Czech President tells Organization of Islamic Cooperation to “Go Jump in a Lake”

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On the occasion of Israel’s Independence Day, the Czech Republic President, Milos Zeman, gave a speech at the Israel Embassy in Prague. It was  stunning in its clarity regarding Islamic hateful doctrine towards Jews and by inference Christians and virtually all unbelievers  and apostates. Our colleagues at Gates of Vienna (GoV) obtained  a translation of  President Zeman’s remarks. They have since generated an acrimonious and courageous  exchange  with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) who alleged  that Zeman had committed blasphemy by accusing Islam of not being a religion of peace and tolerance. Anything but. Baron Bodissey of GoV said, “He’s the only head of state that I know of who has ever told the OIC to shove off. And he did it so brilliantly.”

Here are excerpts from Zeman’s speech at the Israeli Embassy in Prague published  by GoV in translation from the original Czech, “A Euphemism for Political Cowardice”  :

There are states with whom we share the same values, such as the political horizon of free elections or a free market economy. However, no one threatens these states with wiping them off the map. No one fires at their border towns; no one wishes that their citizens would leave their country. There is a term,political correctness. This term I consider to be a euphemism for political cowardice. Therefore, let me not be cowardly.

It is necessary to clearly name the enemy of human civilisation. It is international terrorism linked to religious fundamentalism and religious hatred. As we may have noticed after 11th of September, this fanaticism has not been focused on one state exclusively. Muslim fanatics recently kidnapped 200 young Christian girls in Nigeria. There was a hideous assassination in the flower of Europe in the heart of European Union in a Jewish museum in Brussels. I will not let myself being calmed down by the declaration that there are only tiny fringe groups behind it. On the contrary, I am convinced that this xenophobia, and let’s call it racism or anti-Semitism, emerges from the very essence of the ideology these groups subscribe to.

So let me quote one of their sacred texts to support this statement: “A tree says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. A stone says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” I would criticize those calling for the killing of Arabs, but I do not know of any movement calling for mass murdering of Arabs. However, I know of one anti-civilisation movement calling for the mass murder of Jews.

After all, one of the paragraphs of the statutes of Hamas says: “Kill every Jew you see.” Do we really want to pretend that this is an extreme viewpoint? Do we really want to be politically correct and say that everyone is nice and only a small group of extremists and fundamentalists is committing such crimes?

Michel de Montaigne, one of my favorite essayists, once wrote: “It is gruesome to assume that it must be good that comes after evil. A different evil may come.” It started with the Arab Spring which turned into an Arab winter, and a fight against secular dictatorships turned into fights led by Al-Qaeda. Let us throw away political correctness and call things by their true names. Yes, we have friends in the world, friends with whom we show solidarity. This solidarity costs us nothing, because these friends are not put into danger by anyone.

Less than a week following President Zeman’s remarks, Iyad Ameen Madani, the Secretary General of the Saudi-based 57 member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, issued a thundering taqiyya-ladened charge that Zeman’s remarks were blasphemous demanding an apology. GoV on June 7, 2014 posted the OIC ‘s riposte and demand  for President Zeman to recant his remarks, “Promoting Peace, Harmony, and Magic Ponies At The OIC”.  Here are some excerpts:

The Secretary General of the  Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Iyad Ameen Madani, expressed his disappointment at the reported statements made by the Czech President, Miloš Zeman, on 26 May 2014 at the Israeli Embassy in Prague that “Islamic ideology rather than individual groups of religious fundamentalists was behind violent actions similar to the gun attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.”

[…]

Mr. Madani stated that the Czech President’s recent statements on Islam are in line with the previous statements the President made in the past, where he linked “believers in the Quran with anti-Semitic and racist Nazis”; and that “the enemy is anti civilization spreading from North Africa to Indonesia, where two billion people live”.

Such statements, said Mr. Madani, not only shows President Zeman’s lack of knowledge and misunderstanding of Islam, but also ignores the historical facts that anti-Semitism and Nazism are a European phenomena through and through. They have no roots in Islam, neither as a religion nor as a history or civilization. The Holocaust did not take place in the area from North Africa to Indonesia, Madani said.

Madani stressed that such statements, issued even before the identification of culprits and motives, are not only irresponsible but also feed the existing stereotyping, incitement to hatred, discrimination and violence against Muslims based on their religion. It also runs contrary to the ongoing global efforts to strengthen dialogue among civilizations, cultures and religions to promote multiculturalism, understanding, acceptance and peace.

The Secretary General reiterated that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance and that terrorism should not be equated to any race or religion; a stance upheld by all major UN texts on the subject of countering terrorism. He added that the OIC countries share a profound respect for all religions and condemn any message of hatred and intolerance.

It is only appropriate that President Milōs [sic] Zeman apologizes to the millions of Muslims worldwide for his deeply offensive and hateful anti Islam statements.

Mr. Madani urged the international community to take strong and collective measures to promote peace, harmony and tolerant co-habitation among peoples of diverse religious faiths, beliefs, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. He also called upon all political, secular or religious leaders to join hands and strengthen their efforts in promoting dialogue and mutual understanding, which will prove that “what joins us together across religions and regions is far greater than what separates us”.

OIC Secretary General Madani’s statement is what we have come to expect. We wonder how the millennia long documented history of Islamic Jihadist anti-Semitism, documented by Bat Ye’or, Andrew Bostom  among others keeps being avoided by Madani and other luminaries in the Muslim World. Our recent interview with Dr. Harold Rhode gave clear evidence of the  Muslim connection to the Nazi Holocaust. That was evidenced in the June 1941 Farhud in Baghdad fomented by the nefarious Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the Haj Amin al Husseini, Hitler’s houseguest in Berlin during WWII, Al Husseini was a cheerleader for the destruction of Six Million European Jewish Men, Women and Children. He actively sponsored a Muslim Waffen SS Division engaged in their slaughter. Better to kill these possible immigrants making Europe virtually Judenrein to prevent their emigration to the ancient land of their Jewish forbearers. A land renewed in May 1948 with the declaration of Independence of Israel as a sovereign Jewish nation.

President Zeman issued no apology for his remarks. A subsequent GoV post, “Czech President to the OIC: No Apology”, noted:

The translated excerpt from idNES.cz:

President Miloš Zeman is not going to apologize for his statements in which he linked Islamic ideology with violence. His words were conveyed by his spokesperson Jiří Ovčáček: “President Zeman definitely does not intend to apologize. For the president would consider it blasphemy to apologize for the quotation of a sacred Islamic text.”

Perhaps, President  Zeman had in mind something that occurred in Prague in January 2014, when the newly arrived Palestinian Ambassador, Jamal al Jamal was mortally wounded  as a result of his opening  a booby trapped safe in his new residence. A search of the residence by Czech security revealed discovery of a cache of weapons.  A cache that might have been used for possible terrorist actions in the Czech Republic perhaps targeted its small Jewish community.

Israeli officials should follow Czech President Zeman’s truth telling. After all, Israel tolerates Israeli Arab Muslim like Haneen Zoabi (Balad) supporting a second holocaust by a nuclear Iran and Sheik Raed Salahl head of the northern branch of the Islmaist movement, Hamas inside Israel, who foments riots in Jerusalem seeking declaration of a Salafist Emirate to replace the Jewish nation. A group that Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz  (MK-Likud) proposes banning.  A group he said in a recent Israel National News article  “ that is illegal everywhere except in Israel”.

Baron Bodissey’s final acute observation was:

As far as I am aware, Miloš Zeman is the first Western head of state ever to tell the OIC to go jump in a lake. So this is an historic occasion.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

BREAKING: Homeland Security Police Caught Harassing Sick Veterans

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The below listed BREAKING news press release was drafted in response to my column and related email titled, “OIG & FOIA REQUEST: Homeland Security Police Harassing and Intimidating Veterans at Mission Valley VA Clinic.

It is our position that the unannounced exercises conducted by the Federal Protective Services (FPS) at the VA Medical Facilities in Mission Valley, CA while Veteran patients were seeking medical support from doctors, was “oppressive” and was being conducted in violation of standard law enforcement practices and procedures (armed individuals wearing black, carrying weapons, wearing bullet proof vests, with leased guard dogs, helmets, dark glasses, while refusing to identify themselves,  threatened Veterans with arrest when they tried to take photos & asked the FPS Officers to identify themselves; there actions patrolling up and own corridors in the VA Medical Center frightened elderly patients & their wives).

The major concern is for the health of sick and elderly Veterans.  Heart patients could have suffered severe stress or could have had a heart attack from freight, PTSD patients may have been spurred to react in a self-destructive manner later on, very elderly & infirmed patients of WWII or Korean eras may with serious medical conditions were frightened by strange armed men in black walking in the corridors, some of the patients may have been affected mentally by so many armed men in black with dogs, and a certain number of patients arriving at the VA Medical facility in Mission Valley elected to avoid going to their medical appointments because of the overwhelming show of force and their vehicles blocking the parking lot.

Unannounced exercises should “never” be held at any facility by any law enforcement agency, management at the facility should have been alerted in advance so they could alert Veterans seeking medical care.  The media should have been alerted in advance to prevent confusion, and a Public Relations Officer from the FPS should have arrived with the team to respond to questions.   Badge numbers and IDs should have been provided to “any” US Citizens upon request, but it was reported that FPS Officers threatened and intimidates Veterans when they asked for IDs or tried to take photos.  Black cammies worn by FPS Officers may have been an attempt to emulate FBI SWAT Teams and their leaders may be watching too many macho Hollywood movies  (OD Greens would be more effective in all seasons and times of day).  Since it was an exercise and there was no threat of gunfire, there was no need for body armor, facial cover, helmets, and rifles.  There shouldn’t have been any interference with Veterans trying to enter & park to make their medical appointments  (FPS Officers did block the parking lot, interfering with Veterans trying to make their appointments on time).

Unannounced and announced exercises held at VA Medical facilities should “cease immediately”; Congress should prevent them from being conducted at any VA Medical facility anywhere in the nation. There are hundreds of thousands of government buildings throughout the nation where these type of exercises can be easily conducted without threatening the health and well-being of Veterans.  Congress should determine why the Obama administration has been targeting the relatively few VA Medical facilities in San Diego County, when there are thousands of other government building where those exercises can be conducted.  The management at DHS giving FPS Officers orders to conduct those exercises should be replaced, like the leadership at the VA is being replaced.  Veterans should not be bothered  while they are seeking medical treatment for injuries they may have sustained in the defense of the Republic.

Please review the below listed BREAKING news release that has more detailed information and was distributed to 15,000 recipients last night.

hls at vaBREAKING: Homeland Security Police Caught Harassing Sick Veterans

By Investigative Journalist, Benjamin Krause of DisabledVeterans.org

SAN DIEGO – Veterans were horrified while seeking VA health care on Wednesday when approached by Homeland Security police in an Operation Shield exercise. The exercise was for the purpose of “presence deterrence” at a VA health care facility in San Diego. Many veterans’ legal advocates are concerned about what this “presence deterrence” actually means and what is seeks to accomplish for veterans needing care.

According to reports, 20 officers from the DHS Federal Protective Service (FPS) dressed in full black combat gear crowded at the entrance of VA Mission Valley Health Care Clinic on Wednesday. These officers were not wearing any nametags and refused to identify themselves. Four bomb-sniffing dogs accompanied the secretive police group that arrived at the facility in 8 white SUVs, which then blocked all access to parking for disabled veterans. Veterans arriving for care were alarmed and some frightened away…

VA Mission Valley Health Care Clinic houses numerous service centers including a general practice clinic, psychiatric clinic, PTSD treatment clinic, and the disability compensation evaluation clinic. The impact of this event on veterans is disturbing.

The advocacy group, Honoring Our Troops (HRT), promptly wrote a formal complaint to VA OIG in Washington, DC after fielding numerous communications from veterans who were shocked by these recent federal secret police actions. OIG has yet to formally acknowledge receipt of their complaint since it was filed several days ago.

According to HRT’s OIG complaint, veterans on site were harassed and threatened when they took pictures and asked questions about this bizarre behavior. One veteran was threatened with a fine of $10,000 and arrest if he did not delete a photo he had taken. Another elderly veteran refused to enter the clinic with his wife. When the veteran’s wife asked a VA doctor about the action, she was told it was a “familiarization exercise.” Is this the new normal at VA facilities that veterans must become familiarized with and used to? And why? What justifies this kind of action by the Feds?

Captain Joseph John, USN (Ret), Chairman of Combat Veterans For Congress PAC, was not surprised when the report crossed his desk. After a cursory investigation, Capt. John concluded, “Due to [confidentiality] concerns, we can only get personnel in the office of Honoring Our Troops to tell us that the parties who witnessed the exercise [saw, which included] a retired Navy Chief, employees of the VA Medical Center, patients inside the building, etc., who witnessed armed FPS officers in SWAT gear with dogs on leash walking up and down the corridors inside the VA Medical Clinic in Mission Valley.”

Capt. John opposes unannounced police actions at VA Medical facilities that resemble “para-military exercises.” His deepest concerns are for elderly veterans with “heart conditions, suffering from PTSD, or elderly Veterans from the WWII or Korean era could be frightened and negatively affected by these [secret police] exercises in the middle of [their medical treatments].” For these reasons, Capt. John believes DHS and its FPS division “should be prevented from holding these para-military exercises at any VA Medical Center,” especially during patient treatment and service times during the day.

Since the OIG complaint, HRT received numerous threatening calls to their organization’s volunteers by individuals whom they believed were VA or DHS employees. Callers blasted the organization saying, “VA does not need this type of exposure right now; bringing this up will not help veterans.” Other harassing calls threatened the staff with stalking and investigations into their own personal conduct. According to HRT, the calls were all blocked to hide the caller’s phone number.

A spokesman for the San Diego VA Regional Office, Alejandro Mendio la Flores, verified this FPS police action and stated it was part of Operation Shield for “presence deterrence.” VA claims the official count of FPS officers was only 8, and that the FPS does not owe VA any explanation for its actions or training exercises — even if it affects a VA medical facility or its patients. Nor does DHS-FPS have to give VA any advance notice that these exercises will occur or get VA’s permission to conduct them. Just what is going on here?

VA already has in place a “patient security flag” procedure under VHA Directive 2010-053. Even though this procedure is completely illegal and occurs in secret VAMC staff councils behind closed doors, it is nevertheless the main device VA has created to deal with security issues with any veterans who give them reason to be concerned for potential violent incidents. The VA-OIG made a rather shocking report about this illegal procedure just last year — and any lawyer or judge who reads it would be horrified at the blatant “due process” violations, since veterans cannot know who made the complaints about them or in any way have a chance to refute or defend against false allegations by VA staff. See OIG Report No. 11-02585-129, March 7, 2013.

The questions that beg to be answered are: Why does DHS-FPS and VA think these preemptive “presence deterrence” exercises are needed to enhance or maintain security at VA medical and other facilities? What evidence does DHS-FPS and VA have to think this para-military behavior is even necessary and put the health of veterans at risk when arriving for a wide range of treatments? None of this makes any sense or seems to be well thought out. So what is the meaning of all of this?

Does DHS and VA have such callous disregard that they never considered the harmful impact such presence would have on veterans with serious physical and mental health disabilities for which they are coming to VA to get treatment?

VA constantly asserts they are striving to give veterans the best in health care. If that is true, why did they leave these questions out of their thinking? Is this the new veteran-centric care Secretary Sloan Gibson recently promised to the American public and veterans?

Mr. Mendio la Flores refused to answer additional questions on the concerns relating to whether or not any veterans were in fact harmed by these recent incidents. The House Committee on Veterans Affairs was asked for comment but was not able to reply to this writer prior to publication.

President Hillary? No Way! She Should Be Done.

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I could not believe what I had just heard on my TV. I was outraged. I was angry. Is this woman a complete idiot or is she the most condescending, arrogant and self-serving politician on the planet? This was my reaction upon hearing Hillary Clinton say regarding the Taliban five, “These five guys are not a threat to the United States.” 

This statement alone should disqualify a Hillary Clinton presidency from ever seeing the light of day. There are only two reasons that she would make such an absurd statement; both are pretty scary coming from the possible leader of the free world.

Reason number one: Hillary truly is clueless and has totally bought into Obama’s false narrative which says because Osama is dead terrorism is over. Numerous attacks which include the Boston Marathon bombing and the attack on our U.S. Consulate in Benghazi prove Obama’s narrative is nothing more than a self-serving political lie. Do you see a pattern with this Administration; Obama, Hillary and company?

The second reason for Hillary making such an obviously insane statement is she assumes the American people are idiots. Low-info voters. Clueless. Talk about in your face disrespect. My goodness, this woman is so offensively arrogant and superior minded that she believes she can look into the TV camera and tell us it is sunny in the midst of a thunder storm.

Please forgive me if you think I am making too big of a deal about this. But folks, Hillary’s statement speaks volumes about who she is and who she thinks we are. For crying out loud, experts and politicians across the board are expressing bipartisan enormous concern, fear and outrage over Obama releasing these five Taliban generals.

A majority of the American people know Obama made a horrible deal and are concerned about national security and more terrorist attacks. Everyone, I repeat everyone, knows we are less safe.

And yet, the person who seeks to become our new Commander-in-Chief says, chill out, releasing the worst-of-the-worst terrorists and providing them aid and comfort is no big deal.

In my way of thinking, this exposure of Hillary’s mindset should immediately disqualify this either extremely naïve liberal or off-the-chain arrogant person from ever moving back into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

RELATED VIDEO: Daniel Greenfield, the Brilliant, Shillman Journalism Fellow gives his assessment of Hillary Clinton’s bizarre claim that her debacle at Benghazi is a good reason for her to run for President!

60,000 Illegal Alien Kid Invasion is Nothing!

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Everyone’s panties are in a wad because 60,000 illegal alien kids showing up at one time to be let in the country. Do something cry the politicians to President Obama, who apparently by his inaction loves the chaos, as if this is a big deal . I’ll prove it isn’t.

In a small Mexican village of adobe huts and dirt paths lives brothers Juan and Jose who marry sisters Juanita and Maria. Juan and Juanita hear if they can get to the U.S. that life is easy, especially if Juanita, who is pregnant, can have her baby just across the border. They get across the unguarded border and Juanita gives birth to a baby named Pedro a day later. The baby is declared a U.S. citizen and the hospital writes off the cost of the delivery because Jose has no money. Officially they are the parents of a U.S. citizen most commonly known as an “Anchor Baby” because that is the key to welfare. Pedro is now on the Taxpayer’s dime until adulthood.

This event happens approximately 30,000 times every month amounting to billions of dollars a year taxpayers have to pay to support babies born to foreigners on our soil.

Sixty thousand illegal alien kids showing up at the border is equivalent to only about two months of illegal aliens giving birth in the U.S. If there was as much uproar about illegal alien births in the country then legislation might get passed.

Why haven’t the politicians amended the Immigration and Naturalization Act to end the misinterpretation? Call and ask. If they pass HR 140 Birthright Citizenship Act of 2013 into law it would end the insanity but for sure the Democrats won’t want to end it since citizenship to them is only a word.

democrats-liberals-illegal-aliens-border-crossing-motivational-posters-online

For a larger view click on the poster.

OIG & FOIA REQUEST: Homeland Security Police Harassing and Intimidating Veterans at Mission Valley VA Clinic

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We contacted Honoring Our Troops this morning to check on the validity of the email with the above subject title. We were informed that the event was in fact an unannounced exercise conducted by the Federal Protective Service (FPS) with their bomb sniffing dogs (FPS is a part of DHS), the exercise was not conducted by DHS Police. We also learned from the VA Medical Clinic in Mission Valley that those exercises occur from at that facility from time to time, and it upsets the elderly and infirm Veterans there seeking medical services.

The email we received with Sarah Tipton’s name of origin, and forwarded was sent out from her computer by someone else in the office who had firsthand knowledge of the exercise, however because of privacy matters they wanted to maintain their confidentiality. Due to the same confidentiality concerns, we can only get personnel in the office of Honoring Our Troops to tell us that the parties who witnessed the exercise included a retired Navy Chiefs, employees of the VA Medical Center, patients inside the building, etc. who witnessed armed FPS officers walking up and down the corridors inside the VA Medical Clinic in Mission Valley.

The patriotic volunteers in the offices of Honoring Our Troops feel intimidated because of all the attention this has received and the intimidation & threatening phone calls they received from government employees who would not identify themselves; those volunteers only work in those offices to help Veterans and do not want to bring attention to themselves. It is our opinion that Veterans, possibly with heart conditions, suffering from PTSD, or elderly Veterans from the WWII or Korean era could be frightened and negatively affected by these para-military exercises in the middle of medical treatment; because of the seriousness of medical health reasons, FPS & DHS should be prevented from holding these para-military exercises at any VA medical Center. We did receive the below listed clarifying email from the offices of Honoring Our Troops:

“In response to your phone call and concerns.  It was confirmed that that FPS (Federal Protective Service) division of DHS (Dept of Homeland Security) police was conducting an unannounced random exercise at the VA Healthcare Clinic in Mission Valley in order to protect the federal employees and visitors to the facility. The exercise had the officers of FPS conducting an exercise that consisted of searching the clinic building and areas around the building.  FPS does not intend to harass or intimidate any veteran patients at the facility. The officers from FPS wear their black combat uniforms and body armor, for their safety and it is not meant to intimidate veterans or discourage veterans from using the VA Clinic.

Here is the link to the agency and their mission:

http://www.dhs.gov/federal-protective-service-0

Due to confidentiality and threatening nature of calls received, our sources cannot be revealed. We were only making a request for answers and had no intent to bring any unwanted attention in helping veterans in need.”

Iraq on Brink of Disintegration: ISIS Blitzkrieg threatens Baghdad – Kurds Seize Kirkuk

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The ISIS Jihad  blitzkrieg seized the oil-rich Northern Iraqi City of Mosul Wednesday, while the Iraqi Army fled. This leaving  nearly half a million civilians, Assyrian Christians among them,  to flee to rural areas of the province of Biblical Nineveh. ISIS is the Salafist –Jihadist Al Qaeda terrorist army, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham,the Levant.

ISIS has looted nearly a half billion in cash and tons of gold bullion making the terrorist army perhaps the largest well funded Al Qaeda affiliate.  Add to that the significant oil fields and Iraq’s largest refinery in Mosul, the ISIS literally may have the fuel to follow through with their threat to attack Baghdad. Mosul  was festooned with the decapitated heads of  Iraqi policemen. This despite Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliki putting on a brave face calling upon his parliament to declare a state of national emergency. Now he has to rely on the loyalty of the US trained Iraqi army and militia from his Shia base to defend the capital.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish Regional Government  (KRG) in Irbil dispatched its peshmerga forces to take over what they couldn’t do by plebiscite, the oil rich city of Kirkuk.  A Kirkuk that the Kurds consider as “their equivalent of Jerusalem”.  Now, as one report cited, just a mound of dirt separates Kurdish peshmerga from ISIS jihadi.

At risk is the future of this artificial country created by the British from the Mesopotamian Mandate of the League of Nations following WWI.   Ironically the US surge strategy of General Petreaus nearly a decade ago used nation building and bribery to defeat the al Qaeda forces in the Anbar provinces and Mosul.  Given current developments the  refusal of the Al Maliki government to negotiate a status of forces agreement with may have contributed to this looming debacle.  That choice was up to Maliki.  Because of these missteps we have looming a possible  Sunni Caliphate stretching across neighboring Syria deep into Iraq.  Today the picture gets even murkier as Iran announced dispatch of battalions of its  Quds Force to bolster the defense of Nouri al-Maliki’s beleaguered capitol.  This episode may rival the legendary history of the  sweep of the first Grand Jihad over 14 centuries ago. The Washington Post in a report today on these rapidly deteriorating developments in Iraq quoted President Obama saying:

“I don’t rule out anything, because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria,” Obama told reporters after a White House meeting with visiting Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

“I think it’s fair to say that . . . there will be some short-term, immediate things that need to be done militarily, and our national security team is looking at all the options,” he said. “But this should be also a wake-up call for the Iraqi government” about the need for political accommodation between the country’s Shiite Muslim majority and the Sunni minority, he added.

ISIS loots Mosul Central bank

The International Business Times (IBT)  wrote of how much booty the ISIS secured in the capture of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul Seized: Jihadis Loot $429m from City’s Central Bank to Make Isis World’s Richest Terror Force. The IBT reported:

Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi confirmed Kurdish television reports that Isis militants had stolen millions from numerous banks across Mosul. A large quantity of gold bullion is also believed to have been stolen.

Following the siege of the country’s second city, the bounty collected by the group has left it richer than al-Qaeda itself and as wealthy as small nations such as Tonga, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Falkland Islands.

The financial assets that ISIS  now possesses are likely to worsen the Iraqi government’s struggle to defeat the insurgency, which is aimed at creating an Islamic state across the Syrian-Iraqi border.

[…]

They also seized considerable amounts of US-supplied military hardware. Photos have already emerged of Isis parading captured Humvees in neighboring Syria where they are also waging war against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

What  is really worrisome is that the vast treasury that ISIS has seized that will enable them to  pay on average $600 a month to attract  thousands of  foreign jihadis, especially those in the West.

Just yesterday, ISIS forward elements seized Tikrit the ancestral home town of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, putting it less than 95 miles from Baghdad. ISIS has also surrounded the city of Samarra less than 70 miles from the nation’s capital.

http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/11/kirkuk754.jpg

Kurdish peshmerga troops in Kirkuk. Source: ekurd.net.

Kurdish Peshmerga Seize Kirkuk

The autonomous KRG Peshmerga forces went into action today seizing a virtually defenseless Kirkuk. The KRG had been thwarted by the Al Maliki government from conducting a plebiscite to take back this resource rich original part of the Kurdish homeland.    The Guardian’s report conveys the sense of how rapidly Iraqi forces had abandoned the defenseless city,  Kurdish Peshmerga seize a chaotic victory in Kirkuk:

Capturing the city and its huge oil reserves, just outside the area controlled by the KRG, is a huge achievement. Yet victory looks far from glorious or orderly.

[…]

On Thursday Kurdish officials said they had stepped in to protect the city after government troops fled before advancing rebels from the Sunni jihadi group Isis.

Locals alleged that weaponry inside the K1 base had been seized by Kurdish Peshmerga forces belonging to both the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the two main political forces in the KRG. But in the confusion of Iraq’s deepening crisis it is hard to be quite certain.

[…]

“There are no security concerns at this moment and the situation is calm in the city,” said Dler Samad, the Kirkuk governor’s press officer. The governor, Dr Najmadin Karim, had visited Peshmerga forces near Hawija, just 3km away from ISIS units. But a minister responsible for regional security forces survived a bomb blast as he drove into Kirkuk.

Chaldean Archbishop Emil Shimoun Nona of Mosul, Iraq. Sourcs CNS Church in Need Service.

The ISIS threat to Christians in Nineveh

We have written extensively of the flight of the beleaguered  Assyrian Christians. A report by Nina Shea in the National Review On-line depicted the crisis that this ancient Christian community faces  in the midst of  the ISIS jihadist onslaught, The Cleansing of Iraq’s Christians Is Entering Its End Game.  Shea wrote:

Mosul’s panic-stricken Christians, along with many others, are now fleeing en masse to the rural Nineveh Plain, according to the Vatican publication Fides. The border crossings into Kurdistan, too, are jammed with the cars of the estimated 150,000 desperate escapees.

[…]

Since 2003, Iraq’s Christian community has suffered intense religious persecution on top of the effects of the conflict and, as a result, it has shrunk by well over 50 percent. Mosul, the site of ancient Nineveh of the Assyrians, who converted to Christianity in the first century, has become the home of many Christians who remained. Considered by Christians the place of last resort inside Iraq, Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh Plain has been home to many Christian refugees driven out of Baghdad and Basra.

ISIS on the march

Sources: The Institute for the Study of War, The Long War Journal. The Washington Post. Published on June 11, 2014, 9:37 p.m. For a larger view click on the map.

Who do you pin the blame on?

Earlier we  noted the failure of the Maliki government to conclude a status of forces agreement when the remaining US forces left three years ago. This was just as the civil war in Syria arose in bloody earnest that spawned ISIS’ terrorist Jihad in the region.  The Wall Street Journal cited Sen. McCain and  House Speaker John Boehner laying blame on Obama, while the Chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Service Committees, Republican Rep. Buck McKeon and  Democrat Sen.Carl Levin held differing views:

Several top Republican congressional leaders Thursday blamed President Obama for what they called policy failures leading to the collapse of Iraqi armed forces and the fall of major Iraqi cities to the control of Islamist militants.

[…]

“Now they’ve taken control of Mosul, they’re 100 miles from Baghdad. And what’s the president doing? Taking a nap,” Mr. Boehner said.

Mr. McCain said the administration’s decision to leave in 2011 was politically motivated.

“The trouble is, as the events of this week show, what the Americans left behind was an Iraqi state that was not able to stand on its own,” he said. “What we built is now coming apart.”

He said the U.S. must “take immediate action” to head off the militants’ advance, and reconsider the decision by Mr. Obama to wind down the U.S. presence in Afghanistan in 2016.

[…]

Rep. Buck McKeon (R., Calif.), who heads the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters that he opposed airstrikes and any additional involvement by the U.S. in a crisis that has seen Sunni militants and Kurdish military units make incursions around the country. Iraq’s government had a chance to sign a status-of-forces agreement with the U.S. but didn’t, Mr. McKeon said.

“We lost a lot of blood, a lot of treasure there and gave them an opportunity and they wouldn’t sign the agreement,” Mr. McKeon said, adding that any assistance would add another strain to the military when officials are trying to slim down budgets. “They all take money, they all take resources, they all put people at risk.”

Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), chairman of the Senate armed services panel, blamed Iraq’s government for not doing enough to unify the country and stave off sectarian violence. He also questioned whether U.S. airstrikes would be effective given that Iraqi security forces, he said, have “melted away” in some places.

“While all options should be considered, the problem in Iraq hasn’t been so much a lack of direct U.S. military involvement, but a lack of reconciliation on the part of Iraqi leaders,” Mr. Levin said.

Fred Kaplan in Slate had views close to that of McKeon and Levin in an article, “If jihadists control Iraq, blame Nouri al-Maliki, not the United States”.  Kaplan is the author of The Insurgents and the Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. After reviewing the success of General Petreaus’ surge in the western provinces and Mosul, Kaplan concludes about the current debacle:

Maliki has his own political problems. His party won a plurality of votes in the recent election, but not enough to declare victory…. The threat from ISIS—and it’s now a dire threat—might move some factions to strengthen the nation’s leader, or it might move more to abandon all confidence in Maliki and turn to someone else.

One hope for Iraq is that ISIS might have gone one rampage too far. While stomping through Mosul, some of their militiamen stormed the Turkish consulate and kidnapped Turkish diplomats. Under international law, that amounts to an attack on Turkey, and it’s unlikely that the Turks will simply shrug. Iran, which has emerged as Maliki’s main ally, has no interest in seeing Sunnis regain power in Baghdad. A strange alliance among all three may come to life to beat back this equally strange insurgency.

With news today that Iran is sending battalions of its elite Quds Force to fight in Iraq, Kaplan’s views appear like grasping a thin reed. Supplying more US military aid and perhaps air resources by the Obama Administration may not even put a dent into the ISIS Jihadist blitzkrieg poised to possibly conduct a siege on the capital.  Iraq is for all intents and purposes a failed state. The world and we in America will pay for its possible demise with a spike in both oil and gas prices. Time for us to bolster the independence of Kurdistan and let the Shia provinces become veritable client states of Iran, while a Jihadist  Sunni Emirate arises. Saudi Arabia will doubtless consider its options with  the failure of Iraq further endangering the Gulf region and its oil fields. Could a regional war of global proportions be in the offing?

Will the US Embassy in Baghdad be evacuating before being overwhelmed? Stay tuned for developments.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Jihadist behind takeover of Mosul released from U.S. custody in 2009
Iraq Isis Crisis: Medieval Sharia Law Imposed on Millions in Nineveh Province
Obama: “The World Is Less Violent Than It Has Ever Been”
Decapitated heads of policemen and soldiers line the streets of Mosul as ISIS imposes Sharia

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

An Increased Minimum Wage Equals Greater Unemployment

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It’s June, a month famed for marriages, but it is likely to be remembered for the high rate of teen unemployment which has been soaring for a long time. By February, the national unemployment rate for youth, age 16 to 19, had reached 20.7%. By November 2013 it was three times higher than the national average of 6.6% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Teens are rivaled by the number of American men in their prime working years, a record 1-in-8,who are not in the labor force. These men, age 25-54, represent 61.1 million who are either not working or no longer looking for work. The Weekly Standard reported that “This is an all-time high dating back to when records were first kept in 1955.”

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in February that said the wage hike to $10.10 could result in a net loss of about a half a million workers at the same time in increased wages for 16.5 million others.

So, naturally, President Obama in his State of the Union speech, called on Congress to raise the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. Soon after, he signed an Executive Order to raise the minimum wage for individuals working on new federal service contracts. That means that taxpayers will pay more for those services as the cost gets passed along. Does he have the power to impose the increase? Probably not.

Meanwhile in California where countless businesses are fleeing thanks to the insanity of its liberal legislature and Governor, as May ended its senate approved a measure that would lift the state pay floor to $13.00 an hour by 2017. If it becomes law, Californians will be interacting with machines for everything from banking to filling their gas tank to having a fast-food meal. Even more insane, Seattle has become home to the highest minimum wage in the nation, $15.00 an hour!

Minimum wage laws have been around a long time. Their original goal was to raise the income of the working poor, but the fact that there is still talk of raising them suggests they don’t work as intended. Letting the job market determine wages holds a greater promise of increased wages because businesses have to remain competitive and that means paying a wage that attracts skilled and even unskilled workers.

As Thomas E. Hall, the author of “Aftermath: The Unintended Consequences of Public Policies” (Cato Institute, $24.95, due in August) notes, “The living wage concept moved to the forefront during the Industrial Revolution, along with calls to end practices such as child labor and conditions poor working women faced. Massachusetts passed the nation’s first minimum wage law in 1912.

One of the outcomes of the Great Depression, 1929 to 1941, was the inclusion of a minimum wage as part of the New Deal’s National Industrial Recovery Act. Suffice to say, the NIRA, which actually encouraged businesses to collude together to set prices, failed to promote economic recovery. It was very unpopular and in 1935 the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

Because liberals never learn anything from experience, the NIRA was resurrected later in the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act that raised the minimum wage to 40 cents in 1945. “The United States has had a federal minimum wage ever since.”

Politicians and even some demented economists like the minimum wage. Every time it is raised, it appears to the general public that working people benefit. The problem is that the wage increases also include increases in unemployment as businesses try to contain costs in order to remain competitive and make a profit.

As Hall, a professor of economics at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, notes, “The minimum wage’s first significant impact on national labor market conditions occurred in 1956, when the hourly rate was raised from 75 cents to $1.00.” The increase had its “greatest impact on teenagers because they possess the fewest marketable skills among the working-age population. Also, teens often do, or have in the past, worked at jobs easily replaceable with machinery or by conducting business in a different manner.”

The minimum wage rate, nonetheless, has continued to increase since the 1950s and, “By the early 1990s, these changes had caused to minimum wage to apply to over 90 percent of the U.S. workforce.”

Here’s the fundamental lesson about the minimum wage that continues to be ignored. “President Ronald Reagan, who occupied the White House from 1981 to 1989, did not support further increases because he believed that raising the minimum wage would discourage employment growth…during that decade, the U.S. economy created 18 million new jobs.”

As Hall succinctly points out “Remember that the minimum wage is just a government-imposed price-fixing scheme that creates winners and losers.”

Teens that stayed in school and will either be facing a summer vacation or graduating are particularly disadvantaged by a minimum wage law.

“The effects of high unemployment among this demographic group,” says Hall, “should not be discounted. One reason is that the lack of employment opportunities for young people deprives them of valuable work experience in the form of learning the responsibility of showing up for a job on time, learning to follow directions and complete tasks, learning to work with others…these skills can prove to be beneficial later in life.”

It is likely that the minimum wage is also a factor in why many men in the 25-54 age cohort are not working either. This is hardly the time to be increasing the rate unless you want to see the rate of unemployment increase for all ages and both sexes.

By contrast, in addition to the energy sector, the sector that builds machines to replace human workers is likely to do very well over the coming years.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

RELATED ARTICLE: Consumers Hit With Surcharge to Cover City’s $15 Minimum Wage

President Chris Christie?

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A fatal crash on the George Washington Bridge this morning caused major backups, trapping commuters for up to three hours and stalling traffic back to the Garden State Parkway and other highways leading to the bridge. After Gov. Chris Christie spent two hours answering every question reporters asked following the revelation that an aide—whom he fired immediately—had engineered a comparable problem I had no problem believing he had nothing to do with it.

I am New Jersey born and raised, and I have lived here most of my life with time out to attend the University of Miami in Florida and Army service in Georgia. I have traveled all over the U.S., but I always was happy to come home to a little town, a suburb of Newark where I was born. These days I live one town over, having sold my home of more than 60 years because the property taxes here are for many of my generation a burden,

I tell you this because Gov, Chris Christie’s life has a number of connections to my own. He too was born in Newark and his father, like mine, was a certified public accountant. A 1984 graduate of Delaware, he earned his law degree from Seton Hall University School of Law in the community where I have lived for a decade.

Like many in the Garden State I became aware of Christopher James “Chris” Christie when he served as a United States Attorney, appointed to the position by George W. Bush in 2002 and serving until 2008. During that time, he amassed an impressive record of convictions with an emphasis on corrupt politicians along with sexual slavery, arms trafficking, racketeering by gangs, and other federal crimes.

In January 2009 he declared his candidacy for Governor and, in November, he defeated incumbent Jon Corzine who, like his predecessors, had driven up taxes while never really solving the state’s budget problems. In his first term, Gov. Christie drove a number of hard bargains with the state’s civil service unions, primarily the teachers union. When he won reelection to a second term in November 2013, he became the first Republican to earn more than fifty percent of the vote in a quarter-century.

New Jersey is a blue state, heavily Democratic politically, and his reelection quite naturally made Republicans nationwide take notice. He is also a very savvy politician and not one to make every decision along strict ideological grounds.

In his first term he achieved a remarkably good working relationship with the state’s Democratic legislature. After Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey n 2012, wreaking heavy damage to shore communities, he was quite visible in the company of President Obama when he paid a visit when he was also campaigning for reelection. That paid off in significant federal funds to help rebuild. Christie agreed to expand the state’s Medicaid problem under Obama’s health law. He vetoed a bill that would sanction gay marriage, but declined to appeal a court ruling that legalized it.

Like other Governors in states with Democratic legislatures, Christie inherited massive budget deficits. In his first term he bargained with the New Jersey Education Association and the Communications Workers of America, two of a dozen civil service unions, to increase their members’ payments toward pensions and medical benefits, but in turn they won bigger payments by the state into their troubled retirement fund.

Faced with yet another budget gap, Gov. Christie proposed taking $2.4 billion meant for the pension system in order to achieve a balanced budget because, as he said, there is nowhere else to find the money other than to raise taxes or reduce spending for schools or hospitals. He bluntly said that the state cannot afford the level of benefits it provides public workers. As this is written, fourteen unions for teachers, police officers, firefighters and state workers have filed lawsuits to stop Christie’s transfer of funds to the budget.

In January “bridgegate” erupted when it became known that one of his aides had apparently urged highway lane closures to the George Washington Bridge as political retribution against a Democratic mayor who did not endorse him for re-elections. In response he devoted two hours to a press conference in which he answered every question, denying any knowledge of the aide’s action and, to date, hearings by the state legislature have been unable to connect him personally to it. The Democratic Party and liberal media saw it as an opportunity to eliminate him as a potential presidential candidate in 2016.

“Bridgegate” is losing traction and is not likely to play a role in any decision he makes to run for President. The cost of defending himself and members of his administration has cost New Jersey taxpayers $3 million in legal fees at this point. In a hearing, Christie’s chief of staff deemed it “a major distraction.”

Conversely, he has remained very popular within the Republican Party, despite ideological divisions. He is currently chairman of the Republican Governors Association, giving him regular access to some of the Party’s leading national donors. He is a welcome speaker at many GOP conferences.

To the question, will he announce his candidacy for the presidency, he remains uncommitted to the decision and, at this point, that’s a wise course of action. Christie has, in his usual blunt fashion, said of any suggestion that being from a northeastern state, “I hear people all the time saying, ‘You wouldn’t play well in the South’ or ‘You wouldn’t play well in Iowa’—It’s all garbage.”

“In the end,” says Christie, “people like people who are genuine and who are real. I think they’re willing to cut you slack even if they don’t agree with you on certain things if they think you’re being genuine and authentic”, adding “I would rather lose than try to pretend to be somebody else.”

Virtually alone among Republicans who might contend for the GOP nomination and the presidency, Gov. Christie is what you see and what you hear. If he does secure the nomination that will be a major factor in 2016 and will guarantee a tough fight for the Democratic candidate.

Would I vote for him? Sure. And I would also be happy to vote for Ted Cruz and Allen West it they were the GOP candidate.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

Viguerie: Virginia Voters Sent GOP Leaders a Message – Fight for Our Principles

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MANASSAS, Va., June 11, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Richard A. Viguerie, author of TAKEOVER, The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It, and conservative political marketing pioneer, issued the following analysis in the wake of David Brat’s historic defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Tuesday’s Virginia Republican primary election.

“Tens of thousands of Republican voters in Virginia 7 received the letters I sent in the closing days of the campaign in support of Dave Brat and to drive his message of change in Washington. Eric Cantor’s defeat will have positive results for conservatives far beyond the immediate effect of killing Cantor’s amnesty for illegal aliens plan.” (View a sample of my two letters through this link.)

“While the House Republican leadership has been thrown into disarray by Eric Cantor’s defeat, rank and file Republicans got the message loud and clear. Eric Cantor’s defeat will have the salutary effect of stiffening the spines of House Republicans.”

“Eric Cantor’s defeat also guarantees more gridlock in Washington and no progress on Obama’s agenda during the final two years of his presidency. Conservatives in the House are now emboldened to fight and the grassroots are energized like never before; there will be no amnesty bill, no job killing climate change legislation and no chance that House conservatives can be browbeaten into going along with other so-called compromises with Obama that grow spending and government.”

“As I pointed out in my new book TAKEOVER, Eric Cantor had become fully invested in House Speaker John Boehner’s lobbyist-driven legislative agenda. From breaking the spending caps in the sequester to voting for the Wall Street bailout through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Cantor always sided with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Capitol Hill establishment when faced with a choice between growing government and fighting for limited-government constitutional conservative principles. Amnesty for illegal aliens was just the latest in a long list of betrayals conservatives suffered at the hands of Eric Cantor.”

“The real reason Cantor lost is not amnesty; it is that grassroots limited government constitutional conservative voters wanted to send a message that they are fed-up with having their views and values arrogantly ignored and disrespected by Washington’s Republican professional political class.”

ABOUT RICHARD A. VIGUERIE

Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called “one of the creators of the modern conservative movement” (The Nation) and one of the “conservatives of the century” (Washington Times).  He is the author of the new book, Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It.

What does Rep. Eric Cantor’s Primary Loss in Virginia Really Signify?

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Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s hopes to replace House Speaker John Boehner were crushed with his defeat by Randolph Macon Economics Professor David Brat by 11 points, 56% to 45% in Virginia’s Tuesday primary. After the stunning upset victory in suburban Richmond, Virginia’s 7th Congressional District by Republican challenger David Brat, a self-styled Tea Party libertarian, Republican Party leaders are confounded about future prospects. They are concerned about House contests and national mid-term and Presidential elections in both 2014 and 2016. Long term Virginia 7th C.D. incumbent Republican and US House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor has no choice but to resign forcing the House GOP majority to elect a new leader. Because of the immigration issue raised in this defeat of Cantor by Tea Party upstart Brat this could be a further warning to House Speaker John Boehner that he might face similar prospects in his home district in Ohio this November. The Wall Street Journal in its report on Cantor’s upset loss to ‘underfunded’ Brat commented:

Mr. Cantor’s defeat marked an unexpected and staggering turn in this year’s primary-election season, overturning the building narrative that Republican Party leaders and allied business groups had trampled the GOP’s tea-party wing, which has fought to push the party to the political right.

Mr. Cantor’s defeat could reshape many areas of policy in Congress, foremost the prospects for immigration legislation. Many Republican leaders say the GOP won’t make gains with the fast-growing Hispanic population unless it helps to liberalize immigration laws and grant legal status to some illegal immigrants. House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) has said he wants to take up the issue, but opposition from conservatives in his ranks has stalled the effort.

In his largely under-the-radar campaign, Mr. Brat, 49 years old, primarily sought to cast himself as more conservative than Mr. Cantor on immigration policy. He also criticized the GOP leader’s alliance with business groups and his record on fiscal issues, particularly his votes to raise the federal borrowing limit, casting Mr. Cantor as part of a leadership team that he argued had grown disconnected from its constituents.

While many are shocked about the Brat primary victory that dethroned House Majority leader Eric Cantor, we do not believe it was because he is Jewish. Rather, it is reflective of the extreme polarization of both parties. Democrats who recently were polled to determine if they were moderate versus liberal, skewed towards liberals. In January 2014 the Gallup organization released findings of self-identification in more than 13 polls taken in 2013 of 18,000 Americans. Their report confirmed this trend:

Americans continue to be more likely to identify as conservatives (38%) than as liberals (23%). But the conservative advantage is down to 15 percentage points as liberal identification edged up to its highest level since Gallup began regularly measuring ideology in the current format in 1992.

On the GOP side, the traditional country club business moderates that we were occasioned to see in prominence as party leaders over the period from the 1940’s through the Reagan, Bush I and II eras have been diminished by the rise of the Tea Party and libertarian grass roots movements.  That is reflected in the ironic confrontation in the November Henrico Virginia Congressional District race which is now between two professors at Randolph Macon University., Brat, a self styled tea Party libertarian, versus Democrat candidate, Jack Trammell, who styles himself as “liberal progressive”. Given the 7th CD voting preferences heavily skewed to conservative Brat might represent the district in the next Congress. As to why Cantor lost, look no further than the comments of David Wasserman of the Cooke Report quoted in this USA Today article on Cantor’s defeat:

Cantor’s leadership position, unwillingness to prolong last October’s government shutdown, far-fetched attacks on Brat, and stylistic clash with Virginia’s gun-owning, very conservative 7th (district) all played a role in the ‘perfect storm’ of base anger that engulfed him.

In a warning sign of Tea Party discontent in Cantor’s Richmond-based district, activists booed and heckled Cantor during a party convention in May. Cantor had invested nearly $1 million into the primary, running television ads and sending mailers attacking the underfunded and little known Brat.

Former Connecticut US Senator Joe Lieberman was upended in a highly partisan primary in August 2006 in the Nutmeg state.  As a Connecticut resident then, many of us were appalled to find that a minority of registered Democrat voters nominated Ned Lamont, scion of a wealthy Greenwich family; many were progressives, virulently anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. That energized involvement of a number of us in the Lieberman Independent campaign and resulting victory in November 2006.  A majority of those who elected him were Republicans and a distinct minority were union members, what pollsters called conservative lunch bucket Democrats.  That was an indication that the progressives had taken over local Democratic politics.  See my Israpundit post, August 10, 2006.

Unlike the Lieberman example, Cantor can’t run as a ‘sore loser’ Independent candidate in Virginia. And even if he could, he would lose because of the polarized Conservative electorate who didn’t appreciate his moderate views on immigration and other issues.  The defeat of Cantor may possibly lead in the next Congress to overturning current House Speaker John Boehner.  Polarization at the extremes of both parties has vaporized bi-partisan resolution of major public policy issues perhaps reflected in the low approval ratings of Congress. More ominously it may presage the emergence of an autocratic executive branch of our government relying on executive orders.   That could translate to a majority of Independents and moderates in the country being turned off, not voting and both Congressional and Presidential race outcomes determined by activist minorities.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review. The featured photo is courtesy of the Associated Press.

Planned Parenthood Staffer Tells 15-Year-Old to be a Dominatrix, Have BDSM Sex

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In the first video released in its new expose’ of the Planned Parenthood abortion business, Live Action has caught a counselor for the abortion giant urging a 15-year-old to have BDSM sex and to engage in sexual relations as a dominatrix.

The entire video series catches the Planned Parenthood abortion business teaching teenagers about S&M-based sexual relationships and concepts such as gagging, whipping and asphyxiation. In a series of undercover audits, Live Action investigators documented Planned Parenthood counselors and nurses advising our investigators, who the Planned Parenthood staffers thought were minors, on how to practice torture sex.

In this and forthcoming videos, Planned Parenthood counselors encourage undercover investigators posting as 15 and 16-year-old teens, to engage in the sadomasochistic practices, telling the underage teens  “if it’s consensual, it’s OK… it’s totally OK.”

Read more.

RELATED ARTICLES:

EXPOSED: Planned Parenthood Goes a Step Too Far
ObamaCore Emerges As a Major Issue As Education Takes An Orwellian Turn – The New York Sun

Obscene anti-Catholic group leading ‘Gay Pride Parade’ in Boston

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1. Obscene anti-Catholic group named “Grand Marshall” at Boston “Gay Pride Parade” this Saturday.  Prominent politicians, major corporations are marching in it.

A notorious homosexual anti-Catholic group has been named “Grand Marshall” of this year’s Gay Pride Week in Boston, including the the Gay Pride Parade and Festival this Saturday. Despite the group’s long history of extreme bigotry, prominent politicians and major corporations are marching in the parade and funding the events.  More

The anti-Catholic “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” are homosexual men grotesquely dressed as Catholic nuns and profanely mock the Church.
[Mass-Resistance photo]

2. TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW: Call these politicians & corporations. Let them know you won’t stand for it!

This is not just an attack on Catholics in Boston. This is ultimately an attack on religious believers everywhere. More

In your face: A corporate contingent in last years Gay Pride Parade in Boston that’s coming back this year.
[Mass-Resistance photo

For all recent posts see our website.

“100 by D-Day” challenge update: WE MADE IT – and more!
As we’ve broadcast in our last few emails, a WWII veteran’s challenge for us was to get (at least!) 100 donations (of any amount!) between Memorial Day and D-Day! So we wanted to show him that people are out there helping MassResistance fight on. Here’s our Memorial Day article announcing that:

100 by D-Day? The changing economics of fighting the pro-family fight.

We are pleased to announce that we received 112 donations (via credit cards, checks, and even some cash) — totaling $6587.71.

We called our WWII veteran and he was thrilled. He said to us, “It’s wonderful news. MassResistance gives me hope for America!”

And a big THANK YOU to everyone who came through for this! It means a lot.(Your free bumper stickers will be on their way to you!)

So now . . . the fight continues!

RELATED VIDEO:

Police state? Impeach Obama activist targeted by Wisconsin police chief

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What type of country are we becoming when freedom of expression becomes a target of those legally granted with governmental power? Such is the question I ponder having just finished a visit with the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) in Ann Arbor Michigan, reviewing some of their current cases. I found this one particularly interesting.

You may be aware of the “Impeach Obama” overpass movement — quite certain they may be getting lots more “honks” these days.

It seems that one Chief of Police, Timothy Keleman of Campbell, Wisconsin not only doesn’t appreciate this exercise of the First Amendment, he’s making it personal.

Enter Mr. Greg Luce, a devout Catholic and member of the Tea Party. He opposes President Obama on several issues, including the president’s stance on abortion. Luce was targeted for retaliation after he spoke out against a city ordinance which prohibits citizens from displaying the American flag, banners and wearing t-shirts that call for the impeachment of President Obama on a pedestrian highway overpass managed by the town.

Silly me, I thought overpasses were part of the public square and since the taxpayer funds the overpass — I am assuming in this case, their freedom to assemble and express themselves in petitioning their government for redress of grievances was their right.

Perhaps in the “fundamentally transformed” America of Barack Hussein Obama I may be wrong? And I just have to ask, if there were individuals gathered on the overpass burning the American flag — even without an open burn permit — would there be any such hoopla? Oh yeah, for many that’s acceptable freedom of expression – not for me of course.

Well, apparently ol’ Chief Keleman didn’t appreciate Mr. Luce, an American citizen, standing up for his rights. Chief Keleman decided to use Gregory Luce’s personal information, including his home address, telephone number and e-mail address to create profiles and accounts on numerous pornographic and dating websites featuring homosexual men, insurance companies, and the “Obamacare” website healthcare.gov. The accounts created by Kelemen resulted in Luce receiving approximately 15 phone calls in a single day regarding the profiles made using his information.

Additionally, Chief Kelemen, under the username “Bill O’Reilly,” posted a number of inflammatory and harassing comments on the website of local newspaper, the La Crosse Tribune, including 7 comments on the article regarding the filing of the initial lawsuit. Within the comments, Chief Kelemen posted that Luce had “disrespected the wrong mo fo,” as well as posting false comments about Mr. Luce wetting himself and posting Luce’s home address.

Seems that the wrong mo fo, Chief Keleman, graduated from the Barney Fife school of law enforcement. After initially denying any involvement in the harassment of Luce, the Chief ultimately admitted the harassment as an attempt to “get back at” Luce after detectives told him they had traced the unwanted solicitations to his IP addresses at the police department and his home. Detectives have referred their investigation to the Monroe County District Attorney for criminal prosecution under Wisconsin law.

Chief Keleman appears to be well-versed in Saul Alinsky’s tactic of personal destruction of the opposition, something perfected by current liberal progressive socialists who have carefully studied his Rules for Radicals.

Persecution by government officials via coercion and intimidation has no place in our Constitutional Republic. Hat tip to TMLC for taking up this case, and I certainly hope Chief Timothy Kelemen is sent away for a nice taxpayer-funded incarceration for violating the public trust and for dishonoring his oath to serve and protect the people.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

Why Would WaPo Wait Three Months to Release a Bill Gates Interview?

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On Saturday, June 7, 2014, Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post published this article based on a 28-minute interview she had with billionaire Common Core State Standards (CCSS) funder, Bill Gates. In the interview, Gates spills quite a bit of “insider information,” not the least of which is that in the summer of 2008, then-Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) President Gene Wilhoit and national-standards-writing-company-gone-nonprofit Student Achievement Partners (SAP) founder and CEO– and CCSS “architect”– David Coleman approached him about bankrolling CCSS.

The Gates purse would fund not only organizations positioned on the inside of the CCSS effort, including CCSSO, SAP, the National Governors Association (NGA), the Hunt Institute, Fordham Institute, and Education Trust, but also scores of auxiliary organizations useful in “implementing” CCSS, including both national teachers unions.

As Layton notes, support for CCSS was intentionally strategized:

With the Gates money, the Hunt Institute coordinated more than a dozen organizations — many of them also Gates grantees — including the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, National Council of La Raza, the Council of Chief State School Officers, National Governors Association, Achieve and the two national teachers unions.

The Hunt Institute held weekly conference calls between the players that were directed by Stefanie Sanford, who was in charge of policy and advocacy at the Gates Foundation. They talked about which states needed shoring up, the best person to respond to questions or criticisms and who needed to travel to which state capital to testify, according to those familiar with the conversations. [Emphasis added.]

In the interview, Gates notes that he decided to financially support CCSS because he “believes in” the standards.  However, in March 2014, Gates is quite clear in an interview with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) that his support of CCSS was because “scale is good for free market competition.”

Gates is all but “free market.” In bankrolling CCSS, he purchased American public education. Incredibly, the federal government is fine with that. After all, USDOE already had an incestuous relationship with the Gates Foundation. As Layton notes:

Several top players in Obama’s Education Department who shaped the administration’s policies came either straight from the Gates Foundation in 2009 or from organizations that received heavy funding from the foundation. [Emphasis added.]

Indeed, as Layton points out, Gates’ influence upon the White House manifests via multiple, interrelated connections– connections that swiftly advanced CCSS before America knew what had hit it:

While the Gates Foundation created the burst of momentum behind the Common Core, the Obama administration picked up the cause and helped push states to act quickly.

There was so much cross-pollination between the foundation and the administration, it is difficult to determine the degree to which one may have influenced the other. [Emphasis added.]

Undoubtedly, this Gates interview was chock full of sensational news.

So, here’s a looming question:

Why did Layton wait three months until releasing the Gates interview video and her article?

The 28-minute video that is part of Layton’s June 7, 2014, article includes the following descriptor:

Bill Gates sat down with The Post’s Lyndsey Layton in March to defend the Gates Foundation’s pervasive presence in education and its support of the Common Core. Here is the full, sometimes tense, interview. [Emphasis added.]

The video specifies the interview date as March 14, 2014.

Maybe Gates was tense because in March 2014, he was clearly trying to “protect his investment,” so to speak, and save the standards, which Gates told the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards needed protecting– otherwise America would be “back to what we had before.”

What, to state standards not bankrolled by one billionaire?

Why wait three months?

I do believe I know exactly why.

As of March 14, 2014, 39 states and DC were in legislative session– a session that was particularly stormy for “state led” CCSS.

By Saturday, June 7, that number dropped to 11 and DC, with 6 and DC having no session end to anticipate.

2014 legis map

For a larger view click on the map.

State legislative session graphic for Friday, June 6, 2014  Note: Map has two errors: South Carolina and Vermont sessions had ended (June 5 and May 10, respectively). Also, Virginia’s special session was on budget and Medicaid.

Hold the story until the first Saturday in June, when most legislatures are no longer in session.

Quite the standards-rescuing coincidence, n’est-ce pas?

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Qatar Supplying U.S. Stinger missiles to the Taliban

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Yesterday, on The Lisa Benson Show, that I hosted, we heard from two guests, about the extraordinary influence that tiny energy rich Gulf Emirate of  Qatar has in the Obama Administration . That was reflected in their  role facilitating the transfer of the five top Taliban Commanders to Qatar from Guantanamo in a swap for freeing Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.  A swap fraught with real dangers to American forces still in Afghanistan according to comments from Maj. Gen Paul Vallely, renowned Fox News  senior military analyst and Dr. David Weinberg, senior fellow in the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Shoot_down_of_Soviet_helicopter_by_Mujahedin_fighter_armed_with_Stinger_missilePresident Obama’s hoped  for euphoria  with the announcement of Bergdahl’s release with his parents in the White House Rose Garden on Saturday, May 31, 2014  were dashed  in the firestorm  of  adverse Congressional   and public criticism.  That according to Gen. Vallely   has brought into question the legality and wisdom of the  President’s decision to exchange  high risk Taliban commanders for Bergdahl.  As we noted in recent Iconoclast posts many of Bergdahl’s  platoon comrades considered him a deserter from their forward operating base in Eastern Afghanistan in late June 2009.  On the  Lisa Benson Radio Show Gen. Vallely gave the stunning news that two Afghan police has left the 25th Infantry brigade operating base at virtually the same time as Bergdahl.

Yesterday, veteran investigative journalist and author Kenneth Timmerman  brought into serious question the duplicity of the Qataris in excerpt published in the New York Post  of a forthcoming  new book by him,  Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Ben­ghazi” (Broadside Books),  How the Taliban got their hands on modern US missiles.  This adds one more  clear demonstration of the myopia by the Obama West Wing demonstrating  the blow-back from Qatar where we have invested over a half billion to build the Al Uedid Combat Air Command  and Central Command  logistical supply complex to  support our troops in Afghanistan.  It is no wonder that Dr. Weinberg’s colleague at FDD, Dr. Jonathan Schanzer has called  in the Qatari, in a Politco article both a “Frenemy” and an “ATM for the Muslim Brotherhood” in the Middle East and North Africa. With the Timmerman excerpt on how US stingers supplied the Qataris found their way to Afghanistan for the Taliban to shoot down a Chinook CH-47 helicopter in 2012, we have further evidence of why the release of those five top Taliban commanders and war criminals, by President Obama may further embolden Congressional investigative oversight of these dangerous Administration national security policies.

New York Post, June 8, 2014

How the Taliban got their hands on modern US missiles

By Kenneth R. Timmerman

Kenneth R. Timmerman

In his new book, “Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi” (Broadside Books), writer Kenneth R. Timmerman explains how the US government’s efforts to arm the Libyan rebels backfired, flooding weapons into Syria, and as he ­reveals here, Afghanistan:

The Obama administration isn’t only giving the Taliban back its commanders — it’s giving them weapons.

Military records and sources reveal that on July 25, 2012, Taliban fighters in Kunar province successfully targeted a US Army CH-47 helicopter with a new generation Stinger missile.

They thought they had a surefire kill. But instead of bursting into flames, the Chinook just disappeared into the darkness as the American pilot recovered control of the aircraft and brought it to the ground in a hard landing.

The assault team jumped out the open doors and ran clear in case it exploded. Less than 30 seconds later, the Taliban gunner and his comrade erupted into flames as an American gunship overhead locked onto their position and opened fire.

us helocopter

The Taliban took out a US Chinook helicopter in 2012 with a Stinger missile signed out by the CIA around the time of the attack. Photo: Reuters

The next day, an explosive ordnance disposal team arrived to pick through the wreckage and found unexploded pieces of a missile casing that could only belong to a Stinger missile.

Lodged in the right nacelle, they found one fragment that contained an entire serial number.

The investigation took time. Arms were twisted, noses put out of joint. But when the results came back, they were stunning: The Stinger tracked back to a lot that had been signed out by the CIA recently, not during the anti-Soviet ­jihad.

Reports of the Stinger reached the highest echelons of the US command in Afghanistan and became a source of intense speculation, but no action.

Everyone knew the war was winding down. Revealing that the Taliban had US-made Stingers risked demoralizing coalition troops. Because there were no coalition casualties, government officials made no public announcement of the attack.

My sources in the US Special Operations community believe the Stinger fired against the Chinook was part of the same lot the CIA turned over to the Qataris in early 2011, weapons Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department intended for anti-Khadafy forces in Libya.

They believe the Qataris delivered between 50 and 60 of those same Stingers to the Taliban in early 2012, and an additional 200 SA-24 Igla-S surface-to-air missiles.

Qatar now is expected to hold five Taliban commanders released from Guantanamo for a year before allowing them to go to Afghanistan.

But if we can’t trust the Qataris not to give our weapons to the Taliban, how can we trust them with this?

RELATED ARTICLE: Karachi airport attack: Taliban ‘trying to hijack plane’ in assault that left dozens dead

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.