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Clicking a headline link in either the following daily index or the "month plus" index should access a particular giac2002.org article quotation or quotation summary. The "month plus" index can be accessed on GIAC2002.org by scrolling down below all the daily entries themselves. [Hyperlinks to the "month plus" index have not proven reliable]. Click the date before the headline of an article of interest to view a complete original article, perhaps with a video if they are both on the Web.
8/16/15 At this writing, go to giac2002.wordpress.com for the most recent updates. My Web authoring software initially used here became so slow as to be essentially unusable. I have ceased using Giac2002.weebly.com for intermediate updates.
5/9/15 Ben Carson: Obama can 'tell a lie to your face'
By Mark Hensch, The Hill
5/9/15 Ben Carson: Obama can 'tell a lie to your face'
By Mark Hensch, The Hill
5/8/15 Obama keeps key ally in anti-ISIS fight as Cameron's party dominates
UK elections FoxNews
"British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Tory party's decisive victory in parliamentary elections likely has President Obama breathing a sigh of relief, with analysts saying the win virtually ensures the continuation of vital U.K. support in fighting the Islamic State and other security matters.
"'You need to have a very strong, robust Britain on the world stage,' said Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom with the Heritage Foundation. 'I think it's very important that the United States has alongside it a leader who is willing to take on and fight against the Islamist extremists.'
"Cameron's party defied the polls, which predicted a tight race that could leave the balance of power in Britain's Parliament up in the air. There had been a distinct possibility that, with nobody winning a clear majority, the center-left Labour Party would be able to cobble together a coalition with other parties not so hawkish on military matters as Cameron and the Conservatives.
"Instead, Cameron's Conservative Party won an unexpected majority. After meeting with Queen Elizabeth II on Friday afternoon, Cameron returned to his office to announce he would form a majority Conservative government.
"Obama may actually have more in common with Labour's Ed Miliband, both of them left-leaning politicians. Yet while Cameron is more fiscally conservative than Obama on many fronts, Obama and Cameron have nevertheless developed a close alliance, even a friendship, in addressing their shared challenges. Their two governments are cooperating in ongoing nuclear talks with Iran and, importantly, in the international fight against Islamic terrorism.
"Pollster and Fox News contributor Frank Luntz, in London, said Cameron is now the "undisputed leader.'"
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5/8/15 Egyptian youths face trial for 'insulting Islam' by making fun of ISIS
By Steven Edwards, FoxNews
Four Egyptian kids who dared make fun of ISIS in a harmless video are headed for trial along with their teacher on charges of "insulting Islam," after their Muslim neighbors got hold of the footage and went to police.
Aged between 15 and 16, the youths could face up to five years in a youth detention center – while the teacher would serve any sentence he receives in prison – if the court finds them guilty of violating Egypt’s blasphemy law, Egypt-focused activists say.
Egyptian Christian and civil rights groups are leading calls for their release, but the five – members of the Coptic community that descends from the non-Arab people whose Pharaohs ruled ancient Egypt – have already spent weeks in police holding cells.
“They are some kids who decided to have fun in a private place,” Mina Thabet, a Coptic activist and researcher at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, told FoxNews.com from Cairo.
“They were on a trip with their teacher, but somehow rumor got out that they’d thrown down the Koran, and had insulted Islam, so that led to their arrests.”
The court proceedings are taking place in Beni Mazar, a city in Minya Governorate some 140 miles south of Cairo.
The teacher, Gad Younan, 42, had been escorting the four boys – and a fifth Coptic youth seen in the video – on a faith-based excursion outside their home village of Al-Nasriyah in Minya Governorate.
At some point, the teacher allowed the boys to shoot a video on his cell phone in their hotel room.
Thabet said the 32-second clip – provided exclusively to FoxNews.com – fails to support the rumors about the boys having allegedly insulted Islam. Instead, it shows them mocking ISIS by imitating a beheading – a form of execution that has become one of the terror group’s multiple signature atrocities.
“They use some words that are used in Muslim prayers, but they are in no way being disrespectful to Islam,” said Thabet.
“And even if they were, they should have the right to free speech – but in Egypt we have this law.”
Article 98(f) of the Egyptian Penal Code criminalizes a series of faith-related comments, including “insulting a heavenly religion or a sect following it.”
While ISIS purports to adhere to Islam, it is not clear whether the prosecutors in Egypt had that part of the Penal Code in mind when they accused the youths of blasphemy.
When the boys made the video, the ISIS passion for beheading would be uppermost in their minds because a Libyan affiliate of the terror group recently announced the murder of 21 Christians by releasing a video claiming to show jihadists decapitating the group on a beachfront.
Not only were 20 of the murdered Christians Copts, they also had hailed from the boys’ home governorate of Al Minya, and had been in Libya simply to seek work.
In any event, the video ended up in the hands of the youths’ Al-Nasriyah neighbors after Younan either misplaced his phone’s memory card, or posted it on Facebook, according to a report by the Christian monitoring group World Watch Monitor.
Muslim residents in Al-Nasriyah filed an initial complaint in early April, leading to Younan’s arrest and, says one Coptic newspaper report, questioning over four days.
More than 2,000 local Muslims then launched a series of marches over three days in order to put pressure on the parents of the children to give up their loved ones to the authorities, witnesses reported.
“There were three or four marches in different places in the village,” Ashraf Salah, the owner of a computer repair shop in Al-Nasriyah, told investigators with World Watch Monitor.
“They were…chanting: ‘With our souls and blood, we will defend you, oh Islam! We will not leave you; we will take revenge for you!”
Salah told how the mobs were “pelting Christian homes with stones” and “pounding threateningly on doors and windows” of shops owned by Coptic Christians.
“They destroyed the door of my shop and they destroyed a photo studio owned by the father of one of the boys,” he said.
Frightened and bullied, the parents of four of the boys handed the teens over to police, while the fifth youth in the video fled to the Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
“Police said that they arrested (the boys), but they weren't arrested. We handed them to the police,” Reda Faragalla, 32, the uncle of one of the boys, told World Watch Monitor.
A “reconciliation meeting” between the Muslim and Christian communities in the village ended the way Coptic activists say such gatherings typically end: with the Christian side being essentially forced to offer its apologies and make a series of concessions.
This one ended with the Christians of the village condemning what had happened, and agreeing to ban Younan from the village “in order to preserve his life and to calm the situation,” said their signed avowal document, according to World Watch Monitor.
A judge this week denied the jailed boys leave to take end-of-year school exams as he remanded them and Younan into custody for a further two weeks pending continued investigation, according to a local monitor with Washington-based International Christian Concern (ICC), which is also following the case.
“It’s fair to say that these boys are headed for trial based on how we’ve seen similar cases play out in the past,” Todd Daniels, ICC Regional Manager for the Middle East, told FoxNews.com.
“If convicted under the blasphemy law, they could indeed be detained for the duration of their sentence, or they could receive a suspended sentence because of their age.”
ICC is among human rights activist groups that have long charged that the Sunni Islamic majority in Egypt uses the blasphemy law to persecute religious minorities, among them Christians, who are estimated to make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 88 million people.
It is also among those who say the United States could influence change if it so wanted.
“There is over $1 billion in aid every year that goes to Egypt, and these dollars must remain linked to progress that is made on Egypt's human rights record,” said Daniels.
“Egypt has a crucial role to play in countering violent extremism in the Middle East, but blasphemy cases on frivolous charges like this only increase the grip of extremists.”
The prosecution of the youths comes against the backdrop of a new wave of Muslim targeting of Christians in the towns and villages of Minya Governorate despite a pledge by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to protect members of the faith amid his calls for national unity.
The targeting has included mob-violence and even police raids on Christian places of worship, most often in relation to attempts by Christians to repair or rebuild some of the 80 or so churches damaged or destroyed attacks on them in August 2013. Those attacks stemmed from Islamist anger at the Christian community over its support for the military overthrow of the former Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi. . . .
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5/8/15
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5/8/15 Who Abandoned Baltimore? Democrats! Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: Baltimore got nearly $2 billion from Obama's stimulus, designed to fix things like Freddie Gray's neighborhood, but not a dime went there. Isn't that amazing? Yes, $2 billion out of the $800 billion stimulus went to the city of Baltimore. That's not counting what else went to the state. That's just what went to the city of Baltimore, and there's not anything to show for it. Not in Fred's neighborhood, anyway. . . .
RUSH: Another New Republic story, big, long story stapled again together today: "The Fiscal Abandonment of West Baltimore -- Freddie Gray's neighborhood needs financial help, but who will pay?" This is a long story detailing what we've told you all week about the dire circumstances where Freddie Gray grew up and lived. And it is bleak, folks, as you may recall. What is the number, 16% of Baltimore teenagers have been raised with married parents. Meaning 84% of Baltimore teenagers have not been raised with married parents.
I know that some of you might be, "So what, Rush? It's a new era. That doesn't matter anymore. You're just dating yourself." Okay, let me put it to you a different way. Do you think that children notice things and form respect and disrespect for adults based on what they see? Okay, well let me ask you this, then. I don't ask this with prejudice by any stretch. I'm asking as I ask everything else. It's a think question. I want you to ponder it. What do you think the effect is on single age young kids and teenagers who get up in the morning and never, ever see a parent or either parent go off to work?
f the idea that 16% of teenagers grow up in a two-parent household is no big deal to you, then let me ask you this: Does if matter that all of these young kids -- not just Baltimore, but everywhere -- get up and never see their parents go off to work? They're getting up and going to school, maybe, the kids. But they never see their parents get up and go to work, and when they get home their parents either are there or not there, but they're not working.
What kind of influence do you think that has? It's gotta have some, right? Now, the New Republic piece. It's all about money and how we're not spending enough money and we need to spend more money. But exactly whose money needs to be spent now? And, of course, it's gonna be concluded that the federal government needs to spend more. Never mind the fact that Baltimore got nearly $2 billion from Obama's stimulus, designed to fix things like Freddie Gray's neighborhood, but not a dime went there.
Isn't that amazing?
Yes, $2 billion out of the $800 billion stimulus went to the city of Baltimore. That's not counting what else went to the state. That's just what went to the city of Baltimore, and there's not anything to show for it. Not in Fred's neighborhood, anyway, and probably not much else other than maybe they kept the teachers employed because we know that the majority of the stimulus money went to union employees -- teachers and others.
So that they would stay employed during the recession and thus keep paying their union dues, which end up back -- a percentage of it -- in the Democrat Party campaign coffers. And in addition to that, it's $1.8 billion that Baltimore got in the stimulus. Just last year they had an infusion of $130 million for some such thing. You might say, "Well, that's chump change." Well, it's chump change compared to $2 billion, but $130 million?
Do you think maybe some productive things could be done with $130 million? Before you just say, "That's not enough; that's a drop in the bucket," stop and think a minute: $130 million, and none of it ends up where it is targeted. (interruption) What do you mean, how do I know? Well, look. Do you see any difference in the city from before and after $2 billion? Where's the difference?
Guess what? This was a fait accompli, although it's reported here as a big, big news story in the Washington Post. The Justice Department will launch a federal investigation of the Baltimore Police Department, as though there was any doubt. Of course, we predicted it yesterday. It was a fait accompli. It was always gonna happen. I know that some people were worried that the Regime might not agree to take over the Baltimore Police Department, but really, folks, when the mayor of Baltimore asks you to come in and take over their police department and you are Loretta Lynch and Barack Obama, you say no?
You're gonna be in there before the sun sets. In fact, get this. A companion story from the Politico: "Pressure Builds on GOP for Police, Criminal Justice Reforms -- Pressure is mounting on Republican congressional leaders to take up criminal justice and police reform legislation -- and the calls are increasingly coming from within the GOP." So like night follows day, the Politico is here to warn the GOP that they had better get on board with Obama and the federal government taking over local police.
In fact, if they want to really do the right thing, they'll write the legislation themselves and make it look like it's their idea. And that is supposed to show the minorities and the African-Americans that the Republicans don't hate 'em, and then that's supposed to show the Republicans have compassion and concern and so forth. In case you haven't noticed, over the past few decades, this is how the news media and the rest of the Democrat Party work.
No. 1. They decide there's a problem, a crisis that needs to be addressed.
No. 2. They manufacture an event to exemplify the crisis (i.e., a riot or what have you).
No. 3. They then claim that the public is demanding that the problem be fixed the Democrat Party way.
No. 4. They then claim the Republicans had better get on board before they are left in the dust.
The Politico says, "Republican leaders haven't yet decided how to proceed on an issue conservatives typically have not treated as a priority." See, that's how The Politico hits it. What is it that conservatives have not treated as a priority? Criminal justice reform? Fairness in the inner city? Yeah. That's what they mean. "Republican leaders haven't yet decided how to proceed on an issue conservatives typically have not treated as a priority."
Ah, conservatives don't care about people. See? This story is guaranteed multiple times a year. The only thing that changes is the city, and this wasn't even an issue until the Democrats, their media buddies decided they needed to turn out more black voters in the midterms. That's where this thing gets started. Anyway, "[W]ith outrage over police killings of African-Americans dominating the news, an increasing number of rank-and-file GOP lawmakers say doing nothing is no longer an option."
You see? Yes, it just keeps happening. What the Republicans ought to do is quite obvious. They've got how many decades of history of Democrat policy not working? What is it stopping them from standing up and saying, "We need to try something new because obviously the Obama way, the Democrat Party way isn't working. We've thrown money at it, $22 trillion since the Great Society, and we've sent $2 billion from the stimulus went to Baltimore. We've done nothing but throw money at cities and people, and there's nothing to show for it.
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5/8/15 Thousands of cops pay respects to killed NYPD officer at funeral
Associated Press, FoxNews
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5/7/15 Sources: Baltimore police investigation doesn’t support some
of prosecution’s charge By CNN Wires, Fox2Now
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5/7/15 Al Qaeda leader behind Charlie Hebdo claim killed by drone strike FoxNews
"A top leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who appeared in a video in which he claimed the terror group was behind the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, was killed in a U.S. drone strike, according to analysts who monitor web chatter from the jihadist organization."
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5/7/15 Concerns Of Muslim Immigration Surge Into Western World Come Into Focus
The Muslim immigration warnings offered by Dutch politician Geert Wilders—who was in the facility in Garland, Texas, that was attacked by terrorists last weekend—seem to be coming true.
Wilders, who has asked his own parliament to hold an exhibition on the Muhammed cartoons from the Garland, Texas event, has warned frequently that high levels of Muslim immigration without assimilation to the Western world—Europe and the United States of America—are dangerous to the culture and values of the West.
Wilders, a featured speaker at the Garland event, has been on a terror hit list since 2010 for proposing to place a tax on the Hijab worn by Muslim women in the Netherlands. He has also been vocal about stopping all Muslim immigration into the Netherlands.
“Take a walk down the street and see where this is going,” Wilders, referring to growing Muslim immigration into his country, previously said. “You no longer feel like you are living in your own country. There is a battle going on and we have to defend ourselves. Before you know it there will be more mosques than churches!”
Wilders’ warning rings true not just in the Netherlands, but in the United States as well.
Immigrants from the Middle East are currently the fastest growing immigration demographic coming into the U.S., a recent report from the Center for Immigration Studies shows. America in just three years imported more immigrants from the Middle East than from Mexico and Central America combined.
In that three years, there has been a 13 percent growth in the number of immigrants from Middle Eastern countries. And according to the Conservative Review, the immigrant population from the Middle East will double in fifteen years and triple by 2050.
In fact, the United Nations is currently planning to settle roughly one million refugees – mostly Muslims – in western countries, Fox News reports.
Senior Editor of Conservative Review Daniel Horowitz argues against the increasing number of refugees. “We should only grant refugee status to those we can absolutely determine will be an asset to our country. It’s not our job or responsibility to incur risk when it is unclear which refugees have proclivities towards Islamic extremism,” Horowitz wrote.
A report derived from information from the 9/11 Commission and the Center for Immigration Studies validates Horowitz’s concerns. The study revealed that, out of 94 foreign-born terrorists operating inside the United States, 59 of them committed immigration fraud before or during terrorist activity.
Census data reveals roughly 100,000 Muslim immigrants are admitted to the United States each year. Immigrants who enter the U.S. legally are entitled to welfare, U.S. jobs and to vote.
Horowitz warns that the increasing Muslim population, coupled with President Obama’s unwillingness to identify Islamic extremism, creates a national security threat.
“With immigration and our legal ports of entry representing the front lines in the war on terror, in conjunction with this president’s unwillingness to recognize the threat from Islamic extremism, our homeland security has already been shut down for years,” said Horowitz.
The Pew Research Center also studied the impact of a growing Muslim population. Pew noted that by 2050, Muslims would outnumber Jews and nearly equal the number of Christians across the world.
The Washington Post reported that immigration from Africa is a contributing factor to the increased Muslim immigrant population: “The number of African-born residents in the United States has doubled every decade since the 1970s, with the greater Washington region remaining among the most popular areas for them to live, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday.”
The large number of Muslim immigrants has already impacted public schools and communities throughout America. Due to the large number of immigrants from the Middle East, the Department of Justice required a school in Michigan accommodate the growing Arab immigrant student population by hiring more Arab teachers.
Minnesota, like Michigan, has also had to accommodate the growing Muslim population within its community.
Somali refugees in Minnesota demanded the local government provide a special food zone free of pork to comply with their faith. In fact, Somali use of the state’s public food assistance program has doubled over the past five years.
Additionally, the Minneapolis School District has had to hire instructors to teach in both English and Somali since the Somali student enrollment increased 70 percent since 2011.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a moderate Muslim reformer, came to America from Somalia. She recently warned in an op-ed in Time Magazine that she worries about the attitudes of the majority of Muslim immigrants coming to the United States, typically from the three countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iraq.
Ali writes that many “people in these countries hold views that most Americans would regard as extreme.”
For example, she notes that a number of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Iraqis believe conversion away from Islam should be punished by death.
“More than 80 percent of Pakistanis and two thirds of Bangladeshis and Iraqis regard sharia law as the revealed word of God. Only tiny fractions would be comfortable if their daughters married Christians,” she warns. “Only a minority regards honor killings of women as never justified.”
She also notes that roughly 25 percent of Bangladeshis believe suicide bombings defending Islam are justified.
“People with views such as these pose a threat to us all, not because those who hold them will all turn to terrorism. Most will not. But such attitudes imply a readiness to turn a blind eye to the use of violence and intimidation tactics against, say, apostates and dissidents – and a clear aversion to the hard-won achievements of Western feminists and campaigners for minority rights,” wrote Hirsi Ali.
In addition to the immigration from the African Continent, the nation’s student visas program also contributes to the growing number of Islamic immigrants. “Nearly 81,000 subjects of the Saudi kingdom are studying in the U.S. this school year, up from about 5,000 in 2000-01,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Several national security leaders in recent interviews with Breitbart News have said that they believe the reason why there’s such a problem with the high levels of Muslim immigration to the United States is because people aren’t assimilating to American culture like previous waves of immigration throughout this country’s history did.
“What we need to do is make sure everyone coming into the United States understands who we are and that we are founded on Judeo-Christian values, that there is one rule of law and that’s what’s on the books and it’s not Sharia and we need to make sure we don’t engage in the same kind of mistakes in Europe where they did not engage in assimilation,” former House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), now retired from Congress, said in an interview with Breitbart News last September.
“They [the southern border and insecure visa system] are all potential avenues for terrorists to get into the U.S.,” Hoekstra added.
I think you missed two of the biggest ones out there which are very very difficult to control and one is social media-what’s happening on social media, where they can cross the border and we’ll never know it. The other one is influence or people with ties to Europe or America who have been actively involved in the fight in Syria or Iraq and then coming back.
Will we be able to identify who they are when they’ve been radicalized and what will be the consequences when they come back? My belief should be that if we don’t have the legal capability we ought to develop the legal capability that if people who have fought with radical Jihadist groups overseas are coming back into the United States their citizenship should be revoked and they shouldn’t have access and the capability to come back.
Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative filmmaker, said in a previous interview with Breitbart News that America isn’t serving as the melting pot it once was for immigrants—and that’s what leads to this high level of concern with regards to assimilation.
“I do think what makes immigration different today is that immigrants came in the past who embodied the spirit of 1776-a spirit to build this country,” D’Souza said last September.
Now we’re getting some immigrants who far from wanting to pull the bandwagon, just want to sit in the bandwagon-and that’s a big change-not to mention people who actually want to do harm to the country. Look if our government can monitor our every phone call and our every email and our every motion, you can be very sure they have the technology to spot every single person coming across the border. The problem is they don’t want to.
The issue—as a national security matter, an immigration matter, and a big picture question about the sovereignty of the United States and the nation’s identity—is quickly spilling over into the 2016 presidential primaries, especially on the Republican side.
Meanwhile, one of his likely biggest competitors for the GOP nomination, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, has been outspoken about the threat of the growing Muslim immigration.
“They want to use our freedoms to undermine that freedom in the first place,” Jindal said in a past interview with the Family Research Council’s Washington Watch where he discussed Muslim immigrants.
“This is a place where you have freedom of self-determination, freedom of religious liberty, freedom of speech. This is an amazing place and we’re a majority Christian country,” Jindal said.
Jindal added that he is sure to be called a “racist” for his comments by the “politically correct crowd.”
Few candidates or potential candidates have zeroed in on the issue yet, but with terrorism and national security concerns on the rise—heading into an election season where immigration is a top-tier issue according to every honest pollster—this is likely to burst onto the scene as a major 2016 front burner issu
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5/7/15 Tom Brady speaks at Salem State University
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5/6/15 UNACCEPTABLE: State Department Official Calls Hillary Out
On Private Email Use Chuck Ross, The Daily Caller
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5/6/15 Black Lives Matter Walter E. Williams, TownHall
"Before we examine the issue of police shootings of blacks, I would like to start the conversation with another question. Here it is: If a person chooses to stand on railroad tracks in the face of an oncoming train, who is responsible for his being run over? And if many people meet their maker this way, what would you recommend as the best way to reduce such deaths? Would you focus most of your efforts on train engineers, or would you counsel people not to stand on railroad tracks in the face of an oncoming train?
"In principle, the answer to these questions might help with the issue of police shootings in general and particularly those of blacks. First, the Ferguson, Missouri, case: Having robbed a liquor store, the person is walking in the middle of the street and blocking traffic. A police officer tells the person to get out of the street. What would you suggest the person do? Would you suggest that he ignore the police officer's instructions, push the officer as he attempts to get out of his vehicle and afterward attempt to take the officer's pistol?
"In the case of the New York City death of Eric Garner, what would you recommend? A person is illegally selling cigarettes. The police try to effect an arrest. What would you recommend that the person do? As the police try to take the person into custody, would you advise the person to swat away the arms of the arresting officer, to tell the officer 'Don't touch me!' and to continue resisting arrest?
"What about the shooting of Walter Scott by a North Charleston, South Carolina, police officer? If an officer makes a traffic stop, would you advise that the driver flee so as to avoid arrest?
"Let me be clear: I am justifying neither the behavior of police officers nor the deadly outcomes of their confrontations with these three black men. Similarly, I would not justify the behavior of a train engineer or the outcome a person experiences standing on the train tracks in the face of an oncoming train. I would counsel a person not to stand on railroad tracks in the face of an oncoming train. Similarly, the advice that I would give to anyone of any race in dealing with police is: Follow the officer's instructions. Do not resist arrest or attempt to flee. Do not assault the police officer or try to disarm him. Had this advice been taken, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Walter Scott would be alive today.
"Criminal activity is a major problem in many black communities. That means many black citizens will have some kind of contact with police officers, either as victims of crime or as criminals. One of the true tragedies is that black politicians, preachers and civil rights advocates give massive support to criminals such as Brown, Garner and Scott. How much support do we see for the overwhelmingly law-abiding members of the black community preyed upon by criminals?
"The average American has no idea of the day-to-day threats and fears encountered by the law-abiding majority in black neighborhoods on account of thugs. In addition to giving threats and instilling fears, criminals have turned many black communities into economic wastelands where there is a lack of services that most Americans take for granted, such as supermarkets, other shops and even home delivery. Black residents must bear the expense of having to go out of their neighborhoods to shop or shop at high-cost mom and pop stores.
"The protest chant that black lives matter appears to mean that black lives matter only if they are taken at the hands of white police officers."
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5/6/15 Judge Jeanine: It's time to respect cops' role in society FoxNews
[Click the date to access the video.]
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5/5/15 Figures… Obama Uses Bogus Statistics to Accuse US Police
of Being Racist Posted by Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit
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5/5/15 Angry President Blames Slavery, Jim Crow for Baltimore Riots
Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
Now whatever is going on in Baltimore? What happened in Ferguson, New York City? Doesn't matter where it is, it's the result of slavery. It is the result, lingering effects of slavery, Jim Crow. So I said yesterday -- stealing from Obama who, when dealing with Cuba, said, "Well, if we've been doing the same thing for 50 years, and it hasn't worked, don't you think it's time to try a different way?" -- conversely, by the same token, the same political party has been running all of these cities (into the ground) for all of these decades.
RUSH: Did you hear the latest number, that almost 21% of all jobs in the city of Baltimore are government jobs? The national average in a city comparable to Baltimore is, I think, 15% of the jobs are government jobs. In Baltimore, it's almost 21% and climbing. Even at that, Baltimore is ravaged by inequality and poverty. But the president says, this is not Baltimore's fault, and this isn't the Democrat Party's fault, and this isn't the people's fault been running Baltimore.
No, no!
It's the lingering effects of slavery and the Jim Crow laws.
He made this apparent in a speech to fundraisers. . . .
RUSH: And again, it takes me back, three of the six cops in Baltimore are black. And here's Obama out, you know, worming his way into the case. He talked about Baltimore, he wormed his way in there. Oh, yeah, it's the effects of slavery. Oh, yeah, it's the Jim Crow laws. Oh, yeah, discrimination in American history, left minority communities at disadvantage.
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5/5/15 Baltimore Police Radio Dispatch Reveals: Stunning Evidence of Marilyn Mosby’s “Egregious Rush to Judgment” In Her Direct Action Charges…
Posted by Sundance, The Conservative Treehouse
"[Marilyn Mosby’s] case against the two arresting officers rests upon an 'illegal' arrest. She says the knife that Freddie Gray was carrying was legal. But the police task force examined it and said the officers were indeed correct, the knife was spring-assisted and therefore prohibited.
"It’s Mosby who made the 'illegal' arrest, and could be charged under her own theory of 'false imprisonment.' And sued to boot, since she forfeited her immunity from civil action by doing the charging herself. (link)
"We continue looking through the direct action filing, the probable cause to arrest determination, as outlined in Mosby’s own words – and comparing her words to the factual evidence she is seeking to hide. What we are finding is jaw dropping.
"Mosby claimed:
[…] “Despite stopping for the purpose of checking on Mr. Gray’s condition, at no point did [Officer Goodson] seek nor did he render any medical assistance for Mr. Gray.” (link)
"This is a lie!
"An intentional lie we will prove below.
"As previously outlined the claim of the knife not being legally justifiable for arrest has now been thoroughly deconstructed. So now we look forward to the claim that the officers attempted to render no appropriate aid to Freddie Gray.
"As stunning as the manipulative presentation surrounding the knife was, the claim she made that no medical aid was attempted is brutally flawed, and bordering on criminally liable. . . ." [click the date for the rest.]
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5/5/15 NOAA Caught Rewriting US Temperature History (Again) PowerLine
"Now Mike Brakey, an engineering physicist and heat transfer specialist, has caught NOAA revising historic temperature data for Maine–as always, to make the past look cooler and the present warmer by comparison:
Over the last months I have discovered that between 2013 and 2015 some government bureaucrats have rewritten Maine climate history… (and New England’s and of the U.S.). This statement is not based on my opinion, but on facts drawn from NOAA 2013 climate data vs. NOAA 2015 climate data after they re-wrote it.
We need only compare the data. They cooked their own books (see numbers below). [Click the date to see] . . .
"NOAA has made similar adjustments to past temperatures around the United States. Brakey writes:
It appears NOAA panicked and did a massive rewrite of Maine temperature history (they used the same algorithm for U.S. in general). The new official temperatures from Maine between 1895 and present were LOWERED by an accumulated 151.2°F between 1895 and 2012.
In my opinion, this is out-and-out fraud. Why did they corrupt national climate data? Global warming is a $27 billion business on an annual basis in the U.S alone.
Now NOAA data revised in 2015 indicate that 1904, 1919 and 1925 in Maine were much colder than anything we experience today. (See the scorecard above comparing the NOAA data that are 18 months apart). Note how for 1913 the NOAA lowered the annual temperature a whole 4°F!
For the balance of the years, as they get closer to the present, the NOAA tweaks less and less. They have corrupted Maine climate data between 1895 and present by a whopping accumulated 151.2°F.
"David Archibald writes:
Their cooling of the past to keep the global warming meme alive reminds me of the old Soviet joke – the future is known, it is the past that keeps changing.
"Would someone please try to explain why this isn’t the biggest scandal in the history of science?"
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5/4/15 Baltimore Fallout: Everything Is Political Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
I remember when we parsed her press conference on Friday, when she announced the charges, and there was nothing of jurisprudence about it. It was a total political statement, a total political announcement. The politicization of the criminal justice system. And the left is applauding it. They are all for it. So we need to review this. I mean, she talked about the cause. There is no cause that she can align herself with as a state attorney, other than the cause of justice. But she clearly aligned herself with the cause of the rioters and the protestors in Baltimore.
According to reports, the final tally for the Baltimore riots is that over 200 businesses were destroyed, and it's justified, you see. Oh, yes. The rioters were totally justified. The looters are totally justified, as Bob Schieffer said on Face the Nation yesterday. It's all because of slavery. Oh, yeah, we still have a long way to go. We're still making amends for slavery. And somebody came along and said we need a Marshall Plan for the inner city.
The Marshall Plan for the inner city? We've been doing a Marshall Plan for the inner city, including Baltimore, since 1964. It's called the War on Poverty. Total cost, $22 trillion. We've been doing the Marshall Plan. It hasn't worked, as you well know. The people who live in these recipient locations are angrier and unhappier than before the War on Poverty began. Most of them are unemployed. It's why they've got the time on their hands to engage in the kind of looting and rioting and public protest that they do. You don't see people with jobs doing this kind of thing, even minorities. You just don't see it.
That's not to say that jobs are the answer, but it's not a bad thing for people to engage in. But if you want to say jobs are the answer, lack of jobs, then ask yourself who's been running these locales. Baltimore's had a total -- there's two numbers floating around today. One is $130 million has been pumped into Baltimore recently for the usual things, job creation, job training centers, you name it. Martin O'Malley, the former mayor, former governor: It's a drop in the bucket.
Okay, how about a total of $1.8 billion? That's how much of the stimulus package that Baltimore got, $1.8 billion out of the 790, $800 billion stimulus that Obama authorized in 2009. Baltimore got $1.8 billion. Where did it go? What happened to it? Well, we know where it went. It went to union people. It went to teachers, any number of things, like it did most everywhere else, part of the Democrat Party money-laundering scheme. And the Republicans have authorized it. To say that the Republicans, like Obama did, are anti-inner city is a frail attempt to blame them, can't be said, given the numbers. Two hundred businesses destroyed.
It seems that those heroic gang members from the Crips, the Bloods, and the Black Guerrilla Family stood guard and protected black-owned businesses and steered the rioters to Indian- and Hispanic-owned businesses while guarding black-owned ones. I kid you not. I saw that the news last week. Yep. They directed the looters. They pointed them in the direction of businesses mostly owned by Asians and non-Muslim Arabs.
And we continue to be told the real problem in Baltimore and other cities like it is lack of jobs in the inner city and the prevalence-of-drugs. So what do Obama and Hillary want to do? They want to give work permits to the 20 million illegal aliens in our country, and they want to decriminalize drugs and free everybody currently incarcerated on drug charges. Am I missing something here?
I'll give you an idea of how fast Marilyn Mosby moved, to give you an indication that the charges against these six cops are not the result of an exhaustive investigation. She got the report from an internal police department investigation on Thursday of last week -- Thursday night, Thursday evening. She got the results of the autopsy on Friday morning, and within hours she announced the charges against the six cops. That swift.
Less than 24 hours after receiving an internal police department investigation result and the autopsy report, she mobilized with all those charges. And I'm sure you've heard Dershowitz and a number of others say, "This is outrageous. This is not gonna hold up. She's overcharged." Dershowitz said something that I thought was the case, too, particularly after I heard that old codger that CNN found on the street after her announcement last Friday. He said he didn't believe it.
He said (summarized), "All these charges? I'll believe this when I see this in court. There's no way all these charges are gonna stick. I can't believe this. There's no way. They're just trying to stop us from rioting." Which is the point that Dershowitz from Harvard -- Alan Dershowitz -- also made. Details coming up. Now, the charges against the six officers were announced 12 days after the death of Freddie Gray. In Ferguson, the Gentle Giant died on August 9th, 2014.
A grand jury worked until November 24th before deciding to return no indictment. That's August, September, October. Three months. A hundred and eight days. The grand jury in the Staten Island case involving Eric Garner took even longer. Eric Garner died on July 17th, 2014. The grand jury did not rule against indicting the police officer until December 3rd, 2014. That's 140 days. But Ms. Mosby can decide on charges within a couple of hours without even consulting a grand jury.
Numerous leftist pundits were asked, "Are you a little troubled that this is obviously political more than judicial?" "No, I'm actually not bothered by that. It's exactly what is needed. Everything is against these people on a political basis and, therefore, I'm not at all uncomfortable that the prosecutor has turned this into a political cause." Numerous liberal pundits have said so. My friends, do not doubt me.
If you want to understand these people, you have to realize everything is political to them. Everything. There is a political explanation. There's a political answer to everything, every question about these people. If you go to the political answer... Whatever your question is about -- why they're doing something, why they're saying something, what the objective is -- it's always going to be political. And not just a political component; it's going to be political as regards the agenda of the Democrat Party.
RUSH: I just checked news sources during the break. It looks like some leftist journalists are starting to get a little bit nervous about the case in Baltimore against the six cops. It just happened on CNN. They just pointed out what I just pointed out to you. That, my gosh, this prosecutor got that autopsy report awful fast from the medical examiner. Those things take weeks, sometimes months, and she got it in hours. It seems like it's a little hasty. They've got some lawyer explaining, "Yeah, this is a little fast. The autopsy can be done in four hours, but the rest of this, it takes a long time."
The grand jury investigations for the Gentle Giant and Eric Garner, three plus months in each case. And with Marilyn Mosby she did it here in a couple of hours, less than 24 hours, and they're starting to get worried. I'm gonna tell you what they have really done here. If this case is thrown out -- and there's one troubling aspect here. The left has its tentacles everywhere, and as I read people like Dershowitz, I mean, he's absolutely right, don't misunderstand. But when Dershowitz talks about the legal system and the law and judges, he is confident that the haste and the lack of evidence and the overcharging, all this quite naturally could be thrown out or severely reduced. And in order to think that you have to believe that the legal system has not been corrupted. And who believes that?
I mean, the left has corrupted everything. The legal system does not stand alone as something untouched by Democrat Party liberal corruption. It has been certainly. I don't think it's a slam dunk that local authorities in Baltimore could go along with this just like the state attorney did. We'll just have to wait and see.
Now, if Dershowitz is right, however, and if the legal system is untainted and looks at this strictly on the basis of evidence and the law, then these charges either get thrown out or severely reduced. The bottom line is this. You go back to Ferguson, the left lied to all those people. "Hands up, don't shoot," Gentle Giant minding his own business, murdered in cold blood, shot in the back by a racist white cop, not true. Not a word of that's true. Look at how many of them don't know that or don't believe that.
To this day, citizens in Ferguson, probably all over the country, think that the grand jury lied, that the prosecutor lied, the state attorney, DA, everybody involved lied, all because of racism. This is what they've been conditioned to believe. This is what they've been led to believe. This is how they are raised believing. There's no evidence to support the lie, and yet people still do. And when the grand jury indictments came down, there was more rioting. Or when they didn't come down, when there were no indictments, when the Gentle Giant was not found to have been murdered, and the cop was not found to have killed him in cold blood, and in fact was justified, the town was on edge again.
The out of town rent-a-mob came in and tried to raise hell. You think the same thing isn't gonna happen in Baltimore? I mean the prosecutor goes out there, starts speaking as a member of the protest group, who happens to be the DA, the SA, she goes out and makes herself out to be one of them, she starts talking the language of the cause (paraphrasing), "No justice, no peace," "I've heard your call," "I'm gonna do what I'm doing to satisfy you." The law, to hell with the law. "I'm gonna do what I do for justice," even if it isn't justice as defined by the legal system. "I'm gonna give you what you want." That's what they heard. "I'm gonna give you what you want. Just back off and give me time. Don't riot anymore, back off and give me time. I'm gonna give you what you want."
Well, she can't make that promise 'cause the case now goes to court. At some point it will. Then anything can happen has Dershowitz says. What happens if there are no convictions or convictions to much lesser charges or if the case is thrown out? Do you think Baltimore is not gonna be a powder keg all over again? And who's gonna be responsible for it? That's right, civic leaders in Baltimore who have pretty much promised the agitators there that at the end of this they're gonna get what they want, if they even know what that is.
But the point is now, I just wanted to reference that it's becoming obvious that some in the media, after a weekend, to get real after their knee-jerk reaction of happiness and delight and thrills over the fact that the DA, the state's attorney, is invested in the cause rather than the legal system. Now they've had time to cool off and they're looking at it, and they're reading other people's opinions, and they're starting to get worried that the case is weak.
Now, if what I see here is actually the case, then they're gonna do one of two things. They're gonna try to distance themselves from the outcome. Or they are going to double down and help the SA move her case with strategically applied media pressure to judges, anybody that might be involved in this case. It won't take long for us to find out which way they're going to go.
RUSH: Another quick question: Any city that experiences riots and has been predominantly governed by a single political party, perhaps that party should be disqualified from participating in short- and long-term solutions. What do you think of that? Let me run that by you again. I have a reason for this. Any city that experiences riots and has been predominantly governed by a single political party for years -- decades, in fact -- that party should be disqualified from participating in short- and long-term solutions.
Because I remember President Obama on January 20th of this year. In explaining why he's doing his deal with Iran and why he's transforming America, he said, "When what you're doing hasn't worked for 50 years, it's time to try something new." Well, as I see it, the way the Democrats have been trying to run Baltimore and Detroit and you name it, anything else they run for the last 50 years, is an absolute disaster.
Maybe it's time to try something new, and that would mean disqualifying those who have made the mess. I know, it's a rhetorical question. But to me, it makes perfect sense, and I'm simply following the guidance of our esteemed president. "When what you're doing hasn't worked for 50 years, it's time to try something new." It sounds to me like that would be applicable to the situation in Baltimore.
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5/4/15 The Federalist Fact-Checks the Fact-Checkers
Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: Last week or the week before I happened to come across a report at TheFederalist.com, which had done an exhaustive and detailed analysis of the Clinton Crime Family Foundation. It was The Federalist who discovered and then reported that 15% of all the money raised by the Family Foundation actually goes to charities. Fifteen percent! Another report later found that it's 10% in some cases... Well, then the Democrat National Committee -- using people disguised as fact-checkers -- gets into gear. . . .
Well, then the Democrat National Committee -- using people disguised as fact-checkers -- gets into gear. PunditFact. Two fact-check organizations got into gear and attempted to say that I made the claim that 15% of all money donated to the Clinton Crime Family Foundation actually reaches intended victims get only 15%. They attempted to attribute it to me and then the usual happened.
They went out and they started blabbing about how, "Well, it's Limbaugh! He makes things up. You can't trust Limbaugh. He just makes things up. He tells lies. He doesn't tell the truth." At which point, the head honcho of TheFederalist.com, Sean Davis, got in gear. He got in touch with the people at these fact-check organizations, who admitted to him that his analysis was right. They admitted to him privately that his analysis was right.
And then he had the guts to go public with all of this and further expose these fact-check organizations as nothing other than Democrat Party front groups. And even after all this the fact-check groups continued to attribute the information to me, because they were doing two things with it. Obviously, they're gonna try to discredit it within their base, discredit it within Democrat voters. Since I said it, it can't be right. Since I said it, it has to be a lie.
See, what was gonna happen here -- had I not mentioned it, had Drudge not put the results of this on his page -- is they would have ignored it. They would have figured that nobody would have seen whatever TheFederalist.com website was saying. But since I came along and amplified it and Drudge came along and amplified it, that meant they had to get into gear and refute it. So that's just one element of what's going on with the Clinton Crime Family Foundation. The other is that the donors are getting nervous.
Access-buyers, people that want to bribe the Clintons are starting to get scared because the scam has been exposed. It's not about charity. It's about personal enrichment by selling future access, granting favors from a sitting secretary of state for exorbitant sums of money. And the capper is that all of this is done under the guise of selflessness. "Oh, yes, the Clintons don't care about themselves!
They just love people, and they just want the best for the hurricane victims and the earthquake victims and you name it." But now the donors are getting the same scrutiny that cockroaches get when you look under your sink in the dead of night. They are scattering for cover, and that's bad news for the Clintons, and so Bill Clinton has surfaced to denounce deliberate attempts to take down his foundation.
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5/4/15 FCC Commissioner: Feds May Come for Drudge By Rudy Takala CNSNews
"Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Ajit Pai said over the weekend that he foresees a future in which federal regulators will seek to regulate websites based on political content, using the power of the FCC or Federal Elections Commission (FEC). He also revealed that his opposition to “net neutrality” regulations had resulted in personal harassment and threats to his family.
"Speaking on a panel at the annual 'Right Online' conference in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Pai told audience members, 'I can tell you it has not been an easy couple of months personally. My address has been publicly released. My wife’s name, my kids’ names, my kids’ birthdays, my phone number, all kinds of threats [have come] online.'
"Pai, one of two Republicans on the five-member FCC, has been an outspoken critic of net neutrality regulations passed by the agency on Feb. 26. The rules, which are set to take effect on June 12, reclassify Internet providers as utilities and command them not to block or 'throttle' online traffic.
"However, Pai said it was only the beginning. In the future, he said, 'I could easily see this migrating over to the direction of content… What you’re seeing now is an impulse not just to regulate the roads over which traffic goes, but the traffic itself.'
"Continuing, he said, 'It is conceivable to me to see the government saying, ‘We think the Drudge Report is having a disproportionate effect on our political discourse. He doesn’t have to file anything with the FEC. The FCC doesn’t have the ability to regulate anything he says, and we want to start tamping down on websites like that.' . . . .
"'Is it unthinkable that some government agency would say the marketplace of ideas is too fraught with dissonance? That everything from the Drudge Report to Fox News… is playing unfairly in the online political speech sandbox? I don’t think so,' Pai said.
"'The First Amendment means not just the cold parchment that’s in the Constitution. It’s an ongoing cultural commitment, and I sense that among a substantial number of Americans and a disturbing number of regulators here in Washington that online speech is [considered] a dangerous brave new world that needs to be regulated,' he concluded. . . .
"In comments to CNSNews.com, Pai also talked about the FCC’s finances, the imposition of taxes on Internet usage, and subsidies for Internet service.
"The reclassification of Internet providers as utilities allows the FCC to impose what is known as a 'Universal Service Fund' (USF) tax on their revenue. The USF has grown exponentially in recent years, and presently stands at $12 billion annually – so large that the FCC has requested it be allowed to transfer $25 million of the money to its own budget to 'administer' the fund. As a result, some in Congress have proposed limiting the size of the USF to $9 billion. . . ."
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5/3/15 2 Russian nuclear bombers entered Alaska airspace, report says FoxNews
"Two nuclear-capable Russian bombers reportedly intruded into the U.S. air defense zone near Alaska last week.
""The Washington Free Beacon, citing defense officials, reports the tu-95 Bear H bombers flew into the zone on April 22, but no U.S. jets were dispatched to intercept them."
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"A few notes on what we have learned about law, race, order and the media after Baltimore, the largest city in my home state of Maryland, whose gleaming white stoops once stood for a city’s pride in its law and order and self-discipline.
"First, Marilyn Mosby should not be allowed to be a law clerk, let alone a state’s attorney/prosecutor. To prosecute police officers EXPLICITLY to please a mob ('I have heard your cries about ‘no justice, no peace’…') is exactly the opposite of what a prosecutor should do. That is, to prosecute only when the facts and law demand it. To press charges because a gang of thugs loots liquor stores and promises to loot more liquor stores if charges are not pressed is exactly lynch mob justice. It has nothing to do with the sacred rule of 'innocent until proven guilty.'
"Usually prosecutors will show at least hint of impartiality in an important case. Ms. Mosby went straight for the jugular and basically said, 'The thugs are my bosses and I answer to them and not to the Constitution.' This is a dangerous woman. She bears watching.
"Next, the death of Mr. Freddie Gray cannot possibly have been solely an act of white racism. Three of the six officers charged in his death were black. One was a black woman. Maybe a case of police brutality. Surely a case of serious misconduct. But racism?
"So, why all the hullabaloo about racism in the first place? The officers are black. The police chief is black. The mayor is black. Where is the racism?
"Third, the media is endlessly up in arms about the number of black men in confrontations with the police. Maybe this is not racism. Maybe this is because black men, especially young black men, seek out high risk, law-breaking forms of amusement at a rate per thousand many times higher than white men. Maybe the blame for all of the conflicts between young black men and police officers lies at the feet of the young black men. Maybe the blame for crime lies at the feet of the criminals. Is that possible?
"Fourth, Mrs. Clinton and the New York Times talk about “one and a half million missing black men.…” They are not missing. We know where they are. They are in jail or prison for committing crimes. They haven’t been taken away by space aliens. They’re here, in prison. When they learn to work and participate in the labor force in an honest way, they won’t be missing anymore. . . .
"I was uplifted by many of the men and women of the poor parts of Baltimore. They were sensible. They were prayerful. They didn’t play games around calling a thug a thug. Impressive. The 'leaders' are morally far behind the rank and file.
"Next, I turn to the greatest cure all for the problems of Baltimore and Ferguson. WORK. People with honest jobs are not robbing liquor stores. People who work all day long are too tired to loot. The people who get ahead in every society are not the ones who throw Molotov cocktails. They are the ones who actually work, study, add to their human capital and make a life for themselves and their families. Have you ever seen Vietnamese immigrants rioting? Or Chinese immigrants? No, because they are working. There is a lesson here about idle hands and the devil’s playthings. The Asians’ kids will be at Harvard. The rioters’ kids will be 'missing.'
"Meanwhile, the media should be ashamed for using their power to kowtow to the mob, to tell young thugs that if you throw bricks at cops we will not call you thugs, and we will make you stars on TV. Shame. Turn off the cameras, lock up the vodka, and we will see how many turn out for 'political protest.'”
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5/3/15 Dear Baltimore Family and Friends: Y'all Bein' Played!
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5/2/15 NYPD cop shot in the face in Queens Village, suspect in custody: sources
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5/2/15 With membership now voluntary, Wisconsin AFSCME forced into big cutbacks
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5/2/15 Obama Administration Partners With the UN to Attack the Second Amendment
Katie Pavlich, TownHall"Not shockingly, immediately after President Obama was reelected for a second term, his administration reinforced its support for the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty [ATT], also known as the 'Small Arms Treaty.' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been expressing full support of the treaty on behalf of the United States for years now while for political reasons, President Obama sat back. Now, the entire administration will be out front in support of ratifying it. . . .
"'[ T]he U.N. General Assembly's disarmament committee moved quickly after Obama's win to approve a resolution calling for a new round of talks March 18-28. It passed with 157 votes in favor, none against and 18 abstention . . .'
"The final draft of the treaty is scheduled to be completed by summer 2012. The State Department, Department of Justice, and ATF have taken a leadership role in pushing the treaty. The Bush administration refused to participate ion the negotiations, but the Obama administration has been a willing participant in drafting the treaty, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the helm. Obama has said he would like to see the treaty ratified as a way of demonstrating American's respect for 'international norms.'
"Because the UN's definition of 'criminal activity' in the treaty is so broad, American gun owners could find themselves prosecuted if UN officials deemed owning some firearms a crime. If the treaty were to be effective, it would imply the necessity for strict regulation of individual firearms ownership. Mexico wants the treaty to regulate hunting rifles, because it claims hunting rifles are used by drug cartels. But of course any weapon that can be used for sport of self-defense could also be used in ways that the treaty might regulate.
"The treaty calls for international reporting measures that would require countries to trace and keep track of weapons sold and transferred. Not only would this consume a massive amount of government resources, it would also be intrusive. Many Second Amendment advocates regard the creation of a nationwide database of lawful gun owners and a catalog of every firearm they own as an ominous expansion of government power. The most vocal supporters of the treaty in the United States are gun control organizations such as the Brady Campaign and the Joyce Foundation (the anti-gun organization that once counted Obama as a member).
"Barack Obama is no doubt the most anti-gun president in the history of the United States and his pandering to the corrupt UN should be alarming to anyone who wants to keep their Second Amendment freedoms."
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5/1/15 Alan Dershowitz Rips Charges Against Baltimore Cops:
‘Sad Day for Justice’ By Josh Feldman, Mediaite
"Alan Dershowitz really went after Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby today for charging the six cops involved in the death of Freddie Gray, saying it was entirely based on politics and 'crowd control.'
"Dershowitz lamented that 'this is a very sad day for justice' and toldSteve Malzberg that Mosby acted out of a 'desire to prevent riots.' It will be 'virtually impossible,' he predicted, for the six officers involved to get a fair trial.
"And as for murder charges, Dershowitz said there’s 'no plausible, hypothetical, conceivable case for murder' and 'this is a show trial.' He predicted that Mosby might get removed as prosecutor and Baltimore citizens may get upset if and/or when they 'move to a place with a different demographic.'
"He concluded that it’s 'unlikely they’ll get any convictions in this case' and if they do they’ll likely 'be reversed on appeal.'
"Watch the video below, via Newsmax TV:" [Click the date to access this video.]
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5/1/15 Regime Seizes Control of Local PDs
Rush Limbaugh show transcript excerpts
CALLER: -- before I get to my point, you've been talking about the nationalization of the police forces, and I would like to read you a quote from a campaign speech in 2008 by Obama. . . .
Quote: "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as the US military," end quote.
RUSH: I remember that statement. . . .
I remember that like it was yesterday. You're exactly right. He was talking about -- and I remember the reaction to it. "What's he talking about, a domestic military police force?"
CALLER: Yes. And now we hear that from Al Sharpton.
RUSH: And now we hear Sharpton: "There's a need for a national takeover of policing in this country."
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Well, I don't have any doubt that they've wanted to do that. They're doing it with all these new guidelines that they are mandating on local police departments. You know, they're doing all that. You know, this has been the frustrating thing for me hosting this program for six years. This isn't theoretical anymore. This isn't, "If we're not careful, folks, in the next five years X, Y, Z is gonna happen." It's happening now. All of this stuff is actually happening, and there isn't any push-back anywhere against any of it. That's a common, common refrain. And the more of it that goes on, the longer, harder it's gonna be to roll it back at some point. . . .
CALLER: [different caller] I believe on March 16th is when I read this -- it was announced that a pilot program was happening in six US cities to put the police departments under federal control, and the cities are all liberal cities. I mean, totally liberal. You've got Fort Worth, Texas; Gary, Indiana; Stockton, California; Birmingham, Alabama; Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh. You couple that with the takeover of the cities after these riots, and I really do believe that federalization of our police department is happening. . . .
RUSH: Well, Obama basically called for it. . . .
CALLER: Yes. And he's implementing it right now.
RUSH: Well, look, there's no question about it. If you look at the... You know, I don't have this in front of me. I hate to say things without the backup here. Even though you can totally trust me. I don't make things up out of whole cloth here. But my buddy Andy McCarthy has written extensively, he's a former member of the US attorney's office in the Southern District of Manhattan. He knows what's going on in these places, and he knows how the
Department of Justice interacts with localities.
But, you know, it's not all personal experience. There are literal things happening, federal guidelines from the Holder Justice Department, say, to the Ferguson Police Department after... In fact, remember, Holder himself said it. After the grand jury in Ferguson, the findings were made public, and everything everybody thought that was wrong about that case was blown to smithereens. There was no "hands up, don't shoot." There was no surrender. There was no nothing.
Everything that the news media and the left had said about this thing was not true, and the DOJ report said it. I remember reading with you portions of the DOJ report, which were just decimating to the Gentle Giant. I mean, the Gentle Giant and all the witnesses were just destroyed in the DOJ report. Now, I remember one passage way, way down in the summary report toward the end of it. (paraphrased) "Despite all of this, we have found intense latent racism throughout the Ferguson Police Department."
Now, after releasing the analysis, this was the DOJ. Remember, they went in there and they were gonna make sure we got the truth. They weren't gonna rely on the locals, couldn't trust 'em. They weren't going to rely on the local prosecutors and the grand jury, 'cause Holder had gone in there early on and promised the people of Ferguson no matter what they were gonna get to the bottom of it.
Well, when they got to the bottom of it, they found out there was nothing to get to. There was no innocence on the part of the Gentle Giant. So they had to release the details, and they were devastating, as I say. And despite that, they had to come away with something. So they concluded -- their investigation found -- that while no civil rights of any kind of the Gentle Giant's were violated. Nevertheless, Eric Holder's DOJ report said that the Ferguson Police Department was just ravaged with racism.
It was the most incongruous thing, folks.
We had this long report exonerating everybody: Exonerating the cop, exonerating the police department, not exonerating the Gentle Giant. It was just slam dunk, total defeats for Federal Reserve on the Gentle Giant's side. Despite that, the DOJ found rampant, toxic racism all throughout the Ferguson Police Department. Which, the report said, meant that the Department of Justice was immediately going to issue new guidelines and procedures for the Ferguson Police Department to follow.
Even though we just had a report that said they didn't do anything wrong!
A separate investigation found all this racism. That has happened in 10 or 15 other cities where there have been not riots, but there have been crimes where people in the African-American community thought that racism was behind them. So this is how it's happening. The DOJ is going in and conducting these investigations. They're finding racism here and racism there and demanding "changes," and the changes that are being demanded are basically handcuffing local police departments with new federal guidelines if they want the money. So it's already underway.
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5/1/15 The Messes Obama Will Leave Behind By Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal
The list of unsolved problems is long and growing—and that’s not counting foreign policy.
"At
last Saturday’s White House Correspondents’
Dinner, President Obama declared he was
determined to 'make the most of every moment'
left in office, saying he had been working on a
'bucket list' that included executive action on
immigration and climate regulation. Aware that
his critics believe he’s often acted lawlessly,
Mr. Obama joked that the title for his list
rhymes with 'bucket.'
"Regardless of what items Mr. Obama checks off, he will leave to his
successor a staggering array of domestic
problems, some he ignored and many he made
worse.
"Slow economic growth will be at the top of the list of problems. The
pattern of American history has been that the
more severe the recession, the stronger the
recovery. Until now. In Mr. Obama’s recovery,
average annual growth has been the slowest since
the U.S. began compiling reliable economic
statistics near the 20th century’s beginning—a
feeble 2.9%. This year is off to an even slower
start, with GDP growing 0.2% in the first three
months.
"The number of jobs also will be on that list. It took from June 2009 to
April 2014—nearly five full years—to get back to
having the same number of people working as when
the recession began in December 2007. That’s a
longer period of time to return to the starting
point than in any recession in U.S. history.
Meantime, roughly 14.7 million people came of
age without a job available. The last time the
job participation rate was this low was 1978. A
third of Americans between 18 and 31 last year
were living with their parents, the highest
percentage in at least four decades.
"The quality of jobs available will be another topic on that list. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics says 4.5 million
Americans were working part time for economic
reasons in December 2007, meaning they could not
find full-time work. Last month the number was
6.6 million—a 46% increase. More part-time
workers are getting fewer than 30 hours a week,
in part probably because of ObamaCare.
"Then there is the size of Americans’ paychecks. Inflation-adjusted
median household income has dropped, from
$54,059 in 2009 to $51,939 in 2013 (the latest
year available), the only time this has happened
during an economic recovery. The president who
harps on inequality as a “defining issue of our
time” has demonstrated that the middle class
fares badly under progressive economic policies.
"Mr. Obama will also leave behind a difficult economic climate in which
to start a business. According to a recent
Brookings Institution study, every year of his
presidency more American businesses have
died—closed, merged or gone bankrupt—than have
been created.
"The national debt has risen to 74.1% today from 40.8% the month he took
office. This is the largest increase in a
six-year period since World War II. The
Congressional Budget Office says that within 25
years the public debt will exceed 100% of GDP
unless Washington changes its policies.
"The ballooning debt reflects the administration’s—and the Democratic
Party’s—deficit spending. Mr. Obama compliments
himself on reducing the deficit to 2.8% of GDP
in fiscal year 2014, down from 8.7%, 8.5%, 6.8%,
and 4.1% in the proceeding fiscal years. But
2.8% only matches the average deficit for the
last 50 years, and the decline is attributable
in large part to Republicans’ controlling the
House since the 2010 midterms and slowing
spending.
"Also left for his successor are entitlement programs that will go bust:
the Social Security disability trust fund in
2016, the Medicare hospital trust fund in 2030
and Social Security’s Old Age and Survivor’s
trust fund in 2032. The president squandered six
years by refusing to make modest reforms to hold
down growth in entitlement spending while giving
people time to adjust.
"Mr. Obama likes to claim credit for the slower growth in health
spending, but economists suggest that is more
likely because of the recession and the success
of his predecessor’s Medicare reform, which
helped seniors with prescription drug costs,
resulting in fewer expensive hospital procedures
and stays.
"This is only a partial list of the domestic challenges Mr. Obama will
pass on to the next president and doesn’t
include the long roster of international
problems he has created, ignored or messed up.
"After this president’s six years in the White House the country is
adrift, thanks to leadership that has been
mistaken, insufficient or absent. While this is
nothing to joke about, it is also a challenge to
Republicans to share their own presidential
bucket lists—on how they will clean up the mess
Mr. Obama will leave."
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5/1/15 George Soros reportedly could face up to $7B tax bill, after delaying
payment for years FoxNews
"George Soros may soon face a monumental tax bill -- of nearly $7 billion -- after years of playing
hard-to-get with the IRS. FoxNews
"Despite Soros having advocated for higher taxes on the wealthy, the liberal billionaire reportedly has delayed paying his own for years thanks to a loophole in U.S. law.
"That loophole was closed by Congress in 2008. But before that, Bloomberg reports, Soros used it to defer taxes on client fees. Instead, he reinvested them in his own fund, and they grew tax-free.
"Bloomberg, citing Irish regulatory filings, reported that Soros has made $13.3 billion in this way. Factoring in the various tax rates that would apply, one tax expert estimated this would leave Soros with a roughly $6.7 billion bill.
"While Soros did not comment on the estimate, Bloomberg reported that Soros deferred his taxes for so many years by reinvesting client fees. While he technically was able to do this for U.S.-based funds, offshore funds were apparently preferred because otherwise clients would face negative tax implications.
"Congress closed that loophole in 2008, ordering fund managers to pay up by 2017.
"According to Bloomberg, Soros moved assets shortly before the change to Ireland, seen as a possible shelter from the law. But tax attorneys told Bloomberg they don't know of a way for money managers to avoid the bill in 2017."
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5/1/15 Is the Clinton Foundation Really a Charity?
Johnathan S.Tobin, Commenatary Magazine
"One of the mantras one must invoke when discussing the Clinton Cashcontroversy is to say that whatever one might think of the pay-to-play aspects of the former first family’s charitable endeavors, the Clinton Foundation does a lot of good work around the world. But now that more of the press is finally asking tough questions about the Clintons’ activities, it appears that their charity may not pass the basic question donors ask of any philanthropy: how much of the money raised is actually spent on the causes you are supposed to be aiding? Though the foundation has claimed that 88 percent of its expenditures are spent on good deeds, their own tax filings reveal that the real number is about ten percent. But far from being an unrelated, albeit embarrassing, sidebar to the allegations about influence peddling, this data is a reminder that the main point of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation is to support its namesakes in a lavish fashion and to allow wealthy donors access to them.
"Sean Davis highlighted the discrepancy between the 88 percent figure and the reality of the Clinton Foundation spending ten percent on charity in a recent Federalist article. Hefollowed up with another, skewering a claim by the left-wing Punditfact site that this claim was “mostly false.” As he wrote, the only way to come to such a conclusion was to simply ignore facts, including, most importantly, the filings of the Clinton Foundation that made it clear that it spent very little of its money on good deeds. But Punditfact says we should ignore these basic facts because of “the unusual business model” of the foundation which causes it to spend the lion’s share of the vast sums raised on its behalf on conferences, travel, and staffing.
"The two largest items on its list of charitable expenditures are support for the Clinton Presidential Library and paying for the Clinton Global Initiative.
"The Library is, like those edifices built to house the papers and glorify the memory of other presidents, a not-altogether-worthless endeavor. But it is a monument to the vanity and the legacy of the Clintons, not the sort of 'good work' helping the impoverished of the Third World, as well as the women and the girls, Hillary Clinton is always telling us she’s out to save. It may be a non-profit institution but it is not a charity.
"The Clinton Global Initiative is also not a charity. According to the New York Times, it’s a 'glitzy annual gathering of chief executives, heads of state and celebrities.' Those who attend it may do charitable work. But their main purpose in attending is to see and be seen talking about being charitable. The same can be said of the event itself.
"The foundation’s 'business model' is that rather than raise money to give to those helping the poor on the ground, its alleged charitable acts are done by those on its payroll. Fair enough. But the controversy here is that the foundation and its liberal apologists want us to think that when the Clintons and their staff scurry around the world talking about helping the poor that amounts to charity.
"This is not a made-up argument about how to characterize expenditures. The Clintons don’t feed the hungry or clothe the poor. They are conveners of famous and smart people who supposedly brainstorm about how to do those things. They call this 'life-changing' work and no doubt it does some good. But the only ones whose lives we can be certain have been 'changed' are the Clintons, their cronies, and their staff. Most of the hundreds of millions of dollars raised by the foundation yearly is spent on salaries, travel, offices, and other perks. The Clinton Foundation is the ultimate “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” reality show cloaked in a veneer of good intentions and charitable rhetoric. But it is not much of a charity.
"What makes this relevant to the Clinton Cash allegations is that most of the money spent by the foundation is geared toward providing access for the donors to the Clintons via the annual celebrity conference and events at the Library. The business model here is all about the show of charity and, as our Abe Greenwald wrote on Monday, primarily interested in lauding a 'class of global VIP celebrating its good works.' That doesn’t help many poor people, but it did aid the Clintons in their effort to attract wealthy, self-interested donors who preferred to give to a foundation that could advance their personal political and economic agendas rather than aid the poor.
"Technically speaking this isn’t a scam, since the Clintons’ donors know exactly what they are getting. Indeed, many of them may well have gotten their money’s worth of influence by giving money to the ex-president and a sitting secretary of state and would-be president. If so, that is a scandal and one that ought to disqualify Hillary Clinton for consideration for the presidency.
"But though it may not be illegal, it is not quite the noble cause to which we’re all supposed to pay homage. What’s more, the 'mistakes' the foundation has made in its filings are leading to reasonable suspicions that we have just started to scratch the surface of its questionable dealings. Those liberals that are dedicating themselves to rationalizing and apologizing for the foundation may find that they have taken on a task that is in the process of becoming a full-time and increasingly impossible job."
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4/30/15 Navy to escort U.S. commercial ships near Iran
"CNN has learned that U.S. Navy warships will now accompany U.S.-flagged commercial vessels that pass through the Strait of Hormuz due to concerns that ships from Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps navy could try to seize a U.S. cargo ship.
"Pentagon officials provided clarification Thursday afternoon that not every ship will necessarily be accompanied by the Navy. But this is still a significant change in the U.S. military posture in the Strait.
"The classified plan was approved by the Pentagon earlier Thursday, according to a senior defense official.
"While the Navy maintains a routine ship presence in the Persian Gulf and the North Arabian Sea, this new effort specifically requires an armed warship to be in the narrow channel between Iran and Oman when a U.S. commercial vessel passes through.
"The decision to go ahead with this plan comes as Iran Revolutionary Guard ships harassed a U.S.-flagged vessel, the Maersk Kensington, on Friday and then later seized another cargo ship, the Maersk Tigris, flagged in the Marshall Islands. . . ."
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4/30/15 Fox: Mayor Ordered Cops to Stand Down Rush Limbaugh Show transcript excerpts
VITTERT: This is coming from a very senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the orders that were given by the mayor and by her police commanders down to the very core of the police riot-control units, and what I am quoting now from him as quoting the mayor, "Let them loot. It's only property."
RUSH: Oh, no! Here comes another one against the mayor, that she's gonna have to go out and explain why she didn't really say what she said or how we are misunderstanding what she said.. . . We know the police were told to stand down. Remember, there's this convoluted theory out there that a strong police presence increases riots, and a silent or invisible police presence makes things more peaceful. . . .
You can carry it over to the US military in foreign policy. The exact opposite of what they believe happens to be true. When you stand down -- when you're the authority figure as the mayor, a governor, and you order the law enforcement agents to stand down -- you may as well be sending the signal that you can be had. You are transmitting weakness. When bad behavior is not punished, when bad behavior is essentially ignored and thus rewarded, it's going to continue.
This is just, I think, one of many areas where the left is 180 degrees out of phase in human nature. But again, when you get to the end, the left likes this kind of chaos. As I say, Obama and his buds are milking Baltimore for as much as they can squeeze out of this, just like they did Ferguson, which they're still milking.
It's just the exact opposite, by the way.
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4/30/15 Blacks, Hispanics reject Obama climate change agenda over concerns
about poor , The Washington Times
Minority leaders worry EPA carbon regulations will drive up utility bills, stifle opportunity
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4/30/15 California Rings The Mission Bell For Voter Fraud Investor's Business Daily
"Advanced by Democrats, Secretary of State Alex Padilla and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, AB 1461 automatically registers anyone applying for a California driver's license as a voter in local, state and federal elections. It's all in the interest of supposedly increasing voter participation.
"This has the hideous look of a back-door bill to encourage illegal immigrants to vote in elections they have no right to vote in, in a country they have no loyalty to.
"Start with the suspicious timing. Three months ago, California's Department of Motor Vehicles began issuing special driver's licenses to hundreds of thousands of California's estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants, hiring 1,000 new employees and opening four new offices at a cost of $67 million.
"Gonzalez herself has no previous record of concern for low voter turnout, and in any case, benefits from it as she holds office in a machine-politics system where gerrymandered districts discourage voters from thinking their vote can make a difference.
"She does, however, have a long record of shoveling pork to illegal immigrants through various bills designed to make life as accommodative and benefit-laden as possible for them. She serves them as lavishly if they were people who vote.
"Gonzalez claims the new super-motor-voter bill wouldn't be applicable to those who are not eligible to vote. But that's a comical. Multiple groups of illegals have obtained new legal Social Security numbers under President Obama's
"Immigration Accountability Executive Action. It's part of the White House's effort to grant millions of illegals relief from deportation and provide them with authorization to work.
"How does the DMV affirm whether or not a person is eligible for motor-voter registration? Through a self-declared declaration of citizenship and a Social Security number. And how does it verify that people are citizens? The short answer to that is it can't.
"And the other question to ask is why would it? Among the DMV's top concerns is keeping bad drivers off the road. Like all California state and local agencies, it considers citizenship a federal job.
"Last year, alarmed secretaries of state from Ohio and Kansas warned that with illegals having access to the same documents citizens have, there is no way they can verify whether or not an applicant registering to vote is even eligible.
'"These are the same documents that federal law requires the states to recognize as valid forms of identification for voter registration,' testified Ohio Secretary of State John Husted before the House Oversight Committee last February. 'There is no way for us to validate' the U.S. citizenship required to vote, he warned.
"California has about a quarter of the estimated 11 million illegals in the country, making this issue no small matter. A 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study found that 14% of illegals were already registered to vote and 6.4% of them actually cast ballots in 2008.
"Why wouldn't illegal immigrants vote? They're attracted to government largess, and the Big Labor and community organizer political machines will roust them to the polls, as is often already seen on Election Day.
"The gate to massive voter fraud is being thrown open. Election results will be altered by foreign nationals who have little chance of being caught and are vulnerable to manipulation by political machines in what is a de facto one-party state.
"It's the most disturbing trend as it disenfranchises legitimate citizen voters on a massive scale and amounts to a massive robbery of representative democracy in the name of keeping the incumbent party in power.
"If citizens don't step up to halt this quick, they will have no one to blame but themselves for the dead democracy that follows."
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4/29/15 Source: Baltimore mayor ordered police to stand down FoxNews
"Despite a firm denial by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a senior law enforcement source charges that she gave an order for police to stand down as riots broke out Monday night, raising more questions about whether some of the violence and looting could have been prevented.
"The source, who is involved in the enforcement efforts, confirmed to Fox News there was a direct order from the mayor to her police chief Monday night, effectively tying the hands of officers as they were pelted with rocks and bottles.
"Asked directly if the mayor was the one who gave that order, the source said: 'You are God damn right it was.'
"The claim follows criticism of the mayor for, over the weekend, saying they were giving space to those who 'wished to destroy.'
"By Tuesday night, despite the chaos a day earlier, Baltimore police along with the National Guard and other law enforcement contingents seemed to be restoring order in the city, which was under a curfew overnight."
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4/29/15 Starnes: Baltimore Man Protects Shop with Axe Handle and Dog
By Todd Starnes, Fox Nation
"What happened in Baltimore is a story of failed liberal leadership - a Democratic mayor who championed appeasement over the rule of law. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake essentially gave the rampaging mob permission to riot after police were told to stand down.
"We still don't know for certain who gave that order, but I suspect it came from City Hall. Imagine that - police officers in a major American city forced to holster their weapons while thugs burned, pillaged and plundered. It was all compliments of the mayor creating a space for the mob to destroy.
"And now Rawlings-Blake is apologizing to the very people who left parts of her city in ruins. The mayor said she's sorry for calling them 'thugs' - or as World Net Daily calls it, the 'T-word.' She said the people who sent police officers to the hospital are just kids acting out. Another city official called them 'misdirected' youth.
"These people are Baltimorons.
"President Obama made things worse, using his Rose Garden press conference to once again bash American law enforcement. He spent 90 seconds criticizing the criminals and 5 minutes criticizing the police. 5 minutes. Soothing words from our Community Organizer-in-Chief.
"Meanwhile, Baltimore homeowners and shopkeepers have been left to fend for themselves. Folks like Tony Harrison, who owns the Midtown BBQ & Brew, telling Sean Hannity Tuesday night that he had to take matters into his own hands.
"'We were out there for about eight hours with axe handles, me, a couple of my brothers and one of my dogs,' he said. . . ."
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4/29/15 WaPo: Three Pinocchios for latest Clinton Foundation excuse
by Ed Morrissey, HotAir
"A particularly slimy series of 'coincidences' led (a) the State Department to allow interest in half the world’s uranium to fall into Russian hands while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, (b) Bill Clinton to pocket $500,000 from the bank financing the deal, and (c) the Clinton Foundation to rake in millions from the people who cashed out in the Uranium One deal. At the center of the Uranium One deal was Frank Giustra, the Canadian contributor who poured cash into the foundation during Hillary’s tenure at State. In an attempt to deflect attention from the nexus of cash and influence, Clinton Foundation exec Maura Pally declared that the organization couldn’t disclose the donors to the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership because Canadian law prevented it:
Like every contributor to the Foundation, the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (Canada) is publicly listed as a donor on our website. But as it is a distinct Canadian organization, separate from the Clinton Foundation, its individual donors are not listed on the site. This is hardly an effort on our part to avoid transparency — unlike in the U.S., under Canadian law, all charities are prohibited from disclosing individual donors without prior permission from each donor.
"As Morgen Richmond discovered almost immediately, that didn’t keep them from posting the donors on their website in 2009. The Washington Post’s Michelle Ye Hee Lee dug a little deeper, and found that Pally’s not telling the truth:
The Clinton Foundation said “all charities are prohibited from disclosing individual donors without prior permission from each donor” under Canadian law. It is unclear whether the foundation is referring to federal or provincial law. If it is the later, the statement would be accurate.
However, the charity’s own memo says it is operating under federal obligations and its fiduciary duty for its board of directors. The federal law does not explicitly ban charities from disclosing individual donor names without permission. In fact, it only applies to commercial use of personal information. The public release of donor names for a non-commercial purpose is not prohibited. The charity, however, interprets the release of donor records as “bartering,” which experts have questioned.
"Lee gives the Clinton Foundation three Pinocchios for this lame attempt to deflect attention through a non-sequitur. The issue isn’t with the donors we don’t know (at least for now), but with the donor we do know. Giustra made a fortune off the staged sell-off of Uranium One to ARMZ, which got folded up immediately into Putin-linked Rosatom almost immediately after the final acquisition in January 2013. The Russian interests who made out all started off by kicking a lot of money to the Clintons. . . .
"It’s no coincidence that Hillary Clinton’s talking about campaign finance reform again, too. Cash for we, but not for thee … The hypocrisy never ends."
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4/29/15
"Hillary Clinton’s proposal to get money out of politics could allow the federal government to restrict or ban the publication of a book that has embroiled her presidential campaign in controversy, experts say.
"Clinton called for a constitutional amendment to 'get unaccountable money out of' politics in an op-ed for the Des Moines Register published Monday. Her campaign did not respond to requests for additional details, but legal experts say similar efforts over the past two years would have profound effects on Americans’ free speech rights.
"Constitutional amendments introduced by Democratic senators in 2013 and 2014 could give the federal government the authority to prevent expenditures by a publisher, for example, to produce or publicize books critical of political candidates.
"One such book, Clinton Cash by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer, has roiled Clinton’s campaign over the past two weeks. Schweizer suggests in the book that Clinton’s State Department took actions that benefitted donors to the Clinton Foundation.
"Under two recently proposed constitutional amendments designed to limit political spending, “You could be prohibited” from publishing a book critical of a political candidate, 'or restricted—you can only spend $1,000 in publishing your book or something along those lines,' according to UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh.
"Though Clinton has not outlined specific language of a constitutional amendment, Volokh called it 'telling that some of the most prominent proposals introduced by people who are, after all, senators, would, whether intentionally or not, allow very broad kinds of restrictions' on political speech.' . . ."
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4/28/15 Why did Baltimore mayor wait to enforce curfew? FoxNews
[Click the date to access this video. Also wait for a video on the mayor's earlier words encouraging destruction.]
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4/28/15 Sheriff says police have to use force to 'win' in Baltimore FoxNews
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke says the city cannot put officers in a riot situation with 'one hand tied behind their back' [Click the date to access the video.]
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4/28/15 Man-Made Liberalism on Display Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: That's what's on display here. Man-made liberalism. Political climate change is destroying America's urban core. Not rising sea levels, not melting glaciers, not hurricanes, none of these things that we've been told are gonna be the end of us. Nope, it's man-made liberalism that is destroying America's urban core. . . .
Why does this only happen in communities that have been run by Democrats and liberals for decades? And every time it happens, you can guarantee who's going to get blamed. You can guarantee that race is gonna be made a factor, when it isn't in some cases. You are guaranteed to hear people demand that government get bigger. You're going to hear that the protesters are oppressed by an unjust and immoral country.
You're going to hear that these riots are not really tied to a specific event; it's just the building rage of African-Americans since the days of the founding of this country. . . .
What they're desperately looking for now is a way to blame this on Republicans, even though there isn't one anywhere in sight. They're looking for a way to blame this on the 1%, even though they aren't anywhere in sight. I hear these people say, "No jobs." You been running the show! You've got the jobs plans, we thought. "Still, there no jobs, and there's poverty, and there's no money." Well, you've been giving money away left and right ever since you've been running the government. . . .
There aren't any Republicans anywhere near Baltimore, Maryland!
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4/28/15 'Man-made disaster': Critics say California drought caused by misguided environment policies By Malia Zimmerman, FoxNews
"The blistering drought that has Californians timing their showers, driving dirty cars and staring at brown lawns and empty swimming pools is a “man-made disaster,” according to critics, who say the Golden State’s misguided environmental policies allow much-needed freshwater to flow straight into the Pacific.
"In an average year, California gets enough snow and rain to put 200 million acres under a foot of water, but environmental opposition to dams over the last several decades has allowed the majority of the freshwater to flow into the ocean, even as the state’s population exploded to nearly 40 million people. The current drought has left farms parched and residents under strict water consumption orders, but some say it didn't have to be that way.
"'This is a man-made disaster,' said Bonner Cohen, senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research. 'Southern California is an arid part of the world where droughts -- even severe droughts -- are commonplace, and knowing this, you’d think the government of California would have included this mathematical certainty in its disaster preparedness planning, but the government has done nothing, not even store rain, as the population has continued to grow.' . . .
"The critics say California gets plenty of water to meet its needs, if it were only managed properly. More than half of California’s surface water flows from the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east down to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Northern California. Much of the mountain runoff is managed by two of the world’s largest water storage and transport systems – the federal Central Valley Project and California's State Water Project. Each is a system of dams, reservoirs and distribution systems designed to send water to cities, towns and farms throughout the state.
"But the vast majority of the state’s 1,400 dams and reservoirs, in the two massive systems and smaller ones that supply southern California, were built well before the 1980s. Environmentalists have since stopped the construction of water storage and delivery systems through legal and political actions. They have also fought to ensure that captured water is released into streams and the ocean -- rather than the water delivery system -- in order to boost fish populations and dilute the salinity of the delta.
"'Droughts are nothing new in California, but right now, 70 percent of California's rainfall washes out to sea because liberals have prevented the construction 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 Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard and likely GOP presidential candidate. 'This is the classic case of liberals being willing to sacrifice other people's lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology.'”
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4/24/15 Obama May Free Top Aide To 9/11 Mastermind From Gitmo
Investor's Business Daily
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4/24/15 Obama Passes the Buck on Drones Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: [P]rior to this one incident, Obama was bragging about being the guy in charge of naming targets. Obama was bragging about he's the guy that had the kill list. You remember? A lot of leftists at the time didn't like it. They didn't think it's cool for Obama to be sitting there running the drone program and deciding terrorist A gets killed. I tell you what did it for them, when an American citizen terrorist got wiped out in Yemen. Olaki, Shalaki, Shylocky whatever his name was. He happened to be a guru to the Fort Hood shooter.
Obama took him out with a drone strike, and Obama's been bragging about it because Democrats are well known to be wusses when it comes to power and military force. They don't particularly like it, so Obama started bragging that he was in charge of the kill list. Now all of a sudden an innocent American hostage is killed and Obama is said to have nothing to do it, and furthermore you know who is to blame? All of a sudden, who is it that all of a sudden has a role in this? That would be Congress. Yes siree.
I saw that yesterday morning and I about spit. Blaming Congress for a drone strikes, saying Congress has a role in drone, they don't have a role in anything else. Congress doesn't have a role in confirmations or in executive action on amnesty or anything else, but all of a sudden they are culpable and have a responsibility when it comes to drone strikes? Can anybody say: pass the buck?
Here's the story as it appeared in the French News Agency: "President Barack Obama's admission that a US drone strike accidentally took the lives of two hostages has raised fresh questions about the limits and the risks of the country's 'targeted killing' campaign. ... the botched strike revealed that the US had no idea an American aid worker, Warren Weinstein, and an Italian humanitarian, Giovanni Lo Porto, were in the same compound as Al-Qaeda militants when the drone raid was launched in January.
"The White House also admitted that US intelligence was flawed for another drone strike at about the same time, which killed two US citizens who were Al-Qaeda operatives but who Washington did not know were present."
Why would our intelligence be flawed after Obama has decided to no longer capture or interrogate prisoners? And why all of a sudden is it okay to blame intelligence after eight years of denying intelligence had anything to do with what George Bush screwed up, in their words?
"Human rights groups and some lawmakers have long questioned the legality and the morality of the drone air war, citing estimates of thousands of civilian casualties caused by the strikes. Military experts have cast doubt on the ultimate effect of the raids on extremist groups." But Obama is our foremost moral authority and our foremost military expert. And now he is trying to pass the buck. I mean, I remember Obama leaking to the New York Times the news that he alone picked the people to drone, and now all of a sudden he has nothing to do with it.
And here's the story about blaming Congress. This is from the White House press briefing yesterday. Reporter says, "Lastly, on this issue of revealing what happened. There’s been a flurry of statements this morning from members of Congress, not only joining president in offering condolences, but promising rigorous oversight from some of the relevant congressional committees. Does the White House feel that Congress has a role to play in figuring out what went wrong here and how to possibly prevent it from happening again?"
What White House official fed that question to the reporter? Of all questions, does Congress have a role? Who thinks this stuff up? Somebody at the Regime had to feed that question to this reporter. And here's what Josh Earnest said when asked, "Does Congress maybe have a role? Is there maybe congressional culpability here in the deaths of these innocent victims?" Answer: "Well, I can tell you that the president believes that Congress does have very important oversight role over these kinds of programs. That’s why in president’s National Defense University’s speech that he delivered a couple of years ago, he made clear that when these kinds of terrorism operations are carried out, the relevant members of Congress are briefed about each operation."
Lo and behold, a reporter is fed a question, "Does Congress carry any kind of responsibility for this botched drone business?"
"Well, you know, now that you ask, the president believes that Congress does have a very important oversight role, and in fact --" implied here: it could well be that if Congress had been responsible this might not have happened. It's just passing the buck 101. All of these years that Congress has ceased to exist, doesn't have any legitimacy, as far as Obama's concerned, now when he needs a scapegoat, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner raise their hands, "Yep, yep, we'll bite."
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4/24/15 Republicans Who Voted For Loretta Lynch Voted For The Abuse Of
Executive Power By
David Harsanyi, The Federalist
‘People are very nervous about Republicans not being willing to have a vote on the first black woman attorney general,’ according to one GOP senator who spoke on condition of anonymity. Republicans agree that Lynch is qualified for the job — ‘probably the most qualified nominee that’s come out of this White House,’ concedes Senator Richard Burr (R., N.C.), who voted against her confirmation.
"Those are two awful reasons.
"Do senators have a duty to defer to the president’s choices simply because the nominee has an impressive resume? Or do they take oaths to uphold the Constitution? There’s little doubt that Lynch has the professional credentials necessary for the job, but a nominee for Justice Department’s top position disqualifies herself when she can’t, for ideological reasons (or won’t, for partisan ones) concede that there is a single genuine limitation on presidential power. The role of Congress is to check the executive branch, not expand its reach.
"Before the showdown over the human trafficking bill, it was McConnell, along with many others, who protested Obama’s unilateral immigration policy directives on legal grounds. Yet, Lynch told senators she believed the president had acted well within his powers. So how does McConnell rationalize not only allowing a vote to come to the floor but whipping the 60 votes needed to avoid any confrontation with the majority of his own party?
"'I voted against her because even though I walked into her confirmation process with an open mind, hoping and even expecting to like her, I couldn’t vote for her because she refused to answer any of my questions about prosecutorial discretion and its limits,' Sen. Mike Lee, whose grilling gave Lynch the most trouble, told The Federalist. 'Even as I made the questions more and more obvious, and gave her hypotheticals which I thought made the question clearer, she refused to answer. It’s not because she doesn’t have the capacity, it’s because she had concluded that she wanted to share as little information as possible and, apparently, she responded well to coaching. I found that troubling.'
"Lee had offered a hypothetical scenario wherein a governor wanted to raise the speed limit from 55 miles per-hour to 75 but could not convince the legislature. Could that governor decide to unilaterally instruct his highway patrol to not enforce the speed limit? Could he issue permits to drivers who wanted to exceed the limits established by statute? “I thought that was a pretty reasonable hypothetical,” Lee explained. She refused discuss the scenario
"Lee then asked about a hypothetical president who decides that tax rates are too high and no American should ever have to pay anything above 25 percent. Congress disagrees. So, can that president now instruct his administration not to collect any taxes above the 25 percent? Is that a legitimate exercise of prosecutorial discretion? 'She wouldn’t really answer that one either,' said Lee, whose new book is fittingly titled, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America’s Founding Document.
"Then, of course, as with most debates these days, there is the Democrats’ habit of conjuring phantom racism whenever things aren’t going their way.
"Yesterday, POLITICO ran a lengthy feature detailing some of Lynch’s history, treating every criticism of her as a racial slight. And for every story that implied there was a scandalous reason for stopping Lynch, a Democrat openly alleged that Republicans were delaying the vote because of bigotry. 'Loretta Lynch, the first African-American woman nominated to be attorney general, is asked to sit in the back of the bus when it comes to the Senate calendar,' Dick Durbin said.
"It’s a potent attack, obviously, as Republicans recoil whenever it’s deployed. A number of susceptible 2016 Republicans—Kelly Ayotte, Ron Johnson, Rob Portman, among others—voted to confirm Lynch. If the GOP believes that a single voter has changed their perceptions about politics over the Loretta Lynch confirmation, they’ve been in DC way too long. What’s far more likely is that the incident reinforces the idea that accusing your opponents of racism works. Well, for Democrats.
"At the very least, Republicans had an opportunity to make a compelling case against the president’s unilateral governance by voting no. It would not have changed the outcome. Instead, GOP leadership is complicit. McConnell will continue to boast about the Senate being productive again. And, to be fair, things have been running a lot smoother since the GOP took over. No more obstruction. Just a lot of capitulation."
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4/23/15 Fleet of Iranian ships heading to Yemen turns around after being tracked
by US warships By Lucas Tomlinson, FoxNews
"A nine-ship Iranian convoy believed to be laden with weapons bound for rebels in Yemen turned around Thursday after being followed by U.S. warships stationed in the area to prevent arms shipments, multiple sources in the Pentagon told Fox News.
"The sources said the nine-ship convoy is south of Salalah, Oman, and now headed northeast in the Arabian Sea in the direction of home. The ships, which include seven freighters and two frigates, had sailed southwest along the coast of Yemen heading in the direction of Aden and the entrance to the Red Sea. The two Iranian warships escorting the convoy are Thondor Type 021-class missile boats and the other ships in the convoy are a mix of commercial vessels with some carrying shipping containers.
"The USS Theodore Roosevelt, a 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier known as the “Big Stick” and her escort, the USS Normandy, a guided missile cruiser, have been shadowing the convoy for the past few days, the sources said.
"Fighter jets taking off from the carrier have been relaying the convoy’s location to the U.S. Navy's higher command since the start of the week.
"Pentagon officials say the U.S. Navy set up the nine ships in a line parallel to the coast of Yemen stretching from the Bab-el-Mandeb Straight to waters south of Oman, which provide “continuous coverage” of the Iranian convoy.
"The Iranian Navy ships are characterized as 'smaller than destroyers,' a Pentagon official with knowledge of the convoy said Tuesday. Asked what type of weapons the freighters are carrying, one Pentagon official said, 'they are bigger than small arms.'
"USS Theodore Roosevelt came within 200 nautical miles of the Iranian convoy, said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.
"'At all times we were monitoring the convoy, we didn't need to be in their wake,' according to one official read in on the operation.
"According to a Navy official the Iranian convoy never made it to Yemeni waters. 'They turned around before they crossed the line extending from the Yemen/Oman border,' said the official.
"But Pentagon officials remain cautious as the Iranian convoy continues on a northeasterly course off the coast of Oman in the direction of home. . . ."
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4/23/15 The White House And Soros-Backed Open Borders Group Strategize About Bribing Immigrants To Naturalize Before 2016 Ian Smith,The Daily Caller
"Last week, the White House Task Force on New Americans held a briefing at the Soros-funded, pro-open borders Migration Policy Institute to push its new 'Strategic Action Plan on Immigrant & Refugee Integration.' The Task Force, which seeks to ramp up naturalization rates among non-citizens, grew out of one of the dozen bombshell memos dropped on the American public after the midterms last year. Although barely discussed, it may be the most important memo released that day, even more so than Obama’s twin amnesty programs and the ‘New Priorities on Deportations’ memo which rewrote the Immigration and Nationality Act.
"The new Task Force is chaired by White House Domestic Policy Advisor, Cecilia Munoz and its representatives include almost everyone from Obama’s cabinet. Munoz was previously vice president of the National Council for La Raza (or 'the Race' in English), an organization that reportedly encourages illegal aliens and non-citizens to vote, pushes for 'Reconquista' of the Southwest, and whose founder once advocated for the mass murdering of white people. Still, the group manages to receive millions of your tax dollars annually.
"The initiatives to increase naturalization rates reported in the Action Plan are costly, especially for an agency like DHS (the main agency involved), which apparently doesn’t have the resources to deport illegal aliens. Among other things, the report says DHS will launch a 'comprehensive media campaign targeting major media markets in California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Virginia, Washington, and Arizona.' It will spend $10 million on a 'citizenship preparation program in communities across the country.' Also there are plans to 'collaborate with the private sector to promote the importance of citizenship and provide information on the naturalization process.' Perhaps most strikingly, there’s an expansion of USCIS’s fee waiver program for applicants. Paying a fee to become a citizen is 'often cited as a barrier,' according to the report. Whether it is or not, this $680 freebie from the Democrats will make new citizen-voters happy.
"What’s scarier is the timing of the package. The various programs will come online well in advance of the 2016 elections. According to Rick Oltman, formerly of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, there are 13.8 million legal permanent residents (LPRs) in the country and in the 20 states with the most, there are 14 Senate races in 2016, eight of which are Democrat and six of which are Republican — the latter include former Gang of Eight members, Senators Marco Rubio and John McCain.
4/23/15 Tangled Clinton Web: Foundation received millions from investors
as Russia acquired part of US uranium reserves FoxNews
"Clinton, Becker said, 'basically endorsed' the 'progress' Kazakhstan had made on its democracy, though Nazarbayev was elected 'with 90 percent-plus of the vote ... in an election that was widely criticized as being rigged.'
"Schweizer said Clinton even held a press conference with the president and praised his human rights record.
"In the end, Giustra got what he wanted.
"'The bottom line is after they leave, a couple of days later, Frank Giustra gets his uranium concessions, which end up being enormously lucrative to him and to a small group of Canadian mining investors,' Schweizer said.
"Becker said his company went from 'a worthless shell company overnight -- became this ...huge uranium mining deal.'
"And then soon after that, Becker said, 'Bill Clinton got a huge donation, $31 million from Frank Guistra to his charitable foundation, followed by a pledge to donate $100 million more.' . . .
"Schweizer told Fox News that when Clinton was the senator from New York, she objected to a foreign government owning U.S. ports and pointed to the serious implications of the Russians getting uranium.
""We're talking about things that related to the nuclear industry. We're talking about the Russian government," he said, noting Russia already provides equipment to Iran.
"Further, he said the Clinton Foundation was receiving 'tens of millions of dollars from shareholders in Uranium One who wanted the Russian government to acquire them because it would be a financial landfall.'
"In the end, a Russian company, essentially controlled by Vladimir Putin, will now be in charge of a substantial portion of American uranium.
"Given that Russia sends uranium to its client state, Iran, American uranium could well be sent to the very nation the Obama administration is now negotiating with to try to slow its ability to develop a nuclear weapon."
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"I suppose it was Earth Day that prompted a mass email on climate from the Democratic Party. What is striking about the Democrats’ fundraising pitch is its mendacity. Here it is, in pieces:
"I wrote a long post on the falsity of this claim here: 'Was 2014 Really the Warmest Year Ever?' The key point is that 'on record' means since 1880, i.e., roughly the end of the Little Ice Age. Satellite data, the only transparent and uncorrupted temperature record, indicates that 2014 was either the third or sixth warmest year since 1979 (when satellite data begin), but the differences are negligible.
"More importantly, we are living in a relatively cool era. Ice core data indicate that it is cooler now than it has been around 90% of the time since the end of the last Ice Age: . . .
"This nonsense has been rebutted so many times that it has gotten tiresome. NO ONE 'pretends that climate change isn’t real.' On the contrary, climate realists have pointed out, over and over, that the climate has always changed, and will always change, as long as the Earth exists. The place where I am now typing was buried, very recently in geologic terms, under ice approximately a mile deep. The climate most certainly has changed, and similarly dramatic changes are destined to occur in the future. There is no such thing as 'climate change denial.'
"The 97% claim is pathetic. It is based on a childishly incompetent paper, as Steve described here. The real question, of course, is what proposition 97% of climate scientists supposedly agree on. If the proposition is that 'climate change is real,' as the Democrats put it, the number should be 100%. If the proposition is that human activity is responsible for a catastrophic increase in temperature, it is subscribed to by only a minority of scientists in the relevant fields. . . .
"It isn’t enough for Republican politicians to keep saying 'I am not a scientist.' They should be prepared to debate the climate issue intelligently, with a reasonable knowledge of the science. The science is all on the realists’ side, so they have a winning argument. Moreover, most Americans have figured out that global warming hysteria, like the global cooling hysteria that more plausibly preceded it, is mostly a scam. Climate change generally ranks dead last among voters’ concerns. So Republicans shouldn’t hunker down on the issue, they should counter-attack. Through their hostility to fossil fuels, the Democrats have terribly damaged our economy for no reason. . . .
"One of the many problems the Left has with the global warming debate is that if you assume the alarmists’ models are accurate–which they are not, as the experience of the last 20 years has shown–then nothing the U.S. can plausibly do will make any perceptible difference to the Earth’s climate. Dr. Judith Curry testified before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology earlier this month that even if the models are right, and if the United States were to reduce its CO2 emissions by 28%, as proposed by President Obama, the effect would be to 'prevent three hundredths of a degree centigrade in warming by 2100.' Three hundredths of a degree. If the alarmists are right. Think about that. . . .
"I suppose the Democrats will succeed in raising a few million dollars with this misguided appeal. But the extent to which they are willing to lie to raise money from the ignorant is shameful."
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4/21/15 Officials giving mixed messages on why US aircraft carrier shadowing
Iranian convoy FoxNews [Click the date if you want more details--video or original Web articlie.]
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4/21/15 Obama Lied to Us for Years About How Close Iran Is to a Nuclear Bomb
Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: I've seen this a number of places today. Bloomberg News via Eli Lake is reporting that Barack Obama has known that Benjamin Netanyahu was right all along when he claimed that Iran could make a bomb in two or three months instead of the year that Obama has been claiming.
Now, of course Obama was just saying that about it taking a year for domestic consumption. This is a huge admission. Netanyahu comes to the United States, makes a speech criticizing the existing Iranian deal as he understands it before a joint session of Congress, and he's routinely lambasted by the Democrats and by the Drive-By Media. One of the things he claimed was that Iran is within months of a bomb.
They have more centrifuges than anybody knows that they have, and they are continuing to use them, and they're ramping up. They're not years away. They're not 10 years away, they're not 13 years away, they are months away from being able to make a bomb. And Eli Lake at Bloomberg is reporting that Obama has known that all along. Apparently Obama's known all along that Netanyahu and the rest of the experts were right about Iran only being a couple of months away from a bomb.
But the Regime only officially admitted it in a report a couple of weeks ago. By the way, it's not "he said versus he said." The Regime's now admitted it. The Huffing and Puffington Post, one of their subsidiaries did a fact check on Netanyahu's speech. As an aside, it is one of the absolutely worst pieces of writing. Whether it's journalism or opinion or whatever, it is an absolute mess. You can't...
I read through it in five minutes, and I had to consult other sources to find out what they were saying. But they did a fact check, and the bottom line is that Netanyahu did not lie. They started out hoping to prove that Netanyahu was full of it and was lying through his teeth in the joint session, and they found the opposite. Among the things that they fact checked and found to be true -- and now the Regime is even admitting it!
Iran's only months away from enough enriched uranium (because of all the centrifuges they have) to make a nuclear bomb. Again, Obama has known all along that Netanyahu and the rest of the experts were right. They only officially admitted it in a report a couple of weeks ago, and they're only really admitting it because they think it'll help them sell the deal to Congress. This is why they've explained this. Now, all of a sudden, the idea of Iran getting a nuke in three-months, that's bad.
Ho-ho-ho-ho! Last week, last month, Iran getting a nuke in a year, Iran getting a nuke in ten years, Iran getting a nuke in 13 years, why, that was wonderful! That was great foreign policy. That was great diplomacy. That was the brilliance of John Kerry. The sanctions had worked. They had brought Iran to its knees. They had retarded their own progress toward a nuclear bomb because of the pressure exerted by our brilliant young president, Barack Obama.
Now we find out -- and that's why everybody need to ratify the deal. The Senate needs to go along with the Corker bill. Get it, get out of the way, what have you. It's a great deal! We ought to get it done because we are now in charge. You know the deal, Obama says, means we can inspect it. We can stop 'em. We can do this. They promise that they'll stay a year away from making a bomb. That's what Obama said.
Now the Regime has admitted that they're only two to three months away, and now they're using that to pressure everybody else into agreeing with Obama on the deal because now apparently Iran getting a nuke in three months, why, that's not good. This is 1984-esque. This is Kafkaesque. This is Rod Serling extraordinaire. The common sense thing has long been abandoned, and that is Iran doesn't get nukes.
Every elected official in this country has staked a claim to that, including Obama, until the day of reckoning where now we don't have any businesses telling them they can't have a nuke. "Who are we? What if somebody told us we couldn't have a nuke? We don't have the authority, moral or otherwise. We don't have the right to tell the Iranians whether they can have a nuke or not when everybody knows the Israelis do."
That's our new foreign policy. "We don't have any moral authority, 'cause we're not the good guys. We're not the bad guys. We're just another bunch of guys. We have a country, they have a country, other guys have a country, a couple of women have a country, the snakes over there have a country. We're all in it together, but none of us are the good guys. We're either all the good guys or we're all the bad guys.
"But there isn't anybody exceptional. There isn't anybody that stands a cut above. There's nobody with moral authority over the rest of the world. Nope, nope, nope! Especially not us." So now the fact that the Regime is admitting that Iran is only months away from weaponizing a nuclear bomb is being used to forge agreement in the United States with Obama. Now we need Obama, you see? Now we need the deal. . . .
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4/21/15 Congress Should Try to Kill the Iran Deal Now
By the editors of The National Review
"It was unclear, for instance, whether the signing of a final deal will trigger immediate, and maybe even complete, sanctions relief. Iran said that was the plan, while the White House said sanctions should be phased out. But then, last Friday, President Obama suggested the U.S. would allow substantial immediate sanctions relief — some $50 billion worth, potentially — on the day a final deal is signed. In return, he insisted, the sanctions will be 'snapped back' if Iran is caught cheating. Yet that is hardly sufficient: Russia and China are known to be wary of a snapback policy, and a punishing sanctions regime can’t be reconstructed quickly or unilaterally.
"Meanwhile, the White House has said that inspectors will have unrestricted access to any sites where there is suspicious activity, but an Iranian general remarked this past weekend that no inspections will be allowed at any military base. . . .
"President Obama has a proven track record of resolving such disputes — he just gives the Iranians what they want. It is still no sure thing that the remaining gaps between our negotiators and the Iranians can be bridged, but it falls to Congress to ensure that President Obama can’t resolve them as he is accustomed.
"Congressmen of both parties remain skeptical of the outlined deal. The confusion over what the interim outline meant has only strengthened the case that the White House cannot be trusted with reaching a final deal, and more concessions should further worry hawkish Democrats.
"So what can be done? The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Senator Bob Corker that would give Congress a period in which to approve or disapprove of a final deal. It is a weak measure — the president retains plenty of flexibility and rejecting a deal will require two-thirds of both houses — but it is better than nothing. President Obama had clearly hoped never to have to send the text of an agreement to Congress.
"Now, even though it looks unlikely that 13 Democrat senators will vote against a final deal, Obama does have to send it to Congress, making the terms public. That is something. . . .
"The Corker Bill Isn’t a Victory — It’s a Constitutional Perversion But Congress should do more — indeed, all it can to signal its disapproval of the ongoing Obama concessions and to destabilize the agreement before it can be finalized. Opponents of the drift of the negotiations should push, again, for a measure along the lines of the Kirk-Menendez legislation, which would reinstate sanctions if talks drag on. They should pass resolutions making it clear that a congressional majority disapproves of a deal that lifts sanctions immediately, or a deal that doesn’t allow for any-time, anywhere inspections, or a deal that doesn’t guarantee that enriched uranium is shipped out of Iran (which is yet another point of confusion). The time for all of this is now.
"If the negotiations with Iran were
not all along a dangerous farce, President
Obama’s desperation for a deal has made them so.
Only an agreement that dismantles Iran’s nuclear
infrastructure, pushing it back from being a
threshold nuclear state, is worth making. That
hasn’t been on the table for months now.
Congress should make clear its opposition to a
deal where the terms are far, far worse, and do
all it can to keep it from happening."
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4/21/15 Caller: I Pay $700 a Month for Same Health Care Coverage Illegals Get
Free Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: I have an acquaintance in New York who has told me the same story, long before I took the call today from Rita in Corona, California. For this guy who lives on the Upper West Side, 'cause that's where the actors live, for this guy to get the same coverage, no deductible, no copay, same coverage that under Obamacare in New York that illegal aliens get, it cost him $900 bucks a month. He could get the same policy they've got, but it cost him $900 a month. It was no deductible and no copay.
And he told me that even then it was difficult, almost impossible to find anyone who would take Obamacare, which is not a problem if you're an illegal alien, because the ER cannot turn you away. If you're an illegal alien and they won't sell you the policy or they won't give it to you, fine, just go to the ER, which is what they've been doing, which is why a number of them in southern California have shut down. They've stopped making any money.
So you ask me in the e-mail, "How can this be? It can't be. It can't be that the illegals get it for free." It most certainly can. What do you think this is, folks? Some of you people that doubt this are gonna have to wake up, and I don't mean those of you that are regularly here in this audience. I mean, people that would send me an e-mail saying you don't believe this, you're gonna have to wake up and understand what this is. Most favored nation status has been conferred to illegal aliens on a number of Obamacare policies. And not just Obamacare, but any number of other government policies, particularly where money is given away.
Where do you think the money, at least a pretense of it, is coming from? Somebody's gotta pay into this. And if you're an illegal that doesn't have a job or doesn't have a high-paying job, by definition, they can't look to you for money. You're the beneficiary. You're the victim. You are the target. You are being given this because life has so screwed you over, primarily the United States of America has so screwed you over because you're a minority, and probably a person of color, and this is how we're gonna get even with all these powerful people in the majority who've given everything to themselves and left out these poor minorities.
Now it's the majority's time to get stuck. So the people that have the money, whether they have it or whether it can be taken from them in a tax refund, are going to pay for this. What do you think Obama is? Forget Obamacare, what do you think Obama is? What do you think transforming America, what do you think the redistribution of wealth is? This is it exactly. Natural born American citizen, $900 bucks a month for what an illegal alien in the country can get for zilch. It's designed that way. The illegal alien or the welfare recipient or the poor person or whatever is the person with the grievance that must be addressed.
There is no merit based anything. Everything is identity politics and racial politics. And if you are white, if you're in a majority, if you're wealthy, you have benefited from unfairness tilted in your favor your whole life. Time to give up now, time to make even, time to pay back. Obama has come to balance the scales. Obama has come to take care of those who have been systematically left out by an evil, mean-spirited, extremist majority since the days of this country's founding.
That's exactly what this is. It's why it has always had majority opposition. It is why a majority of states did not sign up for an Obamacare exchange. They don't have the money that Obamacare shifts to them as a responsibility. We have an $18 trillion national debt.
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4/21/15
RUSH: Some truly outrageous things that have gone on in the state of Wisconsin that have happened at the same time as -- and as part of -- the effort to destroy Scott Walker. A similar effort, almost identical effort was made to destroy anybody and everybody who supported him and vote for him or donated money to him.
This effort was conducted by law enforcement!
Think of it this way: What do you think the greatest fear of the innocent is if law enforcement comes calling? Have you ever thought about this? Maybe some of you have experienced it. You are totally innocent. Nevertheless, you are being pursued. What is your greatest fear?
Your greatest fear is the system is gonna totally fail you and that there is nobody to stop an out-of-control cop, nobody to stop an out-of-control prosecutor, nobody to stop a corrupt judge, and that you're gonna be had no matter the fact that you are terribly innocent.
That is a fear a lot of people have, and it was routinely occurring in the state of Wisconsin during the recall efforts of Scott Walker and during the general elections and campaigns of Scott Walker. Now, everybody knows what he went through. Everybody knows what his family went through. What nobody outside the state of Wisconsin knows -- until now, because National Review has uncovered it in great detail with a story by David French.
Nobody knew what just average, ordinary nameless, faceless people who happened to just donate to him or vote for him went through as well. Midnight raids on their homes. Police with battering rams breaking down their front doors at midnight, at one or two in the morning. It was never explained why law enforcement was after them. They were forbidden to tell anybody who was going on. The neighborhood saw it all happen.
The neighborhood, people in the neighborhood wondered, "What in the world did that family do? My God, we got scared to death!" The cops didn't have to explain anything, whatever the prosecutor wanted -- and his name is one I hope you will never forget, as well as the judge involved in this. I hope neither of these names do you ever forget, because they are the essence of liberal Democrat corruption run amok with no limits and no stops whatsoever.
It is frighteningly outrageous. It's the kind of stuff that Hollywood makes movies about that, when you watch, you might fear it, but you would never, ever dream of it really happening. That's why it's in a movie. So I want to try to explain in a little bit more detail what this story is about. But ultimately you're gonna have to read it at National Review.
RUSH: I've been sitting on the Wisconsin Scott Walker story. I got it Sunday night. They sent me a prepublication copy of it, a PDF file. I started reading it, and I said, "There is no way that I'm gonna be ready to do this justice by Monday," which was yesterday. So I spent a little bit more time on it. So hopefully I'll get to it today with just enough of a summary to intrigue you enough to make you go read it. You've gotta read this. You have to. It's a National Review, and it's by David French.
Let me give you the actual title of the story. "John Doe's Tyranny -- Wisconsin conservatives have been subjected to secretive, baseless investigations." But that subhead doesn't even come close to telling it is reader what he's about to discover. It's about the John Doe laws in Wisconsin, which we have discussed on occasion on this program. John Doe means the state can literally investigate anybody without telling them why, and they can deny them lawyers.
I mean, it's incredible. They could literally set out to destroy you, and the only thing standing in the way of it is the honor system. If you have a corrupt prosecutor (which this story has), and if you have a corrupt judge, (which this story has), and if you have a police department that is also corrupt (this happened in Milwaukee, mostly), then you can pull this off.
There's even a quote from a couple police officers who were forced to participate these midnight raids on innocent people who had not done a thing other than support Scott Walker. That's all they had done, and cop car after cop car, cop after cop, SWAT teams, you name it, show up with battering rams to break into these people's homes! They're kicked out of their homes at midnight, at one o'clock in the morning. They're not allowed to take anything; they're not told why.
They're not allowed to explain to anybody that this has happened besides the neighborhood which can see it. Years after the fact, mothers are reporting their young kids that were at home when this happened are still traumatized. People are reporting today that they get scared and traumatized and panicked when they see a uniformed police officer just walking a beat. They hightail it away.
It is the fear that I think a lot of innocent people experience when law enforcement is pursuing them. I know. I've been there. I know a number of things. Law enforcement's never doubted, other than the civil rights community. The media doesn't doubt them. Law enforcement can leak anything they want about anybody, and the media writes it, and it becomes fact. Even average, ordinary Americans say, "Why would the cops lie? Why?" I mean, they take it on faith.
"Why would a prosecutor lie? Why would a prosecutor say somebody's guilty if they're not? They don't have time to waste on this. There are too many guilty people to go get to waste time on the innocent." The innocent in Wisconsin were guilty because they were conservative. The left in Wisconsin was losing everything. They were losing their union domination and control. Scott Walker was decimating all the systems they had put in place.
They literally lashed out in panic, anger, and you name it to punish people who had voted for Walker, who had raised money for him, who they thought had voted for him. It was the kind of thing that Vladimir Putin does and we all laugh about because that's what we expect in a tyrannical dictatorship like the Soviet Union or Russia. We find out that it can happen here and has happened here, and there was no mechanism to stop it. The prosecutor's name is Chisholm, John Chisholm, and I hope his name is never forgotten.
He has tarnished the reputation of prosecutors all over this country. He belongs right up there with Mike Nifong. Mike Nifong is a piker compared to what happened in this case. Nifong is an amateur compared to what happened here in Wisconsin. There's one puzzling thing about this, to me. There's one puzzling thing about it, and that is Scott Walker doesn't talk about it. Now, until I read the National Review piece...
You know, I knew the John Doe laws and I knew they'd been abused and I'd heard this or that. But I did not know until Sunday night just how outrageous the application of the John Doe laws has been. There's a term that has been developed to describe what happens here. It's "lawfare" as in warfare, except this warfare conducted by law enforcement. "Lawfare." Walker hasn't talked about it. I mean, everybody knows what he went through. Everybody knows the attacks on him.
What nobody outside Wisconsin knows, or very few (they will now) is the same stuff was done to hundreds of people that supported him.
RUSH: Another piece of information about these Wisconsin raids. And, by the way, they were all innocent. Nobody was guilty of anything. They hadn't done anything. The John Doe law allowed for anonymous prosecution. Law enforcement was simply allowed to target anybody they thought might be guilty of a crime under the terms of this law, and they had to tell nobody, including the accused. This violated the US Constitution in so many ways.
Just think of a battering ram breaking down your house. You live in suburbia, a battering ram breaking down your house at one a.m., and cops, jackbooted or otherwise, come in, steal every telephone and every computer, and you never get them back. And they don't tell you why. You're left to assume it. I mean, that's just one of the things that happened.
It was all done by a bunch of aggrieved, loser at the ballot box liberal Democrats, who thought the state was forever their personal fiefdom. And then Walker had to go and beat them three times, and they just lost it, and in the process became exactly who they are. The one plus in this, if there is a plus, is that the left, in these incidents in Wisconsin, they threw down all the camouflage. They got rid of every mask. They hid behind nothing. Exactly who they are if left unchecked and unopposed, was made obvious.
RUSH: Okay a blue state plus a big city corrupt district attorney and a popular Republican governor equals a police state reminiscent of the 1930s in Germany, and I'm not exaggerating an iota. This is the Wisconsin story to which I alluded earlier in today's broadcast. If you compare this to Watergate... I mean, Watergate is literally Romper Room compared to this!
This is the police batter-ramming their way into homes on direct orders of a Democrat district attorney, fishing for information to use against a political enemy -- and then threatening homeowners who had all of their civil rights violated! Threatening them to shut up or else. It's the same state, Wisconsin, where union thugs trashed the state capital in hopes of intimidating the governor into letting their money-laundering operation remain in place.
I don't say this with any jocularity or casualness at all. This is the kind of thing that should land some people in jail. This is a legitimate comparison to the 1930s in Germany. It would stick. This is a first cousin to what Barack Obama did with the IRS when he went after conservative groups. It all starts because this prosecutor, this DA, happens to be married to a woman who was a schoolteacher who got really, really mad at the changes to her own union benefits under Scott Walker.
That is literally the little germ that ignites this entire episode: A ticked off union activist teacher, married to a corrupt DA. And they then found a corrupt judge and enough corrupt police officers to facilitate every action they took, which was entirely political. There was no criminality. The people targeted here had not engaged in one iota of criminal activity. All they did was vote Republican! All they did was donate to Republican and/or conservative causes.
It would begin with a knock on the door after midnight. An armed police force, a SWAT unit could storm your house, literally use a battering ram to enter your front door if you didn't answer within seconds. Most people were in bed when this happened. Again, these are just Ward and Cleaver families, Ward and June Cleaver families. These are not criminals. They had nothing to do with any criminal activity whatsoever -- unless you consider voting Republican to be criminal.
If you didn't answer, they used the battering ram to crash into your house, scaring your kids. Maybe for the rest of their lives in some cases. They would then storm in and steal every computer and cell phone they could find! They would not tell you why they were there. They would tell you that you didn't have a right to know, and they told you that you better shut up about what is going on and what was happening.
If you breathed a word to anybody even in the neighborhood who had witnessed it, you would be in even further difficulty. All of this was simply based on the political advocacy that the adult residents of these homes had engaged in. All of this is the John Doe investigations that began into Scott Walker and conservative groups in Wisconsin, and they've been ongoing now for years. Scott Walker's been really strangely quiet about this. We all know what happened to him.
He's out detailing what happened to him and his family.
What we didn't know was that the same thing was happening to scores of his supporters and donors, all under the auspices of the so-called John Doe law, the John Doe investigation. The opponents of Scott Walker turned campaign finance law into weapons. National Review's "David French has talked to families targeted in the John Doe raids for the first time, and their stories are harrowing." As I say, this is going to print out to 11 pages if you read it online.
"Shouting officers at the front door in pre-dawn," late night/early morning, "raids, at least once with a battering ram. Armed police rifling through and carting off their belongings, down to and including a daughter's computer. ... The targets were told not to tell their lawyers, or their friends, or their neighbors." Now, if you happened to live next door to a house where such a storming took place, you'd wonder why.
"My the God, what'd that family do?" you would ask. That family was forbidden from telling you. They were not permitted to discuss what happened. They were not permitted to even go get lawyers! This was not the right to remain silent. This was an order to remain silent. They couldn't even profess their innocence! The demand to stay silent required that they assume a public role of guilt.
"The investigators were, among other things, fishing for campaign-finance violations," supposedly, which is nothing more than a First Amendment right! Campaign donations are the equivalent of free speech. Numerous courts, including the Supreme Court, have so found. "So, for exercising their First Amendment rights, some targets were denied their First Amendment rights. ... The investigations have been such a long-running farce that there is John Doe I and II.
"As Scott Walker's first campaign for governor got underway in 2010, the Milwaukee district attorney, John Chisholm, opened the initial John Doe investigation under a proviso of the law that allows officials to keep their targets secret and to compel them to [shut] up." John Chisholm, C-H-I-S-H-O-L-M, the DA, "[a] partisan Democrat whose wife was a shop steward for a teachers union," and she was miffed that Scott Walker was elected and began to implement his reforms of corrupt union activities in Wisconsin.
Chisholm's wife literally had a cow, went berserk. So, "Chisholm investigated everything possible related to Walker for [two] years, without really laying a glove on him." Everybody knows that's followed this. They tried. They threw the kitchen sink at Walker, and nothing stuck. "It was in the run-up to Walker's re-election campaign..." You know, the first thing they tried was a recall election, and they fired everything at him then, and they were going after his supporters then.
He won the recall election, then he ran for legitimate reelection.
That's when they went and got a judge to join this corrupt effort!
"John Doe entered its next phase of harassment of conservative groups. Investigators swept up personal e-mails, and issued wide-ranging subpoenas, including information on donors. The Wisconsin Club for Growth describes in court filings how its activities were hindered, as people began refusing meetings, donors got nervous, and one of its key officials, Eric O'Keefe, wasn't allowed to explain the nature of the investigation."
They literally were trying to scare and intimidate conservatives -- conservative donors, conservative voters -- as much as they could. They wanted to frighten them and intimidate them into abject fear and silence. "O'Keefe, who has been courageous in resisting the investigations, has said, 'The process is the punishment,'" the punishment for voting for Walker, the punishment for being Republican. The process, the investigation was the punishment. The "offense was backing the wrong side" in this political race in Wisconsin.
"[A]rmed agents of the state, operating with the force of law, to be used as essentially a political cudgel. The John Doe investigation has bogged down under the weight of its own [corruption and] unfairness, and various court challenges" successfully lodged against it. "The Wisconsin Supreme Court could soon rule to halt the investigations altogether..." This is all still going on in one form or another!
"[T]he United States Supreme Court is set to decide whether it will consider a federal lawsuit brought by Eric O'Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth. Wisconsin legislators are considering scaling back the law enabling John Doe investigations to prevent future abuses." They have to do something, 'cause I think this is every innocent person's fear when they contemplate running up against law enforcement.
They know they don't have any power, and if they run into people that are out to get 'em just because they want to get 'em, they know they can be had. You have it all here. You have a corrupt Democrat prosecutor, an angry wife of the prosecutor who is a shop steward union activist and schoolteacher, and then a judge. The judge has been successfully called out by a number of other legal authorities.
She's been humiliated for her role in this.
But she doesn't feel the humiliation because she's not capable of it.
To casual observers what's happened to her in being called out is humiliation. Chisholm is the name that you need to remember, and I've gotta find the name of the judge in this case as well. But every sordid detail and the drama that is associated with it can be found at National Review and National Review Online. David French is the article author, and he's dug deep. The details come from these families who now are speaking up, and they're doing so in great detail.
RUSH: The judge, without whom this case could not have happened, is Barbara Kluka, K-l-u-k-a, and I'll tell you what she did. She came along in the second John Doe investigation, and she approved every petition, every subpoena, every search warrant in the whole case in less than one day's work. She enabled law enforcement to raid these innocent citizens' homes. She's since recused herself from this, but not before she enabled all of this to happen in the second phase of the John Doe 2 case here.
In the second John Doe case, the DA, John Chisholm, had no real evidence of wrongdoing by anybody. It didn't stop him. Conservative groups were active in issue advocacy, which is protected by the First Amendment. It didn't violate any campaign finance laws. Issue advocacy is politics 101. These people were targeted because they're conservatives and liberals. As I say, what happened here in not only the treatment Scott Walker got, but everybody else, this is liberalism run amok without any checks, without any opposition, without anybody pushing back, and in its own way California is the same example.
Despite the fact that there were no violations of the law in any away, the DA, Chisholm, convinced "prosecutors in four other counties to launch their own John Does, with Judge Kluka overseeing all of them. Empowered by a rubber-stamp judge, partisan investigators ran amok. They subpoenaed and obtained (without the conservative targets' knowledge) massive amounts of electronic data, including virtually all the targets' personal e-mails and other electronic messages from outside e-mail vendors and communications companies. The investigations exploded into the open with a coordinated series of raids on October 3, 2013. These were home invasions," including the ones that I have detailed previously in this half hour.
You really have to read whole thing. As I say, I could devote much of the show to reading the whole article, but I'd lose you, no matter how good in interpretative reading I would engage in, I'd still lose you. This is something that's so detailed, you'll read a paragraph two or three times just to absorb it.
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4/20/15 US aircraft carrier sent to block Iranian shipments to Yemen FoxNews
"A U.S. aircraft carrier has been dispatched to waters off Yemen to join other American ships prepared to block any Iranian shipments to the Houthi rebels fighting in Yemen.
"The U.S. Navy has been beefing up its presence in the Gulf of Aden and the southern Arabian Sea amid reports that a convoy of about eight Iranian ships is heading toward Yemen and possibly carrying arms for the Houthis.
"A Navy official confirmed to Fox News that the USS Theodore Roosevelt -- along with her escort ship, the USS Normandy, a guided-missile cruiser -- left the Persian Gulf on Sunday en route for the Arabian Sea, to help enforce the blockade.
"Tensions are rising in the region even as the U.S. and five other world powers scramble to strike a final deal with Iran on its nuclear program by the end of June. The fighting in Yemen, where U.S. ally Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition against the Iran-backed rebels, is complicating matters.
"White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, without commenting specifically on any Navy movements, said the U.S. has concerns about Iran's 'continued support' for the Houthis. . . ."
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4/20/15 McCain on ISIS, murdered Christians, and a 'JV' Obama admin Fox News
[Click the date to access this video.]
Senator John McCain on the new - and latest - ISIS video showing the slaughter of Christian and whether the Obama administration is doing enough to fight the ever-growing terror threat
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4/20/15 The Human Condition Is in Peril All Over the World -- And Obama Says Climate Change Is the Greatest Threat We Face Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: Here he comes again, Barack Hussein O, the president of the United States on Saturday saying that climate change poses the world's biggest threat. It's just silly. It's not even worth a factual discussion. We've done that for 25 years. It's just silly... So it's not Iran getting the bomb. It's not ISIS taking over the Middle East. It's not ISIS growing homegrown members in the United States. It's not the Middle East in general burning up and on fire. It's not any of that. No, no, no, no, no. . . .
We have ISIS murdering 30, at least, Ethiopia Christians, 15 by drowning, 15 by beheading. The FBI announced just this morning in Minneapolis that we're on the verge of a plague in this country of domestic Americans seeking to join ISIS because there's something romantic about it; there's something exciting about it. Their lives apparently are so empty that they are looking for excitement, they want to join ISIS.
The FBI made a major announcement in Minneapolis this morning detailing this and portraying just what a potentially huge problem it is, because if they are in this country, American citizens, obviously, are here, and if they're showing sympathy toward ISIS and wanting to join, at some point somebody at ISIS is gonna figure out they do not have to leave America to join ISIS. And they do not have to leave America to perform various ISIS tactics. It is an imminent threat, and it's growing.
Iran is on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon. By the way, all of last week I refrained commenting on the bill in the Senate, the Corker-Menendez bill. The Senate ostensibly is arguing over whether or not they have a role in approving whatever deal Obama comes up with vis-a-vis Iran. Constitutionally, the president simply cannot do what he's doing with Iran without ratification of the United States Senate, but the Constitution has long since ceased to matter whenever Obama really wants something and the Constitution is in his way.
A lot of people have been looking at the Corker-Menendez bill. It's been portrayed as the Senate finally standing up and strutting its stuff and demanding its role and asserting, via this legislation, that it will act and Obama will not be able to unilaterally strike any deal with Iran without them. There have been all kinds of different people and pundits and experts analyzing the Corker-Menendez bill. I was never comfortable last week weighing in on it because I didn't think that what everybody was saying -- it's just my instincts -- I didn't get the impression that the people commenting on it were actually up to speed, they were getting it all, and it turns out that following my instincts was the right thing to do.
I have since spent some time over the weekend looking into it, and it's a joke. Now, that was known last week, don't misunderstand, it was a joke. It was the reason why it was a joke that was up for debate. Everybody had their own theory. But it's essentially worthless and meaningless, but I'll get to that in just a second.
The point is we got Iran on the verge of a nuclear weapon. ISIS is on the march beheading and killing Christians everywhere. We had how many people drown in the Mediterranean, 300 trying to get out of Libya. There is mass murder, there is death, there is mayhem, there is torture, there is slavery. The human condition is in great peril all over the world, and here he comes again, Barack Hussein O, the president of the United States on Saturday saying that climate change poses the world's biggest threat. It's just silly. It's not even worth a factual discussion. We've done that for 25 years. It's just silly.
"Today there's no greater threat to our planet than climate change," Obama said in his weekly radio address. And, of course, it was to tie in with Earth Day, which is Wednesday. So it's not Iran getting the bomb. It's not ISIS taking over the Middle East. It's not ISIS growing homegrown members in the United States. It's not the Middle East in general burning up and on fire. It's not any of that. No, no, no, no, no. And even though there hasn't been any increase in the world's temperature for 18 years and even if it were to happen, even if the global warming that is predicted by these baseless computer models, even if it were to happen exactly as the models say, it's not the end of anything. . . .
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4/20/15 Scott Walker Lays Out Pro American Worker Stance on Immigration
"Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate, pledged to protect American workers from the economic effects, not only of illegal immigration but also of a massive increase in legal immigration.
"During an interview with Glenn Beck, Walker became the first declared or potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate to stake out a position on immigration fully in line with that of Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest chairman Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). He also noted that he has been working with Chairman Sessions on the issue to learn more about it.
"Walker is now the only potential or declared GOP presidential candidate to discuss the negative effects of a massive increase in legal immigration on American workers:
In terms of legal immigration, how we need to approach that going forward is saying—the next president and the next congress need to make decisions about a legal immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages, because the more I’ve talked to folks, I’ve talked to Senator Sessions and others out there—but it is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today—is what is this doing for American workers looking for jobs, what is this doing to wages, and we need to have that be at the forefront of our discussion going forward.
"Walker discussed how in the past he did support amnesty, but says he doesn’t anymore, because he has learned more about the issue. That shows him to be one of the most open-minded GOP candidates on such matters. Walker went on to say:
As I said, I think when Chris Wallace a few weeks back, when I was on Fox News Sunday, asked me about this, he said. ‘did you change your position at least from some of these views from a decade ago’ and I said, ‘yeah.’ I think the American people not only want people who stand firm on issues, but people who listen to folks who have got rational thoughts and for me a lot of it was talking not just to citizens all across the country but to governors in border states who face real serious concerns about what’s happening on our border and elsewhere.
"Walker says he discussed immigration policy in depth with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott when he visited the border a few weeks ago. He said that he doesn’t think he was “directly wrong” before but didn’t have a “full appreciation for what is the risk along our border.” He continued:
I knew there were people traveling, coming across the border, but really what you have is much greater than that. What you have is international criminal organizations, the drug cartels aren’t just smuggling drugs—they’re smuggling firearms and smuggling not only humans but trafficking and horrific situations. It’s an issue that’s not just about safety or about national security, it’s about sovereignty. If we had this kind of assault along our water based ports, the federal government would be sending in the navy. And yet there is a very minimal force along our land-based borders, be it New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, or California, and so to me it was clearly far bigger than immigration.
We need to have a much bigger investment from the federal government to secure the border, through not only infrastructure but personnel and certainly technology to do that and to make a major shift. If you don’t do that, there’s much greater issues than just immigration. Folks coming in from potentially ISIS-related elements and others around the world, there’s safety issues from the drugs and drug trafficking and gun trafficking and gun things with regard—but to get to immigration you have got to secure the border, because nothing you do on immigration fundamentally works if you don’t secure that border.
"Walker also discussed the need for interior enforcement:
Then I think you need to enforce the law and the way you effectively do that is to require every employer in America to use an effective E-Verify system and by effective I mean you need to require particularly small businesses and farmers and ranchers. We got to have a system that works, but then the onus is on the employers and the penalties have to be steep that they’re only hiring people who are here, who are legal to be here. No amnesty, if someone wants to be a citizen, they have to go back to their country of origin and get in line behind everybody else who’s waiting.
"This development, perhaps one of if not the biggest of the 2016 presidential campaign so far, comes as Walker has taken a commanding lead in polls in all three of the first GOP primary states: Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
"The reason why this development is so significant is that the two establishment-backed candidates, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, both have an in-depth understanding of the immigration issue and come down on the side that supports special interests’ desire for a massive increase in legal immigration that hurts American workers.
"Meanwhile, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY)—who like Walker make up the more grassroots conservative side of the field—don’t really weigh in on the legal side of the immigration issue. So as Walker continues to gain traction as a potential candidate, and readies himself for a launch, it’s quite clear he’s making a significant effort to learn what he now clearly understands is one of the most under-appreciated angles of the jagged razor-edge issue of immigration—the angle that polling shows can help him clear the GOP field and easily eliminate Rubio and Bush, whose pro-open borders positions stand against American workers.
"Rubio, the lead member of last Congress’ Senate 'Gang of Eight' bill, supported increasing legal immigration by nearly 33 million more people in the next 10 years. Bush, an outspoken advocate for open borders, supports that and more—as evidenced by various comments he’s made over the years,and since being considered as a potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate.
"Rubio is having immigration problem in the wake of a Spanish-language interview he gave to Univision’s Jorge Ramos, in much the same way as during the Gang of Eight fight two years ago. Walker, on the other hand, is coming out surging on the issue as a modern-day populist sticking up for American workers against what’s essentially an unholy political establishment alliance between big labor and big business when it comes to immigration. Meanwhile, Bush is facing serious issues convincing Americans on the campaign trail that they should support yet another member of his family—him—for president, especially when he stands for special interests against ordinary Americans when it comes to things like immigration.
"The Chamber of Commerce and several other big business special interests have locked step with big labor groups like the AFL-CIO to advocate for more foreign workers to be brought into America. Each has a different motivation, but generally business wants cheaper foreign labor and unions want more members. Factor into this that with an H-1B visa program fraught with problems—and even some blatant fraud—Silicon Valley is pushing for cheaper foreign high tech labor to be brought into America, even though most independent labor economists agree there is no labor shortage in those fields. So Walker could have found the golden grail issue that not only puts him on the right side of a policy prescription but on the side that will help him win politically.
"Polling data from KellyAnne Conway’s the polling company and from Paragon Insights—a poll that was commissioned by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) last cycle—found that the stance Walker is now taking on immigration, a populist pro-American worker-first stance, is wildly popular with Republican, Democrat, and independent voters. What’s more, even though the left and political establishment may try to label Walker as “nativist” or “anti-immigrant”—and they certainly will—his position is pro-immigrant and celebrates those who have followed the process correctly to enter the United States of America in accordance with the laws of this country.
"A piece from the Weekly Standard’s Jeffrey Anderson last week laid out just how important this issue is—and how Sessions has been standing alone defending Americans from the entire political class on it. Anderson questions whether anyone running for president on the Republican side will embrace the opening here—and it now seems Walker has taken the plunge and is going to fight tooth and nail on this front. “If there is anything that liberals and Big Business can seemingly agree upon, it’s that we don’t need an approach to immigration that benefits Main Street,” Anderson wrote in the piece last week. “It remains to be seen whether anyone running for president will seize this opening and buck the liberal-corporate consensus, but in the meantime Sen. Jeff Sessions has been ably holding down the fort against Democrats and Republicans alike.”
"Walker, the guy who has succeeded in taking on the special interests behind enemy lines in the left wing bastion of Wisconsin, may be about to do something incredible on this front on the national stage. It’s only fitting that the interview in which Walker came out this strong on immigration began with him and Beck discussing how the Wisconsinite took on the left in their own backyard. . . .
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4/20/15 Book on ‘Clinton Cash’ reportedly claims foreign donors got State Dept. favors FoxNews
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4/18/15 When did America forget that it’s America? , The Washington Post
"On a number of occasions during the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, the Israeli government has appealed to the United States and its allies to demand a change in Tehran’s aggressive behavior. If Iran wishes to be treated as a normal state, Israel has said, then it should start acting like one. Unfortunately, these appeals have been summarily dismissed. The Obama administration apparently believes that only after a nuclear agreement is signed can the free world expect Iran to stop its attempts at regional domination, improve its human rights record and, in general, behave like the civilized state it hopes the world will recognize it to be.
"As a former Soviet dissident, I cannot help but compare this approach to that of the United States during its decades-long negotiations with the Soviet Union, which at the time was a global superpower and a existential threat to the free world. The differences are striking and revealing.
"For starters, consider that the Soviet regime felt obliged to make its first ideological concession simply to enter into negotiations with the United States about economic cooperation. At the end of the 1950s, Moscow abandoned its doctrine of fomenting a worldwide communist revolution and adopted in its place a credo of peaceful coexistence between communism and capitalism. The Soviet leadership paid a high price for this concession, both internally — in the form of millions of citizens, like me, who had been obliged to study Marxism and Leninism as the truth and now found their partial abandonment confusing — and internationally, in their relations with the Chinese and other dogmatic communists who viewed the change as a betrayal. Nevertheless, the Soviet government understood that it had no other way to get what it needed from the United States.
"Imagine what would have happened if instead, after completing a round of negotiations over disarmament, the Soviet Union had declared that its right to expand communism across the continent was not up for discussion. This would have spelled the end of the talks. Yet today, Iran feels no need to tone down its rhetoric calling for the death of America and wiping Israel off the map.
"Of course, changes in rhetoric did not change the Soviet Union’s policy, which included sending missiles to Cuba, tanks to Prague and armies to Afghanistan. But each time, such aggression caused a serious crisis in relations between Moscow and Washington, influencing the atmosphere and results of negotiations between them. So, for example, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan shortly after the SALT II agreement had been signed, the United States quickly abandoned the deal and accompanying discussions.
"Today, by contrast, apparently no amount of belligerence on Iran’s part can convince the free world that Tehran has disqualified itself from the negotiations or the benefits being offered therein. Over the past month alone, as nuclear discussions continued apace, we watched Iran’s proxy terror group, Hezbollah, transform into a full-blown army on Israel’s northern border, and we saw Tehran continue to impose its rule on other countries, adding Yemen to the list of those under its control.
"Then there is the question of human rights. When American negotiations with the Soviets reached the issue of trade, and in particular the lifting of sanctions and the conferring of most-favored-nation status on the Soviet Union, the Senate, led by Democrat Henry Jackson, insisted on linking economic normalization to Moscow’s allowing freedom of emigration. By the next year, when the Helsinki agreement was signed, the White House had joined Congress in making the Soviets’ treatment of dissidents a central issue in nearly every negotiation.
"Iran’s dismal human rights record, by contrast, has gone entirely unmentioned in the recent negotiations. Sadly, America’s reticence is familiar: In 2009, in response to the democratic uprisings that mobilized so many Iranian citizens, President Obama declared that engaging the theocratic regime would take priority over changing it.
"Reality is complicated, and the use of historical analogies is always somewhat limited. But even this superficial comparison shows that what the United States saw fit to demand back then from the most powerful and dangerous competitor it had ever known is now considered beyond the pale in its dealings with Iran.
"Why the dramatic shift? One could suggest a simple answer: Today there is something the United States wants badly from Iran, leaving Washington and its allies with little bargaining power to demand additional concessions. Yet in fact Iran has at least as many reasons to hope for a deal. For Tehran, the lifting of sanctions could spell the difference between bankruptcy and becoming a regional economic superpower, and in slowing down its arms race it could avoid a military attack.
"I am afraid that the real reason for the U.S. stance is not its assessment, however incorrect, of the two sides’ respective interests but rather a tragic loss of moral self-confidence. While negotiating with the Soviet Union, U.S. administrations of all stripes felt certain of the moral superiority of their political system over the Soviet one. They felt they were speaking in the name of their people and the free world as a whole, while the leaders of the Soviet regime could speak for no one but themselves and the declining number of true believers still loyal to their ideology.
"But in today’s postmodern world, when asserting the superiority of liberal democracy over other regimes seems like the quaint relic of a colonialist past, even the United States appears to have lost the courage of its convictions.
"We have yet to see the full consequences of this moral diffidence, but one thing is clear: The loss of America’s self-assured global leadership threatens not only the United States and Israel but also the people of Iran and a growing number of others living under Tehran’s increasingly emboldened rule. Although the hour is growing late, there is still time to change course — before the effects grow more catastrophic still."
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4/18/15 The Unbearable Lightness of Obama’s Anti-Terror Policies
By Deroy MurdockNational Review
"There is a pretend quality to Obama’s stance on radical Islamic terrorism. It starts with his refusal to utter that phrase, preferring the meaningless term 'violent extremists.' Well, at least those words do not make America’s enemies uncomfortable. But it gets worse.
"As The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes and Thomas Jocelyn of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies recently detailed in the Wall Street Journal, the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani compound yielded one dead terror master and some one million documents. These included DVDs, ten hard drives, a dozen cell phones, and almost 100 thumb drives. A top Pentagon official called this 'the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever.'
"RELATED: Decoding the Obama Doctrine Analysts, including those at the Defense Intelligence Agency, quickly capitalized on this bonanza and generated some 400 separate reports. However, as Hayes explains, 'the senior DIA official who ran the project, Colonel Derek Harvey, says the intelligence community has fully analyzed less than 10 percent of the collection. Top DIA officials were told directly to stop providing analyses based on the bin Laden documents.' Why? This information refuted Obama’s boast that al-Qaeda was 'on the run.'
"'The administration had decided to end the war on terror, and no amount of new intelligence about threats from al Qaeda was going to change their minds,' Hayes added. 'So they chose ignorance.'
"RELATED: Obama and Revolutionary Romance One cannot imagine American GIs capturing a steamer trunk full of Adolf Hitler’s papers in 1944, and then being told by Team FDR to stand down while 90 percent of these treasures remained unread.
"One need not imagine an analogous scenario today. It actually happened. Meanwhile, new revelations about accused Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl demonstrate Obama’s unseriousness about the Taliban. According to my colleague at the London Center for Policy Research, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in 2009 possessed 'clear evidence that he [Bergdahl] was ‘going over to the other side,’ and he had a deliberate plan.' As Shaffer told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, 'This came from the NCIS doing forensics on his computer, through both detailed debriefings of his platoon mates as well as going outside the wire' to interview local Afghans.
"RELATED: Benghazi, Bergdahl, and the Bomb Shaffer added that NCIS believed that Bergdahl 'did move out with a purpose, he had Afghan contacts, and he was actually trying to offer himself up to the Taliban.' Alternatively, NCIS thought that Bergdahl hoped to travel to Uzbekistan and 'wanted to talk to Russian organized crime.'
"Despite NCIS’s disturbing then-five-year-old report, National Security Adviser Susan Rice notoriously claimed last June 1 that Bergdahl 'served the United States with honor and distinction.' More War on Terror A Giant Step Towards Declaring American Soldiers War Criminals The struggle, &c. Our Military Must Do More to Teach about the True Nature of the Enemy
"Far worse, Obama negotiated with terrorists and swapped Bergdahl for five Guantanamo detainees, namely top Taliban commanders whom the primitive Islamofascist group relentlessly demanded by name. Obama sent these mass murderers to Qatar for one year. Three of them reportedly have violated their terms of release by attempting to re-connect with the Taliban. Regardless, come June, all five may go wherever they want. Most likely, they will fly to Afghanistan and resume sending Americans home in boxes.
"Finally, Obama’s strategy against the Islamic State approaches criminal negligence. '“Right now, in our airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, of the twelve thousand sorties, three thousand of them actually drop weapons. Is that true?,' Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.) asked General Lloyd Austin, head of U.S. Central Command, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month. Austin answered: 'I think that’s about right, sir.' 'Don’t we put our pilots in great danger if they’re not going to drop weapons?' McCain wondered in astonishment. 'Or are you going to have three out of four fighter sorties fly around in circles, and then return?'
"The problem, says retired four-star Army general Jack Keane, is 'the most restrictive rules of engagement our pilots have ever been asked to execute.'
"The Washington Examiner’s Byron York explains that Obama 'has ordered that civilian casualties — unavoidable in a bombing campaign — be kept to such an absolute minimum that military commanders have had to stay away from significant Islamic State targets.'
"When the Islamic State first emerged, it traversed Iraqi and Syrian deserts in pick-up trucks. A few days of relentless bombing would have reduced these maggots to cinders. Instead, Obama’s daintiness let them seize territory the size of Great Britain. The group now has infiltrated Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen, sealed an alliance with Boko Haram in Nigeria, and much more.
"Judicial Watch reports that the Islamic State operates a training camp just eight miles below America’s southern border. The conservative watchdogs cite Mexican military and police sources who say that they have discovered — near Ciudad Juarez — Muslim prayer rugs, documents in Arabic and Urdu, and 'plans' of Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso, Texas.
"Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson told CBS’s 60 Minutes that at least 40 Americans who fought with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have come home. Half-comfortingly, Johnson said that 'we have systems in place to track these individuals. But you can’t know everything.'
"That’s life, as America’s lethally
unserious 'leader' pretends to fight radical
Islamic terrorism."
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4/18/15 Obama is going Alinsky Rule 12 on Republicans
By Thomas Lifson, American Thinker
"Although he doesn’t reference Saul Alinsky the Associated Press’s Jim Kuhhenn does notice a nasty turn in President Obama’s rhetoric:
With a tone of outrage and eye-rolling dismissiveness, President Barack Obama and his White House team are working out their aggressions on Republicans. Well into the final quarter of Obama's presidency the White House approach is, if you can't join 'em, beat 'em.
Even with a whiff of bipartisanship in the air, the president is going on offense and building on a strategy employed since Democrats lost control of the Senate. Disagree with a Republican? The White House approach is to single a lawmaker out, pick a fight and don't mince words.
"Rule 12 from Rules for Radicals:
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions
"For the Mainstream Media, any notice of Barack Obama’s radical roots is out if bounds, so I suppose that we should be grateful that the AP even notices nastiness as a political strategy of the White House.
This is a White House unleashed, forgoing niceties for the kind of blunt talk some of Obama's allies have been demanding for some time. But the rhetoric carries risks of sounding peevish and signals that a president who once ran on the promise of changing the tone in Washington has fully embraced its political combat.
"Obama is not a nice man, he is full of anger and resentment. He has been packaged, building upon his radiant smile, as a healer, someone who would bring us together. His essence is the opposite."
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4/18/15 Iran marks Army Day with cries of ‘Death to Israel, US’
Military parade near Tehran features truck carrying banner calling for destruction of Jewish state; Rouhani sets out ‘strategy of deterrence’
"Iran on Saturday marked Army Day with a military parade featuring new weapons systems, as well as a truck carrying a massive banner reading 'Death to Israel.'
"A televised broadcast of the parade was punctuated by repeated cries of 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel.'”
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4/17/15 Family of US Marine held in Iran calls on Obama administration to do more FoxNews
"The family of a U.S. Marine imprisoned in Iran since 2011 are frustrated that the Obama administration does not consider their son’s plight a high enough priority and are begging Iran’s supreme leader to show mercy and release him – in part because his father is dying of cancer.
"'Amir is innocent and we really miss him. And we need him,' Behnaz Hekmati, the mother of imprisoned Marine veteran Amir Hekmati, said on Fox News Channel's 'On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren.' 'His father is sick, you know, he needs to come help his father. I need him, too.'
"Hekmati was arrested in August 2011 on allegations of spying for the CIA while visiting his grandmother and other relatives in Iran. In December 2011, Iranian state television aired a videotaped confession in which he had stated that he had sneaked into Iran to establish a CIA presence. His family said he was coerced into making the statement.
"In January 2012, Hekmati was sentenced to death, but the ruling was overturned two months later after the Iranian Supreme Court ordered a retrial. More than two years later, Hekmati is still awaiting a new day in court, but his mother is pleading directly to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
"'He knows Amir is innocent. He knows that they set him up,' Behnaz Hekmati told Greta. 'They lied to him, you know, they tortured him.'
"Amir Hekmati’s family told Fox News earlier this month that they hoped the recent 'framework' nuclear agreement between the West and Iran could help to free the Marine. But they also want the State Department to do more to help Amir, especially since he served his country so loyally in tours of Iraq.
"'We’d like them to do more, without question. They’ve shown that they can do more for other people,' said Dr. Ramy Kurdi, Amir Hekmati’s brother-in-law.
"'We’d like them to do everything they can for Amir because Amir put his life on the line for this country, he’d do it again. Bring him home, he’d do it right now. And we want the State Department to show that same resolve,' Kurdi said."
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4/17/15 Obama’s End Run On The Climate Treaty Dick Morris, DickMorris.com
[Click the date to access this video]
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4/16/15 Nothing sacred: ISIS destroys Christian grave sites in Mosul
By Perry Chiaramonte, FoxNews
"Even Iraq's dead Christians aren’t safe from ISIS.
"The Islamic State's campaign of terror across the war-torn nation, which has already seen countless beheadings, destruction of priceless art and religious artifacts and insistence that Christians submit or die, now includes mass desecration of graves. Photos of the black-clad, extremist ghouls smashing headstones in cemeteries in the key northern city of Mosul were posted Thursday online under the title 'Leveling Graves and Erasing Pagan Symbols.'
"'The April 16 destruction of Christian graves in Mosul, Iraq by the Islamic State (ISIS) is part of the organization's ongoing campaign against Christianity, in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world,' said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which flagged the photos.
"The shocking images appeared on the Shomoukh Al-Islam jihadi forum and other various websites, according to MEMRI. They show ISIS militants shattering graves with sledgehammers and carving out the crosses that were engraved on the stones. The photos were released along with a statement claiming to justify the defacing. The 'hadith,' or Islamic teaching, stated that any grave higher than ground level must be shattered. Any images on such graves must be erased as well, according to the twisted edict.
"The hadith claims Prophet Mohammad told followers not to "leave an elevated grave without leveling it, nor an image without erasing it.”
"While desecrating graves is not the worst of ISIS' crimes, Stalinsky told FoxNews.com it sends a strong signal to the West.
"'It is important to note that ISIS is documenting its destruction and desecration of Christian sites and its attacks on Christian communities, and on other minorities' sites and communities, and is disseminating these images worldwide via social media,' he said. 'By doing this, ISIS is not only showcasing what it is doing, but is also mocking the West by demonstrating that it is doing so freely, with no one trying to stop it.'
'These acts stem from Islamic interpretations that are more broadly held than just within ISIS and these interpretations need to be addressed.'- Ryan Mauro, Clarion Project
"The defacing is just the latest in what some have described as a “cultural cleansing” of Iraq and Syria by ISIS. . "
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4/16/15 US Marine imprisoned in Iran a victim of torture, cruelty, family says
Fox News
[Click the if you wish to read the original Web article and the associated Greta Van Susteren video.]
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4/16/15 'Man-made disaster': Critics say California drought caused by misguided environment
policies FoxNews By Malia Zimmerman [As always on GIAC2002.org, click the date fo the original article.]
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4/16/15 FBI Holds “Special” Meeting in Juárez to Address ISIS, DHS Not Invited
Judicial Watch
"A high-level intelligence source, who must remain anonymous for safety reasons, confirmed that the meeting was convened specifically to address a press strategy to deny Judicial Watch’s accurate reporting and identify who is providing information to JW. FBI supervisory personnel met with Mexican Army officers and Mexican Federal Police officials, according to JW’s intelligence source. The FBI liaison officers regularly assigned to Mexico were not present at the meeting and conspicuously absent were representatives from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It’s not clear why DHS did not participate.
"Publicly, U.S. and Mexico have denied that Islamic terrorists are operating in the southern border region, but the rapid deployment of FBI brass in the aftermath of JW’s report seems to indicate otherwise. A Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector were among the sources that confirmed to JW that ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas. The base is around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as 'Anapra' situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.
"Another ISIS cell to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas, targets the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming for easy access to the United States, the same knowledgeable sources confirm. During the course of a joint operation last week, Mexican Army and federal law enforcement officials discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu, as well as 'plans' of Fort Bliss – the sprawling military installation that houses the US Army’s 1st Armored Division. Muslim prayer rugs were recovered with the documents during the operation.
"'Coyotes' engaged in human smuggling – and working for the Juárez Cartel – help move ISIS terrorists through the desert and across the border between Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, New Mexico. To the east of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, cartel-backed “coyotes” are also smuggling ISIS terrorists through the porous border between Acala and Fort Hancock, Texas. These specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing.
"Last August JW reported that ISIS, operating from Ciudad Juárez, was planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level U.S. federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources confirmed then that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border had been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies were placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning the imminent terrorist threat."
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4/16/15 Mrs. Clinton Just Can't Pull It Off Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: You and I have known this since the nineties. She's a phony. There are no coincidences with the Clintons. Nothing just spontaneously happens. Everything is orchestrated; everything is planned; everything is staged. That is, everything that's intended for public consumption. Her spontaneous road trip in the van is phony. Her unscripted sit-downs with, quote, unquote, everyday Americans, are phony. They are Democrat operatives who are being driven to the events. They are Hillary donors in some cases. They are Obama donors in other cases.
They have worked on Obama or other Democrat candidate campaigns. But they are not everyday people. They didn't just happen to be wherever Hillary just happened to decide to stop. And then just happened to stroll in. While just happening to wear dark glasses. Just happening and hoping not to be recognized -- with 15 cameras in tow. Her claim to care about everyday Americans is phony, as evidenced by, well, her life. The way the Clintons have been reported to treat White House staff, uniformed military people at the White House, stories from the nineties are legion about that.
Her social media numbers are phony. Over half of her Twitter, whatever they are, tweets, are fake. The people are fake, they don't exist. She is paying $38 per Facebook like. Now, the UK media is all over this, particularly the UK Daily Mail. They're all over it, but now we're starting to see on American television, if not yet in print -- that's the next domino to fall -- but some traditional Hillary-type supporters in television, Drive-By Media, are starting to raise questions now about her competence.
See, this is the thing. She has known for however many years that this week was coming. Am I right? She's known for how many years that this particular plan was going to be executed. With all of this time to plan it, they still can't execute it. And they can't keep it from being discovered, the truth behind it. With all of this time to execute something simple as getting in a van and driving on an American highway in a middle American state -- and deciding to stop at a roadside establishment and spontaneously sit down and have a conversation with everyday-type people -- years and years to plan that singular event, and they can't even pull that off.
This is what the American Drive-By Media is starting to notice and thus be concerned about. Because, remember, none of this bothers them in terms of whether or not Hillary would be qualified to be president. They don't care. If they cared about that, they wouldn't have supported Obama. He's an absolute incompetent boob when it comes to defending and protecting the traditions and institutions that have defined this country's greatness. He's all about changing them. They don't care. Their only concern is can she beat whoever the Republicans nominate. That's why this bothers them.
That is why I am detecting the first pulse of concern in some of the Drive-By TV broadcast media reporters. It's very simple: If she can't plan a phony event like a diner chat session with some supposed Americans. If she can't plan that with months and months -- and notice all of the talent on her payroll. She supposedly has the best and brightest the Democrat Party has to offer, from consultants, to marketers, to tech people, to strategists, to planners -- and she still can't pull it off. And by not being able to pull it off, what I mean is, everybody has discovered that it's fake.
One of the reasons they discovered it was fake is because it looked fake, and she looked fake. It didn't look real because it wasn't real. The Clintons just can't do real because everything they do is structured and acted and performed. . . .
Mrs. Clinton's trying to portray herself as an average, ordinary American, but the fact is she isn't. Average ordinary Americans do not get $14 million for writing a book that nobody reads. Average Americans are not paid $300,000 for a speech that nobody wants to listen to. Average Americans are not paid $14 million to write a book nobody wants to read and then show up at a book signing that nobody attends. Average Americans would love to be able to get that kind of money for being unable to do what the payment is for.
BuzzFeed, which is a relatively new Internet news site started by some guy, I think it was the Politico, Ben Smith, anyway, doesn't matter. You know how they found out? Any member of the Drive-By Media community could have done this. Any of you could have done this. They simply went to Ancestry.com. They filled in the name and the search term "Hillary Rodham Clinton," and it's right there, all the documents, all the census reports. Every one of her grandparents and great-grandparents is basically from Pennsylvania.
They're not from Ireland. They didn't emigrate here as she said. Now, all of our relatives were at some point immigrants because the nation was built that way, but her statement is flat-out untrue. It's just like people have forgotten this. She claimed that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first human being without jet back power to climb Mt. Everest. The only problem with that is that when Hillary Clinton was born, Edmund Hillary had not yet climbed anything, much less Mt. Everest. Nobody knew who he was when she was born.
Totally made up, just like this grandparents or great-grandparents or whatever it is immigration story. And again, what is telling about all of this is how poorly it has been organized and executed, given the top talent on the staff putting it together and the time. Given all the time they have had, they can't even get one event right because they can't rely on spontaneity. They can't rely on reality. They can't trust the fact that Hillary Clinton's gonna walk into a diner in Iowa and not get booed and run out of the place.
So what they have to do is take over the diner and populate it with people paid to be there. Democrat staffers, donors, what have you, and then put Hillary Clinton in the middle of it. It all becomes fake and it looks fake because they didn't hire any professional actors. How bad is it when your leading presidential candidate, you can't even trust, you can't even roll the dice that she can pull off walking in to a 7-Eleven without getting kicked out, booed out, laughed at, or otherwise heckled? And they're not dumb for that. I mean, they saw the big book tour nobody showed up. They had to pay people for that.
How risky is it? This is the person and the Democrats tell us is the automatically, unquestionably qualified next president, and they can't even trust her to go into a diner and have at least half the place applaud that she arrived and want to meet her and talk to her? They have to pay people to come in and act like they want to talk to her and act like they care about what she thinks? Ha.
I have to take a break here, my friends, but, by the way, she did not leave a tip at Chipotle. I knew it and I guess the people at Bloomberg News went out and actually researched it.
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4/15/15 Obama as Nuclear Arsonist By James Lewis, American Thinker
"This is not sane.
"Dick Cheney has correctly called Obama 'the worst president in history.' I think history will brand him with that flaming scarlet letter, because no U.S. leader has ever empowered a nuclear suicide cult. No U.S. president before this one could even imagine doing something so monstrous. Obama has gone rogue.
"Arab nations are also in danger of nuclear Armageddon from the mullahs, or blackmail under a threat of total destruction. Israel is officially target #1, but it is ready to retaliate with overwhelming force.
"My guess is therefore that Saudi Arabia will be the first big target for Iranian assault. The Iranians have already taken over the strategic country of Yemen, encircling Saudi Arabia from the south. They also threaten Arabia from their side of the narrow Gulf, and they have developed a giant pincer movement to surround Israel and aim at Egypt and Arabia.
"Khomeinist Shi’ites have always believed they are divinely entitled to Arabia, with the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Today they are closer to that goal than ever before, simply by waging proxy terrorist war in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Already they threaten Arabia across the Gulf. The mullahs can choke off the world’s oil supply when the time is right, and nuclear weapons will keep them immune to retaliation.
"Our puffed-up, preening hero is therefore the most dangerous character in history. Bar none. Never before has an American president surrendered to a fanatical suicide cult with nukes.
"Now Obama tells us three lies. One is that this sleazy deal is the best we can possibly get. The second lie is that the only alternative is war. The third lie is that Obama’s 'framework' isn’t a 'treaty' at all – so it doesn’t need to meet the constitutional standard of advice and consent by the U.S. Senate.
"This is just like that used car salesman telling you not to bother reading the fine print. Hurry! Hurry! Sign now, or you’ll miss your last chance!
"This 'deal' is so full of holes it’s hard to see any paper. No sane person believes it. Henry Kissinger and George P. Shultz took it apart in the Wall Street Journal last week.
"Four-star admiral James ('Ace') Lyons is telling us outright that Obama has let the U.S. government be penetrated and sabotaged by the fascist Muslim Brotherhood, which has long-proclaimed genocidal goals. They are just like the mullahs. If it were up to Obama, we would be threatened by nuclear Arabs as well as nuclear Iranians. Fortunately, Egypt caught the Muslim Brotherhood in time and knocked down Mohammed Morsi, who is now in jail.
"Obama commands the greatest military force in history, and he’s done nothing but sabotage them under cover of 'peace' negotiations. Prime Minister Chamberlain’s infamous appeasement with Hitler was at least negotiated in good faith on the British side.
"Churchill’s comment on Chamberlain’s appeasement should ring in our ears today: 'You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.'
"That is the whole point the left pretends not to know. Obama is not avoiding war. Everything he has done in the last six years increases the chance of war, which is already going on everywhere Obama tried to fix things. The latest U.S. defeat is in Yemen, but we’ve knocked down the pillars of stability in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. In Eastern Europe we’ve endangered the Ukraine (now being torn apart by Putin), but Putin has threatened everybody in sight.
"The only regime we’ve respected is Iran’s openly genocidal cult. Obama tried to overthrow Israel’s elected government more than once, and Israel is stable today in spite of Obama – no thanks to his repeated attempts at sabotage.
"Obama has never shown good faith in anything. He is simply an enemy of this country and the civilized world. [Emphasis added.] 'Why?' is irrelevant. We can see it every day.
"The U.S. Constitution, which Obama publicly despises, has a very clear definition of treason: 'aiding and abetting the enemy in time of war.' Judge Andrew Napolitano thinks that Obama has already crossed that threshold and can be charged with and tried for treason. [Emphasis added.] Any trial will expose a huge cesspool of provable betrayals by both Obama and Hillary Clinton, exposing many others in this administration. . . . " [As always on GIAC2002org, clicking the date provides accesses to the entire original Web article.]
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4/15/15 How the White House lost control on Iran
"It’s not often that a White House gets clobbered on a major foreign policy initiative, unanimously, in Congress. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s 19-0 vote on the Corker-Cardin measure after virulent administration opposition up until this morning was the end result of a series of events that have rendered a thumbs-down verdict on the president’s credibility in preventing a nuclear capable Iran.
"We can trace events to Speaker of the House John Boehner’s decision to invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress. The White House’s overreaction and openly expressed venom followed by Netanyahu’s masterful speech turned the national discussion, for the first time, to the substance of the Iran deal. Once the president was forced to fess up that there would be a sunset clause and that we would be leaving Iran with its nuclear infrastructure — facts that were only revealed in an Obama interview on the eve of (and in anticipation of) Netanyahu’s speech — the scene was set for a full explication of the dangers of such concessions. Observers could also see that the administration had slid from dismantling Iran’s nuclear capability to managing it. With Netanyahu’s victory and Obama’s intensified vendetta against him, the latter’s credibility continued to slide even with Democrats and liberal pro-Israel groups who sensed the pivot to Iran was real and could endanger Israel. Even liberals could see the president was behaving peevishly and sending a horrible signal to Iran with his attacks on Israel.
"The next nail in Obama’s coffin was the framework itself. It was a fig leaf, unilaterally presented to conceal a lack of agreement on numerous key issues. But once again it had the effect of shocking the body politic and raising real concerns about the president’s judgment. The administration announced it as an 'historic' deal, but over the weeks that followed the White House had to acknowledge there were lots and lots of fundamental issues to resolve.
"Obama’s position was further eroded by an op-ed from former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George P. Shultz, who dissected the framework. That caught the attention of Democrats and of the foreign policy community, rendering ridiculous the president’s claim that opposition was simply unhinged partisanship. And finally, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s public repudiation of the U.S. fact sheet and public insistence on unattainable concessions laid bare a reality Democrats had deflected: The president was wildly casting concessions at the Iranians, getting nothing and systematically making it easier not harder for Iran to both lift sanctions and preserve the option of a nuclear breakout.
"No wonder the president and Kerry could not hold the line with Senate Democrats Tuesday. The position that the Senate would have no consequential role in lifting sanctions it had established was not sustainable in the long run, but the dam was also broken by the series of events — from Netanyahu’s speech to the framework to Kissinger and Schultz’s op-ed to the Supreme Leader, all effectively undercutting the president’s insistence on being the sole master of any Iran deal (one whose purpose had changed dramatically). The White House overplayed its hand, but its mistake was more than tactical. Obama’s decision to embark on a grand reconciliation with Iran as the capstone of his presidency was a foolish pipe dream, one that led him to desperation with the Iranians on nuclear talks, and ultimately to the flimsy framework. Once he was willing to let Iran keep its nuclear infrastructure no 'good deal' was possible. . . ."
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4/15/15 Clinton Housing Policy Wrecked Economy, Not 1% Investor's Business Daily
"Earth to Hillary: It wasn't the richest 1% or Wall Street bankers who crashed the economy and created the financial wreckage from which working Americans 'have fought' to dig themselves out of. No, that path to destruction was set by Bill Clinton and his social housing policies.
"The evidence is overwhelming that Clinton was the architect of the financial disaster that wiped out trillions of dollars in household wealth. Under his National Homeownership Strategy, Clinton took more than 100 executive actions to pry bank lending windows wide open.
"Through executive order, he marshaled 10 federal agencies under a little-known task force to enforce new "flexible" mortgage underwriting guidelines to boost low-income and minority homeownership.
"For the first time, banks were ordered to qualify low-income borrowers with spotty credit. The 1994 policy planted the seeds of the mortgage crisis, as lenders eventually abandoned prudent underwriting altogether.
"The next year, Clinton set quotas for lending in high-risk neighborhoods under an overhauled Community Reinvestment Act, while adding several hundred bank examiners to enforce the tougher CRA rules. Banks that came up short had expansion plans put on hold — a slow death sentence in an era of bank mergers and acquisitions.
"For the first time, CRA ratings were made public, egging on ACORN and other radical inner-city groups, which used the reports to extort banks for $6 trillion in subprime loan set-asides by 2008.
"When bankers resisted being saddled with so many risky loans, Clinton tapped Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to take them off their books, while freeing bankers to originate more of the political loans. He had the Department of Housing and Urban Development nearly double Fannie's and Freddie's quotas for underwriting 'affordable' loans, which remained in force throughout the 2000s.
"When the mortgage giants pushed back, complaining that it would be hard to meet the higher targets, Clinton pushed them to load up on subprime loans, while authorizing Fannie and Freddie for the first time to buy subprime securities to earn credits toward the HUD goals. The mortgage giants complied to their great detriment.
"So Clinton was also responsible for securitizing these loans which combined bad loans with good loans in packages that were sold to Wall Street institutions, including insurance companies. The mix of these junk loans made it impossible for investors to tell good ones from bad, and the markets eventually seized up and crashed.
"The Washington Examiner reports that a forthcoming documentary film — "Subprime 2.0: Doubling Down On Disaster," which currently is crowdfunding on IndieGoGo.com — promises to expose the Clintons' role in the crisis and their cozy ties to ACORN. It will present new evidence showing White House aides close to Hillary even met with ACORN lobbyists to draft the bad housing regulations and policies.
"Few Americans know that the Clintons and ACORN go way back — ACORN actually started in Little Rock, Ark., and the Clintons were in bed with these radical activists from Day One. Hillary gave several ACORN speeches in which she hailed their 'movement.'
"Rest assured, their mortgage-busting lovefest will blossom anew in a Hillary White House."
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4/15/15 Avoiding the Unthinkable By Richard Fernandez, PJMedia
"Rarely has there been such a mismatch in raw talent, creativity and energy as between the opposing sides going into the 2016 election. The Republican side — whether one approves of them or not — has a new generation of leaders: Jindal, Paul, Fiorina, Rubio, Cruz, Walker to name some. Even their supporting cast can boast of the likes of Paul Ryan and Tom Cotton. By contrast the Democratic Party only has tired old Hillary Clinton and perhaps Elizabeth Warren. . . ."
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4/15/15 Another Reason To Get Serious About Our Unguarded Border Investor's Business Daily
"Islamic State training camp at the U.S. border near Texas. When will the Obama administration get serious about investigating the issue?
"Judicial Watch reports that two Mexican officials — a field grade military officer and a federal police officer — have anonymously told them that IS terrorists have set up a camp outside Juarez, in Mexico's Chihuahua state, in a region eight miles from the U.S. border known as 'Anapra.' . . ."
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4/14/15 Senate panel passes Iran bill giving Congress a say on nuclear deal FoxNews
"The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved legislation that would allow Congress to have a say on a possible U.S. nuclear negotiation with Iran. The legislation next will go to the full Senate for a vote.
"There was a strong bi-partisan effort for an increased congressional role as the June 30 deadline approaches for international negotiators to turn the framework of a nuclear deal into the real thing.
"Although there were indications that a compromise could be reached, Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told Fox News before the vote, 'Around here, I don’t think anyone should count their chickens before they’ve hatched.'
"President Obama, bowing to political pressure, agreed to sign legislation giving Congress the right to reject any nuclear agreement with Iran.
"The White House conveyed the president's decision shortly before Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a compromise version of the measure on a 19-0 vote.
"It was a sign that Congress would not back down on its insistence that lawmakers must have a say if any final deal with Iran involves the eventual lifting of crippling economic sanctions that Congress levied on Tehran.
"Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine defended the demand for congressional input, saying it has nothing to do with disrespecting President Obama or a desire to go to war – a notion he called 'offensive.'
"'The American public, just as we do, really prefer we find a diplomatic answer,' Kaine said in his opening statement. '(Americans) are deeply skeptical just like we are about Iran’s intentions.'
"Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, applauded the bipartisan effort.
"The American-Israel relationship has always been bipartisan and I’m glad we’re continuing in that fine tradition,' he said in a written statement following the committee vote. 'I’m certainly in favor of what they’ve put together.'
"The bill is now likely to clear both houses in the Republican-controlled Congress.
"Obama had threatened to veto the original bill, but as news of the compromise leaked out on Capitol Hill, the White House abruptly acquiesced. The president, however, still retains the right to veto the legislation if Congress tries to scuttle an emerging deal with Iran, which is to be finalized by June 30. . . ."
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4/13/15
"This nuke deal with Iran had better work. Because the Kremlin is lifting a ban on selling a powerful air defense system to Iran that would render an airstrike on Tehran’s nuclear weapons facilities nearly impossible.
"The delivery of the new weapon, called the Almaz-Antei S-300PMU-1—known as the SA-20 Gargoyle in NATO parlance—would effectively force the U.S. to rely on its small fleet of stealth aircraft to strike targets inside Iran in case the mullahs make a dash for the bomb. But even those aircraft might have a difficult time.
"'This would be a huge deal depending on where they [the S-300s] are based…The Persian Gulf would be an interesting place to fly,' said one senior defense official with experience on multiple stealth aircraft types. 'These new [surface-to-air missiles] change the whole complexion…It’s a big move.'
"According to a report from Russian state media, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday that would allow the sale of the fearsome S-300 air defense system to Iran.
"'[The presidential] decree lifts the ban on transit through Russian territory, including airlift, and the export from the Russian Federation to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also the transfer to the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the territory of the Russian Federation, both by sea and by air, of air defense missile systems S-300,' reads the Kremlin statement, according to RIA Novosti.
"The U.S. government has lobbied Russia hard for years to prevent the sale of the S-300 to Iran. In 2010, convincing Putin to suspend the sale of the S-300 to Iran was heralded as a major foreign policy coup by the Obama administration. In many ways, it was one of the central achievements of the so-called reset in relations with Moscow, said Heather Conley, a Russia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"Since then, of course, relations with Russia have cooled to nearly Cold War levels of hostility. Making life difficult for American policy makers is once again a Kremlin priority. 'Mr. Putin’s policies are not designed to assist the West or to make our jobs and ability to affect policy much more difficult,' Conley said. 'It’s also reminder to Washington and other Western capitals that they have some cards to play here.'
"Another factor that might be motivating Moscow is that with the Russian economy in shambles, Moscow needs all of the economic stimulus it can get. The missile deal with Iran would reportedly net Russia more than $800 million.
"Last year, analysts predicted that if the U.S. sanctions of the Russian economy grew too tight, the Kremlin would respond by selling S-300s to Tehran. 'I could see as part of this deal [between Tehran and Moscow] that they would agree to transfer advanced missiles to Iran,' Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told The Daily Beast at the time. 'If Putin became angry enough over the West’s financial punishment of Russia, he could put in play the S-300 deal.'
"The Kremin’s decision now sends a signal to Tehran that the sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table are done—even before a final nuclear agreement is signed. 'Clearly, this is the sanctions regime already starting to crack and fall apart in anticipation there will be an agreement [on nuclear issues with Iran] on June 30,' Conley said. 'This is the first major signal that regime is coming to an end.'
"From a practical military standpoint, the sale of the S-300 would directly challenge the U.S. position that 'all options are on the table' should Iran try to subvert the nuclear deal. The addition of the powerful missile defense system would make punitive airstrikes against Iran extremely difficult.
"Many U.S. defense officials from the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps agree that the Russian missile system effectively renders entire regions no-go zones for conventional jets like the F-16 or Navy F/A-18 Hornet. Currently, only high end stealth aircraft like the $2.2 billion B-2 Spirit—of which the Air Force has exactly 20—and the high performance F-22 Raptor can safely operate inside an area protected by the S-300 and its many variants. The Pentagon’s $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will eventually be able to operate inside those zones, too. But according to multiple sources within the Pentagon and defense industry, no warplane now operating can remain inside those well-defended areas for long.
"A senior U.S. Marine Corps aviator said that if Russia delivers the S-300 missile to Iran, it would fundamentally change U.S. war plans. 'A complete game changer for all fourth-gen aircraft [like the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18]. That thing is a beast and you don’t want to get near it,' he said.
"The sale of the S-300 also would neutralize any possibility that Israel could take unilateral action against Iran, one senior Air Force commander noted. The S-300 would effectively prevent the Israeli air force from attacking Iran until the F-35 is delivered to that nation.
"'I find it almost hilarious that the Russians are saying, ‘It’s an entirely defensive system and cannot attack anyone, including Israel,'' the senior officer said. 'But it also essentially makes Iran attack-proof by Israel and almost any country without fifth-gen [stealth fighter] capabilities. In other words, Iran, with the S-300, can continue to do what they want once those systems are in place without fear of attack from anyone save the U.S. Brilliant chess move…'
"But even when Israel receives the F-35, the relatively short-range stealth fighter can only carry a pair of 2,000-pound bombs—which are not likely to be adequate for the most heavily fortified Iranian targets. Some of the Iranian facilities are likely to require the use of the massive 30,000-pound GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) that can only be carried by the American B-2 stealth bomber.
"An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was going to be a daunting task, even under the best of circumstances, another Air Force official with extensive experience flying stealth aircraft said. The targets are deeply buried—which makes them hard to crack open with bombs—and the facilities are scattered all over the place. The Air Force’s tiny fleet of B-2 stealth bombers would have to do most of the work because only those aircraft have the range and weapons needed to hit those targets properly. The introduction of any version of the S-300 would make that extremely difficult job much more challenging, the official said.
"But the exact number and exact location of where the S-300s are placed makes a big difference, the official said. That’s further compounded by the fact that the S-300 system is mobile—and can move at a moment’s notice.
"If there is a large number of those S-300 air defense systems in place, even pilots flying stealth jets like the B-2 and F-22 Raptor would be find the mission to be extremely difficult. 'If they’re all over every square inch of the country, then it doesn’t matter what you put out there—it’s going to be a challenge,' the Air Force official said.
"But it’s not just Iran. If Russia and China continue to sell advanced air defenses around the world, the overwhelming majority of current U.S. warplanes will be unable to fight in many parts of the globe. 'We are very concerned with the proliferation of big [surface-to-air missiles]…now in Crimea, Kaliningrad, and Iran if this is true,' said one senior U.S. Air Force official. 'We’re being denied access faster than we can appreciate, in my opinion.'
"That said, there are some ways in which older non-stealth jets can fight in areas protected by these new missiles, one senior Air Force official said. But it would be very risky. “It would be really classified to discuss specific SAM [surface-to-air missile] counter tactics, but you know that the ‘double digits SAMs’ [which is what Air Force pilots call the S-300 and its variants] give all of the fourth-gen jets great pause,” the official said.
"One way would be to use a combination of miniature air-launched drones carrying jammers to try and spoof the S-300’s radars by giving it false targets, another Air Force official said. Those drones would have to be combined with stealthy long-range missiles to eliminate the Russian-built air defenses.
"It would also be very helpful to have a jamming aircraft to try and suppress the S-300’s radar from a distance—which is where the Navy comes in. “[The Navy’s] EA-18Gs [carrier-based jamming aircraft] with their ALQ-218 [electronic sensor] will detect, fix, and track that weapons system,” said a former senior naval aviator. 'Once you have it fixed, they can jam and you can employ weapons from range to destroy it.'
"But the problem is that the S-300 is a mobile system and thus moves every so often; U.S. pilots can never be sure where a weapon is at any given time. 'Well, yes...you can kill it' with the right cruise missile, said Mark Gunzinger, an air power analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. 'This assumes, of course, that the S-300 launcher remains at a fixed location after a standoff cruise missile is launched at it.'”
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4/11/15 Thinking the unthinkable about Obama's Middle East Policy
"I am not generally given to doomsday fantasies, but I'm starting to get unnerved by where I see President Obama’s Middle East diplomacy taking us.
"Now that Israel’s Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu has been re-elected, with Obama’s knife is still firmly lodged in his back, we can reasonably expect the long anticipated Middle East regional wars to become a no-holds-barred slugfest.
"Just to recap, we have the Saudis already bombing the hell out of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Egyptians are bombing ISIS jihadists in Libya who slaughtered Coptic Christians. There are credible reports of Iranian troops massing near the Israeli lines in the Golan Heights. Thousands of suicidal Hamas fanatics, modern day troglodytes, are once again digging tunnels in Gaza and being re-armed by Iran. And Iran’s bootlicking spawn Hezb’allah, among the foremost virulent Jew haters on the planet, eagerly waits for orders to launch an estimated 40,000 well-entrenched surface-to-surface missiles into the Israeli population centers. Plus, Hamas desires Abbas’s untimely demise, and ISIS is out-tweeting Iran for bragging rights as the radical Islamic state most likely to restore a 9th century theocracy.
"The Saudis most likely have already acquired a half a dozen or so tactical nuclear weapon as payment in kind for bankrolling the Pakistani nuclear development program. And conversely, it is reasonable to assume that Iran has also acquired a handful of tactical nuclear weapons from North Korea.
"The Saudis and Egyptians are praying five times a day for Israel to use its nuclear weapons to stop Iran. The Israelis would love that the Sunni world, led by the Saudis, would strike Iran first, and then the IAF could follow up with precision strikes on the centrifuges. Be assured that just as the US continues its geopolitical insanity of capitulating to Iranian nuclear ambitions, so too Israel, Egypt, and the Kingdom likely have held extensive talks on joint military action to stop the Shia-centric expansion in the Middle East.
"Oh yeah, did I mention that our twice-elected community organizer has successfully conspired and orchestrated this Middle East power vacuum? Just ask the Israelis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Libyans, Iraqis and Afghanis how Obama’s deceitful policies hooked and then gutted them like a rainbow trout.
"With the worldwide collapse of America’s political and military support for the post Cold War order, we stopped being the planet’s cop and morphed into a starry-eyed sycophant for all those evil and abhorrent regimes. This power vacuum, magnified in the religious and ethic labyrinths of the Middle East and Muslim controlled Africa, has created inevitable and catastrophic consequences.
"What consequences could those be?
"Our species has a decent probability of unleashing a limited nuclear war within the next 12 months. There would be mega deaths from the initial detonations, radiation poisoning, starvation, lack of drinking water, and inadequate medical assistance for the injured, children and elderly. A limited nuclear exchange ultimately could easily result in the horrific deaths of up to two billion souls, around a fouth of earth’s human population. Or more.
"That huge figure is because even a limited nuclear war would cause the cessation of deliveries of Middle East oil to Asia, the EU, and North America, unleashing massive worldwide economic disruptions that would adversely affect food production, transportation and manufacturing for every person on the planet.
"And this economic depression could continue for the next decade.
"Either by incompetence or design, our community organizer has created a Middle East power vacuum with truly dire potential consequences
"We will never be able to fully comprehend our President’s sociopathic narcissism, since his brain may have been damaged by inhaling so much Maui Gold as an adolescent. So predicting his motives and subsequent actions, should this doomsday result, is full of hazards. But, as his former chief of staff, the current mayor of Chicago, explained, a basic operating principle is to 'never let a crisis go to waste.'
"Such chaos could enable Obama to 'temporarily suspend' the 2016 national elections, declare and implement an iron-fisted martial law, and transform himself into the America’s First Oligarch. There would be an obvious national emergency, a severe crisis to respond to, to use as the excuse to finally abolish our Constitutional Republic.
"I have been wondering why Valerie Jarrett made all those secret visits to Tehran. Just to share her tahdig and fesenjan recipes with the wives of the Revolutionary Council?
"I realize this may seem far-fetched. It does to me, too. And I hope to God that it is but an idle fantasy of a worrywart. But the seeds of a catastrophic nuclear war in the Middle East are being planted."
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4/11/15
"President Obama officially closed a chapter in U.S. history that has guided presidents since nearly beginning, indicating the United States will no longer act to resist overseas influence in the Hemisphere.
"Obama, who spoke Friday during a 'civil society' forum in Panama City, Panama, disparaged past efforts by the United States to forestall the spread of Communism in Latin America and suggested similar missions would no longer be undertaken.
"'The days in which our agenda in this hemisphere so often presumed that the United States could meddle with impunity, those days are past,' Obama said.
"Let’s think about what Obama means here. Obama’s world view was whelped in the 1980s within Leftist universities where political science professors groaned ceaselessly about Ronald Reagan and dismissed his anti-Communism as primitive warmongering that failed to recognize the basic decency of our enemies.
"When it came to Latin America, they spouted something called 'Dependency Theory,' which posited that U.S. policy in the region was predicated on sucking the wealth out of smaller, less powerful nations, not preventing Soviet expansion.
"This, of course, is the theory Obama embraced, viewing our 'meddling' as ignoble capitalist exploitation, not a defensive parry against the Soviets.
"Obama, as the Iranians have recently recognized, does not understand the evil designs of our enemies and believes in campfire singalongs rather than fighting fire with fire. Meanwhile, he suspects the motives of the United States. And so opposing Communism in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, Guatemala, and anywhere else was 'meddling,' notwithstanding the foreign influence behind 'indigenous' Communist movements.
"This foreign influence is exactly what James Monroe was trying to deflect. Monroe said:
The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.
We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety . . .
With the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.
"The Soviet Union was just such a power. But for Obama, Cuba, which was sustained by the Soviets, is really not much different than any other place. Obama said:
As we move toward the process of normalization, we’ll have our differences, government to government, with Cuba on many issues — just as we differ at times with other nations within the Americas; just as we differ with our closest allies. There’s nothing wrong with that.
As the United States begins a new chapter in our relationship with Cuba, we hope it will create an environment that improves the lives of the Cuban people -– not because it’s imposed by us, the United States, but through the talent and ingenuity and aspirations, and the conversation among Cubans from all walks of life so they can decide what the best course is for their prosperity.
"Today, Iran is seeking to spread its influence into Latin America, and Russia is hoping to stage a comeback.
"But now, the area is off limits. To the United States, that is. Not to its enemies."
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4/11/15 Make the Leftist Media the 2016 Issue
"The enemy of conservatism in America is the leftist establishment – the leftist-controlled institutions of news, education, and entertainment. Take away these big, fat incestuously connected institutions, and the left in America is a circus sideshow and nothing else. Democrat 'leaders' like Obama, Hillary, Pelosi, and Reid are slow-witted, mean-spirited, and narrow-minded sock puppets filled by the chubby hands of the leftist establishment.
"Indeed, the leftist establishment prefers empty vessels as nominal political leadership of the Democratic Party. Defeat the establishment, and the battle is won, but as long as the establishment luxuriates in unmerited respect, the values we treasure face constant peril. Winning elections, particularly the 2016 presidential election, will help advance our policy issues, but an even greater benefit can come if we use this election to discredit the leftist establishment.
"This leftist establishment is already losing much of its cachet. Viewers are shunning films and new television programming made by Hollywood leftists. Parents, students, and conservative media are exposing the leftist totalitarianism in classrooms. The leftist establishment media is losing audiences in a steady decline, motivated in large part by conservative disgust with its slavish following of the party line.
"In the 2016 election cycle, which includes the battle for the Republican nomination and then the battle in the general election, Republican candidates ought to publicly announce that they will decline interviews with news organizations patently hostile to conservatives, that the Republican nomination debates will exclude these as well, and that this ban will extend throughout the general election.
"This would be an overt campaign to de-legitimize this corrupt gaggle of leftist organizations as serious news organizations worthy of the attention of America. The left would howl, of course, but so what? No serious conservative ought to be talking to those hostile 'gotcha!' outlets anyway. So we ought to treat these leftist news outlets as the ideological hacks that they are and deny them the chance to make Republicans look bad or silly by 'gotcha' questions.
"So how will Republicans candidates communicate with voters? There are reputable cable news outlets, like Fox News, which are not overtly hostile to conservatives. There are many conservative talk radio programs to which any interested Republican can tune in. There are dozens of internet news outlets (e.g., American Thinker). The print media still exists, and local newspapers, especially, would welcome exclusive interviews, hosting debates, etc.
"Attacking the establishment leftist media is attacking the real enemy of conservative values and policies. Openly attacking the leftist media establishment also places these giant corporations in a real bind. How will CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and the sibling leftist news corporations react? Attacking the Republican Party validates the conservative argument. Combined attacks by these notional 'competitors' would expose the monopolistic nature of leftist media collaboration in suppressing conservative news stories and proposals.
"In fact, it is this very lack of ideological competition, this collusion by vast news corporations that are supposed to provide protection for the news consumer by actual competition, that could become the major campaign issue for Republicans. The left wants to attack big corporations, while actually Democrats are completely in bed with big business – and especially with the leftist establishment news media, which has vast power over politics in Washington.
"It is hard to imagine a single conservative in America who could not understand and would not enthusiastically support this sort of campaign, and it is hard to imagine a single leftist who would not squirm at having to defend these entrenched corporations. Making Big Media the issue could, in fact, be precisely the means to truly energize conservatives and, by making Democrats the obvious toadies of Big Media, to deflate the left in 2016."
4/11/15 Media Fabricated Evidence to Smear GOP Three Times In One Day
"That’s why the media told serial-lies around Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, and religious freedom laws. And that’s why on Friday, the media was caught on three occasions fabricating evidence to smear the GOP.
- The New York Times and the NRA
"Breitbart News twice requested a correction from The New York Times Friday. On its own editorial pages, The Times brazenly lied in an effort to accuse the NRA of hypocrisy on the issue of armed citizens:
'After all the N.R.A. propaganda about how ‘good guys with guns’ are needed to be on guard across American life, from elementary schools to workplaces, the weekend’s gathering of disarmed conventioneers seems the ultimate in hypocrisy.'
"The fact that the Times was lying and knew it was lying did nothing to tone down the smugness of an editorial that chose not to tell its readers that citizens with a legal permit to carry a concealed weapon would be allowed into the convention.
"The editorial’s biggest problem was that it sought to paint the NRA as hypocritical simply because the civil rights organization was following local, state, and federal laws.
"The NRA is not only a law-abiding organization, it encourages its members to follow the law. Therefore there is no hypocrisy with respect to the issue of the NRA selling guns that require background checks, a non-issue that delighted the lying Times to no end.
"The Times also found it hypocritical that the NRA requested its gun dealers to remove the firing pins from display guns that thousands of conventiongoers will have access to Apparently, the Times finds it just as bizarre when dealers remove the keys from automobiles at car shows and my local WalMart removes the video games from video game boxes.
"The second time Breitbart News requested a correction from the Times was after the Times published a non-correction correction that addressed nothing detailed above.
- Rand Paul Storming Out of An Interview and Shutting Off the Lights
"The left-wing Guardian birthed this lie.
"The left-wing Politico taught it to walk.
"Rand Paul politely told an interviewer from The Guardian that he only had time for one more question.
"Like any good interviewer does, the Guardian interviewer pressed on after this question.
"Because he had an interview scheduled with CNN, Paul walked off.
"***Let me stop for a moment and explain that this happens all the time. To everyone, and everyone in the media knows this. When I interview someone, I always keep them on for as long as I can — past the agreed upon time limit. That’s what you do. That’s how this works. Frequently, the subject of my interview abruptly ends the interview. That doesn’t make them rude or prickly or temperamental. I’m pushing things. I know I’m pushing things. They push back. We part friends, and with me expressing my gratitude for their time. You don’t know this because I don’t write about it. I’m a professional. The Guardian and Politico are left-wing hit squads.***
"After Paul walked off, the lights went off.
"The Guardian blamed Paul for shutting the lights off on them.
"You can watch the whole thing here.
"CNN later admitted that they shut the lights off and that Paul did indeed have an interview scheduled with Dana Bash.
- Bloomberg Politics and Nancy Reagan’s Endorsement of Hillary
"We’re told that Bloomberg has one of the most rigid and non-negotiable style guides in the media. Nevertheless, staffers at Bloomberg Politics found a story published at a fake news site entirely too good to check. A satire site called The National Report published a fake news story about Nancy Reagan endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.
"The widow of one of the most beloved Republicans in American history endorsing Hillary would be a major boon to Hillary, and a devastating blow and betrayal to Republicans everywhere.
"Apparently, in full-Ready for Hillary mode, Bloomberg Politics chose not to contact Nancy Reagan’s press office, chose not to spend the 30 seconds required to discover The National Report is a satire site, and blasted the lie out far and wide.
"Remember, good news for Hillary and humiliating news for the GOP, is always too good to check at Bloomberg Politics. Eventually, Bloomberg retracted its lie.
—
"This week’s Narrative about Rand Paul being a sexist for treating female interviewers in the same way he treats male interviewers, is bias. We’re used to that.
"What I’ve listed above are manufactured lies. Outright lies. Bald-faced lies. Three in a single day.
"This is a feature, not a bug.
"This is coordination, not coincidence.
"Lies keep the GOP on defense, keeps them scrambling and off of offense, keeps them busy with nonsense instead of getting their message out.
"To drag Grandma Hillary over the finish line, the media knows that its job is to keep the GOP permanently on its heels.
"And if that requires the manufacturing and planting of evidence, so be it.
"John Sexton contributed to this story."
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4/10/15 Obama's absurd Iran deal NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
"'I certainly am pleasantly surprised that the Iranians have agreed to so much here,' CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday evening. . . .
"Where Obama pledged 'to provide limited, temporary, targeted and reversible relief while maintaining the vast bulk of our sanctions,' Iranian President Hassan Rouhani confirmed: 'We will not sign any agreement that does not immediately abolish all economic sanctions from the first day of the implementation of the agreement.'
"In an interview with the New York Times last weekend, Obama said of Khamenei, 'he’s a pretty tough read — I don’t have great insight beyond what I think I get from our intelligence folks.'
"Actually, Khamenei has long been clear about building a nuclear weapons program, violating United Nations resolutions against nuclear proliferation, cheating on nuclear inspections, espousing Islamist radicalism, exporting terror and wishing for the annihilation of Israel.
"Now, he’s left no doubt that the deal Obama has been selling as effectively reining in the mullahs ain’t what he’s cracked it up to be — and neither is the 'great insight' Brennan is providing the President and public."
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4/10/15 Obama to Bibi: The Jerk Store Called, They’re Running Out of You!
By Seth Mandel, Commentary Magazine
"After State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf dismissed Henry Kissinger and George Shultz’s critique of the Iran framework deal as 'a lot of big words and big thoughts,' David Brooks responded by asking, 'Are we in nursery school?' The evidence for answering that question in the affirmative continued to mount yesterday. Following on last month’s Twitter trolling of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (broadly criticized as mortifyingly undignified), the Obama administration did it again, proving once again the administration’s embarrassing immaturity and the fact that it is Obama who is keeping the public feud with Israel alive.
"This time the White House tweeted out a picture that was expressly intended to mock Netanyahu’s famous bomb diagram at the UN in September 2012. At that time, Netanyahu used the picture to illustrate Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon. The cartoon bomb appeared to backfire because it looked like something out of a Warner Bros. cartoon, no doubt leading the White House to hope an Acme anvil would drop out of the sky and onto the podium at that moment. But the illustration did at least draw attention to Netanyahu’s message, and succeeded in driving the conversation in the media. . . .
"The 'facts' in the diagram are mostly spin, though I don’t think anyone expects anything accurate out of the Obama administration’s press shop. The point of the diagram–the only point, since the picture isn’t actually informative and the president could have put out this information any number of ways–was to mock the Israeli prime minister on Twitter for something that happened in 2012.
"Obama is essentially George Castanza finally coming up with what he believes is a great, though hilariously delayed, response to an earlier insult. Obama’s message to Bibi is: 'The jerk store called, they’re running out of you!'
"On a more serious note–though at this part we’ll surely lose the president and his spokespersons–does the Obama administration consider how this looks to the world? I doubt it. For example, the Russians just loved it–not because it was funny, but because the Kremlin-directed media expressed what appears to be Vladimir Putin’s uncontainable glee at watching the supposed leader of the free world (or at least Stephen Harper’s deputy leader of the free world, at this point) throw food at the Israeli prime minister in public.
"If you’re an American adversary, you don’t even really have to do anything at this point. You can just sit and watch the Obama administration melt down under the weight of its own childish ignorance. Here’s Sputnik:
'In three hours, the image had been retweeted nearly 700 times, with one user quipping 'Apparently, the #WhiteHouse has hired #Netanyahu ‘s graphic design team.''
"All in good fun. Except, you know, for the fact that the Obama administration apparently thinks a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is a big joke.
"The last time the Obama administration did this was in early March. Its trolling then was more explicitly aimed at picking a fight with Netanyahu but, unlike this latest trolling, was at least above the intellectual maturity of a preschooler. The National Security Council tweeted out a column by Fareed Zakaria attempting to rebut Netanyahu. But the NSC’s tweet was more than just a link; it also added this administration’s trademark bitterness:
"If you’re thinking that, for an Ivy League-educated president of the United States, we’re sure using the word 'trolling' an awful lot–well, yes. That’s one lesson of this whole affair. The president likes to troll allies on Twitter. Is there a better use of his time? I would imagine so.
"But to realize that he would need a certain degree of self-awareness. It’s times like this the president’s tendency to hire young communications officials, inexperienced campaign hacks, and a Cabinet and inner circle of yes-men catches up with him.
"The other lesson here is that it shows beyond all doubt (if anyone still had doubts) that Obama is the one who wants to keep this feud going, and publicly. At this point it’s obvious that Obama’s obsessive focus on Netanyahu’s campaign comments were merely a pretext to threaten to take action the administration was always planning on taking.
"But this makes it crystal clear that when the administration gets all the mileage possible out of one manufactured controversy, and the prime minister hasn’t said anything they could harp on again, they’ll merely drop all pretense and just start taking potshots. Obama does not want this feud dropped, and he does not want reconciliation. He just wants to keep fighting. And our adversaries are just enjoying the show."
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4/10/15 Scott Walker's Epic Response to 'Unbelievable' Jab From Obama on Iran TownHall
[Click the date to access this video.]
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4/10/15 DNC Chair Wasserman Schultz States Full Support for Late Term Abortion-
Including STABBING BABY SKULLS Posted by Jim Hoft, GatewayPundit
"DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz officially threw her support behind late-term abortion. The procedure includes stabbing a nearly born baby in the head and sucking its brains out.
"In late term
abortions the fetus is rotated until it is facing
feet downwards. The surgeon reaches into the uterus and
pulls the fetus’ body, with the exception of its head,
out of the woman’s body. Surgical scissors are inserted
into the base of the fetal skull, and withdrawn. A
suction tube is inserted and the fetus’ brains are
removed through aspiration.
"Wasserman Schultz supports this procedure.
Life News reported:
'The head of the Democratic Party made it clear today. There should be no limits on abortion, period — and that includes no limits on abortions up tot the day of birth apparently.
'Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz responded to a challenge from Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul today to answer the question of whether or not she would support aborting a 7-pound unborn baby.
'Here’s the deal—we always seen to have the debate waaaaay over here on what are the exact details of exemptions, or when it starts,' said Paul, waving his hands to the left. 'Why don’t we ask the DNC: Is it okay to kill a seven-pound baby in the uterus? You go back and you ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz if she’s OK with killing a seven-pound baby that is not born yet. Ask her when life begins, and you ask Debbie when it’s okay to protect life. When you get an answer from Debbie, get back to me.'
'Wasserman Schultz responded, making it clear she wants no limits from government on aborting babies up to birth:
''Here’s an answer,' said Schultz. 'I support letting women and their doctors make this decision without government getting involved. Period. End of story. . . .
[And we thought ISIS was bad.]
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4/9/15 Deal or no deal? Iran leaders blast US claims on nuke deal, make heavy demands FoxNews
"Fiery criticism from Iran's Supreme Leader, coupled with steep demands from the upper echelon of the regime, are throwing the nuclear 'deal' reached last week into doubt -- with Iran and the U.S. each claiming the agreement said different things, and neither side backing down.
"Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, tore into the U.S. in remarks published on his official website and on his Twitter account.
"Khamenei made clear he was neither endorsing nor rejecting the framework deal announced last week. But he challenged the way the U.S. was describing it -- specifically, a fact sheet put out by the White House saying sanctions would be removed only after inspectors verify Iran's compliance.
"The Ayatollah, in one tweet, claimed the fact sheet was 'contrary to what was agreed.'
"In another, he said: 'I trust our negotiators, but I'm really worried as the other side is into lying & breaching promises; an example was White House fact sheet.'
Ever since the preliminary deal was unveiled, Iranian officials have claimed -- in their own remarks and fact sheets -- that the agreement allows for sanctions to be lifted immediately once a final deal is reached.
"On Thursday, both the Ayatollah and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani again insisted that all sanctions be removed as soon as a deal is reached, or implemented.
"'We will not sign any agreement, unless all economic sanctions are totally lifted on the first day of the implementation of the deal,' Rouhani said during a ceremony marking Iran's nuclear technology day, which celebrates the country's nuclear achievements.
"But the U.S. was not backing down.
"State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said Thursday that the White House fact sheet -- which claimed sanctions relief was conditional -- was accurate.
"'Sanctions will be suspended in a phased manner upon verification that Iran has met specific commitments,' he said. 'Those are among the agreed-upon parameters.' . . ."
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4/9/15 White House swipes at Netanyahu with tweet of Iran bomb diagram FoxNews
[Click the date to access the video.]
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4/9/15
RUSH: As a narcissist -- as the first African-American president, historic -- there's this legacy. Believe me, it matters. And right there on that legacy: Only president, first president to strike an agreement with the nation of Iran on nuclear weapons! It doesn't matter what the agreement is. Of all the presidents we've had, all these so-called great presidents that we've had -- Reagan, Nixon, Bush, Clinton, FDR, I don't care, you name 'em -- who's the guy that got it done? Barack Hussein Obama. Who's the guy that had the guts to go about it in a different way from the way everybody's gone about it for a hundred years? Barack Hussein Obama! . . . .
RUSH: We've lifted sanctions. We're enabling them to get even more material necessary to develop and enrich their uranium to weaponize it. We're saying that they're gonna have one in 10 to 13 years. Opposition to this has nothing to do with being opposed to Obama. Opposition to this is rooted in the concept that there are good guys and bad guys in the world and they're the bad guys.
Iran with a nuclear weapon is not good for the world, it's not good for anybody in the world. They have not proven themselves to be in the peaceful club of nations in the world. They are state sponsors of terrorism. Their own words, they have promised to eliminate that country, this country, they've promised all kinds of horrible things. . . .
We are facilitating them getting a bomb. We are essentially facilitating their quest to have a nuclear weapon. . . .
From Breitbart, John Hayward. Headline: "Iran’s Humiliation Of Obama Continues: Sanctions Must End Instantly When Deal Signed." This is something new that has been discovered. John Hayward, let me read from his piece here. "Yesterday I said Iran was going to humiliate Obama as much as possible by tearing up his 'historic arms control deal' in his face, one paragraph at a time… secure in the knowledge that Obama’s pathological inability to admit error will compel the Administration to make excuses and try to keep the 'deal' alive."
Boy, is that right on the money. The Iranians know this guy better than he knows himself. They know he cannot ever admit error. He's a narcissist. It's impossible. In his own mind he can't ever be wrong. In his own mind he cannot ever have screwed up. In his own mind he cannot ever have made a mistake. And so no matter what happens, no matter what happens to this deal, if it continues to get torn apart, Obama will do anything, any concession to keep it alive because he can never arrive at the point where he would have to admit that it's a bad thing to have done.
And here's a pull quote. "The worst thing about this farce, assuming it ends with sanctions restored and Obama babbling about how the Iranians messed up his beautiful deal, is that it always involved conceding precious legitimacy to the terror state. Iran wasn’t required to make any concessions on its fanaticism, embrace of terrorism, hatred of Israel, or even hatred of America. They were put on a glide path to nuclear weapons in 10 years or less, without agreeing to anything that would contradict the silly story they’ve been peddling for years about how they just want peaceful nuclear energy for civilian consumption. And they couldn’t even play nice for a couple of months and promote that fiction until they got a deal signed!" . . .
He's openly said, ten years from now, 13 years from now they're gonna nuke up; that they promise they're gonna keep developing nuclear, but they're gonna stay a year away. He's not troubled by it. Obama is many things. As a narcissist -- as the first African-American president, historic -- there's this legacy. Believe me, it matters. And right there on that legacy: Only president, first president to strike an agreement with the nation of Iran on nuclear weapons!
It doesn't matter what the agreement is. Of all the presidents we've had, all these so-called great presidents that we've had -- Reagan, Nixon, Bush, Clinton, FDR, I don't care, you name 'em -- who's the guy that got it done? Barack Hussein Obama. Who's the guy that had the guts to go about it in a different way from the way everybody's gone about it for a hundred years? Barack Hussein Obama!
By the same token, every civilized country in the world has had socialized medicine for its people for decades. The United States was a holdout, until Barack Hussein Obama! He was the first president to bring the United States into the Twenty-First Century by securing for its people nationalized health care, affordable health care for all Americans! Barack Hussein Obama.
No matter the details. No matter whether Iran is an aggressive. It doesn't matter. That's not the point. Obama doesn't care about the details of Obamacare. He doesn't give a rat's rear end. What matters is he's the first guy, the only guy that did it.
RUSH: So now Obama is meeting with the Jamaican prime minister, and he says that the deal's not done 'til it's done and we won't know for the next two or three months. What? The deal's not done 'til it's done? What happened? What happened?
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4/9/15 The deception of the Obama Department of Justice By Katie Pavlich, The Hill
"Throughout Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House he’s been accused of leading a lawless presidency and cheapening the rule of law through his Department of Justice. Many say these accusations are simply based in politics, but a closer look at the way the Department of Justice has handled multiple cases in federal court suggest misleading or lying to judges is a habit, not a mistake.
"Most recently, we’ve seen this happen in the case surrounding President Obama’s executive action on illegal immigration. Twenty-six states are suing against the action, and in February, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen issued a stay in the implementation of the order granting temporary amnesty and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants. Shortly after blocking the implementation, Hanen found out DOJ attorneys had issued false information to the court. He accused them of misleading the court because Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under DOJ guidance, had ignored his order to halt implementation and gave temporary amnesty and work permits to more than 100,000 people.
"Hanen said during a contentious hearing in March that he fell for the DOJ’s arguments “like an idiot” and questioned if Obama could be trusted on the issue. Hanen is also weighing sanctions against the DOJ for its actions."Late last year, U.S. District Court Judge Francis Allegra accused DOJ attorneys of not only being misleading in their arguments but of defrauding the court in the case of retired Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Jay Dobyns, in Jay Dobyns v. United States of America.
"For some quick background, Dobyns sued the ATF after years of the agency ignoring death threats against his family and for framing him for the arson of his home. In August 2014 that lawsuit and trial came to an end with Allegra ruling in Dobyns’s favor and awarding him $173,000 in damages. In October 2014 Allegra obtained new evidence in the case, including information showing intimidation by the DOJ of a top witness, retracted his ruling and accused the DOJ of defrauding the court.
"'On October 29, 2014, the court, invoking RCFC 60(b) and other provisions, issued an order voiding the prior judgment based upon indications that defendant, through its counsel, had committed fraud on the court,' Allegra wrote in an unsealed opinion from December 2014. 'The Sixth Circuit has indicated that fraud on the court consists of conduct: 1. On the part of an officer of the court; 2. That is directed to the 'judicial machinery' itself; 3. That is intentionally false, willfully blind to the truth, or is in reckless disregard for the truth; 4. That is a positive averment or is concealment when one is under a duty to disclose; 5. That deceives the court.'
"Defrauding charges are so severe that Allegra has ordered a special master to be appointed to the Dobyns case. It should be noted that the appointment of a special master is rare.
"When it was discovered in 2013 that the Justice Department was monitoring the private phone lines and emails of Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen and his parents, there were many questions surrounding how the DOJ was able to get approval from a judge to do. The department claimed in an affidavit that Rosen was a criminal co-conspirator who had potentially broken the law and committed a crime for seeking classified information from a source. But when the DOJ was caught monitoring him, it argued plans to prosecute Rosen were never in the works. Did DOJ attorneys lie to a federal judge about the 'criminal co-conspirator' classification in order to get court approval to monitor him and his sources? With the department’s history, it certainly isn’t out of the question.
"Moving forward, attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch will certainly have to answer for the cases above and explain how judges can continue to trust DOJ attorneys in court.
"'A Federal judge wrote that DOJ attorneys attempted to perpetrate a ‘fraud upon the court’ in a case involving Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Agent Jay Dobyns. U.S. District Court Judge Francis Allegra also took the unusual steps of submitting these findings to Attorney General [Eric] Holder,' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Lynch earlier this year as part of her confirmation process. 'If confirmed will you personally review Judge Allegra’s submission to ensure that appropriate disciplinary action in taken in this case, and will you pledge to provide updates to this committee about the status?'
"Lynch has said she isn’t familiar with specific cases, but promised to look into any misconduct should she be confirmed as attorney general.
"Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice has been willing to mislead federal judges, ignore court orders and allegedly defraud the court so long as political goals of the White House are reached. This is the rule, not the exception."
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4/9/15 FCC's net neutrality rules open door to new fee on Internet service
"In approving the tough rules for online traffic in February, the Federal Communications Commission put broadband in the same regulatory category as phone service, opening the door for the charges. . . .
"For phone service, telecom firms pass the fees directly to their customers, with the average household paying about $3 a month.
"Those who opposed the net neutrality rules foresee the fees rising.
"'The federal government is sure to tap this new revenue stream soon to spend more of consumers' hard-earned dollars,' warned Ajit Pai, a Republican on the FCC. 'So when it comes to broadband, read my lips: More new taxes are coming. It's just a matter of when.'
"Higher fees on Internet bills could make the service unaffordable for some people, reducing broadband adoption instead of expanding it, critics said. . . ."
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4/8/15 US, Iran support for dueling sides in Yemen raises prospect of proxy fight FoxNews
"Intervention by the U.S. and Iran in Yemen is raising the prospect of a proxy war even as the Obama administration tries to reach a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic – with Iran sending two ships to waters near Yemen, as the U.S. speeds up military aid to the Saudi-led coalition striking Tehran-backed rebels there.
"Iran's English-language state broadcaster Press TV quoted Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari as saying the ships, dispatched for the Gulf of Aden, would be part of an anti-piracy campaign 'safeguarding naval routes for vessels in the region.'
"But the move comes amid the Saudi-led air campaign against Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis, which Iran is accused of backing.
"While the Pentagon has not yet weighed in on the ship movements, spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Wednesday: 'We know that Iranians are providing support to the Houthis.'
"The developments underscore the growing international tensions surrounding the chaotic fighting in Yemen, with the U.S. shoring up Saudi-led forces on one side and Iran allegedly backing the Houthis on the other – though Iran and the rebels deny any direct military assistance."
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4/8/15 Federal Judge: No, DOJ Still Can't Implement Obama's Executive Amnesty
Katie Pavlich, TownHall"Back in February, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas issued a temporary injunction against the implementation of President Obama's executive action after 26 states sued against it. Hanen argued the executive action presented serious questions about the power of the executive branch and the burden of the action to the states that must be closely examined before moving forward. . . .
"After Hanen issued the injunction, the Department of Justice went ahead and granted 100,000 illegal immigrants work permits through Obama's executive action anyway. This prompted Hanen to ask DOJ attorneys directly if President Obama could be trusted and said he was 'made to look like an idiot' after DOJ made misleading claims about the implementation. . . .
"In his order Tuesday denying the government's request, Hanen said the government hasn't 'shown any credible reason for why this Directive necessitates immediate implementation.'
"Now two months later, Hanen has denied a request from the Justice Department to lift the temporary injunction. More from AP: .
"'In his order Tuesday denying the government's request, Hanen said the government hasn't "shown any credible reason for why this Directive necessitates immediate implementation.'"
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4/8/15 Marie Harf Corrects Obama Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: Obama's out there, and he let the cat out of the bag, that everything Netanyahu has said about the Iran deal is true, that the Iranians are gonna get a nuke courtesy of Barack Obama and the United States. Obama went out there and admitted it himself. And that's the story about in 10 to 13 years they're gonna be able to nuke up. Essentially they have promised to stay one year away from weaponizing their uranium for ten years. So they're one year away now, five years from now they're supposed to stay one year away.
In other words, they're not supposed to advance their capabilities beyond where they are now, not much. And then 10, 13 years from now they can go ahead and close the deal and get a weapon. Obama essentially went out and said that. So they went to the State Department, and Marie Harf, who we have referenced on this program -- you know, it's really tough for me. Marie Harf, you've heard the old line, if you want to see X in the dictionary, whatever, go look at such-and-such. Marie Harf is that.
She is the textbook dictionary definition of "valley girl," Northeastern Ivy League liberal, trained the government's the end all to everything, feminist. Everything in the ideal liberal female package, including appearance, she's it. She's second in command at it State Department as spokeswoman. Jen Psaki was her boss -- Psaki is leaving and I think heading to the White House, but she may still be at the State Department.
Anyway, Marie Harf went out and said that Obama was a little mixed up there in describing what he had said about the nuclear deal. Here's the headline of the story, and they're all over the place. "'Open Confusion' at State Department as Marie Harf Tries to Walk Back Obama’s Zero Breakout Time Admission -- 'Open confusion' reigned today at the State Department after spokeswoman Marie Harf tried to withdraw a quote from President Barack Obama regarding Iran’s nuclear breakout time."
4/8/15 Obama faces Democrat defiance in Congress over Iran deal
"Democrats are aligning with Republicans to support a bill giving Congress the opportunity to approve or reject sanctions relief in an Iran nuclear deal, and are close to forming a veto-proof majority that U.S. President Barack Obama says could undermine the delicate final stage of negotiations.
"The support for the legislation by lawmakers in Obama's party illustrates the depth of concern in Washington over the threat posed by Iran and the concern of many lawmakers that they are being shut out of the process to contain it.
"In the wake of last week's announcement of an initial accord between Tehran and major world powers, senators are reaffirming their backing for the bipartisan bill and seeking ways to make the bill more palatable for the White House.
"The Democrats, along with Republicans who control Congress, are pressing ahead despite White House claims that Obama alone has the power to negotiate and implement the evolving agreement that would see Iran curb its nuclear program in exchange for phasing out crippling sanctions. The deadline for a final deal is June 30.
"The White House confirmed on Tuesday that Obama intended to veto the bill in its current form.
"Even though Congress is in the midst of a spring break, Democratic senators have been toiling on the bill being crafted by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, a Republican, that could be approved by the panel next week.
"'There's no way that Congress should allow the congressional sanctions regime to be negotiated away without saying a word,' Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who helped Corker write the legislation but who also supports the administration's nuclear negotiations with Iran, told Reuters.
"Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the most influential Democrats and a co-sponsor of Corker's bill, has reaffirmed his support for a congressional role.
"'I strongly believe Congress should have the right to disapprove any agreement and I support the Corker bill which would allow that to occur,' he said on Monday.
"Schumer, who is Jewish and represents New York with its more than 1.5 million Jews, is the third-ranking Senate Democrat and is expected to take over the party leadership in the chamber in 2017. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has railed against what he calls a 'bad deal' and says Iran's nuclear ambitions are an existential threat to his country.
"Under Corker's bill Congress would have 60 days to review the agreement, during which sanctions relief would be suspended and lawmakers could vote on whether to approve or reject sanctions measures.
"Corker has already agreed to change the wording so that a lack of action by Congress would count as approving the deal, and that Congress could only weigh in on relief of congressional sanctions, not the entire deal. Kaine said those changes were made at his request.
"In coming days, the White House and allies in Congress could seek ways to soften Corker’s legislation further with steps such as simply requiring regular reports to lawmakers on progress in implementing the deal, coupled with an expedited process for reinstating sanctions if Iran violates its terms.
"Sanctions relief has been one of the key sticking points in the marathon talks that could yet sabotage a final deal. The White House has said sanctions would be phased out but Iran's negotiators have interpreted the accord differently, saying they would be lifted immediately.
"The Obama administration argues that the bill would interfere with the talks and deter Iran from signing a deal that it sees as potentially ending decades of tense relations with Iran and possibly fostering broader Middle East peace.
"But Obama took a more conciliatory line in an interview with the New York Times at the weekend, saying he hoped Congress could 'express itself' without encroaching on 'traditional presidential prerogatives.'
"With most or all of the 54 Republican senators expected to back the bill and nine Democrat co-sponsors, the 60 votes needed to take it through the Senate seem assured. It would likely get a sympathetic reception in the Republican-majority House, and then reach Obama's desk.
"Congress could override a presidential veto with a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and House of Representatives, in what would be an embarrassing setback for Obama. In the Senate, that would require 67 votes.
"In addition to the nine Democrat co-sponsors, one independent has co-sponsored the bill, another Democrat has put out a statement supporting it, and several others have signaled they are open to backing it."
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4/6/15 Obama, Congress on collision course over Iran nuke deal FoxNews
"President Obama appealed to lawmakers to reconsider contentious legislation giving Congress a say on an Iran nuclear deal, as the co-author of the bill vowed to hold a key vote next week. . . .
"He [Obama] reiterated his opposition to legislation that would give Congress final say in approving or rejecting a deal, but said he hoped to find a path to allow Congress to 'express itself.'
"But the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in an interview with 'Fox News Sunday,' said Congress would exercise its 'rightful role' to scrutinize and approve any agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting international sanctions.
"'It's very important that Congress is in the middle of this, understanding, teasing out, asking those important questions,' Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said Sunday.
"Corker's office said Sunday the Foreign Relations Committee would vote on April 14 on the review legislation. Amid sustained opposition from the White House, Corker said that the Senate is two or three votes shy of the 67 needed to override a vowed White House veto.
"The so-called P5+1 nations -- the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- have until June 30 to agree on all the details of a final deal with Iran.
"'The American people want to know somebody is teasing out the information' about the deal, Corker said Sunday. 'Congress has to be involved in this way.'
"Apart from Congress, Obama must also handle Arab allies who are skeptical about a possible agreement. The president has invited leaders of six Gulf nations to Washington this spring and said he wanted to 'formalize' U.S. assistance."
[Congress's duty is to exercise its constitutional role to control this would-be dictator.]
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4/6/15 Iran framework: Not good, not a deal
"Several days after the president announced an “historic” agreement with Iran, it is evident there is very little agreement between Iran and the P5+1, and what is there is ominous.
"On the most general level, the Obama administration, which once called for ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program, is now copacetic with a radical Islamist state, a state sponsor of terror devoted to the destruction of Israel, retaining a nuclear weapons infrastructure capable of making multiple bombs. To believe that we will cut off all pathways to Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon with a deal such as this is to ignore the nature of the regime, its current and past history in obstructing inspections, the veto power we have given to the United Nations Security Council to resolve disputes about violations and a multiplicity of concessions already suggested in the framework.
"Let’s start with the lack of agreement. Iran is already accusing the administration of lying for promulgating a fact sheet Iran says does not comport with the deal. This is a reminder that the 'fact sheet' is a unilateral document, the best-case scenario for the administration — which apparently is not good enough for the Iranians. The Times of Israel lists six major areas of non-agreement:."
[Click the date if you want to read the entire article.]
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"Columnist George Will points out that Apple’s openly gay CEO, Tim Cook, “…thinks Indiana is a terrible place. (But) He opened marketing and retail operations in Saudi Arabia two months before a man was sentenced to 450 lashes for being gay.”
"Will was commenting on Cook’s recent Washington Post op-ed protesting Indiana’s new, now amended, Religious Freedom Restoration Act and similar initiatives around the country.
"World Magazine reports that Cook has recently been in the United Arab Emirates negotiating on behalf of Apple, where homosexuality is against the law and the penalty is death.
"Cook’s duplicity is not just in deeds, but also in words.
"The Indiana law was passed to protect religious freedom, mirroring existing federal law and law in 31 states around the nation.
"Our Declaration of Independence notes our inalienable rights to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' But for Cook, who purports in his op-ed to care about freedom, protection of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' for a Christian is an act of aggression against gays.
"He renders religious freedom meaningless by accusing those, who exercise their right of protection, of discrimination against those who wish to violate their rights.
"'This isn’t a political issue. It isn’t a religious issue. This is about how we treat each other as human beings,' he writes. You would think that Cook, CEO of the most valuable company in the world, with a reported personal net worth of $400 million, could perceive his transparent double standard.
"For him and other homosexual activists, Christians cannot observe their religion and live by the Bible’s words they hold sacred without discriminating against gays. If this is about 'how we treat each other as human beings,' as Cook writes, then how can he justify a same-sex couple going to a baker or photographer they well know is Christian, for whom homosexuality is a sin, and demand a cake or photography for a gay wedding. Can Tim Cook really believe that this is decent, tolerant, freedom loving human behavior?
"The truth is that the objective of the homosexual campaign is not about American freedom. The objective is the de-legitimization and annihilation of Christianity in America.
"This did not begin yesterday.
"It is now well over a half century that the words of our constitution are being distorted so that the very protections guaranteed for Christians are used as weapons against them.
"From the prohibition of prayer in school, to prohibitions of public displays of the Ten Commandments and Christian symbols, to lawsuits against Christian photographers for refusing to provide the photography for gay weddings, the war against Christian presence in America becomes increasingly open and aggressive.
"And what has happened over the last half century while this has been going on?
"The institutions and behavior that provide the glue holding together a faithful, civil, and virtuous society have collapsed. The traditional American family is in shambles. Forty three percent of our babies now born to unwed mothers compared to 5 percent a half century ago. And over 56 million aborted unborn children.
"It was not by accident that America’s first president George Washington warned the young nation, in his farewell address, that religion and morality are “'ndispensible' to 'political prosperity' and he cautioned against “the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.”
"Meanwhile, as legal violence is used in the war on Christianity at home, physical violence is used in the same war in Muslim countries abroad. The Wall Street Journal reports that Christians today make up 5 percent of the population in the Middle East compared to 20 percent a hundred years ago.
"As many political and business leaders cowardly enable this global war on Christianity, Christians must stand in defense of themselves and their religion and convictions."
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4/6/15 Left Claims O'Connor Family Set Up Liberal Reporter Who Set Them Up as
Memories Pizza Raises $842,592 Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: They think this was a whole concocted event. The media is not even curious about this. They're reporting it, but that's about it. They report it in two or three paragraphs, and they move on. Now, if the circumstances were reversed, if, for example, this pizzeria happened to be owned by a bunch of leftists, a bunch of liberals and Democrats, and if something had happened that threatened the livelihood of the business and the owners, and if a bunch of leftist donors came to the rescue and in a matter of two days raised over $840,000, do you know what the media would be doing?
They'd be trying to find as many of these donors as possible to do profiles of them, what great people they are, who are these people, who are these invisible Americans who came to the rescue when an innocent little mom-and-pop Democrat business came under siege by vicious right wingers. They'd be out there doing stories. The Democrats on Capitol Hill would bring these people up to congressional hearings and make stars out of them, great Americans who gave everything they could, in some cases only a dollar, but they gave it to the cause to save the left-wing business, and they would all be heroes and everybody would know. And Obama would invite a couple of 'em to the next State of the Union show.
But since it's in reverse, the media is doing its best to cover it perfunctorily in a couple or three paragraphs and then moving on and letting it go. But they are privately fuming. They are seething over this because once again, the evidence, the facts which often elude them, have come to demonstrate that they have a long way to go to be able to put the population of this country under their boot. People responded, 26 or 27,000 people, an average donation of just under $30 that got it to the $842,000 limit.
RUSH: It's not just Memories Pizza, there's another GoFundMe.com beneficiary that you may not have heard about. If this kind of thing fascinates you, you may have. The Seattle Times reporting on April 4th, they were not happy. "Amid Indiana Controversy, Donations Soar for Washington Florist Who Refused Gay Wedding."
Now, this is different. In the Memories Pizza case we had a hypothetical. We had an infobabe that was going door-to-door shopping for bigotry. She left her home base at Channel 57 in South Bend -- Channel 57, I cannot believe that we still have Channel 57s. Anyway, she leaves, she goes 20 miles south of South Bend, knocking on doors looking for a bigot, anywhere, just give me a bigot for the nightly news, she says. She can't find any. She's in Indiana.
She finally walks into Memories Pizza. "Would you serve a gay wedding?"
"No, we would not, our religion says --" All right. And the infobabe had her story and there's bigotry at Memories Pizza. It's a hypothetical. In the state of Washington, this is a Richland florist who actually refused to provide flowers to a gay couple for their wedding, and this florist has so far received $80,000 from an online crowdfunding page dedicated to protect her and her livelihood.
"A GoFundMe page set up for Baronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers, had raised $80,225 from 1,884 donors by 7:30 p.m. Saturday." The page was set up in February, long time ago. Well, couple months ago. Set up in February and "nearly half the money has been donated in the past 24 hours. Supporters likened the benefit page to one set up for Memories Pizza."
But the difference is that Stutzman actually refused an actual request to provide arrangements for an actual gay wedding. "Stutzman was fined $1,000, plus $1 for court costs and fees in late March for refusing to serve a gay couple when they tried to buy wedding flowers in 2013. Stutzman, 70, said that though one of the men who wanted the flowers was her friend and she would continue to provide flowers for other occasions, providing flowers for his marriage went against her beliefs as a Southern Baptist."
So there's all kinds of these things out there. There was one for a woman whose shop was burned down in the rioting in Ferguson, and the same kind of thing happened. Americans rallied to her cause. She had nothing to do with the protests. She was just an innocent victim. It was the store of her dreams. She'd scrimped and saved everything, this little arts and crafts store, burned down in the riots, been rebuilt or in the process of it, thanks to donations from people they never even knew, never even met, never thought she would ever come into contact with.
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4/6/15 Fraternity in discredited UVA rape story vows legal action against Rolling Stone FoxNews
"Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity at the center of the discredited Rolling Stone magazine story about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia, said Monday it plans to pursue 'all available legal action' against the magazine.
"'Our fraternity and its members have been defamed,' chapter president Stephen Scipione said in a statement.
"The fraternity called the story 'reckless,' saying that the article was viewed by millions, led to members being ostracized and there was vandalism of the fraternity house.
"Rolling Stone late Sunday formally retracted the discredited story about the alleged rape at Phi Kappa Psi after an independent review dubbed the article a 'journalistic failure.'
"The review, undertaken by the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism at Rolling Stone's request, produced a 12,000-word report that documented lapses in standard journalistic procedure at every level of the magazine during the reporting and editing of the story."
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4/5/15 Iran military chief hails nuclear success Yahoo! News
Iran's military chief has hailed the success of his country's negotiators in talks with world powers that secured a framework for a deal on its long-disputed nuclear programme.
The remarks by General Hassan Firouzabadi -- a close ally of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has yet to comment on the agreement -- were published Sunday on the Revolutionary Guards' sepanews.com website.
Firouzabadi congratulated the Iranian leader on the 'success of the team of Iranian negotiators and thanked the president' Hassan Rouhani and officials involved led by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif."
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4/5/15 Why Is Iran’s Version of “The Deal” So Different From Obama/Kerry’s Version?
"The New York Post outlines 'The Deal' with Iran, or more appropriately stated 'the outline'; and points out the stark differences between what President Obama and Secretary Kerry are claiming against the claims of Iran.
"Both can be reconciled if you accept the historical reality that everything the Obama administration does and says has to first pass through a domestic political prism.
"Passing through that prism, the truth and reality separate. As Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber honestly admitted, ‘the truth becomes what they say it is’.
"After looking at the totality of events that flowed since August of 2014 when New York Times author Thomas Friedman interviewed President Obama:
[…] On Iran, the president said the chance that American efforts to strike a deal on nuclear weapons is 'a little less than 50-50,' in part because some Islamic leaders may fear such a pact would loosen their grip on power.
'That may prevent us from getting a deal done,' Mr. Obama said. 'It is there to be had. Whether ultimately Iran can seize that opportunity — we will have to wait and see, but it is not for lack of trying on our part.' (full article link)
"From that moment forward the entire construct of 'a deal with Iran' took on a shift. The administration focused on talking about 'compliance' efforts, the Iranian’s focused on talking about 'the removal of sanctions', and internally to their own domestic audience, toward 'maintaining their program'.
"Team Obama/Kerry seemingly focused exclusively on the aspect of verification and compliance; giving up on any hope of removing the Iranian 'ability'.
"We’ve noted that almost every aspect of the Obama 'talking points' (for lack of a better description) have focused on deflecting criticism by using a narrative claiming inspectors can verify non weapon-centered nuclear capability.
"The second thing noted is that the 'deal' itself is a seemingly disingenuous squirrel distraction. The deal itself is 'what they say it is'.
"There is, in actuality, no deal.
"Allow me to repeat…. There is no deal per se'; it’s a total fabrication, a ruse, a series of points for discussion in the media that doesn’t factually exist.
"Just like the 2014 Unaccompanied Alien Children humanitarian crisis of 2014 that also didn’t factually exist. The 'UAC Crisis' was, similarly, just an assembled series of talking points to gather support toward a larger goal of immigration conversation.
"The Iran Outline is a conversational point for the progressive left on Iran in the same manner as the UAC Outline was a conversational point for the progressive left on immigration. There isn’t any actual ‘there’ there.
"How did 'actual talks' end up being just 'political talking points'?
"The answer is: (the always used) Political Prism.
"An actual deal was fraught with too much consequential, and uncontrollable, controversy – which was finding even more unwelcome pushback from Democrats who also recognized the possibility of Iran actually having a nuclear program was far too toxic a consequence for them to hold ownership of.
"Iran with Nukes would always been an outcome of Democrats. Period. There is no comfortably deniable distance inside that reality, and no spin which would turn the blame toward Republicans.
"As a direct consequence last week:
♦ The White House Team constructed their escape plan, their political 'talking points' on 3/31/15 (photo above). [Click the date to see the photo.] [Note following this meeting not a single media interview by the State Department team]
♦ Those White House points (released to the public on April 2nd) are exclusively based on domestic political needs and influenced by increasing domestic backlash. The White House needed, at least in appearance, to get back to the right side of history. However, they also need to save face and make it appear as something it’s not.
♦ Their goal was to A.) create something: Historic, Magnificent, Amazing, etc. Worthy of another Peace Prize – this time for John Kerry; and, B.) Gain a deniable angle for any adverse impact as a consequence of Iran and Nuclear Capability.
♦ The State Dept. Team in Switzerland (Kerry et al) told to keep quiet as the White House talking points are constructed/finalized. (link) 4/1 and 4/2 absolute silence.
♦ An outline is then reached by the Secretary of State team with the Iranian team which does not align with the White House construct (talking points).
♦ The actual deal content doesn’t really need to line up with the talking points because A.) that’s not the most important aspect – Think 'Tax' VS. 'Mandate' in ObamaCare; and B.) they don’t really care- it’s a ruse.
♦ The White House talking points are used by President Obama in the Rose Garden. (link) Note these Talking Points' are NOT a 'joint' statement as would normally be evident in an agreement between two nations. These are a pure construct of the White House.
♦ The Iranian team then points out those talking points don’t align in fact with the deal reached by the negotiation teams. Subsequently calls them 'LIES' (link)
"Politically the White House now has options:
Option #1. Gruber the electorate (requires an acquiescing media). Meaning, sell an evident fraud as something it is not (ie. Obamacare strategy). This would be tough to do with Congress – but if the White House can leverage total political (ie. Democrat) compliance, it’s possible.
Option #2. Claim the Iranians have changed approach. Blame them and quash the deal before June of 2015; positioning themselves to appear strong, and hiding the fraud that was not really a deal in the first place.
"Here’s the article previously mentioned. You decide.
'“Iran Agrees to Detailed Nuclear Outline,' The New York Times headline claimed on Friday. That found an echo in the Washington Post headline of the same day: 'Iran agrees to nuclear restrictions in framework deal with world powers.'
"But the first thing to know about the highly hyped 'historic achievement' that President Obama is trying to sell is that there has been no agreement on any of the fundamental issues that led to international concern about Iran’s secret nuclear activities and led to six mandatory resolutions by the United Nations Security Council and 13 years of diplomatic seesaw.
"All we have is a number of contradictory statements by various participants in the latest round of talks in Switzerland, which together amount to a diplomatic dog’s dinner.
"First, we have a joint statement in English in 291 words by Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif and the European Union foreign policy point-woman Federica Mogherini, who led the so-called P5+1 group of nations including the US in the negotiations.
"John Kerry and his team watch from Lausanne, Switzerland as President Obama makes his state address on the status of the Iran nuclear program talks on April 2nd.
"Next we have the official Iranian text, in Persian, which runs into 512 words. The text put out by the French comes with 231 words. The prize for 'spinner-in-chief' goes to US Secretary of State John Kerry who has put out a text in 1,318 words and acts as if we have a done deal.
"It is not only in their length that the texts differ.
"They amount to different, at times starkly contradictory, narratives. (read more)"
[Note the double quotation marks indicate quotations from the original article. Quotations in the original article are enclosed by single quotation marks. All other grammatical marking usage is that in the text of the original article.]
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4/5/15 Iran stocks soar after nuclear framework deal APNews.my way
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4/5/15 Netanyahu urges US to seek better deal with Iran over its nuclear program FoxNews
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the U.S. to seek a better deal with Iran Sunday over its nuclear program and said that he’s 'not trying to kill any deal,' just a 'bad deal.'
"'It could be a historic bad deal because it leaves the preeminent terrorist state of our time a vast nuclear infrastructure,' Netanyahu said on NBC’s 'Meet the Press.' 'Thousands of centrifuges will be left, not a singular facility, including underground facilities will be shut down.'
"Netanyahu added that the deal leaves Iran with 'the capacity to produce material for many nuclear bombs.'
"Netanyahu also warned on ABC’s 'This Week' that the deal could 'spark a nuclear arms race among the Sunni countries in the middle east.'
"The Israeli leader’s appearance on Sunday news shows comes just days after the United States and five other world powers reached the tentative agreement with Iran to limit that country’s nuclear enrichment program toward a final, June 30 deal.
"On CNN’s 'State of the Union,' Netanyahu said 'restrictions placed on Iran are temporary, after a few years, Iran will have unlimited access.'
"He also said that Iran has 'cheated in the past on this, in this case, with this deal, what’s been illegitimate is being legitimized not only the ability to maintain but in a few years to increase it, that’s very dangerous. . . . ."
[Click the date to read the rest of the article if you believe Obama.]
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4/5/15 ABC’s Karl: Menendez Indictment Likely to Quell Challenges to Iran Deal
"Martha Raddatz asked, 'Sen. Robert Menendez who was indicted on corruption charges. He pleaded not guilty to counts of bribery, corruption, fraud. He’s temporarily stepping down as the ranking member of the foreign relations committee, right as Iran is coming up. He was the principal critic on Iran. Will it make a difference?'
"Karl said, 'If you had written this in a ‘House of Cards’ script, it would have been thrown out. The idea that the president’s most powerful democratic critic of the Iran deal goes down, indicted just before the deal is announced, nobody is suggesting a connection, [Why not?] but it sure does have an impact and it will it will be harder for Republicans to get a veto-proof majority to challenge the deal.”
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4/3/15 OBAMA By George Henry Edwards, GIAC2002.org
Furnishing planes to fly illegal immigrants into America at our taxpayers’ expense and afterwards paying for all their needs as long as they are here is the latest happening that wraps it. In addition to other actions, this makes it patently obvious to me that Obama is dead set on wrecking this country’s economy, destroying America’s position in the world and destroying the American way.
I don’t believe that Obama is absolutely stupid and won’t get into motivation. But his actions alone make this apparent. .
Without going into ALL the specifics, I really can’t understand intelligent Americans believing otherwise or joining with him unless they share his beliefs or are totally misinformed or uninformed by the media they choose to trust. I believe it is every American’s duty to do what he or she can to make as many people knowledgeable as possible of his and his cohorts malfeasance.
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4/3/15 Gov’t program would fly in Central American children to join parents in US
By Peter Doocy, FoxNews
"Images of unaccompanied children flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border defined the immigration crisis last summer.
"Now, the federal government is intervening so these children won’t have to make that trek -– they’ll get to fly into the U.S. instead. For free.
"A new State Department and Department of Homeland Security program seeks to stop the surge of immigrant children from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador at the southern border by giving their U.S.-based parents the option to apply to have their kids picked up and put on a plane, without paying a penny.
"The parents are eligible as long as they have some sort of legal status. As first reported in The Daily Caller, this would include permanent residents and even illegal immigrants given a work permit and deportation reprieve under President Obama’s recent executive actions, though much of that is on hold due to a pending court case. Of them, those with children under 21 and living in El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras reportedly could apply.
"'I think many Americans are going to be surprised to learn that illegal aliens here in the United States are getting the Obama administration to go and get their children and fetch them,' Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, told Fox News. 'And all at our expense.'
"In a November memo, the State Department explained that reuniting families this way is 'a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to the dangerous journey that some children are currently undertaking to the United States.'
"So far, the State Department has not provided a cost for the plane tickets, or the benefits that follow upon their arrival in America. Asked Friday about the issue, spokeswoman Marie Harf said: 'The price tag? I don't know.'
"'Under this program, they would be quote 'refugees,' and refugees have access to government benefits that other illegal aliens don't,' Fitton said.
"Judicial Watch lists 'free education, food stamps, medical care, and living expenses,' as some of those complimentary benefits."
[Is it time again to remind everyone of the Cloward-Piven strategy to bring down the capitalist system by adding more and more benefits to the point it can not support them."
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4/3/15 Obama's Lies on the Economy Revealed Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: It is amazing, folks. It's once again amazing how we were blatantly lied to in January and February about the unemployment numbers and the overall economy. Blatantly lied to. And we're being blatantly lied to about whatever or not is happening in this Iranian deal to boot. . . .
RUSH: And, of course, the piece de resistance, we are being lied to about what's happening in Indiana. Every day, every day we have to devote time here to straightening out the lies that are told by the Democrat Party and the president of the United States and every one of his rabid, insane, lunatic supporters.
I mean, I'm happy to do it. But, for crying out loud, I yearn for the day where everybody knows when they open their mouths they are lying and I don't have to explain it. But I've been hoping that for 26 years, and the odds are I'm gonna be hoping that for however many number of years there are remaining, which means we're gonna continue to expose the lies for however many years there are remaining. . . .
The January and February jobs number have been revised downward dramatically. Do you remember in January and February the Drive-Bys all breathlessly excited, reporting the brand-new job applications, people applied for new jobs and got new jobs, and the unemployment number was plunging at a rapid rate and, my God, we were back. Oh, my God, it was so wonderful. The country is back and everybody knew it wasn't true.
But the numbers were the numbers. They were put out by the government, the Drive-By Media sucked 'em right up, spit them right back out at us. Those of us that knew it wasn't true had to sit there and grit our teeth once again while the low-information crowd just lapped it up, knowing full well this day would come when they revised the numbers downward, in other words, tell us the truth long past the moment in time when anybody would care.
We now have a record 93.1, almost 93.2 million Americans not working. I do not know in whose universe that represents a growing, recovering, burgeoning economy, 93,175,000 Americans are not working. And as I love to point out -- people misunderstand this and think I'm being critical -- they're all eating and they're all making phone calls and they're all streaming video on their smartphones and they've all got a big screen somewhere. They're probably all consuming adults beverages. Those who do, are able to. Ninety-three million Americans.
So if you can do all that, if you can have the essence of life as an American, a cell phone, beer, and a Big Mac, why work? Santa Claus, Democrat Party brings it to you. But remember, voting Democrat means your life never gets better. It's what it boils down to. Voting Democrat means your life is a straight line or trending downward.
A record 12.2 million African-Americans are not working, not in the labor force. A record 56.1 million women are not working, not in the labor force. And the Federal Reserve, after all of these wonderful predictions of economic growth that we got in January and February, are now predicting the growth forecast to be zilch, zero. Zero economic growth, the Federal Reserve forecast for the balance of the year.
It's an absolute disaster, so unnecessary and so disappointing. But there are the numbers. And, by the way, the March job numbers themselves are quite lame as well. The Associated Press is not happy, only because of how bad it makes the Regime look. "A weakening US economy." What do you mean weakening? You people have been telling us for three years it's a growing economy. You people have been telling us for three years that we're in this burgeoning recovery. "A weakening," now you tell us, "US economy spilled into the job market in March as employers added just 126,000 jobs."
I saw yesterday, when it they were touting the news that was gonna be released today, yesterday they were all excited, the Drive-Bys were, because they reported something like the application for unemployment numbers had dropped 20,000, and that had to mean it was gonna be great news today, if fewer people applied for unemployment. No, all it meant was that 20,000 people -- and that's a guess anyway -- had just decided to stop looking.
There aren't any jobs out there. There aren't any
careers being born. And it's not going to happen, it's
not gonna reverse as long as the borders are open and
the country is flooded with low skilled, low educated,
and thus low wage people.
It's just not gonna happen. The mathematics alone is all
you need to know that it isn't gonna happen. "A
weakening U.S. economy spilled into the job market in
March as employers added just 126,000 jobs -- the fewest
since December 2013 --" That's not last December. It's
over a year ago. "-- snapping a 12-month streak of gains
above 200,000."
And 200,000's nothing to write home about. Ever since the first stimulus bill I remember Joe Biden running around promising 500,000 new jobs every month back in April of 2010. That's what their recovery was gonna be, 500,000 new jobs a month. And now 200,000 is considered a benchmark great number. And 200,000 jobs, not even replacement level, much less economic growth.
"The Labor Department said Friday the unemployment rate remained at 5.5%." Isn't it funny how that works? No matter how dire the job news is, no matter how disastrous, no matter how puny bad the job news is, the unemployment rate doesn't go up. In fact, it usually falls. "The economy has been squeezed so far this year by harsh weather, factory slowdowns, and lackluster construction." Really, what, it's never cold in December? So bad weather in December, unusually cold weather in December meant bad economic activity, as though it's never cold in December?
"In addition to reporting sluggish hiring for March, the government revised down its estimate of job gains in February and January by a combined 69,000." What a shock. "Wage growth in March remained modest." There is no wage growth except for the top 1%. That is the next story, ladies and gentlemen. "Except for the Rich, Americans' Incomes Fell Last Year." How can this not be blamed on Obama? He's been in office now over six years. Pretty slick. Barack Hussein O sets up an economy that only helps the already wealthy and then blames the Republicans for the poor. And right there to help him along as usual, the Drive-By Media.
"Most Americans' incomes continued to fall last year --" this the French News Agency, by the way "-- but the richest 20 percent saw theirs rise, a new Labor Department report showed Thursday. In fresh data that adds fire to a growing debate over income inequality --" See how this works? We got President Obama for six plus years, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and we got a Republican oriented wage inequality problem. The Republicans did it.
"The average pre-tax income fell 0.9 percent from the same period a year earlier, to $64,432." That's as far as I'm gonna go because it gets number centric and they're hard to follow on the radio. The bottom line is they're lying to us pre-election. They lie to us during the election. They lie to us immediately after the election, and in March and April when nobody's thinking election, we get the truth so that they can say, "We weren't lying. We were mistaken early on, and we did revise our numbers down." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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4/3/15 State Department rejects call for Iran deal to affirm Israel's 'right to exist' FoxNews
"A State Department official dismissed a plea Friday from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Iran nuclear agreement include clear recognition of his nation's "right to exist," declaring negotiations are "only about the nuclear issue."
"State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, in a terse response to a question about Netanyahu's concerns, told reporters, 'This is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue' -- a comment that indicates the Obama administration is not looking to enshrine Israel's security into a final agreement.
"Harf, for her part, suggested the talks are complicated enough already.
"'This is an agreement that doesn't deal with any other issues, nor should it,' she said.
"Obama administration officials have insisted all along that despite their public disagreement with Netanyahu over the Iran deal framework, the U.S. commitment to Israel's security is unwavering. Further, White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters on Air Force One on Friday that the U.S. would not agree to any deal that would threaten Israel.
"The Israeli prime minister, though, made the call for the 'right to exist' measure during brief remarks early Friday. He blasted the Iran framework deal and said his Cabinet is uniformly opposed to it. He closed his brief address by demanding that any final agreement include 'a clear and unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel's right to exist.'
"The statement was prompted by reported statements from a top Iranian military official, who was quoted saying 'erasing Israel' off the map is 'non-negotiable.'
"To that, Netanyahu said: 'The survival of Israel is non-negotiable."
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4/3/15 A deal with Iran built on lies Washington Times
"The first lie is that an agreement for more talk is already 'a deal.' So far the only agreement is to further pursue 'a deal.' President Obama couldn’t wait to take a victory lap. But not even Mr. Obama, desperate to make something he can call 'a deal,' says there’s an actual deal. Look closely at the slippery 'clinton clauses,' as they were once called, in his announcement Thursday: 'I am convinced that if this framework leads to a final comprehensive deal, it will make our country, our allies and our world safer.'
"That was Lie No. 2. There’s nothing in the 'framework' that leads to a conclusion like that. The world won’t be safer, because when Iran gets the bomb — and there’s wide agreement that it’s not 'if' but “when” — a half-dozen Islamic countries in the Middle East will start work on a bomb of their own. Saudi Arabia has already hinted that once it’s clear that America can’t be counted on to do what Mr. Obama emphatically said America would do, Saudi Arabia must do what it has to do. Survival makes its own rules.
"Once there’s an Iranian bomb, every crackpot mullah and deranged Islamic holy man will want one. Who’s to stop them? Israel? The situation by then will be so out of control that nobody could do what only a superpower could have done.
"The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, wanted to say complicit things at a press conference in Lausanne on Thursday, but his carefully chosen words were revealing to anyone familiar with parsing words: 'Our program is exclusively peaceful, has always been and always will remain exclusively peaceful.' (Lies No. 3, 4 and 5.) 'We will continue enriching. We will continue research and development.'
"Secretary of State John F. Kerry, feeling his own nose growing longer by the hour, attempted to defend his compromises. 'Simply demanding that Iran capitulate makes a nice sound bite,' he said, 'but [a sound bite] is not a policy, it is not a realistic plan.' He should know. He doesn’t want anyone to remember Mr. Obama’s sound bite that Iran would never get a bomb of its own because he wouldn’t allow it.
"The Iranian foreign minister concedes that Iran is 'still some way away from where we want to be.' No doubt. But he’s entitled to his satisfied mind. Relief from sanctions, and an easily frustrated inspection scheme, is exactly what the mullahs in Tehran set out to achieve. The only price they pay is to cooperate to enable the leaders in the West to pretend they have accomplished something they haven’t.
"Once the final agreement is in place, the mullahs can proceed to do what they will say they are not doing, until their bomb is real and they can use it at will. Islamic good faith is good enough for Mr. Obama, who has a soft spot in his heart for Islam. Islamic good faith is not good enough for the rest of us. The president is entitled to indulge that soft spot in his heart, but he is not entitled to indulge a soft spot in his head at the expense of the nation. He doesn’t have to be the secret Muslim some of his critics say he is to be a faithful guardian of the interests of the Islamic world.
"Describing Mr. Obama as an appeaser, in the tradition of Neville Chamberlain caving at a similar nexus of history in 1938, misses the point. Mr. Obama may not be appeasing at all, but enabling. Everything about Barack Obama suggests that he believes America must be cut down to size, that it’s the arrogance of thinking America is something special, the exceptional nation, that is the source of intractable trouble in the world. Once America is brought to heel, men of wisdom, brilliance, kindness, intelligence and good will — rare men just like himself — can make the rough places smooth and forge a lasting peace.
"These negotiations have exposed the president as few events have. 'Mr. Obama,' says the New York Observer, no particular friend of Republicans and conservative critics of the president, 'is an amateur who is enthralled with the sound of his own voice and incapable of coming to grips with the consequences of his actions. He is surrounded by sycophants, second-rate intellectuals and a media that remains compliant and uncritical.'
"History won’t be able to say it better.
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4/2/15 Buying Time: Iran Talks Produce Non-Binding 'Outlines of an Understanding'
With Scant Details Guy Benson, TownHall
"Some in the media will call this a 'deal.' It's not. It's a face-saving, time-buying charade -- an implicit admission that years of repeatedly-extended negotiations have resulted in nothing concrete, with yet another deadline disappearing in the rearview mirror. Consider this tortured verbiage provided to the Associated Press: . . ." [Click the date for more.]
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4/2/15 Iran Deal: Holocaust in 2016 By DIck Morris, DickMorris.com
"So the basic tradeoff achieved by Secretary
of State John Kerry in the talks with Iran boils down to
this: Iran has to watch its step for ten years. Then
all bets are off. A year later, bombs away! By 2025,
most of the sanctions will have been lifted and there
will be no incentive for Iran to keep its deal to limit
uranium enrichment. And, in any event, the limits will
have been weakened after the ten year period.
"What other nation could be content for its principal adversary to reach
a deal not to annihilate it until ten years have passed?
"Obama's and Kerry's strategy for getting the deal through Congress
becomes evident. Get Iran to agree to a relatively
tough deal for now in return for a short deadline and no
restrictions thereafter. All the skeptics have focused
their attention on the outcome of the talks and the
issues at play that nobody has been impolite enough to
address the central question of how long the deal will
restrain Iran. Those Democrats who pose as Israel's
friends in Congress will now likely cave in and go along
with the deal as the best we can get.
"But that will be because the Administration agreed to a time limit to
the deal in the first place. Twenty years is no better,
really, than ten. The issue is not duration, but
whether or not there is change in the goals and
aspirations of the Iranian regime. If it remains hell
bent on destroying Israel, what does it matter how soon
they can get the bomb. Israel is ultimately doomed.
The deal should not be contingent on how much time has
elapsed, but on whether Iran demonstrates that it has
stepped back from confrontation, subversion,
expansionism, and terrorism. If there is an improvement
in the behavior of Teheran, as there was in Moscow until
Putin took over and as there has been in Beijing, then
there can be a relaxation of sanctions and limits. But
not before."
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4/2/15
"Just hours after the announcement of what the United States characterized as a historic agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, the country’s leading negotiator lashed out at the Obama administration for lying about the details of a tentative framework.
"Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people and Congress in a fact sheet it released following the culmination of negotiations with the Islamic Republic.
"Zarif bragged in an earlier press conference with reporters that the United States had tentatively agreed to let it continue the enrichment of uranium, the key component in a nuclear bomb, as well as key nuclear research.
"Zarif additionally said Iran would have all nuclear-related sanctions lifted once a final deal is signed and that the country would not be forced to shut down any of its currently operating nuclear installations.
"Following a subsequent press conference by Secretary of State John Kerry—and release of a administration fact sheet on Iranian concessions—Zarif lashed out on Twitter over what he dubbed lies.
"'The solutions are good for all, as they stand,' he tweeted. 'There is no need to spin using ‘fact sheets’ so early on.'
"Zarif went on to push back against claims by Kerry that the sanctions relief would be implemented in a phased fashion—and only after Iran verifies that it is not conducting any work on the nuclear weapons front.
"Zarif, echoing previous comments, said the United States has promised an immediate termination of sanctions.
"'Iran/5+1 Statement: ‘US will cease the application of ALL nuclear-related secondary economic and financial sanctions.’ Is this gradual?' he wrote on Twitter.
"He then suggested a correction: 'Iran/P5+1 Statement: ‘The EU will TERMINATE the implementation of ALL nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions’. How about this?'
"The pushback from Iran’s chief diplomat follows a pattern of similar accusations by senior Iranian political figures after the announcement of previous agreements.
"Following the signing of an interim agreement with Iran aimed at scaling back its nuclear work, Iran accused the United States of lying about details of the agreement.
"On Thursday evening, Zarif told reporters the latest agreement allows Iran to keep operating its nuclear program.
"'None of those measures' that will move to scale back Iran’s program 'include closing any of our facilities,' Zarif said. 'We will continue enriching; we will continue research and development.'
"'Our heavy water reactor will be modernized and we will continue the Fordow facility,' Zarif said. 'We will have centrifuges installed in Fordow, but not enriching.'
"The move to allow Iran to keep centrifuges at Fordow, a controversial onetime military site, has elicited concern that Tehran could ramp up its nuclear work with ease.
"Zarif said that once a final agreement is made, 'all U.S. nuclear related secondary sanctions will be terminated,' he said. 'This, I think, would be a major step forward.'
"Zarif also revealed that Iran will be allowed to sell 'enriched uranium” in the international market place and will be 'hopefully making some money' from it."
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4/2/15 France has left the US-led nuclear talks with Iran in Lausanne, saying it will return
when it is 'useful.' By: Hana Levi Julian, Jewish Press
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4/2/15 RINOs Ceded the Social Issues to Democrats and Now the Social Issues
Are All That Matter Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: We are free to talk about social issues all we want now, folks, 'cause the left owns them. Yeah, we're talking about the social issues the left cares about now so it's perfectly fine, and all of a sudden -- as I point out -- the left seems to be in support of the spreading of nuclear weapons, the proliferation of nuclear weapons to a terrorist nation with oil that executes gays and punishes women for daring to speak up.
It's fine and dandy that they get nuclear weapons. It's fine and dandy that we have relations with 'em. It's fine and dandy that we negotiate with 'em. It's fine and dandy that we accord them great respect, that we talk them up. No, the real enemy in the United States of America at this moment is Indiana -- and, by extension, Christianity. It's an all-out war, ladies and gentlemen.
And, in fact, it's proceeding at full speed with nobody having the slightest idea how to stop it, how to return fire.
How many of you saw story: "The Department of Justice has decided not to seek any criminal contempt chargers against former IRS official Lois Lerner, the central figure in a scandal that erupted over whether the IRS improperly targeted..." There's no scandal about "whether." They did it! There's no "whether." There's no scandal "over whether the IRS improperly targeted conservative political groups." They did it!
The scandal is that nothing's gonna be done about it.
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4/2/15
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4/2/15 Fox News Poll: Walker jumps to top of GOP field, Clinton emails 'bad judgment'
By Dana Blanton, FozNews
"Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is the new frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, while former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton easily maintains her lead among Democrats. And despite the personal email scandal, Clinton’s personal favorable number is still higher than the rest of the pack, according to the latest Fox News poll.
"Walker tops the field for the Republican nomination with 15 percent among self-identified GOP primary/caucus voters. He’s followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush who receives 12 percent, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 11 percent and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee each at 10 percent."
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4/2/15
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4/2/15
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4/2/15
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4/2/15
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4/1/15 A Naïve Deal with Iran Tops Obama’s Bungled Mideast Policy
"Obama has doggedly pursued negotiations aimed at restricting Iran’s access to a nuclear weapon even though the mullahs in Tehran have done nothing to prove their peaceful intentions. They have continued and even expanded their proxy wars throughout the Middle East, while also refusing to answer questions about their presumed development of advanced weapons. In the talks, they have conceded almost nothing.
"Notwithstanding Iran’s intransigence, the United States, which is orchestrating the talks, has apparently backtracked on demands that Iran shut down most of its centrifuges, ship its stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country, close or permanently disable its once-secret underground facility at Fordo and answer questions raised by the IAEA about its research on possible delivery systems.
"Certain of these demands were considered non-negotiable, and critical to refusing Iran a nuclear weapon. Even though Iran’s economy has been crushed by international sanctions, it is clear that Obama is the more desperate party.
"The self-imposed deadline of yesterday for a preliminary agreement has come and gone because Tehran has refused to comply with the demands of the P5+1 group. The good news is that the U.S.-led coalition did not settle for a meaningless deal, and the talks will continue. However, the damage already done by these one-sided negotiations is profound.
"Relations between Israel and the United States have arguably never been worse. And, more alarming, the Obama White House may have ignited a nuclear arms race in the unstable Middle East – an outcome that decades of diplomacy had sought to prevent.
"How on earth did we get here?
"Recently, former Defense Intelligence Agency head (under Obama) Lt. General Michael Flynn described the president’s policy in the Middle East as the product of 'willful ignorance.' Maybe, but naïveté and extreme over-confidence have been at work as well. . . . "
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4/1/15
"Buchanan, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, participated in a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is the son of the newly crowned King Salman, to discuss regional issues and Iranian aggression.
"When asked by Buchanan and other lawmakers present at the sit-down about the current talks with Iran—which have now passed their March 31 deadline—Salman called the tentative agreement disastrous for the region.
"Salman 'said Iran can’t be trusted,' according to a readout provided by Buchanan following the hour-long meeting in Riyadh. 'He questioned why we would be negotiating with the Iranians when they are responsible for growing tension in the Middle East.'
"One foreign policy analyst with extensive contacts in the Middle East told the Free Beacon that regional players are dismayed by the concessions that Washington is willing to make to Iran.
"'Parties in the region are aghast. It literally seems like there’s nothing the Iranians could do that would convince the Americans Tehran is too hostile and untrustworthy to deal with,' said the source.
"Saudi Arabia has criticized the Obama administration’s dealings with Iran, vowing in recent days to pursue its own nuclear weapons program as an avenue to counter the Islamic Republic’s growing influence in the region.
"Salman spoke in harsh terms when asked by Buchanan to explain his position on the negotiations.
'“I asked the Prince what he thought about the discussions between the U.S. and Iran, and he responded that he doesn’t think the United States is taking the threat posed by Iran seriously,' according to Buchanan. 'He said the Saudis would also like more military assistance from the U.S. to combat Iran’s growing influence in the region.'
"Salman and his government are also concerned about ties between Iran and Russia. The two countries recently secured an arms pact that will provide Tehran with advanced weaponry as well as light water nuclear reactors.
"As the talks between Western powers and Iran stretch past a self-imposed deadline with what the parties and sources consider insufficient progress, traditional U.S. allies such as the Saudis, Israel, and France are becoming increasingly exasperated with the Obama administration’s rush to procure an agreement they consider dangerous. . . ."
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4/1/15 President Obama Must Not Complete a Disastrous Deal With Iran By , Observer
Forget Churchill—Obama Isn't Measuring up to Neville Chamberlain
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4/1/15 Obama’s Next Move May Be Lifting U.S. Protection of Israel at UN
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3/31/15 US releases military aid to Egypt, cites national security Associated Press, FoxNews
"President Obama on Tuesday released military aid to Egypt that was suspended after the 2013 overthrow of the government, in an effort to boost Cairo's ability to combat the extremist threat in the region.
"The White House said Obama notified Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in a phone call Tuesday that the U.S. would be sending 12 F-16 fighter jets, 20 missiles and up to 125 tank kits, while continuing to request $1.3 billion in military assistance for Egypt. The White House said Egypt will remain the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign military financing worldwide. . . . "
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3/31/15 Saudi Arabia Gives Israel Clear Skies to Attack Iranian Nuke Sites FoxNews
"In the week that the U.N. Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defense sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran. To ensure the Israeli bombers pass without hindrance, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defense systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defenses will return to full alert.
"'The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,' said a U.S. defense source in the area. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [U.S.] State Department.”
"Sources in Saudi Arabia say it is common knowledge within defense circles in the kingdom that an arrangement is in place if Israel decides to launch the raid. Despite the tension between the two governments, they share a mutual loathing of the regime in Tehran and a common fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. 'We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing,' said one."
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3/31/15 Obama vetoes measure against swifter union elections FoxNews
"Republicans and business groups opposed the rule, arguing that it would limit the ability of businesses to prepare for what some critics have dubbed 'ambush elections.' Opponents also said workers wouldn't have enough time to make informed decisions about whether to join a union."
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3/31/15 Meet Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the conservative threat to Jeb Bush (w/video)
"Combine a milquetoast Midwestern demeanor with his record of pushing through a polarizing conservative agenda, and you see a governor who wins in a swing state. He has done it by overwhelmingly uniting Republicans while also handily winning independent voters.
"Now put him in a presidential election cycle where the GOP establishment appears to have its weakest grasp on the party in decades, the base is hungry for a fighter and a doer, and voters of all stripes are fed up with Washington. You wind up with Walker — virtually unknown to most Americans, untested on the national stage and lacking a college degree — leading the field by 8 percentage points in Iowa and tied for first place in New Hampshire with Bush, according to the average of recent polls compiled by RealClearPolitics. . . .
"With a complexion that can variously look ruddy or pale beneath his black hair, Walker looks more like your grocer or insurance agent than your president. He speaks calmly, directly, in a manner more warm than hot. The low-key demeanor belies his tough-as-nails ideological instincts in a way that supporters say makes him more broadly appealing and approachable than some charismatic conservative firebrands in the presidential mix.
"Walker notes that as a high school track runner he used to win by drafting behind the lead runner and then blowing past at the end.
' ""My coach would always tell me afterwards, 'Scott, you know that's great but it's a lot easier to win if you're just ahead.' In our case, we're not ahead. Jeb's clearly ahead in terms of finances, name recognition, otherwise, but having shown up on the radar screen, we'll take it,' he told the Tampa Bay Times over coffee in Manchester, N.H.
"'More than anything what it reflects I think is that people are paying attention to what's happened in America. People notice what we've done in Wisconsin — and not just in winning three elections in four years, but they saw the big reforms we took on. They saw the protests, they heard about the threats, they saw the pushback and they said, 'Hey, this guy in Wisconsin didn't back down. He won without caving.'
• • •
"Even in Florida, home turf of 2016 contenders Bush and Marco Rubio, Walker is making inroads. A new Public Policy Polling survey shows Bush leading Walker among likely Republican voters 25 percent to 17 percent, followed by 15 percent for Rubio. Among Florida Republicans describing themselves as 'very conservative,' Bush actually trails Walker, 23 percent to 19 percent.
"The Wisconsin governor has made at least seven trips, mostly below the radar, to southeast and southwest Florida — a mecca for Midwestern transplants. In a state where Bush overwhelmingly controls the GOP money machine, Walker has several top Republican fundraisers, and millionaire and billionaire donors actively helping him.
"Among them: former dairy company executive and Republican Jewish Coalition leader Marc Goldman of Boca Raton; Dr. Jeffrey Feingold of Boca Raton, another RJC leader; veteran Republican fundraiser Gay Gaines of Palm Beach; billionaire couple Frayda and George Lindemann of Palm Beach; oil company executive Lee Hanley and his wife, Allie, of Palm Beach; hedge fund manager Ron Santella of Naples; and insurance company executive Glen Blauch of Naples.
"'Scott Walker by his deeds has shown himself to be the kind of leader that people throughout the country are looking for,' Goldman said. 'The problems we face have become so deep and so fraught that only someone who has proven they are willing and able to deal with the fallout and flak that comes when dealing with these problems is what's needed if we're going to turn the country around.' . . .
"On a snowy afternoon in New Hampshire, John Bassett turned out to hear Ted Cruz talk to GOP activists and loved his uncompromising and fiery speech about 'lawless' President Barack Obama. But, Bassett said, winning is the real goal, so Walker probably will earn his vote.
"'We definitely need fresh blood, not another Bush,' he said. 'And as much as I support Ted Cruz, Scott Walker seems a lot less polarizing. He has real appeal to the common man, and that's important.'"
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3/27/15 Emerging details of possible Iranian nuclear deal draw bipartisan ire FoxNews
"Emerging details of a possible nuclear deal with Iran have drawn sharp criticism from congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who say the U.S. and its international partners may be ceding too much as a key deadline nears.
"If reports are true, 'then we are not inching closer to Iran’s negotiating position, but leaping toward it with both feet,' charged Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a vocal critic of the direction of the talks.
"'My fear is that we are no longer guided by the principle that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal,’ but instead we are negotiating ‘any deal for a deal’s sake.’'
"The deal is not done, but sources tell FoxNews.com negotiations seem to be reaching a climax at the P5+1 talks in Lausanne, Switzerland. Lawmakers, meanwhile, appear to be getting more restive about whether the demands on Iran will be tough enough.
"Details of the emerging deal include a possible trade-off which would allow Iran to run several hundred centrifuges in a once-top secret, fortified bunker site at Fordo, in exchange for limits on enrichment and nuclear research and development at other sites -- in particular, Iran's main facility at Natanz.
"The terms of the agreement have not been confirmed and were shared with The Associated Press by officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"According to the AP report, no centrifuges at Fordo would be used to enrich uranium, but would be fed elements like zinc, xenon and germanium for separating out isotopes for medicine, industry or science.
"Initially, the P5+1 partners, which include the U.S., U.K., Russia, France, China and Germany, had wanted all centrifuges stripped away from the Fordo facility. However, under this reported deal, Iranian scientists would be prohibited from working on any nuclear research or development program there, and the number of centrifuges allowed would not be enough to produce the amount of uranium it takes to make a bomb within a year anyway, [emphasis added] according to the officials.
"The site also would be subject to international inspections.
"But that did not seem to boost the confidence of detractors. In a symbolic statement underscoring the concerns of many lawmakers, the Senate also voted unanimously late Thursday for a non-binding Iran amendment -- to an unrelated budget measure. The amendment endorses the principles of separate legislation that would re-impose waived sanctions and level new ones on Iran if President Obama 'cannot make a determination and certify that Iran is complying' with an interim agreement or any new one that is established in current talks.
"Last Friday, 367 House lawmakers, including 129 Democrats, also wrote to Obama warning that a deal must 'foreclose any pathway to a bomb' before they’ll support legislation lifting sanctions on Tehran. The letter was spearheaded by Reps. Ed Royce, R-Calif., and Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"It is not clear whether the recent details emerging from the talks would satisfy that.
"But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also spoke out, calling them 'disturbing.'
"'[The Iranians] have been cheating for the last 20 years, this facility [Fordo] was found out in 2009. At the end of the day it is a hardened site. To allow enrichment here would be, I think, very irresponsible,' he said in an interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News' 'On the Record' on Thursday.
"'It would be delusional for any P5+1 agreement to allow [Iran] to enrich in a fortified facility,' Graham added. 'The Arabs are not going to accept such a deal, and they’ll get a bomb of their own, then you’re on the road to Armageddon.'
"Other observers of the agreement say the critics are rushing unnecessarily to judgment.
"'We don’t know whether the reports are true –' . . . "
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3/27/15 Texas governor Greg Abbott on border tour with Scott Walker FoxNews
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker tours Texas-Mexico border with Gov. Greg Abbott
[Click the date to access this important video.]
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3/27/15 Bolton: To stop Iran, bomb Iran FoxNews
Fox News contributor defends controversial column [Click the date to access this video.]
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3/27/15
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3/27/15 Obama’s Two Obsessions: Weaken Israel and Empty Gitmo
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3/26/15 Greta: is Pres. Obama snubbing the Constitution? Greta Van Susteren, FoxNews
"A potential nuclear deal with Iran is a treaty. Does Pres. Obama know that?"
[Click the date to access this video and hang on long enough to hear another video of a clear associated danger.]
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3/26/15 US Declassifies Document Revealing Israel's Nuclear Program
"But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel's nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.
"The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu's March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran's nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.
"Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel's sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.
"The 386-page report entitled 'Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations' gives a detailed description of how Israel advanced its military technology and developed its nuclear infrastructure and research in the 1970s and 1980s.
"Israel is 'developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level,' reveals the report, stating that in the 1980s Israelis were reaching the ability to create bombs considered a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.
"The revelation marks a first in which the US published in a document a description of how Israel attained hydrogen bombs.
"The report also notes research laboratories in Israel 'are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories,' the key labs in developing America's nuclear arsenal.
"Israel's nuclear infrastructure is 'an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories,' it adds.
"'As far as nuclear technology is concerned the Israelis are roughly where the U.S. was in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to 1960,' the report reveals, noting a time frame just after America tested its first hydrogen bomb.
"Institute for Defense Analysis, a federally funded agency operating under the Pentagon, penned the report back in 1987.
"Aside from nuclear capabilities, the report revealed Israel at the time had 'a totally integrated effort in systems development throughout the nation,' with electronic combat all in one 'integrated system, not separated systems for the Army, Navy and Air Force.' It even acknowledged that in some cases, Israeli military technology 'is more advanced than in the U.S.'
"Declassifying the report comes at a sensitive timing as noted above, and given that the process to have it published was started three years ago, that timing is seen as having been the choice of the American government.
"US journalist Grant Smith petitioned to have the report published based on the Freedom of Information Act. Initially the Pentagon took its time answering, leading Smith to sue, and a District Court judge to order the Pentagon to respond to the request.
"Smith, who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy, reportedly said he thinks this is the first time the US government has officially confirmed that Israel is a nuclear power, a status that Israel has long been widely known to have despite being undeclared."
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3/26/15 Bergdahl Deal Is No Surprise Coming from the Man Who Leaked Israel's
Nuclear Secrets Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: The Obama "Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel’s nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced," on purpose. They've not confirmed that they have a nuclear bomb. There are many resaons for this, at the top of the list is "to avoid a regional nuclear arms race."
Without the official confirmation or admission from Israel that they've got the bomb, the other nations in the region that do not can't say, "Well, hey, they've got it! They've got it! We should have one, too." It's always been in our arsenal to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon, never having confirmed the Israelis do. Well, Obama's taken care of that. We just revealed it! This is unprecedented, and this is Obama. I'm certain it's because his nose is out of joint 'cause he thinks Netanyahu disrespected him by showing up over here and giving that speech to a joint session of Congress.
This documents all the way back 1987, folks. "[B]y publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel's nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth." Well, here we go. We're in the midst of talking nukes with Iran, and we're being told that the Iranians are gonna be able to get a nuke in ten years but we're gonna try to talk 'em out of ever using it. Now we've got an AP exclusive report that we are letting them ramp up their use of centrifuges.
And on top of that, we release a document that makes it official -- and in diplomatic circles this is big. Common sense doesn't count in diplomacy. What everybody knows to be true doesn't matter 'til somebody actually admits it, and nobody's ever admitted that Israel has nukes. It's always been an assumption and everybody's had an assumption, and everybody's pretty sure that they do. But it's never been officially stated, and now it has been. The Obama Regime has released it.
Well, you know what the Iranians are gonna do with that. Exactly what you do when you find out your neighbor's got something that you covet. "Well, why can't I? They've got it! We are now threatened. You have now admitted that the Israelis have nukes. We are entitled to our own as a defensive nature," and Obama's saying, "How can we say 'no' to that?" So, I don't know. I'm kind of worn out analyzing this administration like any other administration's been analyzed, day to day, within the context of normal political discourse.
[One might ask is Obama the stupidest man in the world or an out-and-out traitor.]
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3/26/15
"The Obama administration is giving in to Iranian demands about the scope of its nuclear program as negotiators work to finalize a framework agreement in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the administration’s position in the negotiations.
"U.S. negotiators are said to have given up ground on demands that Iran be forced to disclose the full range of its nuclear activities at the outset of a nuclear deal, a concession experts say would gut the verification the Obama administration has vowed would stand as the crux of a deal with Iran.
"Until recently, the Obama administration had maintained that it would guarantee oversight on Tehran’s program well into the future, and that it would take the necessary steps to ensure that oversight would be effective. The issue has now emerged as a key sticking point in the talks.
"Concern from sources familiar with U.S. concessions in the talks comes amid reports that Iran could be permitted to continue running nuclear centrifuges at an underground site once suspected of housing illicit activities.
"This type of concession would allow Iran to continue work related to its nuclear weapons program, even under the eye of international inspectors. If Iran removes inspectors—as it has in the past—it would be left with a nuclear infrastructure immune from a strike by Western forces.
"'Once again, in the face of Iran’s intransigence, the U.S. is leading an effort to cave even more toward Iran—this time by whitewashing Tehran’s decades of lying about nuclear weapons work and current lack of cooperation with the [International Atomic Energy Agency],' said one Western source briefed on the talks but who was not permitted to speak on record.
"With the White House pressing to finalize a deal, U.S. diplomats have moved further away from their demands that Iran be subjected to oversight over its nuclear infrastructure.
"'Instead of ensuring that Iran answers all the outstanding questions about the past and current military dimensions of their nuclear work in order to obtain sanctions relief, the U.S. is now revising down what they need to do,' said the source. 'That is a terrible mistake—if we don’t have a baseline to judge their past work, we can’t tell if they are cheating in the future, and if they won’t answer now, before getting rewarded, why would they come clean in the future?'
"The United States is now willing to let Iran keep many of its most controversial military sites closed to inspectors until international sanctions pressure has been lifted, according to sources.
"This scenario has been criticized by nuclear experts, including David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
"Albright told Congress in November that 'a prerequisite for any comprehensive agreement is for the IAEA to know when Iran sought nuclear weapons, how far it got, what types it sought to develop, and how and where it did this work.'
"'The IAEA needs a good baseline of Iran’s military nuclear activities, including the manufacturing of equipment for the program and any weaponization related studies, equipment, and locations,' Albright said.
"One policy expert familiar with the concessions told the Washington Free Beacon that it would be difficult for the administration to justify greater concessions given the centrality of this issue in the broader debate.
"'The Obama administration has gone all-in on the importance of verification,' said the source, who asked for anonymity because the administration has been known to retaliate against critics in the policy community. 'But without knowing what the Iranians have it’s impossible for the IAEA to verify that they’ve given it up.'
"A lesser emphasis is also being placed on Iran coming clean about its past efforts to build nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic continues to stall United Nations efforts to determine the extent of its past weapons work, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"By placing disclosure of Iran’s past military efforts on the back burner, the administration could harm the ability of outside inspectors to take full inventory of Iran’s nuclear know-how, according to sources familiar with the situation.
"It also could jeopardize efforts to keep Iran at least one year away from building a bomb, sources said.
"On the diplomatic front, greater concessions are fueling fears among U.S. allies that Iran will emerge from the negations as a stronger regional power.
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3/25/15 Meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" By Jon Roland, Constitution Society, Constitution.org
"Under the English common law tradition, crimes were defined through a legacy of court proceedings and decisions that punished offenses not because they were prohibited by statutes, but because they offended the sense of justice of the people and the court. Whether an offense could qualify as punishable depended largely on the obligations of the offender, and the obligations of a person holding a high position meant that some actions, or inactions, could be punishable if he did them, even though they would not be if done by an ordinary person.
"Offenses of this kind survive today in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It recognizes as punishable offenses such things as perjury of oath, refusal to obey orders, abuse of authority, dereliction of duty, failure to supervise, moral turpitude, and conduct unbecoming. These would not be offenses if committed by a civilian with no official position, but they are offenses which bear on the subject's fitness for the duties he holds, which he is bound by oath or affirmation to perform.
[This authoritative article deserves your full attention and consideration. Whether or not impeachment of President Obama would result in conviction by the current U.S. Senate, on the basie of this article, is immaterial. One would think that even our establishment media would sufficiently air the the seriousness of the charges by the U. S. House of Representatives to alert more of the public.]
"Perjury is usually defined as 'lying under oath'. That is not quite right. The original meaning was 'violation of one's oath (or affirmation)'.
"The word 'perjury' is usually defined today as 'lying under oath about a material matter', but that is not its original or complete meaning, which is 'violation of an oath'. We can see this by consulting the original Latin from which the term comes. From An Elementary Latin Dictionary, by Charlton T. Lewis (1895), Note that the letter 'j' is the letter 'i' in Latin.
- periurium, i, n,, a false oath, perjury.
- periurus, adj., oath-breaking, false to vows, perjured. iuro, avi, atus, are, to swear, take an oath.
- iurator, oris, m., a swearer.
- iuratus, adj., sworn under oath, bound by an oath.
- ius, iuris, that which is binding, right, justice, duty.
- per, ... IV. Of means or manner, through, by, by means of, ... under pretense of, by the pretext of, ....
"By Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, the president must swear: 'I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' He is bound by this oath in all matters until he leaves office. No additional oath is needed to bind him to tell the truth in anything he says, as telling the truth is pursuant to all matters except perhaps those relating to national security. Any public statement is perjury if it is a lie, and not necessary to deceive an enemy.
"When a person takes an oath (or affirmation) before giving testimony, he is assuming the role of an official, that of 'witness under oath', for the duration of his testimony. That official position entails a special obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and in that capacity, one is punishable in a way he would not be as an ordinary person not under oath. Therefore, perjury is a high crime.
"An official such as the president does not need to take a special oath to become subject to the penalties of perjury. He took an oath, by Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, to 'faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States' and to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States' to the best of his ability. While he holds that office, he is always under oath, and lying at any time constitutes perjury if it is not justified for national security.
"Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr erred in presenting in his referral only those offenses which could be 'laid at the feet' of the president. He functioned like a prosecutor of an offense against criminal statutes that apply to ordinary persons and are provable by the standards of 'proof beyond a reasonable doubt'. That is not to say that such offenses are not also high crimes or misdemeanors when committed by an official bound by oath. Most such offenses are. But 'high crimes and misdemeanors' also includes other offenses, applicable only to a public official, for which the standard is 'preponderance of evidence'. Holding a particular office of trust is not a right, but a privilege, and removal from such office is not a punishment. Disablement of the right to hold any office in the future would be a punishment, and therefore the standards of 'proof beyond a reasonable doubt' would apply before that ruling could be imposed by the Senate.
"It should be noted, however, that when an offense against a statute is also a 'high crime or misdemeanor', it may be, and usually is, referred to by a different name, when considered as such. Thus, an offense like 'obstruction of justice' or 'subornation of perjury' may become 'abuse of authority' when done by an official bound by oath. As such it would be grounds for impeachment and removal from office, but would be punishable by its statutory name once the official is out of office.
"An executive official is ultimately responsible for any failures of his subordinates and for their violations of the oath he and they took, which means violations of the Constitution and the rights of persons. It is not necessary to be able to prove that such failures or violations occurred at his instigation or with his knowledge, to be able, in Starr's words, to 'lay them at the feet' of the president. It is sufficient to show, on the preponderance of evidence, that the president was aware of misconduct on the part of his subordinates, or should have been, and failed to do all he could to remedy the misconduct, including termination and prosecution of the subordinates and compensation for the victims or their heirs. The president's subordinates include everyone in the executive branch, and their agents and contractors. It is not limited to those over whom he has direct supervision. He is not protected by 'plausible deniability'. He is legally responsible for everything that everyone in the executive branch is doing.
"Therefore, the appropriate subject matter for an impeachment and removal proceeding is the full range of offenses against the Constitution and against the rights of persons committed by subordinate officials and their agents which have not been adequately investigated or remedied. The massacre at Waco, the assault at Ruby Ridge, and many, many other illegal or excessive assaults by federal agents, and the failure of the president to take action against the offenders, is more than enough to justify impeachment and removal from office on grounds of dereliction of duty. To these we could add the many suspicious incidents that indicate covered up crimes by federal agents, including the suspicious deaths of persons suspected of being knowledgeable of wrongdoing by the president or others in the executive branch, or its contractors.
"The impeachment and removal process should be a debate on the entire field of proven and suspected misconduct by federal officials and agents under this president, and if judged to have been excessive by reasonable standards, to be grounds for removal, even if direct complicity cannot be shown."
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3/22/15 Israel: Beware of Obama By Michael Goodwin, NYPost
"First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet.
"He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican 'enemies.' He abandons our allies, appeases tyrants, coddles adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast.
"Now he’s coming for Israel.
"Barack Obama’s promise to transform America was too modest. He is transforming the whole world before our eyes. Do you see it yet?
"Against the backdrop of the tsunami of trouble he has unleashed, Obama’s pledge to 'reassess' America’s relationship with Israel cannot be taken lightly. Already paving the way for an Iranian nuke, he is hinting he’ll also let the other anti-Semites at Turtle Bay have their way. That could mean American support for punitive Security Council resolutions or for Palestinian statehood initiatives. It could mean both, or something worse.
"Whatever form the punishment takes, it will aim to teach Bibi Netanyahu never again to upstage him. And to teach Israeli voters never again to elect somebody Obama doesn’t like.
"Apologists and wishful thinkers, including some Jews, insist Obama realizes that the special relationship between Israel and the United States must prevail and that allowing too much daylight between friends will encourage enemies.
"Those people are slow learners, or, more dangerously, deny-ists.
"If Obama’s six years in office teach us anything, it is that he is impervious to appeals to good sense. Quite the contrary. Even respectful suggestions from supporters that he behave in the traditions of American presidents fill him with angry determination to do it his way.
"For Israel, the consequences will be intended. Those who make excuses for Obama’s policy failures — naive, bad advice, bad luck — have not come to grips with his dark impulses and deep-seated rage.
"His visceral dislike for Netanyahu is genuine, but also serves as a convenient fig leaf for his visceral dislike of Israel. The fact that it’s personal with Netanyahu doesn’t explain six years of trying to bully Israelis into signing a suicide pact with Muslims bent on destroying them. Netanyahu’s only sin is that he puts his nation’s security first and refuses to knuckle under to Obama’s endless demands for unilateral concessions.
"That refusal is now the excuse to act against Israel. Consider that, for all the upheaval around the world, the president rarely has a cross word for, let alone an open dispute with, any other foreign leader. He calls Great Britain’s David Cameron 'bro' and praised Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed Morsi, who had called Zionists, 'the descendants of apes and pigs.'
"Obama asked Vladimir Putin for patience, promising 'more flexibility' after the 2012 election, a genuflection that earned him Russian aggression. His Asian pivot was a head fake, and China is exploiting the vacuum. None of those leaders has gotten the Netanyahu treatment, which included his being forced to use the White House back door on one trip, and the cold shoulder on another.
"It is a clear and glaring double standard.
"Most troubling is Obama’s bended-knee deference to Iran’s Supreme Leader, which has been repaid with 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel' demonstrations in Tehran and expanded Iranian military action in other countries.
"The courtship reached the height of absurdity last week, when Obama wished Iranians a happy Persian new year by equating Republican critics of his nuclear deal with the resistance of theocratic hard-liners, saying both 'oppose a diplomatic solution.' That is a damnable slur given that a top American military official estimates that Iranian weapons, proxies and trainers killed 1,500 US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who in their right mind would trust such an evil regime with a nuke?
"Yet Netanyahu, the leader of our only reliable ally in the region, is repeatedly singled out for abuse. He alone is the target of an orchestrated attempt to defeat him at the polls, with Obama political operatives, funded in part by American taxpayers, working to elect his opponent.
"They failed and Netanyahu prevailed because Israelis see him as their best bet to protect them. Their choice was wise, but they better buckle up because it’s Israel’s turn to face the wrath of Obama, "
[It's more than time for Obama to feel the wrath of America, Republicans and Democrats.]
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3/21/15 Khamenei calls ‘Death to America’ as Kerry hails progress on nuke deal
"Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for 'Death to America' on Saturday, a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Iran to seize a 'historic opportunity' for a nuclear deal and a better future, and as US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed substantial progress toward an accord.
"Khamenei told a crowd in Tehran that Iran would not capitulate to Western demands. When the crowd started shouting, 'Death to America,' the ayatollah responded: 'Of course yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure.'
"'They insist on putting pressure on our dear people’s economy,' he said, referring to economic sanctions aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear program. 'What is their goal? Their goal is to put the people against the system,' he said. 'The politics of America is to create insecurity,' he added, referring both to US pressure on Iran and elsewhere in the region.
"Khamenei’s comments contrasted with those of Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who said 'achieving a deal is possible' by the March 31 target date for a preliminary accord.
"Kerry was more circumspect, as he spoke to reporters after six days of negotiations in the Swiss city of Lausanne. The talks, made 'substantial progress,' he said, but 'important gaps remain'. . . ."
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3/21/15 Israel's future: Hillary Clinton's silence on Netanyahu's win speaks volumes
By Jon Kraushar, FoxNews
"Following his election victory, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at length with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, and with President Obama, but there’s no sign that Netanyahu has heard from Hillary Clinton, who is expected to announce soon that she will run for U.S. president.
"This stands in stark contrast to several Republicans contemplating presidential bids who rushed to congratulate Netanyahu right after his “against all odds” win for his Likud Party. . . .
"Clinton’s history with Netanyahu includes, as MSNBC.com pointed out that, “…longtime [Hillary] Clinton message guru Paul Begala went to Israel to help Netanyahu’s rival, and several strategists who worked for Barack Obama and could potentially join a Clinton campaign—led by field organizer Jeremy Bird—are working with a nonprofit that opposes Netanyahu. Clinton’s longtime pollster, Stan Greenberg, has worked for the opposition Labor Party in the past as well.
"But whatever reservations Clinton has about Netanyahu, she needs to go on the record (as her Republican counterparts have) about where she stands regarding what Megyn Kelly rightly referred to as an American-Israeli relationship that is 'critical for both sides'—including a working relationship with Mr. Netanyahu. . . .
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3/21/15 Israeli PM Netanyahu: Peace agreement must be negotiated, not imposed
The Kelly File, FoxNews [Click the date to access the video.]
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3/21/15 Our Supreme Leader is a Supreme Fool
"I know that Barack Obama fancies himself a grand strategist the likes of which the world has never seen. (Okay, that may be true, but not in the way he thinks.) In an important essay last month at Mosaic, Michael Doran drew a revealing portrait of “Obama’s secret Iran agenda” that cast light on dark corners.
"If you want to understand Obama’s strategery, Doran’s essay is the place to go. Today Steve Hayes adds a timely update in his Weekly Standard editorial 'Obama’s Iran agenda.'
"Whatever the sophisticated thinking behind it, Obama’s strategy looks like appeasement. It certainly has a lot in common with it. Indeed, we seem to have entered the tertiary stage of appeasement, in which wishful thinking and self-deception are the dominant characteristics.
"To take one example, I give you President Obama’s annual statement on Nowruz, the Persian new year. The Wall Street Journal has posted the text of Obama’s statement here. The White House has posted the video below of Obama reading the statement. It is addressed to 'the people and the leaders of Iran.' [Click the date if you want to access the video.]
"In his statement Obama says: 'My message to you—the people of Iran—is that, together, we have to speak up for the future we seek.' Obama addresses the people of Iran as though they are free to speak their minds.
"That is immediately followed by this: 'As I have said many times before, I believe that our countries should be able to resolve this issue peacefully, with diplomacy. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, and President Rouhani has said that Iran would never develop a nuclear weapon.'
"As we have noted several times, the alleged fatwa doesn’t exist. Obama’s citation of it is evidence that we have entered the tertiary stage of his diplomatic vision.
"But wait! There is more.
"Obama’s citation of President Rouahani’s statement as though it is worthy of belief is laughable. This is the guy who bragged openly on Iranian state television about how he had helped flout a 2003 agreement with the IAEA in which Iran had promised to suspend all uranium enrichment and certain other nuclear activities.
"And of course we must have a classic iteration of his political opponents’ position: '[T]here are people, in both our countries and beyond, who oppose a diplomatic resolution.' He didn’t say they favor war, or call out the Jooz, but he didn’t have to. His target audience understands.
"There is so much that is wrong with this short statement; it warrants the closest examination. The charitable interpretation is that Our Supreme Leader is a Supreme Fool."
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3/21/15 Petraeus Puts the Icing on Bibi's Iran Cake By Larry Kudlow, NewsMax
"Don’t just rely on Benjamin Netanyahu’s passionate
advice to Congress on his way to re-election that
Iran is our arch enemy.
"Now we have the counsel of retired general David Petraeus, who gave a
remarkable interview this week to the Washington
Post.
"Petraeus agrees with Netanyahu: Iran, not ISIS, is the real enemy.
"His message: 'I would argue that the foremost threat to Iraq’s long-term
stability and the broader regional equilibrium is
not the Islamic State; rather, it is Shiite
militias, many backed by — and some guided by —
Iran.'
"The general adds, 'Longer-term, Iranian-backed Shia militia could emerge
as the pre-eminent power in the country, one that is
outside the control of the government and instead
answerable to Tehran.'
(Italics mine.)
"Netanyahu is arguing against a bad U.S.-Iran deal that might end the
economic sanctions and permit Iranian nuclear
development after 10 years. (Of course, nobody
believes Iran will wait for, or permit, true
verification.)
"But the thrust of the Petraeus interview is that unless U.S. military
strategy completely changes, Iran is going to take
over Iraq.
"Petraeus gives ample evidence of this: These Shiite militias are being
run by Iran’s top military man, General Qasem
Soleimani. He’s the head of the Quds Force of the
Revolutionary Guard. He has been spotted and filmed
on the ground in Iraq. And he has been
making battlefield tours the way Petraeus did during
the surge.
"In the Post interview, Petraeus relates a remarkable story: In the midst
of the surge, the general got a note from Soleimani:
'General Petraeus, you should be aware that I, Qasem
Soleimani, control Iran’s policy for Iraq,
Syria, Lebanaon, Gaza, and Afghanistan.'
(Italics mine.) Petraeus told the intermediary he
could tell Soleimani to 'pound sand.'
"Overall, Petraeus makes it very clear that the current Iranian regime
'is not our ally in the Middle East,' is part of the
problem, not the solution, and is 'deeply hostile to
us and our friends.'
"Without ever mentioning Obama’s name, it’s clear that Petraeus is
splitting from administration policy.
"And isn’t all this what Bibi Netanyahu told the U.S. Congress? Didn’t he
say Iran’s goal is to control the whole area, and of
course attempt at some point to blast Israel off the
face of the Earth?
"So why are President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry
trying to do business with Iran? If we know who
the militias really are and know that Iran wants to
take over Iraq and control the whole region, why is
the United States talking about lifting economic
sanctions and negotiating some sort of
accommodationist deal with our arch enemy?
"And why is the U.S. doing this with oil down 50 percent and Iran a
high-cost producer?
"The economic table is set for a catastrophic fiscal blow to Iran — our
enemy.
"According to a Wall Street Journal news report, Iran needs $130.70 per
barrel of oil to balance its budget. But the price
of Brent crude is about $55, or roughly 60 percent
below what Iran needs.
"It’s hard to get credible economic numbers for Iran, but it’s a safe
guess that the budget is most of the
state-run economy. Therefore, cheap oil is deadly
for Iran.
"So I ask again: Why are we helping them? We’ve got Iran on the ropes.
Why loosen the sanctions?
"Talking to the Post, General Petraeus acknowledges that we moved troops
out of Iraq way too soon and in doing so sent a
signal of weakness that we were pulling back from
the Middle East overall.
"I would guess that these last-ditch efforts at an Iranian treaty will be
perceived as even greater U.S. weakness in
the Middle East.
"Who knows if this can be stopped.
"Surely the Senate must vote on any U.S.-Iran deal.
"But the conundrum is, if we know Iran is our enemy, if we know Iran
wants to conquer the Middle East, if we know Iran
wants to destroy Israel, if we know Iran is
continuing to develop nuclear weapons, and if we’re
hearing all this not just from the Israeli prime
minister, who has the burden of defending his
nation, but also from a retired general who is out
of office and has no skin in the game, why won’t the
present administration come to acknowledge the real
situation, reverse course, and halt any efforts to
placate our arch enemy Iran?
"Why do we even have to ask this question?"
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3/20/15 No peace in our time By Charles Krauthammer, Jewiah World Review
"Benjamin Netanyahu's stunning election victory, none is more ubiquitous than the idea that peace prospects are now dead because Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state while he is Israel's prime minister.
"I have news for the lowing herds: There would be no peace and no Palestinian state if Isaac Herzog were prime minister either. Or Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert for that matter. The latter two were (non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine uprooted — only to be rudely rejected.
"This is not ancient history. This is 2000, 2001 and 2008 — three astonishingly concessionary peace offers within the past 15 years. Every one rejected.
"The fundamental reality remains: This generation of Palestinian leadership — from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas — has never and will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a Jewish state. And without that, no Israeli government of any kind will agree to a Palestinian state.
"Today, however, there is a second reason a peace agreement is impossible: the supreme instability of the entire Middle East. For half a century, it was run by dictators no one liked but with whom you could do business. For example, the 1974 Israel-Syria disengagement agreement yielded more than four decades of near-total quiet on the border because the Assad dictatorships so decreed.
"That authoritarian order is gone, overthrown by the Arab Spring. Syria is wracked by a multi-sided civil war that has killed 200,000 people and that has al-Qaeda allies, Hezbollah fighters, government troops and even the occasional Iranian general prowling the Israeli border. Who inherits? No one knows.
"In the last four years, Egypt has had two revolutions and three radically different regimes. Yemen went from pro-American to Iranian client so quickly the United States had to evacuate its embassy in a panic. Libya has gone from Moammar Gaddafi's crazy authoritarianism to jihadi-dominated civil war. On Wednesday, Tunisia, the one relative success of the Arab Spring, suffered a major terror attack that the prime minister said "targets the stability of the country."
"From Mali to Iraq, everything is in flux. Amid this mayhem, by what magic would the West Bank, riven by a bitter Fatah-Hamas rivalry, be an island of stability? What would give any Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement even a modicum of durability?
"There was a time when Arafat commanded the Palestinian movement the way Gaddafi commanded Libya. Abbas commands no one. Why do you think he is in the 11th year of a four-year term, having refused to hold elections for the last five years? Because he's afraid he would lose to Hamas.
"With or without elections, the West Bank could fall to Hamas overnight. At which point fire rains down on Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and the entire Israeli urban heartland — just as it rains down on southern Israel from Gaza when it suits Hamas, which has turned that first Palestinian state into a terrorist fire base.
"Any Arab-Israeli peace settlement would require Israel to make dangerous and inherently irreversible territorial concessions on the West Bank in return for promises and guarantees. Under current conditions, these would be written on sand.
"Israel is ringed by jihadi terrorists in Sinai, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Islamic State and Iranian proxies in Syria, and a friendly but highly fragile Jordan. Israelis have no idea who ends up running any of these places. Will the Islamic State advance to an Israeli border? Will Iranian Revolutionary Guards appear on the Golan Heights? No one knows.
"Well, say the critics. Israel could be given outside guarantees. Guarantees? Like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which the United States, Britain and Russia guaranteed Ukraine's "territorial integrity"? Like the red line in Syria? Like the unanimous U.N. resolutions declaring illegal any Iranian enrichment of uranium — now effectively rendered null?
"Peace awaits three things. Eventual Palestinian acceptance of a Jewish state. A Palestinian leader willing to sign a deal based on that premise. A modicum of regional stability that allows Israel to risk the potentially fatal withdrawals such a deal would entail.
"I believe such a day will come. But there is zero chance it comes now or even soon. That's essentially what Netanyahu said Thursday in explaining — and softening — his no-Palestinian-state statement.
"In the interim, I understand the crushing disappointment of the Obama administration and its media poodles at the spectacular success of the foreign leader they loathe more than any other on the planet. The consequent seething and sputtering are understandable, if unseemly. Blaming Netanyahu for banishing peace, however, is mindless."
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3/20/15 Obama Takes His Rage to World Stage By David Limbaugh CNSNews
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3/20/15 On Iran, Obama Is Ignoring Public Opinion at His Own Peril
By Josh Kraushaar, National Journal The president's pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran underscores the lengths to which he is willing to bypass public resistance.
3/20/15 Glenn Beck: Obama Is ‘Special Kind of Liar’ Who Won’t Stop Lying
By Josh Feldman, Mediaite
"'The fact is,' Beck said, 'the president is a special kind of liar because he can lie about things that have long been proven to be lies and then… he actually has the nerve to tell you to look up the evidence, when the evidence, if you look it up, would prove it to be a lie.'
"He ran through recent comments by the president, taking a shot at the critics of Obamacare for making consistently wrong predictions, 'evidence be damned.' Beck went from mocking the president to seething with anger at him in a manner of minutes as he played audio clips showing a few administration flip-flops on the health care law.' "He concluded that “there are literally hundreds of lies that we could highlight from this man,' but didn’t have time to go through more of them.
"Watch the video below, via TheBlaze TV: [Click the date to access the video.]"
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3/20/15
"Twenty-seven Senate Republicans have introduced a bill to halt the regulations as a threat to the U.S. energy boom.
"The Obama administration unveiled the first major national safety restrictions for fracking on Friday, touching off a swift backlash from the president’s critics in Congress and the energy industry. [every possible effort to diminish America continues.]
"Two oil industry groups immediately sued to challenge the rules, calling them “' reaction to unsubstantiated concerns,' while 27 Senate Republicans introduced legislation to block them from taking effect. Meanwhile, green groups were divided on whether the long-awaited regulations go far enough. . . .
"The new rules are the federal government’s most comprehensive foray to date toward regulating the technology at the heart of the U.S. oil and gas boom, addressing worries such as potential dangers to drinking water. They also offered oil and gas supporters new room to accuse President Barack Obama of seeking to throttle fossil-fuel production, despite his repeated boasts about the nation’s booming energy supplies."
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3/20/15 The Mind of Muhammad By F. W. Burleigh, American Thinker
"The fundamental problem with Islam is the belief that God talked to Muhammad and dictated the contents of the Koran to him. Muslims are indoctrinated into believing this is so, and they act on the numerous incitements to violence that they find in it.
"As with much of the Koran, substitute Muhammad for Allah and the real meaning comes through. What these verses mean in plain language is that the Jews surrendered after a three-week siege, hoping Muhammad would exile them as he had done to the other Jewish tribes, but he beheaded the men and boys -- somewhere between 400 and 900 with 700 being the likely number of victims. He happily seized all of their wealth of farms, date plantations, fortresses, and homes, and he enslaved all of the woman and children. The booty was distributed among his followers who participated in the siege -- minus the 20 percent cut he kept for himself. The likely reason he attacked the Jews was to seize their wealth to pay off his followers for the hardships they had endured during the Battle of the Trench. The fact they had briefly taken sides with the Meccans was merely the pretext. . . . '
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3/19/15 Spite: Angry Obama Doubles Down on Iran Deal, Punishes Israel After Netanyahu Victory
Guy Benson, Town Hall [Click the date to read the full article. You should to be fully informed and to get its full impact.]
"My point was pretty simple. This president has extremely thin skin and extraordinary self regard. He views rejections of his agenda as personal affronts; in his mind, such setbacks not are not occasions for reflection and reconsideration, but unforgivable provocations and betrayals. Hence the White House's assertion that Obama feels 'liberated' by Republicans' 2014 sweep, evidenced by his executive amnesty power grab -- which he'd previously dismissed as illegal, and against which the GOP had successfully campaigned. Given Obama's vindictive posture against political opponents and voters who don't accede to his wishes, I reasoned, there was a good chance he'd turn his petty instincts against Israelis and their leader. Our president personally despises Netanyahu, partly because Israel's Prime Minister has demonstrated the temerity to challenge and defy him in public. By endorsing Netanyahu, despite alleged and unseemly American influence, the Israeli electorate explicitly crossed Obama, an inexpiable sin. Indeed, there will be consequences. . . ."
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3/19/15 ISIS claims responsibility for deadly Tunisia museum attack FoxNews
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3/18/15 Netanyahu surges to victory in Israeli vote By ARON HELLER, APNews.MyWay
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud Party scored a resounding victory in Israel's election, final results showed Wednesday, a stunning turnaround after a tight race that had put his lengthy rule in jeopardy.
Netanyahu surged ahead after a last-minute lurch to the right in which he opposed Palestinian statehood and vowed continued settlement construction, setting the stage for fresh confrontations with the White House just weeks after criticizing U.S. talks with Iran in a divisive address to Congress.
With nearly all votes counted, Likud appeared to have earned 30 out of parliament's 120 seats and was in a position to build with relative ease a coalition government with its nationalist, religious and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, a remnant of the biblical Jewish Temple and the holiest site where Jews can pray. "I'm touched by the weight of the responsibility that the people of Israel have put on my shoulders. I wish to say that I will do anything in my power to ensure the well-being and security of all the citizens of Israel," he said.
The election was widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu, who has governed for the past six years. Recent opinion polls indicated he was in trouble, giving chief rival Isaac Herzog's center-left Zionist Union a slight lead. Exit polls Tuesday showed the two sides deadlocked but once the actual results came pouring in early Wednesday, the Zionist Union dropped to just 24 seats.
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3/18/15 New rift opens between Obama, Netanyahu after election victory FoxNews
[Obama operatives using ACORN type tactics, funded by the administration's channeling of taxpayer dollars, in an effort to defeat Netanyahu certainly did not help. Note the establishment media did not report this, and after predicting a close election for some time is mum about the landslide.]
"After staying mum on Israeli issues in the run-up to the election, the White House on Wednesday broke its silence -- answering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's victory with fresh criticism and making clear that a new rift has opened between U.S. and Israeli leaders, this time over Palestinian statehood.
"In its first public response to Netanyahu's election triumph, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said President Obama still believes in a two-state solution. This was after Netanyahu, shortly before the vote, reversed his stance and stated he would not allow the creation of a Palestinian state.
"Earnest acknowledged Wednesday that the U.S. would have to 're-evaluate' its position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in light of those comments. But he stressed that Obama believes a two-state solution is best. And State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki clarified that the administration 'absolutely' will continue to push for this.
"Further, Earnest chided Netanyahu's Likud Party on Wednesday, saying the White House was 'deeply concerned' about divisive language emanating from Likud. He said the party had sought to marginalize Israel's minority Arabs, an apparent reference to social media posts the Likud distributed that warned Israelis about the danger of high turnout by Arab voters [that the Obama team probably helped in busing to the polls.]
"'These are views the administration intends to convey directly to the Israelis,' Earnest said.
"The comments suggest there is likely to be no thaw in the chilly relationship between Netanyahu's administration and the White House. Netanyahu's Likud won a major victory on Tuesday, leaving him poised to secure a third consecutive term as prime minister.
"While tensions have flared for years between the two leaders, the last several weeks have seen their relationship further fray.
"In the run-up to the election, Netanyahu took a hardline stance on the two issues on which his government and the Obama administration are most intertwined -- Iran nuclear talks and the seemingly far-off prospects for an agreement with the Palestinians.
"Netanyahu pronounced earlier this week he would not allow the creation of a Palestinian state -- something which not only Obama supports but is a key demand of the Palestinians for any peace agreement.
"Netanyahu also infuriated the White House early this month when he delivered a speech to the U.S. Congress criticizing an emerging nuclear deal with Iran.
"Secretary of State John Kerry and other international negotiators are scrambling to reach the framework for an Iran deal by the end of the month. Netanyahu, though, has warned that the details he's seen provide for Iran to eventually pursue a nuclear weapon years down the road, and has urged the U.S. to scrap the pending deal.
"With the victory of his Likud Party, Netanyahu is stronger-positioned to keep making that case on the international stage -- and needle Obama administration efforts to etch an agreement with Tehran.
"Earnest said Wednesday that Kerry has called to congratulate Netanyahu. Obama has not yet, but will in the coming days, according to Earnest. A day earlier, he insisted that Obama has 'no doubt' that the strong U.S.-Israel bond will endure 'far beyond this election' no matter the result.
"But David Axelrod, a former top adviser to Obama, tweeted overnight as returns were coming in: 'Tightness of exits in Israel suggests Bibi's shameful 11th hour demagoguery may have swayed enough votes to save him. But at what cost?'
"Speaking on CNN on Wednesday, White House Director of Political Strategy David Simas congratulated the Israeli people -- but notably, not Netanyahu personally.
"'We want to congratulate the Israeli people for the democratic process of the election they engaged in with all of the parties that engage in that election,' he said. 'As you know the hard work of coalition building now begins. Sometimes that takes a couple of weeks and we're going to give space to the formation of that coalition government and we're not going to weigh in one way of the other except to say that the United States and Israel have a historic and close relationship and that will continue going forward.'
"Indeed, Netanyahu's next step would be to build a coalition government.
"With nearly all the votes counted, Likud appeared to have earned 30 out of parliament's 120 seats and was in a position to build with relative ease a coalition government with its nationalist, religious and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies.
"The election was widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu, who has governed the country for the past six years. Recent opinion polls indicated he was in trouble, giving chief rival Isaac Herzog of the opposition Zionist Union a slight lead. Exit polls Tuesday showed the two sides deadlocked but once the actual results came pouring in early Wednesday, Likud soared forward. Zionist Union wound up with just 24 seats.
"Even before the final results were known, Netanyahu declared victory and pledged to form a new government quickly.
"'Against all odds, we achieved a great victory for the Likud,' Netanyahu told supporters at his election night headquarters. 'I am proud of the people of Israel, who in the moment of truth knew how to distinguish between what is important and what is peripheral, and to insist on what is important.'
"Netanyahu focused his campaign primarily on security issues, while his opponents instead pledged to address the country's high cost of living and accused the leader of being out of touch with everyday people.
"While his victory may rattle the Obama administration, conservatives worried about the Iran talks saw Netanyahu's election as a strong sign.
"Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is weighing another presidential bid, said in a written statement that 'it is time for the U.S. government to stand with Israel once again.' He told Fox News on Wednesday that Netanyahu has a clear 'mandate' and argued this is good not only for the U.S. but also other Middle Eastern countries worried about the prospect of a nuclear Iran.
"'The worst thing that can happen is to trust Iran,' Huckabee said.
"Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who also is flirting with another Republican presidential bid, likewise said in a statement Wednesday that, 'It is my great hope that our next President will be able to stand side-by-side with Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu' to 'defeat this Radical Islamist enemy and ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon.'"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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3/18/15 The Lesson of Netanyahu's Victory: Conservatism Will Defeat Barack Obama
Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpt
RUSH: Conservatism can beat Barack Obama. Conservatism can beat the Democrat Party. I'll tell you who needs to realize this is the Republican Party... Centrism will not beat Barack Obama. RINOs will not beat Barack Obama. Moderates will not beat Barack Obama. Republican Northeastern liberals, Rockefeller types, are not gonna beat Barack Obama. By Obama, I mean the Democrat Party, or Hillary Clinton, throw your name in there.
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"'I used to have significant criticism of Jimmy Carter,' said the former Republican vice president. 'But compared to Barack Obama and the damage he is doing to the nation — it's a tragedy, a real tragedy, and we are going to pay a hell of a price just trying to dig out from under his presidency.'"
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3/17/15 St. Patrick’s Day Miracle in Israel: Netanyahu Comes From Behind to Win
BBreitbart
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently defied the mainstream media and the Obama administration with a stunning, come-from-behind victory in Israel’s elections on Tuesday. Netanyahu’s Likud Party had been projected to lose to Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union by a margin of 26-22. Two exit polls released at the close of voting, however, suggested Likud would win, 28-27 (a third poll showed them tied). Netanyahu is now expected to form a new governing coalition.
"The results suggest that the race shifted dramatically in the last few days, as Netanyahu opted for an all-in, “gevalt” effort to rally his supporters.
"Netanyahu had three messages: first, that if Israelis wanted him to return to power, they would have to vote for his party; second, that he would not allow a Palestinian state to be created despite earlier commitments; third, that foreign donors and governments were mobilizing Arab voters, including some who oppose Israel’s existence, to turn out.
"It was a blunt, ugly message that may create future political and diplomatic problems for Netanyahu, but it appears to have worked.
"Meanwhile, the mainstream media are at a loss for words. They had expected Netanyahu to lose, perhaps even by a wide enough margin to put Herzog in the pole position to form a new government. They had expected economic issues to trump security issues, which were Netanyahu’s focus. And they expected far stronger Arab turnout (as did Netanyahu).
"Herzog did put up a good fight, and will have cemented his leadership role in the opposition while building an international profile. The real loser is President Barack Obama, who undoubtedly hoped for a poor showing by Netanyahu. And the even bigger loser is the Iranian regime, who will now face an emboldened Israeli leader who made the case for his re-election on the grounds of strong public opposition to the generous terms of the nuclear deal that Obama is negotiating with Iran.
"The most important immediate consequence of the election is that Netanyahu’s defense minister, Moshe “Bogey” Ya’alon, is likely to retain his post. A thorn in the side of Secretary of State John Kerry, whom he called 'messianic, Ya’alon is one of the few military planners in the western world with a grasp on the strategic realities of the Middle East. He has been a counsel of patience for Netanyahu, advising him not to waste resources on Hamas while Iran still looms as the enemy."
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3/17/15 EPA ‘burning the Constitution’ with carbon rules, Harvard scholar says
"In testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday, Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence H. Tribe said the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants is built on a shaky legal foundation. The proposal, Mr. Tribe argues, far exceeds EPA’s authority under federal law and strikes a blow to the 10th Amendment by essentially making states subservient to Washington on energy and environmental matters.
"Mr. Tribe’s testimony — with which other legal scholars strongly disagreed during Tuesday’s hearing — comes about a month before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in a case that challenges EPA’s so-called 'Clean Power Plan,' which would limit pollution from both new and existing power plants and is designed to reduce coal use across the country.
"Critics long have argued the proposal, which will be finalized this summer, would cost thousands of jobs and drive up electricity prices for consumers. But Mr. Tribe and others believe there are deeper problems with the looming regulations.
"'EPA’s proposal raises grave constitutional questions, exceeds EPA’s statutory authority and violates the Clean Air Act,' said Mr. Tribe, who has argued before the Supreme Court dozens of times and represented Al Gore in the case that ultimately decided the 2000 presidential election.
"'EPA is attempting an unconstitutional trifecta — usurping the prerogatives of the states, the Congress and the federal courts all at once,' he continued. 'Burning the Constitution of the United States … cannot be a part of our national energy policy.'. . . .
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3/16/15 Has a Christian Holocaust begun? When will West wake up to ISIS threat
By Johnnie Moore, FoxNews
"The recently displaced archbishop of Mosul, Iraq was speaking with particular candor when I met him last fall in the Middle East.
"He said, 'People in the West say ‘they don’t know.’ How can you not know? You either support ISIS or you must have turned off all the satellites. I am sorry to say this, but my pain is big.'
"Like so many Christians in Iraq and Syria who watched ISIS kidnap their leaders, burn their churches, sell their children, and threaten all others with conversion or beheading; the archbishop wonders how it is that these maniacs so easily took his home city this summer?
"It is a good question.
"Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city and was once the home of Iraq’s most vulnerable and persistent Christian community, tracing their lineage nearly to the time of Christ.
"Now there are no Christians left.
"All of this happened under the watchful eye of West, and while you’d hope that the humanitarian threat alone would have motivated the West to act, you would be certain that Mosul’s strategic importance would do so.
"Neither proved true.
"Mosul was easily taken by ISIS troops, riding in on their decrepit pick up trucks with guns bolted to them. Her ancient streets have since been turned red with innocent blood, and the city has become a base for a jihad that rages wildly throughout the entire region and boils underground in scores of countries throughout the world.
"The archbishop’s perspective represented the sentiment of nearly everyone I have met or have communicated with in the region. The people whose lives have been threatened or destroyed by ISIS just don’t understand how this pre-modern evil could run unchecked.
"They wonder how it could be that it took the most powerful nations in the world, using airstrikes, over four months with the help of Kurdish forces to defeat a few hundred jihadists waging war in the town of Kobani, and how it is that ISIS has been able to openly run its 'state' from a self-determined capital city called 'Raqqa' without the daily threat of hundreds of unrelenting airstrikes. They also wonder how it is that Turkey’s border remains so porous allowing jihadist after jihadist to readily join ISIS.
"The examples of Western inaction are unending.
"At present, as many as 300 Assyrian Christians remain in captivity having been kidnapped two weeks ago as ISIS assaulted ten Assyrian, Christian villages along the Khabour River in Syria. That assault was conducted by a group of ISIS fighters travelling in a convoy of more than 40 clearly marked ISIS vehicles directly toward these vulnerable, Christian villages.
"How is it possible that Western satellites didn’t spot a forty-car ISIS convoy in route to unarmed Christian villages in Syria, and if it was spotted how is that it wasn’t destroyed?
"Over and over again, our coalition leaders have demonstrated that they aren’t as serious as they need to be about this threat and it’s time that we put increasing pressure on governments to do more. Now.
"The prevailing argument against Western engagement, or Western support of regional engagement, remains a sense that this is 'their' fight and not ours. Critics say, 'it’s high time the Middle East takes care of their own issues.'
"As I chronicle in my book 'Defying ISIS' we have witnessed the threat of ISIS spilling over our own borders again and again.
"In the last few months we have watched in horror as ISIS sympathizers have attacked innocent people, businesses and governments in at least the United States, Canada, France, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Belgium. Even as we’ve watched wanna-be jihadists travel to and from America and Europe on western passports to fight in the ISIS jihad themselves.
"Their propaganda machine is causing mega-corporations like Google and Twitter to struggle to keep up with the amount of jihadist propaganda showing up online every single day, and, shockingly, one study recently noted that one-in-five Arabic language tweets in the United States and the United Kingdom referencing ISIS were in 'support' of the organization.
The fact is, we will deal with this crisis there or we will deal with it here.
"Not dealing with it seriously is simply not an option.
"We expected Syria would fix itself as well.
"And what did it get us?"
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3/16/15 ISIS' dark agenda: Terror group's tweets show more destruction of sacred Christian
sites [Click the date to view photos of the extensive wanton purposeful directed destruction of religious relics.]
"Chilling new images released Monday show ISIS thugs advancing the Islamist army's dark agenda of eradicating Christianity from Iraq by smashing crosses, toppling statues and destroying sacred relics that have been in place for thousands of years.
"The latest batch of photos, culled from the Internet by watchdog Middle East Media Research Institute, show ISIS members in the heart of Iraq's once-thriving Assyrian Christian community of Nineveh, destroying symbols the Islamist terror group considers polytheistic and idolatrous. The images show the men removing crosses from atop churches and replacing them with the black ISIS banner, destroying crosses at other locations such as atop doorways and gravestones, and destroying icons and statues inside and outside churches. The sickening images are just the latest evidence of ISIS' ongoing effort to cleanse its so-called caliphate of its Christian heritage.
"'They don't care what it's called; they are just following their ideology and that means getting rid of churches and minorities,' said MEMRI Executive Director Steven Stalinsky. 'It is the Islamic State, and there's no room for anyone else.
"'This has been going on for some time, a systematic campaign to rid the region" of any vestiges of Christianity.
"Although the United Nations has condemned the acts, Islamic State, as ISIS is also known, has enthusiastically circulated photos of its fighters destroying the sacred symbols and relics.
"'We cannot remain silent,' Irina Bokova, head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said Friday. 'The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime. I call on all political and religious leaders in the region to stand up and remind everyone that there is absolutely no political or religious justification for the destruction of humanity’s cultural heritage.'
"Bokova spoke after ISIS reportedly used heavy equipment to demolish the site of the ancient Assyrian capital of Nimrud, 18 miles south of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. Statues, tablets and other relics have been taken from churches and destroyed or possibly sold on the black market. While the humanitarian crisis facing Iraq's Christian community is of paramount concern, religious leaders also lament the loss of the religion's most ancient artifacts.
"In Iraq, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako last week called on the central government and the international community 'to act as soon as possible for the protection of innocent civilians and to offer them the necessary assistance in lodging, food and medication.'
"ISIS 'is burning everything: human beings, stones and civilization,' he said in a March 9 statement.
"Sako said thousands of families have been displaced by the fighting, and he called for an emergency meeting of Iraq’s Council of Ministers and the National Assembly deputies 'to discuss this situation that threatens to deteriorate from bad to worse.'
"'This is obviously a human catastrophe that cannot suffer any silence,' he said.
"Nimrud, built more than 3,000 years ago, was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire after 883 B.C. The Neo-Assyrian Empire, whose rulers spoke a language distantly related to Arabic and Hebrew, ruled Mesopotamia, the ancient name for Iraq and parts of Syria, until approximately 600 B.C. For centuries, the region along the Tigris River retained monuments, frescos, temples and a ziggurat, the stepped pyramid characteristic of Mesopotamian civilizations.
"But earlier this month, ISIS released video showing men smashing statues with sledgehammers in the Nineveh Museum, in Nineveh, the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire after 705 B.C.
"In recent weeks, ISIS has also set off bombs around Mosul Central Library, destroying as many as 10,000 priceless and irreplaceable books and manuscripts.
"Many relics have been taken to museums in Baghdad or around the world for safekeeping, but artifacts in churches, including murals and statues, have been left where they stood for millennia, until the rise one year ago of the black-clad terrorist army. Last summer, ISIS fighters used explosives to blow up the tomb of a key figure in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The holy site in Mosul was believed to be the burial place of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale in the Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions."
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3/16/15 Expert Fears White House Deliberately ‘Whitewashing’ Iran, Hezbollah Terror Threat
The Algemeiner
"A recent US Intelligence report which appears to downplay the terrorist activities from Iran and its proxy groups has raised questions about what could have motivated the change from previous similar reports.
"Cliff May, President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington DC think tank, called the Director of National Intelligence’s 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment 'disturbing.' May said he is worried that the Administration is attempting to minimize the terror threat of Iran and Hezbollah in an effort to lift sanctions against Iran, and further nuclear negotiations.
"As first reported in The Times of Israel, the 2015 report to the Senate Armed Services Committee by James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, appears to largely omit the terrorism threat posed by Iran and Hezbollah when compared to previous reports.
"'People are very concerned that the White House is whitewashing Iran and Hezbollah’s involvement with terrorism,' May told The Algemeiner. “If that’s the case, the next question is why. The working presumption might be to facilitate the nuclear negotiations. A related concern: that this could be a way to unravel the sanctions on Iran that are based on terrorism, rather than illicit nuclear activities. If any of that is accurate it should be alarming.”
"The 2015 intelligence report does include a section on Iran. It mentions that Iran 'is an ongoing threat to US national interests' because of its support to the Assad regime in Syria, promulgation of anti-Israeli policies, development of advanced military capabilities, and pursuit of its nuclear program.
"The 2015 report also describes Iran’s efforts to combat 'Sunni extremists' and 'empower “Shia communities,' in addition to Iran’s desire to 'dampen sectarianism, build responsive partners, and deescalate tensions with Saudi Arabia…' Though the report mentions Hezbollah, it does so in the context of Lebanon.
"Unlike reports in previous years, there is no mention of Iran directly threatening US allies, or of an alarming increase in Hezbollah’s global terror activities.
"For example, the 2014 national intelligence report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence contained a section on Iran and Hezbollah that stated “[o]utside the Syrian theater, Iran and Lebanese Hizballah (sic) continue to directly threaten the interests of US allies. Hizballah (sic) has increased its global terrorist activity in recent years to level we have not seen since the 1990s.”
"The 2013 intelligence report to that same committee contained similar sections on Iran and Hezbollah, but wrote that both were reluctant to confront the US directly.
"The 2012 report even had a section entitled 'The Threat from Iran' that assessed 'Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States…'
"Cliff May of FDD told The Algemeiner that there is no evidence that either Iran or Hezbollah has “forsworn terrorism in any sense.”
"'Implying that Iran is a responsible power, makes it easier to hold negotiations over its nuclear program,' May said. 'By removing these references, you are implying that they are becoming more responsible.'
"May also cautioned against viewing Iran as an ally in light of its opposition to ISIS.
"'It is a fallacy to believe that the answer to the Islamic state is the Islamic Republic,' May told The Algemeiner.
"May said the Obama Administration needs to answer for the apparent omissions in the 2015 intelligence report.
"'We should be demanding further explanation from the administration on what this is intended to achieve,' he said."
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3/16/15 Did You See What Happened in New Hampshire This Weekend?
Rush Limbaugh transcript excerpts
RUSH: Have you seen what happened in New Hampshire over the weekend? There's this guy, he's the governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. He went into New Hampshire and basically owned it. I wonder why this is happening wherever this guy goes. Iowa, now New Hampshire, wherever he goes, he's drawing enthused, rabid, huge, large crowds, and he is giving those crowds what they want. I wonder how this is happening.
Governor of Wisconsin. It's Scott Walker. He's the governor of Wisconsin. . . .
Scott Walker is the front-runner. . . . [H]e went into New Hampshire and the crowds showed up and they were huge and they were enthusiastic.
He gave them what they wanted. He got 'em fired up; they expected to be fired up. I'm telling you, I think this has the Republican establishment on its heels a little bit. At this time, you know, it was supposed to be Jeb and Chris Christie and there were a bunch of them in the field. But this was not supposed to be. This wasn't in the cards. I mean, they thought Walker might go.
But they didn't think anybody'd ever heard of him and they didn't think anybody would care. "This is Wisconsin! It's the Midwest and so forth, and our big guns are here in the Northeast. Mitt and Christie and Jeb now and whoever else might get in." But wherever he goes, his crowds are enormous and enthusiastic. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton is the exact opposite. She can't draw a crowd. She can't sell her book. I mean, the contrast is deep and profound.
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3/16/15 The Obama Administration’s Attack on the Constitution: Part 2, Environmental Protection Agency
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"Mr. Obama is an amateur who is enthralled with the sound of his own voice and is incapable of coming to grips with the consequences of his actions. He is surrounded by sycophants, second-rate intellectuals, and a media that remains compliant and uncritical in the face of repeated foreign policy disasters. As country after country in the world’s most dangerous region fall into chaos—Libya and Yemen are essentially anarchic states, even as Syria and Iraq continue to devolve—Mr. Obama puzzlingly focuses much of his attention and rhetoric on Israel, childishly refusing to accept the mandate its people have given their prime minister in an election that, by the way, added three additional seats to the country’s Arab minority.
"We can debate whether we should ever have been in Iraq, but Mr. Obama’s hasty withdrawal to make good on a campaign promise created the power vacuum filled by the Islamic State. In Syria, he vacillated over the enforcement of red lines and whom to arm. There too, he created a vacuum filled by the Islamic State.
"In Egypt, he withdrew support for President Hosni Mubarack, who for thirty years kept the peace with Israel and turned Egypt into a stable and reliable ally. Obama permitted the tyrannical Muslim Brotherhood to come to power failing to realize that one election, one time, resulting in a tyranny is not democracy.
"In Libya, President Muammar al-Gaddafi, once an international pariah, had reversed course as far back as 1999 and attempted to reenter the community of nations, even giving up his nuclear program. Libya was a stable dictatorship that was willing to engage in economic and diplomatic relations with the West. Its revolutionary ambitions of pan-Arabism and its expansionist tendencies had abated. When revolutionary forces rose up against Gaddafi, Mr. Obama not only verbally supported the revolutionaries, he sent NATO war planes to assist them. Gaddafi was defeated and murdered. Libya is now in chaos and another hot house for Islamic extremism.
"The deal with Iran follows in the wake of these foreign policy disasters. Among our traditional Sunni allies in the region, it is seen as a betrayal not simply because it advances Iran’s nuclear ambitions but also because it encourages Iran’s support for the Houthi Shiite militia in Yemen and Iran’s adventurism in Iraq. The lifting of sanctions means more resources for Iran to transfer to its meddlesome proxies like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the assassin of Lebanon’s democratic aspirations. The nuclear deal gives Iran an unacceptable nuclear umbrella that will compel the Gulf State Sunnis to launch their own nuclear programs, setting off a disastrous proliferation in the region.
"The Iran deal is a march toward the nuclear abyss hand-in-hand with the world’s largest exporter of terrorism– the patron of Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi militias in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq, and operatives killing Jews in Argentina. Regrettably, a naïve, petulant President Obama sees this as a crowning part of his legacy and nothing will stand in his way.
"Until Mr. Obama released a 1987 classified report detailing Israel’s nuclear program, we believed that the president’s Iranian policy was motivated by a different vision of America’s interests in the Middle East. Admittedly, it is one that would be difficult to dissect, let alone to explain.
"But Mr. Obama’s latest petulant act shows that this is not a president motivated by policy but by personal feelings. He sacrificed the security of our close ally and its seven million citizens because he felt slighted. How else does one explain that Israel’s nuclear program is made public while the report’s description of the programs of our NATO partners is redacted?
"We might call for Mr. Obama to find his inner Churchill and walk away from this tragedy, but we would be happy if he would simply find the character of the 'real' Neville Chamberlain, who when dealing from a position of America’s strength would never have signed a deal with the devil. Ultimately, this deal will come back to haunt Mr. Obama’s legacy far more than Munich haunted Chamberlain’s."