Navy Launches Tomahawk Missiles At Rebel Sites In Yemen After Attacks On U.S. Ships

by Dan Lamothe, The Washington Post

This file photo shows guided-missile destroyer USS Nitze operating in the Mediterranean Sea. (AFP)

The U.S. Navy launched Tomahawk missiles early Thursday from the Red Sea at three coastal radar sites in Yemen, destroying targets associated with rebel missile attacks on U.S. ships this week.

The missiles were launched from the destroyer USS Nitze at about 4 a.m. at three locations north of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, said Pentagon Press Peter Cook. President Barack Obama authorized the strikes upon the recommendations of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships, and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway," Cook said. "The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic, as appropriate, and will continue to maintain our freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb, and elsewhere around the world."

The strikes were announced late Wednesday in Washington. A defense official said the radar sites were in remote areas held by Houthi rebels where there was little risk of civilian casualties. The equipment was set up near Ras Isa, north of Mukha and near Khoka. All are on Yemen's western coastline.

The Tomahawk strikes followed cruise missiles attacks that were launched against Navy ships on Sunday night and Wednesday in Yemen. Another missile launched Oct. 1 caused near-catastrophic damage to the HSV-2 Swift, a catamaran-style high-speed vessel that was operated by the Emiratis and once was a part of the U.S. Navy. Video of the strike published online shows the ship engulfed in a fireball.

The Houthis, who use weapons smuggled from Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack on the Swift, but denied launching missiles at the Navy on Sunday. But Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that "the facts certainly point" to the Houthis being involved.

In the first attack launched at the U.S. Navy, two cruise missiles were launched Sunday at the USS Mason, a guided-missile destroyer, and the USS Ponce, an amphibious staging base. In that case, the first missile was launched while the ships were at least 12 miles away from Yemen's shore in international waters near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a waterway between Yemen and Djibouti that is heavily trafficked by oilers. The ships were even farther away when the second one was launched.

In the second attack Wednesday, at least one missile was fired from rebel-held territory at the Mason, Cook said. That missile was launched at about 6 p.m. from south of the coastal city Al Hudaydah. The Houthis pushed the central government out of power in the capital city of Sanaa in 2014, and has resisted U.S.-backed efforts by Saudi Arabia to restore President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power.

Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, said in a statement Wednesday that the Navy will remain on watch in the Red Sea. He credited the crew of the Mason for demonstrating "initiative and toughness" as they defended themselves from both attacks. 

Elections official caught on video blasting de Blasio’s ID program

Manhattan Board of Elections Commissioner Alan Schulkin Photo: Gregory P. Mango

By Carl Campanile

The Manhattan Democratic representative on the city’s Board of Elections was caught on a secret video slamming Mayor Bill de Blasio’s municipal ID program as contributing to “all kinds of fraud” — including at the polls.

“He gave out ID cards, de Blasio. That’s in lieu of a driver’s license, but you can use it for anything,” Commissioner Alan Schulkin said in the undercover video recorded by a muckraker for conservative nonprofit Project Veritas.

“But they didn’t vet people to see who they really are. Anybody can go in there and say, ‘I am Joe Smith, I want an ID card,’ ” he said in the bombshell tape.

“It’s absurd. There is a lot of fraud. Not just voter fraud, all kinds of fraud . . . This is why I get more conservative as I get older.”

Schulkin didn’t hold back to the undercover journalist, who identified herself as a political consultant at a United Federation of Teachers holiday party on Dec. 16.

Not realizing he was being recorded, he broke with his own party’s position that voter ID requirements hurt the poor and minorities.

Schulkin said he backed the IDs to prevent rampant fraud.

“The law says you can’t ask for anything. Which they really should be able to do,” Schulkin said, according to a copy of the video and transcript provided to The Post.

“I believe they should be able to do it,” he added.

The videographer asked point-blank, “You think they should have voter ID in New York?”

Schulkin responded, “Voters? Yeah, they should ask for your ID. I think there is a lot of voter fraud.”

Conservatives claim ID checks help curb voter fraud.

Liberal and civil rights groups argue such rules discourage voting and discriminate against minorities and the poor.

“You know, I don’t think it’s too much to ask somebody to show some kind of an ID . . . You go into a building, you have to show them your ID,” Schulkin said.

While discussing the potential for fraud, Schulkin volunteered that in some parts of the city, “they bus people around to vote . . . They put them in a bus and go poll site to poll site.”

Asked which neighborhoods, Schulkin said, “I don’t want to say.”

When the undercover mentions black and Hispanic neighborhoods, Schulkin responded, “Yeah . . . and Chinese, too.”

At another point in the conversation, he discussed potential absentee ballot fraud.

“Oh, there’s thousands of absentee ballots . . . I don’t know where they came from,” he said.

The undercover offered that “people can cover their faces” to shield their identity when voting, which triggered a conversation about burqas.

“The Muslims can do that, too. You don’t know who they are,” Schulkin said.

“I mean, I know everything is done with good intentions, but a lot of bad results.”

Reached Monday night, Schulkin defended his videotaped remarks, with slight revisions.

“I should have said ‘potential fraud’ instead of ‘fraud,’ ” he said.

But he reiterated his support for a voter ID requirement.

He recalled a woman asking him a lot of questions the night he was recorded.

“She was like a nuisance. I was just trying to placate her,” he said.

The board has two commissioners — one Democrat, one Republican — from each borough.

Hurricane Lands Civil War Cannonballs on SC Beach

(Twitter/Charleston County Sheriff's Office)

 

By Cathy Burke   |   Monday, 10 Oct 2016 05:07 PM

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More than a dozen rusty Civil War cannonballs surfaced on a South Carolina beach near Charleston after Hurricane Matthew's trek through the state.

Charleston County Sheriff's Office officials said their bomb squad and the US Air Force Explosive Team responded to Folly Beach to evaluate the discovery Sunday of what appeared to be an "old Civil War ordnance," CBS affiliate WCSC reported.

A number were detonated by the Air Force; others at a nearby Navy base, the station reported.

Former Folly Beach mayor Richard Beck told the station he discovered the cannonballs as he was walking along the beach to take pictures of Matthew's impact.

O'Reilly: At Least 3 Media Orgs Have 'Ordered Employees to Destroy Trump'

Fox News Insider-
At least three media organizations have "ordered their employees to destroy Donald Trump," Bill O'Reilly said this morning. 

Sitting down with Bill Hemmer to analyze last night's second debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton, O'Reilly said he's "100 percent convinced" of the media plot against Trump. 

"I'm talking about big conglomerates. ... News organizations have sent, not officially but through the corporate grapevine, [word] that we don't want anybody supporting Trump. If you study it, you can see which ones they are," he said.

O'Reilly said the first 30 minutes were crucial for Trump after the 2005 hot mic comments about groping women's genitals surfaced on Friday.

"That was the key to Donald Trump's life. Not just the presidential race, his life. If he had faltered in those first 30 minutes, his brand was done, he was done and the election was over and everything. But he didn't falter. He took what came at him and he turned it into at least a stalemate," said O'Reilly, calling that portion a "huge win" for Trump.

He said Trump was then able to go on offense for much of the final hour, "sometimes effectively, sometimes not."

See more of O'Reilly's analysis of Debate #2 tonight on The Factor at 8:00/11:00pm ET on Fox News Channel.

Clinton Campaign Email Outlines Effort “To Produce an Unaware and Compliant Citizenry”

Paul Joseph Watson

A Clinton campaign email released as part of the Wikileaks data dump earlier today talks about the need to maintain political power by producing “an unaware and compliant citizenry”.

The email was sent to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta by former Clinton administration official Bill Ivey on March 13, 2016.

Ivey was appointed Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts during Bill Clinton’s second term. According to his bio, Ivey “is a trustee of the Center for American Progress (a Clinton campaign front), and was a Team Leader in the Barack Obama presidential transition.”

In the email, Ivey outlines the panic amongst some Democrats that Donald Trump’s “celebrity politics” persona cannot be matched by Hillary, who is “not an entertainer, and not a celebrity in the Trump, Kardashian mold.”

“Money isn’t all that important if you can conflate entertainment with the electoral process. Trump masters TV, TV so-called news picks up and repeats and repeats to death this opinionated blowhard and his hairbrained ideas, free-floating discontent attaches to a seeming strongman and we’re off and running,” complains Ivey.

Ivey wonders how Clinton can combat Trump’s larger than life appeal, worrying that simply ‘defaulting to policy’ won’t work.

“And as I’ve mentioned, we’ve all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry,” he writes.

“The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious, serious thinking – and not just poll driven, demographically-inspired messaging.”

To emphasize, Ivey admits that the left has ‘conspired’ to “produce an unaware and compliant citizenry” but that they’re not as easy to manipulate anymore and that this is a problem. He characterizes “unawareness” amongst the public as a positive thing for the Clinton campaign.

Ivey ends the email by saying he will attend a Clinton fundraiser and that he fears, “we are all now trying to navigate a set of forces that cannot be simply explained or fully understood.”

The email is a shocking insight into the elitist and arrogant mindset that pervades the Clinton campaign, with Americans viewed as dumb sheep who need to be herded in the right direction.

Breaking: DNC Chief Donna Brazile Leaked Sanders Info to Clinton Campaign

WikiLeaks hack reveals DNC's favoritism as Clinton staff in damage control over Hillary's support for DOMA

By Michael Sainato
On October 10, Wikileaks released part two of their emails from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.

Friday, Wikileaks released their first batch of Podesta’s emails, which included excerpts from Clinton’s Wall Street transcripts that reaffirmed why Clinton refused to release them in full.

During the second presidential debate, Clinton confirmed their authenticity by attempting to defend one statement she made in the speech about having a public and private stance on political issues.

She cited Abraham Lincoln, a defense comparable to her ridiculous invocation of 9/11 when pressed on her ties to Wall Street during a Democratic primary debate.

The latest release reveals current DNC chair Donna Brazile, when working as a DNC vice chair, forwarded to the Clinton campaign a January 2016 email obtained from the Bernie Sanders campaign, released by Sarah Ford, Sanders’ deputy national press secretary, announcing a Twitter storm from Sanders’ African-American outreach team. “FYI” Brazile wrote to the Clinton staff.

“Thank you for the heads up on this Donna,” replied Clinton campaign spokesperson Adrienne Elrod.

The second batch of emails include more evidence of collusion between the mainstream media and Clinton Campaign.

One email, received by prolific Clinton donor Haim Saban, was forwarded to Clinton staff, praising the friendly moderators in the early March 2016 Democratic primary debate co-hosted by Univision in Florida. “Haim, I just wanted to tell you that I thought the moderators for last nights Debate were excellent. They were thoughtful, tough and incisive. I thought it made Hilary appear direct and strong in her resolve. I felt it advanced our candidate. Thanks for Univision,” wrote Rob Friedman, former co-chair of the Motion Picture Group.

Another email discusses planting a favorable Clinton story in The New York Times in March 2015.

“NYT heroine. Should she call her today?” Podesta wrote to other Clinton campaign staffers with the subject line ‘Laura Donohoe.’ “I do think it’s a great idea! We can make it happen,” replied Huma Abedin. The story they referred to is likely “In New Hampshire, Clinton Backers Buckle Up,” published in The New York Times on March 12, 2015 about Laura Donahoe, a retired nurse and Clinton supporter in New Hampshire.

John Harwood, New York Times contributor and CNBC correspondent, regularly exchanged emails with Podesta—communicating more as a Clinton surrogate than a journalist.

In an October 2015 email thread, Clinton staff were in damage control over Hillary’s support for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

Hillary Clinton would not disavow her support for it. “I’m not saying double down or ever say it again. I’m just saying that she’s not going to want to say she was wrong about that, given she and her husband believe it and have repeated it many times. Better to reiterate evolution, opposition to DOMA when court considered it, and forward looking stance.”

Former Clinton Foundation director, Darnell Strom of the Creative Artist Agency, wrote a condescending email to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard after she resigned from the DNC to endorse Bernie Sanders, which he then forwarded to Clinton campaign staff. “For you to endorse a man who has spent almost 40 years in public office with very few accomplishments, doesn’t fall in line with what we previously thought of you. Hillary Clinton will be our party’s nominee and you standing on ceremony to support the sinking Bernie Sanders ship is disrespectful to Hillary Clinton,” wrote Strom.

A memo sent from Clinton’s general counsel, Marc Elias of the law firm Perkins Coie, outlined legal tricks to circumvent campaign finance laws to raise money in tandem with Super Pacs.

In a March 2015 email, Clinton Campaign manager Robby Mook expressed frustration DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz hired a Convention CEO without consulting the Clinton campaign, which suggests the DNC and Clinton campaign regularly coordinated together from the early stages of the Democratic primaries.

Gorbachev warns of 'dangerous point' as US-Russia ties sour

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is warning the world has reached a "dangerous point" as tensions between Russia and the United States spike over the Syria conflict (AFP Photo/Joseph Eid)

Moscow (AFP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned on Monday that the world has reached a "dangerous point" as tensions between Russia and the United States spike over the Syria conflict.

Relations between Moscow and Washington -- already at their lowest since the Cold War over the Ukraine conflict -- have soured further in recent days as the United States pulled the plug on Syria talks and accused Russia of hacking attacks.

The Kremlin has suspended a series of nuclear pacts, including a symbolic cooperation deal to cut stocks of weapons-grade plutonium.

"I think the world has reached a dangerous point," Gorbachev, 85, told state news agency RIA Novosti.

"I don't want to give any concrete prescriptions but I do want to say that this needs to stop. We need to renew dialogue. Stopping it was the biggest mistake."

As the last leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev oversaw an easing of decades of tensions with the West that helped to end the Cold War.

He signed several landmark nuclear disarmament deals with Washington aimed at defusing the standoff between the two superpowers.

"It is necessary to return to the main priorities. These are nuclear disarmament, the fight against terrorism, the prevention of an environmental disaster," he said.

"Compared to these challenges, all the rest slips into the background."