The Armenian genocide is a very sensitive subject with Turkey, as it prefers to think of that horrendous century-old bloodbath as a military clash with the Ottoman Empire, which the Armenians lost very badly–badly enough to kill about 1.5 million of the 2 million Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire at the time, to be specific.
The Italian police have arrested 15 Muslim refugees from war-torn Libya, on charges they murdered Christian passengers on their escape boat by throwing them overboard.
They don’t have to see Hillary as a fantastic candidate in order to abandon their duty of opposing her, the way they’re supposed to oppose everyone who tries for high office, and America is supposed to be better-governed for it. They’re on autopilot, running tired ideological programs written decades ago.
The witch-hunting obsessions of the climate cult took them into the realm of total absurdity with March’s “Open Letter to Museums From Members of the Scientific Community,” which called upon museum administrators to begin refusing donations from the evil fossil-fuel industry.
Every recent news story about the battle against ISIS in Iraq has taken pains to quote the administration’s assessment that about 25 percent of the Islamic State’s territory has been recaptured. Pushing them out of Tikrit was a significant milestone, although it took considerably longer than planned.
The Korea Times reports on a controversy involving South Korea’s ambassador to Libya, a story which highlights the danger of operating in that war-torn country.
Australian Defense Minister Kevin Andrews refused to speak the name of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a TV interview this week. Australia is sending another 330 troops to assist Iraqi forces against the Islamic State. Interviewer Leigh Sales notes that the United States put great effort into taking down Osama bin Laden after 9/11, and wonders if similar emphasis could be put on capturing the leader of ISIS.
Like all efforts to measure true popularity and influence using Internet hits, it’s interesting and relevant, because we live in the social media era, but such popularity is also fickle and easily faked. It seems like most politicians have tumbled to the idea of building up “Astroturf” political support, so they can brag about impressive numbers of Twitter followers and Facebook friends.
One of the most amazing videos to emerge from the Kurds’ battle against ISIS is this footage, uploaded to Liveleak by a Kurdish activist, depicts an ISIS suicide car bomber getting blown sky-high by what appears to be the premature detonation of his explosive payload.
If we’re going to disband Congress and abandon the separation of powers in favor of imperial rule with term limits for the despot, then let’s do it, formally and with our eyes open, following a frank debate about the pros and cons.
Here’s the thing, reporters: it’s your job to remind Americans that Hillary’s under a thick cloud of scandal, and may end up under indictment, for running the off-the-books email server she was plugged into with that BlackBerry. It’s your job to remind American voters, over and over again, that Clinton jeopardized national security and deliberately violated transparency laws by doing this.
A Germanwings Airbus A320 had to be evacuated at the Cologne-Bonn international airport on Sunday evening after someone emailed police a bomb threat less than twenty minutes before the flight’s scheduled departure.
“At the European level, we estimate that 5,000-6,000 individuals have left for Syria,” European Union Justice Commissioner Vera Jouriva told Le Figaro in a Monday interview, as transcribed by AFP. She went on to say this was a very conservative estimate, because keeping tabs on foreign fighters in the Syrian theater is extremely difficult.
Washington Post bureau chief Jason Rezaian has been languishing in an Iranian prison cell for nearly nine months, with only the most cursory access to legal counsel. The newspaper reports today that Rezaian is having significant problems being allowed to speak to his attorney, and will remain in prison until his trial begins for “espionage.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi is in Washington for his first visit in office, and is scheduled for a meeting with President Obama at which he will request a massive increase in military aid against the Islamic State. A senior Iraqi official told Reuters, “We’re talking about billions here… This is a new approach for us because of the scale of the challenge we have ahead. Mosul and Nineveh province and Anbar will cost us a lot.”
The Washington Post recently published a lengthy review of a book about Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by Masha Gessen, entitled The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy. The first problem with this book is the title.
America needs bigger people, which means smaller government; more honesty, which means less political rhetoric; more property, which requires less collectivism; and more liberty, which demands less compulsion, not better-hidden compulsion. A greater burden of law and bigger political initiatives means more of us will be redefined as criminals and losers, and we can’t afford that.
Call it “reshoring,” or “insourcing” if you prefer. By any name, a significant movement of manufacturing back to U.S. shores is exactly what our economy needs. Factory movement overseas has opened a hole in the American job market that nothing else can truly fill, a point stressed in blue-collar populist appeals from both political parties.
According to a report at the Times of Israel, the children were marched out of classrooms, loaded into military vehicles, and taken to an unknown location to be trained as fighters for the terror state — a training that culminates in a beheading.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that Tibetan nun Yeshi Khando is presumed dead after setting herself on fire to protest Chinese rule, demanding freedom for Tibet and the return of the exiled Dalai Lama. Her death could not be confirmed by international media or Tibetan advocacy groups because her body was so quickly removed from the scene by police.
A 20-year-old Kansas man named John T. Booker Jr., who also went by the name Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, was arrested Friday while making final preparations for a 1,000-pound suicide car bomb attack on Ft. Riley, Kansas.
Last week, legendary former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George P. Shultz wrote a scathing Wall Street Journal op-ed critical of the Obama Administration’s nuclear dealmaking with Iran. The Obama State Department has responded, not with criticisms of the detailed argument in the piece, but by dismissing it as “a lot of big words and big thoughts.”
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. was put on lockdown Saturday afternoon after a man shot himself at the west front. Streets in the area were closed, as a suspicious package reportedly left by the man was investigated, possibly a bag or backpack he was carrying. A recent update at the UK Mirror says the package is a suitcase.
The plight of Americans abandoned in Yemen by the Obama administration is a gigantic national scandal, studiously ignored by the same media that invent various “outrages” to hit Republican presidential candidates with. Despite the lack of adequate coverage in the mainstream media, at least one journalist felt baffled enough by State Department tactics to ask just how Americans trapped in Yemen are expected to escape: “Swim?”
Boston Marathon bombers Tameralan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, erupted into an angry all-caps tirade on social media after her surviving son Dzhokhar was found guilty on all 30 counts related to the bombing and the Tsarnaevs’ violent rampage across Boston as they sought to escape from police.
