Month: January 2019

The Kurdish chief of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reportedly vowed on Thursday to clear the remnants of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) from the group’s last bastion near the Iraqi border in northern Syrian within a month.

“We expect there will be an increase in the intensity of IS operations against our forces after the end of their military presence,” Mazloum Kobani, the SDF chief, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) agency.

In November 2018, the Pentagon’s inspector general (IG) confirmed that ISIS only controls about one percent of the territory it once held, noting that the jihadi group’s last stronghold sits in northern Syria, near the Iraqi border.

Fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) lead and make up the majority of the SDF, a Kurdish-Arab alliance backed by the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, or IS.

“The operation of our forces against IS in its last pocket has reached its end and IS fighters are now surrounded in one area,” Kobani told AFP.

“We need a month to eliminate IS remnants still in the area,” he also said, adding, “I believe that during the next month we will officially announce the end of the military presence on the ground of the so-called caliphate.”

Along with the U.S.-led coalition, the SDF is part of the last phase (Operation Roundup) that began on September 10 to deal a lasting defeat to the ISIS in northeastern Syria, a region held by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the political wing of the YPG.

With the help of nearly 2,000 American troops and U.S. military equipment, the Syrian Kurds have been able to maintain control of large swathes of northern Syria where they have established an autonomous region.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the American troops prompted America’s Syrian Kurdish allies to accuse the United States of betraying them by leaving them vulnerable to attacks from Turkey, which considers the YPG and PYD to be an extension of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) communist group. U.S. support for the Syrian Kurds has infuriated Turkey.

Echoing other analysts, the Kurds also believe a quick withdrawal could lead to an ISIS resurgence.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said early this month that the United States would not withdraw from Syria without assurances from Turkey that the Kurds will be safe and ensuring ISIS’s lasting defeat.

Bolton revealed that a residual American military force would remain in southern Syria to deal with the Iranian threat in the region.

The Pentagon IG warned that ISIS has morphed into “an effective clandestine” group that “has moved underground and is acting as an insurgency in” Iraq and Syria where it still poses a threat.

Kobani noted that the terrorist group’s new tactics include “sleeper cells everywhere, secretly recruiting people again, and carrying out suicide operations, bombings, and assassinations.”

While some U.S. military officials estimate that ISIS only has a couple of thousand jihadis in its last enclave, the Pentagon IG reported that there are “between 20,000 and 30,000” embers of the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.

Although the SDF captured Hajin, the last town held by ISIS, the terrorist group has carried been able to break out of its territory and carry out a deadly attack against U.S. troops and their allies in recent days. The Syrian Kurds have reached out to the Iranian and Russian-backed regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad for help in repelling an impending attack from Turkey, the SDF chief confirmed.

According to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a group that uses ground sources to monitor the conflict, intense clashes in and around the region known as “the Hajin pocket” has left hundreds of fighters dead on both side.

Democrats and their press allies are always yelling about voter fraud being a miniscule “actually very rare,” practically non-existent thing, a figment of fevered conservative imaginations. But state election officials in Texas have uncovered a whopping 98,000 illegal voter registrations from non-citizens, with more than half - 58,000 – actually casting ballots. Seems the problem is bigger than was imagined, even — on the right. The story is being covered by the mainstream press. WFAA, a big Texas radio station, had this:

About 95,000 non-citizens are registered to vote in Texas, and more than half of those have cast ballots in at least one election, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley announced on Friday.

Whitley’s office, along with the Texas Department of Public Safety, had been investigating possible voter fraud for the last year, according to a news release. 

Of the 95,000 non-citizens registered, 58,000 have voted in one or more elections since 1996. 

The Secretary of State’s office found those numbers by collecting current DPS data of people who have applied for a driver’s license or state identification card in the last five years with a green card of visa. The investigators then cross-referenced that data with people who are registered to vote.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram had this, NBC News had this. Dallas Morning News had this.

Which pretty well puts paid to the Democratic ‘talking point’ about voter fraud being a non-issue. Actually, this finding, from Texas officials very determined to clean up their voter rolls, is a very big issue. Every ballot cast by a foreigner in the election cancels out the vote of an American citizen. When the elections are close, that’s quite a disenfranchisement.

According to the Star-Telegram, citing a Texas official:

“Every single instance of illegal voting threatens democracy in our state and deprives individual Texans of their voice,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a prepared statement. “My Election Fraud Unit stands ready to investigate and prosecute crimes against the democratic process when needed.”

He’s right. With elections increasingly close, the prospect of foreigners determining the outcome is a rather amazing sort of imperialism against Americans from abroad. And they are getting away with it, they’ve been getting away with it for more than two decades, as this study showed.

What else can we say about this? It exposes the Democrats and their abnormal obsession with keeping voter rolls unaudited, for the beneficiaries of non-citizens voting. Texas is a red state and red states have no stake in winning illegal votes, which go largely to Democrats. No wonder they yell about these revelations, which they are doing this time, but it’s a pretty big tide they’re protesting.

California, by contrast, is a solid blue one-party state, coinciding with its initiation of vast benefit packages for illegal immigrants. Not surprisingly, the state houses a quarter of the nation’s illegal immigrants. And surprise, surprise, it leads the nation in resistence to voter roll audits, claiming illegal immigrants wouldn’t dream of voting illegally here after they crossed into the U.S. illegally. California, which had to be sued into cleaning up its voter rolls, and not completely, continues to resist any effort to maintain the integrity of its vote.

Well, the Texas audit does signal there’s a problem. And since Democrats cannot spin this away, though they are trying to by saying maybe all the non-citizen voters became citizens in the interim, they are mostly likely going to try to ignore this away and say it was done by Republicans.

One can only hope it won’t work this time, because they’ve got big plans to make all of the nation’s election laws exactly like California’s. This is the death of democracy. Venezuela went this route, its failure wasn’t just socialism imposed in one swoop, it started with voter fraud. All the more reason to make this report from Texas a major narrative shift in the national conversation.

 

 

 

Democrats and their press allies are always yelling about voter fraud being a miniscule “actually very rare,” practically non-existent thing, a figment of fevered conservative imaginations. But state election officials in Texas have uncovered a whopping 98,000 illegal voter registrations from non-citizens, with more than half - 58,000 – actually casting ballots. Seems the problem is bigger than was imagined, even — on the right. The story is being covered by the mainstream press. WFAA, a big Texas radio station, had this:

About 95,000 non-citizens are registered to vote in Texas, and more than half of those have cast ballots in at least one election, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley announced on Friday.

Whitley’s office, along with the Texas Department of Public Safety, had been investigating possible voter fraud for the last year, according to a news release. 

Of the 95,000 non-citizens registered, 58,000 have voted in one or more elections since 1996. 

The Secretary of State’s office found those numbers by collecting current DPS data of people who have applied for a driver’s license or state identification card in the last five years with a green card of visa. The investigators then cross-referenced that data with people who are registered to vote.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram had this, NBC News had this. Dallas Morning News had this.

Which pretty well puts paid to the Democratic ‘talking point’ about voter fraud being a non-issue. Actually, this finding, from Texas officials very determined to clean up their voter rolls, is a very big issue. Every ballot cast by a foreigner in the election cancels out the vote of an American citizen. When the elections are close, that’s quite a disenfranchisement.

According to the Star-Telegram, citing a Texas official:

“Every single instance of illegal voting threatens democracy in our state and deprives individual Texans of their voice,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a prepared statement. “My Election Fraud Unit stands ready to investigate and prosecute crimes against the democratic process when needed.”

He’s right. With elections increasingly close, the prospect of foreigners determining the outcome is a rather amazing sort of imperialism against Americans from abroad. And they are getting away with it, they’ve been getting away with it for more than two decades, as this study showed.

What else can we say about this? It exposes the Democrats and their abnormal obsession with keeping voter rolls unaudited, for the beneficiaries of non-citizens voting. Texas is a red state and red states have no stake in winning illegal votes, which go largely to Democrats. No wonder they yell about these revelations, which they are doing this time, but it’s a pretty big tide they’re protesting.

California, by contrast, is a solid blue one-party state, coinciding with its initiation of vast benefit packages for illegal immigrants. Not surprisingly, the state houses a quarter of the nation’s illegal immigrants. And surprise, surprise, it leads the nation in resistence to voter roll audits, claiming illegal immigrants wouldn’t dream of voting illegally here after they crossed into the U.S. illegally. California, which had to be sued into cleaning up its voter rolls, and not completely, continues to resist any effort to maintain the integrity of its vote.

Well, the Texas audit does signal there’s a problem. And since Democrats cannot spin this away, though they are trying to by saying maybe all the non-citizen voters became citizens in the interim, they are mostly likely going to try to ignore this away and say it was done by Republicans.

One can only hope it won’t work this time, because they’ve got big plans to make all of the nation’s election laws exactly like California’s. This is the death of democracy. Venezuela went this route, its failure wasn’t just socialism imposed in one swoop, it started with voter fraud. All the more reason to make this report from Texas a major narrative shift in the national conversation.

 

 

 

Venezuelan President Juan Guaidó announced a military amnesty campaign on Friday designed to strip socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro of the force he needs to control the country.

In a press conference delivered from central Caracas, Guaidó urged soldiers to “side with the people of Venezuela” and allow the flow of humanitarian aid into the country after the United States pledged to send a $20 million aid package requested by Guaidó himself.

“Soldiers of Venezuela, please join the side of the people of Venezuela,” he said. “You will have an important test before you in the next few days. First in front of your family, your loved ones, and God. The second test will be in front of those who need medicine, food, etc. Will you allow humanitarian aid to enter?”

Guaidó also spoke directly to the Cuban military personnel employed by the Maduro regime to bolster its strength and repressive elements, asking them to retire from their positions but adding they were free to remain in the country.

“It is time for Cuba to withdraw from our armed forces,” he said. “It is time for the Cubans to retire and leave from their leadership positions. Cuban brothers, attention, you are welcome to stay in this country. Now, out of the armed forces and out of leadership positions.”

“It is a matter of sovereignty and respect,” he added. “We are also in solidarity with the struggle of our Cuban brothers for freedom and sovereignty.”

The 35-year-old also asked his supporters to print out documents explaining the country’s amnesty law, which they could then hand to members of the armed forces to urge them to stop propping up Maduro’s regime, saying:

Today on social media, I ask you to download the [amnesty] law first so that you read it, and second so you print it out. On Sunday, we will meet in small groups and I ask for you to hand it to your family, friends, and acquaintances in the military … an unprecedented civil, pacific action.

You can meet in small groups and give them to local military blocks … We are extending our hand, we are telling those officials to come to our side, we have a future. Maduro protects no one – not from persecution, not from hunger, not from misery – but there is a future with us.

The National Assembly, which Guaidó led as president before becoming the nation’s head of state on Wednesday, passed the law to urge soldiers and other military personnel not to follow Maduro’s orders or fear retribution for their crimes while under the socialist regime.

 

If effective, Guaidó’s call for the military to stand down may prove the final straw for the Maduro regime, which depends on the loyalty of its soldiers to ensure his regime’s survival. Over recent years, many soldiers have abandoned the military in protest of Maduro or to find other work outside the country due to the collapse in their salaries and overall living standards.

Maduro still commands the loyalty of many high-ranking military officers, the majority of whom remain very well paid and increasingly empowered. As reported by Reuters on Tuesday, many senior military figures are faithful to the leadership, mainly because they were appointed by Maduro or his predecessor Hugo Chávez.

“The military leadership is faithful to Maduro and will continue to be until he’s gone,” one unnamed active duty high-ranking military officer reportedly told the agency.

Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.

New York state apparently is just trying to squeeze as much extreme liberal legislation through as it can before people start noticing.

Most notable was the Reproductive Health Act, signed into law earlier this week.

The bill’s stated purpose was to codify Roe v. Wade in case it was overturned by the Supreme Court, but most commentators focused on the fact that the bill would allow babies to be aborted until literally the moment of birth and that non-doctors would also be able to perform abortions.

If just to compound the outrage, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered several landmarks — including the top of One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the United States — lit up pink to “celebrate” the controversial bill.

Just one day after that bill was signed into law, the state legislature decided it was going to take another step further to the left — giving state financial aid to college students who are illegal immigrants.

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The DREAM Act had been kicking around the New York state legislature for quite some time, but Republicans had controlled the state Senate until January.

That having been changed, the bill passed the Senate on Wednesday, followed by the state Assembly passing it just hours later, according to the New York Daily News.

The party-line vote was 40-20 in the Senate and 90-37 in the Assembly. Cuomo says he plans to sign the bill.

“While the administration in Washington is committed to putting up walls, the New York State Assembly is committed to breaking them down,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said after the bill was passed.

Manhattan Democrat Assemblywoman Carmen De La Rosa, who sponsored the bill, said what happened Wednesday was “a symbol that (Dreamers) will be guaranteed an education and that the door for higher education is open to all children in New York State.”

Right. Well, instead of lighting up One World Trade Center pink to celebrate the DREAM Act, how about we celebrate by putting an animatronic King Kong on the Empire State Building, throwing taxpayer money into the wind?

“The DREAM Act is a nightmare and a slap in the face for all the hardworking taxpayers who play by the rules and struggle to afford the cost of a college education,” Republican Sen. Daphne Jordan said.

And for what reason? Well, while the DREAM Act has been proposed for a long time, Democrats made it clear in the language they used that they meant to use its passage as a rebuke to the Trump administration. And it won’t stop there: Now that they control both houses of the legislature, the Democrats plan to take up initiatives like giving state driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and even allowing them to vote.

According to The New York Times, the New York Immigration Coalition was pushing lawmakers to “dream bigger” with other initiatives like health care and more funding for legal services for immigrants.

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“The election of Trump and the fact that he made immigration a central theme of his presidency has made immigration a more prominent issue at the state level,” Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute at the New York University School of Law, told The Times.

“In some ways, blue states are now competing with each other to provide a higher level of protection to immigrants.”

In other words, they’re competing with each other to find ways to throw away taxpayers’ money.

Democrats have countered that the illegal immigrant populations bring in significant funding to the state and that a more educated base of illegal immigrants will lead to higher-paid illegal immigrants, which mean more tax dollars.

Both don’t take into effect a fuller analysis of the costs illegal immigrants impose on a state or the costs that would be imposed by attracting more of them — something state financial aid for college would almost certainly do.

But, perhaps the best argument against the DREAM Act came from Republican State Sen. James Seward.

“How am I supposed to tell families in my Senate district that adequate state aid to help afford college isn’t available for them, but it is available for others who are in this country illegally?” Seward said.

Just tell them that their state is competing with other blue states “to provide a higher level of protection to immigrants.” They’ll understand, I’m sure.

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