ISIS

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News/Politics 2-24-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The internet is about to transform into Obamanet.

From ComputerWorld  “Congressional Republicans are demanding to know how much the White House influenced the Federal Communications Commission while the agency crafted net neutrality rules.

With enhanced mobility and work flexibility comes increased security risk. Explore the security

The FCC has until Monday afternoon to produce unredacted email messages, focused on net neutrality rules, between FCC staff and officials with the Obama administration, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz said in a letter to the FCC Friday. The Utah Republican is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.”

Chaffetz’s committee is “investigating the potential involvement of the White House” in the creation of proposed net neutrality rules that the FCC is scheduled to vote on next Thursday, he said in the letter. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will propose regulations that would reclassify broadband as a regulated telecommunications service instead of a lightly regulated information service.

An FCC spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment on Chaffetz’s letter.”

Of course they didn’t respond. They’re too busy meeting with “activists,” ‘cuz that’s what community organizers do.

More on that here, from TheDailyCaller 

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2. DHS would like you wing nuts to know that you’re more dangerous than ISIS.

From HotAir  “The Department of Homeland Security has a lot on their hands lately. It seems as if some days they don’t know where to look first when dealing with a variety of threats. Whether it’s al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram or sympathizers for any of a variety of terrorists groups, they are dealing with a dangerous world. But for some reason, CNN reports that the big threat this year is probably… sovereign citizens.

On second thought, maybe that whole defunding the DHS thing isn’t looking that bad.

A new intelligence assessment, circulated by the Department of Homeland Security this month and reviewed by CNN, focuses on the domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists and comes as the Obama administration holds a White House conference to focus efforts to fight violent extremism.

Some federal and local law enforcement groups view the domestic terror threat from sovereign citizen groups as equal to — and in some cases greater than — the threat from foreign Islamic terror groups, such as ISIS, that garner more public attention.​

The Homeland Security report, produced in coordination with the FBI, counts 24 violent sovereign citizen-related attacks across the U.S. since 2010.”

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3. Bill Whittle nails it, again.

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4. Does Muslim immigration pose a serious national security threat?

From InvestorsBusinessDaily  “France, Belgium and now even liberal Denmark regret letting in so many immigrants from Muslim countries. Their swelling Islamic communities have become breeding grounds for terrorists. So why is the U.S. opening the floodgates to foreign Muslims?

The threat Muslim immigrants pose to homeland security was not addressed during the White House’s three-day summit on terrorism. Instead, Vice President Joe Biden assured Muslim groups gathered during one session that the “wave” of Muslim immigration is “not going to stop.” Wave? More like a tsunami.

Between 2010 and 2013, the Obama administration imported almost 300,000 new immigrants from Muslim nations — more immigrants than the U.S. let in from Central America and Mexico combined over that period.”

“Many of the recent Muslim immigrants are from terrorist hot spots like Iraq, where the Islamic State operates. From 2010-2013, Obama ushered in 41,094 Iraqi nationals from there.

Now the State Department says it will quadruple the number of refugees brought here from Syria, where IS is headquartered.”

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5. Meanwhile on the southern border…..

From CNSNews  “”We all saw what happened on the Texas border last summer, but we need to understand that the problem is not going away,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told CBS’s “Face the Nation” with Bob Schieffer on Sunday.

“Already this calendar year, since January 1, we have had more than 20,000 people come across the border, apprehended, unauthorized. And so we have an ongoing problem on the border that Congress must step up and solve.”

All told in fiscal year 2014, U.S immigration officials removed 213,719 individuals apprehended while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States.)

Schieffer reminded Abbott that there are some 800,000 illegal aliens living in Texas right now.”

Oh, and DHS is requiring caretakers of unaccompanied illegal children to provide them with abortion inducing drugs. Nice huh?

Also from CNSNews  “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is advancing federal regulations that require federally funded organization caring for illegal alien minors who are in the United States without their parents (Unaccompanied Children or UC) and who may have been sexually abused access to “emergency contraception” services.

“Emergency contraception” includes abortion-inducing drugs.

These care providers currently include Catholic and other faith-based organizations that oppose abortion, according to the Center for Family and Human Rights or C-FAM, a Catholic advocacy group.

The Interim Final Rule was published in the Federal Register on Dec. 24, 2014, and was open to public comments until today, Feb. 23, 2015. Providers must comply with the rule by June 24, 2015, according to the Federal Register.”

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6. Nuclear armed Iran. Scary thought, but that’s the Obama plan.

From YahooNews  “Edging toward a historic compromise, the U.S. and Iran reported progress Monday on a deal that would clamp down on Tehran’s nuclear activities for at least 10 years but then slowly ease restrictions on programs that could be used to make atomic arms.

Officials said there were still obstacles to overcome before a March 31 deadline, and any deal will face harsh opposition in both countries. It also would be sure to further strain already-tense U.S. relations with Israel, whose leaders oppose any agreement that doesn’t end Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to strongly criticize the deal in an address before Congress next week.

Still, a comprehensive pact could ease 35 years of U.S-Iranian enmity — and seems within reach for the first time in more than a decade of negotiations.”

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by

News/Politics 2-20-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. First up, 2 stories, same topic. While I understand the sentiment, I don’t much care for mercenaries, and that’s what this seems like IMO.

From Reuters  “Saint Michael, the archangel of battle, is tattooed across the back of a U.S. army veteran who recently returned to Iraq and joined a Christian militia fighting Islamic State in what he sees as a biblical war between good and evil.”

““It’s very different,” he said, asked how the experiences compared. “Here I’m fighting for a people and for a faith, and the enemy is much bigger and more brutal.”

Thousands of foreigners have flocked to Iraq and Syria in the past two years, mostly to join Islamic State, but a handful of idealistic Westerners are enlisting as well, citing frustration their governments are not doing more to combat the ultra-radical Islamists or prevent the suffering of innocents.

The militia they joined is called Dwekh Nawsha – meaning self-sacrifice in the ancient Aramaic language spoken by Christ and still used by Assyrian Christians, who consider themselves the indigenous people of Iraq.”

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More here, from YahooNewsUK  “Decked out in his US army-issued fatigues and a lip stud shining from his mouth, the young American fighter cuts an unusual figure in the northern Iraqi town of Al-Qosh.

He served in the US army in Baghdad in 2006-2007 and has now returned to fight the Islamic State jihadist group with Dwekh Nawsha, a Christian militia whose name is an Assyrian-language phrase conveying self-sacrifice.

The 28-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym Brett, has become the figurehead of an emerging movement of foreigners coming to Iraq to support Christian groups.

Bearing a tattoo of a machinegun on his left arm and another of Jesus in a crown of thorns on his right, Brett jokingly refers to himself as a “crusader”.”

“Also acting as a recruiter, Brett says he wants to establish a “foreign fighters’ battalion”. In his first week in charge, he brought in five volunteers from the United States, Britain and Canada, all of whom he says have military or contracting experience.

The foreign contingent is tiny compared to the thousands of foreigners who have joined IS, but interest is growing and Brett says he has 20 more volunteers already lined up to join.”

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2. Who is Rashad Hussain?

From TownHall  “President Obama’s appointment of Rashad Hussain, his deputy associate counsel, as special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations, charged with safeguarding and protecting “the interests of the Muslim world,” should be of serious concern to Congress and the American public. Especially since Hussain, a devout Muslim, has a history of participating in events connected with the Muslim Brotherhood, according to the Chicago Tribune, “the world’s most influential Islamic fundamentalist group” whose goal is to create Muslim states throughout the world.

In 1991, a memo written by Mohamed Akram for the Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood spelled out the objective of the organization. Akram said the Muslim Brotherhood “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” I am unable to find any “revelation” that has repealed that objective. Quite the contrary. Terrorists seem on track for implementing it.

The president proudly announced that Hussain is a Hafiz, someone who has completely memorized the Qur’an, but he did not spell out what qualifies Hussain to meet with foreign leaders at a diplomatic level in a role that approximates that of an ambassador. According to Jihad Watch, a blog directed by American author Robert Spencer, which “aims to bring to public attention the role of jihad theology and ideology in the modern world,” Hussain’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood date back to his days at Yale Law School.

Ask yourself: If you or your group were interested in damaging or destroying the United States, wouldn’t infiltration at every possible level of government and culture be an effective strategy? You would build your schools and mosques, some of which teach and preach Jihad; you would penetrate the government; you would demand special rights because of your religion — such as no body scanners for Muslim travelers at airports and prayer rooms and foot washing facilities at shopping malls; you would seek to change the foreign policy of the United States because you hate Israel and all Jews (and those “cross-worshipping” Christians) and you would dare the U.S. government to monitor your speeches and associations because you want to keep America’s guard lower than it would be for, say, a spy from communist China. “

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3. This one sounds crazy, right? But then again, would it really surprise anyone?

From TheGatewayPundit  “A Catholic Bishop from Nigeria has leveled an explosive charge against President Barack Obama over his failure to adequately help Nigeria in the African nation’s fight againt the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram that might explain why Obama has let Boko Haram slaughter Nigerian Christians and rape and enslave Christian girls.

Bishop Emmanuel Badejo spoke in Rome to Aleteia, saying of the Obama administration:

“The United States actually said it would help Nigeria with Boko Haram only if we modify our laws concerning homosexuality, family planning, and birth control.””

More on this story here, from Aleteia 

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4. Come on over, just leave your liberal politics in NY. After all, that’s why you’re leavin’.

From WBNG  “The local economy is pushing one organization in Upstate New York to pose a question: Is it possible to secede to Pennsylvania?

The Upstate New York Towns Association is researching this very topic. The group says a few factors pushing its research are high property taxes, low sales tax revenue and the recent decision to ban hydraulic fracturing in New York.

“The Southern Tier is desolate,” said Conklin Town Supervisor Jim Finch (R). “We have no jobs and no income. The richest resource we have is in the ground.”

Finch said the ground in Conklin is rich with natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. However, that shale is unable to be tapped. He described this ban as a violation of his natural rights as a property owner.

There are 15 towns interested in the secession, according to the Towns Association. These towns are in Broome, Delaware, Tioga and Sullivan counties. The association declined to name the towns without their permission and also declined to comment on specifics at this time. As of now, research is ongoing. The group will be updating Action News with all of their findings in the coming weeks.”

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by

News/Politics 2-19-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Countering extremists, by inviting extremists?

From Breitbart  “As the White House Countering Violent Extremism Summit is entering its second day, the names of some of the participants are leaking out and raising concerns. This is especially true of the Boston delegation – one among those from three cities that the Obama Administration has labelled a pilot for how religious leaders can work with law enforcement to counter violent threats.

One Boston Muslim leader taking part in the summit, Nicole Mossalam, has been dishonest about her controversial mosque blocking congregants from giving police information during their investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing. Another Muslim leader from Boston invited to the White House summit designed a lawsuit to stop the Boston media from reporting what it knows about the radical nature of the largest Islamic center in New England. In addition, this man, Nabeel Khudairi, persecuted moderate Muslim members of his own mosque after they tried to warn New Englanders about Islamic extremists in their midst.

As we expected and warned, the Islamic Society of Boston’s (ISB) Cambridge mosque – the radical Muslim Brotherhood front group attended by the Boston Marathon bombers – was invited to join the summit and is represented there by its executive director, Nichole Mossalam. A few days ago, in Breitbart News and the Washington Times, we reported how over the past decade, 12 of the ISB’s worshippers have either been killed, imprisoned, or declared fugitives due to their involvement in terrorist activity. In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, Ms. Mossalam told media outlets that the ISB urged members to contact law enforcement “immediately after the bombings in case they knew of anyone who might have been involved.”

In reality, the ISB sent out the first email about the bombings to its members a full seven days after the Marathon was blown up, urging them not to talk to the FBI without first contacting the ACLU and the ISB. The ISB wrote: “We have been informed that the FBI may be starting to question some of the community members about the two suspects. Insha’Allah we want to help as much as we can, but of course not put ourselves at risk either. Seeking representation does not imply any guilt on your part but is simply a way of protecting your own rights.””

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2. Libya as a gateway to Europe.

From TheTelegraph  “Islamic State militants are planning a takeover of Libya as a “gateway” to wage war across the whole of southern Europe, letters written by the group’s supporters have revealed.

The jihadists hope to flood the north African state with militiamen from Syria and Iraq, who will then sail across the Mediterranean posing as migrants on people trafficking vessels, according to plans seen by Quilliam, the British anti-extremist group.

The fighters would then run amok in southern European cities and also try to attack maritime shipping.

The document is written by an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) propagandist who is believed to be an important online recruiter for the terror in Libya, where security has collapsed in the wake of the revolution that unseated Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.”

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3. ISIS is expanding it’s reach. And it looks like they’ve joined with Boko Haram as well.

From TheGatewayPundit  “ISIS forces have joined with Boko Haram in Libya and are moving on the Tunisian border.
ANSA Italiano reported, via Religion of Peace:

Libyan premier Abdallah Al Thani told Tunisian radio Express FM that Isis and Boko Haram members have joined or are about to join terrorist groups in Libya and added that the latter are getting close to the border with Tunisia.

With regard to the Egyptian military intervention, Al Thani said that the aerial bombardments against Isis positions in Libya were carried out with the approval of the Libyan government and that the United Nations Security Council refused to arm the Libyan state in its fight against terrorism.

Meanwhile, Tunisia has deployed military units along its border with Libya both on the ground and at sea and the army has been reinforced with units from the national guard and customs, in order to defend the country from “possible threats to its territorial integrity” and “prevent any attempt of infiltration by terrorists” said ministry of defense spokesman, colonel Belhassen Oueslati.”

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4. Now that Obama’s amnesty plan has been blocked activists are making threats.

From NationalReview  “Illinois Democratic congressman Luis Guiterrez cautioned Republicans against celebrating a federal judge’s decision to halt the White House’s unilateral push for illegal alien amnesty, predicting unprecedented “militancy” in the immigrant community against the injunction.

The long-time advocate for illegal immigration angrily denounced the Texas judge’s decision that the Obama administration’s overstepped its executive authority. But Gutierrez also took aim at those who supported the judicial ruling.

“The Republican party is making a critical mistake,” he said. “The militancy that will be activated throughout the immigrant community — in terms of voter registration, voter participation, voter anger at the Republican party as a party in the United States — I think you’re going to see it in an unprecedented manner.””

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5. Yet another good reason to stop it.

From Breitbart  “An estimated 5,000 aliens were either arrested for committing crimes or absconded over a three year period while they were participating in a supervision program that allowed them to be released from detention and into U.S. communities, the latest publicly available data shows.

In an audit released earlier this month, John Roth, the inspector general (IG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), revealed that a total of 2,010 aliens were arrested for committing crimes while they were participating in a supervised release program in 2010 (576), 2011 (729), and 2012 (705).

Furthermore, the DHS watchdog found that a total of 2,760 aliens absconded while they were enrolled in the same scheme over the same period — 2010 (927),  2011 (982), and 2012 (851).”

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6. This is govt. stupidity at it’s worst.

From TheWashingtonPost  “New federal rules that make it harder to get narcotic painkillers are taking an unexpected toll on thousands of veterans who depend on these prescription drugs to treat a wide variety of ailments, such as missing limbs and post-traumatic stress.

The restrictions, adopted last summer by the Drug Enforcement Administration to curb a national epidemic of opioid abuse, are for the first time, in effect, forcing veterans to return to the doctor every month to renew their medication, although many were already struggling to get appointments at overburdened VA health facilities. And even if patients can get appointments, the new rules pose an additional hardship for many who live a good distance from the health centers.

Although the tighter regulation applies to everyone on opioid painkillers, it’s hitting veterans especially hard because so many are being treated for horrific injuries sustained during the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and have become dependent on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ beleaguered health-care system for medical care.”

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7. Obama must be spending too much time with Sharpton. Now his DoJ is getting in on the shakedown business.

From CNN  “The Justice Department is preparing to bring a lawsuit against the Ferguson, Missouri, police department over a pattern of racially discriminatory tactics used by officers, if the police department does not agree to make changes on its own, sources tell CNN.

Attorney General Eric Holder said this week he expects to announce the results of the department’s investigation of the shooting death of Michael Brown and a broader probe of the Ferguson Police Department before he leaves office in the coming weeks.”

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by

News/Politics 2-18-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. What does ISIS want? Depends who you ask….

This one is long, but it’s worth it.

From NationalJournal/MSN  “What is the Islamic State?

Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

The group seized Mosul, Iraq, last June, and already rules an area larger than the United Kingdom. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been its leader since May 2010, but until last summer, his most recent known appearance on film was a grainy mug shot from a stay in U.S. captivity at Camp Bucca during the occupation of Iraq. Then, on July 5 of last year, he stepped into the pulpit of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, to deliver a Ramadan sermon as the first caliph in generations—upgrading his resolution from grainy to high-definition, and his position from hunted guerrilla to commander of all Muslims. The inflow of jihadists that followed, from around the world, was unprecedented in its pace and volume, and is continuing.

Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State’s countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate’s supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world.”

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2. According to the idiots at the State Dept. all they need are jobs.

From TheRightScoop  “State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf told Chris Matthews tonight that we cannot win this war with ISIS by killing them. She said we have to get to the root cause of why people are attracted to Jihad — you know like poverty, jobs, etc…

“We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs…””

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3. Some see the obvious danger.

From HSToday  “With estimates that 20,000 foreign fighters—including 3,400 Westerns— from 90 countries around the globe have traveled to Syria to fight for terrorist organizations, US counterterrorism officials are becoming increasingly worried that they will return to American shores to conduct an attack on the homeland.

 “We need to accurately define the threat – violent Islamist extremism – and recognize it is spreading like wildfire around the globe,” said House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX). “These fanatics want nothing less than destruction of our way of life, and now their ability to match words with deeds is growing at an astonishing rate. In recent years, their safe havens have proliferated and their ranks have swelled.”

 In the wake of the Islamic State’s (ISIS) barbaric display of the horrific murder of the Jordanian pilot, the House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing last Wednesday to examine current efforts to thwart the dual threats of foreign fighters and homegrown terror.

 “This evolving Islamist terror landscape has given rise to the ―dual threats of foreign fighter returnees and homegrown terrorism,” McCaul said. “The recent terror attack in Paris, and other attacks and plots in Belgium, Germany, the UK, Australia, Canada, and here in the US are proof that the threat has surged and that the enemy is dead set on attacking the West.””

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4. Oh yeah, great idea. 🙄

From ABCNews  “Top U.S. counterterrorism officials say they worry a potential terrorist could be hiding among refugees who are looking to come to the United States after escaping the brutal war in Syria.

“It’s clearly a population of concern,” the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Nicholas Rasmussen, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.

Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, went further, saying it would be a “huge mistake” to bring refugees from the conflict to the U.S. – even as an estimated 4 million children, women and men have been forced to flee Syria and another 7 million have been displaced from their homes there, unable to leave.”

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5. It’s moves like this that make me question the president’s efforts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXYL5iGG5QM&feature=player_embedded

More from CNSNews  “The United States does not support Egyptian and Emirati airstrikes against Islamist militias in Libya because the U.S. believes the crisis in Libya must be resolved politically and without outside interference, a Department of Defense spokesman said Tuesday.

Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrying out airstrikes in Libya was different from U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant forces in Iraq, Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby told a briefing, because the U.S. was acting in Iraq, in a “very targeted” manner, at the request of its government.

“This wasn’t some unilateral decision by the United States to strike targets inside Iraq.”

““We discourage other nations from taking a part in Libya’s issues through violence,” Kirby said. “We want the issues solved in Libya to be done peacefully and through good governance and politics and not violence.””

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6. Meanwhile, at the White House’s so-called terrorism summit the conversation is about the big threats posed by Christians. But Islamic terrorism? Not so much…

From CNSNews  “A U.S. Islamic advocacy group says that Vice- President Joe Biden, addressing a White House summit on “countering violent extremism (CVE)” on Tuesday, referred to right-wing extremists and supremacists committing violence “in the name of the Bible.”

The comments did not feature in Biden’s 19 minute-long opening remarks, televised by C-SPAN, in which the vice-president focused on America as a nation of immigrants, the need for different communities to “see” each other, and for countries to engage with “marginalized” communities.

“Biden just talked about the right wing militias & supremacist groups that are violent in the name of the Bible,” the Washington-based Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) tweeted later in the afternoon.”

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7. Obama’s amnesty plan has suffered a setback.

From LegalInsurrection  “In a decision which is to have a profound impact on both the immigration debate and the currently stalled funding of the Department of Homeland Security, a federal court judge in Texas has issued a Temporary Restraining Injunctive Order preventing implementation of Obama’s Immigration executive action. The Order and 123-page Opinion are embedded in full below.

From a political perspective, if Obama is enjoined from enforcing his immigration executive action, how can Congress fund an illegal act? Or if it were funded, thereby relieving the current continuing resolution stalemate, Obama could not enforce it. Either way, this may provide Congress a way out of the jam just days before the funding deadline.

What this allows Republicans to do, is pass a 30 day spending bill without any limitations on the argument that the immigration plan cannot be acted upon anyway, and wait and see how the courts rule. IF the courts refuse to put the injunction on hold, or if the courts uphold the injunction on the merits, then there is no need to worry about defunding the executive action. If an appeals court reverses, then the Republican leadership can say that it has already been upheld as lawful so there is no legal basis for the claim it is unconstitutional. This could be a victory at least to get over the current impasse, although it may not be a long term solution.

The case involves 26 states (originally 17) led by Texas.”

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8. Shouldn’t liberals be shrieking about separation of church and state about now? Oh that’s right, the ends always justify the means.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “In an effort to sign up as many consumers as possible for insurance under the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare), the Obama administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to partner with churches and other faith-based groups, even publishing sample church bulletin inserts, flyers, and scripts for announcements, as well as “talking points.” These materials are part of the “Second Sunday & Faith Weekend of Action Toolkit,” which is available on the website of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

From the beginning, HHS has sought to develop partnerships with faith-based organizations to promote the Obamacare. This “toolkit” has been available since 2013. However, the details of these partnerships have largely escaped the attention of the national media. The Second Sunday & Faith Weekend of Action program encourages churches to use the second Sunday of each month during open enrollment to hold informational meetings and sign-up events. “

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by

News/Politics 2-11-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The ObamaCare ruling may end civilization as we know it.

Or not.

From TheAmericanSpectator  “The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell three weeks from now, and the possibility that the justices might uphold the health care “reform” law as written has driven our liberal friends to the edge of lunacy. This is never a long journey for anyone on the left, of course, but they have arrived at the precipice with unusual alacrity this time. Their predictions about the outcome should the Court rule that “established by the state” actually means “established by the state” have gone from the merely portentous to the downright apocalyptic in only a few months.

When the Court agreed last November to hear this lawsuit, which challenges the IRS decision to ignore the text of the law and issue tax credits through federally created insurance exchanges, Obamacare advocates were clearly shocked. Still, they affected confidence that the plaintiffs had no prayer of prevailing. The justices, they said, would never rule against the government based on a “drafting error” in the statute. But when these people discovered that the typo argument was so thin that even the Obama administration had stopped using it, they began to show signs of alarm.

They started predicting that the Court would “cripple” Obamacare. But 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the law, so this didn’t exactly cause panic in streets. Next, they said that a ruling against the government could deprive many of taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies. The taxpayers were oddly unmoved. Now, they have resorted to claims so wild that even progressives will have trouble taking them seriously. Think Progress, for example, published a screed last week with the following title: “How King v. Burwell Threatens the Lives of Millions of Children.”

And DNC mouthpieces like Think Progress are by no means the only purveyors of such balderdash. The nominally independent Slate warns that “9,800 additional Americans will die each year” if the Court rules against the Obama administration. Even relatively respectable publications have joined this chorus. The Hill posted a story last Friday titled, “King v. Burwell will decide the Fate of Millions,” whose author solemnly warns that “the wrong outcome” would put “American lives in peril” and “erode some of the largest coverage expansions in decades.””

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2. Somehow I doubt this will calm ObamaCare’s left-leaning supporters.

From TheNYPost  “For five years, President Obama has ridiculed Republicans for not having “a meaningful alternative” to ObamaCare. The tables are turning.

Republicans announced a plan on Wednesday, just two weeks before the Supreme Court will hear a new, major challenge to the health law. If the president loses in court, he will have to deal with this GOP blueprint, not dismiss it.

The plan kills the major features of the Affordable Care Act, including mandates on individuals and employers, numerous taxes and the IPAB rationing board.

In their place, it offers tax credits for low-income citizens, more consumer choice, regulatory relief for employers and medical-malpractice reform to drive costs down.

Right now, it’s pie in the sky. Obama would veto it tomorrow.

But in a crisis, “the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable,” noted economist Milton Friedman. Whatever idea’s ready to go becomes the course of action.”

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3. Obama is putting forward his new authorization for military force against ISIS.

From BloombergView  “President Barack Obama will soon give Congress his proposal for a new authorization for the use of military force against Islamic State fighters, and it will place strict limits on the types of U.S. ground forces that can be deployed, according to congressional sources.

Almost six months after the president began using force against the Islamic State advance in Iraq and then in Syria, the White House is ready to ask Congress for formal permission to continue the effort. Until now, the administration has maintained it has enough authority to wage war through the 2001 AUMF on al-Qaeda, the 2002 AUMF regarding Iraq and Article II of the Constitution. But under pressure from Capitol Hill, the White House has now completed the text of a new authorization and could send it to lawmakers as early as Wednesday. 

If enacted, the president’s AUMF could effectively constrain the next president from waging a ground war against the Islamic State group until at least 2018. Aides warned that the White House may tweak the final details before releasing the document publicly. “

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4. How a family adoption trip led to a charge of criminal child neglect.

From MSNNews  “For three years, Jessica Smith’s son had been begging her for a little brother.

Then the orphanage in Mongolia that had given her Ziggy called to tell her that it had another young boy for her. At the time, Ziggy, whose given name is Zorigt, had just started second grade at a D.C. public school.

Smith had to make a decision. Should she and Ziggy fly to Ulaanbaatar and adopt the child they’d been seeking to make their family three? Or should she avoid the risk of too many classroom absences and give up on the child for which they had been longing and waiting?

The decision she made landed Smith in D.C. Superior Court last month on a charge of criminal child neglect. In a city battling a sky-high truancy rate, her story illustrates the absurd rigidity of the rules, which forbid excusing more than 10 absences without a doctor’s note, a court note or an emergency.”

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5. Anybody shocked? They keep insisting there’s nothing there, yet they keep hiding documents.

From TheHill  “The Obama administration is refusing to publicly release more than 500 documents on the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups.

Twenty months after the IRS scandal broke, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations. 

The Hill sought access to government documents that might provide a glimpse of the decision-making through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The Hill asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury officials, including Secretary Jack Lew, while the inspector general was working on its explosive May 2013 report that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to review the political activities of tax-exempt groups.

TIGTA opted not to release any of the 512 documents covered by the request, citing various exemptions in the law. The Hill recently appealed the FOIA decision, but TIGTA denied the appeal. TIGTA also declined to comment for this article.”

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6. HA! Finally the proof I needed to justify my afternoon nap. 🙂

From TheDailyMail  “Indulging in a power nap can repair the damage caused by a lack of sleep, new research today claims.

Having a 30-minute snooze can help relieve stress and bolster the immune systems by restoring hormones and proteins to normal levels.

Scientists hope their findings will help shift workers and those suffering insomnia, by mitigating the damage caused by too few hours sleep.

Sleep deprivation not only puts people at increased risk of suffering accidents, but they are also more likely to develop chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression.  

Dr Brice Faraut, of the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité, said: ‘Our data suggests a 30-minute nap can reverse the hormonal impact of a night of poor sleep.”

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News/Politics 2-9-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. It’s about time……

Now give their families the benefits they deserve.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The U.S. Army announced Friday that it will award the Purple Heart to the victims of the 2009 Fort Hood killings after years of pressure to designate the shooting as a terrorist attack.

Army Secretary John McHugh said presenting the Purple Heart to victims is “an appropriate recognition of their service and sacrifice.”

“The Purple Heart’s strict eligibility criteria had prevented us from awarding it to victims of the horrific attack at Fort Hood,” Mr. McHugh said in a Defense Department release. “Now that Congress has changed the criteria, we believe there is sufficient reason to allow these men and women to be awarded and recognized with either the Purple Heart or, in the case of civilians, the Defense of Freedom medal.”

Lawmakers have pushed for years for those injured or killed in the attack to receive the medal — as well as the accompanying lifelong medical and financial benefits — but only recently revised the definition of a terrorist attack to include Fort Hood in December’s annual defense policy bill.”

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2. The man gets Silver Star for bravery and now they’ve stripped it from him for questionable reasons.

From TheFreeBeacon  “Under heavy fire, Golsteyn, as Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post summarized this week, “ran about 150 meters to the trapped MRAP to retrieve a powerful 84mm Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, an anti-tank weapon. While moving under gunfire, he coordinated a medical evacuation for the wounded Afghan soldier and then opened fire with the Carl Gustav.”

Running through the open despite the fact that the Taliban had successfully pinned down the rest of his men, Golsteyn looked like he “was alone fighting 30 enemy fighters out in the poppy fields.” He then coordinated airstrikes from F/A-18 Hornets and a drone, silencing the enemy. The battle lasted four hours.

For his actions, Golsteyn was awarded the Silver Star, and was told that the medal would likely be upgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross (the Army’s equivalent of the Navy Cross, and second only to the Medal of Honor) after review by the Secretary of the Army. I can confirm that this was true because I was present at the ceremony where Golsteyn received his Silver Star, and personally overheard Lieutenant General John Mulholland, then the commander of the Army’s Special Operation’s Command, say that an upgrade was under consideration.

In fact, I know Golsteyn—now a major—well. I served alongside him in Marjah for months (though not on the 20th of February—I was among the thousands of Marines fighting elsewhere in the district that day) and can attest that he is one of the most courageous, dedicated, and honorable officers I encountered during my service in the military. He would give his life for the men he led without a moment’s thought—and he very nearly did, on several occasions. When we returned from our deployments and honors began to roll in for Golsteyn, I reflected that it is nice to see the good guys get recognized.

It didn’t last long. In 2011, shortly after a book by author and Marine Bing West came out that detailed Golsteyn’s heroism and quoted him making critical remarks about the American strategy in Afghanistan, I learned that the Army had launched a criminal investigation into his actions during the battle. (Again, full disclosure: I was also interviewed for that book, The Wrong War, and make a brief appearance in it.)

The investigation, apparently, had nothing to do with the acts of bravery that earned Golsteyn his medal. Instead, according to the Washington Post, which cited officials familiar with the case, it concerned “an undisclosed violation of the military’s rules of engagement in combat for killing a known enemy fighter and bomb maker.” The investigation stretched on for nearly two years, during which time the Army effectively put Golsteyn’s career on ice. In 2014, Golsteyn and his lawyer were informed that the investigation was finally complete. No charges were filed, but Golsteyn still wasn’t released from administrative limbo.”

Click the link for more on this miscarriage of justice.

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3. So in the warped view of the NY Times Chris Kyle is insane, but Bruce Jenner is heroic for sharing his self-mutilation on reality TV. And they wonder why readership is down.

From WeaselZippers  “An American war hero suffering from PTSD after serving several combat tours is smeared as “insane,” while Jenner is praised for turning his life into a freak show for TV ratings. I’ll never understand how these people think.”

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4. If you like your internet…. prepare to pay more now that the govt. plans on fixing it.

And again, you have to pass it before we can see what’s in it. Looks like the internet is getting an ObamaCare style remake.

From TheDailyCaller  “Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on Friday raised the first of many criticisms to come about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aggressive net neutrality plan distributed to commissioners Thursday, which Pai described as “President Obama’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet.”

In a statement released Friday, Pai lamented the fact that the 332-page plan, which he tweeted a picture of himself holding next to a picture of Obama, won’t be released to the public until after the commission votes on its implementation later this month. 

“President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works,” Pai said. “The plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband… These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay.”

In his initial cursory overview of the plan, the commissioner said it would hinder broadband investment, slow network speed and expansion, limit outgrowth to rural areas of the country and reduce Internet service provider (ISP) competition.”

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5. High horses and bull puckey.

From HotAir  “If Barack Obama missed the incongruity of lecturing today’s Christians about their attachment to the Crusades and slavery while dismissing connections between Islam and ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other present threats from Islamist terror groups, he may have been the only one who did. Noah skewered it as “Voxplaining Islamist fundamentalism,” but it’s worse than that — and plenty of people noticed. The Washington Post reports on the blowback, with critics arguing that the President of the United States has more important tasks than finger-wagging about events from 600 or more years ago … like developing a national strategy to fight the threats in this century:”

“To further that point, author Brad Thor sent a link to this concise explanation of the context of the Crusades. If the President wanted to argue comparative religious development, says Jeff Dunetz, that might have been useful:

The President wasted what could have been a valuable lesson. If he had gone on to say, “Yes Christianity had done horrible things but it learned and evolved, and now Islam must do the same thing,” it would have been a brilliant and relevant lesson. Instead he seemed to excuse the violence by radical Muslims today because of the violence of Christians six to ten centuries ago. …

If the President had started with the Christian massacres and ended with saying, they moderated and now teach peace, and now Islam should do the same he would have made a magnificent point. Instead he made a political point that is being ridiculed on both sides of the aisle.”

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6. More global warming fraud.

With a Hat Tip to Cheryl and her husband.

From TheTelegraph  “When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.

This was only the latest of many examples of a practice long recognised by expert observers around the world – one that raises an ever larger question mark over the entire official surface-temperature record.”

“Following my last article, Homewood checked a swathe of other South American weather stations around the original three. In each case he found the same suspicious one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”.”

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News/Politics 2-6-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Islamic State selling, crucifying, burying children alive in Iraq: UN

From ZeeNews  “Iraqi boys aged under 18 are increasingly being used by the militant group as suicide bombers, bomb makers, informants or human shields to protect facilities against U.S.-led air strikes, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”

Children from the Yazidi sect or Christian communities, but also Shi`ites and Sunnis, have been victims, she said.

“We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding,” Winter told Reuters. “There was a video placed (online) that showed children at a very young age, approximately eight years of age and younger, to be trained already to become child soldiers.””

Monsters are real.

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2. If the Obama admin is looking for someone to arm, these would be the ones, although it’s a little late.

From Alarabiya  “Several Iraqi Christian armed forces will “soon” join the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in an attempt to regain control of their in the northern Ninveh Plain after they were seized by the militant group last year, a Christian lawmaker said Wednesday.

“The objective is to liberate their land in Nineveh Plain and to take charge of security in these areas afterward,” said Yaco Jacob, a Christian parliamentarian at the Kurdistan Parliament.

Jacob is member of the political bureau of the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), which is one of the country’s Christian political parties, with two deputies in the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad and two representatives in the Kurdistan parliament in Erbil.

The ADM has operated paramilitaries since the 1980s, when it allied with the Kurds to wage an insurgency against Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Christian force currently has 2,000 men who volunteered to fight ISIS.

Christian groups began rebuilding their armed forces in August 2014, a week after the Ninevah plain exodus, seen by some as the worse disaster to have ever affected the Iraqi Christians.”

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3. The president is coming after retirement accounts, and he has other middle class hurting proposals in his budget.

From MSN  “President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2016 budget was unveiled Monday to the American public, along with the Department of Treasury’s Greenbook, which provides further explanation and details of the proposals in the president’s budget.

In truth, the president’s budget is really more of a wish list than anything else, but it’s a good indication of where the administration is headed.

This year’s version of the budget includes a number of provisions targeting retirement accounts. That’s no surprise, as provisions aimed at retirement accounts have been a regular feature in budgets in recent years. What is a surprise, however, is how many proposals are targeting retirement accounts and how many new proposals there are. All told, this year’s budget features over a dozen provisions that, if they were to become law, could directly impact your retirement savings.”

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4. And there’s a college loan bomb hidden in his budget too.

From Politico  “In obscure data tables buried deep in its 2016 budget proposal, the Obama administration revealed this week that its student loan program had a $21.8 billion shortfall last year, apparently the largest ever recorded for any government credit program.

 The main cause of the shortfall was President Barack Obama’s recent efforts to provide relief for borrowers drowning in student debt, reforms that have already begun to reduce loan payments to the government. For more than two decades, budget analysts have recalculated the projected costs of about 120 credit programs every year, but they have never lowered their expectations of repayments this dramatically. The $21.8 billion revision—larger than the annual budget for NASA, or the Interior Department and EPA combined—will be tacked onto the federal deficit.

“Wow,” marveled Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “Whether or not it’s good policy to help borrowers with their payments, it’s obviously costly for taxpayers.”

The 40 million Americans with student loans are now saddled with more than $1.2 trillion in outstanding debt. And with higher education costs rising much faster than inflation, the already massive program has been growing at a spectacular clip; direct government loans alone increased 44 percent over the last two years despite an aura of austerity in Washington. The Obama administration has tried to ease the burden for some borrowers by reducing their payments to 10 percent of their income and forgiving their loans after 20 years; this year, the Education Department plans to make all borrowers eligible for that “pay-as-you-earn” relief.”

22 billion shortfall in just one year.

More here, from HotAir

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5. Some charities are refusing donations from Bill Clinton’s disgusting pal.

From TheDailyMail/Reuters  “Some charities that have received money from U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein said they are reviewing their relationships with him or will decline to accept any future gifts from him in the wake of recent allegations he forced an underage girl to have sex with Britain’s Prince Andrew and other powerful men.

Epstein, 62, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring an underage girl for prostitution and served a year in a Florida jail, has long burnished his reputation as a philanthropist through a series of foundations that he says have given millions of dollars to institutions ranging from Harvard University to a New York junior tennis league.

The allegations involving Epstein became a tabloid sensation on both sides of the Atlantic after lawyers for one of Epstein’s accusers made them in a court filing just over a month ago. It prompted strong denials from Prince Andrew and from prominent U.S. lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who was also accused of having sex with the girl.

The filing has also renewed questions about Epstein’s once close links to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, though there are no allegations of any wrongdoing by Clinton.

In interviews with Reuters, three recipients of Epstein’s money said they would accept no more gifts, at least while the recent allegations are under review. They are a cancer researcher at New York City’s Mount Sinai hospital who with colleagues received $50,000 in seed funding; a mentoring program for young Swedish businesswomen that got $30,000; and Ballet Palm Beach in Florida, which declined to say how much Epstein gave.”

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But at least one Rutgers professor thinks it’s no big deal. These people are sick.

From TheDailyCaller  “A Reuters exclusive published Monday explores the conundrum faced by nonprofits that have received money from Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier arrested and convicted for child prostitution.

But buried in the report is an insane statement from a Rutgers professor saying that he didn’t think he should return the money… because he didn’t think Epstein did anything all that bad.

Professor Robert Trivers told Reuters that Epstein was “a person of integrity who should be given credit for serving time in prison” and for settling civil lawsuits brought by underage girls. ”Did he get an easy deal? Did he buy himself a light sentence?” Trivers asks. “Well, yes, probably, compared to what you or I would get, but he did get locked up.”

But more to the point, Trivers didn’t see what the fuss was all about, since girls mature earlier nowadays. ”By the time they’re 14 or 15, they’re like grown women were 60 years ago, so I don’t see these acts as so heinous.””

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6. Hackers have infiltrated the system of the US’s  second largest insurer. Millions of people’s personal info has been breached.

From Cleveland/CBSLocal  “Health insurer Anthem said hackers infiltrated its computer network and gained access to a host of personal information for customers and employees, including CEO Joseph Swedish.

The nation’s second-largest health insurer said it was contacting customers affected by the “very sophisticated” cyberattack and was working to figure out how many people were affected.

The company said information the hackers gained access to included names, birthdates, email address, employment details, Social Security numbers, incomes and street addresses of people who are currently covered or have had coverage in the past.

CBS News reports hackers may have stolen up to 80 million records.”

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News/Politics 2-5-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. NBC’s Brian Williams has been exposed for falsely claiming he was in a chopper hit by RPG fire in Iraq in 2003. This was a long-standing lie he discussed many times. Now, in his apology that really isn’t one, he claims to just have mis-remembered it, for 12 years, and while repeatedly telling the story…

He must have went to the Dan Rather “fake but accurate” school of journalism.

From StarsAndStripes, who broke the story  “NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.

Williams repeated the claim Friday during NBC’s coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters, a game to which Williams accompanied him. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, he said he had misremembered the events and was sorry.

The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.

“I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Williams said. “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”

Williams told his Nightly News audience that the erroneous claim was part of a “bungled attempt” to thank soldiers who helped protect him in Iraq in 2003. “I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” Williams said. “I want to apologize.””

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2. ISIS has picked a fight with someone they shouldn’t have, someone who has the resolve to fight them all out.

From FoxNews  “Jordan’s King Abdullah, himself a former general, angrily vowed to pursue ISIS until his military runs “out of fuel and bullets,” in a closed door meeting with U.S. lawmakers that followed the release Wednesday of a grisly video showing a captured Jordanian airman being burned alive in a cage by the terrorist army.

The pledge preceded the hanging of two Al Qaeda terrorists early Wednesday in Jordan, a swift response to the video that could be a mere harbinger of coming retribution from the Arab kingdom in the wake of the sadistic slaughter. King Abdullah’s words were echoed by military leaders, who vowed an “earth-shaking” response, proportionate to the magnitude of the tragedy of all Jordanians.” But it was the words of their visibly shaken king, who commanded his nation’s special forces before assuming the throne in 1999, that could foreshadow what is in store for the black-clad terrorist army whose atrocities have shocked the civilized world.

“He said there is going to be retribution like ISIS hasn’t seen,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., R-Calif., a Marine Corps veteran of two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, who was in the meeting with the king. “He mentioned ‘Unforgiven’ and he mentioned Clint Eastwood, and he actually quoted a part of the movie.”

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3. No good deed goes unpunished…

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady is facing a $60,500 bill from the IRS just for winning the game, according to a new report.

Americans for Tax Reform said he will have to pay $42,000 on his share of the $97,000 for playing in the championship, and another $18,500 for giving away the red Chevy Colorado pickup truck he won for being MVP to fellow player Malcolm Butler, who caught the game-winning interception.

They said Brady will have to pay about $13,000 in income tax on the prize, and then another $5,000 “gift tax” for doing a nice thing in giving Butler the keys.

“That’s a $5,000 gift tax on top of a $13,500 income tax on the truck, for a combined federal tax hit of $18,500,” said ATR, headed by Washington tax foe Grover Norquist.”

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4. But bad deeds could produce a cash windfall…

From TheWashingtonTimes  “IRS Commissioner John Koskinen confirmed Tuesday that illegal immigrants granted amnesty from deportation under President Obama’s new policies would be able to get extra refunds from the IRS for money they earned while working illegally, as long as they filed returns during those years.

Illegal immigrants who are granted the amnesty will be given official Social Security numbers, which means they can go back and amend up to three years of previous tax forms to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, potentially claiming billions of dollars in additional payments they were ineligible for before the amnesty.

Mr. Koskinen said they will have to have already filed returns for those back-years, and there’s a statute of limitations that governs how far they can go back, but said the agency’s current interpretation of laws would allow them to claim the EITC credit retroactively.”

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News/Politics 1-19-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Bad idea?

From TheDailyMail  “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is set to appoint a Muslim lawmaker to the Intelligence Committee, congressional aides said Tuesday, giving him access to some of America’s most closely held secrets in the war on terror.

The move will come as the world is still grappling with an al-Qaeda death squad’s massacre last week of journalists at the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, executed because they had published a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.”

“In a Huffington Post interview two months ago, he reflected on his time as a police officer assigned to track terrorism and conduct counter-intelligence.

‘What I learned is that in the U.S., as in the UK, it is impossible to fight the threat of global terror without help from Muslims,’ the congressman said.

‘But there is a problem with institutional bigotry.'”

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More here, from  BizPacReview  “U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, an Indiana Democrat, may be one of Nancy Pelosi’s handpicked selections to serve on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, but he has a lot of explaining to do on who made political contributions to his campaign — and a history of racially charged, inflammatory statements.

According to the Daily Caller, Carson, the first Muslim to get a seat on the committee, spoke to the 37th Annual Islamic Circle of North America-Muslim American Society Convention in Hartford, Conn., declaring the need to incorporate some Islam-based practices into the U.S. system.

“America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our madrassas, in our schools, where innovation is encouraged, where the foundation is the Quran.””

“Carson also made a racially charged statements about the tea party members of Congress suggesting, “Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see [blacks] as second class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now with this tea party movement would love to see you and me…hanging on a tree.””

And as you’d expect, he also has questionable donations from questionable Islamic sources. I believe the wording used was “unindicted co-conspirators.”

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2. The first western reporter to embed with ISIS is talking about the experience.

From Breitbart  “Todenhofer lived side by side with the jihadist fighters for ten days in the Islamic State-stronghold city of Mosul, Iraq. He was accompanied only by his son, who served as his cameraman.

“I always asked them about the value of mercy in Islam,” but “I didn’t see any mercy in their behavior,” explained Todenhofer. He added, “Something that I don’t understand at all is the enthusiasm in their plan of religious cleansing, planning to kill the non-believers… They also will kill Muslim democrats because they believe that non-ISIL-Muslims put the laws of human beings above the commandments of God.”

The German reporter then elaborated on how shocked he was about how “willing to kill” the ISIS fighters are. He said that they were ready to commit genocide. “They were talking about [killing] hundreds of millions. They were enthusiastic about it, and I just cannot understand that,” said Todenhofer.”

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3. Barry’s not gonna like this….

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “As talks over Iran’s nuclear program resumed Sunday in Geneva, lawmakers in Congress moved forward with legislation to impose new sanctions on Tehran, defying a veto threat from President Obama.

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee announced that it would meet Thursday to consider bipartisan sanctions legislation by Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.

It’s an indication that the two senators have lined up enough support to deliver Obama a humiliating defeat on the issue just days after he publicly threatened to veto any proposed sanctions. Last month, Kirk told the Washington Examiner that he and Menendez were aiming for legislation that could receive bipartisan support sufficient to overcome any presidential veto.”

“Support for sanctions is strong in both chambers of Congress, in spite of intense administration lobbying on the issue. Legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran passed the House in July 2013 by a 400-20 vote. In the Senate, an earlier version of the legislation by Menendez and Kirk had majority support last year but was blocked by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.”

Further proof that it was Reid who was the real obstructionist in the legislature.

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4. Will the Obama White House try to bury the Bergdahl report?

From FoxNews  “Last Sunday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, indicated that he expected a decision “fairly soon” on whether the Army will court martial Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for allegedly deserting his post in Afghanistan, or has cleared him, paving the way for separation from the service and back pay in excess of $200,000. Moreover, a decision to clear Bergdahl may well open the door for him to be designated a former prisoner of war, ensuring him substantial monthly pay, medical and educational benefits for the rest of his life.

To those who have followed all angles of Bergdahl’s case, it appears the Army has a true dilemma on its hands, as does the Obama administration. By now the investigating team has done an in-depth look into the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl’s disappearance from his post, has probably interviewed every witness with credible information, has looked at every piece of physical evidence and has reviewed hundreds of classified intelligence reports regarding his captivity. Its conclusions are long overdue.”

“In White House terms, not charging Bergdahl means that he was indeed worth the trade for the Taliban Five. But charging him on any level means that releasing the five Taliban was an error of monstrous proportions, one the administration will never be able to explain away satisfactorily.

Watch for the announcement, in all likelihood on a Friday afternoon. If Bergdahl is charged, the administration will hope it’s old news by Monday. If he’s not charged, it will be big news for a long time to come.”

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News/Politics 1-15-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The FBI has arrested a man they say was plotting an ISIS inspired attack on D.C.

From ABCNews  “The FBI Wednesday arrested an Ohio man for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired attack on the U.S. Capitol, where he hoped to set off a series of bombs aimed at lawmakers, whom he allegedly considered enemies.

Christopher Lee Cornell, 20, of Green Township, was arrested on charges of attempting to kill a U.S. government official, authorities said.

According to government documents, he allegedly planned to detonate pipe bombs at the national landmark and open fire on any employees and officials fleeing after the explosions.

The FBI first noticed Cornell several months ago after an informant notified the agency that Cornell was allegedly voicing support for violent “jihad” on Twitter accounts under the alias “Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah,” according to charging documents. In addition, Cornell allegedly posted statements, videos and other content expressing support for ISIS — the brutal terrorist group also known as ISIL — that is wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria. “

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2. Despite US bombings, ISIS is expanding their territory.

From TheDailyBeast  “ISIS continues to gain substantial ground in Syria, despite nearly 800 air strikes in the American-led campaign to break ISIS’s grip there.

At least one-third of the country’s territory is now under ISIS influence, with recent gains in rural areas that can serve as a conduit to major cities ISIS hopes to eventually claim as part of its caliphate. Meanwhile, the Islamic extremist group does not appear to have suffered any major ground losses since the strikes began. The result is a net ground gain for ISIS, according to information compiled by two groups with on-the-ground sources.

In Syria, ISIS “has not any lost any key terrain,” Jennifer Cafarella, a fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War who studies the Syrian conflict, explained to the Daily Beast.”

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3. NBC and ABC are touting the new Charlie Hebdo cover as a “declaration of defiance” and a “triumph of free-speech.” But you’ll have to take their word for it because they won’t show it on air. 🙄

From NewsBusters  “Reporting on the release of Charlie Hebdo’s first issue since the January 7 terrorist attack, NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday refused to show the cover of the satirical magazine that depicted a cartoon image of Mohamed. Despite such censorship, both networks touted the publication as “a triumph for free speech” and “a kind of declaration of defiance against terror.”

On Today, co-host Matt Lauer proclaimed: “…a defiant Charlie Hebdo releases its very first issue since that terror attack on its Paris offices, with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamed on the cover.” Correspondent Bill Neely began his report: “Today Charlie Hebdo is back on the street, seemingly stronger than ever.” However, moments later he explained: “On its cover, which NBC News is not showing, a cartoon of a tearful prophet Mohamed.”

“Good Morning America demonstrated a similar contradiction. Co-host Robin Roberts announced: “The French are certainly showing no fear in the face of terrorism this morning. That new issue of Charlie Hebdo selling out across the country this morning…” Correspondent Terry Moran led off his report by noting that getting a copy of the magazine “has become a kind of declaration of defiance against terror…” Despite such pronouncements, the morning show did not show the cover.”

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4. After reading this one I have to ask….

Have the terrorists already won?

From InternationalBusinessTimes  “One of the biggest education publishers in the world has warned its authors not to mention pigs or sausages in their books to avoid causing offence.

Oxford University Press (OUP) said all books must take into consideration other cultures if they hope to sell copies in countries across the world.

As a result, the academic publisher has issued guidance advising writers to avoid mentioning pigs or “anything else which could be perceived as pork” so as not to offend Muslim or Jewish people.

The move was revealed during a discussion on free speech during BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in the wake of the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hedbo and its decision to use an image of the Prophet Mohammed on the cover of its latest issue.”

“An OUP spokesperson said: “Our materials are sold in nearly 200 countries, and as such, and without compromising our commitment in any way, we encourage some authors of educational materials respectfully to consider cultural differences and sensitivities.”

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5. Remember this the next time someone tells you our economy is recovering.

From Breitbart  “In a stunning Tuesday report, Gallup CEO and Chairman Jim Clifton revealed that “for the first time in 35 years, American business deaths now outnumber business births.”

“Let’s get one thing clear: This economy is never truly coming back unless we reverse the birth and death trends of American businesses,” writes Clifton.”

“Indeed, the numbers are striking. Contrary to the oft-cited 26 million businesses in America figure, Clifton says 20 million of these so-called “businesses” are merely companies on paper with zero workers, profits, customers, or sales. In reality, America has just 6 million businesses with one or more employers–3.8 million of which have four or fewer employees. In total, these 6 million U.S. companies provide jobs for more than 100 million people in America.

Of the 2.2 million job-creating companies with five or more workers, the numbers break down accordingly:

There are about a million companies with five to nine employees, 600,000 businesses with 10 to 19 employees, and 500,000 companies with 20 to 99 employees. There are 90,000 businesses with 100 to 499 employees. And there are just 18,000 with 500 employees or more, and that figure includes about a thousand companies with 10,000 employees or more. Altogether, that is America, Inc.”

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