On the one hand, Russia is settling relations with Turkey and on the other, it expands relations with Iran

TASS

MOSCOW, August 9. /TASS/. The current trend towards Russia’s cooperation with Iran, on the one hand, and the turn for the better in relations with Tehran’s regional rival Turkey, on the other, have made some analysts hopeful a new strategic triangle is in the making and in due time it may begin to cause considerable influence on the whole region of the Middle East. Experts polled by TASS are skeptical on that score, though. Tactical political interaction and an upturn in economic cooperation are on the agenda at best.

But even if this is really so, they remark, even a time-serving rapprochement among these three countries can play a positive role, for instance, in overcoming the Syrian crisis. Read more…

STRATFOR

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Over the course of only seven months, Turkey and Russia have gone from ranking each other as public enemy No. 1 to catching up as old friends. Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin seem to be treating the November 2015 shootdown of a Russian Su-24 by Turkish F-16s and the feuding that followed as an anomaly in an otherwise chummy relationship. As Putin said, “Our priority is to bring our relations back to pre-jet crisis level” — basically to get past this ugly episode and have everything go back to normal.
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SPUTNIK

In his first foreign trip after the failed coup attempt in his country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in St. Petersburg with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the hopes of mending ties as Ankara is increasingly isolated from the West.

On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia, with a public goal of reestablishing between the countries diplomatic and economic relations frayed in the wake of a Russian bomber aircraft shot down along the Turkish-Syrian border. At the time, Russia contended that its bomber was over Syrian airspace, while Turkey claimed the aircraft drifted some meters into Turkish airspace for all of 16 seconds.
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According to the FBI, Clinton’s private server was less secure than a Gmail account… there is every reason to believe that Clinton’s email server was hacked by hostile foreign intelligence services

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

Over the weekend, the Iranian regime unexpectedly announced it executed its former nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri. As reports of Amiri’s demise make clear, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton may very well be partially to blame for his death. Amiri spent several months in the US between 2009 and 2010, when he returned to Iran. Then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton claimed at the time that Amiri came to the US willingly.

US government sources told the media that Amiri, who worked on Iran’s nuclear program, was a longstanding US intelligence agent. Amiri, they said, received $5 million for his information. He left the funds in the US when he returned to Iran.
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By David Goldman, Asia Times

Last year I arrived early for a lunch address by Gen. Michael Hayden, who ran the National Security Agency and later the Central Intelligence Agency in the George W. Bush administration. Hayden was already there, and glad to chat. The conversation turned to Egypt, and I asked Hayden why the Republican mainstream had embraced the Muslim Brotherhood rather than the military government of President al-Sisi, an American-trained soldier who espoused a reformed Islam that would repudiate terrorism.

“We were sorry that [Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed] Morsi was overthrown” in July 2013, Hayden explained. “We wanted to see what would happen when the Muslim Brotherhood had to take responsibility for picking up the garbage.”
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T. Belman. Please note that there has been no announcement on what they have agreed regarding Syria. Also the Turkey’s rapprochement with Israel was intended as a first step to reconciling with Russia. What this means for Syria and Israel’s interests there, I have no idea. This article suggests its ominous. The title could well be misleading. Stayed tuned.

DEBKA

The talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Reccep Erdogen in St. Petersburg scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 9, are causing trepidation among Israel’s policy-makers and military leaders. Their summit takes place on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, concluding nine months of hostility between the two capitals that was sparked by Turkish jets shooting down a Russian SU-24 warplane over the Syrian border on Nov. 24, 2015.
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By Andrew Grant White, AMERICAN THINKER

Poll problems. I’m not talking about adjustments made for improper questions or demographic sampling techniques, though those do tend to bias the poll results in favor of one particular candidate. (Guess who.) No, I’m talking about the folks actually sampled, specifically registered voters vs. likely voters.

Most are aware of the RCP rolling average poll and the famous chart showing Clinton cleaning Trump’s clock (though not by as much as she needs to at this point in the electoral cycle):

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HUFFINGTON POST

The emergence of Israel as a small but significant player on the world stage is one of the remarkable developments at the end of the post-Cold War era. The slow economic growth of the United States and Europe has shown the weakness of the status quo powers. The American semi-withdrawal from the Middle East and the British withdrawal from the European Union have opened the door to new powers.

The chaos in the Middle East and the rise of revisionist authoritarian states such as Russia, China and Iran and democratic states like India raise the possibility of a new world order. This would be partly dominated by hardline conservative nationalism, charismatic leadership, slow economic growth, and hostility to the old globalist order.
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by Leon Kaye TRIPLE PUNDIT

Less than a decade ago, Israel’s economy was teetering on the edge of a cliff as droughtthreatened the country’s long-term viability. The situation became even more dystopian as news reports showcased data suggesting the Middle East was in the midst of its worst drought in 900 years. But as the news of climate change’s impact on the region became worse, Israel not only survived but thrived. Investments in water technology turned Israel around and averted what would have otherwise been an intractable crisis.
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Will President Obama back a ‘secular pope’ or a humble ‘chief administrative officer’?

By John Bolton, WSJ 

Although few Americans are paying attention, the race to succeed Ban Ki-moon as United Nations secretary-general is well under way. The first Security Council “straw vote” took place in July; the second on Friday. The actual election—involving one of Barack Obama’s final significant foreign-policy decisions—is approaching rapidly because the new secretary-general’s five-year term begins Jan. 1, 2017. Given the U.N.’s two-term pattern, Mr. Ban’s successor could be in office longer than our next president.

Significant American interests are at stake. Picking the right secretary-general could mean finding, at last, a manager willing to take on the U.N.’s sprawling disorganization, bloated budgets, biased and ineffective bureaucracies, and outright corruption. Or it could mean planting a massive thorn in America’s side, the greatest wish of this country’s adversaries and of the supranational globalists who want to restrain the U.S.
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By Matthew Sheffield, NATIONAL REVIEW

One of the more interesting developments since the emergence of the Web as a mass medium is the establishment of a conservative media presence. Prior to the Internet, there were basically no large-audience right-wing media operations aside from a few talk-radio programs.

Since the 1996 establishment of Fox News and the popularization of the Web, it has now become possible for a conservatively inclined people to consume all kinds of news and opinion catering to their specific tastes and viewpoints. Many right-leaning people have hailed this development, believing that they have finally defeated the hated liberal media. They suppose that because they can now obtain their news entirely from conservative-leaning media that this is what others do as well. Read more…

ASHARQ AL-AWSAT

Beirut, London- Syrian opposition factions started yesterday their preparations to take the last strongholds of regime forces in Aleppo, ahead of controlling the entire city.

Hundreds of opposition fighters from several factions assembled yesterday in the rural areas of West Aleppo and Idlib, facing reinforcements brought by regime forces to the city.
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Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May disappointed by her party’s decision to pass resolution supporting BDS.

Elad Benari, INN

Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May has condemned her party’s decision to vote in support of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The party voted on the resolution at its convention in Ottawa over the weekend, despite May’s opposition to the measure.

The resolution states that the Green Party “supports the use of divestment, boycott and sanctions that are targeted to those sectors of Israel’s economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
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Prices rise sharply as some Israelis seek residences on disputed land

By Rory Jones and Orr Hirschauge, WSJ

KFAR TAPUACH, West Bank—The first time Michal Ronen traveled to her rental apartment in this Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, a firebomb struck her bus.

“I was so hysterical,” she said. “I thought that happens every time.”

Now Ms. Ronen and her husband are looking to buy a home in Kfar Tapuach.
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By: Amil Imani

Make America Great Again. Just a slogan, the people of failure shout back. Failure knows only failure. To these people, the Obama-Hillary team who have failed us for nearly eight years in every aspect of our lives, failure is not only normal, it is inevitable.

The list of their failures for the loser team is so long and glaring that I hardly need to repeat them all here. So, here’s just a few to remind those who are in denial or have a vested interest in keeping the failing system in place.

For one, look at our national debt. Almost 20 trillion dollars. In just this past 8 years, the gang of failure — the you-know-who– has skyrocketed our debt to over $19 trillion. Just think about that. Are you going to let them continue burying us, our children and generations to come under this ever mounting debt?
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In response to High Court petition against measure, government says it won’t prevent electric company from employing practice

BY STUART WINER, TOI

The government no longer opposes cutting off power to Palestinian cities in the West Bank over a large debt, a reversal of its previous stance on the punitive measure imposed by the state-owned electric company, Army Radio reported Monday.

In a response to a Palestinian petition in the High Court of Justice against the practice, the state noted that although it has the authority to instruct the Israel Electric Corporation to continue supplying Palestinian cities, it would no longer exercise that right.
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JEWISH VOICE

Having the word, “Jewish” as part of our masthead carries with it a deep sense of responsibility. It is there for a purpose. And as such we do all in our power to honestly educate, show support for and stand beside the Jewish community and Israel. Sadly, in this current upside down world a huge percentage of the media, electronic and print, are overtly and transparently biased, supporting the Progressive Left and their new entrenched partners, the world of radical Islam.. This fact terrifies us as well as it should both the American Christian and Jewish population. It is estimated that the power of the press has a huge effect on how people think and vote. We’ll guess that at least 3 percent of our nation’s vote can be traced to the sometimes, censored and frequently misleading news articles that are polluted by the editorializing media.
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Obama Cash Payments to the Mullahs on the Glazov Gang – Interview with Daniel Greenfield

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Obama’s Cash Payment to Iran Was More Than a Ransom — It Broke Criminal Law

The president hoped to camouflage what he knew to be against the law.

By Andrew C. McCarthy — August 6, 2016

Did it ever occur to President Obama to ask why he couldn’t just cut a check to the Iranian regime?

Outrage broke out this week over the revelation that Obama arranged to ship the mullahs piles of cash, worth $400 million and converted into foreign denominations, reportedly in an unmarked cargo plane. The hotly debated question was whether the payment, which the administration attributes to a 37-year-old arms deal, was actually a ransom paid for the release of American hostages Tehran had abducted. Read more…

Giuliani attacks Clinton’s ‘short-circuited’ statement
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