetical limit of one year on an assumed breakout. The impact of this approach will be to move from preventing proliferation to managing it."  -The Patriot Post 
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 Yemen:   Al-Qaeda militants took control of an infantry brigade base in southern Yemen Thursday, following clashes that killed at least seven people, a local government official said. The militants seized the camp of the 19th Infantry Brigade in Bayhan, a town in southern Shabwah Governate. The official said three soldiers were among those killed. The militants captured 60 soldiers, but released them through the intervention of local tribal leaders. Ansar al-Sharia, the main arm of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, claimed the attack in a statement posted to the Web. It accused the troops at the camp of having links to the Shiite Houthi militia which controls Sana'a. The al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) media liaison said Ansar attacked the base Thursday morning, after learning the Yemen army was preparing to hand it over to the Houthis. The Houthis claim to be in command of the Yemen Army.

Comment: The news narrative about what happened at Bayhan is not credible. The garrison apparently chose to side with the southern Sunnis, led by AQAP, and the reports of a clash are probably part of the cover story. This incident could be the opening event in a southern Yemen Sunni uprising against the northern Shiite Houthi militias. In the past weeks, multiple, lower tier news services have reported rising Sunni hostility against the Houthis. Opposition to a Houthi takeover in Sana'a reportedly is bridging local, tribal disputes to unify Sunnis against the Houthis, who are a Shiite sect. The key question is whether Yemen shall remain a unified state. In instability analysis, control of the center - Sana'a - always is the objective of groups seeking to maintain a unified Yemen. Instability is always centripetal, except when it is fragmentary. The Houthis' takeover of Sana'a signified their commitment to maintaining a unified state. Their move into Bayda indicated their intention to control all of Yemen. The Houthis invited the Sunnis to join the new political arrangement, under Houthi domination. That ruse failed. The commitment of Sunni tribes and AQAP to a unified Yemen remains unknown. The defection of a single army base is ambiguous about larger political ambitions. If the Sunnis intend to maintain a unified Yemen but not under Houthi domination, their forces will take control of southern Yemen and eventually will build sufficient strength to challenge Houthi control of Sana'a. The alternative is to create an alternative center of power -- such as Aden -- thereby fragmenting Yemen again. If that is the objective, the Sunnis will not march north, but will fortify the south, seize all Yemen army assets, declare secession and invite a civil war. The least covered topic is the Yemen army, which multiple sources said was the second largest Arab military force. With more than 60,000 soldiers, it had the numbers and capabilities to stop the Houthis months ago, but never received the order to protect the constitutional order. The US was deeply involved in forming and training this force. No one has explained what happened to the Yemen armed forces so that they seem to have no role in the latest instability. Yemen looks like a banana republic in which the army stays neutral, but is willing to serve the winner of the political struggle, provided it gets paid.  -NightWatch

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 Houthis-US:   A Houthi spokesman said the US vehicles that were confiscated yesterday would be returned. The vehicles are to be transferred to the UN for safekeeping. The spokesman said that the confiscation and harassment was all a misunderstanding.
Comment: Yemen is not collapsing, but it might be breaking apart. States devolve to a lower level of political or economic organization. Yemen is in the middle of a process of political reorganization that could lead to devolution or the establishment of a new order in a unified Yemen. The Sunni antagonists have not yet decided whether Yemen shall remain a unified state or shall fragment.   -NightWatch

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 Ukraine:   The leaders of Germany, Ukraine, France and Russia agreed to a new arrangement to try to settle the Ukrainian civil war. The terms of the new agreement are listed below.

1.A ceasefire will begin at 00.00 a.m. local time on 15 February;

2.Heavy weapons will be withdrawn in a two week period starting from 17 February;

3.Ukraine and the rebels will amnesty all prisoners involved in the fighting;

4.All foreign militias will withdraw from Ukrainian territory and all illegal groups will disarm;

5.Restrictions in rebel areas of Ukraine will be lifted;

6.Ukraine will authorize decentralization for rebel regions by the end of 2015;

7 Ukraine will resume control of all borders with Russia by the end of 2015.

Comment: In a three against one diplomatic confrontation, Putin emerged with most of what he apparently wanted for Russia. The underlying presumption is that the rebels retain control of their regions. They gave up nothing. The ceasefire provisions might work for a while, but no party has had the clout to enforce a withdrawal of heavy weapons. More pertinent is that the rebel rocket attack on Kramatorsk this week showed that buffer zones are almost impractical
Fighting. A Ukrainian military spokesman said around 50 tanks, 40 missile systems and 40 armored vehicles had crossed overnight into eastern Ukraine from Russia. Fighting continued in the east.   -NightWatch

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1.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, testifying to the House oversight committee, said the White House never asked him or anyone else at the IRS about the potential tax effects of President Obama's amnesty policy. (Associated Press)
 IRS to pay back-refunds to illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes  
(Stephen Dinan) - IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress on Wednesday that even illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes will be able to claim back-refunds once they get Social Security numbers under President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty...Mr. nObama’s new deportation policies, which carve most illegal immigrants out of danger of being removed, and could proactively grant as many as 4 million illegal immigrants work permits and Social Security numbers, are increasingly under fire for ancillary consequences such as tax credits and competition for jobs.      http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/11/irs-pay-back-refunds-illegal-immigrants-who-didnt-/#sthash.lhoOGRvS.dpuf
 
2.
 Sharia Court Never Approved By Texas City, Mayor Takes Action  
(Brandon Walker) - It seems that the Sharia Court in Texas forgot more than just a law licence to practice a law in Texas...After numerous phone calls and headlines, the Mayor of Irving, Texas took to social media to address one key thing that can sink the court before its first case. We have been following the developments of the Sharia Court being established in Texas. It seems that they forgot a couple of things in their proud announcement to the press that they were forming the first ever Sharia Court inside the United States. Not only is practicing law without a licence a felony in the State of Texas, it seems the Islamic Tribunal forgot to ask the city council and the mayor if they would be allowed to have an unauthorized court in the city.       http://madworldnews.com/sharia-court-texas-mayor/
3.
FILE - A man suffering from the Ebola virus lies on the floor outside a house in Port Loko Community, situated on the outskirts of Freetown, in Sierra Leone, Oct. 21, 2014.
 Sierra Leone Report Finds Ebola Funds Misappropriated  
(Peter Clottey) - Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission has launched an investigation into misappropriated funds intended to help fight the Ebola outbreak, according to Abdulai Bayraytay, spokesman for the government...The Auditor General’s report, which was presented to parliament on Thursday, said there were no supporting documents to show how the health ministry spent $5.7 million in Ebola funds. It also suggests the misuse of the funds affected the quality of treatment of the disease. Bayraytay said the administration has called for a thorough investigation into allegations of financial malfeasance after President Bai Koroma said officials involved in the scandal should face the full extent of the law.       http://www.voanews.com/content/sierra-leone-report-finds-ebola-funds-misappropriated/2644139.html
4.
 nObama Orders Border Patrol to RELEASE Drunk Drivers  
(Judicial Watch) - The nObama administration has ordered federal agents responsible for protecting one of the nation’s busiest and most crime-infested regions near Mexico to stop apprehending drunk drivers...according to an internal government memo that also concedes an officer that elects to detain them is “acting within the course and scope of his employment.” btained by Judicial Watch this week, the notice is titled “Enforcement Options With Alcohol-Impaired Drivers” and directs the 4,000-plus U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Tucson, Arizona sector to “release” individuals under the influence and “allow them to go on their way.” The document acknowledges that this feels counter-intuitive for Border Patrol agents, but eases concerns by answering a hypothetical question for the officers who have sworn to uphold the law: “If you allow this driver to continue down the road and they kill someone, aren’t you liable?” The answer is no, according to the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo. “There is no legal requirement for a Border Patrol agent to intervene in a state crime, including DUI,” the order says, adding that “therefore there is generally no liability that will attach to the agent or agency for failing to act in this situation.”       http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/02/border-patrol-ordered-release-drunk-drivers-allow-go-way/#sthash.PE8dTevV.dpuf
5.
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 Judge Jeanine  – ISIS Not On The Run, We’re Not Winning  
(Rick Wells) - Judge Jeanine focuses on the recent attempt to penetrate the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, and the danger that our 320 Marines are being increasingly exposed to...much of it unnecessarily, as a result of the cowardice, duplicity or ineptitude of the White House leadership. She’s worried that Obama is not taking the situation seriously and compares what is happening now to the attacks at Benghazi and the surrender of our Embassy in Yemen. As the base is encircled by ISIS terrorists, Judge Jeanine says, “This is no time for ‘Obama-speak.’ ISIS doesn’t have a moral problem, they’re not a JV team, they’re not on the run and we’re not winning.”      http://www.rickwells.us/judge-jeanine-time-obama-speak-isis-run-morale-problem-winning/
6.
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 Judge Jeanine – The UN Working To Prohibit Anti-Islamic Free Speech  
(Rick Wells) - For Americans it seems odd that a religion would seek the protection of the threat of government sanctions in order to prevent people from discussing it, but that is what is exactly underway at the global elitist organization for world communism, the United Nations...As they morph into an overreaching arm of global exploitation and one world repressive government, they have their sights set on our Constitution. General Jerry Boykin joins Judge Jeanine Pirro to discuss the two recent Copenhagen attacks, a discussion he opens by saying, “Well here’s a news flash Judge, this is going to get worse.” He tells the Judge and her audience of a United Nations resolution, “1618” which is currently being maneuvered through their corrupt system, “which would make any disparagement of Islam or the prophet Mohammad a hate crime or hate speech.”
7.
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  Amnesty Finally Force Dems To End nObama’s Treasonous Assault  
(Rick Wells) - An exasperated Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), having been informed of yet another subversive attack on our nation by the Marxist criminals in the White House, responded by posting a statement on his Senate website...Senators Sessions, Vitter, Cruz and Lee have been on the forefront of pressing this issue into the psyche of the America people. Amnesty is a manifestation of the assault on our form of government, on our sovereignty and on our rights as American citizens to the fruits of our nation and of our labor.  It is a tool not of humanitarian nature, but of treasonous criminal exploitation. We the people of this nation have a birthright that cannot be simply handed out at will by an illegal alien criminal who has manipulated his way into a fraudulent occupation of the White House. This is our country, not his and we do not accept his redistribution of our nation to foreign illegal squatters or anyone else.       http://www.rickwells.us/sen-jeff-sessions-secret-citizenship-back-door-inside-amnesty-may-finally-force-dems-end-obamas-treasonous-assault/
8.

 The Iran Axis Strikes   Back in Golan Region  
(Jonathan Spyer) - A force consisting of Hezbollah fighters, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Syrian regime soldiers launched an offensive this week southwest of Damascus, in the direction of Quneitra province and the Golan Heights...Their aim is to regain territory lost to Syrian rebels and jihadis over the past year, and to establish a strong defensive line before the capital. In Quneitra and Deraa provinces, close to the borders with Israel and Jordan, the Syrian war is characterized by significantly different dynamics in comparison to elsewhere in this fragmented country. The area is completely closed off to reporters, which may partially explain the absence of media attention; in addition, Islamic State is not a major factor among the anti-regime forces. In this area, a de facto, undeclared buffer zone has been established by both Jerusalem and Amman, as part of a broader effort which includes Western and regional players. The regime and its allies are attempting to claw back ground in this area.       http://www.meforum.org/5033/syria-iran-axis
9.
irancentrifuges
 nObama’s disastrous Iran nuclear weapons deal point by point   (pamelageller.com) - nObama’s submission to Iran is worse than we imagined. It means war. A war of unimaginable proportions. This deal is not a gamechanger, it’s a worldchanger. It is no wonder that nObama is hellbent on stopping Prime Minister Netanyahu from speaking to the Congress next month...He will reason with them. The truth will expose nObama’s perfidy. This isn’t politics or partisan gamesmanship. This is life and death, my friends. Should nObama steamroll over Congress and ram this death deal through, the free world has only one hope – -in the country she has done more to undermine than any other on earth, Israel.       http://pamelageller.com/2015/02/washpost-exposes-obamas-disastrous-iran-nuclear-weapons-deal-point-by-horrible-point.html/
10.
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 nObama And Jarrett’s Support For Iran Hits A Snag – George W. Bush  
(Rick Wells) - It’s clear that Hussein nObama, in keeping with the controlling influence of Valerie Jarrett, is working to direct as much American policy to Iran’s benefit as possible, regardless of the consequences for the American people or our allies...Aside from his secret “soul mate” correspondence and his incredibly weak, capitulating stance on the Iranian nuclear front, nObama’s been actively anti-Israel and is now attempting to determine the outcome of Israeli elections to a more Iranian tolerant candidate. He’s refusing to act in Syria, the Iranian puppet, against ISIS, and he just surrendered our Yemeni Embassy to terrorists supported by the Iranian regime. He’s also made it mandatory that all arms supplied to Iraq go through the filter of the Iranian-aligned Baghdad government, from which they never emerge to be used by those for whom they were intended, the Kurds and Sunni tribal leaders.       http://www.rickwells.us/obama-jarretts-adamant-support-iran-iranian-causes-hits-snag-george-w-bush/
 
 
 
 
Recrimination Is Not a Plan
Peggy Noonan
King Abdullah II of Jordan
     (peggynoonan.com) - Everything’s frozen. When you ask, “What is the appropriate U.S. response to ISIS?” half the people in Washington answer: “ George W. Bush broke Iraq and ISIS was born in the rubble. There would be no ISIS if it weren’t for him.” The other half answer: “When Barack nObama withdrew from Iraq, ISIS was born in the vacuum. There would be no ISIS without him.”

     These are charges, not answers, and they are getting us nowhere. Bitterness and begging the question are keeping us from focusing on what is. We’re frozen in what was.

     There’s plenty to learn and conclude from the past. Great books have been and will be written about the mistakes, poor thinking and dishonesty that accompanied the 2003 invasion and the 2011 withdrawal. But at a certain point you have to unhitch yourself from your predispositions and resentments and face what is happening now.

     The White House is paralyzed, the president among the coldest of the frozen. He erects straw men, focuses on what he will not do, refuses to “play Whac A Mole,” waxes on about reading a book about the pains of the deployed. He’s showing how sensitive, layered and alive to moral complexity he is instead of, you know, leading. At the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, he airily and from a great height explained to the audience that ISIS exists within a historical context that includes the Inquisition, slavery and Jim Crow. “People committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.” Oh West, you big hypocrite. This is just the moment to dilate on Christendom’s sins, isn’t it? While Christians are being driven from the Mideast? He always says these things as if he’s the enlightened one facing the facts of the buried past instead of the cornered one defeated by complexity, hard calls and ambivalence.

He is lost. His policy is listlessness punctuated by occasional booms.

     The public is agitated by the latest killing, of the Jordanian pilot burned alive. That murder may have changed some calculations. Jordan’s King Abdullah is said to have quoted Clint Eastwood during his recent Washington trip: “He mentioned ‘Unforgiven,’ ” a congressman said, without specifying which scene. Well, good.

Which returns us to the question of a plan, a way forward.

     We know ISIS is increasingly hated by the civilized world, and by many nations in the Mideast. Each day that brings new word of their atrocities, not only to prisoners but to local, subjugated populations, adds to the anti-ISIS coalition. But we also know they will not be defeated or decisively set back from the air. They have to be removed from the areas they hold. They need to be fought with boots on the ground.

Whose boots?

     Some wisdom on that from two veteran players in U.S. foreign policy, former Secretary of State James Baker and the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass.

     On “Face the Nation” Sunday, Mr. Baker said ground troops are necessary but must come from Arab and Muslim allies, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. “My idea would be to go to the Turks, 60-year allies of the United States, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They have a good army. It’s an army that will fight. . . . They want to destroy ISIS. We want to destroy ISIS. There’s a convergence of interests here. Why don’t we get together and we say, look, we will supply the air, the logistics and the intelligence, you put the boots on the ground and go in there and do the job?”

     I spoke to Mr. Baker at CBS before his appearance. He said the world is “coalescing,” and this is the time to move, with diplomacy and leadership.

     So, a multinational Arab and Muslim military force to fight ISIS on the ground. Is this the right way to go?

     Very much so, said Mr. Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations. ISIS, he told me this week, is “a network, a movement and an organization.” It poses a geopolitical, economic, and humanitarian threat to the world. It threatens Sunni regimes in the region—if it wins over their populations, “it turns every country into a potential failed state.”

     ISIS “can disrupt oil-producing areas like Saudi Arabia. . . . It is inevitable that they will one day challenge the House of Saud” through terrorism or by attempting to rouse the population against it. “If you’re the Islamic State, you have to control the country that controls the two holiest sites in Islam,” Mecca and Medina, Mr. Haass added. America doesn’t worry about the threat to the oil supply because we are close to energy self-sufficiency, but “we are economically linked to the world, and much of the world is linked to Mideastern oil.”

     Most famously, “any area controlled by ISIS is a humanitarian nightmare to Muslims not devout enough, to Shia, to Christians.”

     There is the threat to American and Western security of returnees. “ISIS has the potential to produce graduates who come home, and to radicalize those who’ve never set foot in Syria. There is the returnee danger and the self-radicalization danger, as we saw recently in France.”

     Right now what is important, Mr. Haass says, “is to break their momentum. The region and the world see them as gaining ground both literally and figuratively. This draws support from those around them. It’s important to break that, to allow those who are wavering to see that ISIS is not inevitable. If they are seen as inevitable it is self-fulfilling.”

     What to do? Mr. Haass echoes Mr. Baker. “Attacking ISIS from the air is necessary but not sufficient. You need ground forces to seize areas ISIS holds. You need a ground partner.”

     That partner should be “a multinational Arab-led expeditionary force—a force on the ground to take territory. It needs to be Arab and it needs to be Sunni, because you need to fight fire with fire.” It is crucial, he says, that Sunni Arab leaders demonstrate it is legitimate to stand up to ISIS.

     Haass includes in a hypothetical force Jordan, the Saudis, the UAE, and “others—Egypt too. Even Turkey. . . . That’s what you need, politically as much as militarily. Unless that happens we don’t have a viable strategy.”

     He agrees the U.S. should help with intelligence, training and special forces as well as air power. Also needed: “a digital strategy that stresses that ISIS’ behavior contravenes tenets of Islam and means misery for those they dominate.”

     So—move to kill the Islamic State’s mystique. Give them a fight, make them the weak horse, and do everything to bring together the Sunni Arab world to do it.

     Is this possible? Can it be done? Mr. Haass said it is “a long shot” but “not inconceivable.” Moreover, “it’s the conversation we should be having. We should make answering this question the priority.”

     The U.S. would have to lead, push, press, promise and cajole. It would have to use diplomatic and financial muscle. But it would be doing so with allies increasingly alive to the threat ISIS constitutes not only to the world, but to them.

And it is a plan. Who has a better one?

http://www.peggynoonan.com/recrimination-is-not-a-plan/

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