Made in China Cartoons

US intel: China to put missiles on S China Sea man-made islands to guard airstrips

EXCLUSIVE: The U.S. intelligence community thinks the "hundreds" of surface-to-air missiles that China recently shipped to its Hainan Island in the South China Sea will be moved to the country’s nearby and disputed man-made islands in the coming months, two military officials told Fox News on Saturday.
The plan follows what U.S. intelligence officials say is Beijing’s expressed desire to protect its three airstrips on three of the man-made islands.
The missiles now on Hainan island, China’s largest in the South China Sea, are a combination of short- medium- and long-range weapons. And they include one battalion of the advanced SA-21 system, a long-range missle system that is based on fourth-generation Russian software and capable of knocking out aircraft from as far away as 250 miles.
The total number of surface-to-air missiles on Hainan could reach 500, one of the military officials told Fox News.
China shipping more surface-to-air missiles from the mainland to the South China Sea was first reported Friday by Fox News.
The new missiles have been seen by American intelligence satellites on China’s provincial island province of Hainan, which is not part the disputed islands.
Officials think the location is “only temporary” and likely a training site before the missiles are deployed in early 2017 to the contested Spratley Islands or Woody Island.
The two missile systems seen on Hainan island are known as the CSA-6b and HQ-9. The CSA-6b is a combined close-in missile system with a range of 10 miles and also contains anti-aircraft guns. The longer-range HQ-9 system has a range of 125 miles, and is roughly based on the Russian S-300 system.
This latest deployment of Chinese military equipment comes days after the Chinese returned an unclassified underwater research drone in the South China Sea. The Pentagon accused a Chinese Navy ship of stealing the drone, over the objections of the American crew operating it in international waters to collect oceanographic data.
The escalation comes weeks after President elect-Donald Trump received a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s president breaking decades-long “one-China” protocol and angering Beijing.
China has deployed surface-to-air missiles to Woody Island in the South China Sea before, as Fox News first reported in February.
It has yet to deploy missiles to its seven man-made islands in the Spratly chain of islands. Weeks ago, civilian satellite imagery obtained by a Washington, D.C., based think-tank showed gun emplacement on all the disputed islands, but not missiles.
Earlier this month, Fox News first reported China getting ready to deploy another missile defense system from a port in southeast China. China also flew a long-range bomber around the South China Sea for the first time since March 2015 and days after Mr. Trump’s phone call with his Taiwan counterpart.
Days before President Trump’s call, a pair of long-range H-6K bombers flew around the island of Taiwan for the first time.
Beijing has long expressed interest in fortifying its seven man-made islands in the South China Sea.
Last year, China’s President Xi Jinping pledged not to “militarize” the islands, in the Rose Garden at the White House.
“This another example of the adventurous and aggressiveness of the Chinese in the face of an anemic and feckless set of policies that we've seen over the last eight years,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, former head of Air Force intelligence, in an interview with Fox News.
This month, U.S. intelligence satellites also spotted components for the Chinese version of the SA-21 system at the port of Jieyang, in southeast China, where officials say China has made similar military shipments in the past to its islands in the South China Sea.
The Chinese SA-21 system is a more capable missile system than the HQ-9.

Democrats hound Trump over closure of foundation

Democrats are hounding President-elect Donald Trump over his decision to dissolve his charitable foundation, blasting the group as a “slush fund” and demanding he take additional steps to avoid conflicts of interest.
The incoming president announced Saturday that he’s directed his counsel to complete the closure.
Trump said in a statement: “I am very proud of the money that has been raised for many organizations in need, and I am also very proud of the fact that the Foundation has operated at essentially no cost for decades, with 100% of the money going to charity, but because I will be devoting so much time and energy to the Presidency and solving the many problems facing our country and the world, I don’t want to allow good work to be associated with a possible conflict of interest.”
But the Democratic National Committee signaled the decision wasn’t good enough for them.
Deputy Communications Director Eric Walker, in a statement, called the announcement a “wilted fig leaf to cover up his remaining conflicts of interest and his pitiful record of charitable giving.”
During the presidential campaign, Democrats sought to draw attention to controversies surrounding Trump’s foundation as Republicans hammered Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her family’s foundation – and its alleged conflicts while she was secretary of state.
Walker renewed those allegations in the wake of Trump’s announcement, saying his charity “has a pitiful record of service, and instead has served as a slush fund for Trump to bribe elected officials, attack his political enemies and buy portraits of himself.”
The statement also took a jab at the president-elect over his controversial business holdings: "Shuttering a charity is no substitute for divesting from his for-profit business and putting the assets in a blind trust -- the only way to guarantee separation between the Trump administration and the Trump business."
Walker further questioned how the shut-down would “accommodate the investigation into the foundation.”
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been investigating the foundation following media reports that foundation spending went to benefit Trump's campaign. A spokeswoman says the foundation cannot close until the investigation is complete.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press in September showed Schneiderman's scrutiny of The Donald J. Trump Foundation dated back to at least June, when his office formally questioned the donation made by the charity to a group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Bondi personally solicited the money during a 2013 phone call that came after her office received complaints from former students claiming they were scammed by Trump University.
The Trump Foundation check arrived just days after Bondi's office told a newspaper it was reviewing a lawsuit against Trump University filed by Schneiderman. Bondi's office never sued Trump, though she denies his donation played any role in that decision.
Trump later paid a $2,500 fine over the check from his foundation because it violated federal law barring charities from making political contributions.
A 2015 tax return posted on the nonprofit monitoring website GuideStar shows the Donald J. Trump Foundation acknowledged that it used money or assets in violation of IRS regulations -- not only during 2015, but in prior years.
Those regulations prohibit self-dealing by the charity. That's broadly defined as using its money or assets to benefit Trump, his family, his companies or substantial contributors to the foundation.
The tax filing doesn't provide details on the violations. Whether Trump benefited from the foundation's spending has been the subject of the Schneiderman probe.
In his statement on Saturday, Trump said his foundation has “done enormous good works over the years in contributing millions of dollars to countless worthy groups, including supporting veterans, law enforcement officers and children. However, to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President I have decided to continue to pursue my strong interest in philanthropy in other ways.”
Trump's announcement came a day after the president-elect took to Twitter to declare it a "ridiculous shame" that his son Eric will have to stop soliciting funds for his charitable foundation, the Eric Trump Foundation, because of a conflict of interest.
"My wonderful son, Eric, will no longer be allowed to raise money for children with cancer because of a possible conflict of interest with my presidency," Trump tweeted. "He loves these kids, has raised millions of dollars for them, and now must stop. Wrong answer!"
Trump was highly critical during the campaign of the Clinton Foundation. At the final presidential debate, he challenged Clinton to "give back the money" that came from donors in countries that fail to respect various human rights.
More than half the people outside the government who met with Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money -- either personally or through companies or groups -- to the Clinton Foundation. The proportion indicated possible ethics challenges had she been elected president.

Spree of Obama actions revives GOP concerns over ‘midnight’ regs, agenda

A flurry of big decisions out of the Obama administration just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office has rekindled Republican concerns about President Obama’s plans for jamming through so-called “midnight regulations” and other leftover items from his wish-list on his way out the door.
In the last week alone, the Obama administration blocked future oil and gas leases in swaths of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans; granted a record number of pardons and commutations for a single day; and scrapped a dormant registry for male immigrants from a list of largely Muslim countries.
Defense officials told Fox News there is an effort underway to transfer up to 22 additional detainees out of Guantanamo Bay. And Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations stunned Israel on Friday by abstaining on a Security Council measure condemning settlement activity, allowing it to pass.
And Obama still has a month left in office. The most recent announcements were made while the first family was on vacation in Hawaii – leaving unclear what Obama has in store for when he gets back to Washington.
GINGRICH: OBAMA IN 'DESPERATE FRENZY'
Hanging over any final actions is the likelihood that Trump, once in office, will roll back many of them. “The things he’s done this week will be turned around,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said of Obama on “Fox News Sunday.” “He’s in this desperate frenzy.”
But Democrats are urging the outgoing president to pursue further actions, as the administration weighs its next steps.
Among the possibilities:

• Sixty-four House Democrats recently asked Obama to use his pardon power to preserve his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which spared millions of illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation. Led by Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill., the lawmakers asked Obama in a letter to “exercise your Constitutional authority to provide pardons to young people who are American in every way but on paper.” The goal is to make it more difficult for Trump to potentially deport them.
• The White House already has teed up the strong possibility of more clemency for nonviolent drug offenders and others. After Obama pardoned 78 people and granted another 153 commutations on Monday, White House Counsel Neil Eggleston said he expects “more grants of both commutations and pardons before [Obama] leaves office.”
• Former President Jimmy Carter has called on Obama to go further in the Middle East and recognize a Palestinian state before leaving office. In a New York Times op-ed, he wrote: “The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine.”

The White House has expressed reluctance to take some of these steps.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said “there is a process at the Department of Justice to review pardon applications” and “the president has said he is not going to do anything to circumvent that process.” As for Carter’s appeal, Schultz said, “I don't think [Carter’s] views are new today, so I don't have any new positions or views from us on that.”
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest also said recently that any executive actions the president takes at this stage likely were in the works before the November election.
“What I can rule out are any sort of hastily added executive actions that weren’t previously considered that would just be tacked on at the end,” Earnest said.
Regulation ‘Finish Line’
While Obama weighs his last batch of policy decisions, many regulations already are coming through the pipeline. The final plans reportedly include as many as 98 regulations classified as “economically significant,” meaning each would cost the economy $100 million through compliance and consumer impact.
According to an analysis by the conservative American Action Forum, based on the Federal Register agenda, the administration is eyeing $44.1 billion in “midnight regulations” – or rules pushed in the final two months of an outgoing administration.
“This has been the most active December ever for regulations,” Sam Batkins, AAF’s director of regulatory affairs.
Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, didn’t conceal her eagerness in a staff memo sent after the election. “As I’ve mentioned to you before, we’re running—not walking—through the finish line of President Obama’s presidency,” McCarthy wrote.
By late November, the EPA announced stronger greenhouse gas emission standards, pushing 54.1 miles-per-gallon fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks for model years 2022-2025. In mid-November, the Interior Department finalized a rule to cut methane emissions during oil and natural gas production on federal lands.
Among regulations expected to take effect: the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services plans to make it easier for employers to sponsor highly skilled immigrants in the country; the Education Department is working on student debt relief at for-profit colleges; and on the financial services side, the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission are working on matters such as executive pay and mutual fund management.
According to an administration official, the number of active rules at the end of this administration still is 15 percent lower than at the end of the George W. Bush administration. The administration also notes that some economically significant regulations help the economy.
Republican Roll-Back
Congressional Republicans are bent on stopping or reversing the onslaught of new rules.
In a Dec. 5 letter, 20 Republican senators asked Obama to “honor the will of the American people and refrain from working on or issuing any new, non-emergency regulations while carrying out your remaining term in office.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in a Nov. 15 letter to federal agency heads signed by other House committee chairmen, asserted, “we will work with our colleagues to ensure that Congress scrutinizes your actions—and, if appropriate, overturns them.”
The Congressional Review Act of 1996 allows Congress, with the president’s signature, to rescind regulations and prohibit agencies from imposing rules that are substantively the same.
That, however, would have limits even when Trump takes office, Batkins said.
“Congress can rescind regulations when it gets back, using the CRA, but the House and Senate will be working on health care, the economy and infrastructure,” Batkins told FoxNews.com. “Congress has a lot on its plate. Of the 100 or more midnight regulations that could fly through, there probably won’t be more than a dozen they would be interested in repealing.”
Asked at a November press conference about GOP calls to hold off on finalizing rules in his final weeks in office, Obama defended their rulemaking pace: “The regulations that we have issued are ones that we've been working on for a very long time. … These aren't things that we've been surprising people with.”

RNC clarifies part of Christmas message after social media criticism

A Republican National Committee official lashed out at critics after part of a Christmas statement it made Sunday sparked outrage on social media.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus released a three-paragraph statement on the holiday, but it was the first paragraph that drew critics’ attention.
“Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King."
The message kicked off a heated debate on social media over whether the reference to a “new King” was about President-elect Donald Trump.
John Weaver, a top aide to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, was among those who tweeted their displeasure with the statement.
RNC spokesman and future Trump press secretary Sean Spicer defended the message, telling CNN the reference didn’t have anything to do with Trump and “Christ is the King in the Christian faith.”
Spicer later said that it was “sad & disappointing you are politicizing such a holy day.”
The statement also asked Americans to keep military members in their thoughts and prayers and to “rise to meet the material, emotional, and spiritual needs of individuals all around us.”

United Nations Cartoons

Diplomatic terrorism at the UN, courtesy President Obama

The vicious condemnation of Israel at the UN Security Council on December 23, 2016 is a watershed moment in U.S.-UN relations – albeit not as President Obama hoped. Following the vote of fourteen in favor and one American abstention, Palestinian representative Riyadh Mansour and American Ambassador Samantha Power exchanged a telling handshake. Evidently, President Obama believes that he has put one over on Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the incoming Trump administration. But here’s another possibility: treachery at the UN will not be cost free.
Let’s be absolutely clear about what has just happened. The Palestinians have completed the hijacking of every major UN institution. The 2016 General Assembly has adopted nineteen resolutions condemning Israel and nine critical of all other UN states combined. The 2016 Commission on the Status of Women adopted one resolution condemning Israel and zero on any other state. The 2016 UN Human Rights Council celebrated ten years of adopting more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than any other place on earth. And now – to the applause of the assembled – the Palestinians can add the UN Security Council to their list.
Resolution sponsors Malaysia and New Zealand explained UN-think to the Council this way: Israeli settlements are “the single biggest threat to peace” and the “primary threat to the viability of the two-state solution.” Not seven decades of unremitting Arab terror and violent rejection of Jewish self-determination in the historic homeland of the Jewish people.
This is not just any lie. This is the big lie of modern antisemitism. This is the lie that drove a Palestinian teenager in June of this year to creep into the home of 13-year old Hallel Ariel and butcher her with a knife in the back as she slept in her bed.
The bed was located in the “settlement” of Kiryat Arba – on Arab-claimed territory whose ownership – by agreement – is subject to final status negotiations instead of back-stabbing UN resolutions. So to skip the UN-eze, today’s hate fest was diplomatic terrorism.
Obama’s failure to veto the resolution is at odds with long-standing American foreign policy that has insisted on peace through negotiations, and not UN-fiat, as the only way to ensure genuine and long-lasting recognition and cooperation. His excuse for throwing bipartisan wisdom overboard was delivered by Ambassador Power, in one of the most disingenuous statements in the history of American diplomacy.
Power began by likening Obama’s deed to Ronald Reagan’s treatment of Israel. She repeatedly claimed that the move was nothing new and “in line” with the past, though “historic” is how speaker-after-speaker and the President of the Council himself described it. She noted “Israel has been treated differently than other nations at the United Nations” and then doubled-down on more of the same. She complained that Council “members suddenly summon the will to act” when it comes to Israel, after the White House had actively pushed the frantic adoption of the resolution with less than 48 hours’ notice.
At its core, this UN move is a head-on assault on American democracy. President Obama knew full well he did not have Congressional support for the Iran deal, so he went straight to the Security Council first. Likewise, he knew that there would have been overwhelming Congressional opposition to this resolution, so he carefully planned his stealth attack.
He waited until Congress was not in session. Members of his administration made periodic suggestions that nothing had been decided. There were occasional head fakes that he was “leaning” against it. He produced smiling photo-ops from a Hawaiian golf course with no obvious major foreign policy moves minutes away. Holiday time-outs were in full-swing across the country. And then he pounced, giving Israel virtually no notice of his intent not to veto.
Profound betrayal of a true democratic friend of the United States is the only possible description.
Israel’s Ambassador Danny Danon held up a Bible in that sanctuary of idolatry and spoke of the holiday of Chanukah, about to commence this calendar year on Christmas Eve. He reminded his listeners that over two thousand years ago another King had banished the Jewish people from the Temple in Jerusalem, and tried to sever Jews from their religion and their heritage.
And he continued: “But we prevailed. The Jewish people fought back. We regained our independence and relit the Menorah candles…We overcame those decrees during the time of the Maccabees and we will overcome this evil decree today.”
The Security Council and President Obama leave a trail of devastation across the planet, with evil empowered and good forsaken. But their record does not have to be our future. Today’s vote reminds us of what it takes for evil to triumph.
Doing nothing is not an option for our new President and our incoming Congress. The time has come to undertake an urgent and full review of America’s relationship to the United Nations, and to suspend financial support until that review can identify how best to use American dollars in the interests of peace, security and human dignity. The perfidy of Barack Obama will not be the last word.

Iranian dissidents seeking meeting with Trump

Trump promises to expand US nuclear capability

President-elect Donald Trump infuriated the Chinese by breaking with years of protocol in accepting a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. Now, members of the Iranian opposition are seeking a similar phone call – even a sit-down – with the incoming president, hoping he keeps to his campaign vows to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal and get tough with Tehran.
Fox News has exclusively obtained a letter being presented soon to Trump from a group of influential Iranian dissidents, asking him to follow through on reconsidering the deal, even as President Obama has cautioned against ripping it up.
"During the presidential campaign, we and millions of Iranians followed your forthright objection to the nuclear agreement reached between the Obama administration and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the letter reads. “We sincerely hope that with your election, the new administration and the United States Congress will have the opportunity for the first time to review the regional and international outcomes of that disastrous agreement without any reservations, as was promised to the voters."
Signatories include several former Iranian political prisoners and human rights activists such as former political prisoners Ahmad Batebi and Siavash Safavi, also a member of the Iranian Liberal Students & Graduates.
"We hope under your leadership the United States helps the Iranian people to take back their country from the Islamist gang which has been in charge for the last four decades," they wrote.
Although not party to the letter, The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is widely seen as the most organized opposition group – and also is welcoming engagement with Trump.
"Obviously, the president-elect is preoccupied with forming his Cabinet and laying out a roadmap to meet the challenges his administration will be facing once he is sworn in. But the expectation is that the new administration would pursue a decisive policy vis-à-vis the Iranian regime and impose sanctions, as they relate to Tehran's gross violations of human rights of its citizens as well as its involvement in terrorism, including its role in the bloodbath we have been witness to in Aleppo in recent weeks. Any engagement should be with the Iranian people and not their oppressors," said Ali Safavi, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI.
While the Iranian government calls the group terrorists, the NCRI’s network of supporters in Iran helped the U.S. with intel during the Iraq invasion, and the group also helped expose Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Over the past several years, the pro-Iran nuclear deal lobby led by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) had the Obama administration’s ear. Now, some are now hoping Trump will reach out to the myriad Iran opposition groups, ranging from the Monarchists to the Liberals.
The NCRI has supporters among some in Trump's circle, according to a source close to the Trump campaign and team.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source told Fox News that senior Trump advisers such as Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and former ambassador John Bolton have "very close ties to the strongest component of the Iranian opposition, the NCRI."
"These advisers, though, will be pushing a cooperation with the Iranian opposition to force Iran to cooperate," he said.
It’s unclear whether Trump has any plans to take a meeting with Iran dissidents and groups. The transition team has not responded to a request from Fox News for comment on whether any meetings had been held or scheduled.
The regime likely would be outraged by any such discussions, according to Saeed Ghasseminejad of the Foundation for Defense and Democracies in Washington D.C.
"In the short term [the mullahs] will show some anger and will test the new administration, but in the medium term, they understand the Trump administration is serious and will have to adjust their behavior knowing that [Trump] means business,” Ghasseminejad said. “Meeting with a diverse group of representatives of major opposition parties sends a strong message to the regime and Iranian people that the new administration supports democracy and human rights for Iran."
Lisa Daftari, an Iran and foreign affairs analyst and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, believes it would be a positive move for Trump to meet opposition members from other groups so he can "get an accurate read on the people of Iran."
"In cutting a deal with Iran, President Obama went straight to the mullahs, leaving out the Iranian people,” she said. “It would be a strategically strong move for President-elect Trump to include the Iranian people -- a force of almost 80 million that continues to be the Achilles’ heel of its government."