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(ABC News) Outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel acknowledged Friday for the first time that some officials in the White House disagreed with his slow pace in releasing Guantanamo detainees. He explained he was cautious because he took “very seriously” his responsibility to certify the release of detainees to ensure they did not return to the battlefield.
So that's why Hagel 'resigned'!
-NO AUTHOR-
Sun, 01 Feb 2015 03:04:55 GMT
I’m one of those 6 million. Screw Obama and his illegal mandate!
(New York Times) Obama administration officials and other supporters of the Affordable Care Act say they worry that the tax-filing season will generate new anger as uninsured consumers learn that they must pay tax penalties and as many people struggle with complex forms needed to justify tax credits they received in 2014 to pay for health insurance.
The White House has already granted some exemptions and is considering more to avoid a political firestorm.
Mark J. Mazur, the assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, said up to six million taxpayers would have to “pay a fee this year because they made a choice not to obtain health care coverage that they could have afforded.”
Obamacare's tax troubles mount
-NO AUTHOR-
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 23:11:53 GMT
What the hell is wrong with people?
(International Business Times) Police in Hanoi saved thousands of cats from potentially becoming barbecue after seizing a truck in Northern Vietnam carrying more than 3 tons of live cats smuggled in from China. While the cats will have to be culled in accordance with local laws, officers on Thursday indicated reservations about saving the cats bound for restaurants, only to have to kill them anyway.
“After receiving a tip, we searched the truck and discovered the cats inside,” Cao Van Loc, deputy chief of police in Hanoi’s Dong Da district, told German press agency dpa on Wednesday. “The owner, also the driver, said he bought the cats at the border area of Quang Ninh province,” Loc said, adding that all of the cats were from China.
Seized: Cats smuggled from China for consumption
-NO AUTHOR-
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 23:12:53 GMT
Impeach the SOB and then get rid of ALL of his failed dealings…
The new Republican Congress is unlikely to repeal the Affordable Care Act even after the GOP’s overwhelming victory in the 2014 midterms, with both medical and political experts agreeing that Americans must learn to live with Obamacare for a few years.
Many Republicans won their elections by criticizing the president’s expansive health-care scheme. But in reality, Obama would block any congressional attempt to rein it in, analysts say.
Dr. Lee Hieb, author of the explosive “Surviving the Medical Meltdown: Your Guide to Living Through the Disaster of Obamacare,” warned in an exclusive interview with WND that the consequences of the new law are already beginning to hit the American heartland.
“Just judging from my experiences in Iowa, we’re already seeing increasing shortages of critical drugs like Valium, which is needed to prevent seizures,” she said. “We’re running out of drugs to prevent tetanus infections in Arizona, and I’m even receiving reports about shortages of propofol, which is basically what is used to induce anesthesia during surgeries. And while things may be OK in the major metropolitan areas for a while, here in Iowa, the shortages and supply chain failures are already starting.”
Hieb’s personal experience is supported by reports from around the country of hospitals nationwide encountering shortages of critical drugs.
According to the American Society of Anesthesiologists, or ASA, in the past five years “the United States has experienced shortages of an array of vital anesthetic drugs such as propofol, succinylcholine, even epinephrine.”
An ASA survey from 2012 shows more than 97 percent of anesthesiologists have experienced a shortage of at least one anesthetic drug.
And the reports have become more common, she said.
“When you make life difficult for providers, you negatively affect the entire process down the entire line. The Affordable Care Act imposes further regulatory and compliance burdens on both doctors and those who create medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. We’ve had these kinds of burdens for a long time, but Obamacare simply makes everything worse. It takes everything that’s been detracting from medical care and expands it.”
She said a requirement that details of every appointment be entered into “electric medical records” is sabotaging medical care.
Instead of doctors spending time with patients, they spend most of their time and effort in data entry. The records are then used by the government and insurance companies to ensure that patients are receiving what bureaucrats regard as the appropriate kinds of care. Doctors must follow this system to be paid.
The system especially hurts specialists, she said.
“Many specialists simply leave the profession either because they can no longer afford to practice or simply out of disgust,” she said.
Government and insurance company bureaucrats are not familiar with the patients and have no basis to determine what kind of treatment is required. The result is that doctors have more overhead and liability even as they are prevented from providing effective treatment.
Hieb said, “This electronic records requirement was the final nail in the coffin for me and pushed me to leave private practice.”
Obamacare strengthens such requirements and makes the government more involved in determining how medical care is to be provided. Other medical experts concur with Hieb that the Affordable Care Act is transforming the role of doctors from providers of medical care into “data entry clerks.”
In an interview by the medical industry publication Medscape, arheumatologist said: “Bureaucrats are telling us how to practice our profession, and they don’t have a clue about seeing patients on a daily basis. All the factors that made U.S. medicine the best in the world are now being destroyed.”
Little reason for hope from Congress
According to Hieb, “Obamacare is emptying out the heartland as far as medical care goes.”
The effects of the law are creating a political reaction as newly elected Republicans such as Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., report “a tide rising” against the Affordable Care Act from “all these angry people” forced to deal with the law.
But leading conservatives and political experts do not see much hope of a repeal or even a substantial rollback in the short term.
Renowned Republican strategist Richard Viguerie, author of the new book “Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It,” predicts that the new Republican Congress will disappoint conservatives by not repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Viguerie judges that many Republicans “don’t have the conviction or the political courage, and a total repeal is not something high on their priority list.”
“Though I think we can chip away at it and weaken it, I’m not optimistic that GOP leaders are really honest when they say repeal and replace,” he said. “They are not prepared to fight Obama in the way that is needed.”
Similarly, Eagle Forum Founder and President Phyllis Schlafly says, “Many Republicans ran against Obamacare, and repealing it is clearly the sentiment from the grassroots.”
However, Schlafly believes the “Boehner Congress has not been willing to put up much of a fight.”
Viguerie thinks Republicans can eventually win the war over Obamacare after a long struggle.
“We need to defeat more RINO (Republican In Name Only) Republicans in the House particularly and keep up the pressure. And we have to make sure we nominate a Republican for president that shares our views, not an establishment Republican like a Jeb Bush, a Chris Christie or a Mitt Romney. We have to get a president that commits to repeal and replace Obamacare.”
Viguerie notes that many Republicans come to Washington with the best of intentions but are eventually co-opted. However, “one of the things we have now is a network that can keep the pressure on and support those Republicans who decide to buck the leadership. We didn’t have that 10 years ago.”
Still, such hopes hinge on a unified Republican government, which is at least two years away, and on conservative victories in the Republican presidential primaries and a sweeping election win in the 2016 general election. In any case, Americans will have to live with Obamacare for some time.
Furthermore, conservatives still have to confront the political reality that Republicans receive much of their money from corporate lobbyists.
Viguerie goes so far as to say “Conservatives need to understand that their No. 1 opponent is not Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or even Barack Obama.’
“It’s the Chamber of Commerce. Even the best of these young conservatives get 75 percent of their funding from K Street and corporate lobbyists,” he said.
When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, some of the biggest stakeholders donating to the Republican Party are insurance companies that enthusiastically support the new legislation.
For that reason, Hieb is pessimistic even in the long term. She says wryly that a repeal would be proof that “the age of miracles is not yet over.” But she believes most voters won’t understand the implications of the Affordable Care Act until they personally experience the coming shortages and restricted care.
Doctor: America seeing 'shortages of critical drugs'
-NO AUTHOR-
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 22:04:49 GMT
(REALCLEARPOLITICS) — Former CBS investigative correspondent testifies at the confirmation hearing for Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch:
SHARYL ATTKISSON: In 2013, Reporters Without Borders downgraded America’s standing in the global free press rankings, rating the Obama administration as worse than Bush’s. It matters not that when caught the government promises to dial back or that [FOX News'] James Rosen gets an apology. The message has already been received. If you cross this administration with perfectly accurate reporting they don’t like, you will be attacked and punished. You and your sources may be subjected to the kind of surveillance devised for enemies of the state.
Those who cross Obama treated 'like enemies of state'
-NO AUTHOR-
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 18:29:55 GMT
(PEOPLE) — His changing look has been a much-buzzed-about topic for months, and now PEOPLE has confirmed that Bruce Jenner has been quietly making a very personal change. The former Olympian will soon be living life as female.
“Bruce is transitioning to a woman,” says a source close to the family. “He is finally happy and his family is accepting of what he’s doing. He’s in such a great space. That’s why it’s the perfect time to do something like this.”
And according to a different Jenner insider, the 65-year-old reality star is filming his momentous journey, to be shared with viewers on a docu-series this year. “It will air when he is ready to be open about his transition,” the source tells PEOPLE. “But he’s acting more and more confident and seems very happy.”
Bruce Jenner said to be 'transitioning into a woman'
-NO AUTHOR-
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 18:13:11 GMT
Well, that didn’t take long. This summer after Barack Obama inexplicably (and illegally) freed five of the Taliban’s most deadly terrorists in exchange for army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, I asked a burning question – a question that remains unanswered: “What will it take for our spineless U.S. Congress to impeach this tyrant? This is way beyond partisan politics. This is about justice. This is about the safety of the American people. Barack Hussein Obama is America’s biggest threat to national security. He is ‘an enemy within.’”
By striking this Faustian bargain with the devil, not only did Obama unilaterally trash the U.S. government’s long-standing policy never to negotiate with terrorists, he brazenly violated a 2013 national defense bill that unambiguously requires he give Congress 30-days notice before releasing any Guantanamo Bay prisoners, much less five of its most deadly.
Article III, Section 3, Clause 1, of the U.S. Constitution defines the crime of treason – dare I say the “high crime” of treason – as “levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
Whether Obama is intentionally trying to overthrow his own government is open for debate. But that he is, “adhering to [America's] Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort,” is without question.
“There is no doubt that Americans will die as a direct result of Obama’s demonstrably illegal actions here,” I wrote back in June. “With most of these monsters in their 40s, they’ve got decades to kill as many Americans as they can get their blood-soaked hands on.”
The National Enquirer, of all publications, interviewed me on my analysis, publishing a feature article that largely echoed my sentiments and concluded, “Meanwhile, D.C. insiders say that the only way the Bergdahl fiasco will ‘disappear’ is if the U.S. gets involved in an ongoing crisis elsewhere, which will allow President Obama to ‘redeem himself’ in not only the eyes of his critics but the world.”
While the Obama administration has, no doubt, manufactured many a crisis elsewhere, no such redemption has been forthcoming. Neither has the Bergdahl scandal disappeared. Instead, that which even hard-left Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., feared has, in a few short months, and quite predictably so, become reality. We now learn from a reluctant Obama media that at least one of the “Taliban Five” – one of these faithful followers of Muhammad – intends to kill more American citizens.
“The U.S. military and intelligence community now suspect that one of the five Taliban detainees released from Guantanamo Bay in return for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in May of last year has attempted to return to militant activity. …
“It comes at a politically sensitive time as the administration has quickened the pace of prisoner release in an effort to encourage the closure of Guantanamo, and the Army must decide in the coming weeks whether and how to punish Bergdahl for leaving his post. [It's called wartime desertion, CNN. Until recently it got you lined up and shot.]”
According to a September congressional report, “about 17 percent of detainees transferred out of Guantanamo Bay are confirmed by the U.S. to have returned to militant activity. About 12 percent are in the suspected category,” noted CNN.
And so as Barack Obama recklessly sows the seeds of a foolish, politically driven campaign promise, we begin to reap the poisonous fruit of his incompetence. As intelligence concludes that nearly one-third (probably more) of these rabid jihadi dogs will return to their rabid jihadi ways, Obama yet races to loose them from their chains. (Hey, I hear ISIS has several openings in HR [Head Removal]. Perhaps our Muslim-sympathizer-in-chief can whip-up a quick batch of reference letters.)
I wish it could be said that this man is simply an incompetent fool, but I fear it’s much more complicated than all that. At best, Barack Hussein Obama is a full-blown dhimmi (one who surrenders to Muslim dominance). At worst, he shares with Muslims the sworn enemies of both the Quran and “progressivism,” namely Israel and Christianity.
Regrettably, I believe the latter to be true. I believe that this president’s well-established propensity to give aid and comfort to our Islamic enemies stems from an attitude best described, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Long gone are the days when calling an American president a tyrant and accusing him of treason amounted to political hyperbole. Just a few short decades ago this anti-American Marxist would not only have been accused of treason, he would have been tried for it.
But alas, inaction and injustice are the lawless hallmarks of today’s political milieu.
We’ve become “fundamentally transformed,” all right.
Remember the now infamous Rose Garden presser? The shameful images are forever etched in the annals of American history: Obama, standing side-by-side with, and even embracing, Robert Bergdahl, the father of an American traitor and apparent Muslim convert himself.
When he took to the podium, among the first words from the elder Bergdahl’s mouth were, in Arabic, “Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim,” which means, “In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate.” This, according to a number of Islamic scholars and CIA experts, was a “Muslim victory call” intended to “claim the White House for Islam.”
Hmm: to claim the White House for Islam.
So it would seem.
Meanwhile, Rose Garden honoree Bowe Bergdahl, a man the Obama administration says “served the United States with honor and distinction,” faces likely court-martial for desertion.
While Barack Obama faces another round of golf.
Treason: Obama aids the enemy
Matt Barber
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:54:04 GMT
When British troops descended on Boston, the Continental Congress’ first official act was to request Rev. Jacob Duche’, pastor of Philadelphia’s Christ Church, to open in prayer: “Tuesday, Sept. 6, 1774. Resolved, That the Rev. Mr. Duche’ be desired to open the Congress tomorrow morning with prayers, at the Carpenter’s Hall, at 9 o’clock.”
Born Jan. 31, 1738, Rev. Jacob Duche’ was a prominent leader in Pennsylvania, as his grandfather, Anthony Duche’, had sailed to America with William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania.
His father, Jacob Duche’ Sr., helped Ben Franklin in 1748 raise a volunteer militia of armed private citizens to defend the city during the French and Indian War.
On Sept. 7, 1774, Rev. Jacob Duche’ Jr., arrived at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia and read the 35th Psalm, which was the designated Anglican reading for that day: “Plead my cause, Oh, Lord, with them that strive with me, fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of buckler and shield, and rise up for my help. Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation.’ Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life; Let those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me.”
Rev. Duche’ then offered an extemporaneous prayer.
John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail: “Mr. Duche’ appeared with his clerk and in his pontificals, and read several prayers in the established form, and read the collect for the 7th day of September, which was the 35th Psalm. You must remember, this was the next morning after we heard the horrible rumor of the cannonade of Boston. I never saw a greater effect upon an audience. It seem as if heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning. After this, Mr. Duche’, unexpectedly to everybody, struck out into an extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present. I must confess, I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced … with such fervor, such ardor, such earnestness and pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, for America, for the Congress, for the province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially the town of Boston. It has had an excellent effect upon everybody here.”
Congress voted: “Wednesday, Sept. 7, 1774 … that the thanks of Congress be given to Mr. Duche’ … for performing divine Service, and for the excellent prayer, which he composed and delivered on the occasion.”
The next year, on July 7, 1775, Rev. Duché addressed the soldiers of First Battalion of the City of Philadelphia.
Dedicating his sermon to General Washington, he published it with the title “The Duty of Standing Fast in Our Spiritual and Temporal Liberties”: “If spiritual liberty calls … to a glorious hereafter, civil liberty must at least be allowed to secure … our well-being here. … Civil liberty is as much the gift of God in Christ Jesus as the former, and consequently, that we are bound to stand fast in our civil as well as our spiritual freedom … ‘standing fast’ in that liberty, wherewith Christ, as the great providential Governor of the world, hath made us free.”
On July 4, 1776, after Congress passed the Declaration of Independence, Rev. Mr. Duche’ walked across the square to his church and convened a special meeting of his Vestry. He then took the large Anglican Book of Common Prayer from the pulpit and crossed out prayers for “the King of England,” replacing them with “the United States of America.”
This greatly affected the country, as his was the first church to stop praying for the King.
On July 8, 1776, John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, wrote to Rev. Mr. Jacob Duche’: “Sir, it is with the greatest pleasure I inform you that the Congress have been indeed, from a consideration of your piety, as well as your uniform and zealous attachment to the rights of America, to appoint you their Chaplain. It is their request, which I am commanded to signify to you, that you will attend on them, every morning at nine o’clock.”
Lorenzo Sabine’s History of the Loyalists (1864), recorded Rev. Mr. Jacob Duche’ first prayer after the Declaration of Independence was approved: “O Lord our Heavenly Father, High and Mighty, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth, and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all kingdoms, empires, and governments, look down with mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee, from the rod of the oppressor … desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee.”
On Sept. 26, 1777, British General Howe invaded Philadelphia and imprisoned Rev. Duche’, undoubtedly pressuring him.
Ten days after his release, being discouraged after the Continental Army’s heavy losses at the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown, Rev. Jacob Duche’ disappointed the country. He penned a letter to General Washington urging surrender, then sailed for England.
Later, regretting his decision after the war, Rev. Jacob Duche’ returned to Philadelphia, where he died in 1798.
Though disparaged for leaving, Rev. Jacob Duche’ is best remembered for his stirring address to the soldiers of Philadelphia in the critical early years of the Revolution, July 7, 1775: “Considering myself under the twofold character of a minister of Jesus Christ, and a fellow-citizen … involved in the same public calamity with yourselves … I have made choice of a passage of Scripture … addressing myself to you as freemen, both in the spiritual and temporal sense … suggesting to you … under the blessing of Heaven, to … ‘Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty, wherewith Christ hath made us free’ (Galatians, chapter 5).”
Rev. Jacob Duche’ concluded: “‘Stand Fast’ by an undaunted courage … a courage that will prove you to be good Christians, as well as soldiers, a firm invincible fortitude of soul, founded upon religion, and the glorious hope of a better world … courage, that will enable you not only to withstand an armed phalanx, to pierce a squadron, or force an entrenchment … but will support you … against the principalities and powers of darkness … pain and sickness, and … all the horrors of a death-bed scene. … Courage … will never degenerate into savage cruelty and barbarity. … Be prepared … for the worst. Suffer not your spirits to evaporate. … Though the worst should come – though we should be deprived of all the conveniences and elegancies of life … nevertheless, ‘Stand Fast’ as the guardians of liberty … NOW, THEREFORE, BE STRONG, O ZERUBBABEL, AND BE STRONG, O JOSHUA … FOR I AM WITH YOU, SAITH THE LORD OF HOSTS … LOOK YE UNTO ME, AND BE SAVED, ALL YE ENDS OF THE EARTH!”
Brought to you by AmericanMinute.com.
America dedicated to God from its 1st moments
Bill Federer
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 01:19:32 GMT
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking whether U.S. taxpayers are funding a political effort in Israel to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office, and the question has erupted into a firestorm on social media.
“Is there anyone, ANYONE connected to Obama who is NOT a corrupt filthy sewer rat?” wrote Mark81150 of the issue, according to the Twitchy website and monitors Twitter comments.
Cruz’ letter to Kerry noted that OneVoice, a “U.S. taxpayer funded 501(c)(3) nonprofit” was actively working “with a campaign operation called V15, or ‘Victory 15,’ in an effort to influence the outcome of the elections in Israel on March 17, 2015.”
A key player for V15 is former Obama staffer Jeremy Bird.
Word on the developments has generated a wave of comments on Twitter.
“It’s OK for Jeremy Bird to meddle in Israeli politics but Netanyahu can’t return the favor?” wrote one.
Another said, “Jeremy Bird should be arrested as a spy for meddling in another country’s election process.”
WND reported this week from Tel Aviv that a consulting firm almost entirely composed of former staffers of Obama’s re-election campaign had been hired to run an election effort in Israel aimed at defeating Netanyahu.
The report noted it appeared that Bird, national field director for Obama’s 2012 campaign, is now working for the nonprofit group V15, on the campaign.
The report said Bird was just one of many former Obama campaign staffers on the project.
The report came at a time when the tension level is extreme between the U.S. and Israel because the Obama White House rejected an opportunity to meet with Netanyahu in March when he is in Washington to address a joint meeting of Congress.
The White House claimed it didn’t want to influence the Israeli elections.
Cruz’ letter, also signed by Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., asks for an investigation by the State Department’s inspector general to determine how much funding the U.S. has given OneVoice or other groups connected to the Israel campaign against Netanyahu.
It also asks who approved the funds, what oversight is there, how much funding has been provided and the reasons for providing money.
“Can the Department of State guarantee that none of these funds have been or will be used in the endeavor detailed above, namely the partnership with V15, or any similar effort to exert undue influence over the Israeli political process?” the letter continued.
And does the process violate the tax-exempt status of any groups?
The letter notes a report by the Israeli daily Haaretz of the “significant role” Bird is playing with the group.
“The Haaretz report makes clear that the purpose of this alliance is to advance a particular ideological agenda: ‘With the help of American money and a former campaign adviser to President Barack Obama, V15 is trying to replace Israel’s government. The money and organization comes from V15′s partnership with OneVoice. … OneVoice is expected to merge with V15 before the March 17 election,’” the letter said.
“It’s time to change course and give people hope,” the report quoted a V15 spokesman saying.
“Of course private American citizens are free to engage in political activities according to their inclinations, but given the overtly partisan nature of this particular case, we are deeply concerned by the relationship that also exists between OneVoice and the U.S. Department of State. OneVoice lists the State Department as a partner on its website. In its 2013 annual report, the CEO of OneVoice touted the organization’s work ‘together in partnership with the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem … made possible by two parallel U.S. government grants.’
“There appears to be a danger that U.S. taxpayer funds are being used to directly shape the outcome of the upcoming Israeli election – and specifically to campaign against Prime Minister Netanyahu – something all would agree would be highly inappropriate.”
WND interviewed V15 founder Nimrod Dweck.
“Our goal is to do change,” he told WND. “We’re calling homes, going door-to-door in central Israel in places we marked as potential voters of the center-left.”
Besides Bird, the team includes the following former Obama staffers:
- Mitch Steward, a 270 Strategies founding partner who helped the Obama campaign build what the U.K. Guardian called “a historic ground operation that will provide the model for political campaigns in America and around the world for years to come.”
- Mark Beatty, a founding partner who served as deputy battleground states director for the Obama campaign. He had primary responsibility for Obama’s election plans for the battleground states.
- Marlon Marshall, a founding partner at 270 Strategies who joins the team after holding several key positions in national Democratic politics, most recently as deputy national field director for the 2012 Obama campaign.
- Betsy Hoover, a founding partner who served as director of digital organizing on the Obama campaign.
- Meg Ansara, who served as national regional director for Obama for America where she was responsible for overseeing the 2012 programs in the Midwest and southern states.
- Bridget Halligan, who served as the engagement program manager on the digital team of the 2012 Obama campaign.
- Kate Catherall, who served as Florida deputy field director for Obama’s re-election campaign.
- Alex Lofton, who most recently served as the GOTV director of Cleveland, Ohio, for the 2012 Obama campaign.
- Martha Patzer, the firm’s vice president who served as deputy email director at Obama for America.
- Jesse Boateng, who served as the Florida voter registration director for Obama’s re-election campaign.
- Ashley Bryant, who served most recently as the Ohio digital director for the 2012 Obama campaign.
- Max Clermont, who formerly served as a regional field director in Florida for Obama’s re-election campaign.
- Max Wood, who served as a deputy data director in Florida for the 2012 Obama campaign.
Cruz grills Kerry on anti-Netanyahu spending
Bob Unruh
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 01:33:53 GMT
A top federal health official said Thursday the recent outbreak of measles that first appeared in California’s Disneyland probably came from overseas.“We don’t know exactly how this outbreak started, but we do think it was likely a person infected with measles overseas,” Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters.
Popular radio host Michael Savage is not the least bit surprised by the news.
“Immigrants and epidemics – I’ve been sounding the alarm bell on this since I began in radio in 1994,” Savage wrote to WND. “The socialist government, media, academic, medical apparatchiks have looked the other way or changed the origin of numerous illnesses which were once eradicated in our once-first world nation.”
Savage, who holds a Ph.D in nutritional ethnomedicine, continued: “Measles had been nearly eradicated until about 15 years ago. When Clinton busted our border with Mexico, the floodgates were opened to infected migrants. Measles, TB, even malaria is returning! This is a form of medical genocide.”
He continued: “These illegal migrants may have a greater resistance to these illnesses owing to the fact they live in the midst of the infecting organisms. Our population is nearly ‘virgin’ to these infectious organisms. The killer flu raging through our population, measles, TB are all the result of this anti-American government.”
The charged-up Savage finished with an ominous historical analogy: “When European seamen arrived in Tahiti and the Marquesas, they brought with them smallpox, which nearly wiped out the entire local population in only 20 years. You see, the ‘natives’ had no resistance to this disease. We are now Obama’s ‘natives.’”
Lee Hieb, M.D., author of “Surviving the Medical Meltdown: Your Guide to Living Through the Disaster of Obamacare,” was similarly unsurprised that the measles outbreak may have come from overseas.
“I’ve been saying this for a while, as many other doctors have been,” Hieb said. “When you open your borders without medical screening to these illegals, you’re not just bringing measles. Measles is just the overt thing. You’re bringing a lot of diseases, and this is going to be one of them.”
She continued, “So that viral gastroenteritis that came, leprosy, for God’s sake, malaria – all these things that we had basically eradicated in this country are going to become resurgent.”
Savage: Disneyland measles part of Obama's 'medical genocide'
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:31:48 GMT
Good Grief!
(SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE) A judge in Germany has reaffirmed the male right to pee standing up, even if the male is a bit sloppy with his aim.
The case went to court after a landlord withheld part of a tenant’s security deposit because he claimed the tenant did about $2,100 damage to a marble floor.
Apparently the tenant is no marksman, regularly missing his stationary target, according to the landlord.
Judge: Men have right to pee standing up
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 30 Jan 2015 18:37:38 GMT
I say B.S.!
HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA.com) — The Department of Motor Vehicles is so overwhelmed with requests for new driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations that it can take up to three months to get an appointment or a half-day wait in the lobby.
A DMV spokesman told KCAL9 Political Reporter Dave Bryan there has been a crush of applications for new licenses for undocumented immigrants, a program that began earlier this month. The spokesman said the DMV is working to address the problems, but some people are having to take a day off of work to handle a 15-minute transaction.
At the Hollywood DMV office, where they handle drivers license issues, the long lines outside and packed waiting areas inside are testimony to the long, grueling process that California drivers have to endure before getting service.
Americans forced to wait behind illegals at DMV
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:35:55 GMT
The new GOP majority in the U.S. Senate is turning up the heat on its investigation of allegations the Internal Revenue Service shared private taxpayer information with President Obama, demanding Obama turn over communications he and his staff had with the agency.
The Washington Times reported it obtained a copy of a letter signed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the 13 other Republicans on the panel.
Addressed to Obama, the letter asks for his communications with the IRS since 2010 for their investigation into whether the agency has been engaging in illegal distribution of private taxpayer information. Republicans have accused the Obama administration of using the IRS as a political weapon since discovering the agency obstructed the applications for tax-exempt status of conservative organizations critical of Obama’s policies.
The letter said: “We have an obligation to conduct oversight of the federal government’s administration of our tax laws. As part of this oversight, we are seeking to determine the degree to and manner in which the Internal Revenue Service shares taxpayer information with the executive office of the president.”
IRS documents filed by the National Organization for Marriage, for example, were released to a citizen who asked for them, and they ended up in the hands of a homosexual activist who posted the confidential information online.
A judge ruled the IRS simply made a mistake, but the agency agreed to pay the group $50,000.
The documents requested by the Senate panel were also requested by the interest group Cause of Action, which has gone to court to try to compel the IRS inspector general to turn them over, the Times reported. The inspector general says it can’t turn over most of the 2,500 pages of records from its investigation because it would violate the privacy of taxpayers.
Texas-based True the Vote and 42 other groups have filed a lawsuit claiming the IRS targeted them based on their beliefs and politics.
Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, said the “notion that the IRS can target Americans for years because of their political beliefs is reprehensible.”
The IRS exacerbated the scandal by repeatedly telling disbelieving congressional investigators that it couldn’t provide relevant emails because of hard-drive failures.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton also ordered the agency to find out what happened to the hard drive after IRS Commissioner John Koskinen claimed a computer malfunction had caused the loss of two years of emails belonging to IRS executive Lois Lerner, whose tax-exempt division improperly targeted conservative groups.
Lerner claimed her emails were lost when her hard drive crashed July 13, 2011. She said the crash caused her to lose all her emails sent to recipients outside the IRS from mid-2009 to mid-2011.
David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States for the National Archives and Records Administration, testified the federal agency failed to follow the law in handling Lerner’s emails, raising even more suspicion about their content.
A key House leader addressing the issue, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., told IRS officials, at a minimum, “You did not tell the whole truth.
The committee accused the IRS of sending the FBI a database containing more than a million pages of confidential taxpayer information.
Officials later said the emails that had been “destroyed” were found, but they were unsorted and details were unavailable.
Robert Wood commented in Forbes: “First, there was no targeting by the IRS. Then there was, but only by those rogue IRS employees down in Cincinnati. … Then, top IRS official Lois Lerner refused to testify. IRS Commissioner Miller seemed defiant too and was sacked. Then, there was a year-long congressional investigation before the IRS finally admitted the 2009 through 2011 Lois Lerner’s emails ‘disappeared.’ Then, the backups … were recycled. Then, the new IRS commissioner said the IRS needs a bigger tech budget.”
Wood said American taxpayers, as well as thousands of dedicated IRS employees, deserve an explanation.
“The vast bulk of them are doing their best and helping not hurting the system. Their position is undermined by the awful bumbling and worse the IRS scandal … has revealed.”
Obama, meanwhile, insisted in an interview there’s “not even a smidgen of corruption” in the IRS.
GOP Senate tells Obama to cough up emails
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:58:10 GMT
(SACRAMENTO BEE) UC Davis Medical Center began treating a patient Thursday for a suspected case of the Ebola virus, according to representatives from the hospital and the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services.
The patient arrived at Mercy General Hospital in East Sacramento on Thursday morning before being transferred to UCD Medical Center around 9 a.m., UC Davis representatives confirmed. UCDMC is one of eight sites designated by state and federal health officials to treat possible Ebola cases in California.
The isolation room in which the patient is being held is “properly equipped and segregated,” and the patient poses “no risk to the public or medical center patients,” according to a statement from the hospital.
Another suspected Ebola patient in U.S.
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:07:37 GMT
Our “President” is a liar and as such he shall be called… And these “people” are terrorists. Period!
(FOX NEWS) Just days after an Obama administration official went to great pains to explain that the Taliban is not considered a terrorist group, the Afghan-based organization on Friday to credit for an attack that killed three American contractors and said it was carried out by a fighter who had infiltrated Afghanistan’s security forces.
The attack came Thursday evening at a military base at Kabul’s international airport, and also left one Afghan dead. The Taliban’s claim of responsibility came in a message on Friday from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who identified the attacker as a man named “Hessanullha,” from Laghman province, just east of Kabul. Hessanullha “penetrated into the security forces and was waiting for such a target for a long time,” Mujahid said.
“Yesterday in the evening he managed to get to a crowd of invading and infidel American military forces where he turned his gun towards them and opened fire,” he added. “During the gun battle, Ehsanullah was also killed by the enemy.”
Taliban claim killing of 3 Americans
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:04:52 GMT
(Associated Press) China’s education minister has issued a stern warning against threats to communist ideological purity in higher education, saying Western values must never be permitted to infiltrate the classroom.
Yuan Guiren reiterated the need for strict ruling Communist Party control over education and said educators must ensure that teaching materials do not criticize the party’s leadership or the socialist system, the official Xinhua News Agency said in a report late Thursday.
Professors must “not complain, vent personal grievances or convey negative emotions to their students,” Xinhua quoted Yuan as saying. It said he demanded teachers maintain a firm bottom lines in politics, law and morality, but offered no specifics.
China education minister: Reject Western values
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 30 Jan 2015 05:45:18 GMT
Loretta Lynch
NEW YORK – The Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee opened the second day of the confirmation hearings for attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch with two witnesses who testified of alleged mistreatment for exposing Obama administration scandals.
Catherine Engelbrecht is the founder of True the Vote and a key witness in proving the IRS discriminated against tea party and other conservative groups applying for tax-favored status. Sharyl Attkisson is the former CBS investigative reporter who has alleged the Obama administration hacked into her computer as she reported on the Department of Justice’s role in the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal.
Leading the opposition to the appearance of Engelbrecht and Attkisson at the Lynch nomination hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., characterized their appearance as “sound-bite material for Fox News and conspiracy theorists everywhere.”
Meanwhile, GOP members of the committee, including Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, expressed concern that Lynch would be another “yes-person” attorney general, as supportive of President Obama’s leftist agenda as the outgoing attorney general, Eric Holder.
“We have a broken, politicized Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said on C-Span during a break in the Thursday morning hearing. “I am not confident Loretta Lynch can fix the situation because she came forward yesterday and answered questions without really answering them. It was very difficult for her to straddle the fence on defending President Obama on immigration.”
Outside the hearing room, Obama supporters attacked Republicans for their choice of witnesses.
Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorOfChange.org, a group that bills itself as “the nation’s largest civil rights organization,” charged Engelbrecht’s organization seeks to suppress African-American votes, suggesting GOP opposition to Lynch is racist.
“Engelbrecht has called voter protection efforts ‘race baiting,’ an attempt to ‘exact racial justice on their presumed enemies,” and even called Attorney General Holder’s defense of the freedom to vote a ‘radical, racialist assault on voting rights,” Robinson said in a statement. “These remarks should prohibit her from testifying on an expert panel to confirm the first Black female AG.”
Robinson said True the Vote’s “history of intimidating black and Latino voters at the polls and attempts to purge voters in our communities show the organization is not interested in protecting everyone’s freedom to vote but instead in manipulating elections to support the far right wing.”
“That Engelbrecht is being given a platform to speak at these confirmation hearings tells us everything about the extreme agenda of the Republican senators who invited her and nothing about Loretta Lynch,” he said.
David Horowitz’s website DiscoverTheNetworks.org points out that ColorOfChange.org, co-founded in 2005 by self-proclaimed communist Van Jones, who resigned his post as Obama’s “jobs czar” over his past political activities, and James Rucker, former director of the Soros-funded MoveOn.org, was part of the progressive effort to associate the McCain-Palin GOP presidential ticket with racism.
“In one of its longest-running initiatives, Color of Change has repeatedly smeared the Fox News Channel as a disseminator of racism and bigotry,” DiscoverTheNetworks.org reports. “Beginning in March 2007, Color of Change denounced the station for ‘consistently attack[ing] Black people, leaders, and cultural institutions.”
Noting that other GOP witnesses included Georgetown University law professors Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz and Jonathan Turley, and David A. Clarke Jr., sheriff of Milwaukee County, the Washington Post attacked Lynch’s opposition with an article by Nia-Malika Henderson titled “Why is Sharyl Attkisson testifying at Lynch’s confirmation hearing?”
“If Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had an enemies list, it might look a lot like the list of witnesses who will testify at a Senate confirmation hearing for his potential successor, Loretta Lynch,” Henderson wrote. “At least the four witnesses (naming Engelbrecht, Rosencranz, Clark and Turley) have been called by Republicans. That half of the list includes not one, but three people involved in lawsuits against the administration. And among them, none is more well known than ex-CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who is a household name among many conservatives.”
Rosenkranz and Turley both testified that an attorney general’s responsibility was to speak his conscience according to the dictates of the law, not to administer partisan political policies dictated by the ideological agenda of the White House, an obvious slap at Holder.
Clarke also criticized Holder for making political statements in controversial law enforcement cases, supporting, for instance, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown by issuing public statements in advance of criminal legal proceedings that prejudged their deaths as racially motivated. Holder’s judgment in both cases was refuted, with a jury’s acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Martin case and a grand jury’s decision not to recommend charges against officer Darren Wilson in the Brown case.
Dems charge GOP objection to Lynch racist
Jerome R. Corsi
Thu, 29 Jan 2015 18:16:59 GMT
(PJ Media) — Fee fi fo fum. Big bad Bibi is coming to DC town — and Barack is VERY angry. Not only that, and possibly worse, Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic may be equally as angry. The journalist insists Netanyahu making a speech to Congress at the speaker’s invitation is a “disaster” or — in the words of my grandmother — “not good for the Jews.” And Jeff should know. He’s an important guy, I am told. He gets to talk… to Barack.
Goldberg accuses Netanyahu of electioneering (a rare thing indeed for a politician) and not showing the proper “RESPECT” for our president (cue Aretha), who always demonstrates so much respect for the Israeli prime minister.
Excuse me while I rend my clothes. Meanwhile, lost in Goldberg’s posturing, and the funfkeying by such great State Department intellects as Jen Psaki, is the subject of Netanyahu’s putative speech. What was it? Oh, yes… Iran. Now I remember. That country that has its hand in nearly every piece of Islamic mayhem from Buenos Aires to Sanaa.
Big bad Bibi
-NO AUTHOR-
Thu, 29 Jan 2015 18:09:14 GMT
(WASHINGTON TIMES) Top Pentagon officials and a senior Democrat in Congress so distrusted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2011 march to war in Libya that they opened their own diplomatic channels with the Gadhafi regime in an effort to halt the escalating crisis, according to secret audio recordings recovered from Tripoli.
The tapes, reviewed by The Washington Times and authenticated by the participants, chronicle U.S. officials’ unfiltered conversations with Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s son and a top Libyan leader, including criticisms that Mrs. Clinton had developed tunnel vision and led the U.S. into an unnecessary war without adequately weighing the intelligence community’s concerns.
“You should see these internal State Department reports that are produced in the State Department that go out to the Congress. They’re just full of stupid, stupid facts,” an American intermediary specifically dispatched by the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Gadhafi regime in July 2011, saying the State Department was controlling what intelligence would be reported to U.S. officials.
Secret tapes undermine Hillary on Libyan war
-NO AUTHOR-
Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:42:34 GMT
(FREE BEACON) Iran is encouraging its terror allies to pursue the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s children by publishing personal information about them, including photographs of the kids lined up in crosshairs, and declaring, “We must await the hunt of Hezbollah.”
The publication of the personal information and biographies of Netanyahu’s children follows an Israeli airstrike last week that killed several key Hezbollah leaders and an Iranian commander affiliated with the country’s hardline Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Iranian military leaders affiliated with the IRGC threatened in recent days harsh retaliation for the strike and promised to amp up support for Hezbollah as well as Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Iran targets Netanyahu children for assassination
-NO AUTHOR-
Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:04:19 GMT
I said this all along…. In April of 2013, I wrote about it. Here is the link: http://theconservativewife.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-clinton-chronicleswhy-hillary-wont.html
NEW YORK – Did the Obama administration plan to allow a U.S. ambassador to be kidnapped to set up a prisoner-exchange scenario that would provide a pretext for releasing the “Blind Sheik” imprisoned for plotting the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?That’s one of the provocative explanations for the administration’s puzzling actions before, during and after the Benghazi attack that has prompted an investigation by the Washington, D.C.-watchdog Judicial Watch.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told WND Tuesday his group is preparing to take legal steps to force government disclosure of documents pertaining to plans the Obama administration had to release “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence at the Butner Federal Correction Institution in North Carolina.
“Given what we know now, it is not out of the realm of possibility that the terrorist attack on Benghazi could have been a kidnapping attempt aimed at releasing the Blind Sheik,” Fitton said.
He noted, however, there is “no evidence” that the Obama administration may have been complicit in any kidnapping plot related to the Benghazi attack.
“To this day, we still have no reliable evidence about exactly how Ambassador Stevens died,” Fitton said. “The fact that there was intelligence that he was alive suggests that the State Department was right to be worried about a kidnapping attempt. We all should be curious to know if there was other information that had the State Department on the alert for possible kidnappings by al-Qaida.”
Since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, James “Ace” Lyons — a former four-star admiral who served as the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and a founding member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi — has proposed that the attack was an Obama administration-orchestrated kidnapping attempt that went “terribly wrong.”
He continues to speculate that the Obama administration wanted to give the al-Qaida-affiliated rebels operating in conjunction with the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood an opportunity to kidnap Stevens and exchange him for the Blind Sheik. The purpose of the plan, Lyons says, may have been to furnish the Obama administration with a pretext to justify to the American public the release of the Blind Sheik to then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, complying with a request Morsi made in his 2012 acceptance speech on becoming president of Egypt.
“Why else would all legitimate requests for increased security be denied? Why would you withdraw legitimate security assets in country?” Lyons asked in an interview with WND. “Why would you order Stevens’ personal security guards to store their weapons in a separate room in the complex on the day of the attack? This is pure dereliction of duty.”
Judicial Watch’s Fitton explained that in 2012, his organization sent Freedom of Information Act requests to the State Department and the Justice Department to obtain documents about the possibility the Blind Sheik might be released.
Fitton “got nowhere, but last year, he said, Judicial Watch received “extraordinary information” in response to a FOIA on the Benghazi attack.
The information indicated the State Department “had a concern as the attack was occurring” that “it was a kidnapping attempt and that the State Department thought Ambassador Stevens was alive in a local hospital.”
Fitton said the case of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was exchanged for five top Taliban commanders imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, “opened a Pandora’s Box suggesting the nightmare types of prisoner swaps the Obama administration may be willing to make with terrorists.”
“Now we are stepping up our investigation to obtain the documents we requested in 2012 on the Blind Sheik,” he said. “It is also well past time for Congress and other investigators and to explore further what was behind the State Department’s initial concern that the Benghazi attack was a possible kidnapping of Ambassador Stevens.”
Judicial Watch announced Tuesday it has filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense seeking “any determinations” made by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that the five Guantanamo terrorists traded for Bergdahl were “no longer a threat to U.S. national security.”
In discussing the Benghazi kidnapping theory with WND, Fitton referenced a Daily Beast article published Sunday that revealed the Obama administration had floated in July 2014 to the then-U.S. ambassador in Qatar the release of Ali Saleh Al-Marri in exchange for two Americans held abroad.
Marri is a confessed al-Qaida sleeper agent held in a U.S. maximum-security prison.
The Daily Beast reported an exchange of Marri was proposed by the Obama administration shortly after the release of Bergdahl, who left his unit in Afghanistan without permission and was held captive by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan from June 2009 until May 2014.
On Monday, retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Schaffer, now with the London Center for Policy Research, said on the Fox News “O’Reilly Factor” show Monday that a “charge sheet” had been prepared on Bergdahl. On Tuesday, NBC News reported Bergdahl will be charged with desertion, according to senior defense officials. However, the Army Times has reported Paul Boyce, a spokesman for U.S. Army Forces Command, said Tuesday the Bergdahl case is still under review, and Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby stressed in a Tuesday press briefing that Bergdahl has not been charged with any crime and there is no timeline to make a decision.
In an interview with WND, Fitton referenced Judicial Watch’s release April 29, 2014, of 41 Benghazi-related State Department documents. They included the declassified email showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Advisor Ben Rhodes and other administration public relations officials were “attempting to orchestrate a campaign to ‘reinforce’ President Obama and to portray the Benghazi terrorist attack as being ‘rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.”
The document was widely credited as prompting House Speaker John Boehner to appoint a House Select Committee on Benghazi that is currently headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.
“Official State Department emails in the 41-document release show State Department officials initially described the incident as an ‘attack’ and a possible kidnap attempt,” Fitton said.
Fitton pointed WND to U.S. State Document No. C05415756, a Sept. 11, 2012, email written by State Department official Eric J. Pelofsky, sent at 9:06 p.m. Eastern Time, as the Benghazi attack was under way, to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice.
Pelofsky wrote: “Yes – I’m very, very worried. In particular, that [Ambassador Christopher Stevens] is either dead or this was a concerted effort to kidnap him.”
It followed an email released in the same State Department record group that Pelofsky sent Rice at 8:51 p.m. Eastern on Sept. 11, 2012, in which he wrote: “Post received a call from a person using a RSO (Regional Security Officer) phone that Chris was given saying that the caller was with a person matching Chris’s description at a hospital and that he was alive and well. Of course, if he were alive and well, one could ask why he didn’t make the call himself.
Kidnap theory
Lyons presented his theory at the media roundtable of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 2014. His theory was not included among the conclusions of the commission’s interim report, nor is it shared by all of other commission members.
Lyons first offered his theory in response to a question by Lou Dobbs Nov. 14, 2012, on the Fox Business Network.
“What happened was a terrible mistake by the Ansar al-Sharia terrorist group,” Lyons said. “I speculate that Ambassador Stevens was supposed to be kidnapped, held hostage, in exchange for the release of the Blind Sheik that we are currently holding in prison. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Otherwise, he never would have stayed there that night.”
Lyons further suggested to Dobbs “the only way to get to the bottom of this” was to have a special prosecutor and for General David Petraeus, director of the CIA at the time of the Benghazi attack, to be allowed to testify freely, with immunity from prosecution.
Lyons explained to WND that the safe room at the villa in the State Department special mission compound at Benghazi had a window with bars that could be opened from the inside.
“The State Department security staff had rehearsed several times Ambassador Stevens escaping an attack by having an armored car backing up to that window so Stevens could open the bars and get out to be hustled over to the CIA annex nearby,” Lyons said.
“But on the day of the attack, the armored car was not there,” he noted. “Why not? Whose responsibility was it to have the car there?
“I believe this was an operation that went terribly wrong,” Lyons said. “I believe this was to be a kidnapping of Stevens, so he could be held hostage and ransomed for the release of the Blind Sheik. Nothing else makes any sense to me. Why didn’t the White House order the Pentagon to get the military resources in the region to Benghazi in an attack that lasted some 13 hours? I’m told the day of the attack, the Blind Sheik was being prepared to be moved.”
Blind Sheik prosecutor won’t rule out theory
Andrew McCarthy is the former chief assistant United States attorney in New York who led the successful criminal prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 other jihadis for their involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks.
He told WND that Lyon’s theory is possible, but he is not aware of any evidence to support it.
“I don’t think there is any evidence I know to date, certainly nothing that I’d be willing to hang my hat on, that there was contemplation of a swap for Ambassador Stevens for the Blind Sheik,” he said.
“I don’ think we have any proof. I know there has been all kinds of speculation, but I have been very careful not to get out in front of what we know or think we know,” McCarthy said.
“But I’m not saying that’s impossible. I just don’t think there’s evidence of that on the public record now, or in any information I know about at this time.”
He noted there was “information and I wrote about it at the time, that the United States government was in discussion with Egypt about the release of the Blind Sheik for some U.S. prisoners in Egypt.”
In an article titled “Releasing the Blind Sheikh?” published in National Review on March 1, 2012, McCarthy cited reports in the Arabic-language newspaper al-Arabiya that the Obama administration had offered to release Rahman to Egypt in an effort “to end the impasse over 16 American ‘civil-society activists’ (including the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood) being detained by Egypt’s interim government.”
McCarthy told WND that the conversations between the Obama administration and the Egyptian interim government at that time “did not go far.”
‘It doesn’t make sense’
Admiral Lyons’ theory remains a topic of debate within the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, a 17-member panel of retired military commanders, Congress members and intelligence experts that was formed in 2013 in response to the political barriers faced by congressional efforts to ferret out the truth.
Commission member Clare Lopez, a former career operations officer with the CIA and currently vice president for research at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, told WND she believes Lyon’s best evidence is circumstantial.
“I remain skeptical of the kidnap idea,” Lopez said. “Relations between the Obama and Morsi administrations were close in 2012, and Egypt had at least some reason to believe the White House might eventually come around and release the Blind Sheik to Egypt.”
“Why would Egypt support a violent assault on our diplomatic mission in Benghazi to get by violent assault what possibly was going to be handed over to them by a very friendly Obama administration?” she asked.
“Especially if public opinion is factored in, releasing the Blind Sheik likely would be opposed by many in the United States,” she said.
“It would makes no sense to think the release of the Blind Sheik would somehow be more acceptable to the American public under the conditions of a violent assault on the American mission, followed by the kidnapping and hostage-taking of an American ambassador,” Lopez argued.
She said that if kidnapping Stevens were the objective of the attack, it makes no sense to assume storming into the U.S. diplomatic compound at Benghazi with terrorists armed with AK-47s blazing and RPGs (Rocket-Propelled Grenades) that she described as “tactics you use when you want to kill people, not if you want to have any hope whatsoever of obtaining, a living, breathing, uninjured hostage.”
‘Explanation that makes the most sense’
Retied Air Force Lt. Col. Dennis Haney, is one of the CCB members who supports Lyons’ theory.
In the Air Force, Haney served three years on the 52nd Tactical Fighter Wing Staff in Spangdahlem, Germany. On the citizens’ commission, he played a key role coordinating with the Global Response Staff, or GRS, contractors that were present defending the CIA annex during the Benghazi attack.
“I believe the real question that needs to be asked is why the terrorists attacked the Benghazi diplomatic complex in the first place,” Haney argues.
“The United States and specifically Chris Stevens supplied arms to the al-Qaida-affiliated militia in Libya before Gadhafi’s fall and afterwards were working to transfer arms from Libya to al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists in Syria,” he pointed out. “Why would Ansar a-Sharia attack the United States and risk cutting off their weapons supply?”
Haney’s questions closely parallel questions Lyons has asked since his appearance on Lou Dobbs’ show in the immediate aftermath of the 2012 attack.
“The terrorists knew Stevens was in Benghazi for a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and from a tactical perspective, the only reason to attack Benghazi was to get U.S. hostages for exchange,” Haney argued. “The diplomatic compound was relatively unprotected, Stevens was the top target, and the terrorists figured that kidnapping some Americans, including maybe some of the CIA guys at the CIA compound, might be fairly easy to accomplish.”
Haney contends the only theory that accounts for the known facts is that the terrorist attack was aimed at kidnapping hostages to exchange and that the Obama administration might have been in on the plot, secretly conspiring with Morsi in Egypt.
“How else do you explain the State Department not providing Stevens the extra security he requested?” Haney asked. “Why did the Obama administration do nothing to bring military forces to save the U.S. personnel in Benghazi in what turned out to be a 13-hour attack?”
He said it appears that in “the top levels of the U.S. government, the decision was made that Stevens was expendable.”
“I hate to think he was being set up by our government to be kidnapped, but given the destructive prisoner exchanges and releases as of late, it would fit right into an administration policy geared on something other than reason,” Haney said.
Haney thought it was important that Ambassador Thomas Pickering, the author of the State Department’s 39-page ARB report and the State Department’s lead Benghazi investigator, under oath to Congress refused to dismiss the possibility the Benghazi attack was an attempt to kidnap Stevens.
On Sept. 24, 2013, WND reported Pickering, testifying under oath at a House Oversight and Government Reform committee hearing, refused to answer (at 4:30:05 in the C-Span broadcast of the hearing) a direct question asked by Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wy.
Lummis asked: “Is it true that they were trying to kidnap the ambassador and it went wrong?”
Pickering replied: “I can’t comment on that.”
In the exchange with Lummis, Pickering acknowledged the State Department had reason to believe operatives from Egypt were involved in the Benghazi attack.
“If Pickering knew there was no basis whatsoever to the kidnapping, he would have answered the State Department could categorically eliminate that possibility,” Haney surmised. “He didn’t do that.”
Morsi pressed Obama to release sheik
Lyons further speculates Obama and top presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett were acquiescing to deliver on a promise he believes Obama secretly made to Morsi shortly after Morsi became president.
Lyons points to an opinion piece former Attorney General Michael Mukasey published in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 24, 2012, less that two weeks after the Benghazi attack. Mukasey asked in reference to Rahman, “Are senior Obama administration officials considering transferring to Egypt a poisonously influential Islamic cleric serving a life term in federal prison for trying to unleash a war of urban terrorism in the United States?”
There is abundant evidence that Morsi was pressing the Obama administration to release the Blind Sheik, starting virtually the moment he took the oath of office to become Egypt’s president.
- The New York Times on June 29, 2012, reported that at the military-choreographed swearing-in ceremony in Cairo, televised to tens of thousands of Morsi supporters at Tahir Square, Morsi gave an acceptance speech in which he promised to work for the release of Rahman: “I see signs for Omar Abdel Rahman and detainees’ pictures. It is my duty and I will make all efforts to have them free, including Omar Abdel Rahman.”
- On Sept. 9, 2012, two days before the Benghazi attack, news sources in the United States were reporting the Obama administration State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was actively considering entering into negotiations with the Egyptian government for the transfer of custody of Rahman for humanitarian and health reasons.
- On Jan. 11, 2013, Fox News was still reporting on the possible release of the Blind Sheik, with Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, head of the House Homeland Security Committee, demanding a response from Obama to continued speculation the State Department was making preparations for it.
‘Obama pressed for war in Libya’
Lyons told WND he believes Obama’s decision to arm the al-Qaida-backed militia in Libya was knowingly advancing the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Brotherhood sought to depose Moammar Gadhafi to destabilize Libya in favor of the “rebel” groups the U.S. supported, exactly as the Obama administration had backed the Brotherhood months earlier when Morsi came to power in Egypt.
“You have to back up and recognize that in Libya, we switched sides on the global war on terrorism,” Lyons said. “We wound up defending and supporting the al-Qaida-related militia that were under the political control of the Muslim Brotherhood. That fact has been glossed over by the mainstream media.”
WND reported last week retired Rear Adm. Chuck Kubic’s account of his effort to take advantage of an offer by Gadhafi to abdicate and negotiate a peaceful transition of power, obviating the need for the U.S. to arm the Libyan al-Qaida-affiliated militia in their violent rebellion to overthrow the dictator.
“There never had to be a ‘war of liberation’ against Gadhafi in Libya,” Lyons insisted. “The White House has promoted the rebellion by the al-Qaida-affiliated militia in Libya as a ‘freedom and democracy’ movement, which is pure nonsense.”
“Gadhafi wanted to abdicate, and Admiral Kubic was making progress in the negotiations between Gadhafi’s top people and U.S. AFRICOM, and Gadhafi had agreed,” Lyons continued. “Gadhafi had pulled back his forces from Benghazi to show his good faith in proceeding with these negotiations until the Obama administration shut the door on Gadhafi abdicating, because the Obama administration had a different agenda in Libya.”
‘Hillary left Benghazi vulnerable’
In laying the background for his theory, Lyons noted that prior to the Benghazi attack, Ambassador Stevens made repeated pleas to the State Department in Washington, warning that security was inadequate.
“The ambassador is the State Department’s chief representative in a foreign country,” Lyons noted. “When an ambassador makes a request to the State Department, the ambassador typically gets what’s requested. Why was Stevens being constantly turned down by Hillary Clinton and the State Department every time he requested increased security at Benghazi?”
Documents made public by the House Oversight Committee one month after the Benghazi attack show Stevens and his staff providing an evidentiary record of their security concerns in Libya and the apparent lack of interest shown by the State Department in Washington, as reported by then-ABC news reporter Jake Tapper on Oct. 19, 2012.
Lyons said: “The truth is that the U.S. State Department completely ignored repeated requests for increased security; and with the al-Qaida-related militias the United States knew were operating freely in the Benghazi region in 2012, we had strategic and tactical warnings that an attack in Libya was going to happen.”
Even the State Department Accountability Review Report, he noted, “documents the State Department in Washington had concluded in an internal review that either security should be increased at the U.S. special mission compound in Benghazi or the facility should be closed.”
Among the conclusions of the ARB was “Finding #2,” which reads: “Systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.”
Benghazi part of Obama plot to free Blind Sheik?
Jerome R. Corsi
Wed, 28 Jan 2015 04:28:30 GMT
Re: “Obama fires back at claims he’s Muslim”
President Nixon said, “I’m not a crook.”
Obama says, “I’m not a Muslim”
Just who is Obama trying to kid, anyway? The only thing missing from Obama is the jubba and the turban.
Obama makes Nixon look like an Eagle Scout!
A serial pathological liar, Obama’s broken just about every one of his campaign promises and then some. Lies roll out of his mouth like butter.
Obama practices taqiyya, the doctrine in Islamic scripture encouraging Muslims to deceive non-Muslims to protect their religion. That’s why Obama is such an uncommonly good liar. He’s been lying about himself and to himself for many years.
Linda Rayburn
Obama is practicing 'taqiyya'
-NO AUTHOR-
Wed, 28 Jan 2015 01:22:26 GMT
Hmmmm….Bacon, anyone?
In protests around the globe, Muslims are demanding an end to free speech when it concerns satire or criticism of Islam’s founder, Muhammad.
The protests are a direct response to the massive free-speech rallies in France and other Western nations after the Islamic terror attacks in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. A dozen people were murdered when the offices were attacked by Muslim jihadists, and about the same number of people were injured.
The anti-speech protests started soon after the Jan. 7 terror attack and have swept through Islamic nations in the Middle East as well as Africa, the North Caucasus, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even among Muslim populations in Western nations like Australia.
In an interview with WND, Pamela Geller, author of “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance,” observed there is little support for free speech in the Muslim world.
“Where have Muslims demonstrated against the death penalty for blasphemy and in favor of the freedom of the speech? Nowhere. Where are the hundreds of thousands of Muslims demonstrating in defense of free speech? Nowhere,” she said.
In contrast, protests against free speech took place in:
Algeria – On Jan. 16, a protest of hundreds of people took place although the government had banned demonstrations in the capital city of Algiers. Dozens were arrested.
Niger – At least 10 people were killed during demonstrations over the weekend of Jan. 17. Seven Christian churches were attacked and the homes of pastors were torched by angry Muslims protesting against Charlie Hebdo.
Banako, Mali – Thousands of Muslims gathered to denounce Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 16 at the behest of religious leaders and in defiance of Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
Iran – On Jan. 19, hundreds of Iranian students protested at the French embassy and burned American and Israeli flags. ABC News quoted Iranian lawmaker Ahmad Tavakoli, who blamed the West for the Charlie Hebdo attack. Addressing Westerners, he thundered, “This is the fruit of your own action.” With government encouragement, the protests were repeated a few days later by tens of thousands in cities across the country.
Chechnya, Russia – The Russian Interior Ministry estimated that 800,000 protesters – 60 percent of Chechnya if the number is accurate – attended a Jan. 19 demonstration against criticism of Muhammad. President Ramzan Kadyrov, a strong supporter of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, proclaimed that “we are ready to die to stop anyone who thinks that you can irresponsibly defile the name of the prophet.” Kadyrov has previously said he does not regard ISIS as a threat to Russia.
Baghdad, Iraq – Protesters in Iraq’s capital burned French flags in a Jan. 22 demonstration against Charlie Hebdo. Hassan Jumaa, director of Al-Nahar television, demanded an apology from the French government to Muslims because “our religion is a religion of tolerance.”
Afghanistan – A crowd of about 100 protesters demonstrated against the French embassy Jan. 22 amid continuing violence in the country. Another protest took place in the western city of Herat. Protesters carried signs calling for “Death to America, Israel, and France.”
West Bank, Palestinian territories – Thousands of Palestinians rallied in Ramallah and Hebron on Jan. 24 against criticism of Muhammad and proclaimed that both France and America were “the mother of terrorism.” The protests were reportedly organized by the Tahrir Party, which advocates a unified Islamic Caliphate.
Turkey – On Jan. 24, an estimated 100,000 demonstrators protested Charlie Hebdo. One of the speakers, “Free Cause Party” chair Molla Osman Teyfour, declared, “As long as you are enemies of Allah, we will be your enemies” and said that protesters would “cut the tongue that talked against the prophet.”
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu of the ruling Justice and Development Party expressed his solidarity with the protests.
Turkey has also ordered Facebook to block several pages that were critical of Islam’s founder. The American company complied to avoid a shutdown. Currently, the Turkish government is pursuing an ongoing criminal investigation of a Turkish newspaper that reprinted the Charlie Hebdo cartoons following the killings in Paris.
Pakistan – Tens of thousands of Pakistanis participated in protests on Jan. 25 against criticism of Muhammad, including a demonstration in Karachi with a reported 25,000 people. The protests included cries of “death to the blasphemers” and a call from the Pakistani political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, for Muslim countries to push through an international law against “blasphemy” at the United Nations.
Kyrgyzstan – On Jan. 26, 2,500 people protested in Jalal-Abad against cartoons that “insult the feelings of religious believers.”
Opposition to free speech, when it comes to criticism of Islam, is also having an impact in Western nations.
In Australia, an estimated 800 people attended a rally Jan. 23 organized by the Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir against the “arrogant West” and criticism of Muhammad.
One speaker, Sufyan Badar, proclaimed, “We rejected freedom yesterday, we rejected freedom today, and we reject your freedom tomorrow.”
The head of the largest non-English BBC News service is also refusing to call the attacks on Charlie Hebdo an act of terrorism. Tarik Kafala, head of BBC Arabic, believes the term “terrorist” is “value-laden” and should not be used to describe the murders in Paris.
According to Kafala: “Terrorism is such a loaded word. The U.N. has been struggling for more than a decade to define the word and they can’t. It is very difficult to.”
Pamela Geller is not surprised. Her own website, PamelaGeller.com, went offline for two weeks because of Digital Denial of Service attacks attempting to shut it down. It was only restored after “prohibitive expense.”
Geller believes what she calls the “enemedia” is empowering the attacks on free speech.
“Every newspaper in the world should have published the cartoons in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo jihad massacre to demonstrate their commitment to free speech,” she said. “Very few did. Had the mainstream media published the cartoons back in 2005, the Hebdo editorial staff would be alive today. By submitting to the demands of savages, we empowered them.”
International security and terrorism expert F. Michael Maloof, author of “A Nation Forsaken,” believes confrontations between Muslims and Europeans will only increase. He is pessimistic about the prospects of democracy and free speech in countries like Afghanistan.
“The Taliban has a saying,” noted Maloof. “‘The West has the clocks; we have the time.’ They will simply wait until the West leaves and fill the political vacuum.”
Similarly, Maloof observes that Russian President Vladimir Putin banned a demonstration by Muslims in Moscow but allowed it in Chechnya because he “probably couldn’t do much about it anyway.”
Maloof is also highly concerned about the direction of Turkey. The formerly secular republic is “becoming more Islamist and more radicalized” under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party.
Maloof also points to Turkey’s quiet support for ISIS and says, “ISIS is really a tool of Turkey.”
As Maloof describes in his e-book, “ISIS Rising: Prelude to a Neo-Ottoman Caliphate,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu “clearly called for the re-creation of the Ottoman Caliphate.” Turkey is exploiting Islamic radicalism and the rise of ISIS to further the goal by keeping “open its borders to allow ISIS fighters to cross and to launder money to finance jihad.”
In Western Europe, the Charlie Hebdo attacks have led to an increased counter-terrorist effort. Though the West must respond to the “challenge to Western freedoms,” Maloof worries that counter-terrorist efforts “might backfire and isolate European Muslims instead of assimilating them. These rising tensions could create conditions between Christians and Muslims where we could even see religious wars in Europe.”
Geller, however, does not see an alternative to confrontation. As she puts it: “There will be more conflicts over free speech, and most probably laws restricting it in Western countries. But the officials who impose these restrictions will soon learn that they won’t appease the jihadis. Accommodation always gives way to more demands, more submission to Islam.”
Muslims rally worldwide against free speech
-NO AUTHOR-
Wed, 28 Jan 2015 01:51:54 GMT
Syrian refugees displaced by civil war.
Up to 10,000 Syrian refugees, most of them Muslims, will be resettled in cities throughout the U.S. in 2015, with that figure expected to surge to near 75,000 over the next five years.
While some of the planned destinations for these refugees are starting to leak out, the big question is: where will they be going?
The U.S. State Department does not announce where it plans to send foreign refugees for resettlement within the United States, although the locations do eventually show up in a government database some weeks after they arrive in their host cities. Word of their anticipated arrivals will sometimes surface earlier in local media reports.
And that’s already happening in North Dakota, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio and Washington.
North Dakota
The Jamestown Sun of Jamestown, North Dakota, reported recently that the Midwestern state is expecting about 400 new refugees to arrive from the Middle East this year.
Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota and its “community partners,” which include schools, medical facilities, law enforcement, county and volunteer agencies and churches, are anticipating a shift in the ongoing resettling of refugees there.
The state is expecting a slowing of the influx of Hindus from Bhutan and an increase in the number of Muslims coming from the Middle East, reported Ann Corcoran in her Refugee Resettlement Watch blog.
The Lutheran agency has recently resettled a number of people from Afghanistan, and is planning for refugees in the coming months from Syria and Iraq, who are escaping the brutality of the Islamic State, also called ISIS, and civil war in Syria, the Sun reported.
Laetitia Mizero, program director and state refugee coordinator at Lutheran Social Services, said 260 refugees will settle in the Fargo area, about 95 in Grand Forks and 45 in Bismarck.
Once a city gets a refugee “seed community” started, it tends to grow, Corcoran said. That’s because the resettlement agency, the Lutherans in this case, then gets paid by the government to resettle the family members of the initial refugees.
Louisville, Kentucky
The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that Kentucky Refugee Ministries Executive Director John Koehlinger said an Iraqi-American in that city has started an Arabic newspaper to serve the “large number of refugees from Iraq” in Louisville. That’s a trend that started around 2008 — and now Louisville is preparing to aid the first wave of refugees from Syria in 2015, the Courier-Journal reported.
“Refugees have been coming from Iraq in large numbers for five years,” Koehlinger told the Courier-Journal. “I think that the time is right for a newspaper for that (Arab) community.”
Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington, has already welcomed one family of Iraqis that had fled to Syria under pressure from ISIS.
In addition to the Iraqi family arriving from Syria, World Relief Spokane told KXLY-TV that a Syrian family will be coming in the next couple months “with many more to follow.”
North Carolina, Texas and Ohio
As previously reported by WND, the cities of Greensboro, North Carolina, and Cleveland, Ohio, are also primed to receive Syrian refugees.
If established patterns hold, Texas could also be a hotspot for Syrian refugees. It has already received 50 Syrians over the last year-and-a-half, according to State Department figures.
Lincoln, Nebraska
Nebraska is also primed to receive Syrian refugees. At least four Nebraska resettlement agencies have said they are preparing to help the effort, reported the McCook Gazette of McCook, Nebraska, although no numbers have been released yet for Nebraska.
Nebraska agencies pledging to help deal with the refugees include Lutheran Refugee Services of Lincoln, Lutheran Family Services, Catholic Social Services and the Southern Sudan Community Association.
More than 3 million Syrians have fled their country because of the ongoing civil war between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and several Islamic rebel groups including ISIS, the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army. Assad is a member of the minority Alawite sect which is fighting the coalition of Sunni Muslim rebels. Christians have been largely protected by the Alawite regime, worshiping freely in centuries-old Syrian churches, many of which now lie in ruins.
Watch brief historic perspective on the indigenous Christian population in the Middle East and the threats it faces today.
Syria part of broader Christian genocide in Mideast
Greek Catholic sources have said more than 300,000 Syrian Christians are among the refugees driven from their homes. But neither the United Nations nor the Obama administration has shown a willingness to bring large numbers of Christian Syrians to the United States, focusing instead on Muslim refugees which pose a greater security risk.
Peter Jesserer Smith, Washington correspondent for the National Catholic Register, recently filed a story from a refugee camp in Lebanon in which a Catholic nun, who runs a relief effort serving Christians and Muslims from Syria, told Smith that she is well aware that ISIS has its “infiltrators within the Sunni refugees.”
“If they kill me, it’s not a problem,” the nun said. “Maybe another sister … will have the courage to continue the mission.”
The Canadian government said in December that it was considering giving priority to Christian and Yazidi refugees fleeing Syria and has since come under strong condemnation from the U.N. and non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International. Canada’s left-leaning Liberal Party also roundly criticized the plans by conservatives to focus on non-Muslim refugees.
Watch video clip showing backlash by leftists against Canadian government’s attempt to select Christian minority refugees.
“As far as global needs go, the Middle East has plenty of safe refuges for Sunni and Shiite Muslims; it has none for Christians and Yazidis,” writes Daniel Greenfield, a New York-based journalist and fellow at the Freedom Center who focuses on radical Islam. “It only makes sense that the West should fill the need for safe refuges that don’t exist in the Muslim world for non-Muslims, while the Muslim world takes in its own refugees.”
The situation for Syrian Christians has only grown more dire since a 2013 report by Global Catholic Network.
“Many Christians in the region fear Syria will become another Iraq, where poor security after the U.S. invasion in 2003 has allowed militant Islamic groups to target Christians for intimidation, killings and kidnappings that helped drive hundreds of thousands of Christians out of the country,” reported the Global Catholic Network more than a year-and-a-half ago.
That fear now appears to be coming to pass.
Sister Agnes-Mariam de la Croix, mother superior of the Greek Catholic Monastery of St. James the Mutilated in Syria, said the Syrian uprising has been “hijacked by Islamist mercenaries who are more interested in fighting a holy war than in changing the government,” according to the Global Catholic Network.
She said the conflict turned into “a sectarian conflict” in which Christians are “paying a high price,” the Daily Mail reports.
At least 80,000 Christians were forced from their homes in the Homs region, said the nun, who was forced to flee to Lebanon when militants wearing the black bandanas of al-Qaida laid siege to her monastery between Damascus and Homs for two days to try to prevent Christmas celebrations.
She blamed the U.S. and Europe for supporting rebel groups whose stated goal was to create an Islamic state.
The British think tank Civitas, in a December 2012 report titled “Christianophobia,” warned there is “a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands” in the Middle East and north Africa due largely to violence and intimidation from members of the Islamic faith.
“In the large area between Morocco and Pakistan, for example, there is scarcely a country in which church life operates without restrictions. Syria has been one of the exceptions until now,” writes the author of the report, Rupert Shortt. “As I write, however, the country is enduring full-scale civil war, and tens of thousands of Christians have been ousted from places including Homs and Qusayr.”
Civitas estimated that up to two-thirds of Middle East Christians have left their homelands or have been killed in the past 100 years.
Obama creates task force on ‘New Americans’
The U.S. State Department places refugees in 180 cities across 49 states with help from nine contractors, most of them affiliated with Christian denominations. See the list of resettlement offices in all 180 U.S. cities where U.N.-selected refugees are being resettled.
WND has reported that mayors in Georgia, Massachusetts and New Hampshire have been outspoken in their opposition to the State Department sending any more refugees to their cities, saying the refugees have been a drain on social services and taxpayer dollars.
The cost of resettling the refugees has been estimated at $1 billion a year.
Yet, the Obama administration maintains that refugees and asylum seekers are good for the U.S. economy.
With the massive increase in U.S. immigration, both legal and illegal, President Obama announced on Jan. 12 he is creating a “White House Task Force on New Americans” under the direction of Cecilia Muñoz, one of his trusted aides and a former vice president for National Council of La Raza or “the Race.”
“By March 2015, the Task Force will submit a plan to the president that includes recommendations for federal actions to promote the integration of new Americans,” the announcement states. “In developing this plan, we need to hear from you. You know best what is working to support immigrant integration in your community. Send us input on promising practices and examples of model programs that help immigrants and refugees to contribute to your communities and our economy.
“We also need your input to ensure that federal programs and policies continue to reflect our ongoing commitment to welcoming and integrating newcomers into the fabric of our country.”
The White House asks for ideas and examples to be emailed to NewAmericans@who.eop.gov by Feb. 9.
The White House said it wants ideas to “Help Shape a Federal Immigrant and Refugee Integration Strategy.”
Ann C. Richard, the deputy Secretary of State in charge of immigration, said the United States had resettled nearly 70,000 refugees from nearly 70 countries around the world last year, and is reviewing 9,000 to 10,000 recent referrals from the United Nations high commissioner on refugees. The State Department receives about 1,000 new referrals each month from the U.N. agency and takes 18 to 24 months to screen each applicant for security purposes and possible ties to terrorist organizations.
Last month’s State Department announcement was careful to explain that the U.S. will take in only those Syrians who are “persecuted by their government.” Christians in Syria are being killed by ISIS and other Muslim rebels, not by “their government,” but the Sunni Muslims are being killed by the Shiite-led government.
It also would not take 18 to 24 months to vet Christian refugees for security purposes.
“There is no doubt the majority of Syrians to be admitted to the U.S. will be Muslims because it would be unlikely there would be a ‘security risk’ with the Christians,” according to Corcoran.
The number of refugees from Syria is expected to surge in 2015 and beyond, Richards said, and the U.S. accepts the majority of all United Nations referrals from around the world.
Refugees accepted through the United Nations refugee program are put on a fast track toward U.S. citizenship and are eligible for a full range of government welfare programs, including housing subsidies, Medicaid, food stamps, Women, Infants and Children as well as refugee assistance loans and tutoring from language experts who will help them bridge the language gap in public schools.
The nine resettlement agencies all have strong presences in Washington and often lobby on behalf of the U.N. high commissioner on refugees, pushing for more foreign refugees to be resettled in America, which results in more federal grants flowing into their coffers.
The nine contractors that lobbied for more Syrian refugees are:
• Church World Service (CWS)
• Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC)
• Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
• Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
• International Rescue Committee (IRC)
• U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)
• Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)
• U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
• World Relief Corp. (WR)WND has documented in previous stories that more than 90 percent of the money used by Lutheran Social Services, the Catholic Bishops and other religious charities for their refugee resettlement work comes from government grants.
Secret planting of up to 75,000 Syrian Muslims begins in U.S.
Leo Hohmann
Wed, 28 Jan 2015 02:30:31 GMT
