Do Republicans pay attention to the Obama Administrations policies?

May 20, 2015
Ron Ben-Yishai, Yitzhak Benhorin

State Department, (click here) Pentagon approve massive weapons sale, worth $1.9 billion, to Israel in bid to ward off concerns over Iran nuclear negotiations, Gulf states' military procurements.

The US State Department approved a massive sale of bombs and missiles worth $1.897 billion, pending final congressional authorization. The procurement package includes bunker buster munitions and its timing suggests the Americans are seeking to alleviate Israeli concerns over the developing deal with Iran....

Retired General Petraeus can now apologize to President Obama for his poorly researched his point of new in The Washington Post. 

And President Obama doesn't need anyone to tell him what needs to be said to the American people. The General needs to rethink his criticism. It is all unfounded.

Israeli leaders that actually care about its relationship with the USA have stated all along that this administration has been the most generous to Israel to insure it's security as the Iran talks were carried out. President Obama has been the one president that as comprehensive policies to insure the national security of Israel and the USA.

President Obama doesn't need any help.

North Korea has the worst rated airline in the world for four years running.

August 27, 2015

Koryo Air (click here) has been named the world's worst airline again for the fourth year running by Skytrax, which holds the annual World Airline Awards for best airline in the world. It is the only airline listed by Skytrax to receive a lowly one-star rating out of a possible five, due to its Soviet-era planes, rudimentary safety belts, and questionable safety. Photo: Alamy

The best airline on Earth this year is Qatar Airlines. 

Middle-Eastern carrier Qatar Airways has been named the world's best airline, taking out "Airline of the Year" at the annual World Airline Awards, while Qantas has climbed back into the top 10.
Announced at the Paris Air Show on Tuesday, the World Airline Awards, run by research firm Skytrax, are among the most high-profile awards in the aviation industry.
Qatar climbed back into the No.1 slot in the airline rankings after losing first place to Cathay Pacific last year. It is the third time Qatar has taken out the top spot. It also took out the award for the best business class seat.

They haven't entered the statistics of 'the impoverished' yet.

I have to wonder what this does to the Republican bank rolls pledged to spend on the 2016 elections. Wall Street billionaires are quickly entering 'the walk of shame' now that they nearly lost their shirts.

26 August 2015

HONG KONG: Asia's richest person lost $3.6 billion on Monday, the most among all billionaires worldwide, as China's stock markets had the biggest plunge since 2007 and a wave of selling spread across the globe.

Wang Jianlin saw $2 billion wiped (click here) from his stake in Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties Co., according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after it tumbled 17 percent to its lowest level since it went public in December. Wang also lost nearly $1 billion from his Shenzhen-traded Wanda Cinema Line Co., which fell by the exchange-exposed limit of 10 percent on Monday. The remaining losses stemmed from stakes in private companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

China's stocks tumbled on Monday after government stimulus failed to lift investors' confidence in the country's slowing economy. The rout also spread to other regions, seeing fortunes plummet worldwide. About $124 billion was wiped off the collective fortunes of the world's 400 richest people as the global selloff pushed the Standard & Poor's 500 Index into its first correction in nearly four years. China stocks plunged again on Tuesday, spelling more losses for Asia's richest.

"Everyone is probably overly pessimistic about the stock market now," Amy Lin, a Shanghai-based analyst at Capital Securities Corp., said in an interview. "There was a lot of panic selling in the market."...

STRATEGIC PARTNERS: Jordanian King Abdallah, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed Al-Nahyan at the opening ceremony of the MAKS-2015 in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow. (AP)

26 August 2015
By Acence France Presse

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin (click here) hosted the Jordanian king and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi in Moscow Tuesday to discuss the Syrian crisis and take part in a showcase of Russia’s military industry.
Jordanian King Abdullah and the Abu Dhabi heavyweight, Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, visited Moscow. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi is also due in Moscow to attend the Maks-2015 military salon.
Despite foreign interest in the Russian space and defense industries, no international contracts are expected to be signed during the salon, a spokesman for Russia’s state defense import-export company Rosoboronexport, Vyacheslav Davydenko, told AFP last week.
Middle Eastern government delegations have been flooding into Moscow in recent weeks and days, with a Syrian opposition delegation tolerated by the regime of President Bashar Assad arriving on Sunday for talks on the crisis in their war-torn country....

Regardless of the civil war within Syria, Russia has been pursuing agreements and a coalition government.

It is not realistic to expect an escalation of war in the region. That path is not considered realistic. President Assad is a Shia. His ethnicity is Alawite. President Assad has the loyalty of the Alawite people. (click here) It is not realistic to believe any accord to end the killing will not include leadership of the Alawite people.

Any escalation of war won't serve a purpose.  

MOSCOW, August 17./TASS/. Syrian settlement (click here) can be only peaceful, and only the Syrian people themselves can decide their fate, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif on Monday.

"We exchanged opinions on the situation in the Middle East and in North Africa," Lavrov said. "Special attention was paid to effort towards contribution to the Syrian settlement, that can be only peaceful and can be achieved only on the basis on negotiations between the Syrian parties without interference from outside," Lavrov said.

Russia rejects any preliminary agreements that say that Syrian President Bashar Assad will have to leave his post, Russian Foreign Minister said.
"Several our partners think that they need to agree beforehand that Assad will leave his post after a transitional period. Russia does not accept this position," Lavrov said.

Moscow and Tehran are also in favor of resolving situations in Iraq and Yemen without foreign intervention, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov added.
"We have similar approaches to events in Iraq and Yemen," Lavrov said. "We support national dialogue to resolve the problems, not imposed scripts from the outside."

The most recent actions from the United Nations was an accounting of the human rights violations in Syria. There are 26 provisions in the UN assessment and I have listed the last five.

23 March 2015

The continuing grave deterioration (click here) in the human rights and humanitarian situation in the Syrian Arab Republic

...22. Deplores the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Syrian Arab Republic, and urges the international community, including all donors, to provide urgent financial support to enable the host countries to respond to the growing humanitarian needs of Syrian refugees while emphasing the principle of burden-sharing;

23. Welcomes the offer from Kuwait to host the third International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria on 31 March 2015, expresses its appreciation to donor States, and calls upon all members of the international community to respond expeditiously to the Syrian humanitarian appeals and to fulfil all previous pledges; 

24.Reiterates that a genuine political transition based on the Geneva communiqué is needed to end the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, and encourages the international community to take appropriate steps to that end;

25.Decides to transmit all reports and oral updates of the Commission of Inquiry to all relevant bodies of the United Nations, recommends that the Commission brief the General Assembly during its sixty-ninth session, also recommends that the Assembly submit the reports to the Security Council for appropriate action expresses its appreciation to the Commission for its briefings to members of the Council, and recommends the continuation of future briefings;

26. Also decides to remain seized of the matter.

The most recent military resolution involved the removal of chemical weapons. I believe that is finished. However, there continues to be issues with chlorine use.

A team of heroes. 

They worked until the end and could have saved lives by reporting who their killer was. 

There is no doubt, they were a team of heroes among a profession that has many heroes.

It probably is an extremist of some kind.

Where better to instill fear than a live television broadcast. Journalists should not have routine places for broadcast. Mix it up. Change locations. Once one location is used for broadcast change to another next time. Choose secure locations where there is limited access from the public whenever possible.

Why do I say this? ie: London Police Officer, the attack is not random

This is a terrible tragedy to these people. My sincerest sympathies. This is completely horrible.  

August 26, 2015
By Staff

Police are looking (click here for video loop) for a suspect who apparently opened fire on WDBJ7 photographer Adam Ward and WDBJ7 reporter Alison Parker.
Adam was 27-years-old. Alison just turned 24.
Both were from the WDBJ7 viewing area.
Adam graduated from Salem High School and Virginia Tech.
Alison grew up in Martinsville and attended Patrick Henry Community College and James Madison University....

Editors, producers and directors should be tasking their teams to safe locations while still delivering the news. No one needs heroes, we need the news. Thank you. Yeah, a disgruntled employee that kills on live television. Right.

Erika picks up where Danny left off.

The image above is from The Weather Channel.

Tropical Storm Erika began here: 

INIT  26/0900Z  16.1N  -56.0W   35 KT  40 MPH

Tropical Depression Danny weakens - 

24A  16.10N  -62.60W 08/24/12Z  - TROPICAL DEPRESSION

Literally, at the same latitude Danny hands off water vapor energy to Ericka. The

longitude is different because Ericka is traveling behind Danny.

August 26, 2015

1230.18a

UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite (click here for 12 hour loop - thank you)

There are three active hurricanes in the east Pacific.

Storm 14, Tropical Storm - Kilo

Storm 15, Hurricane Loki 1 

Storm 16 - Tropical Storm Ignacio

 So far, there have been sixteen storms in the east Pacific, while

 there are only five storm in the Atlantic. In 2005, it was the complete opposite with 

 31 storm in the Atlantic and seventeen in the east Pacific. The change in the location

of the majority of storms to the Pacific is due to the lack of power within the jet stream. 

Where the jet stream left off Earth's Coriolis picked up. 

What the heck? Perhaps some folks haven't noticed the New Syrian Army recruitment is not a dazzling force.

August 25, 2015
By Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s inspector general (click here) is investigating allegations that military officials have skewed intelligence assessments about the United States-led campaign in Iraq against the Islamic State to provide a more optimistic account of progress, according to several officials familiar with the inquiry.

The investigation began after at least one civilian Defense Intelligence Agency analyst told the authorities that he had evidence that officials at United States Central Command — the military headquarters overseeing the American bombing campaign and other efforts against the Islamic State — were improperly reworking the conclusions of intelligence assessments prepared for policy makers, including President Obama, the government officials said.

Fuller details of the claims were not available, including when the assessments were said to have been altered and who at Central Command, or Centcom, the analyst said was responsible. The officials, speaking only on the condition of anonymity about classified matters, said that the recently opened investigation focused on whether military officials had changed the conclusions of draft intelligence assessments during a review process and then passed them on....

One complaint from an undisclosed source does not a failed strategy make. That civilian intelligence agency doesn't raise questions for me, except, who is this and why no one else came to the same conclusion.

There are more civilian intelligence agencies in the USA than sheep over a cliff and one of them came to different conclusions from every other assessment. Really?

The region is too fractured to have a cohesive plan. This is from The Jerusalem Post.

BEIRUT - Syrian President Bashar Assad (click here) said he was open to the idea of a coalition against Islamic State but indicated there was little chance of it happening with his enemies, casting further doubt on a Russian plan to forge an alliance against the militant group.

The initiative proposed by Russia, a vital ally of Assad, would involve the Syrian government joining regional states that have backed Syrian rebels in a shared fight against the Islamic State group that controls wide areas of Syria and Iraq....

There is no one strategy to end the war in the Middle East. Every country is a sovereign entity and has to solve their own problems when it comes to the influence of Daesh. Recenlty, Kuwait broke up a terror plot and arrested members of Hezbollah. Every country in the Middle East has to take control of their sovereignty and protect from destabilization.

August 14, 2015

Kuwait: Kuwait authorities (click here) seized a huge arms cache smuggled from Iraq and hidden beneath houses near the border, arresting three suspected members of a militant cell that was plotting to destabilise the country, local media said.
Majority-Sunni Muslim Kuwait has been on alert since an Daesh suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shi'ite mosque in the capital Kuwait city in late June, killing 27 people.
A total of 19,000 kg (42,000 lb) of ammunition, 144 kg of explosives, 68 weapons and 204 grenades were seized from three properties in the al-Abdali area, state news agency KUNA said.
The three men arrested were the owners of the houses, it said....

There is too much potential for instability if the USA entered the fray. Recently, Turkey took an old world posture that cost Kurds lives and land. The dynamics are too complex to have one strategy. Only a month ago everyone was holding the Kurds as a real hope for the stability in their region, now it is all up in the air because Turkey has taken a far different approach. 

It is vitally important every sovereign country have control of their borders. Jordan has been an incredible example of a country resolved to end any danger from Daesh. Recently, Jordan closed one of their borders because of the chaos on the other side.

Russia has entered the fight for a stable Middle East. That should work to bring Syria to a better footing. The region is not conducive to a single military strategy, there are ongoing tensions between ethnicities and that needs to be settled. Russia can be an asset to that end. Having the USA military enter the region again is a gross error.

Russia is more than capable of bringing militarizes together to end the threat of Daesh. The USA - Arab Coalition is as equally important as Russia can be. This is not a new posture for Russia, it has been involved since Egypt attacked Daesh forces in Libya. 

The idea the US military manipulated information to paint a pretty picture to the outcomes of the coalition is nonsense. The USA military is as interested today in protecting the people of the USA as at any other time in history.

President Obama knows exactly the potential and dangers of an unstable Middle East. He knows how tensions exist between coalition members, but, it is working. Old ideas of allies is falling away and countries in the Middle East are taking on the challenge of internal stability and peace. Daesh is no winning in sovereign countries. 

These countries need more than the USA fighting their wars for them. They need common ground with a sole purpose to defeat the charismatic invasions of Daesh. The stability of these countries is paramount to the defeat of Daesh. 

Saudi Arabia has a very long and effective ability to maintain stability while weeding out those that would see the country's leadership toppled.

I don't care what anyone thinks of a monarchy, it has worked to benefit the people within it's borders. Saudi Arabia has Shia living within the country. There is no hatred that exists within these countries that would move to war. The shadow of peace and diversity is important to defeat a common enemy and the leaders know this. The USA can no longer plow across borders to 'take over.' Such actions would cause a great deal of instability and death on all sides of the war.

One civilian intelligence agent does not make a new strategy. Any new assessment is always helpful, but, simply because one intelligent agency sees things differently, that is more political than practical. Differences are allowed to exist.

She died at the age of 42.

August 26, 2015
By Jane Onyanga-Omara

The dust-covered 9/11 survivor (click here) whose photograph became one of the defining images of the terror attacks has died after a battle with stomach cancer at the age of 42.

Marcy Borders, then 28, became known as the 'Dust Lady," when Agence France-Presse photographer Stan Honda took her picture after a bystander pulled her to safety as the second of the Twin Towers began to fall.

Borders was running late for work as a legal assistant at the Bank of America on the 81st floor of 1 World Trade Center when al-Qaeda-linked terrorists slammed two of four hijacked planes into the Twin Towers. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks....

Cancer. I am surprised. 14 years after the World Trade Towers collapsed a survivor dies of cancer. If cancer is an issue with a human life due to environmental exposure of carcinogens it shows up about a generation later or 20 years. Stomach cancer while she was trying to breath.

She is outside most statistics of people that contract stomach cancer. Stomach Cancer is the USA is very rare. It is normally found more often in men and in people between the ages of 60 and 80.

China needs a renaissance.

August 26, 2015
By Marc Jones

World shares (click here) sagged on Wednesday as investors feared fresh rate cuts in China may not be enough to stabilize its slowing economy or halt a stocks collapse that is wreaking havoc in global markets.

Europe's main stock markets, which had surged on Tuesday after China's moves, reopened 2 percent down as the jittery mood returned and sent investors back into safe-haven German and U.S. government bonds. China's key share indexes had attempted to move higher several times during Asian trading only to be slapped back by waves of selling, reflecting investors' views that much more support was needed from the government and the central bank....

I cannot believe China's economy was built without a conscience. As of 2014 Wall Street was stating China was expected to surpass the USA's GDP and today Wall Street is trying to isolate the failure. That was nothing but a money grab since 1992 and now China has eyes wide open. It has to be the biggest fraud in history. 

No Wall Street firm even bothered to assess the growth of China and it's real world failed decisions. This says more about Wall Street than it does China. China had the will to be gigantic and move from an emerging market to a contender easily competing with the USA. China has been a shell economy with absolutely no substance to it's establishment and growth. How did fraud get so out of control. 

The banks are too big and are not even assessing 'on the ground' information in investment.

We have witnessed the "London Whale" and now a failed Chinese economy. The banks are a problem. A problem no one ever expected. China has to be placed back on it's feet and that means the World Bank and IMF will have to assess the behemoth economy and find where the failures occurred and advice to bring about stability. China can't simply be isolated by Wall Street after it ravaged an entire country. The IMF has to act to bring China stability. 

I cannot believe China may have to be saved by the IMF because Wall Street used the country as a feeding frenzy. The Chinese government has planned to bring China a middle class and an improved quality of life. This is tragic. Seriously tragic. It goes to prove the ruthlessness of Wall Street and it's overwhelming wealth that can overshadow nations.