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Saturday, February 28, 2015

'Why will no one speak out for us?'

 

Iraq_Christians2

Former Rep. Frank Wolf, the leading voice for religious freedom in Congress for decades, says Christianity is on the verge of extinction in Iraq and the remaining steadfast believers do not see much effort from the U.S. or other Western nations to improve their plight.

Wolf served in the House of Representatives from 1981 to 2015. He is the author of the International Religious Freedom Act, which established the International Religious Freedom Office at the State Department and created an ambassador-at-large position to promote religious freedom around the world. That post has been vacant for some time.

Upon leaving the House, Wolf became the first-ever Wilson chair in religious freedom at Baylor University and co-founded the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative. He co-led a trip to Iraq in January to observe conditions for Christians and other minorities and to speak to people firsthand. The group recently released a report based on that trip titled, “Edge of Extinction: The Eradication of Religious and Ethnic Minorities in Iraq.” He said the conclusions of the visit were obvious.

“Two things. They’re really suffering and they’re really facing extinction,” said Wolf, who added that the people there are mystified at the relative silence in the midst of their suffering, since the Islamic State has very real plans to bring its savagery to the West as well.

“The threat ISIS poses is not only to them but to people in the West and, quite frankly, people in the United States,” Wolf said. “It’s kind of a conglomeration. They kept saying, ‘Why will no one in the West speak out for us? Does anyone care?’

“I think they’re running out of confidence that the West will do much about it, because you know it’s been going on since it started in June, then in August. Now here we are in February of the next year, so they’re not seeing very much assistance.”

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with former Rep. Frank Wolf:

Wolf said that impression is only intensified after events like the beheading of Coptic Christians in Libya and then the Obama administration only referring to them as Egyptian citizens. He said, instead of reacting to individual atrocities, the U.S. and other Western nations need to understand what’s really happening.

“It is genocide, genocide against Christians and genocide against the Yazidis and other religious minorities,” he said.

The nightmare for Christians started long before the rise of the Islamic State. Wolf said the state of Christianity in Iraq now compared to the days before the Iraq War is staggering.

“In 2001, there were a million-and-a-half Christians in Iraq,” he said. “They’re down now to 300,000, and I think probably under that number. Some say under 225,000.”

He added, “The suffering of the people is not just numbers. We interviewed many, many people there who are suffering. They would like to stay, but if something isn’t done they are going to leave.”

Christians who refuse to convert are either killed or forced to live in subhuman conditions. As cold winter conditions hit the region, thousands of people are sleeping in whatever abandoned buildings they can find, often in 12′x12′ or 15′x15′ sections with just two-inch-thick mattresses as beds and kerosene heaters for warmth. For those allowed to live, there is no opportunity for work or for education. They also have no medical care.

“Many of them are doctors, and many of them are lawyers. They’re educated people, but they don’t have any resources,” said Wolf, who noted that the most substantial relief is coming to believers through a Catholic group called the Dominican Sisters as well as Samaritan’s Purse, the relief organization headed by evangelist Franklin Graham.

All of this is taking place in a region rich in biblical history.

“More biblical activity took place in Iraq than any other country in the whole world, other than Israel,” he said. “Abraham’s from Iraq. Rebekah’s from Iraq. The 12 tribes of Israel lived in Iraq. Ezekiel is buried in Iraq. Jonah, Ninevah, in fact Jonah’s tomb was just blown up in Iraq. Daniel, one of the great men of the Bible, is buried in Iraq.”

Despite the intense persecution, the report from the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative suggests the faith of embattled believers remains strong. It tells stories of people preferring to die than recant their faith in Christ. Another man lost his wife to cancer after the Islamic State refused to allow her to receive treatment in Mosul because she would not convert to Islam. In the report, the widowed husband shared his wife’s last words.

“I am going to hold onto the cross of Christ,” she told him. “I refuse to convert. I prefer death. I prefer death to abandoning my religion and my faith.”

Wolf said faith of Iraqi Christians is the strongest he’s ever seen, but he added that Christians and other religious minorities there have infinitely less faith in Western nations to come to their rescue.

“Their faith is strong,” he said. “Maybe their faith is greater with the persecution than it is in the West, where there’s a lot more materialism and things like that. I think they’re beginning to give up on the West, and many are saying, ‘Help us stay,’ meaning if we don’t stay, we’re going to leave.

“If they leave, we will literally see the end of Christianity in the place where it kind of began,” he said. “In the cradle of Christendom, there’ll be no Christians left and ISIS will have won.”

'Why will no one speak out for us?'
Greg Corombos
Sun, 01 Mar 2015 00:01:58 GMT

Survey: Dems much more likely to talk about their guns

 

handgun_23

A new poll reveals that Democrats are far more likely to be willing to talk about their guns than Republicans or independents.

The revelation comes just as the American Academy of Family Physicians is launching a campaign to emphasize just that – talking about guns. Specifically the doctors say they oppose any restrictions on their discussions about guns with their patients, and they want to take a “public health approach” on the issue of weapons.

The new poll from The O’Leary Report and WND, done by Zogby Analytics, reports that 68 percent of Democrats who responded said they would respond truthfully to a national pollster asking them personal questions about gun ownership.

For independents, only 49 percent would follow that path, and the GOP generated an even lower level of cooperation to such questions, with only 44 percent agreeing to respond to those questions.

The poll asked the question, “If a national pollster asked you if you owned a firearm, would you determine to tell him or her the truth or would you feel it was none of their business?”

Bradley S. O’Leary is president of The O’Leary Report and author of books including “Shut Up, America!,” “The Audacity of Deceit,” “America’s War on Christianity” and others.

The poll was conducted through online interviews between Jan. 16-18 of 890 likely voters in the U.S. Based on a confidence interval of 95 percent, the margin of error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Nationally, the poll revealed that 55 percent of respondents would talk with a pollster about such personal issues, while 36 percent would not. Nearly nine percent were uncertain.

Responses from men and women aligned closely with the national average, as did the pattern among the age groups and generations.

Among those who identified themselves with different ideologies is where the differences were stark. For those who self-identified as liberal, 75 percent said they would answer such questions, and only 18 percent thought it was private information.

For moderates, the split was 57 percent to 33 percent, and for conservatives more than half said they would refuse to reveal such information.

The physicians’ group, just this week, under the headline “Physician Free Speech,” announced a coalition effort involving a handful of professional organizations “in a call for policies to reduce firearm-related injuries and deaths in the United States and to protect physicians’ free speech rights to discuss gun ownership with patients.”

The campaign, which also involves the American Bar Association, the American Public Health Association and others, cites the incidence of gun deaths in the nation as a “public health crisis.”

The effort also seeks universal background checks, a ban on some weapons, more federal gun-injury research and other components, and says it does not conflict with the Second Amendment.

But it also likens the gun issue to the heavily regulated issues of motor vehicles, tobacco and hazardous materials and described it as a “public health crisis.”

The groups noted that “when public health research guides advocacy,” society is safer.

The issue with doctors’ conversations has included disputes when physicians make revealing such information mandatory, and patients refuse to comply.

More than 53 percent of those who called themselves “conservative on just about every issue” would tell a pollster with such a question “It was none of their business.” Only 15 percent of those who are liberal/progressive lined up in that column.

Regional, age, income and other factors didn’t have a significant impact on the answers to the question.

The poll also had asked whether respondents thought Hillary Clinton’s age – she would be 70 in her first year if elected – is a concern.

In fact, a plurality of Americans – even one in three Democrats – agrees that her age is a worry.

Overall, 46.5 percent of the respondents said the Democrats need to look at someone young. Only 33.4 percent said that was unneeded, and a significant one in five said they were not sure.

Among those ages 18-29, almost exactly half – 48.1 percent, said the Democrats needed to look at Hillary Clinton’s age as a factor. That was 46.8 percent for those ages 30-49 and 42.5 percent for those ages 50-64. For those over 65, it was 49.8 percent.

Another question in the survey was, “Do you agree or disagree that the United States should help certain Arab countries financially and militarily if their countries’ constitutions or laws make being a Christian or atheist a crime punishable by jail or even execution.”

The poll said nearly 63 percent of all respondents disagree with that funding.

Only about 16 percent said that should continue, while 62.6 percent disagreed. About 21 percent weren’t sure.

“According to the poll results Americans are more politically opposed to military and economic aid going to Arab countries that have religious bias,” said O’Leary.

Survey: Dems much more likely to talk about their guns
Bob Unruh
Sat, 28 Feb 2015 21:17:39 GMT

Republican rebels stand fast against Boehner, amnesty

 

House Speaker John Boehner

House Speaker John Boehner

In the contentious voting over a Homeland Security funding bill Friday night, nearly 50 mostly conservative Republicans openly defied House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio – not once, but twice.

Only a last-minute change of heart by Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., spared the Republican speaker from an embarrassing defeat and a possible shutdown of part of the DHS.

At issue was whether the three-week spending bill backed by GOP leadership would be passed with or without funding President Obama’s executive action lifting the threat of deportation from millions of illegal immigrants. Many in Boehner’s party were not willing to pass a bill paying for what they’re calling Obama’s unconstitutional “amnesty” action.

“It does not make any difference whether the funding is for three weeks, three months or a full fiscal year,” argued Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who voted against the measure. “If it’s illegal, it’s illegal.”

Fifty-one other Republicans joined Brooks in voting against the measure, leading to a 224-203 defeat for Boehner and the GOP leadership.

Join the “Don’t Be Yellow: Dump Boehner Now!” campaign!

Later in the evening, the proposal was put forward to pass a bill funding the DHS for just one week, and this time, 55 Republicans voted against the measure.

Pelosi, however, rallied Democrats to switch their votes and agree to what she called “a 7-day patch.”

“Your vote tonight,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to fellow Democrats, “will assure that we will vote for full funding next week.”

Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., however, continued the resistance from within the Republican Party, voting against the funding for a second time.

“Passing bills that do nothing but kick the can down the road is something that has become commonplace in Washington,” Salmon said. “I pledge to continue this fight in one week, so we can responsibly fund the Department of Homeland Security without funding the president’s unconstitutional actions.”

The Senate immediately passed the one-week funding measure in a voice vote, and President Obama signed the bill just before midnight.

Democrats have been tight-lipped on what brought about the sudden change of heart, and Boehner spokesman Michael Steel firmly denied rumors that a deal was cut between Boehner and Pelosi to get the measure passed.

“We did not make any such ‘deal’ or promise,” Steel said.

Republicans who voted against the three-week measure are listed in alphabetical order below:

  1. Justin Amash, R-Mich.
  2. Brian Babin, R-Texas
  3. Lou Barletta, R-Pa.
  4. Joe Barton, R-Texas
  5. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.
  6. Dave Brat, R-Va.
  7. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla.
  8. Mo Brooks, R-Ala.
  9. Curt Clawson, R-Fla.
  10. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla.
  11. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn.
  12. Sean Duffy, R-Wis.
  13. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas
  14. Stephen Fincher, R-Tenn.
  15. John Fleming, R-La.
  16. Randy Forbes, R.Va.
  17. Trent Franks, R-Ariz.
  18. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas
  19. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.
  20. Morgan Griffith, R-Va.
  21. Jody Hice, R-Ga.
  22. Richard Hudson, R-N.C.
  23. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas
  24. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.
  25. Robert Hurt, R-Va.
  26. Sam Johnson, R-Texas
  27. Walter Jones, R-N.C.
  28. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio
  29. Steve King, R-Iowa
  30. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho
  31. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo.
  32. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga.
  33. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.
  34. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.
  35. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C.
  36. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas
  37. Pete Olson, R-Texas
  38. Steve Pearce, R-N.M.
  39. Scott Perry, R-Pa.
  40. Ted Poe, R-Texas
  41. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas
  42. Tom Rice, R-S.C.
  43. Phil Roe, R-Tenn.
  44. Thomas Rooney, R-Fla.
  45. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.
  46. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.
  47. Lamar Smith, R-Texas
  48. Mark Walker, R-N.C.
  49. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio
  50. Roger Williams, R-Texas
  51. Rob Wittman, R-Va.
  52. Kevin Yoder, R-Kansas

In the second vote, nine additional Republicans resisted the one-week extension, while six who voted against the three-week funding bill agreed to the one-week “patch.” The roll call on the second vote can be found by clicking here.

Obama has vowed to veto any legislation that undercuts his immigration action.

Recruit your friends, neighbors, and fellow commuters to the “Don’t Be Yellow: Dump Boehner Now” campaign with this exclusive bumper sticker.

Republican rebels stand fast against Boehner, amnesty
Drew Zahn
Sat, 28 Feb 2015 21:29:59 GMT

GOP 'pretty fired up' about blocking ObamaNet

 

ObamaNet

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is leading the first legislative effort to roll back the federal government’s decision to start regulating the Internet as a utility, calling Thursday’s action by the Federal Communications Commission the start of the “Obamanet” and a guarantee of more taxes for Internet consumers.

On Thursday, by a party line 3-2 vote, the FCC approved a plan commonly known as net neutrality, but which critics like Blackburn see as unnecessary government intrusion into the private sector.

“This is the day the ObamaNet was born,” said Blackburn, who is vice chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “The Internet is not broken. It does not need the FCC’s help and assistance in order to be productive or profitable.”

Coverage and analysis of the FCC’s net neutrality decision has been fairly limited, with both experts and consumers finding the issue very complicated. Blackburn said the impact of this is clear and very significant.

“The FCC will now reclassify broadband services from an information service to a telecommunications service. They will do this under a 1930s-era law, the Telecommunications Act. They will thereby subject the Internet to taxes, regulation, international considerations that are now put on our wire-lined phones. So this is a step backward; it is not a step forward,” said Blackburn, who stresses that the private market was serving consumers just fine.

“It’s a sad day when you see the Federal Communications Commission coming in and preceding your Internet service provider, your ISP, in the governance of the Internet,” she said. “Basically, what you’re going to see is the FCC will now be able to assign priority and value to content because they will be in charge of controlling pricing and fees.”

Blackburn said higher taxes on Americans’ Internet bills are not a possibility but a guarantee. And how much more will Americans be paying?

“You’ve got estimates that run from a few billion dollars in additional taxes to as high as $15 billion,” she said. “So at this point, I think it’s ‘pick a number,’ but everybody agrees the cost is going to go up because of taxes and fees.”

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.:

In short, Blackburn said the government is stepping in to control something that didn’t need rescuing.

“Whether it is packaging and pricing or the availability of broadband, you now have given the control over this to the FCC to decide what areas of the country get what speeds, what type of businesses get access to what speeds,” Blackburn said. “It allows the FCC to now begin picking winners and losers.”

Blackburn is launching the first piece of legislation aimed at rolling back the FCC plan, joining with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., to repeal a specific provision that trumps their states’ laws on broadband service. The FCC upheld petitions from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina, that would allow their broadband rules to be placed on residents outside their jurisdictions.

“Let’s say you have County A that goes in and they work with the FCC and they get a grant that helps them stand up a municipal broadband network. Well, they decide, ‘We need more customers on this network,’ so they go into adjoining counties B, C and D and say, ‘We will provide this service for you. What you have then done is to make counties B, C and D subject to the governing body of County A,” said Blackburn, noting that county would then have the power to set pricing and speed levels for people who do not live within its borders.

Her bill with Sen. Tillis would block that.

“The legislation that Sen. Tillis and I filed [Thursday] would prohibit these municipal broadband networks from going into these other areas and expanding their footprint,” she said, while again slamming the federal government for needlessly trying to trump state law.

“If they want to do it for their own constituents within their own footprint, then fine,” she said. “But it doesn’t take the federal government coming in and pre-empting state law and pre-empting local law to do that. They have no right to do that and they ought not to be doing that.”

The net neutrality controversy comes at the same time members of Congress are fiercely debating whether President Obama had the power to unilaterally approve the legalization of five million adults in the U.S. illegally. Blackburn, who calls the FCC a group of “unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats,” sees a disturbing pattern.

“It is more of this overreach and, quite frankly, I think the American people are growing weary of this,” she said. “They don’t think one city ought to be able to override another and get into the broadband business competing with the private sector.”

While she isn’t sure if the Senate will find the votes to pass her bill or others likely to be drafted in response to the FCC, Blackburn said Republicans are ready to fight over her bill and the larger issues at stake.

“I think they’re pretty fired up, and you’re going to see us move forward with our legislation,” she said. “Of course, I’ve had the bill that would block net neutrality for about three-and-a-half years, so it’s time to move it forward now so we can nip this in the bud before they get a chance to put it on the books.”

GOP 'pretty fired up' about blocking ObamaNet
Greg Corombos
Sat, 28 Feb 2015 00:51:51 GMT

Friday, February 27, 2015

John Bolton: Hillary 'unfit to command'

 

john_bolton

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton told CPAC that Hillary Clinton was “unfit” to be president, arguing her foreign policy record is indistinguishable from the Obama administration’s record of foreign-policy failures.

“Remember Benghazi? Hillary stuck with the story that the attack was over an Internet video when she had contrary evidence even as the attack was going on,” Bolton said.

“She left her desk at the State Department to go home while the attack at Benghazi was still going on and Americans at U.S. embassies in North Africa and all across the Middle East were at risk,” he said.

“No boss I ever worked for at the State Department would have left their desk while Americans were in danger,” said Bolton. “Every boss I had at the State Department would have been at their State Department desk and on the phone every 15 minutes.”

Bolton summed up his view of Clinton’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stephens and three other Americans were killed.

“Our people at Benghazi were left to die in a terrorist attack,” he said.

“How did we evacuate our people from Libya? By the United States Navy? No, we had to rent a Greek ferry boat to come to Tripoli to get our people out, and even after that lesson, Hillary Clinton failed to take adequate steps to protect embassy personnel in the region from what happened at Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.”

Bolton said Benghazi must never be forgotten.

“Terrorists around the world have learned from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that you can kill an American ambassador and do it with impunity,” he said. “That’s Hillary Clinton’s lesson.”

Bolton charged that Clinton left Americans to die at Benghazi without taking any steps to find out what military means might have been available to save them.

He then turned to the U.S. relationship with Israel and the controversy surrounding the invitation by House Speaker John Boehner to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress while Obama has chosen not to meet with him.

“Barack Obama has had the worst relationship with Israel of any American president since the state of Israel was created in 1948,” Bolton said. “I congratulate Speaker Boehner for inviting this ally to speak to a joint session of Congress. Obama’s reaction is reprehensible, and if Hillary Clinton is ever to show any daylight between her foreign policy and Barack Obama’s, she should welcome Netanyahu here and offer to work with him.”

Bolton recalled that he said in 2008, when Obama ran for president for the first time, that Obama was not qualified to be president on matters of national security.

He still believes Obama is unqualified, “and we have two more years to go.”

“This is why foreign policy must be at the center of the 2016 presidential campaign, and I intend to play a role in that discussion,” he said.

Bolton expanded on his assertion that Clinton’s foreign policy record makes her unfit to be president.

He noted that Clinton, as secretary of state, supported Obama’s decision to pull out of Iraq in 2011, calling it “the single most significant decision to explain the chaos in the Middle East, the rise of ISIS, and the creation of a new state out of what used to be Syria and Iraq.”

He also held Clinton responsible for what he characterized as “the consistent mishandling of the Arab Spring, refusing to recognize it was not a new flower of democracy, but the onset of a new wave of international terror, the fruit of which we are now seeing.”

He blamed Clinton for failing to see that “ISIS would rise not only in Iraq and Syria, but also in Libya where Isis has just beheaded 21 Coptic Christians.”

“It is now depressingly clear that Hillary Clinton is likely to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for president in 2016,” Bolton concluded. “I feel I have a civic obligation to escort Hillary and Bill Clinton to the exit door of American politics.”

John Bolton: Hillary 'unfit to command'
Jerome R. Corsi
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 17:05:09 GMT

Rick Perry: America will survive Obama as it did Carter

 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry

Texas Gov. Rick Perry

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – President Obama’s unwillingness to enforce immigration laws is as great a foreign policy failure as his administration’s inability to defeat the Islamic jihadist army ISIS, declared former Texas Gov. Rick Perry at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday morning.

“No one should be surprised when dictators decide, like Assad in Syria, to cross President Obama’s red lines, because Assad knows President Obama will note even defend the line that divides the United States from Mexico,” Perry said.

“There are no real consequences when dictators and adversaries defy America, and this must change,” said Perry, a presidential candidate in 2012 who has not declared his intentions for 2016

“For the world to be safer, America must be stronger. And for America to be safer, our border must be secure. Drug cartels and transnational gangs smuggle guns, drugs and people. They are a clear and present danger to the health and safety of all Americans. Any conversation about comprehensive immigration reform must begin with comprehensive border security,” Perry said.

“That’s exactly why last summer I looked President Obama right square in the eye and said, ‘If you won’t secure our border with Mexico, Texas will,’” Perry related to strong applause from an enthusiastic CPAC audience.

Perry joined other presidential hopefuls at CPAC in echoing President Ronald Reagan’s belief that America’s best days lie ahead.

“America survived a civil war, two world wars, a great depression,” he argued. “We even survived Jimmy Carter. We will survive the Obama years, too. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by a change in leadership.”

Perry said it’s “time for America to lead the world.”

“It’s time to build an America worthy of leading the world, an America where our citizens and their children can dream again. Let’s roll up our sleeves, let’s go to work, and let’s revive this great nation once again,” he said.

Perry also encouraged the conservative movement to become an agency of change, willing to demand that every government agency be able to justify every penny of taxpayer money spent.

“Our nation is involved with generational theft,” Perry charged. “Opportunity and security have been replaced with anxiety at work. The cost of health care and college tuitions have gone up faster than inflation, with student debt at an all time high, and this has to change.”

Perry said it’s “time to restore hope and opportunity to the middle class, and we can start with our tax code.”

“It’s time to stop regulation by runaway federal agencies. It’s not a surprise when one out of five Americans are on food stamps when one out of 10 Americans are either unemployed, underemployed or just so discouraged they have quit looking for work,” he said.

Perry said that in Texas under his leadership, the welfare state has been replaced with what he called the “freedom state.”

“Our formula was simple,” he explained. “You control the taxes and spending, and you provide smart regulations. You develop an educated workforce and you stop lawsuit abuse at the courthouse.”

Perry claimed that in his 14 years as Texas governor, the state created one-third of all private sector jobs created in America, noting that in the last seven years, Texas has created 1.4 million jobs.

“You take those jobs out of the equation,” he continued, “minus the jobs created by Texas, this country lost a quarter of a million jobs. It’s time to bring economic revival to every state in America with policies that limit government instead of expanding it.”

Rick Perry: America will survive Obama as it did Carter
Jerome R. Corsi
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 16:32:06 GMT

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Middle East experts: It is a religious war

 

Syrian Christians

Syrian Christians

President Obama spent days at a White House summit emphasizing the U.S. is not at war with Islam, that he wants to protect the Muslim population from being blamed for the acts of radical Muslims across the Mideast and that violence is done in the name of all religions, not just Islam.

But a number of Middle East experts contend it’s clear that the motivation of the people who use the tactics of beheading, crucifixion, burning and slaughter to instill terror and take over territory in the name of Allah is religious.

Spokesman David Curry of Open Doors USA, which has worked for decades in the Middle East, said all of the administrations policy statements and evaluations of the conflict seem to be “leaving out the religious content.”

“It is religious,” he told WND. “These people have a religious motivation. … They are attacking Christians. Their goal is to eliminate Christianity and faith in their caliphate and beyond, and that’s what they’re attempting to do.”

Earlier this month, ISIS released a video of its members beheading 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach and another of a captured Jordanian pilot of Muslim heritage being burned alive in a cage.

This week, Syrian human-rights activists reported the number of Christians abducted by ISIS in Syria and Iraq reached more than 250.

The abductions have come during Islamic terror attacks on villages in the region that have prompted thousands more to flee and become refugees, USA Today said.

Osama Edward of the Assyrian Human Rights Network said he fears the Assyrian Christians captured would be treated like the Coptic Christians captured earlier in Libya and beheaded.

ISIS has paraded prisoners through city streets in metal cages, like the Jordanian pilot who was burned to death.

While the U.S. State Department and White House issued a condemnation of the kidnappings, Obama was insisting to attendees of the violent extremism summit that “no religion is responsible for terrorism – people are responsible for violence and terrorism” and “Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding.”

Curry said, however, the fighting in Syria and Iraq is not merely a civil war but is “religiously motivated.”

“We are going to continue to see these kinds of attacks,” he said.

CBS reported the abductions have been in the Hassakeh province, which borders Turkey and Iraq.

ISIS has been attacking the villages and seizing people, “including many women and children.”

Curry said ISIS is setting up a medieval caliphate based on its interpretation of Islam.

He said while that interpretation may be considered “extreme,” and “people may be horrified by it, that’s what they’re doing.”

And, he said, “they’re justifying their behavior through their religious lens.”

He emphasized that Open Doors is not a political group, and it reaches out to help all sorts of needy people. But he said the Obama administration needs to understand the Islamic motivation.

American Center for Law and Justice Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow said Obama needs to lead an effort to “stop the slaughter of Christians.”

“It is unacceptable for President Obama, the West and the United Nations to stand idly by and watch the systematic elimination of Christians by radical Islamists,” he said.

“How many more Christians must be murdered because of their religious beliefs? Without a specific strategy to eliminate this evil, ISIS remains emboldened and continues to use these tragic events to recruit more radical jihadists.”

Sekulow said it’s clear ISIS “intends to continue to target and execute Christians.”

“It is time for President Obama to exercise leadership to assemble a global coalition and put an effective strategy into action to stop the slaughter of Christians, to put an end to this jihadist war against Christians.”

Joining the conversation was Todd Daniels of International Christian Concern.

He told WND the latest conflict also has forced thousands of Christians to flee to nearby cities.

The religious motivation seems apparent, he said, and his organization has seen Christians concentrating in more protected regions or leaving the country altogether.

The attackers see themselves as pursing religious goals, he said.

BBC News quoted a source saying 285 people were seized this week by ISIS.

“In areas under their control, Christians have been ordered to convert to Islam, pay jizya (a religious levy), or face death,” the report said.

Middle East experts: It is a religious war
Bob Unruh
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 00:45:20 GMT

Sarah Palin: Obama's VA 'killing our veterans'

 

palin

Sarah Palin

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin devoted her Thursday afternoon speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference to a critique of President Obama’s foreign policy, warning of the consequences of “weakness” and “retreat,” and of the Veterans Administration health-care scandal, which has burdened the very citizens who are risking their lives for the nation’s security.

“How many have done more for America than this generation in uniform, with tens of thousands wounded and more than 1,600 dead fighting radical Islamic terrorism?” she asked.

She noted that in Iraq and Afghanistan, an initial deployment was 45 months, placing a huge burden on families.

“I realized, as so many mothers of combat veterans have had to realize, that we could pray, but we would not be there to protect them in the battlefield,” she said. “Too many come home wounded, broken in body and spirit.”

She declared: “We’re here to collect on the promises made by Washington, and we can’t wait any longer for D.C. to fix the bureaucratic messes in the Veterans Administration.”

She said the VA bureaucracy “is killing our veterans.”

“Our veterans come home and have to wait for months and years for the medical treatment they deserve to receive immediately,” she said. “With corrupt government in Washington, our veterans are losing hope the Veterans Administration will ever be fixed.”

Watch Palin’s speech:

Palin demanded solutions, including the federal government providing veterans with vouchers that can be redeemed in the private health-care system.

“Instead of illegal immigrants cutting in line to demand government benefits, we must demand the vets are first in line,” she said, drawing a standing ovation.

Second, Palin insisted veterans re-entering the private economy should be allowed to “test out” to receive certification that can be used in seeking jobs in the private economy, documenting the technical skills they achieved in the military.

Third, Palin wants Congress to restore the veterans’ benefits that Congress cut last year in the process of increasing benefits Congress voted for itself.

“We need an honorable commander in chief who can provide our troops the political will to win, getting rid of politically correct rules of engagement that put our troops in danger,” she said.

“ISIS crucifying Christians and beheading children, the only thing standing between us and barbarity is the red, white and blue, the United States of America,” said Palin. “The consequences of weakness, retreat and defeat are unimaginable in the war against radical Islam, with terrorists planning to bring their violence to our shores.”

She said pretending radical Islamic terrorism doesn’t exist won’t make it go away, “and it won’t stop ISIS from killing Christians.”

“Stop blaming the victims, Mr. President,” she said. “The State Department tells us we can’t win a war by killing the enemies. Really? Well, tell that to the Nazis. But I forgot. We can’t tell that to the Nazis because we killed them all in World War II.”

Sarah Palin: Obama's VA 'killing our veterans'
Jerome R. Corsi
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 01:53:37 GMT

If you like your Internet ...

 

toon150227

If you like your Internet ...
-NO AUTHOR-
Thu, 26 Feb 2015 22:07:08 GMT

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

American Sniper Verdict Is...




GUILTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you God... Now fry that sack of sh*t!

Democrats flip-flop to save Obama's amnesty

 

Obama_Mexican_flag

WASHINGTON – Democrats aren’t letting their own words get in the way of voting the party line in the showdown over defunding President Obama’s amnesty.

Eight Democrat senators and one independent, all of whom criticized Obama’s executive action to grant amnesty to five million illegal immigrants, have nonetheless voted to block legislation that would defund the amnesty while keeping the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, fully funded.

WND contacted each one of those senators, quoted their own words criticizing the executive action granting amnesty and then asked two questions:

  • Why won’t you now vote to defund the president’s executive action while keeping DHS fully funded?
  • Would you kindly explain how this is not choosing party politics over protecting the constitutional separation of powers?

Not one senator responded or provided any explanation for the flip-flop.

Sixty votes needed are needed for the legislation to proceed to a simple majority vote in the Senate and bypass any filibuster by Democrats.

There are 54 Republicans in the Senate, one of whom voted against the bill. So, if just seven of the nine Democrats and independent stick to their anti-amnesty guns and switch their votes, the legislation would go to the president’s desk.

Why did those senators flip-flop on amnesty when push came to shove?

One Senate Democrat aide said, “I think it’s about making clear really early that we’re not going to play along with any of these games.”

But the real reason appears to be pure politics.

Comments by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, suggest Democrats believe obstruction of the bill will pay off because the GOP will get the blame for the bill’s failure.

“History would tell us that Republicans would get more blame,” said Cuellar, referring to the 2013 government shutdown over Obamacare. “It’s a replay of the same movie.”

cuellar

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas

That could indicate there has been arm-twisting behind the scenes by Democratic Party leadership to keep senators who have criticized amnesty from voting to defund it.

To counter that, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced he will switch tactics in an effort to flush out those senators who criticized executive amnesty but would not vote to defund it.

He now intends to bring a bill to the floor that would specifically block funding for the executive amnesty. Another bill fully funding the DHS could then be moved forward separately.

Republicans hope that Democrats who opposed Obama’s executive amnesty would then be put on the spot if they did not vote for the bill to defund it.

Here’s what those Democrats and the independent who criticized amnesty said before refusing to vote to defund it:

  • Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.: “It is clear the immigration system in this country is broken, and only Congress has the ability to change the law to fix it. … I am as frustrated as anyone that Congress is not doing its job, but the president shouldn’t make such significant policy changes on his own.”
  • Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.: “I have concerns about executive action. … This is a job for Congress.”
  • Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.: “I’m disappointed the president decided to use executive action at this time on this issue, as it could poison any hope of compromise or bipartisanship in the new Senate before it has even started. It’s Congress’ job to pass legislation and deal with issues of this magnitude.”
  • Sen. Angus King, I-Maine: “I worry that his taking unilateral action could in fact inflame public opinion, change the subject from immigration to the president. I also have constitutional concerns about where prosecutorial discretion ends and unconstitutional executive authority begins.”
  • Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V.: “I disagree with the president’s decision to use executive action to make changes to our immigration system.”
  • Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.: “Our immigration system is broken, and I support a comprehensive plan to fix it, but executive orders aren’t the way to do it.”
  • Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.: “Immigration reform is a national challenge that requires a long-term, comprehensive solution by Congress.”
  • Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.: “I would prefer that Congress act.”
  • Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.: “A big issue like immigration, the best way to get a comprehensive solution is to take this through the legislative process.”

Before McConnell announced he would offer separate legislation, Sens. Heitkamp, King, Manchin and McCaskill all vowed to stick with party leadership and oppose any DHS funding bill that would defund amnesty.

“Democrat after Democrat goes to the Senate floor to give speeches about how important the Department of Homeland Security is, and yet they don’t seem to be struck by the irony that it is Democrats who are preventing the Senate from taking up funding for DHS at a time when global threats are only growing,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told National Journal last week.

“It is both reckless and irresponsible,” he added.

Follow Garth Kant @DCgarth

Democrats flip-flop to save Obama's amnesty
Garth Kant
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 00:39:46 GMT

Obama power grab triggers 1st Amendment nightmare

 

Obama_FCC

Fox News Channel senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano says the Obama administration’s efforts to regulate the Internet constitute a major infringement upon freedom of speech, but he believes the new plan will get struck down in court for lack of transparency.

The five members of the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, are scheduled to vote Thursday on a plan to advance Obama’s net neutrality agenda, which also allegedly calls for the Internet to be treated like a utility. Despite the major changes the plan could well involve, lawmakers and the media have been rather quiet about it.

“People don’t know the danger that is coming,” Napolitano said. “The danger that is coming is a gaggle of bureaucrats here – three Democrats and two Republicans, the Republicans will probably dissent – claiming they have the power to regulate the Internet.”

He said Congress has passed no statute authorizing new government controls on the Internet, and the First Amendment clearly states that neither Congress nor any government agency it created can make a law restricting the freedom of speech.

Napolitano admits the stated goal of net neutrality sounds innocuous when first presented, but he said the problem Obama and his allies really have is with the free market.

“They claim that the purpose of their regulation is to prevent the Internet from affording priority and faster service to certain preferred users,” he explained. “Would we all like to have fast service? Yes. Do we all know how to get fast service? Yes, we do. Might that cost us something? Yes, it might, but at the present time it is free from government regulation.”

However, the judge said the public goal of establishing Internet fairness will come at a very heavy price.

“If the government regulates the Internet and tells providers how fast they can move information, we will soon see the government regulating the cost of the Internet. We will eventually, just like with broadcast television, see the government regulating the content of the Internet,” said Napolitano, who described the chain reaction he believes the FCC proposal would trigger.

“Right now, the Internet is the freest marketplace of ideas and transfers of information that the world has ever known,” he said. “At least in the United States, it is utterly and totally – there are some minor exceptions – unregulated. Once these federal bureaucrats get their hands on it, give them a couple of years. It’ll look like broadcast television, a watered-down version of what we now have.”

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Also at work, according to Napolitano, is the federal government’s unquenchable thirst for more and more power.

“Think about it,” he said. “You’re a commissioner on the FCC. You’re regulating telecoms and broadcast TV. Wouldn’t you like to regulate cable while you’re at it? Wouldn’t you like to regulate the Internet while you’re at it? It’s human nature when you have power to want to expand the power. That’s why we have a Constitution, to prevent these expansions of power.”

One of the greatest frustrations for those concerned about the FCC plan eroding speech rights is that the commissioners will not, and say they cannot, reveal any details of the package until after the vote on Thursday. Napolitano said that tactic is actually a double-edged sword. He said the downside of the secrecy is obvious.

“It’s bad because the government has an obligation under federal law, when any of its administrative agencies plan on changing their rules and expanding their power or modifying substantially the manner in which they regulate, to publish those rules for 30 days,” Napolitano said.

And because the FCC is not following the law, it gives opponents fertile ground for an appeal.

“The good part is, the failure to publish this will invalidate the rules once they’re challenged before a federal court. The government is shooting itself in the foot,” said Napolitano, who sees this turning into a replay of another fierce court battle involving the administration.

“This is the very same thing it did when it attempted to implement President Obama’s changes in immigration law, and they were enjoined from doing so last Monday by a federal judge in Texas, who said, ‘You didn’t publish these rules for 30 days, which gives the public the opportunity to comment and, more importantly, Congress the opportunity to modify the rules,”he said.

Napolitano said the biggest asset for net neutrality supporters right now is the disinterest of the American people. He said if that changes, the whole debate will change.

“This proposal by the president (these are the president’s appointees on the FCC) actually has the support of the leadership of both political parties, big-government Republicans and big-government Democrats,” he said. “But some of them will have great pause for reconsideration if there is a great national debate on this.”

He said fierce debate is exactly what the Democrat majority of commissioners is trying to avoid through its secretive tactics.

“That’s the reason why the three Democrats on the FCC want to force it through,” he said, “so there will be no great national debate, because a great national debate will result in the undoing of this.”

Obama power grab triggers 1st Amendment nightmare
Greg Corombos
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 00:50:00 GMT

Secret Iranian nuke facility revealed

 

ncri-presser

Alireza Jafarzadeh and Soona Samsami of the National Council of Resistance of Iran revealed Tuesday the details of an underground top-secret nuclear site(Courtesy NCRI)

WASHINGTON – As the Obama administration negotiates a controversial nuclear agreement with Iran, a dissident group is revealing evidence Tehran is operating a secret uranium-enrichment site northeast of the capital city.

The disclosure Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, NCRI, threatens to undermine the credibility of any nuclear agreement the Obama administration might reach with the radical Islamic clerics that have controlled the government in Tehran since Ayatollah Khomeni’s revolution in 1979.

NCRI’s deputy director, Alireza Jafarzadeh, said Iran cannot be trusted.

“How in the world can the United States expect to get an agreement from Iran to end their nuclear program, when we continue to find Iran is developing and operating secret nuclear facilities that are withheld even from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Administration?” Jafarzadeh asked.

“Iran has lied repeatedly about its secret nuclear facilities, and then when Iran is caught, the government gives you two more lies,” he said.

Jafarzadeh and Soona Samsami, U.S. representative of NCRI, identified the secret nuclear site as Lavizan-3, located in the northeastern suburbs of Tehran.

They said it operates advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges under the cover of an Intelligence Ministry center.

The NCRI disclosure was developed by the Mujahedin-e Klaq, MEK, the group’s political arm in Iran founded in 1965 to oppose Khomeini’s radical Islamic revolution.

NCRI has a track record of accurately disclosing secret Iranian uranium enrichment sites. In 2002, NCRI revealed Iran’s top secret uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, some 100 miles north of Isfahan, and a second top secret Iranian nuclear plant in Arak, approximately 150 miles south of Tehran, designed to produce heavy water for the production of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.

The Lavizan-3 site is about 500 by 500 yards, with the primary nuclear facility buried deep underground, NCRI said. It consists of four parallel halls, each more than 200 yards long. The facility was constructed by the Iranian Defense Ministry under the direction of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Brig. Gen. Seyyed Ali Hosseini-Tash, then the deputy defense minister, and Kalaye Electric Company, affiliated with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, responsible for the enrichment of uranium.

Jafarzadeh said there is “no way to insure Iran is not developing secret nuclear weapons if Tehran keeps nuclear sites like Lavizan-3 hidden even from the IAEA such that the sites cannot be subject to international inspection.”

“This is especially important when you are talking about a regime that has a track record of lying, cheating and deceiving the whole world,” he said. “That is why the U.S. government and the IAEA should take this information very seriously.”

Jafarzadeh emphasized the importance of the disclosure of yet another secret Iranian nuclear site as the negotiations with the U.S. in Geneva are approach a March 31 deadline.

“This site, Levizan-3, must be inspected and there should be no delay,” he said. “It is absolutely senseless to continue the negotiations discussing how many centrifuges Iran will be allowed to have going forward when we have these serious outstanding issues lingering out there.”

Jafarzadeh said NCRI shared the disclosures with top levels of the U.S. government and with the IAEA.

The disclosures were a “revelation” to the IAEA, he said.

“Under current IAEA agreements, the operation of Levizan-3 is in clear violation of IAEA requirements to inform the IAEA of all developments in Iranian nuclear research and development, as well as a violation of numerous United Nations Security Council decrees, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he said.

An NCRI statement said the “notion that the mullahs will abandon their nuclear weapons program through nuclear talks is a misguided narrative, which is the byproduct of the mullahs’ duplicity and western economic and political expediency.”

“Those who hope to secure the regime’s cooperation in the campaign against fundamentalism by offering nuclear concessions to the mullahs are both increasing the chances of a nuclear-armed Iran and contributing to the spread of Islamic fundamentalism,” NCRI said.

In a prepared statement she read at the press conference,

Samsami said in a prepared statement that research and development with advanced centrifuges in secret sites are only intended to advance Iran’s nuclear weapons project.

“Why else would the Iranian regime deceive the world into believing it had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, when Levizan-3 was in preparation from 2004 through 2008?” she asked.

“If the United States is serious about preventing the Iranian regime from obtaining nuclear weapons, the United States must make the continuation of talks conditional on the IAEA’s immediate inspection of the Levizan-3 site,” she stressed. “Any delay in doing so will enable the Iranian regime to destroy the evidence as it has done in the past.”

In 2005, WND Books published “Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians.”  The author, senior staff writer Jerome Corsi, argued Iranian supporters in the U.S. of the Islamic regime, including New York-based investment banker Hassan Nemazee, had influenced U.S. politicians such as then-Sen. John Kerry to take campaign contributions in exchange for accepting an Iranian promise of developing nuclear capabilities only for energy.

In 2004, Nemazee served as the New York finance chairman for Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, followed by serving as finance chairman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In her 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton chose Nemazee to serve as her national finance director.

On March 2010, Nemazee, then 60, pleaded guilty in federal court to fraudulently applying for and receiving some $292 million in loans. As chairman of Nemazee Capital, he received the loans from Citicorp, Bank of America and HSBC to buy property in Westchester County, make campaign contributions to Democratic Party politicians, donate to charity and to support his lavish society lifestyle.

On July 15, 2010, U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York sentenced Namazee to more than 12 years in federal prison on multiple federal criminal counts of bank and wire fraud.

Secret Iranian nuke facility revealed
Jerome R. Corsi
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 01:08:12 GMT

Olbermann yanked off air for 'pitiful' exchange

 

Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann

ESPN has suspended anchorman Keith Olbermann for the remainder of this after the left-wing firebrand called students of Penn State University “pitiful,” a remark the sports network is calling “completely inappropriate.”

The exchange began when Olbermann, a former anchor on MSNBC, commented on an article about Penn State students raising more than $13 million to fight pediatric cancer during its annual THON fundraiser.

Lisa De Leon, a Penn State alumna, tweeted the news to Olbermann, who last month slammed the school for its with the NCAA concerning penalties from the Jerry Sandusky case.

Olbermann responded to De Leon with one word: “Pitiful.”

The remark went viral, and Twitter users came to De Leon’s defense, with Dave Seidel saying: “So @KeithOlbermann says PSU students raising over $13m for pediatric cancer research is ‘pitiful.’ No sir, u r the definition of the word.”

Olbermann immediately doubled-down, claiming Penn State students were pitiful because they’re Penn State students – “period.”

keith-olbermann-penn-state-tweet

He followed up with a searing tweet that said: “I’d like to thank the students and alums of Penn State for proving my point about the mediocrity of their education and ethics.”

Officials at ESPN were not thrilled, and issued this statement:

“We are aware of the exchange Olbermann had on Twitter last night regarding Penn State. It was completely inappropriate and does not reflect the views of ESPN. We have discussed it with Keith, who recognizes he was wrong. ESPN and Keith have agreed that he will not host his show for the remainder of this week and will return on Monday. The annual tradition of THON and the efforts of the students of Penn State to fight pediatric cancer should be applauded.”

Tuesday afternoon, Olbermann tweeted an online apology: “I apologize for the PSU tweets. I was stupid and childish and way less mature than the students there who did such a great fundraising job.”

James Miller, who co-authored a book on the network, told the New York Post Olbermann would be paid during his time off the air.

Olbermann yanked off air for 'pitiful' exchange
Joe Kovacs
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 21:52:15 GMT

Ted Cruz opens throttle in campaign against Lynch

 

Lynch

Loretta Lynch

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Tuesday opened the throttle on his effort to torpedo President Obama’s nomination of Loretta Lynch to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, tweeting his opposition and writing in Politico that her “radical positions” are more than alarming.

WND has reported concerns about Lynch’s key role in the Obama administration’s decision not to prosecute the banking giant HSBC for laundering funds for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently conducted a two-hour session with HSBC whistleblower John Cruz in its investigation of Lynch’s role in the scandal.

WND was the first to report in a series of articles beginning in 2012 on charges by Cruz, a former HSBC vice president and relationship manager, based on his more than 1,000 pages of evidence and secret audio recordings.

Lynch allowed HSBC to enter into a “deferred prosecution” settlement in which the bank agreed to pay a $1.9 billion fine and admit “willful criminal conduct” in exchange for dropping criminal investigations and prosecutions of HSBC directors or employees.

On Tuesday, Cruz tweeted his opposition to Lynch, saying, “Read & RT my new op-ed: GOP must oppose Loretta Lynch – or lose all credibility on lawlessness.”

The Stop Loretta Lynch website linked the senator’s op-ed.

Wrote the senator: “What does it take for Senate Republicans to decide not to confirm Loretta Lynch, who is President Obama’s nominee to be attorney general? At what point is the lawlessness simply too much?”

“Senate Republicans have the power to stop this nomination. And we have a choice. We can honor our oaths to the Constitution – we can defend liberty and the rule of law – or we can confirm an attorney general who has candidly admitted she will impose no limits on the president whatsoever,” he said.

He said Holder “has abused the office, turning a Department of Justice that had built a long bipartisan tradition of impartially enforcing the law into effectively a partisan arm of the Democratic Party. And he has repeatedly ignored the law and the Constitution, so much so that he is the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress.”

Now, he said, referring to Lynch’s responses to Congress, the Senate is faced with a nominee “who tells us ahead of time she will ignore the law.”

“If the Senate [confirms her], we are complicit in the lawlessness,” Cruz wrote.

A day earlier, dozens of House Republicans urged senators to block Lynch’s confirmation.

The letter was signed by 51 House Republicans and states, “We respectfully ask that you refuse to vote Ms. Lynch out of the committee, and that you return her nomination to the president.

Read the explosive backstory inside the HSBC scandal – how WND first exposed the massive money-laundering scheme, the fallout from the eye-popping discovery and the role Loretta Lynch played in “Launder-gate.”

“We appreciate Ms. Lynch for her many years of outstanding service to our nation,” the Republicans continue. “Nonetheless, having observed her nominating hearing testimony, we can only conclude that she has no intention of departing in any meaningful way from the policies of Attorney General Eric Holder, who has politicized the Department of Justice and done considerable harm to the administration of justice.”

The House members, said, however, their larger concern was that Lynch apparently was unwilling “to stand up to the president and his unconstitutional efforts to circumvent Congress and enlarge the powers of his office.”

Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., said in a statement: “The top law enforcement official in the land must be willing to enforce the law, independent of administration politics. The testimony of Loretta Lynch demonstrated an unwillingness to depart from the politicization of justice we have seen from Eric Holder. The Senate has a constitutional obligation not to confirm her.”

Cruz wrote that he had wanted to support Lynch’s nomination.

But her testimony gave rise to major concerns: “When asked whether she would defend President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty – which Obama himself acknowledged, 22 times, he had no authority to undertake and which a federal court has just enjoined as unlawful – she responded affirmatively, saying that she thought the administration’s contrived legal justification was ‘reasonable.’”

Pointedly, Sen. Cruz wrote: “When asked if a subsequent president could use the same theory to exempt the state of Texas from every single federal labor law and environmental law – she refused to answer. … When asked if a subsequent president could use ‘prosecutorial discretion’ to order the Treasury Secretary to no longer collect any income taxes above 25 percent … she refused to answer.”

“These are extreme, radical positions,” Cruz said. “There is a reason the Senate is given constitutional authority over ‘advice and consent.’ We were not elected to be a ‘fraternal order.’ … We were elected to defend the Constitution.”

WND has reported that Cruz, the whistleblower, called the $1.9 billion HSBC fine “a joke.” He said HSBC bank auditors had told him in 2009 that senior managers and compliance officers in New York were fully aware the London-headquartered bank was engaged in a criminal scheme to launder money internationally for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists.

“The auditors warned me investigating the money laundering could cost me my job,” Cruz said. “The auditors told me in 2009 that nobody in the bank was going to go to jail and that HSBC had already put aside $2 billion in reserves to pay the fine they somehow had reason to suspect back then that the Department of Justice would demand to settle the case.”

Cruz argued that a $1.9 billion fine of an international bank the size of Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, the official name of HSBC, amounted to no more than “a few days operating profit.” He described it as “a cost of doing business” once HSBC had decided to launder money for international criminals.

Senate investigators to hear HSBC recordings

Confidential sources in Washington confirmed to WND that Jason Foster, the chief investigative counsel at the Senate Judiciary Committee, was directing the investigation into Cruz’s allegations against Lynch.

Cruz’s charges and documentation were brought to Sen. David Vitter, R-La., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, before the senator announced Feb. 11 that he was opening his own investigation of Lynch.

Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America’s independent news network.

Foster is considered on Capitol Hill to be one of the Senate’s best, most experienced investigators. A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, he had more than 15 years experience directing fact-finding inquiries for the Senate Committee on Finance, Senate Homeland Security Committee and the House Committee on Government Reform, before becoming chief investigative counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2011.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s staff questioning of Cruz and his attorney focused on approximately 1,000 pages of HSBC customer account records that Cruz turned over to WND early in 2012. The records were pulled from the HSBC computer system before he was fired by HSBC senior management who didn’t want to investigate his claim to have discovered illegal money-laundering activity at the bank.

As WND reported in its series of articles, Cruz was able to document a complex criminal scheme that involved wiring billions of dollars of money for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists thorough thousands of bogus accounts created through identity theft. The scheme used the names and Social Security numbers of hundreds of unsuspecting current and former customers. It allegedly had the active participation of regional bank managers, branch managers and employees, as well as bank compliance officials at hundreds of HSBC locations throughout the nation. The money ultimately was wired by the bank to undisclosed bank accounts internationally.

Foster, on behalf of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has requested that Cruz submit some 70 hours of conversations Cruz secretly recorded of bank management and compliance officers in New York. He also recorded his conversations with law-enforcement authorities, including the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS.

Cruz began working at HSBC Jan. 14, 2008, as a commercial bank accounts relationship manager and was terminated for “poor job performance” on Feb. 17, 2010, after he refused to stop investigating the HSBC criminal money-laundering scheme from within the bank.

In his position as a vice president and a senior account relationship manager, Cruz worked in the HSBC southern New York region, which accounts for approximately 50 percent of HSBC’s North American revenue. He was assigned to work with several branch managers to identify accounts to which HSBC might introduce additional banking services.

Cruz told WND he recorded hundreds of hours of meetings he conducted with HSBC management and bank security personnel in which he charged that various bank managers were engaging in criminal acts.

“I have hours of hours of recordings, ranging from bank tellers, to business representatives, to branch managers, to executives,” he said. “The whole system is designed to be a culture of fraud to make it look like it’s a legal system. But it’s not.”

Ted Cruz opens throttle in campaign against Lynch
Bob Unruh
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 16:31:45 GMT

Cupcake cop goes ballistic on grandma, 78

 

78-year-old Mary Poole after she was pepper-sprayed twice in the face.

78-year-old Mary Poole after she was pepper-sprayed twice in the face.

A California school district is now being sued by a 78-year-old grandmother who was allegedly pepper-sprayed and manhandled by a school police officer, all because she wanted to give her granddaughters cupcakes and cookies.

Mary Poole reportedly suffered a fracture and dislocated shoulder in the incident last year at Kastner Intermediate School in Fresno, California, leaving her more than $180,000 in medical bills.

According to KFSN-TV, the woman was dropping off treats for the girls when she says the Clovis Unified police officer asked her to leave because of a court order against her. Poole was delivering the goodies since the girls’ parents are embroiled in divorce and custody proceedings.

The station says Poole was the guardian of her son’s daughters for several years, but the custody dispute left her unable to see the girls. However, there’s no court order against her.

“I hadn’t seen my granddaughters for some time and I wanted to see them, and so I baked some cupcakes and bought some cookies for my granddaughters’ classroom,” Poole told the station.

As she was waiting at the class door, an officer told her she had to leave.

Poole says she departed the campus but pulled her car over in front of the school.

“He wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say, period,” said Poole. “Every time I tried telling him anything … I mean, I was even telling him, ‘I’m 78 years old,’ before he grabbed me. He sprayed me with mace twice.”

Watch video coverage by KFSN-TV:

Poole says she telling her son what happened on the phone, and that’s when the officer became confrontational.

“And I was very frightened, and I told him to call the police and he said, ‘I am the police,’” said Poole.

“He jerked me out of my car with my left arm with such great force, and then threw me onto the pavement. From there he dragged me by my left arm up to the school grounds,” said Poole.

Mary Poole

Mary Poole

In her lawsuit filed Monday against Clovis Unified School District, Poole claims excessive force, elder abuse, assault and false arrest.

“The amount of force it took to inflict these injuries is testament to what happened that day,” Mark Coleman, Poole’s attorney, told the ABC affiliate.

He says the officer should have been trained properly to handle such a situation.

Poole, who stands less than 5 feet tall and weighs about 110 pounds, was never arrested.

While Clovis Unified has not commented on the suit, the officer still reportedly works for the school district.

Cupcake cop goes ballistic on grandma, 78
-NO AUTHOR-
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 17:45:30 GMT

Monday, February 23, 2015

Black 12-year-old blasts Obama in epic speech

 

A 12-year-old black middle-school student from Georgia is raising eyebrows as he’s scorching Barack Obama in an epic YouTube speech, accusing the president of having a “downright hatred for this nation.”

C.J. Pearson posted the video Saturday, seeking to “applaud Mayor Rudy Giuliani for his comments about President Barack Obama.”

“Here’s the truth of the matter: I don’t want to be politically correct. I don’t care about being politically correct at this point.

“President Obama, You don’t love America. If you really did love America, you would call ISIS what it really is: an assault on Christianity, an assault on America and downright hate for the American values that our country holds. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion and every single thing that our country stands for.”

C.J. Pearson blasts President Obama in a viral video on YouTube.

C.J. Pearson blasts President Obama in a viral video on YouTube.

He adds, “I hope that one day people will get enough guts to speak out against your downright hatred for this nation.”

When it comes to the Islamic terror group ISIS, Pearson said, “When they kill innocent Americans that have done no wrong except report on what is their constitutional right as journalists and you do nothing about it, you don’t care about their lives. You could care less!

“But here’s what you need to realize: here in America, we don’t back down to terrorists. We fight them on their own battleground and we annihilate them till the very end.

“Here in America, we don’t allow the government to take away what we work for but we continue to work harder so that we may continue to succeed.”

The speech has already been viewed more than a half-million times on YouTube.

Pearson heads a group called “Young Georgians in Government.”

His Facebook page notes he is “committed to fighting for conservative principles and engaging young people in the political process.”

Pearson is receiving messages of love and hate on YouTube, including:

  • “Wise and mature beyond your years, young man. God bless you!” (Evangelist Anita Fuentes)
  • “Yawn, who really gives a damn was a middle-schooler thinks? He can’t vote till he is 18. He is a child, who evidently doesn’t know what he is talking about. ISIS is a threat to the whole world, and they have no problem killing Muslims, as well as Christians. This kid is too young and doesn’t have the life experience to form his own political opinion. Right now, he is just aping the opinions of his parents and I bet they are conservatives too.” (Clavell Jackson)

Black 12-year-old blasts Obama in epic speech
-NO AUTHOR-
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 23:24:27 GMT

Feel the love

 

Love America 600 LI

Feel the love
-NO AUTHOR-
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 22:29:57 GMT

Obama slammed for redoing Obamacare at whim

 

obama_desk

A key senator on the Judiciary Committee says the real significance of the King v. Burwell lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court that challenges the legality of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tax subsidies to consumers under Obamacare is whether or not the president must follow the nation’s laws – like the rest of the nation.

“If I’m guilty of anything … it’s expecting the president would follow the law,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in remarks prepared for delivery at the Heritage Foundation on Monday.

“And that’s what’s ultimately at stake in King: Is the president bound to the law, or can he rewrite or simply ignore provisions he doesn’t like in order to further his political agenda?”

Hatch said advocates of the president’s position “would have us believe that statutes are infinitely malleable – up can mean down, right can mean left, established by the state can mean not established by the state.”

“What matters to them is advancing some vague notion of statutory purpose – regardless of what the statute actually says – that coheres with the president’s left-wing agenda.”

The case, which is to be heard by the Supreme Court March 4, focuses on the federal subsidies to millions of Americans to pay for health-insurance coverage.

The plain wording of the Obamacare is that the subsidies are available for those who obtain their coverage through exchanges “established” by the states. The stipulation was an incentive for states to set up the exchanges.

However, three dozen states simply refused, so the White House regulations were “interpreted” to mean that those who get coverage from a federally established exchange also could get the subsidies.

A brief from the Cato Institute in the King v. Burwell case charges the subsidies were expanded for purely political reasons.

See the “tsunami” that is changing America irrevocably, in Whistleblower magazine’s issue titled “Killing Obamacare: How to dismantle, destroy, repeal and replace the most destructive law in a generation.”

In the Volokh Conspiracy blog, David Bernstein explained that the Supreme Court “is set to decide whether Obamacare subsidies for policies procured from exchanges are only available when the exchange was ‘established by a state,’ as the plain text of the law says.”

Deferring to the administration’s interpretation of the law would be “foolhardy,” he wrote.

“No Obama political appointee is going to write regulations that say, in essence, ‘Oops, we (at best) forgot to account for the possibility that most states wouldn’t create exchanges, so let’s throw in the towel on the whole Obamacare thing by denying subsidies to residents of states that have federal exchanges,’” he wrote.

Hatch said, “Those of us on the other side … insist that text matters, words matter. What the statute says is what matters, because at the end of the day, the words in our statutes and in our Constitution are what bind our leaders, and what prevent them from doing whatever they want.

“Fidelity to text is the foundation of the rule of law,” he said.

He said if the Supreme Court does adopt the plain language of the law, then Congress needs to be prepared to step in and help those who have been getting subsidies improperly.

“Obamacare has already inflicted a lot of damage on our nation’s health care system, harming patients, consumers and employers alike. I don’t think we can stand by and simply let the shortcomings of the law harm millions more,” he said.

“We need to help the people who will be hurt by losing their subsidies because of Obamacare’s broken promises. That means providing a reasonable and responsible transition for those who may lose their subsidies while Congress works to repeal and replace Obamacare once and for all,” said Hatch.

“And that’s what we have to do: repeal and replace Obamacare. That’s the only permanent solution to this and a host of other problems,” he said.

He said the Obama administration, rather than following the “rule of law,” has “engaged in a sustained assault on the rule of law.”

“His offenses run the gamut from releasing Guantanamo detainees without first notifying Congress, as the law requires; to claiming that congressional inaction somehow clothes him with legislative-like authority to suspend immigration laws; to arrogating to himself the power to determine when Congress is in session.”

He said the intent of the language of the law is clear.

“The restriction of subsidies to state-established exchanges was thus a key element of Obamacare’s entire cooperative federalism scheme. Without this restriction, the end result would have been a federally run health care market, a result unacceptable to several key Obamacare supporters, including Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, whose vote was essential to passage,” he said.

Amendments to the law itself, to make it comply, are simply out of the question for Obama. The U.S. House has had a majority of Republicans for several years, and Republicans now control the Senate.

There have been dozens of votes already in the House to simply repeal Obamacare. And if a legislative update to the law were proposed, some of its features undoubtedly would be unacceptable to Obama.

Said Hatch, “We need to take the federal government out of the equation and put individuals back in charge of their health care decisions.”

The case is one of several that could create a massive roadblock for Obamacare. At the district court level, Judge Ronald White in Muskogee, Oklahoma, ruled that subsidies, in the form of tax credits, apply only to consumers in the 14 states that have set up insurance marketplaces and not to individuals who buy insurance on the federal marketplace, as in Oklahoma.

Another pending claim against Obamacare alleges the law violates the Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Amendment provisions on privacy.

The complaint also cites Articles I, II and III of the Constitution regarding the separation of powers and focuses on two issues: the requirement to buy insurance and the control that will be vested in the Individual Price Advisory Board, a new creation of the federal law that is unanswerable to Congress and unaccountable to the federal courts.

WND also reported on yet another lawsuit pending in federal court that charges Obama unilaterally altered the law without approval from Congress, which means it’s no longer legal.

In its first trip to the Supreme Court, Obamacare was ruled constitutional but only after the justices re-interpreted the “penalties” required by the law as a “tax,” a stance the Obama administration originally argued against.

In its second trip, the justices ruled that a “closely held” for-profit business can opt out of Obamacare’s universal contraception requirement based on religious objections.

Obama slammed for redoing Obamacare at whim
Bob Unruh
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 20:00:43 GMT

America 'Harfs' at White House talking points

 

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf

What a week! Harfing, psaking, shoveling and freezing.

The gang over at the highly-trafficked Powerline blog wrapped up last week’s headlines in pictures that made their way around the Internet.

“This week’s is without doubt the biggest and most politically incorrect Week in Pictures ever,” said Powerline, “and that’s before you get to the special video bonus for folks shivering to death in half the country from climate change. And what’s up with Vice Groper Joe Biden? Is he planning on a post-Obama career in the TSA or something? Harf, harf, harf!”

Out of hundreds of comical illustrations that went viral on social media, Powerline snagged one that depicted various iterations of U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf’s laughable explanation that the Islamic State – aka ISIS – needs jobs so they won’t kill us:

Marie Harf meme

Other notable “news” memes included Vice President Joe Biden’s inappropriate touchy-feely behavior caught on camera when he nuzzled the wife of newly-confirmed U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter during an official White House ceremony. It spawned dozens of photoshopped images like this one:

Fifty Shades of Biden meme

See them all, and marvel at “The Week in Pictures”!

Twitter aggregator Twitchy also tracked last week’s political shenanigans, including “What are you talking about? Marie Harf goes on the defensive, and off the rails.”

“After facing a well-deserved backlash over her asinine assertion that jobs could help convince ISIS terrorists to stop terrorizing, Marie Harf is on the defensive. Needless to say, it’s not working out too well for her. How do you solve a problem like Marie? You don’t. You just sit back, put your feet up, and watch the wheels come off.”

Suze and Alexa twitters

Are you “home free?”

Depending on where you live, your state might be the most free or the most freedom-restrictive. A report by the John Locke Foundation titled “First in Freedom” compares and ranks all 50 states, measuring them by four different criteria: fiscal, education, regulation, and health care policies.

The graphic below shows Florida as the “most free” state, New York the least:

Graphic: John Locke Foundation

Graphic: John Locke Foundation

To see how your state ranks in all four criteria, click here.

Also, the George Mason University’s Mercatus Center has released a “Freedom in the 50 States” map with even more variables – 200-plus economic and personal – in their calculations.

Tunneling

Snow, snow, snow. Everywhere you look across the nation’s northern tier, there were mountains of white stuff burying communities. One bored cabin-fever-suffering Canadian decided he’d do something about it. He gave new meaning to the term “digging out.”

And speaking of digging, Massachusetts Facebookers are comparing the tunnel below to Boston’s Big Dig, the most expensive highway project in the U.S., plagued by escalating costs, scheduling overruns, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests and one death. (Wikipedia)

Boston tunnel meme

Slowly I turn, step by step…

Remember the hilarious Niagara Falls (aka “Slowly I Turned, Step by Step”) bit made side-splittingly popular by The Three Stooges?

Here’s a “Moe” recent twist on it. Not quite as funny, but certainly as entertaining.

Photo: Zuma/Rex

Photo: Zuma/Rex

The ugly side of snow

Yet in Boston it’s not quite as funny and lighthearted. One Facebook user noted that seven feet of snow in four back-to-back New England blizzards in just three weeks is “The ugly side of snow” and linked to a piece in the New York Times:

“We are being devastated by a slow-motion natural disaster of historic proportions. The disaster is eerily quiet. There are no floating bodies or vistas of destroyed homes. But there’s no denying that this is a catastrophe.”

The mountains of snow “crushed roofs, burst gutters, destroyed roads and sidewalks, closed schools and businesses, shut down highways, crippled public transit and trapped people in their homes.” It also resulted in the abrupt resignation of the head of Boston’s oldest subway system, prompting this tweet:

Boston subway tweet

But cheer up, northern tier neighbors.

Stay strong people meme

Bits & Bytes

American cities have changed in the past hundred-plus years. Here is a collection of stunning photos, one as old as 1903, that take you back a hundred years in time to the streets of Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York, Detroit, and elsewhere.

Got Sharpie? The owner of a white van invited strangers to add their creative designs to his vehicle, using black Sharpie pens. The result? Pretty interesting.

Photo: media.tumblr.com

Photo: media.tumblr.com

America 'Harfs' at White House talking points
-NO AUTHOR-
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 19:14:24 GMT

CNN face: 'I want my kid to be gay, too'

 

CNN-logo-600

A CNN political commentator who is also a writer for the Daily Beast is now saying not only is she homosexual, but she wants her 6-year-old daughter to grow to be a lesbian as well.

Sally Kohn

Sally Kohn

“I’m gay. And I want my kid to be gay, too,” says Sally Kohn, in an editorial published in the Washington Post.

“Many of my straight friends, even the most liberal, see this logic as warped. It’s one thing for them to admit that they would prefer their kids to be straight, something they’ll only begrudgingly confess. But wanting my daughter to be a lesbian? I might as well say I want her to grow up to be lactose intolerant.”

“‘Don’t you want her to be happy?’ one friend asked. Perhaps he just meant that it’s easier to be straight in a homophobic culture. But this attitude complies with, even reinforces, that culture in the first place.”

Kohn also complained that her young daughter is already showing an interest in boys.

“So far, it doesn’t look like my 6-year-old daughter is gay. In fact, she’s boy crazy,” Kohn writes.

“It seems early to me, but I’m trying to be supportive. Recently, she had a crush on an older boy on her school bus. She was acting as any precocious, socially awkward child would, which is to say not very subtle. I confided in a friend who has an older daughter. ‘She wants to give this kid a card and presents,’ I e-mailed. ‘The other kid is so embarrassed. It’s painful to watch. What do I do?’

Sally Kohn, right, wants her daughter, Willa Hansen-Kohn, center, to be a lesbian like herself.

Sally Kohn, right, wants her daughter, Willa Hansen-Kohn, center, to be a lesbian like herself.

“My friend wrote back with a slew of helpful advice, ending with a punch to my gut: ‘Bet it wouldn’t bother you so much if her crush was on a girl.’

“She was right. I’m a slightly overbearing pro-gay gay mom. But I’m going to support my daughter, whatever choices she makes.”

Kohn noted: “All I ultimately care about is that she has the choice and that whatever choice she makes is enthusiastically embraced and celebrated.”

Reaction online is varied, including:

  • “This is like saying you want your kid to be autistic. You are hoping she has a brain abnormality.”
  • “You rock, Sally. Finally there are some gay people who are willing to turn off the nicey nice for two seconds and tell well-meaning straight people that we’re sick of the condescension. I don’t care how liberal you are, if you feel sorry for us for being gay, then you’re part of the problem.”
  • “Sorry, as a gay man I totally disagree. Growing up in the conservative South I’ve seen what pushing kids can do whether gay or straight. Personally I don’t think she should even have kids with that type of thinking. It is bad enough to be a lesbian or be gay striving to be accepted. Which personally at this point I am totally over the desire to be accepted at all. But personally this woman’s views are just as bad any parent who wants their kid to grow up in a prefabricated mold.”

CNN face: 'I want my kid to be gay, too'
-NO AUTHOR-
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 17:34:44 GMT