THIS month, the headlines were about a Muslim man in Boston who was accused of threatening police officers with a knife. Last month, two Muslims attacked an anti-Islamic conference in Garland, Tex. The month before, a Muslim man was charged with plotting to drive a truck bomb onto a military installation in Kansas. If you keep up with the news, you know that a small but steady stream of American Muslims, radicalized by overseas extremists, are engaging in violence here in the United States.

But headlines can mislead. The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right-wing extremists. Just ask the police.

In a survey we conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum last year of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction; 39 percent listed extremism connected with Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist organizations. And only 3 percent identified the threat from Muslim extremists as severe, compared with 7 percent for anti-government and other forms of extremism.”

Was it right-wingers burning Baltimore and Ferguson, trying to blow up a bridge in Cleveland, shooting up a draw the prophet gathering, bombing Boston, attacking Boston police with a knife, shooting 2 cops in NY, attacking an FBI agent yesterday, or any other episodes in recent memory? No, it wasn’t, those have all been left-wing agitators and muslims.

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4. From bad to worse.

From KHQ.com “The City of Spokane says an independent investigation into a whistleblower complaint filed against three members of the volunteer citizen Police Ombudsman Commission has found “behavioral misconduct during interactions with City employees.” City of Spokane Communications Director Brian Coddington said eight findings of misconduct in the report include chair Rachel Dolezal and commissioners Kevin Berkompas and Adrian Dominguez. The report has been forwarded to the City Council for review.

Dolezal recently resigned as President of the Spokane NAACP amid allegations from her parents that she is in fact white, and not black as she has been portraying for years.

“We are deeply disturbed by the facts contained in the report of findings from the independent investigator,” Spokane Mayor David Condon and Council President Ben Stuckart said in a joint statement. “The conduct is unacceptable and falls far short of the community’s expectations of volunteers who sit on City boards and commissions.”

The evidence and interviews conducted by the law firm Winston & Cashatt confirmed workplace harassment allegations, revealing a pattern of misconduct as well as specific incidents of harassment that might be viewed only as rude or unprofessional were it not for the ongoing pattern of harassment.

The report also states investigators uncovered additional abuses of authority, as well as violations of the Code of Ethics. The report states one or more of the Named Commissioners attempted to directly supervise the operation of the OPO, lied to investigators, failed to set aside biases toward police, engaged in unprofessional disrespectful conduct in public settings, and engaged in conduct that created a conflict of interest.At a press conference on Wednesday, Council President Ben Stuckart said after reading the findings in the report, the creation of a hostile work environment was “pretty horrific.””

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5. Hillary’s lies continue to be exposed.

From FoxNews “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her personal email account to handle high level negotiations in 2011 for a no-fly zone to help topple Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, according to a series of emails obtained by Fox News, challenging her claim the private server did not hold classified information.

The emails, linked here, conflict with Clinton’s statement that she did not put national security at risk by using a personal account.

“I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material,” Clinton, now a candidate for president, told reporters in March. “I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”

That claim was hard to test because emails released by the State Department are heavily blacked out. But an email chain from March 23, 2011 — with virtually no redactions — shows a message for senior administration staff including then Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, then-Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy among others. It goes point by point, explaining what Turkey, France and Britain will likely accept in the deal.

“I think the information in the email is clearly classified. If I were engaged in the negotiation on that subject reporting back to Washington, my reporting cable would be classified,” former UN Ambassador and Fox News contributor John Bolton said after reading the un-redacted emails.”

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April 8, 2015 by the real Aj

News/Politics 4-8-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Well that didn’t take long.

Less than 2 hours after Rand Paul announces his candidacy, MSN and the NY Times were already out with the story of why he can’t win. Just like with Walker and Cruz. And for good measure, they make sure to take some shots at libertarians. They’re so predictable. 🙄

From MSN/NYT “It has become fashionable in recent years to refer to a growing libertarian wing of the Republican Party, and Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator who announced his candidacy for the presidency on Tuesday, hopes to become the first serious candidate to make it part of a winning primary coalition.

Perhaps in a decade or two, a representative of the libertarian wing of the party will have an easy time winning the nomination. It’s just unlikely to happen in 2016.

The libertarians remain too young and too few to present Senator Paul with a realistic path to the nomination. He has to win over a much larger share of more reliable Republican primary voters, who will have considerable reservations about Mr. Paul’s policies. The other problem he faces: Many of the voters most receptive to libertarian views tend not to vote.

In one sense, you could argue that the libertarian wing of the Republican Party barely exists at all. According to a large Pew Research survey in 2014 of 10,000 respondents, 11 percent of Americans and 12 percent of self-identified Republicans considered themselves libertarian. They met a basic threshold for knowing what the term meant. But there wasn’t much “libertarian” about these voters; over all, their views were startlingly similar to those of the public as a whole.”

So basically the Times wants you to abandon all hope and vote for Bush or some other RINO. Again.

No thanks.

I have 3 I’d vote for, Paul is one of them. If it’s not one of them, I stay home with the supposedly (according to the NYT) mythical libertarians, and watch Pant Suits rule the world for 8 years.

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2. Are California’s water problems man-made? Is it caused by environmentalists and their liberal enablers/benefactors in DC? Carly Fiorina makes a good case that it is. Others are as well.

From TheWashingtonTimes ““With different policies over the last 20 years, all of this could be avoided,” Ms. Fiorina said in an interview Monday on Glenn Beck’s radio show, The Blaze reported. “Despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for millennia, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades during a period in which California’s population has doubled.”

Ms. Fiorina said that as a result, 70 percent of California’s rainfall “washes out to sea” every year, The Blaze reported. “California is a classic case of liberals being willing to sacrifice other people’s lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology. It is a tragedy,” Ms. Fiorina said.

“Government has grown so huge, so powerful, so costly, so complex, it is literally crushing the life out of this country,” she argued. “It is crushing small and family-owned businesses, which are the economic engine of our nation. It is crushing possibilities out of people’s lives by entangling them in a web of dependence from which they cannot escape. The weight, the cost and the power of government are literally crushing the potential of the nation.””

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More here, from HotAir “In 2014, National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke filed a dispatch from California’s Central Valley, an area that was once an agricultural hub and has now been reduced to a virtual dust bowl as a result of drought combined with severe and unnecessary resource mismanagement. That misallocation of resources is not the result of a frustrating tradeoff between the needs of Central Valley farmers and the desert-dwelling populations of Los Angeles and San Diego, but the eternally threatened smelt.”

“This is a classic tale of activist government run amok — and, too, of the peculiarly suicidal instincts that rich and educated societies exhibit when they reach maturity. Were its consequences not so hideously injurious, the details would be almost comical. As a direct result of the overwrought concern that a few well-connected interest groups and their political allies have displayed for a fish — and of a federal Endangered Species Act that is in need of serious revision — hundreds of billions of gallons of water that would in other areas have been sent to parched farmland have been diverted away from the Central Valley and deliberately pushed out under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Pacific Ocean, wasted forever, to the raucous applause of Luddites, misanthropes, and their powerful enablers. The later chapters of “The Decline and Fall of the United States” will make interesting reading.

Make no mistake: The rare, hard-done-by, and rightly protected manatee the Delta smelt is not. According to some estimates, there are no more than 3,000 manatees left in the United States, and, when left unchecked, human beings have had a nasty tendency to maim and kill them in the service of nothing more exalted than speedboating. By contrast, when the Great Smelt Freakout of 2007 began, there were 35,000 to well over 100,000 of the little buggers, depending on whom you ask. And yet the powers that be have seen fit to decree that no more than 305 of them may be killed in a given year. As an exasperated Harry Cline, of the Western Farm Press, put it in February 2012, last year “800,000 acre-feet of water went to waste based on the science of four buckets of minnows. That is enough water to produce crops on 200,000 acres or 10 million tons of tomatoes; 200 million boxes of lettuce; 20 million tons of grapes. You get the picture?”

The present crisis is not entirely California-based; Washington also plays a role. In December, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would have pumped water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta into Central and Southern California, but it died an unceremonious death in the Democrat-dominated Senate. If the measure had passed both chambers of Congress, President Barack Obama pledged to veto it. Why? Environmental groups feared the threat it posed to the smelt.

“That’s the tragedy of California, because of liberal environmentalists’ insistence — despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for millennia, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades during a period in which California’s population has doubled,” said former CEO and U.S. Senate candidate from the Golden State Carly Fiorina. “There is a man-made lack of water in California — and Washington manages the water for the farmers.”

The entire NationalReview piece is here.

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3. Ever wonder why gay issues are always so front and center everywhere, when they make up such a small amount of the population? The answer is simple, they’re well-funded and connected.

From Bloomberg “For those fighting for marriage equality, these are heady times, with the Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments on gay marriage later this month and a favorable decision widely anticipated this summer. And they haven’t forgotten Biden. On April 30th, some of the biggest philanthropists involved in this fight will gather in Dallas for “OutGiving,” an annual conference organized by Tim Gill, the founder of Quark and an important behind-the-scenes figure in the gay rights movement, who over the last decade has worked to organize the political strategy for a large group of wealthy gay donors. (Read all about it here.)

On May 2, Biden will be a keynote speaker (per the Vice President’s office, reporters will have an opportunity to cover his remarks).

For Biden, it’s a chance to soak up some love as the Obama administration draws to a close and attention turns to Hillary Clinton. And if Clinton should get beamed up by an alien spacecraft or is otherwise incapacitated, Gill’s network will be a invaluable fundraising source, should Biden make his own run for the White House.

From its outset 10 years ago (described in Atlantic profile), Gill’s political strategy has been built upon secrecy and the element of surprise—swooping in at the last moment with his network to donors to turn races against unsuspecting anti-gay politicians. Also, the details surrounding this year’s OutGiving conference are so shrouded in secrecy that they’d only reveal to me the city in which it’s being held, not even the hotel.”

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Here’s the old but good read on who they are and how they operate. From TheAtlantic

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4. This one…….. CONTENT WARNING!!!!!! for adult material.

I honestly have no clue on the answer here. But here’s the question….

Is it, or isn’t it, OK for a married couple to continue a sexual relationship when one becomes stricken with dementia and/or Alzheimer’s?

I can say I never thought about it. But now that I have, it raises so many questions….

And could you account for such a situation in your medical instructions in a living will?

From MSN/TheAP “When Henry and Donna Lou Rayhons married seven years ago in their northern Iowa hometown, it was a second chance at love for the devoted couple, both previously widowed. But their domestic routine of church activities and political functions unraveled as Donna’s health began to fail.

Last year, the 78-year-old woman was moved into a nursing home, suffering from dementia and Alzheimers. According to Henry Rayhon’s family, this was decided by her daughters from a previous marriage. Conflict developed over how to care for Donna Lou Rayhons, culminating in a meeting in which staff told Henry Rayhons that his wife was no longer mentally capable of legally consenting to have sex.

State prosecutors say Henry Rayhons — a long-serving state lawmaker — ignored that message. On Wednesday, he will stand trial for sexually assaulting his wife, who died last August. The charges were filed days after she died.

Many couples experience the hardships of illness, mental decline and living apart, but what happened with the Rayhons has little precedent. Experts could not think of another rape case that happened because a previously consenting spouse could no longer legally acquiesce.”

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More here, from TheWashingtonPost ““This is maybe the last great frontier of questions about capacity and dementia,” she said. “… Any partner in a marriage has the right to say no. What we haven’t completely understood is, as in this case, at what point in dementia do you lose the right to say yes?”

Friends and family say that Donna Lou and Henry Rayhons, a member of the Iowa House of Representatives from 1997 until this year, were besotted with one another throughout their relationship. She often accompanied him to the state Capitol in Des Moines. He bought her dresses and acquired a bee suit so he could join her in her beekeeping.

“He treated her like a queen,” Charity McCauley Andeweg, who clerked for Rayhons, told Bloomberg.”

“On March 29, Donna was moved to Concord Care Center in Garner, Iowa, a five-minute drive from her home with Rayhons. Rayhons reportedly resisted the move and clashed with Donna’s daughters — both from her first marriage — over how she should be cared for at the facility.

In May, Dunshee and Donna’s other daughter, Suzan Brunes, met with Concord staff and drew up a care plan for Donna, according to a state affidavit. At the meeting, the women and doctors concluded that Donna was no longer able to consent to sex, a fact Rayhons was informed of.”

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5. Why are they not banned from re-entering the US? They committed treason. If allowed to return it should be for arrest, trial, and prison.

From TheFreeBeacon “Rep. Tim Bishop (D., N.Y.) warned during a recent speech that up to 40 radicalized U.S. citizens who have fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) have already returned to the United States, where they could pose a terrorist threat.

Bishop claims that of the 100 or so Americans who have traveled to the Middle East to join ISIL’s ranks, some 40 have returned and are currently being surveilled by the FBI, according to his remarks, which were filmed and uploaded to YouTube last week.

“One of the concerns is the number of U.S. citizens who have left our country to go join up with ISIS,” Bishop said during the speech. “It is believed there have been some number up to 100 that have done that.”

“It is also believed that some 40 of those who left this country to join up with ISIS have now returned to our country,” Bishop said, eliciting shocked responses from some in the crowd.

These 40 individuals, Bishop said, “are under FBI attention and surveillance. So they are known and being tracked by the FBI.””

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The Obama admin refuses to be honest about terrorist threats.

From JudicialWatch “Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain records regarding its response to the January 1, 2014, explosion of an apartment building in the largely Muslim Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The FOIA lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch v U. S. Department of Justice (No.1:14-cv-02212)).

The FOIA lawsuit, filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a March 12, 2014, FOIA request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), seeks:

Any and all records regarding, concerning or related to the investigation of the January 1, 2014 explosion and fire at the Cedar-Riverside apartment complex in Minneapolis, Minnesota, based on searches of the FBI’s Electronic Case File system, Central Records System and Electronic Surveillance records, as well as any cross-referenced files concerning the explosion and fire.

At 8:16 a.m. on New Year’s Day in Minneapolis, a building at 516 Cedar Avenue containing a grocery store and several apartments exploded, killing three people and injuring 13. All of the apartments were occupied by single men. Many were hurt while jumping out of the burning building’s windows in order to escape the carnage.

The building was owned by Garad Nor, the owner of a money-transfer company, who had initially been implicated as a terrorist financier by the U.S Treasury Department.”

“Before the building’s destruction, G. Schmitz, fire investigator for the Minneapolis Fire Department, and the official investigating the scene on the day of the explosion reported, “The origin of the fire is undetermined.” And suggestions by some that the fire may have been caused by “some kind of gas leak,” were quickly refuted by Minnesota’s Centerpoint Energy spokeswoman Becca Virden, who stated, “We have specialized a gas leak that can detect a gas leak even when you can’t detect it – highly sensitive equipment,” she said. “They have checked there were no gas leaks reported before and there are no gas leaks in the area now.” Virden added, “We had no natural gas in the area.”

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March 27, 2015 by the real Aj

News/Politics 3-27-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. As I’ve said before, there are no good guys here.

From TheLongWarJournal “The US-led military Coalition in Iraq is openly supporting Iranian-backed Shiite militias and Iraqi forces who are battling Islamic State fighters entrenched in Tikrit. Many of the Shiite militia commanders are listed by the US as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, and one militia is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Many of the commanders and militias are responsible for killing US, Coailition, and Iraqi troops and civilians during the occupation of Iraq.

Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) announced today that “operations to support Iraqi Security Forces in Tikrit have commenced after a request from the Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al Abadi,” in a press released issued by the US-led command.

“The Coalition is now providing direct support to Iraqi Security Forces conducting operations to expel ISIL [Islamic State] from the city. CJTF-OIR is providing air strikes, airborne intelligence capabilities, and Advise and Assist support to Iraqi Security Force headquarters elements in order to enhance their ability to defeat ISIL,” the statement continued.

The US and CJTF-OIR have claimed that the airstrikes and other support is benefiting “Iraqi Security Forces,” when in reality more than two-thirds of the personnel opposing the Islamic State are comprised of Shiite militias, all of which are backed by Iran.”

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2. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are sending ground forces into Yemen.

From Time “Egyptian security and military officials say Saudi Arabia and Egypt will lead a ground operation in Yemen against Shiite rebels and their allies after a campaign of airstrikes to weaken them.

Three senior officials tell The Associated Press that forces would enter by land from Saudi Arabia and by sea from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. They said Thursday that other nations will also be involved.

They would not specify troop numbers or say when the operation would start, only that it would be after airstrikes weaken the rebels and allied forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.”

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3. The oil market is reacting to the turmoil.

From Fortune/MSN “There’s nothing like a scare about the safety of middle-eastern sea-lanes to send oil prices higher, particularly when the scare involves fears of a conflict between the region’s two biggest powers.

Crude oil prices were back at their highest in two weeks at $51.32 a barrel by midmorning in Europe, after Saudi Arabia and its allies launched airstrikes against the Houthi rebels who have overrun much of Yemen, including a military airbase that was used until recently by U.S. forces.

Prices have now surged 8% in the last 48 hours. The impact of the flare-up has been magnified by the fact that many participants in the market have bet on prices staying low all through the year. Those caught in ‘short’ positions have had to cover those positions in a hurry as the price rebounds. Fundamentally, though, the market remains oversupplied, and U.S. stocks of crude and fuel are at record highs.”

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4. What a spiteful little man-child.

From TheWeeklyStandard “On February 12, the Pentagon quietly declassified a top-secret 386-page Department of Defense document from 1987 detailing Israel’s nuclear program – the first time Israel’s alleged nuclear program has ever been officially and publically referenced by the U.S. authorities.

In the declassified document, the Pentagon reveals supposed details about Israel’s deterrence capabilities, but it kept sections on France, Germany, and Italy classified. Those sections are blacked out in the document.

The two main exceptions in the international media that wrote about the declassification at the time were the state-funded Iranian regime station Press TV and the state-funded Russian station RT.

Both these media were rumored to have been tipped off about this obscure report at the time by persons in Washington. (Both the RT and PressTV stories falsely claim that the U.S. gave Israel help in building a hydrogen bomb. This is incorrect.)

Israel has never admitted to having nuclear weapons. To do so might spark a regional nuclear arms race, and eventual nuclear confrontation.

The declassification is a serious breach of decades’ old understandings concerning this issue between Israel and its north American and certain European allies.”

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5. Two US men were arrested, including a soldier, for planning an attack on a US base.

From Yahoo/Reuters “A U.S. Army National Guard soldier and his cousin have been arrested on charges of conspiring to support Islamic State in a plot that included an attack on a military installation in Illinois, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.

The two Chicago-area men, both U.S. citizens, spoke of using army uniforms and military knowledge to get into an Illinois National Guard facility, the department said in a statement.

“Disturbingly, one of the defendants currently wears the same uniform of those they allegedly planned to attack,” Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said in the statement.

Army National Guard Specialist Hasan Edmonds, 22, was arrested at Chicago Midway International Airport Wednesday night while attempting to fly to Cairo, the Justice Department said. His cousin, Jonas Edmonds, 29, was arrested at his Aurora, Illinois, home. Both arrests were made without incident.

Both defendants met with an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation employee and presented a plan to carry out an armed attack against a northern Illinois military facility where Hasan Edmonds had been training, the Justice Department said.”

What I don’t understand is why the charges are so minor. This is treason, so why isn’t the Obama DoJ making that the charge?

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6. This one comes with a CONTENT WARNING!!!!!

I wasn’t going to post this one due to the nature of this so-called reporters other work. I find it disgusting. What I also find disgusting is that this is the only kind of interviewer and interviews that Obama does. The green haired lady in the fruit loop bath was nothing compared to this freak show.

Again, CONTENT WARNING!!!!!

From MRCTV “The latest man to score an interview with President Obama, Shane Smith, has conducted some hard-hitting interviews, including one with a Japanese sex doll.

You’re not misreading that; in a video from 2008, founder and CEO of Vice media Shane Smith pays to have sex with a doll in a Tokyo doll brothel.”

“The company Smith founded, Vice.com, “revels daily in hard drug use, weird sex and every sort of bodily effluvium,” reports Forbes….”

“Yet this man just conducted an 18-minute sit-down interview with the Commander in Chief, the most coveted interview of a journalist’s lifetime and one once reserved for the most hard-bitten and veteran of the White House press corps.”

Obama should be embarrassed, but I doubt he is.

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February 20, 2015 by the real Aj

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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February 9, 2015 by the real Aj

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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January 21, 2015 by the real Aj

News/Politics 1-21-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Before we get to the obvious big one I’d like to remind everyone of something. Let’s look at the bright side. If past history is any indication, only 30% of what Obama promised last night stands a chance of actually happening. 🙂

From TheWashingtonTimes “Judging by his recent history, it doesn’t really matter what President Obama says in Tuesday’s State of the Union address — Congress is going to ignore him anyway.

Mr. Obama has the second-worst record of getting his State of the Union policy requests enacted into law of any president in the last five decades, according to an analysis by two scholars that puts him only above the unelected two-year presidency of Gerald Ford.

From 2009 through 2014, Mr. Obama issued 209 different calls for action from Congress in his speeches, but only saw lawmakers follow through on 64 of them — good for just 30 percent. That’s only slightly better than Mr. Ford’s 28 percent success rate, and is well below the likes of President Clinton, the previous Democratic president, who won 44 percent of his policies even though he faced a Congress more Republican than Mr. Obama has.”

And here’s a breakdown on the 112 SOTU promises he didn’t keep going into last night.

From Grabien “The media are already analyzing the new proposals President Obama is set to layout this evening in his sixth annual State of the Union address (seventh if you count his unofficial 2009 address). Here at Grabien, we’re also looking at results. Taking a look back at past SOTU promises, How many actually ever materialized?

The numbers aren’t pretty. From 2009 through 2014, we count 112 promises that to date remain unfulfilled.

We should also note that many of these promises are duplicated from one year to another. For example, every year he has pledged to pass comprehensive immigration reform, overhaul corporate taxes, reduce regulations, and close Guantanamo Bay.”

They have a list of them all, and a nice video montage at the link so you can see and hear them for yourself.

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2. Now unto last nights affair…..

Obama calls for civility, then isn’t.

From TheWashingtonTimes “President Obama spent much of Tuesday’s State of the Union calling for civility in politics — then taunted Republicans over his two election victories, after many of them applauded the looming end of his political career.

Mr. Obama issued a broad call for “a better politics” that began with common principles, and said his agenda isn’t political, pointing out “I have no more campaigns to run.””

“Mr. Obama’s two separate veto threats in his speech this year is tied for the most in any State of the Union going back at least a century. President George W. Bush also issued two veto threats in 2008, and President Clinton issued two in 1996.”

“But Mr. Obama’s threat may have been the broadest, with one of his threats covering everything from immigration to tweaking Obamacare to revamping the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms.”

He wants to work with Republicans, but only on his agenda. Not happening.

If you missed the speech, or just couldn’t take anymore, here’s the prepared transcript of his remarks.

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3. Is it just me, or was the Republican response as bad as I thought? Not so much the content as her delivery. Personally I thought Paul Ryan’s rebuttal on the Brett Baier show was much better than hers. I’ll find the video and post it later.

From APNews “Republicans controlling Congress will focus on people’s concerns about jobs and health care and steer the country away from President Barack Obama’s failed policies, the newly minted senator delivering her party’s official response to the State of Union address said Tuesday.

In remarks that mixed calls for bipartisan cooperation with a flexing of GOP independence, freshman Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, cited Americans’ worries about stagnant wages, lost jobs and canceled health care coverage. She called on Obama to cooperate with Republicans to simplify the tax code by lowering rates and eliminating unspecified loopholes, and to ease trade barriers with Europe and Asia.

“Americans have been hurting, but when we demanded solutions, too often Washington responded with the same stale mindset that led to failed policies like Obamacare,” Ernst, referring to Obama’s health care overhaul, said in excerpts from her speech released before its delivery. “It’s a mindset that gave us political talking points, not serious solutions.””

Here’s the Ryan “rebuttal.”

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4. Here’s more on Obama’s speech.

From TheDailyMail “Obama accused of class warfare: President with ‘no more campaigns to fight’ riles Republicans with State of the Union tax increases for the rich – to pay for laundry list of progressive proposals

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5. Uh-oh. Maybe this has something to do with the President not mentioning Al-Qaeda last night.

From Bloomberg “The U.S. government should immediately close and evacuate the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, according to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

I asked her today whether the embassy, which remains open despite raging violence throughout the Yemeni capital, should be closed. She responded: “Based on what I know so far, yes.”

“I’m very concerned about our embassy there, who is still there, who isn’t still there, and what the plans are,” Feinstein added.

White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett said today on MSNBC that no decisions have been made on whether to close the embassy. A car carrying U.S. diplomatic personnel was fired on in Sana’a in a neighborhood away from the embassy. Houthi rebels, who control the much of the capital, have now reportedly taken over the presidential palace.

CNN reported today that the Pentagon has moved two warships, the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima and the dock landing craft Fort McHenry, into the area pre-emptively in case a request for an evacuation is made. So far, the State Department has not asked the military for assistance.”

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January 15, 2015 by the real Aj

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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