politics

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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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News/Politics 2-23-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Here’s the big story the liberal media is focused on.

From TheNYPost  “Rudy Giuliani doubled down on his claims that President Obama doesn’t “love America” in an interview with The Post Friday — claiming the commander-in-chief has been influenced by communists since his youth.

“From the time he was 9 years old, he was influenced by Frank Marshall Davis, who was a communist,” Giuliani said. The ex-mayor added that Obama’s grandfather introduced him to Davis, a writer and labor activist.

Giuliani also said another bad influence on Obama was Saul Alinsky, a community organizer whom the ex-mayor called a “socialist.””

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2. The only reason they’re focused on that is so it’s easier to ignore this one.

From TheFreeBeacon  “Donating large sums of money to the Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea Clinton Foundation is one of the many fun ways a corporation, billionaire, or foreign government can curry favor with the Clinton dynasty.

While the media was busy obsessively hyperventilating over Rudy Giulian’s comments about President Obama’s lack of love for America, the Wall Street Journal reported that, during her time as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton helped promote the interest of large U.S. corporations, many of which have donated larges sums of money to the Clinton Foundation:

Among recent secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton was one of the most aggressive global cheerleaders for American companies, pushing governments to sign deals and change policies to the advantage of corporate giants such as General Electric Co. , Exxon Mobil Corp. , Microsoft Corp. and Boeing Co.

At the same time, those companies were among the many that gave to the Clinton family’s global foundation set up by her husband, former President Bill Clinton. At least 60 companies that lobbied the State Department during her tenure donated a total of more than $26 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of public and foundation disclosures.”

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More here, from TheMiamiHerald  “More than 40 percent of the top donors to the Clinton family foundation are based in foreign countries, which could lead to conflict-of-interest questions for Hillary Clinton as she prepares to launch her campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

The charity that now bears Hillary Clinton’s name along with her husband and daughter has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments, businesses, individuals and nongovernment organizations around the globe, according to an analysis of 10 years of contributions by McClatchy. Many of them gave as recently as 2014.

The governments of Saudi Arabia and Norway each contributed $10 million to $25 million.

Mohammed Al-Amoudi, a billionaire businessman who lives in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia, retired German race car driver Michael Schumacher, and Denis O’Brien, the Irish chairman of Digicel phone company, each donated between $5 million and $10 million.”

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3. So the Obama conference on extremists, which refused to mention Islam, the ideology behind the largest group of extremists, was opened at least one day with a muslim prayer. They might have the first day too, but we don’t know for sure because the press wasn’t allowed in. How nice.

From CNSNews  “A Muslim prayer was recited at the start of the second day of the White House summit on “Countering Violent Extremism,” but no other religious text was presented during the portion of the event that was open to the press.

Imam Sheikh Sa’ad Musse Roble, president of the World Peace Organization in Minneapolis, Minn., recited a “verse from the Quran” following remarks by Obama administration officials and Democratic members of Congress.”

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4. Such childish behavior is unbecoming a president, but just what we’ve come to expect from Barry.

From APNews  ” In what is becoming an increasingly nasty grudge match, the White House is mulling ways to undercut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming trip to Washington and blunt his message that a potential nuclear deal with Iran is bad for Israel and the world.

There are limits. Administration officials have discarded the idea of President Barack Obama himself giving an Iran-related address to rebut the two speeches Netanyahu is to deliver during his early March visit. But other options remain on the table.

Among them: a presidential interview with a prominent journalist known for coverage of the rift between Obama and Netanyahu, multiple Sunday show television appearances by senior national security aides and a pointed snub of America’s leading pro-Israel lobby, which is holding its annual meeting while Netanyahu is in Washington, according to the officials.

The administration has already ruled out meetings between Netanyahu and Obama, saying it would be inappropriate for the two to meet so close to Israel’s March 17 elections. But the White House is now doubling down on a cold-shoulder strategy, including dispatching Cabinet members out of the country and sending a lower-ranking official than normal to represent the administration at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the officials said.”

Yeah, an interview with one of your lap-dogs, that’ll show ’em… 🙄

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5. The Obama admin wants an emergency order to continue pushing his illegal amnesty program.

From TheHill  “The Obama administration will seek an emergency court order to move forward with President Obama’s executive action on immigration.

Officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) plan to seek what is known as an emergency stay that would essentially undo a Texas-based federal judge’s injunction from earlier this week. If the stay is granted, the government could restart a pair of executive programs that will shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said DOJ will file for the stay by “Monday at the latest.”

The emergency stay had been sought by immigrant rights advocates, who want to get the programs up and running as soon as possible while the appeals process plays out.”

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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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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.

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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News/Politics 2-13-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Not shocking.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty will make it easier for illegal immigrants to improperly register and vote in elections, state elections officials testified to Congress on Thursday, saying that the driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers they will be granted create a major voting loophole.

While stressing that it remains illegal for noncitizens to vote, secretaries of state from Ohio and Kansas said they won’t have the tools to sniff out illegal immigrants who register anyway, ignoring stiff penalties to fill out the registration forms that are easily available at shopping malls, motor vehicle bureaus and in curbside registration drives.

Anyone registering to vote attests that he or she is a citizen, but Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said mass registration drives often aren’t able to give due attention to that part, and so illegal immigrants will still get through.”

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2. Green scam update.

From TheFreeBeacon  “Despite billions spent in investments over decades, solar energy will only make up 0.6 percent of total electricity generation in the United States, according to a report released by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA).

“In spite of government’s best efforts to encourage innovation by solar energy companies and encourage Americans to rely more heavily on solar electricity, solar power continues to be a losing proposition,” the report said. “American taxpayers spent an average of $39 billion a year over the past 5 years financing grants, subsidizing tax credits, guaranteeing loans, bailing out failed solar energy boondoggles and otherwise underwriting every idea under the sun to make solar energy cheaper and more popular. But none of it has worked.”

Government support for the solar industry is vast, with at least 345 different federal initiatives that spread across 20 agencies, the report noted. The Pentagon has the highest number of solar programs, with 63, followed by the Interior Department, which oversees 37 programs. The Energy Department only manages 34 solar programs.

“This report is only the first step in asking the important questions about solar subsidies,” said David Williams, the president of the TPA. “Taxpayers need to know the truth about where their dollars are being spent.””

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3. Is Scott Walker the most conservative candidate since Goldwater?

From MotherJones  “For those of us who are sort of fascinated by the rise of Scott Walker as a Republican presidential contender, here’s an interesting chart from Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University. It shows the relative conservative-ness of GOP presidential nominees in the past six contested elections, and it demonstrates what an outlier Walker would be if he won next year’s primary: he’d be the first candidate since Ronald Reagan who’s more conservative than the average of the Republican field. And by McDaniel’s measure,1 he’d actually be the most conservative recent nominee, period—even more right-wing than Reagan:

Walker is well to the right end of the conservative spectrum, residing in the ideological neighborhood of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul….It is not a stretch to argue that if nominated, Walker would be the most conservative Republican nominee since Barry Goldwater in 1964.

….In contrast, Jeb Bush’s ideological position closely resembles previous Republican nominees. Bush most closely resembles John McCain in 2008….In Scott Walker versus Jeb Bush, party elites and primary voters are presented with clearly contrasting visions of the future direction of the Republican party….If the recent history of Republican nomination contests is any guide, the party is likely to decide that Scott Walker is too ideologically extreme to be the Republican nominee in 2016.”

They make him sound so scary, most likely out of fear.

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4. Tricare is in trouble.

From StarsAndStripes  “The military’s Tricare health insurance is a broken system that is now in a “death spiral” and must be replaced, a congressional review commission told the House on Wednesday.

The insurance has been veering toward less choice and access since it was created and now falls far behind other networks in its number of providers and ability to incorporate new types of medical care, members of the Military Retirement and Compensation Modernization Commission testified before an Armed Services subcommittee.

The testimony is the beginning of hearings on Capitol Hill so lawmakers can consider legislation to overhaul the health coverage, troop retirement system and other compensation that the Pentagon says is growing too expensive to sustain. The Senate has also planned a series of subcommittee hearings to weigh a number of the commission recommendations, including a complete restructuring of 20-year military retirement system.”

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5. Do secular family values even exist?

From TheFederalist  “Recent assertions in the Los Angeles Times that secular family values result in better-adjusted children than believers rest on three fallacies.”

“The dominant feature of the Christian religion is belief in Jesus Christ. The dominant feature of Buddhism is the promise of nirvana. The dominant feature of atheism, as best I can tell, is crippling insecurity.

Why does Richard Dawkins speak with such vitriol about how Christianity has nothing of value to offer humanity? Maybe because Christianity produced the Sistine Chapel and he feels insecure that atheism’s greatest artistic achievement is a string of anti-religious memes posted on Reddit. Why did Stephen Fry, the towering embodiment of modern British gentlemanliness, turn a bit grinchy recently and say that he’d lambast God for being a terrible jerkface on the Day of Judgment? I bet it’s because he feels insecure about not being able to find the goodness of God in creation’s tapestry of suffering while those of faith can. And why did Phil Zuckerman recently write a Los Angeles Times op-ed insisting that non-believing, non-church going parents are just as good, if not better, at raising well-adjusted children as the Jesus freaks? Probably because he’s maybe just a wee-bit terrified that this isn’t true.

Though his essay strikes a commendably irenic tone, rare for the average atheist manifesto, as far as the substance of his argument is concerned, Zuckerman has hardly furnished his fellow atheists with a proton pack capable of busting the ghostly feeling of parental inadequacy. To say that his analysis of data concerning religion-less families reaches unjustified conclusions is an understatement. It’s a bit more accurate to say that Zuckerman handles these statistics with more comically awkward stretching than Danny DeVito trying to put a fitted sheet on a king-size bed. So how does he fail to prove the sufficiency of godless parenting with this data? Let me count the ways.”

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News/Politics 2-12-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Well at least they apologized for taking their money for no legitimate reason…. 🙄

From USNews  “Pressured by Congress, the IRS said Wednesday it is changing its policies and apologizing for seizing banks accounts from otherwise law-abiding business owners simply because they structured bank transactions to avoid federal reporting requirements.

Their alleged crime: routinely making bank deposits of less than $10,000. That allowed the business owners to avoid reporting requirements designed to catch drug dealers and money launderers.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress that the IRS is changing policies to prevent the seizures, as long as the money came from legal means.

 “To anyone who is not treated fairly under the code, I apologize,” Koskinen told the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee. “Taxpayers have to be comfortable that they will be treated fairly.”

By law, bank transactions above $10,000 must be reported to the IRS. It’s a felony, called “structuring,” to manage transactions to avoid the reporting requirement, even if the money is legally earned. In some cases, the IRS seized and held bank accounts for years without bringing charges.”

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2. And just what kind of online political speech would they like to regulate? You already know the answer.

From CNSNews  “The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is holding a hearing today to receive public feedback on whether it should create new rules regulating political speech, including political speech on the Internet that one commissioner warned could affect blogs, YouTube videos and even websites like the Drudge Report.

The hearing is a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC last year, which struck down the FEC’s previous cap on aggregate campaign contributions from a single donor in an election cycle.”

“This time around, organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned that some Democrats on the commission would like to impose much more burdensome regulations that could serve as the equivalent of spending caps in restricting political speech.”

“The commission has seen proposals to regulate even issue advocacy referencing federal candidates that is disseminated on the Internet,” Goodman told CNSNews.com.

“That could reach YouTube videos, blogs, and websites like [the] Drudge Report,” he warned.”

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3. Here comes Amnesty 2.0.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The government expects so many applications for President Obama’s new deportation amnesty that it’s seeking a contractor just to open the new mail and enter the forms into the system, with plans to operate two shifts from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. every workday to keep up with the anticipated workload.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency charged with approving the applications, expects more than 800,000 applications in just the first two and a half months, or a 70 percent surge compared to last year’s total intake for the entire agency. Over the first 18 or so months, the agency will process more than 4 million pieces of mail related to the larger part of the new amnesty, according to contracting documents.

All applications must be opened in the presence of two workers, one with “secret” security clearance, in order to maintain integrity of the applications, and mail may need to be X-rayed for security reasons, the documents show.”

“But one former USCIS executive testified to Congress last week that the agency is going to be overwhelmed by the volume of applications and the truncated approval process.

“It’s going to be hard to tell how much fraud there is,” said Luke Bellocchi, a former deputy ombudsman for USCIS, as he testified to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week.”

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4. Don’t you hate it when cheating adults ruin it for the kids?

From MSNNews  “A Little League team that captured the attention of the nation and the hearts of its hometown was stripped of its national title Wednesday after an investigation revealed that team officials had falsified boundaries so they could add ineligible players to the roster.

Only last summer, the all-black Jackie Robinson West team was the toast of Chicago and was honored with trips to San Francisco and to the White House.

But the sport’s governing body, Little League International, announced that team officials had changed the boundaries that determine where players must live. And after learning that their scheme had been exposed, they scrambled to convince surrounding leagues to go along with what they had done.

“This is so heartbreaking,” said Stephen D. Keener, the Little League International president and CEO. “It is a sad day for a bunch of kids who we have come to really like … who did nothing wrong.” But “we cannot tolerate the actions of some of the adults involved here.”

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