Saturday, September 12, 2015

Black Lives and Obama Cartoon


Black Lives Matter leader lands Yale teaching gig

Un friggin Believable.

One of the newest teachers at the vaunted Yale University burnished his Ivy League resume in the Black Lives Matter movement.
DeRay McKesson will be teaching a one-credit course this fall as a guest lecturer at Yale Divinity School, according to higher education blog Campus Reform. The outspoken activist will be joining U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and the Rev. Nancy Taylor, whose Old South Church in Boston is located near the site of the 2013 marathon bombing, to teach a special three-section course as part of a new leadership program. The young activist will teach the first section of the course, entitled "Transformational Leadership in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.”
McKesson is the only guest lecturer who is not an alumnus of Yale Divinity School.
A syllabus for the course describes the credentials of McKesson, 30.  
“A young leader of the Black Lives Matter Movement, DeRay McKesson will present case studies about the work of organizing, public advocacy, civil disobedience, and social change, through both Leadership of Presence, and Leadership in the Social Media.”
Readings for the course includes Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book “Between the World and Me,” a Huffington Post article titled “How The Black Lives Matter Movement Changed the Church,” the book “Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfilled Hopes for Racial Reform by author Derrick Bell,” Leah Gunning Francis’ book “Ferguson & Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community,” and a New York Times article titled “Our Demand Is Simple: Stop Killing Us.”
According to Campus Reform, McKesson last worked in the Minneapolis public school system as a human resources administrator. According to his LinkedIn profile, his only teaching experience was between May 2007 and June 2009, when he was a middle school math teacher.
The special course is being administered through the YDS’ Transformational Leadership for Church and Society program, each of the one-credit courses will be taught by a different guest lecturer and is funded through a $120,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
Each of the three 12-hour courses will take place over an intensive two-day class period, rather than spanning the course of the semester.

Exclusive: New Emails on Secret Benghazi Weapons

Is Obama's Government going to get away with the Benghazi terrorist attack and his lack of response to it?

On the third anniversary of the Benghazi terrorist attack, emails reviewed by Fox News raise significant questions about US government support for the secret shipment of weapons to the Libyan opposition.
During the Spring of 2011, as the Obama administration ramped up efforts to topple the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, a licensed American arms dealer, Marc Turi, his business partner formerly with the CIA, senior US military officials in Europe and Africa as well as a former staffer for republican Senator John McCain considered logistics for arming the rebels, according to the emails exclusively obtained by Fox Business and Fox News.
Turi is facing federal trial this December on two counts that he allegedly violated the arms export control act by making false statements. Turi denies the charges, and alleges there was a rogue weapons operation run with the knowledge of Mrs. Clinton's state department.
The email dated March 22, 2011 was sent by Admiral James Stavridis, when he was the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, from his government email account to Turi's business partner David Manners.
The email was also copied to General Carter Ham, then head of the defense department's Africa command. Stavridis vouches for Manners as a United States Naval Academy classmate and "former CIA Officer with deep connections throughout the near Middle East."
"The person in charge of the operation from a US DoD perspective is General Carter Ham, the commander of AFRICOM...Clearly, what you are describing is a State Department lead"
- March 2011 Email, Admiral James Stavridis, SACEUR
Also copied on the email is Mike Kostiw who worked for Senator John McCain until February 2011 on the Senate Armed Services committee. It is not known from the emails reviewed by Fox whether the parties responded, or whether others were brought into the discussion.
Stavridis tells Manners "The person in charge of the operation from a US DoD perspective is General Carter Ham, the commander of AFRICOM...Clearly, what you are describing is a State Department lead."
Fox News contacted Stavridis who is now the dean at Tuft's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Ham, now retired, and Kostiw, in the private sector, seeking a further explanation of the email and the context in which it was sent. Stavridis said he had "nothing to add. Don't remember the email specifically. Dave Manners is a USNA classmate I've known for 40 years. Wish I could be more helpful." There was no immediate response from Ham or Kostiw. Manners turned down an earlier request from Fox to discuss the matter.
In a sworn declaration to the District Court of Arizona May 5th 2015, Manners said, "It was then, and remains now, my opinion that the United States did participate, directly or indirectly, in the supply of weapons to the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC)." The timing matters because in the Spring of 2011 the Libyan opposition was not formally recognized, and the direct supply of arms was not authorized. At that time, the CIA director was David Petraeus.

As part of Fox's ongoing reporting of the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack, Fox News senior executive producer Pamela Browne interviewed Turi, who recalled this email exchange--- adding it came after he applied for a license through the State Department to sell weapons.
"At that point in time, this would've been the first application where the thought process was: the US government was going (to) directly support the Libyan TNC-not use any ally, use their own resources and support," Turi explained. "I actually-we met: Kostiw, and Manners, and myself. and I said, 'Listen, we're going to need overflight permission."
Turi said support for arming the Libyan rebels came from the most senior levels of the US government. Turi's claim is consistent with a Reuters news service exclusive report from March 31, 2011 that stated "President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi...Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources familiar with the matter."
"I'm being extremely transparent and you gotta understand from a, a person in my position, you're not going to go to a country that's under war and hold yourself out there like you're a black market arms dealer. You are committing suicide," Turi said.
"'Hey, I'm here. I'm an option for you if you wanna use that option.' Otherwise, they're gonna do it themselves and that's exactly what they wanted to do because what happens is, if you don't want a US footprint-any type of US entities that's subject to subpoena powers - what do you do? You outsource it and that's what they did."
Turi and his company, Turi Defense Group deny they shipped any weapons, arguing their concept to use an Arab ally instead, so there would be a "zero foot print" for the US government, was used but without strong security and vetting procedures in place.
March 2011 was a busy time for Hillary Clinton. Even today, congressional investigators doubt they have all of the emails from her personal server when she was Secretary of State. On March 14th, 2011, along with Chris Stevens, who was then the number two man in Libya serving as the embassy's deputy chief of mission, Clinton met with Libya's Mustafa Jibril in Paris-- a senior member of the TNC. The next day, Secretary Clinton met with Egypt's new foreign minister Nabil el Arabi in Cairo and walked through Tahrir Square with her senior adviser Huma Abedin. At the same time, Turi's proposal, a 267-million dollar contract, was working its way through US government channels.
Turi provided Fox News with emails he exchanged - in early April 2011 - with Chris Stevens to alert him to the proposed weapons deal. The emails were previously cited by the New York Times, but Fox News has made the message traffic public.
Stevens replied with a "thank you " and wrote "I'll keep it in mind and share it with my colleagues in Washington."
As Fox News chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge first reported, a heavily redacted email released to the Benghazi committee in May clearly states that on April 8, 2011, a day after the Turi/Stevens exchange, Clinton was interested in arming the rebels using contractors:
"FYI. the idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered," Clinton wrote. Significantly, the state department released emails blacked out this line, but the version given to the Benghazi select committee was complete.
In May 2011, Turi got a brokering approval from the State Department for Qatar. Federal court documents show that on June 14th, a Russian businessman wrote to Turi indicating Chris Stevens was the State Department's point man for arming the rebels.
Document 55, exhibit F, contains an email from the Russian, stating "I sent you an email days back and no answer from you....anyhow, Mr. Stevens the American embassedor (sic) in benghazi (sic) has been informed of the arrangement...and things should be ok."

Perry suspends presidential campaign


Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced Friday that he's suspending his presidential campaign, becoming the first in the crowded Republican field to bow out.
The longest-serving governor in Texas history announced his decision during a speech Friday night in St. Louis before conservative activists.
"I am suspending my campaign for the presidency of the United States," Perry said.
Perry, who also ran in 2012, has struggled to get his campaign off the ground, finding himself strapped for cash and stuck in polling at near 1 percent.
In his St. Louis speech, Perry took some parting, albeit veiled, shots at primary front-runner Donald Trump, saying the eventual nominee "must make the case for the cause of conservatism more than the cause of their own celebrity."
But he went on to say, "We have a tremendous field of candidates -- probably the greatest group of men and women -- I step aside knowing our party is in good hands."
He said the party must "listen to the grassroots, listen to that cause of conservatism."
With the campaign crunched for cash, Perry's‎ senior staff had been volunteering for the past month.
Asked what led to Friday's decision, Perry communications adviser Lexi Stemple told FoxNews.com ‎Perry's team was behind him "all the way" and it was "his decision in the end."
But she also said: "Finances are never simple when there are 17 candidates, quality candidates, in a presidential race. It's very expensive to run for president, and even more so with so many people in the race."
Stemple noted Perry had acknowledged it was a "difficult path forward to the nomination after finances became an issue" but said he campaigned hard even after that point.
Perry is the first major candidate to bow out, leaving the field of Republicans at 16 candidates, just days before the next GOP debate.
His former GOP opponents were quick to praise him once he announced he was leaving the race. Donald Trump tweeted that Perry was "a terrific guy and I wish him well." Dr. Ben Carson's statement, delivered via his press secretary, described Perry as a "very decent and fine gentleman" while Jeb Bush tweeted, "Amen. God bless Rick Perry for his continuing commitment to that cause."
At the lead-off GOP debates in August, Perry's polling left him in the undercard debate, but former HP head Carly Fiorina stole the spotlight in that event. She has climbed in the polls since; Perry has not, and was again relegated to a pre-debate forum at next week's debate at the Reagan Library outside Los Angeles.
He still delivered a stronger performance at that first debate than he did four years ago, when he couldn't remember the third federal agency he'd promised to close if elected and muttered, "Oops" -- a moment that doomed his bid in 2012. But few noticed in a GOP campaign dominated by billionaire Donald Trump, who stole away Perry's Iowa campaign chairman after Perry was forced to suspend paying members of his staff as his campaign fundraising dried up.
A group of super PACs, largely funded by three big Perry backers, briefly kept him afloat by raising $17 million, hiring their own Iowa staff and producing television and digital ads and mailers. His decision Friday appeared to come as a surprise to those groups.
A pro-Perry super PAC emailed its supporters Friday morning saying it was back on television in Iowa to promote his candidacy. A Twitter message from the group sent later in the morning further emphasized, "In It For the Long Haul."

Trump says US, Europe should be doing more to help Ukraine

Asleep he's got to better than Obama? 

Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman who is leading the Republican presidential field in the polls, told a gathering of the European elite in the Ukrainian capital that America and Europe should be doing more to support Ukraine.
In an unusual appearance Friday night by satellite feed, Trump told participants at the pro-Western Yalta European Security conference why he was seeking the GOP presidential nomination and expressed support for Ukraine.
“My feeling toward the Ukraine and toward the entire area is very very strong. I know many people who live in the Ukraine. They’re friends of mine. They’re fantastic people,” Trump said, noting that he had known and admired Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk for many years and had learned much from him.
Trump also suggested that President Barack Obama was partly responsible for Russian president Vladimir Putin’s aggression by paying only “lip-service” to reversing Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea over a year ago. “Our president is not strong and he’s not doing what he should be doing for the Ukraine,” Trump said. “Part of the problem that the Ukraine has with the United States is that Putin does not respect our president whatsoever,” Trump said.
Trump’s remarks to this assembly of the Ukrainian and European political elite in Ukraine, which has been fighting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Russian-supported secessionist forces in the country’s industrial heartland, differed from earlier statements he made in August about Ukraine’s plight. Last month, he told a political rally in North Carolina that Europeans, and wealthy Germany in particular, should do more to reverse Russia’s annexation of Crimea and he “wouldn’t care” if Ukraine joined NATO.
On Friday night, by contrast, Trump said that Ukraine was “not getting the support that you need” and deserve.
Many in the audience seemed stunned that Pinchuk would invite Trump to address his conference, since Pinchuk is known to have given millions to the Clinton Family Foundation and has hosted Bill and Hillary Clinton at earlier conferences. Indeed, Bill Clinton also appeared by satellite linkup Friday to express his support for Ukraine and implicitly criticize Obama by stressing the need to protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which Obama has not done lately.
In an interview Thursday, Pinchuk said that he had invited Trump to express his views because he was leading the GOP presidential field by huge margins in the polls and, therefore, he thought it important for Ukrainians to learn more about Trump and his foreign policy views.
Asked by Doug Schoen, a Democratic pollster and Fox news commentator, what he would do about Ukraine’s conflict with Russia if he were elected, Trump told the 350 conferees that Ukraine was not “given the proper respect from other parts of Europe,” which he would remedy, and that Obama, too, was not doing enough to help Ukraine, a comment that prompted applause and a few cheers from a largely skeptical crowd.
In his 20-minute appearance in Kiev, which was frequently interrupted by satellite connection problems, Trump repeated much of what he has told Americans. He called Obama a leader who “waffles.” He called his recent deal with Iran to prevent the radical regime from acquiring nuclear weapons one of “the worst contracts that anybody has seen.”
Trump also supported the creation of a “safe zone” in Syria, saying that he doubted Europeans could handle the massive influx of refugees from the Middle East. The world, he said, was getting ever more dangerous. “There’s conflict everywhere,” he said, noting that Ukraine had withstood many challenges and crises that would have crushed other countries.
Trump’s remarks about the need to support Ukraine differed from his statements in August in which he predicted that he would “get along very well with Putin” because he knew “many of his people: and had hosted a major event for him two years ago in Moscow. “It was a tremendous success,” said Trump, praising his own accomplishments, a hallmark of his stump speeches.
He said he was running because “I love my country, but it’s having a lot problems." Americans, he added, supported him because they wanted someone “who’s strong and frankly, can make American great again.”
Reaction to Trump’s appearance here and his remarks was decidedly mixed. Several participants seemed aghast that Pinchuk would invite so polarizing an upstart in American  politics to address the 12th annual gathering of political and academic heavyweights.
Dominique Strauss Khan, the former French political superstar whose career was felled by allegations that he had sexually abused a maid in a New York hotel, called Trump’s appearance“incredible.” Several Ukrainian and European participants asked incredulously whether Trump could actually secure his party’s presidential nomination. But while Trump’s speech from New York was initially greeted by some jeers in the conference hall, he received polite, if not enthusiastic, applause at the abrupt end of the linkup.
For his part, Trump said he had agreed to speak because he had known and admired Pinchuk for years. What went unsaid was Trump’s apparent desire to counter the American public’s perception that he knows and cares little about foreign policy.

Russia warns US of ‘unintended incidents’ over Syria

Obama has made America look Weak to the rest of the World. But the Democrats just blindly keep following him.

The growing rift between the United States and Russia over concerns that Moscow is employing its military to protect the Middle East nation's embattled president appeared to widen Friday when a Russian official called for military cooperation with Washington in order to avoid "unintended incidents."
The comments were made after Western intelligence sources told Fox News that Russia escalated its presence in the country days after a secret Moscow meeting in late July between Iran's Quds Force commander -- their chief exporter of terror -- and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Officials who have monitored the build-up say they've seen more than 1,000 Russian combatants -- some of them from the same plainclothes Special Forces units who were sent to Crimea and Ukraine. Some of these Russian troops are logistical specialists and needed for security at the expanding Russian bases.
President Obama warned Russia on Friday against “doubling down” on sending support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, calling the pursuit a "mistake."
"But we are going to be engaging Russia to let them know that you can't continue to double-down on a strategy that is doomed to failure," Obama said at a Maryland event.
Russia denies allegations that it is helping to build Assad's military. Moscow claimed its increased military presence is part of an international effort to help defeat the Islamic State. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on world powers to join Russia in that pursuit, arguing that Syria’s army is the most efficient force to fight extremists in the Middle East.
"You cannot defeat Islamic State with air strikes only," Lavrov said, a clear dig at the White House’s strategy. "It's necessary to cooperate with ground troops and the Syrian army is the most efficient and powerful ground force to fight the IS."
Reuters reported that Russia also called for military-to-military cooperation with the U.S. to avert "unintended incidents."
Moscow's recent support of Assad has dampened U.S. hopes that Moscow was tiring of the Syrian president. Syria has been dripped by a long-lasting civil war for more than four years, a conflict that has claimed more than 250,000 lives and created a vacuum for extremism to thrive.
U.S. officials have been gauging Russia’s willingness to help restart a political process to remove Assad from power. Obama, however, noted that the prospect of that happening its very grim in light of new Russian action in the region.
"It could prevent us from arriving at the political solution that's ultimately needed to bring a peace back to Syria," he said.
Secretary of State John Kerry has lashed out at Russia’s presence in Syria, warning the recent buildup could lead to an escalation of the bloody conflict.
Despite the warnings from the U.S., Lavrov said Russia would continue to supply Assad with weapons that he said will help defeat Islamic State fighters.
"I can only say, once again, that our servicemen and military experts are there to service Russian military hardware, to assist the Syrian army in using this hardware," he said at a news conference in Moscow. "And we will continue to supply it to the Syrian government in order to ensure its proper combat readiness in its fight against terrorism."

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