"The US Threatened China's Sovereignty" - China Scrambles Fighter Jets After US Warship Sails Near Disputed Reef

Following the latest escalation in South China Sea territorial tensions, which culminated with China refusing to grant the Stennis aircarrier group access to the Hong Kong port, overnight the US decided to provoke some more Chinese anger when it sailed the guided missile destroyer the USS William P. Lawrence within 12 nautical miles of Chinese-occupied Fiery Cross Reef, according to U.S. Defense Department spokesman, Bill Urban said. This was the third warship the US has sent into contested waters in the South China Sea in less than seven months.

Chinese facilities on Fiery Cross Reef include a 3,000-metre (10,000-foot) runway which the United States worries China will use it to press its extensive territorial claims at the expense of weaker rivals.

The USS William P. Lawrence

Urban said that the so-called freedom of navigation operation was undertaken to "challenge excessive maritime claims" by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam which were seeking to restrict navigation rights in the South China Sea. What was not said is that the US once again decided to test the preparedness and eagernss of China to respond to what it perceives maritime territorial aggression. 

In an emailed statement, Urban also said that "these excessive maritime claims are inconsistent with international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention in that they purport to restrict the navigation rights that the United States and all states are entitled to exercise." As has been extensively documented, China and the United States have traded accusations of militarizing the South China Sea as China undertakes large-scale land reclamations and construction on disputed features while the United States has increased its patrols and exercises.

Chinese J-10 fighter jets

Since the entire purpose of this latest provocation was to observe China's response, it succeeded when China promptly scrambled two fighter jets in proximity to the U.S. navy ship, a patrol China denounced as an illegal threat to peace which only went to show its defense installations in the area were necessary. China's Defence Ministry said that in addition to the two fighter, an additional three warships shadowed the U.S. ship, telling it to leave. 

The U.S. patrol "again proves that China's construction of defensive facilities on the relevant reefs in the Nansha Islands is completely reasonable and totally necessary", it said, using China's name for the Spratly Islands where much of its reclamation work is taking place.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the U.S. ship illegally entered Chinese waters.

Additionally, China's foreign ministry expressed anger after a U.S. navy warship carried out a freedom of navigation operation near a disputed reef in the South China Seas. Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a daily news briefing the ship illegally entered the waters without China's permission and that the move threatened peace and stability.

"This action by the U.S. side threatened China's sovereignty and security interests, endangered the staff and facilities on the reef, and damaged regional peace and stability," he told a daily news briefing.

This will not be the end of it. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims. 

As Reuters adds, the Pentagon last month called on China to reaffirm it has no plans to deploy military aircraft in the Spratly Islands after China used a military plane to evacuate sick workers from Fiery Cross. Ironically, the US makes sure China does just that with its recurring "freedom of navigation operations" in what China considers its own territory; the same way Russia reacts to US spy plans flying in close proximity to its borders.

"Fiery Cross is sensitive because it is presumed to be the future hub of Chinese military operations in the South China Sea, given its already extensive infrastructure, including its large and deep port and 3000-metre runway," said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore's ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.  

"The timing is interesting, too. It is a show of U.S. determination ahead of President Obama's trip to Vietnam later this month."

The good news is that while China has reacted with anger to previous U.S. freedom of navigation operations - including the overflight of fighter planes near the disputed Scarborough Shoal last month, and when long-range U.S. bombers flew near Chinese facilities under construction on Cuarteron Reef in the Spratlys last November - so far responses have avoided more dramatic escalation.   

Adding to the potential volatility of the situation, Rodrigo Duterte who looks set to become president of the Philippines after an election on Monday, has proposed multilateral talks on the South China Sea. A Chinese diplomat warned last week that criticism of China over the South China Sea "would rebound like a coiled spring."

The Chinese navy over the past week carried out combat drills in the South China Sea, led by the Hefei, one of the country’s most advanced missile destroyers, according to official Xinhua News Agency. Five other vessels participated, along with three helicopters and dozens of “special warfare” soldiers.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Law Professor: Christian Conservatives Should Be Treated Like Nazis

In a recent blog post, a Harvard University law professor suggested conservative Christians should be treated like Nazis.

Mark Tushnet, who served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, is now the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law. In his article titled "Abandoning Defensive Crouch Liberal Constitutionalism," he claims liberals have been too defensive when it comes to advancing their agenda in the courts.

"Several generations of law students and their teachers grew up with federal courts dominated by conservatives," he wrote. "Not surprisingly, they found themselves wandering in the wilderness, looking for any sign of hope.

"The result: Defensive-crouch constitutionalism, with every liberal position asserted nervously, its proponents looking over their shoulders for retaliation by conservatives (in its elevated forms, fear of a backlash against aggressively liberal positions).

"It's time to stop. Right now more than half of the judges sitting on the courts of appeals were appointed by Democratic presidents, and—though I wasn't able to locate up-to-date numbers—the same appears to be true of the district courts. And, those judges no longer have to be worried about reversal by the Supreme Court if they take aggressively liberal positions. (They might be reversed, but now there's no guarantee.)

"And, we shouldn't focus on the Court's docket this year, which was shaped by conservative justices thinking that they could count to five on a bunch of cases. The docket will look quite different if they can't see that path to five votes when they decide which cases to review."

To explain what he means, Tushnet outlined six changes he says needs to happen:

• A jurisprudence of "wrong the day it was decided."—Liberals should be compiling lists of cases to be overruled at the first opportunity on the ground that they were wrong the day they were decided.
• The culture wars are over; they lost, we won—Remember, they were the ones who characterized constitutional disputes as culture wars ... they had opportunities to reach a ceasefire, but rejected them in favor of a scorched Earth policy.
• Aggressively exploit the ambiguities and loopholes in unfavorable precedents that aren't worth overruling—Take Wal-Mart: Confine it to its unusual facts, and don't treat it as having any generative power in other cases.
• Remember that doctrine is a way to empower our allies and weaken theirs—Conservative decisions on class-action arbitration should be understood as part of a long-term project of defunding the left.
• Our models are Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, not David Souter or John Marshall Harlan—With some ambivalence, I'd add Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the list, the reluctance arising from the fact that her work as a judge has been shaped more than it should be by defensive crouch constitutionalism, particular in her sensitivity to the possibility of backlash.
• Forget Anthony Kennedy—Defensive-crouch liberalism meant not only trying to figure out arguments that would get Kennedy's apparently crucial vote (not so crucial any more), but also trying to milk his opinions—and more generally, obviously conservative opinions—for doctrines that might be awkwardly pressed into the service of liberal goals.

With respect to the question of the culture wars, Tushnet suggested a "hardline approach" to conservative Christians:

"Trying to be nice to the losers didn't work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown. (And taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945.) I should note that LGBT activists in particular seem to have settled on the hard-line approach, while some liberal academics defend more accommodating approaches. 

"When specific battles in the culture wars were being fought, it might have made sense to try to be accommodating after a local victory, because other related fights were going on, and a hard line might have stiffened the opposition in those fights. But the war's over, and we won."

Credit to charismanews.com

http://www.charismanews.com/politics/issues/57056-law-professor-christian-conservatives-should-be-treated-like-nazis

Cameron warns of World War III if Britain votes to leave EU

British Prime Minister David Cameron is warning of World War III if citizens of his country vote to exit the EU.

He said the UK has regretted “turning its back” on Europe in the past, as reported by BBC.

“Can we be so sure peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash to make that assumption… What happens in our neighborhood matters to Britain That was true in 1914, 1940, 1989…. and it is true in 2016,” Cameron said.

He also said that Britain being involved in the European Union helped bring together countries.
Former London mayor Boris Johnson believes the Brexit is gaining in popularity due to its “anti-democratic tendencies”.

He inferred the Ukraine crisis was the result of bad EU policy.

The referendum will be held June 23.

Now, other Europeans want to follow suit. A new survey shows 45 percent of people in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden want to vote too. The poll was conducted by Ipsos-MORI.

About 48 percent of Italians, 41 percent of the French and 39 percent of Swedish citizens said they would say yes to leaving.

The survey also showed 48 percent believe if Britain exits the EU, other nations will follow. One in ten believes the body will cease to exist by 2020.


Read more at http://www.trunews.com/cameron-warns-of-world-war-iii-if-britain-votes-to-leave-eu/#pE09RIekdiheTLpS.99

Jonathan Cahn Calls Out Obama, Supreme Court Justices on Capitol Hill

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London’s Iconic Red Buses To Declare ‘Glory To Allah’

If you praise satan he will listen..... do not complain later!!





Britain’s largest Islamic charity says it wants to “break down barriers” and portray Islam positively by launching a new advertising campaign which will slap the phrase “glory to Allah” on the side of London buses.

The new campaign by Islamic Relief is, ostensibly, targeted at raising donations for their Ramadan aid to Syria, but is attracting attention for the “hundreds” of buses which will be decorated with the phrase “Subhan’Allah”, or ‘Glory to Allah’.

Muslims reading the advert are told that to “gather the rewards of Ramadan”, they must to donate to Islamic Relief, an organisation which had its accounts with banking giant HSBC closed after “concerns that cash for aid could end up with terrorist groups abroad”.

Public transport has been chosen for the Islamic re-branding in London, Manchester, Leicester, Birmingham, and Bradford – all UK locations with high and growing Muslim populations, reports the Sunday Times.

That the announcement of the new campaign came the day after London crowned its first Muslim leader, Mayor Sadiq Khan. Islamic Relief called it a “nice irony” that the two events coincided.

Credit to breitbart.com

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/05/08/london-buses-declare-glory-allah/

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