Saturday, January 11, 2020

Syrian Bashar Assad Putin Cartoons


Stupid UN.







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Russia scores victory for ally Syria in UN vote cutting aid

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, Syrian President Bashar Assad, left, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, center, visit the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020. Putin has traveled to Syria to meet with President Bashar Assad, a key Iranian ally. The rare visit Tuesday comes amid soaring tensions between Iran and the United States following the U.S. drone strike last week that killed a top Iranian general who led forces supporting Assad in Syria's civil war. (Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia scored a victory for its close ally Syria on Friday, using its veto threat to force the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution significantly reducing the delivery of cross-border humanitarian aid and cutting off critical medical assistance to over one million Syrians in the northeast.
Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Karen Pierce accused Russia of playing politics with humanitarian aid for the first time in the nearly nine-year Syrian conflict, and “playing dice with the lives of Syrian people in the northeast.”
U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft accused Russia of “triumphantly” supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s goveernment “to starve its opposition.” And she warned: “Syrians will suffer needlessly ... (and) Syrians will die as a result of this resolution.”
The resolution adopted by the U.N.’s most powerful body reduces the number of crossing points for aid deliveries from four to just two, from Turkey to the mainly rebel-held northwest as Russia demanded. It also cuts in half the year-long mandate that has been in place since cross-border deliveries began in 2014 to six months, as Moscow insisted.
The vote capped months of contentious negotiations and came on the day the current mandate for cross-border aid deliveries to Syria expires. It also reflected the deep divisions that have prevented the Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, from taking any significant action to end the Syrian conflict.
The resolution that was finally voted on by the 15-member council, received 11 “yes” votes and 4 abstentions from Russia, China, the United States and United Kingdom.
Indonesia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Muhsin Syihab, who voted in favor of the resolution, said afterward he believed all council members were “equally unhappy.”
Germany, Belgium and Kuwait, backed by the U.S., Britain, France and other council nations, initially wanted to add a fifth crossing point and extend the mandate for a year. But to meet Russia’s demands and avoid a total cutoff of cross-border aid they watered-down their resolution to two points for six months.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said last month that cross-border aid was meant to be a temporary response to the Syrian conflict and the situation on the ground has changed. He said the Jordan crossing point hasn’t been used “for a lengthy period of time” and the volume through the Iraqi crossing “is insignificant ... and could be done from Syria” so only the Turkish crossing points are needed — points he reiterated on Friday.
By contrast, the U.N. humanitarian office said it has been supporting 4 million Syrians through cross-border aid deliveries — 2.7 million in the northwest and 1.3 million in the northeast.
According to the U.N., 40 percent of all medical, surgical and health supplies to the northeast, along with water and sanitation supplies, are delivered through the Al Yarubiyah crossing point in Iraq.
U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council in November that the U.N. provided 1.1 million people with food through cross-border deliveries in October, double the number in January.
“There is no alternative to the cross-border operation,” he stressed. “There is no Plan B.”
Many countries that voted for the resolution expressed disappointment that more crossing points weren’t included, but said they did so to save lives in Idlib province and other opposition areas in the northwest.
Germany’s U.N. Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, who co-sponsored the resolution, stressed “the heavy price” it came with. He appealed to Russia to get more than eight trucks with medical aid waiting at the now-closed Iraqi border crossing at Al Yarubiyah into northeast Syria.
Craft, the U.S. ambassador, said all U.N. officials agree that the humanitarian situation in Syria is worsening, and she called the watered-down resolution demanded by Russia “shocking, comprehensive indifference to human suffering.” She said: “In abstaining, we are lending a voice to four million Syrians entering the heart of winter.”
Pierce, the British ambassador, said: “We won’t vote to stop vital aid from reaching Syria, but neither will we vote in favor of a resolution that reduces aid provision to vulnerable populations and puts lives at risk.”
Nebenzia said he abstained even though Russia got just two crossing points from Turkey — Bab al-Salam and Bab al-Hawa — and a six-month extension because Moscow didn’t agree with everything in the German and Belgium sponsored resolution.
China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said Beijing has always had “reservations” about cross-border humanitarian deliveries to Syria. He called for “the will of its government” to be respected in such deliveries, a point Nebenzia also stressed.
But Pierce said cross-border deliveries do not require consent from the Syrian government.
Nebenzia said aid is getting into the northeast, where Syrian Kurds established an autonomous zone in 2012 and were U.S. partners on the ground in fighting the Islamic State extremist group. A Turkish offensive in October against Syrian Kurdish militants led the U.S. to abandon its Kurdish allies, both countries drawing strong criticism.
Nebenzia said Russia supported a provision in the resolution requesting Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to report to the Security Council by the end of February “on the feasibility of using alternative modalities for the (Iraqi) border crossing of Al Yarubiyah in order to ensure that humanitarian assistance, including medical and surgical supplies, reaches people in need throughout Syria through the most direct routes.”
The resolution also calls on U.N. humanitarian agencies “to improve monitoring of the delivery and distribution of United Nations relief consignments and their delivery inside Syria.”
Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari told the council that since the beginning of the conflict, the government “has made efforts to deliver aid without any discrimination” and its priority is to improve the humanitarian situation in the country.
Pierce responded saying Britain will be pursuing Syria’s aid deliveries to its own people in the future, “and we will be holding what he said to account.” She said she will also take Jaáfari’s words “as a commitment” to allow humanitarian organizations access to Syria to distribute humanitarian assistance to people most in need.
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Omar, Tlaib balk after report of Trump administration plan to expand travel ban: 'Straight up racism!'


Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., expressed outrage Friday after a report said the Trump administration was considering an expansion of the nation's travel ban to cover more countries.
In a statement, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley neither confirmed nor denied the expansion report but defended the existing policy.
“The Travel Ban has been very successful in protecting our Country and raising the security baseline around the world," Gidley said. "While there are no new announcements at this time, common-sense and national security both dictate that if a country wants to fully participate in U.S. immigration programs, they should also comply with all security and counter-terrorism measures -- because we do not want to import terrorism or any other national security threat into the United States."
Nevertheless, Omar and Tlaib both addressed the travel ban Friday.
“What do 5 out of 7 of these countries have in common? They are Muslim-majority countries the President already tried to ban,” Omar tweeted.
It wasn't clear whether she was referring to the currently banned countries or a potential list.
“We need to pass the #NoBanAct immediately to stop this madness," she added.
Tlaib called the ban “Straight up racism!”
“No more waiting,” she tweeted. “Too many Muslims have been intentionally targeted, discriminated against, separated from their families and denied opportunities solely based on their faith.”
The administration’s travel ban, which has been through several rounds of litigation and iterations, currently includes seven countries (with certain exceptions) not allowed to fly to the United States: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela and North Korea.
Some confusion ensued at airports across the country in 2017 -- about who was allowed in and who wasn’t -- after President Trump signed the original travel ban into law through an executive order just seven days after taking office. Massive protests added to the disorder.
Trump’s first version of the travel ban -- dubbed by critics as "the Muslim ban" because it called for a 90-day travel from Muslim-majority countries Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen -- proposed blocking refugee admissions for 120 days and suspended travel from Syria and was immediately blocked by the courts.

​​​​​​​U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., left, and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., at a news conference in Washington, March 13, 2019. (Getty Images)
​​​​​​​U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., left, and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., at a news conference in Washington, March 13, 2019. (Getty Images)

A watered-down version was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote.
The list of banned countries could potentially be doubled from seven to 14, two people familiar with the proposal told the Associated Press. Iraq, Sudan and Chad could be on the list, a different person said.
The added countries would most likely be Muslim-majority - a point of controversy as Trump openly floated the possibility of banning all Muslims from entering the U.S. while running for president.
The expanded ban would reportedly be part of a hyper-focus on immigration for the 2020 election.
A document outlining the plan has been circulating around the West Wing, but the listed countries have been blacked out.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., called the proposal "xenophobic."
“An expanded Muslim Ban will worsen our relationships with countries around the world. It won't do anything to make our country safer. It will harm refugees, alienate our allies and give extremists propaganda for recruitment," she said.
Trump criticized the Justice Department in 2017 for making changes to the original ban, tweeting they “should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report. 
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Homeland Security officials announce milestone in southern border wall construction

FILE – In this Sept. 10, 2019 file photo, government contractors erect a section of 
Pentagon-funded border wall along the Colorado River in Yuma, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 8:05 PM PT — Friday, January 10, 2020
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf provided an update on the construction of the U.S. border wall on Friday. While speaking in Yuma, Arizona, Wolf marked a milestone for the Trump administration by announcing 100 new miles of southern border wall have been completed.
Homeland Security officials later posted a video to Twitter, saying new stretches of the wall were constructed in every border state “from California to Texas.”
Republican Sen. Martha McSally also joined him on the trip. She said Border Patrol agents will now be able to stop illegal activity because border walls work.
Wolf provided assurances that Homeland Security keeps the safety and well-being of the local communities.
“We continue to be transparent on everything that we do. We continue to reach out to land owners. We continue to engage local communities, local representatives, elected officials and the like. So there’s nothing that we’re trying to hide here, we’re very transparent about it. We’ll continue to be very cognizant of any environmental issues that we address.”
– Chad Wolf, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security
Construction crews are aiming to finish 450 miles of the border wall by the end of 2020.
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Iran admits ‘human error’ resulted in Ukrainian plane being shot down ‘unintentionally’

In this Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020 photo, rescue workers search the scene where a Ukrainian plane crashed in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 8:30 PM PT — Friday, January 10, 2020
Iranian state media is saying human error led to a Ukrainian flight to be shot down. Friday evening reports cited Iranian military officials, who reportedly said the nation “unintentionally” shot down the Boeing 737.
The flight was brought down shortly after takeoff from Tehran’s international airport on Wednesday. All 176 passengers on board were killed in the crash, including 63 Canadian citizens.

In this Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020 photo, bodies of the victims of a Ukrainian plane crash are collected by rescue team at the scene of the crash in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran. Iran on Friday denied Western allegations that one of its own missiles downed a Ukrainian jetliner that crashed outside Tehran, and called on the U.S. and Canada to share any information they have on the crash, which killed all 176 people on board. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier claimed the evidence showed Iranian military involvement. His remarks came after reports quoted senior U.S. Defense and Intelligence officials, who said the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile system.
“We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence,” stated Trudeau. “The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.”
President Trump has also said he does not believe mechanical failure caused the Ukrainian jet to crash. On Thursday, he said the plane was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood and somebody could have made a mistake.
“At some point, they’ll release the black box,” he said. “I have a feeling that something very terrible happened.”
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Friday, January 10, 2020

John Kerry Cartoons









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NJ vaccine bill eliminating religion as student exemption is likely to advance after Senate deal: reports


A large group of demonstrators gathered outside the Statehouse in Trenton, N.J., on Thursday to protest a controversial bill that would remove religion as a legal reason for parents not vaccinating public school students.
The bill passed the state House last month but stalled in the Senate. But senators reportedly reached a deal Thursday that is expected to result in Senate approval on Monday, reports said.
The proposal would then head to Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who hasn't been clear about whether he backs the plan or not.
The latest development came despite some 1,000 "anti-vaxx" protesters showing up Thursday. Many shouted “Kill the bill!” after a Republican, state Sen. Declan O’Scanlon, who had called for an amendment to give parents who choose not to vaccinate their children another choice besides homeschooling, agreed to cast the deciding vote in favor of it.
Parents who don't allow their children to be vaccinated can send them to private school and daycare, O'Scanlon said, adding that another amendment says public schools must accept an unvaccinated child if there’s evidence a vaccine harmed one of their siblings.
“I think we need to do all we can to maximize vaccine compliance,” O'Scanlon added.
“I think we need to do all we can to maximize vaccine compliance.”
— New Jersey state Sen. Declan O’Scanlon
Some protesters shouted “Murderer!” and “Traitor!” from inside the Senate gallery as lawmakers voted 18-15 to approve the amendments.
“This type of amendment will once again allow the wealthy to buy their way out of a law via private schools,” Sue Collins, co-founder of the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice told NJ.com. “Unless you have enough money, your religious beliefs are not valid.”
“This type of amendment will once again allow the wealthy to buy their way out of a law via private schools. Unless you have enough money, your religious beliefs are not valid.”
— Sue Collins, co-founder, New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice
Andrea Kelly chooses not to vaccinate her children and protested Thursday because she said she can’t afford to send her children to a private school.
Beata Savreski, the mother of three boys, drove to the capital for the first time to make her voice heard.
“I want to preserve our rights as parents,” she said.
Republican state Sen. Gerald Cardinale called the bill “a deliberate attack on religious freedom.”
State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat, said the bill is a “public health issue” and said he expects it to pass on Monday when the chamber reconvenes.
“We’re either going to get it done now or we’re going to get it done in the next session, but by all means this is getting done,” Sweeney told NorthJersey.com. “It’s the right health care policy and it’s based on science, unlike what [the protesters are] chanting and saying. They have a right to their opinion.”
It’s not the first time the protesters have voiced their disapproval. They came out to the Statehouse in large numbers when the state Assembly passed the bill last month.
The bill was prompted by a recent outbreak of measles in New Jersey.
More than 1,200 cases of measles were reported in 31 states in 2019, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
If Murphy signs the bill into law, it would take effect six months later.
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Trump, at Ohio rally, says Democrats would have leaked Soleimani attack plans


Flush with campaign cash and facing down a possible Senate impeachment trial, President Trump headlined his first major rally of the election year Thursday in Ohio -- and almost immediately, the president capitalized on his order to take out Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani after the military leader was said to have orchestrated an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.
In unequivocal terms, Trump slammed House Democrats' nonbinding War Powers Resolution, which passed earlier in the day in a rebuke to the Soleimani strike. Trump went on to suggest that Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and "Liddle' pencil-neck" House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., would have tipped off the media about the operation had they known about it.
"They're saying, 'You should get permission from Congress, you should come in and tell us what you want to do -- you should come in and tell us, so that we can call up the fake news that's back there, and we can leak it,'" Trump said. "Lot of corruption back there."
The president added that it would have been impractical to have alerted Congress, given the "split-second" nature of the decision to kill Soleimani.
Separately, Trump said he hoped former Vice President Joe Biden would become the Democrats' presidential nominee, and pledged he would highlight what he called the Bidens' corruption all throughout the campaign.
"He will hear, 'Where's Hunter?',' every single debate nine times at the podium," Trump vowed, in reference to Biden's son, who largely has stayed out of public view after it emerged that he held lucrative overseas board roles while his father was vice president.
Republicans have accused Hunter Biden, who recently was determined to have fathered a child with an Arkansas ex-stripper, of selling access to his father.
Trump was speaking before a packed crowd in Toledo after apparently pulling back from the brink of war with Iran earlier this week, and just hours after officials announced that Iran likely shot down a civilian airliner carrying dozens of Canadians, apparently by mistake. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested the U.S. might bear responsibility, and he declined to condemn Iran.
For the most part, the rally focused on the Iran strike and the response to it from the political left.
"The radical left Democrats have expressed outrage over the termination of this horrible terrorist," Trump said. "Instead, they should be outraged by Soleimani's savage crimes and the fact that his countless victims were denied justice for so long."
Trump said he had acted swiftly after the earlier attack at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and essentially overruled a commander who said the military response would not arrive until the next day. The situation, Trump said, easily could have become "another Benghazi" -- a reference to the deadly 2012 attack at the U.S. consulate in Libya.
"I said, 'nope, get in the planes right now, have them there immediately!'" Trump said. "And, they got there immediately. ... If you dare threaten our citizens, you do so at your own grave peril."
Former President Obama, Trump added, had erred by giving billions to Iran as part of the mostly defunct Iran nuclear deal, including a massive cash payout loaded onto U.S. aircraft.
"By subsidizing Iran's maligned conduct, the last administration was leading the world down the path of war," Trump said. "We are restoring our world to the path of peace, peace through strength."
The campaign event offered Trump an opportunity to spotlight before a friendly crowd his decision to order the deadly drone strike against Soleimani, while keeping the U.S. -- at least for the moment -- out of a wider military conflict.
Trump also emphasized the booming economy, including a strong stock market and historically low unemployment rates.
"Unemployment has reached the lowest level in over 51 years," Trump said. "African-American, Hispanic American and Asian American unemployment have all reached the lowest rates ever, ever, ever recorded. Wages are rising fast, and the biggest percentage increase -- makes me happy -- are for blue-collar workers. Forty million American families are now benefiting from the Republican child-tax credit, each receiving an average of over $2,200 a year."
Trump added that getting rid of "job-killing regulations" had helped spur the industrial sector. He later invoked the destructive and widespread "yellow vest" protests in France, which had started out of frustration with high taxes on gas.
"If you dare threaten our citizens, you do so at your own grave peril."
— President Trump
"America lost 60,000 factories under the previous administration ... They're all coming back," Trump said. "And, right now, just in a very short period of time, we've added 12,000 brand new factories and many more are coming in."
The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement [USMCA], Trump said, would improve the economy further and make the U.S. automobile industry in particular more competitive.
The Democrats' policies, Trump argued, have produced chaos and poverty. Trump specifically ripped Pelosi, D-Calif., for living in a mansion in San Francisco, even as her "disgusting" district filled with homeless people defecating on the streets.
Trump additionally touted the recent appellate court ruling that green-lit funding for his border wall, slammed "late-term abortion and ripping babies right from the mother's womb right up until the mother's womb," and highlighted Obama's broken promise to ensure Americans could keep their doctors under his health-care plan.
"We will protect patients with preexisting conditions, and we will protect your preexisting physician," Trump vowed.
The president's reelection campaign already had used Facebook ads to highlight Trump’s decision to strike Soleimani, regarded as Iran’s second-most-powerful official.
"We caught a total monster, and we took him out, and that should have happened a long time ago,” Trump said before departing Washington earlier in the day.
Last week’s killing of Soleimani brought long-simmering tensions between the U.S. and Iran to a boil. Iran, in retaliation, fired a barrage of missiles this week at two military bases in neighboring Iraq that have housed hundreds of U.S. troops. But, with no reported injuries to U.S. or Iraqi troops, Trump said he had no plans to take further military action against Iran and instead would enact more sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
The Iran crisis, which momentarily overshadowed Trump's looming impeachment trial, also has opened a new front in the 2020 presidential campaign for Trump, who in 2016 campaigned in part on a promise to end American involvement in "endless wars."
Trump entered the election year flush with over $100 million in campaign cash, a low unemployment rate and an unsettled field of Democrats seeking to challenge him. Yet, polling showed he remained vulnerable.
Back in December, an AP-NORC poll showed Trump's approval rating at 40 percent. No more recent major polls have emerged to gauge support for the president in the wake of the targeted killing of Soleimani, though opinions of Trump have changed little over the course of his presidency.
Trump has never fallen into historic lows for a president’s approval ratings, but Gallup polling showed his December rating registered lower than that of most recent presidents at the same point in their first terms. Notably, approval of Trump and Obama in the Decembers before their reelection bids was roughly the same.
For Trump to win reelection, securing Ohio's 18 electoral votes will be critical. He won Ohio by eight points in 2016, after Obama held the state in 2008 and 2012. The visit to Toledo marked Trump's 15th appearance in Ohio as president.
Trump has anchored his reelection messaging around a solid national economy with an unemployment rate of 3.5 percent. But, people in parts of the industrial Midwest have said they've been left behind, especially as the manufacturing sector has struggled over the past year in response to slower worldwide economic growth and trade tensions with China.
Labor Department figures showed construction and factory jobs slumping in Ohio. In nearby Michigan, manufacturers were shedding workers as well, but so were that state’s employers in the health care, education and social assistance sectors.
But, the Toledo area pointed at an even more alarming trend in an otherwise healthy economy. The Glass City has shedded over 6 percent of its white-collar jobs in the professional and business services sector over the past year, causing the total number of jobs to slump slightly from a year ago.
As an incumbent, Trump has been able to use his position to build a massive campaign cash reserve at a time when Democrats have been raising and spending theirs in a competitive primary. Although many White House hopefuls, most notably Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, have pulled in massive sums, there has been no clear front-runner, and many party officials have been girding for a protracted contest that could further bleed the eventual nominee of resources.
Trump, meanwhile, raised $46 million in the final quarter of 2019 and had over $102 million cash on hand at the end of the year. The Republican National Committee [RNC], which hasn’t faced as strict a set of contribution limits as the candidate, raised even more. Under the current rules, the RNC won’t have to release its December fundraising numbers until the end of the month.
Asked how much he was willing to spend on his reelection, Trump said, "I literally haven't even thought about it." He added: "I will say this: Because of the impeachment hoax, we're taking in numbers that nobody ever expected. You saw the kind of numbers we're reporting. We're blowing everybody away."
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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