bernie sanders cartoon

HILLARY CAN’T ESCAPE OBAMA ON ISIS
In a debate held one day after the worst terror attack in the West since 2004, the most noteworthy remarks presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton made about Islamist terrorism were to excuse ties to Wall St.

No, seriously.

Clinton said her close relationship with the financial sector grew out of her work to help them rebuild after 9/11. “It was good for the economy,” she said. “And it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country.”

So, by that logic, her huge personal and political buckraking was kind of a rebuke to the terrorists, itself. Her status as a Wall St. favorite certainly predates 9/11, but she suggested that the relationship she forged in those dark days spurred an even greater outpouring of support and gratitude in the form of checks.

Now, this says a great deal about Clinton’s meagre gifts as a politician. But it also tells you something about where her party’s priorities are.

Invoking 9/11 is something that ought to be done only when relevant, which Clinton’s was not, and only when facing oblivion. In that case, Clinton was right. Her exposure on the issue of banker nuzzling is much higher in the Democratic primary than the issue of Islamist terrorism.

Republicans today can talk of little else than national security, Paris, refugees and ISIS. But Democrats, even a day after the attacks, were seemingly eager to get off the subjects. The campaign of also-ran Sen. Bernie Sanders was proud to have fought to have limited the amount of the discussion that would involve national security.

Woof.

But Sanders is probably right. There’s not a lot of sense in debating the issue among Democrats since they are in substantial agreement with President Obama. While both Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley tried to look for ways to draw decorous differences with Obama, they are in tune with his larger strategy of containing ISIS and waiting for the aspiring caliphate to die of asphyxiation or, perhaps, boredom.

Clinton has some differences of opinion with Obama, but she isn’t free to discuss them. Not only would she risk backlash from liberals and raise Obama’s ire, but, as moderator John Dickerson ably pointed out, the last foreign intervention Clinton encouraged, the regime change plan for Libya, is a thoroughgoing disaster.

So even as Clinton should be moving beyond Obama’s reach and into a no-contest Democratic nomination, he holds this power over her: If she gets too squirmy on his foreign policy, he will leave her to the foreign policy wolves on the right and left.

And on the issue that will dominate the coming week or more of the campaign – how many, if any Syrian refugees the U.S. should accept – Clinton will not be able to pioneer a position that might be attractive to voters. She will have to stand by Obama and say that she also thinks accepting tens of thousands of refugees from Syria is the right thing to do.

And you know the refugee issue is key to Obama. The only emotion beyond annoyance that he displayed in his first press conference after Paris was anger at Sen. Ted Cruz, who has suggested a religious test for the refugees in order to screen out Muslims, and Sen. Marco Rubio, who simply wants to stop the flow altogether.

Israel bans Islamist party, claiming it is inciting violence

JERUSALEM –  Israel announced Tuesday it has outlawed an Islamist party accused of inciting violence among the country's Arab citizens, as part of measures to stamp out a two month-long deadly escalation.
The government declared the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement of Israel illegal, saying its activists could be subject to arrest if they violate the ban.
The party, which provides religious and educational services for Israeli Arabs, routinely accuses Israel of trying to take over a sensitive holy site in Jerusalem, a charge Israel denies. The site is at the heart of the latest surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence.
After the decision, Israeli forces searched more than a dozen of the group's offices around the country, seizing computers, files and funds, police said. Authorities also froze its bank accounts and said that 17 organizations affiliated with the party were served with orders to close down.
Israel's Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan linked the decision to the attacks in Paris, saying in a statement that "Israel must act as an example and spearhead the struggle against radical Islam whose emissaries we saw massacring innocent people in Paris" and elsewhere.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "the goal is to stop the dangerous incitement at home and prevent harm to innocent life."
Radical cleric Raed Salah, the group's leader, was defiant, saying his party would fight the measure and continue its mission.
"All these measures done by the Israeli establishment are oppressive and condemned," Salah said in a statement, adding that he and two other party leaders were summoned to police questioning.
Separately, Salah is set to start an 11-month jail term later this month in connection with incitement charges from a 2007 sermon.
The ban sparked outrage among Arab leaders and lawmakers who condemned the move.
Mohammed Barakeh, the head of an umbrella group of Arab Israeli political parties and community leaders, called the decision "an unjustified draconian step." The umbrella organization was set to hold an emergency meeting about the ban.
The Jerusalem hilltop compound, holy to both Jews and Muslims, houses the Al-Aqsa mosque and is the third holiest site in Islam. It is the holiest site in Judaism and was home to the biblical Jewish Temples.
The current round of violence erupted in mid-September over rumors that Israel was trying to expand Jewish presence at the Jerusalem shrine and spread to the West Bank, Israeli cities and the Gaza border. Palestinian attacks, mainly stabbings, have killed 14 Israelis, and at least 83 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, including 51 Israel says were involved in assaults. The rest were killed in clashes with security forces.
Salah has alleged in speeches and annual rallies under the heading "Al-Aqsa is in Danger" that Israel plans to expand its control there.
Since 2001, the Islamic Movement has bused tens of thousands of supporters to the mosque compound every year to strengthen the Muslim presence.
Several years ago, the movement helped form groups of male and female activists, known as "Morabitoun" -- loosely translated as defenders of Islamic lands -- who spend hours each weekday at the shrine trying to disrupt visits by Jews.
During periods of tension, police at times block busloads of Islamic Movement supporters from Jerusalem. Earlier this year, Israel outlawed three associations suspected of funding the Morabitoun and later declared the groups illegal.
Israel says the violence is the result of incitement from Palestinian leaders and has blamed the Islamic Movement for fanning the flames among the country's Arabs. The Palestinians say the violence stems from frustration over nearly half a century of Israeli occupation.
In its struggle to contain the violence, Israel has beefed up security across the country, sending hundreds of soldiers to back up police, and setting up checkpoints and concrete barriers in Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, where many of the attackers have come from.

Trump’s attacks on Carson’s 'crap': Why he’s not backing down

When a politician engages in inflammatory rhetoric, his aides often try to walk it back, tone it down, claim things were taken out of context, followed by a terse regret-if-anyone-was-offended statement.
Not with Donald Trump.
When Trump delivered a 95-minute rant in Iowa last week, kicking the “crap” (to use one of his favorite words) out of Ben Carson, his camp was thrilled.
A senior Trump adviser told me the candidate wouldn’t take back a single word. Carson’s life story is riddled with fallacies, as the Trump camp sees it, and the burden is on the doctor to prove that any questionable incidents happened.
Trump is the guy who’s not afraid to touch the third rail, the adviser says, even if it flies in the face of political correctness.
In my view, the burden is on Carson’s critics to disprove his account of events from his past. Politico, CNN and the Wall Street Journal all fell short with stories that were underreported or overhyped.
There was no urgent need for Trump to pile on, giving the media’s role in driving these stories. But he has an unerring instinct for an opponent’s weakness.
So using a word from Carson’s autobiography to describe his temper as a teenager, Trump told the crowd: “He said he's pathological and got a pathological disease. I don't want a person who's got pathological disease. If you're pathological, there's no cure for that, folks. I did one of the shows today, I said that if you're a child molester, a sick puppy, there's no cure for that.”
Child molester? That’s quite a pivot.
Then he mocked the stabbing story, grabbing his belt, his voice dripping with sarcasm: “He took a knife and went after a friend and lunged but low and behold it hit the belt and the knife broke. Give me a break.”
And he questioned whether the people of Iowa, and the country, were “stupid” to “believe this crap.”
The media’s tone in reporting on this has ranged from disapproval to disbelief—this time he’s gone too far, he was desperate, he was way over the top. And it was over the top. Take this New York Times headline: “Some See Attacks by Donald Trump As Start of His Downfall.” Some see—I wonder who.
How many times have we been through these media predictions of Trump’s imminent demise? What Trump’s fans love about him is that he does go too far, that he entertains by being outrageous, because they see that as thumbing his nose at a discredited political establishment.
Carson, who has had very tough words for the media and their "lies," always deflects questions about Trump’s assaults. When I interviewed him last week, he dialed things down by calmly explaining the meaning of the word pathological.
At a news conference on Friday, he talked about a “gratuitous attack” without using Trump’s name. He also invoked a signature Bill Clinton phrase from the 1992 campaign, “the politics of personal destruction.”
It would tarnish Carson’s brand to get into a street fight with Trump, who, in rhetorical terms, always carries a knife. And while Carson’s reticence often frustrates reporters, that calm, measured approach is at the heart of his appeal to voters.
Why would a candidate volunteer that he tried to knife someone and almost hit his mother in the head with a hammer? Because his is a story of redemption. He found religion a half century ago, turned his life around and became a leading neurosurgeon.
When I asked him about his account of his teenage years, Carson said: “Well, I believe in full disclosure, and if I hadn't revealed that, then that would have been a story. Because then you say”—here he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper—“do you know what this guy did, oh my God.”
From Trump’s perspective, the swipes against Carson both raise doubt about his temperament and reinforce the billionaire’s reputation for toughness. His camp sees the same dynamic in his immigration message—which now comes with talk of a “deportation force”—in that Trump is the guy who knocks heads and speaks uncomfortable truths. And the appalling terror attacks in Paris will only reinforce that message.
Whether Trump goes too far—or whether voters see him as an insult comic taking on worthy targets—won’t truly be known until the Iowa caucuses.

France carries out fresh ISIS airstrikes as report claims allies targeted Paris attack mastermind

Belgian believed to be behind Paris attacks

French warplanes carried out airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria for a second consecutive night early Tuesday, as a new report claimed the U.S. and its allies had in recent weeks targeted the Belgian jihadist suspected of masterminding Friday's terror attacks in Paris.
The AFP news agency, citing France's Defense Ministry, reported that a total of 16 bombs were dropped from ten fighter jets that targeted a command center and training center in Raqqa, the capital of the ISIS "caliphate." The ministry's statement said the airstrikes were "conducted in coordination with US forces" and "aimed at sites identified during reconnaissance missions previously carried out by France."
Late Sunday, the first round of French airstrikes since the attacks that killed 129 people hit a dozen ISIS targets, including a command and recruitment center, a munitions depot, and a terrorist training camp.
The airstrikes came as The Wall Street Journal, citing two Western security officials, reported that 27-year-old Abdelhamid Abaaoud had been sought as a target for an airstrike, but could not be located. A Western intelligence official told the paper that efforts to monitor communications between Abaaoud in Syria and jihadists in Europe were complicated by an inability to tell whether Abaaoud or his teenage brother was speaking.
Abaaoud was named by French officials Monday as the key figure suspected of planning and organizing the Paris attacks, which included a series of suicide bombings outside the country's national stadium and a massacre at a concert hall during a rock-and-roll show by an American band.

More on this...

• Did US intelligence miss Paris terror warning signs?

• Manhunt under way for escaped Paris attack suspect

• Confronting ISIS following the Paris terror attacks

French officials who identified Abaaoud as a prime suspect to the Associated Press cited chatter from ISIS figures that Abaaoud had recommended a concert as an ideal target for inflicting maximum casualties, as well as electronic communications between Abaaoud and one of the Paris attackers who blew himself up.
Western officials told the Journal they had no knowledge of the planned attacks on the French capital as they sought Abaaoud, and admitted they did not know whether his death would have been enough to stop the attacks, which were carried out by seven suicide attackers, including a set of three brothers.
A Belgian official told the Journal "it is certain" that Abaaoud knew Salah Abdeslam, who was being hunted by authorities across Europe early Tuesday on suspicion of his having been involved in the Paris terror. The two jihadists grew up not far from each other in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek and spent time in the same prison for petty crimes.
Abaaoud came to public notice in Belgium last year for taking his then 13-year-old brother with him to Syria and appearing in an ISIS propaganda video in which he boasted about his pride in piling the dead bodies of "infidel" enemies into a trailer. At some point, Abaaoud returned to Belgium, only to escape the authorities in January of this year after police foiled a plot to attack officers he had masterminded on behalf of a cell based in the Belgian town of Verviers. In the ensuing gun battle, two of Abaaoud's alleged accomplices were killed, but Abaaoud somehow escaped.
A Western intelligence official also told the Journal, citing interrogations of former French members of ISIS, that  at some point after the Verviers shooting, a core group of French-speaking Belgian radicals began organizing to plan attacks on public places in Europe. The countries targeted including France, Spain, Holland, and the United Kingdom.

ISIS CARTOON

'Act of War': Will Congress finally vote to declare war on ISIS, after Paris attacks?

How would Ted Cruz respond to terror attacks in Paris?

“It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army,” declared French President Francois Hollande about the chute of terror that flooded the streets of Paris on Friday night.
There it is. That word. “War.” And those words. “Act of war.”
Sophisticated world leaders such as Hollande tread lightly around these terms. There is a special time and a place for them. But Hollande left no doubt Friday.
“It is an act of war that was prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside,” Hollande said. He made no bones that “a jihadist army, Daesh” was responsible. “Daesh” is the Arabic abbreviation for ISIL or ISIS, whichever you prefer.
“France, because it was foully, disgracefully and violently attacked will be unforgiving with the Barbarians from Daesh,” Hollande added.
And there lies the question. How will France challenge these thugs? How will the United States and the rest of its allies combat them? Talk is cheap. Prayers and “Je Suis Charlie” and flowers and candlesticks outside the French Embassy in Washington are all nice. But what is the U.S. willing to do?
“There should be no doubt that ISIL poses a direct threat to the United States,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz.  “If the administration does not get more serious about combating it, our nation and our people will pay a grave price.”
“They are at war with us,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Fox. “This will be coming to America.”
There’s little doubt a “war” is on between radical Muslim terrorists and the West. And “this” has already come to America. 9/11. The Boston Marathon. Fort Hood. Foiled plots in Times Square and at LAX. An attempted shoe bomber. An attempted underwear bomber. Two separate sting operations netting suspects who aimed to blow up the U.S. Capitol.
“War” may have been declared by one side as Hollande and Cruz suggest. But not by the other. So that question rages on Capitol Hill: must Congress “declare war” or, at the very least, approve an authorization that grants the president and the Pentagon authority outlined in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to take the fight to the enemy?
As Syria deteriorated in August, 2013, President Obama floated the idea of updating the calcified 2001 and 2002 resolutions that Congress approved after 9/11 and prior to the most recent war in Iraq.
The legislative effort never got off the ground. Obama could never come within a stone’s throw of mustering the necessary votes to authorize military action. ISIL’s influence then grew and Obama reverted to simply notifying Congress “consistent with” the 1973 War Powers Resolution of various U.S. military exploits against the emerging ISIL threat in Iraq and parts of Syria.
The president can sometimes circumvent Congress under his constitutional powers as “commander in chief.” Today the U.S. regularly bombs ISIL targets. It appears to have knocked out “Jihadi John” with a drone strike this week. Troops are on the ground and the president just dispatched additional forces to the region a few days ago.
This is a muddled, sub-constitutional netherworld. Is the U.S. at war? It looks like war. And if Congress hasn’t voted to declare war or certify some military operation, then is this risk to the U.S. really as great as many suggest? Though Congress hasn’t voted to “declare war” since 1942, it has elected to do so on five occasions since the beginning of the republic.
Recently retired House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, repeatedly called on Obama to send Congress an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to fight ISIL. When the AUMF finally arrived months later, Boehner did not act upon it. Months after that, he asked the president to send another one.
The bottom line is the same as it was in the late summer of 2013: Congress can’t corral the votes to approve an AUMF. Some want tighter parameters. Others want looser parameters. Some fret about the money. Others believe the move would project the U.S. onto a treadmill of “endless war.”
After the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences, lawmakers don’t want to be on the hook voting for another war. By the same token, they don’t want make the wrong call and vote against war should a resolution hit the floors of the House and Senate.
So Congress remains in this glaciated state, afraid of war, wanting war. But not really doing much about it.
To be fair, part of the problem centers on whom the U.S. should fight? Certainly there is “territory” involved, occupied by ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
But this conflict is asymmetric. Obama got himself into hot water this week when he told ABC “our goal has been first to contain (ISIL) and we have contained them.” Obama added there is no “systematic march by ISIL across the terrain” and that “they have not gained ground in Iraq.”
That’s because this is not so much a battle over real estate -- but over hearts, minds and ideology.
In October, 2003, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld penned a memo asking a seminal question: “Are we capturing, killing or dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?”
Rumsfeld’s inquest is somewhat rhetorical. But it slices to the heart of the fight. Rumsfeld testified at a hearing of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in mid-May 2004. This was on the heels of the release of disturbing photographs from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The detention facility was home to numerous human rights violations engineered by the U.S. Army and CIA against Iraqi prisoners. Officials feared that the inhumane treatment of Iraqis at the prison would blossom as a global recruiting tool for radicals and jihadist.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, lit into Rumsfeld, pirouetting his touchstone question back at the Defense secretary.
“Are our mistakes in Iraq sowing the seeds for a whole new crop of terrorists, in Iraq and also in other countries? How do you answer the question you posed last October, today?” Leahy asked.
Nobody truly has the answer to this. But one can certainly speculate.
Maybe a congressional “war” declaration or the approval of an AUMF isn’t the way to go after all. How does one combat an ideology? A belief? Perhaps this isn’t a conventional war that demands a conventional response. The U.S. has certainly approached this in a conventional way -- sending troops to the region and flying regular bombing sorties. Still, the U.S. has mounted a “measured” front against ISIL, not plunging in feet first. That’s partly because of Iran/Afghanistan fatigue and the reluctance of Congress to get directly involved.
Certainly congressional Republicans have chastised the president for “not having a strategy” to fight ISIL. But few are willing to offer a concrete blueprint themselves.
Remember, this is a Congress dominated by Republicans in both chambers who howl constantly about Obama abusing his constitutional authority and pine to reassert the rights of the legislative branch.
Maybe the U.S. in fact effectively “declared” war just by dispatching forces, even if that doesn’t match the requirement mandated by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Signing off on something in the House and Senate could actually inflame the situation further. That said, a vote for war or an AUMF would undoubtedly focus the public and the U.S. on the seriousness of the situation.
There is no question there is a war on. And just not because Hollande says it is. And just because Congress votes to “declare” war or approve an AUMF -- or fails to do so -- doesn’t mean they’re any closer to winning anything. Especially when it’s a battle not for turf -- but for hearts and minds.
California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, argued Saturday that ISIS in the past two weeks has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris and Beirut and the bombing of a Russian airliner.
"The fight is quickly spreading outside Iraq and Syria, and that’s why we must take the battle to them," she said. “I strongly believe we need to further increase our efforts in Syria and Iraq directly and expand our support to partner nations in other countries where ISIL is operating. It has become clear that limited air strikes and support for Iraqi forces and the Syrian opposition are not sufficient to protect our country and our allies."

Minnesota Democrat ends bid for state assembly seat after sympathetic Islamic State tweet

 Dan Kimmel

 

MINNEAPOLIS –  A Democratic candidate for the Minnesota House ended his campaign Sunday, hours after he tweeted that the Islamic State group "isn't necessarily evil" and its members were doing what they thought was best for their community.
Dan Kimmel, 63, announced the end of his bid for office on his campaign website and Twitter account. He said Saturday evening's tweet was in response to a statement made during a candidate debate, not in response to Friday's violent attacks in Paris that left more than 120 people dead and more than 350 wounded.
He said his tweet was poorly worded and didn't convey his intent.
"The tweet was stupid. I'm sorry," he said in his statement. Kimmel did not return a message left Sunday by The Associated Press. His wife referred a reporter to the online statement.
Kimmel, of Burnsville, sent a tweet Saturday that said: "ISIS isn't necessarily evil. It is made up of people doing what they think is best for their community. Violence is not the answer, though." He was criticized on social media, and sent out another tweet later that said:  "I deplore the evil acts of ISIS. I do not defend their acts."
The original tweet led House Minority Leader Paul Thissen to call for Kimmel to apologize and immediately end his campaign, saying Kimmel's comment doesn't reflect the views of the House DFL caucus.
"We all mourn the loss of innocent lives in the horrific attacks on Paris and in other atrocities committed by ISIS around the world," Thissen said Saturday in a statement. "They are the embodiment of evil, and to state otherwise is an affront to those who've lost loved ones at their hands."
DFL chairman Ken Martin also sent out a statement condemning Kimmel's comments and asking him to apologize.
Kimmel said Sunday that the attacks in Paris and elsewhere are "cowardly and despicable." He said he condemns the Paris attacks and all violence, and his heart is with the people of France and families of those affected.
He also apologized to those who have invested time and money in his campaign, and said he was sorry for "spreading ick" on other candidates and the DFL party.
"I will do everything I can to help resolve the issue: most likely the best thing for me to do is shut up," he said.
Kimmel, who works in the technology and operations section at U.S. Bank, was challenging incumbent Drew Christensen, a Republican from Burnsville. Kimmel had lost the seat to Christensen last year.