The case for surrogate forces — Creating a ‘U.S. Freedom Corps’

EDITORS NOTE: As President-elect Trump and Secretary of Defense nominee James Mattis look at growing and modernizing the U.S. military we have decided to re-publish this column originally appearing in The Washington Examiner on October 30th, 2014 under the title “The case for surrogate forces.” It was written by our contributor Gary Berntsen, a retired Senior CIA Operations Officer and Chief of Station. As the new administration looks at expanding our military, the establishment and use of surrogate forces to defeat ISIS and other radical Islamic organizations is worthy of consideration as a low cost, high value, low risk force multiplier. Some have suggested that it would be better to recruit from the large population of displaced Muslims in areas such as Syria to serve in a surrogate military force to be used in the Middle East rather than grant them refugee status in Europe and the U.S. Fight in place for their homeland trumps uprooting families and moving them to a strange land and culture. This column is reprinted with permission.

Despite President Obama’s high hopes of withdrawing behind the castle walls, the United States is going to be playing a major role in the Middle East and South Asia for some time. The rise of Islamic State extremists, who exploited the U.S. troop withdrawal to seize control of territory in Iraq and Syria, is all the proof we need of that reality.

At the same time, there are serious questions as to how prepared the United States is for this ongoing mission. We continue to boast the best-trained, most professional and effective military force in world history, but our nation’s leaders show little stomach for sending or allowing that force to do its job.

That’s certainly the case in Iraq, where the Obama administration has pledged to defeat ISIS, while at the same time ruling out the use of U.S. ground forces to achieve that goal. This leaves a dangerous gap between what needs to be done in the Middle East, and what can be done.

To bridge that gap, some commentators have gone so far as to suggest dispatching “mercenary forces” to Iraq on behalf of the United States. This is a profoundly irresponsible idea that would both fail to achieve our strategic objectives and send the wrong message about U.S. power.

french foreign legion

The French Foreign Legion was created in 1831 and is still active. It was created from the similar idea of a surrogate force. (AP/Claude Paris)

But there is another way: Using surrogate forces, composed of recruits from the Islamic world, to serve in a U.S.-sponsored mission to provide basic security in Iraq and other locations where the United States intervenes.

Here’s how it would work: The United States could establish and train a surrogate corps of light infantry, combat engineers and military police (at a strength of roughly 20,000) dubbed “The Freedom Corps.” Led by U.S. officers, this corps would be responsible for counterinsurgency operations.

The benefits of this type of arrangement should be obvious. A local force that speaks the local language could more readily plug into local customs and traditions, while alleviating the sense of living under a foreign occupying army.

But The Freedom Corps would still have the operational benefits of U.S. leadership. This surrogate force would fall under the authority of the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., which would give its members the training, direction, structure and access to intelligence they need to succeed.

This would be far more cost-effective than maintaining U.S. forces in Iraq for the long haul. It costs around $1 million per year to keep a single U.S. solider in the field. But insurgencies like the Taliban or ISIS spend only a fraction of that sum. We desperately need a more cost-conscious solution to the long-term challenge of providing security in this delicate region.

Surrogate force enlistees could be compensated at a more modest rate (say, around $1,500 per month), which would go a long way toward lifting their families out of poverty. After a designated period of service, perhaps five years, Freedom Corps enlistees could be eligible for U.S. citizenship — a further incentive for enlistment.

Students of military history will likely find that this suggestion sounds familiar. France used a similar model in establishing the French Foreign Legion, launched in 1831 to recruit foreign nationals from around the world to serve under French army officers. The Legion remains active today, intervening earlier this year in Mali.

Likewise, Great Britain built the famed British Gurkha force of soldiers from Nepal along similar lines nearly 200 years ago; more than a quarter-million Gurkhas fought for the Allied cause in World War II. In fact, British Gurkhas have continued to fight and serve in Afghanistan.

Even the United States has a history of using surrogate forces. From 1900 to 1946, the roughly 11,000-man Philippine Scouts, composed of Filipino troops serving under U.S. officers, and fought with honor in the Pacific theater in World War II.

One objection to the Freedom Corps concept is that it may look and feel like a colonial force. And that may be true. But it very likely may be the best way to enhance U.S. power, influence and capability throughout the Islamic world. Given the challenges we face in the region, it’s an idea whose time has come.

RELATED ARTICLE: Surrogate Warfare: The Role of U.S. Army Special Forces

Exposed: Alt-Left Groups Plotting to Detonate ‘Acid Bombs’ at Trump Inauguration

For the past several weeks, our undercover teams have been going deep undercover to get in with the radical, alt-left groups that are planning to disrupt the Presidential Inauguration this week.

We’re used to dealing with devious people doing devious things, but this time, it was frightening for everyone involved.

These people looked and talked like the radical “Weather Underground” terrorists from the 70’s that bombed the Pentagon and NYPD headquarters.

Today, we’re releasing a video of two men, Luke Kuhn and Collin Dunn, plotting to disrupt balls at the inauguration including the “Deploraball” organized by online activists.

They’re primary plan was to release “butyric acid” bombs and set off sprinkler alarms.

Watch the video below:

These are no pranks. Other progressive activists use the same tactics to shut down Japanese whaling ships and close buildings.

Combined with this haunting statement, we all need to be prepared:

“The next four years, we are going to fight Trump and everything he stands for with no quarter asked, no quarter given. No mercy of any kind.”

While we were investigating these groups, something else very disturbing happened that we touch on in the above video . . . listen for the line “Bob Creamer sends his regards.”

We’ll be addressing that in other videos this week as well.

While we have already shared this and other footage with law enforcement authorities, I need your help to share it with everyone else and get the word out.

Post this video on Facebook and tweet a link to it on twitter. Everyone needs to see what’s happening here.

Expect another message from me later today with further action.


UPDATE:

A few hours ago, we released a video showing radical, alt-left anti-fascists plotting to disrupt inauguration events by using butyric acid bombs and other tactics.

The news spread like wildfire thanks to your help.

The Drudge Report posted the video immediately and articles went up everywhere from the Washington Times to Sean Hannity’s site.

In response, the group, DisruptJ20, released a statement saying — and this isn’t a joke — they met with a Project Veritas investigator to give “him false information about what they felt was the most humorous red herring available: a false plot to use stink bombs at an event called the Deploraball.”

The group even admitted that they had already purchased tickets to the Deploraball.

It’s rare that you run into people that are simply flat out liars, but the organizers of DisruptJ20 fall into that category and laughably so.

Their plot is stopped and now they’re facing criminal scrutiny — as they should be.

They’re on the run, and I say we keep them on the run by calling in some ground support.

My team and I are packing up for D.C. right now.

We’ll be traveling with a dossier of all of the leaders and activists that we filmed during our sting on DisruptJ20 . . . and we’ll be handing out copies to other patriots in D.C.

The more people we have assisting law enforcement by observing and reporting, the better.

And I need your voice to amplify our call and to let them know, “we’re watching.”

Click here and send this tweet to DisruptJ20:


@Disruptj20 your plot is blown to disrupt @realDonaldTrump’s inauguration. Don’t do anything stupid, @Project_Veritas is watching #Veritas

Thanks again for all that you do, and watch for our next video tomorrow.

VIDEO: The Third Jihad – USA in Denial

In 2007, Clarion Project completed this landmark film The Third Jihad highlighting radical Islamists’ engagement in a “multifaceted strategy to overcome the Western world,” waging a “cultural jihad” to “infiltrate and undermine our society from within.”

On the film’s 10th anniversary you will be astounded at how accurately we predicted the future, in a world where radical Islam was allowed to flourish, in a world where political correctness silenced Islamist detractors and in a world where ‘cultural sensibilities’ trumped free speech.

Week by week we will unfold the story of radical Islam, unveiling its historic, cultural, religious and militant roots and show how they manifest themselves in today’s society.

In episode 2 of The Third Jihad, the Clarion Project look’s at the reality of a country and culture in denial. A country that is not prepared to accept radical Islam as a credible threat to the security and ideals of the USA.

In episode 2, USA in Denial, we look at the reality of a country and culture that is not prepared to accept radical Islam as a credible threat to the security of the USA and the American way of life.

The Third Jihad full version:

As ever, we would ask two things from you: Please send us your comments and please share this video with as many people as you can.

‘First Hundred Days’ – President-Elect Trump Bypasses Accepted Tradition

By Wallace Bruschweiler and William Palumbo

Franklin Delano Roosevelt began an American tradition with his “First Hundred Days” of sweeping legislation, ushering in the New Deal and forever changing American politics and, more broadly, American life.

Let there be little doubt about it: President-Elect Donald J. Trump has forever altered this tradition, as he began practically governing the day after he was elected fair and square in an historic upset.

What has Trump accomplished as President-Elect?  The below list only includes the highlights of a truly remarkable (and exciting) transition period.

Jobs

  • This week, Amazon announced a plan to create 100,000 jobs over the next 18 months.
  • Jack Ma, CEO of Chinese tech giant Ali Baba, promised to create “one million” new jobs for American small businesses by making it easier for them to sell to the Chinese market.
  • Automakers Ford and Fiat-Chrysler have announced plans to invest and modernize plants domestically. Ford even cancelled projected plans for Mexican expansion in favor of U.S. investment.
  • Automaker Toyota announced plans to invest $10 billion over the next five years.
  • Apple has begun investigating options to build iPhones in the U.S.
  • The Japanese bank Softbank has pledged to invest $50 billion and create 50,000 new jobs.

Foreign Policy

  • During his campaign, Trump’s criticism of NATO’s outmoded mission caused a re-assessment and stated intent to focus more on terrorism.
  • Several key NATO allies are considering increasing their defense budgets, as a direct response to Trump’s criticism of their relatively, you might say illusory, financial contributions.
  • Already, the Trump administration has been invited to Syrian peace talks in Moscow. In December, the Obama administration was excluded from that summit.
  • Announced and made plans to move the American embassy to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, period!; and told the Palestinian authorities that, by the way, Palestine does not exist for all practical purposes!

Note to Media: Here are your pre-Inauguration Lessons

From this spate of energizing news, there are a few key lessons not only for the American people, but especially for the dishonest, manipulative, and national embarrassment that we call the “media.”

  • First, the public’s reaction* to Trump’s actions since the election prove we fully reject Barack Hussein Obama and his anti-American agenda. Despite Trump’s modus operandi during the transition period which rivals – if not supersedes – the authority of a sitting president (and thus break with the tradition of “one president at a time”) the public continues to embrace the Trump agenda.  What more proof do you need that the people are ready to “turn the page” on the disgraceful and destructive Obama eight-year era?
  • Second, can we finally reject the specious smears that Donald J. Trump is “BS artist”? This discrediting sneer is repeated daily by leftist pundits.  Yet, an honest assessment of the above pre-office accomplishments concludes that Trump is acting exactly in line with long-held beliefs, as well as all his campaign promises.

Nothing would make the left happier than if Trump broke all his promises.  In fact, to their great chagrin, he has kept them – and aggressively.  In truth, the career politicians in both parties that Trump defeated are professional conmen and conwomen.  And that’s being polite.

  • Third, Trump’s populist movement depends on direct communication with the American people. Trump’s use of Twitter – his way of outmaneuvering the media – has enabled his success.  The leftist media is a machine of mass distortion and falsities.  Cutting out the “middleman” has always been and will continue to be a feature of the Trump phenomenon.

With so much work to be done to “Make America Great Again,” why waste time between the election and January 21st?  President-Election Donald J. Trump has not left us waiting for a change.  He already started it.  And that, we believe, will be the first chapter in his positive legacy over the next eight years as President.  History will be his witness.

* Their very public, uncouth, and strident objections notwithstanding, Hollywood actors and other bubbled elites are not representative of the sensible American public.

Obama: ‘Unfettered support for Israel’ hurts ‘prospects for peace’

Obama is still accusing Israel of being the barrier to peace, as he refers to “Netanyahu’s government policies” with regards to “Israeli settlements.” He even went so far as to imply that friendship with Israel is adding to the problem:

“If that’s what qualifies as a good friend, then I think that we will see a worsening situation over time.”

Nowhere does Obama condemn the goal of Hamas, the PA and Fatah: to obliterate the state of Israel, as stated in their charters. Nowhere does he refer to the fact that Israel has already given back 96 percent of the lands it won in past defensive wars. He says nothing about the fact that these concessions only emboldened Israel’s jihadist enemies to attack innocent Israelis even more.

Netanyahu has accused the Obama administration of colluding with the Palestinians when it abstained last month from voting on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning settlements. On Tuesday, Netanyahu reiterated that claim, saying Israel had “solid information” that proved the U.S. was behind the drafting of the resolution.

Right after the passing of the UN anti-settlement Resolution 2334, leaked documents revealed that the resolution was was orchestrated by the Obama administration. As Obama packs up to leave the White House, he leaves behind a legacy of betraying Israel and rallying support for the Palestinian jihad. As the clock ticks on his presidency, let’s hope Obama’s propensity to lash out against Israel does not lead to still more rash actions. Remember that the virulently anti-Semitic former President Jimmy Carter called on Obama to unilaterally recognise Palestinian statehood before leaving office.

“Obama Warns Against Support for Israeli Settlements”, New York Times, January 10, 2017:

JERUSALEM — U.S. President Barack Obama warned in an interview broadcast Tuesday that “unfettered support” for Israel’s settlement policies would lead to a “worsening situation” over time between Israelis and Palestinians.

The interview with Israeli TV program “Uvda” comes 10 days before Obama, who has been an outspoken critic of Israeli settlements, hands over to President-elect Donald Trump, who is expected to pursue a starkly different approach to the conflict. Trump’s election has buoyed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his pro-settler government.

“If the notion is that unfettered support for Israel or more specifically support for the Netanyahu government’s policies — no matter what they are, no matter how inimical they may be to the prospects for peace — if that’s what qualifies as a good friend, then I think that we will see a worsening situation over time,” Obama said during the interview, filmed in Washington last week.

Netanyahu has accused the Obama administration of colluding with the Palestinians when it abstained last month from voting on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning settlements. On Tuesday, Netanyahu reiterated that claim, saying Israel had “solid information” that proved the U.S. was behind the drafting of the resolution.

The White House has denied the allegations, and Israel has not publicly provided evidence to back them up.

Obama defended the abstention in the interview, saying “I believe it was the best move for peace.”

Nearly 600,000 settlers now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories the Palestinians want as part of a future state. Much of the international community as well as the Palestinians view settlements as illegitimate and an obstacle to peace. Netanyahu routinely dismisses international criticism of the settlements, saying the conflict predates them.

While Trump has indicated a willingness to help broker peace, his election platform did not mention a Palestinian state and he has taken steps that show he plans to side with Israel. He has appointed an ambassador to Israel with deep ties to the settlements and he has pledged to relocate the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a move likely to enflame tensions and anger the Palestinians….

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Shootout at U.S. Consulate Part of Terrorist Attack Plan for Inauguration

Over the years we have educated American on a dire threat as a result of our open southern border.  It consists of the deadly drug cartels, of course, but also Islamic terrorists who find common ground with the narcotics traffickers.

This week our Corruption Chronicles blog tells of an imminent threat from this unholy alliance that is tied to the inauguration of Donald Trump:

A deadly shootout at the construction site of the new American consulate occurred this week in a Mexican border town where Islamic terrorists and drug cartels plan to launch attacks against the U.S. during the period surrounding the presidential inauguration, high-level government sources tell Judicial Watch.

An unknown number of gunmen fired multiple rounds adjacent to the new U.S. consulate compound in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, a crime-infested city in the state of Tamaulipas that lies directly across from Laredo, Texas.

The Mexican military responded to the attack, law enforcement sources on both sides of the border confirm, insisting that their identities be kept confidential for security reasons, and at least three soldiers were either killed or critically wounded in the ambush.

A local newspaper in Tamaulipas reported that 13 people died during a shootout in Nuevo Laredo, referring to the deceased as heavily armed “delinquents”  with an arsenal that includes 12 automatic weapons, a rocket launcher, grenade, loads of ammunition and drugs in three vehicles, one of them armored. The deceased have not been identified and Mexican authorities will continue to investigate, the article states, attributing the information to a press release issued by Mexico’s Defense Secretary.

Judicial Watch’s law enforcement and intelligence sources say the barrage outside what’s soon to be the new U.S. consulate is connected to a broad operation between Islamic terrorists and Mexican drug cartels to send President-elect Donald Trump a message by engaging in attacks at border ports.

“Cartels usually don’t work with jihadists for fear of having the border shut down,” a veteran federal law enforcement official told Judicial Watch. “But Trump is causing so much disruption in Mexico that they are partnering to send a message as to who is in control. This is as outrageous as a small group of guys crashing planes into U.S. buildings.” Another official who has worked in the region for years said “Trump is causing a huge amount of fear in Mexico throughout all sectors; private, government, business, criminal, police….”

Nuevo Laredo is among the border towns that the terrorists and narcotraffickers plan to launch attacks in, according to intelligence gathered by law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Mexico. Others include Matamoros, Reynosa and Ciudad Juárez. In 2015 Judicial Watch reported  that ISIS is operating a camp just west of Ciudad Juárez, around eight miles from El Paso. Sources that include a Mexican Army field grade officer and Mexican Federal Police inspector revealed that, during a joint operation, they discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu, as well as “plans” of Fort Bliss – the sprawling military installation in El Paso that houses the US Army’s 1st Armored Division. Muslim prayer rugs were recovered with the documents during the operation.

Just last week Judicial Watch reported  that a Jihadi-cartel alliance in the Mexican state of Nuevo León is collaborating to carry out attacks in American cities and ports of entry along the southern border. Confidential U.S. and Mexican law enforcement sources said that, as part of the plan, militant Islamists have arrived recently at the Monterrey International Airport situated in Apodaca, Nuevo León, about 130 miles south of the Texas border. An internal Mexican law enforcement report obtained by Judicial Watch confirms that Islamic terrorists have “people along the border, principally in Tijuana, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.” Cartel informants tell law enforcement contacts that “they are only waiting for the order and the times to carry out a simultaneous attack in the different ports of entry or cities of the United States of America.”

The area where this week’s shootout originated is a 5.6-acre parcel just south of downtown Nuevo Laredo on Paseo Colon. The State Department predicts that by September the new U.S. consulate compound, which broke ground in mid-2015 and will cost $155 million, should be completed. It will have multiple buildings, including an office structure, U.S. Marine Security Guard residence, support annex and other facilities for the consulate community. The primary function of consulates is helping and protecting Americans abroad.

Unfortunately, given the Obama Administration’s criminal laxity with anything to do with border safety, the term “Wild West” is a reality. And because the press isn’t interested, most Americans aren’t aware of the threat.

Let’s pray law enforcement is paying attention to our clarion calls on this issue and nothing terrible happens. 

We will monitor the serious situation and will alert you on any major new developments.

Is President Obama Imposing the ‘Auschwitz Border’ on Israel?

Introduction

On the cusp of the transition from the Obama to the Trump Administration, Israel has been in the crosshairs of actions at the UN and a Paris meeting convened on January 15, 2017 by outgoing French President Hollande.  Neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority will be attending the gathering of 72 nations. The Quartet, as well as the 28 Foreign ministers of the EU will also be meeting on it and deciding what script is to be presented at the UNSC meeting on January 17th in New York. One ominous possibility might be a state of Palestine declaration.

Yet, a communique drafted by the U.S. and France and ‘leaked ‘widely proposes ‘coercively’ establishing borders that might imperil Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem and its national security.   That is the pre-1967 June Six Day War border what revered Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban called “the Auschwitz border” dividing Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capital.  Shoshana Bryen, senior director of the Washington, DC-based Jewish Policy Center in an interview with the co-authors called the proposed borders, “Indefensible. Because you have an eight mile waist between what will be Palestinian artillery in the hills and the Israelis living underneath them. Ronald Reagan explicitly rejected the pre- ’67 borders.”

UN Security Council Resolution 2334

The Paris meeting  was  triggered by the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2334  on December 23, 2016  and a subsequent controversial  speech by outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department on  December 28th supporting  resolution 2334. Kerry in his State Department speech called Israel Prime Minister  Benjamin Netanyahu  the head of “the most rightwing  regime in Israeli history, with “an agenda driven by the most extreme elements” for “unfettered settlement construction and  flagrant violation of international law” forcing the end of the peace settlement talks with the Palestinian Authority.  Kerry’s comments were objected to by Netanyahu as “obsessive, unbalanced, “saying that “most of his speech blamed Israel for the lack of peace.”  UK PM Theresa May criticized Kerry’s remarks saying, “We do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally.”  Kerry was also criticized by a number of Republican and Democratic Senators and Congressional Representatives.

On  December 23, 2016, a crucial vote at the United Nation’s Security Council  passed an anti-Israel  Resolution 2334 by a vote of 14 to 0, with the US abstaining.  UNSC Resolution 2334 virtually abrogated Resolutions 242 and 381 passed in the wake of the June 1967 Six Days of War that reunified Israel’s capitol that had guaranteed Israel’s right to negotiate secure borders. Resolution 2334 stated that “Israel‘s settlement activity constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and has “no legal validity”. It demanded that Israel stop such activity and fulfill its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.”  While UN Resolution 2334 had no ‘coercive’ effect under international law; nevertheless, it represented the first action the Security Council passed since 2009 on this issue.  Moreover, it was the first abstention by a U.S. government since the Carter Administration in 1980.

On January 10, 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told a visiting U.S. AIPAC delegation in Jerusalem, that, we have unequivocal evidence the Obama Administration Led UN Resolution [2334] that marked a major break with US policy.”

Background of Israel’s Legal rights to the Land

Under UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338 Israel lawfully built what the Jewish nation’s opponents called ‘settlements’.  These were Jewish villages and towns built on lands in Judea and Samaria with deeds conveyed in the Ottoman era.  Nearly 90 percent of population in these Jewish villages and towns in the disputed territories were built on lands originally inhabited by Jews prior to the 1948 -1949 War of Independence for Israel.

In 1979-1980 there was a flurry of  UN Security Council resolutions  seeking to  declare  these disputed territories  part of a future Palestinian State and Jewish  ‘settlements’ illegal.  However,  Eugene Rostow, former  President Johnson era State Department official and  co-author of Resolution 242 with British Foreign Minister Lord Carrington, affirmed Israel’s legal right to the lands under the original British Palestine Mandate in 1922 that also declared the Kingdom of Jordan.   Professor Rostow noted this in an article published in The Yale Journal of International Law, “Palestinian Self-Determination: Possible Futures for the Unallocated Parts of the British Mandate.”  Rostow’s arguments presage what is now occurring at the UN Security and at the Paris meeting, as if this was “deja vu all over again,” as baseball legend Yoga Berra might  say in one of his famous malapropisms.

Rostow cited the precedent of the Palestine Mandate:

The Palestine Mandate was established under the authority of paragraph 8 of Article 22 of the Covenant, which authorized the League Council explicitly to define the terms of a Mandate when the broad general statement of paragraph 1 was insufficient.

The purpose of the Palestine Mandate was “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” The Mandatory government was required to facilitate Jewish immigration and “close settlement” in Palestine, subject to the proviso that the Mandatory government could “postpone or withhold” the application of these (and related) articles of the Mandate in the area of Palestine east of the Jordan River. This was done when Britain established Transjordan as an autonomous province of the Mandate in 1922. But Jewish rights of immigration and close settlement in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, established by the Mandate, have never been qualified.”

Trump Obligations to Israel

During the U.S. Senate confirmation hearing of Trump nominee for Secretary of State, Lax Tillerson, retiring Chief Executive Officer of Exxon Mobil, responded on questions regarding his views of US support for Israel. He said;

Israel is, has always been and remains our most important ally in the region. The UN resolution that was passed, in my view, is not helpful. It actually undermines a good set of conditions for talks to continue. As an attempt to ‘coerce’ Israel to change course that will not lead to a solution. The president-elect has already made it clear that we’re going to meet our obligations to Israel as the most important ally in the region.

One of the expressed obligations of President – elect Trump is the movement of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  While there have been US laws passed in 1990 and 1995 to implement this, waiver provisions were passed by the Clinton, Bush and Obama Administration every six months.  There appears to be momentum to finally achieve the move.  Sites have already been picked out. There is even a compromise solution to make the existing US consulate in Jerusalem as the seat for the US Ambassador effectively making two US consulates one in Jerusalem and the current Embassy in Tel Aviv. Objections to the prospective move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem were reflected in incitement preached at mosques in the Palestinian Territories and East Jerusalem.  That may have motivated a Salafist terrorist to mount a truck ramming in Jerusalem’s Amona killing 4 young IDF officers, injuring 17 alighting from a bus. The perpetrator was killed by an armed guide with the group.

Against this background, Northwest Florida’s Talk Radio Station, 1330amWEBY host, Mike Bates and co-host Jerry Gordon, Senior editor of the New English Review, convened another Middle East Roundtable discussion with Shoshana Bryen, senior director of the Washington, DC-based Jewish Policy Center.

LISTEN to the Podcast of the January 10, 2017 broadcast.  Read the Transcript in two separate posts: Part 1 and 2.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Immigration anarchists are responsible for undermining the civil rights of every American

Immigration anarchists have repeatedly drawn false analogies between their efforts to block the enforcement of immigration laws and the heroic action of those whose hard-fought efforts for decades provided black Americans with civil rights, but at great cost.

These anarchists emulate Jimmy Carter, creator of the Orwellian term ‘Undocumented Immigrant’ by referring to advocates for fair and effective immigration law enforcement as being “Anti-Immigrant.”  This despicable tactic is now being used to falsely attack Senator Jeff Sessions, the nominee for Attorney General, accuse his support for such effective enforcement of our immigration laws as running contrary to civil rights and being against immigrants.

These anarchists refuse to concede what should be obvious, while aliens illegally present in the United States are entitled to human rights and due process, they are not entitled to broad civil rights protections.  It is an outrageous contradiction in concepts to claim that aliens whose mere presence represents a violation of law should be provided with opportunities equal to those provided to American citizens and lawful immigrants.

In reality, immigration anarchists are, themselves, responsible for undermining the civil rights of Americans, particularly American minorities who suffer the greatest harm because of the failures of our government to enforce the immigration laws.  Those immigration anarchists also are responsible for undermining the civil rights of lawful immigrants.

For the sake of clarity and to prevent any potential misunderstandings, illegal aliens, not unlike others, are entitled to human rights and are properly entitled to due process when accused of committing crimes.  There are two reasons why due process must be devoid of consideration as to the immigration status of the accused.  First of all, it is a matter of fairness and justice.

Creating a lower standard for convicting illegal aliens for committing crimes would undermine the judicial system.

Additionally, unscrupulous prosecutors who simply wanted a “quick kill” would be encouraged to seek the conviction of illegal aliens who did not actually commit the crime.  This is immoral and unjust.  Secondly, under such circumstances, law enforcement authorities would stop looking for the actual criminal who would therefore remain at large and continue to pose a threat.

Civil rights laws were initially enacted to address the wrongs visited upon black Americans beginning with slavery and then segregation.

Today those laws are focused on providing citizens, irrespective of race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual identity or orientation, with equal protection under our laws and equal opportunities, thereby enabling them to be full participants in the communities where they live and throughout our nation.

Sanctimonious and hypocritical mayors of “Sanctuary Cities” portray themselves as heroic figures, perhaps on par with the “Freedom Riders” who, decades ago, at great personal risk, fought to end racial discrimination and segregation in the South.

Make no mistake, those Freedom Riders were heroes who should be lauded and remembered for their morality, courage and achievements.

Mayors of Sanctuary Cities, however, are anything but heroes.  They are betrayers.  Betrayers of the Constitution, betrayers of their oaths of office, betrayers of national security and public safety and betrayers of their constituents.

Such rogue politicians act against the best interests of their constituents and those who reside in, or visit their cities by turning their jurisdictions into magnets for aliens who are illegally present in the United States.  Among those illegal aliens are those who have serious criminal histories, have outstanding arrest warrants in the United States or in other countries or may be international terrorists or supporters of terrorism.  These aliens may have entered the United States without inspection or entered through ports of entry but went on to otherwise violate our immigration laws that, it must be noted, are completely and utterly blind as to race, religion or ethnicity.

Such rogue politicians act against the best interests of those who reside in, or visit their cities, because they are turning their jurisdictions into magnets for aliens who are illegally present in the United States.  Among those illegal aliens are those who have serious criminal histories, have outstanding arrest warrants in the United States or in other countries or may be international terrorists or supporters of terrorism.  These aliens may have entered the United States without inspection or entered through ports of entry but went on to otherwise violate our immigration laws that, it must be noted, are completely and utterly blind as to race, religion or ethnicity.

The ultimate “hate crime” involves acts of violence committed against members of a community because of factors such as race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation.  Transnational gangs often target their victims because of such factors.  Failures of immigration law enforcement have enabled such violent gangs to flourish across the United States.

Beyond undermining national security and public safety, Sanctuary Cities additionally attract massive numbers of illegal aliens who have no legal authority to work in the United States yet are able to secure illegal employment, thereby displacing American workers.

This includes American teenagers – often American minority teenagers, who find themselves unable to find a job, creating for them the conundrum of not being able to get a job without a resume but not being able to assemble a resume without first getting a job.

Furthermore, labor is a commodity.  Flooding the labor pool with foreign workers, suppresses the value of labor.  Consequently, even Americans and lawful immigrants who don’t lose their jobs to illegal aliens likely face wage suppression because of them.

It is more than mere coincidence that the division of the Civil Rights Commission that deals with discriminatory employment practices is referred to as the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.

Employment, in point of fact, provides opportunities to those who are able to work.

Opportunities to be self-sufficient, opportunities to succeed and advance and prosper all revolve around the ability to be gainfully employed.

Blocking qualified workers from job opportunities deprives them essential and fundamental opportunities to be successful.

Politicians who comply with the demands of campaign contributors and others who exert pressure on them to flood America with cheap and compliant foreign labor to displace American workers and suppress wages.

The destruction of the middle class is not an “unintended consequence” but the goal of their duplicitous conduct.

A news report on how job losses create multiple stresses quoted Michael McKee, a psychologist at the Center for Integrative Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic who articulated his concerns about how the possible loss of financial ability to support oneself and family my lead to a loss of self-respect and the respect of others.  Thus leading to the loss of identity, security and daily structure, ultimately leading to people who lose meaning and hope.

A study published a couple of years ago found that poverty stresses the brain so much that it’s like losing 13 IQ points.

Prior to the Second World War the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws was vested primarily within the Labor Department to make certain that Americans would not have to compete with foreign workers for jobs.  This is how America created the largest and most upwardly mobile middle class of all countries on this planet at the time, thus creating the “American Dream.”

Civil rights laws also enforced in conjunction with our immigration laws to make certain that employers treat all employees equally including aliens provided that the aliens in question are authorized by law to be employed in the United States.  Indeed, even where the employer sanctions provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation and under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, discriminatory employment practices were prohibited to insure, equal employment opportunities.  Over time these laws were amended to protect additional groups of protected workers and even include aliens who are authorized to work in the United States.

In fact, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has posted the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) on its website.  Among the provisions of IRCA was a massive amnesty program for millions of illegal aliens and the provision that, for the very first time, deemed the knowing employment of illegal aliens to be a violation of law.

The EEOC has a vested interest and, indeed, jurisdiction, in cases involving allegations of Employment Discrimination.

Not only does the EEOC have jurisdiction when Americans claim employment discrimination, but it also has jurisdiction if an allegation is made that an alien, authorized to work in the United States seeking employment, suffered discrimination during the hiring process by an overly zealous employer who went beyond the requirements of preparing the Form I-9 to verify the identity and eligibility of an alien applying for a job or if an alien, authorized to work in the United States, faced discriminatory policies by his/her employer.

However, all of the laws and regulations that have been promulgated to end workplace discrimination are undone by the veritable army of foreign workers who have displaced beleaguered American workers.

Think of how many politicians running for office promise to help “create jobs” and to “bring back jobs to America.”

Whether politicians are running for political office on the local, state or federal level.  Whether they seek to become a member of the city council, mayors or governors.  Even if they are candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate or even the Presidency of the United States, they all make that same  promise about jobs and “getting Americans back to work.”

Failures of the immigration system make those promises largely meaningless when American workers are displaced by aliens.

For open borders/immigration anarchists, failures of the immigration system are to be engineered and then celebrated.

In reality, those failures are devastating to America and Americans and undermine the letter and spirit of our civil rights laws.

If immigration anarchists want to point to those responsible for undermining civil rights, they should stand in front of a mirror and point at themselves.

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Jeff Sessions: Finally a Reasonable Adult Heading the U.S. Department of Justice

Folks, I gotta tell ya’. My heart leaped with joy hearing Jeff Sessions give his opening statement at his confirmation hearing for Attorney General. I thought, “Thank you God! Finally, an America loving adult running our DOJ. What a concept.”

First Obama gave us Eric Holder, a black AG with a chip on his shoulder against whites and America. Out-of-the-box, Holder accused Americans of being racist afraid to honestly discuss racial issues. To racist Leftists like Holder, an honest discussion means white America admitting they are eternal racist plotting 24/7 how to keeping people-of-color down.

Holder sued Arizona, calling them racist for seeking to enforce immigration law. He sued Texas to block their law requiring ID to vote. He refused to prosecute the New Black Panthers because they’re “His people”, black like him. 

Talk about cojones, after Holder’s in-your-face arrogant racism, how can Democrats use drummed up claims of racism to oppose the confirmation of Sessions? Answer: The Democrats know they have the mainstream media securely in their pocket to promote their lies about Sessions.

After Holder, Obama gave us Loretta Lynch as AG. In response to Islamic terrorists murdering innocent Americans on U.S. soil, Lynch immediately threatened to jail anyone speaking badly about Islam. Because the Obama Administration is obsessed with allowing dudes in restrooms with little girls, the DOJ head Lynch filed a lawsuit against North Carolina for righteously saying, “No.” Shamefully, Obama politicized the DOJ. Lynch teamed with Obama’s adviser Al Sharpton to brand America’s police racist to justify the DOJ taking control of all police departments. Thus far, about 30 police departments have been taken over by the DOJ.

Unbelievably, Lynch seeks to prosecute/criminalize those disagreeing with the Left’s narrative regarding climate change.

Do you see why a common-sense thinker like Jeff Sessions as AG heading the DOJ is such a breath of fresh air?

Sessions vowed to turn back the negative undeserved branding of our brave men and women in blue.

Regarding law enforcement, Sessions said, “They are the ones on the front lines. They are better educated, trained and equipped than ever before. They are the ones who we rely on to keep our neighborhoods, and playgrounds, and schools safe. But in the last several years, law enforcement as a whole has been unfairly maligned and blamed for the actions of a few bad actors and for allegations about police that were not true. They believe the political leadership of this country abandoned them. They felt they had become targets. Morale has suffered. And last year, while under intense public criticism, the number of police officers killed in the line of duty increased ten percent over 2015. This is a wake up call. This must not continue.”

BTW, if elected, Hillary vowed to intensify Al Sharpton and Black Lives Matter’s war on cops; purposely demonizing police. Thank God for Trump.

Keeping my article concise, I will not list the long list of Islamic terrorist attacks that Obama’s DOJ refused to admit were Islamic terrorist attacks. It was exciting hearing Sessions publicly name those seeking our demise; radical Islamic terrorists.

In recent years, our law enforcement officers also have been called upon to protect our country from the rising threat of terrorism that has reached our shores. If I am confirmed, protecting the American people from the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism will continue to be a top priority of the Department of Justice. We will work diligently to respond to threats, using all lawful means to keep the American people safe from our nation’s enemies.”

Folks, isn’t this a far cry from Obama’s DOJ refusing to name our enemies and threatening to jail anyone who speaks badly about them? Praise the Lord!

Jeff Sessions is a great pick for Attorney General, a man of character who loves God and country; committed to equal justice for all Americans. Sessions will be confirmed; another step on the yellow-brick road toward making America great again.

Kerry Exits as Congenital Liar and Traitor to America and Israel

Nothing could have surprised––indeed shocked––the national and international public more than learning through a Boston Globe article by Jennifer Anne Perez on February 2, 2003, that U.S. Senator John Kerry––who presented himself as a born-to-the-purple “Boston Brahmin” of Irish-Catholic ancestry––was in fact the grandson of Czech Jews.

 

Like another Democrat, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Kerry pretended to be shocked! shocked! to learn of his Jewish heritage.

Only when he was outed did this poseur––more known for marrying heiresses then for any legislative accomplishments in his over 30 years as a U.S. senator––admit that, yes, his Eastern European ancestors, surnamed Kohn (a variation of Cohen) were Jews.

But why, after he knew the truth, would he be one of the major architects of a policy to destroy the Jewish state of Israel, as he did with his genocidal speech in the State Department at the end of December?

Of course, the same can be asked of Jews like George Soros, Peter Beinart, and dozens of other Jewish Jew haters who lie awake nights roiling and ruminating over Israel’s success––indeed, its very existence––and feel so distressed by their own Jewishness that they spend their entire lives plotting and planning and spending millions of words and dollars to obliterate Israel, which they no doubt fantasize will kill the Jew inside themselves.

Here’s an ironic twist: Kerry’s younger brother Cameron, an attorney, converted to Judaism in 1983 and is racist children as juice.

Getting back to John Kerry, however, we now know that from the very beginning of his public life, he knew he had Jewish roots but lied about them. I think this is called being a liar.

ONCE A LIAR…

No one has said it better  than the founder and editor of the New York Sun, Seth Lipsky: “It looks like Secretary of State Kerry is determined to go out the way he came in––wrapping himself in the flag while betraying the causes of both America and its allies. He came in by doing that to Vietnam and is going out by turning on Israel. ”

To be sure, if there’s one thing most Americans are certain about it’s that Kerry lied through his teeth when he defamed the heroic soldiers he fought with in Vietnam, accusing them––falsely––of hideous war crimes.

Lipsky explains that, “Kerry’s tirade against Jewish settlements and liberated Judea and Samaria was breathtaking in its mendacity.” And what is the definition of mendacity? Lying!

It’s that very fatal character flaw in Kerry that led the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to destroy his campaign for president in 2004 when the soldiers who were right they are fighting alongside him convinced the public that he had lied about his record and accumulated medals he didn’t deserve…medals he subsequently threw over a fence in front of the Congress and in utter contempt of his fellow warriors.

Worse were the accusations of treason that were mounting against Kerry as his accusers cited the 1970 meeting he conducted with North Vietnamese Communists in absolute violation of U.S. law, and other meetings with enemy parties in Paris. According to best-selling author Jerome Corsi, Kerry violated the U.S. code that forbade a U.S. citizen from negotiating with a foreign power. “Kerry was openly advocating that the Communist position was correct and that we were wrong. He had become a spokesman for the Communist Party.”

Corsi noted that Kerry’s presidential campaign was “trying to fudge on the issue of meeting with enemy agents…” And what is the definition of fudging? Lying!

And here is Mr. Kerry again, over 45 years later, still on the wrong side. In Vietnam, a noble war fought for the noble cause of stemming the rising tide of worldwide Communism, he slandered both his fellow soldiers and America itself, while today he slanders––and lies about–– Israel, our most trusted and stable ally in the tumultuous Middle East.

As Mr. Lipsky says, “Mr. Kerry speech [against Israel] is just a transparent attempt at shifting onto Israel blame for his own failures in peace negotiations he should never have entered.”

As Wesley Pruden has written, Mr. Kerry “doesn’t come late to the betrayal of friends. He has had considerable practice.” Explaining his betrayal of Israel, Pruden says that like “diplomats before him…he has no permanent friends, only his own permanent interests…like the president, Kerry seems to have been waiting for this moment in time, to stick it to the pesky and resolute Jews who have no taste for the second Holocaust when, as promised by the Iranians, Israel is “wiped off the map”

Here’s the amazing Brittany Hughes telling John Kerry the difference between right and wrong, a lesson he clearly never learned. And here’s another brief video telling the whole world that this preposterous and anti-Semitic territory dispute is all about.

ONCE A TRAITOR…

To shed light on Kerry’s strange attraction to leaders around the globe who have nothing but detestation and loathing for America, it is significant that his 2004 presidential campaign promises were aired on Al Jazeera and that he received––and never rejected––the endorsements of the arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, the murderous Communist leader of North Korea Kim Jong il, the virulent anti-Semitic and American-hating prime minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad, and the terrorist-appeasing president of Spain Jose Luis Zapatero.

But that is not where Kerry’s craven nature ends. In 2004, I wrote an article for Newsmax.com, “Kerry & Company’s Homeland Insecurity,” in which I detailed how Sen. Kerry––who sat on both the Foreign Affairs and Select Intelligence committees––was warned for four months before September 11th of a possible terrorist attack at Logan Airport in Boston (from which one of the planes took off that fateful day). The information was given to him by a recently retired special agent with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who had spent over 10 years as a risk-management specialist charged with the security of air traffic control facilities throughout New England.

For three months, Kerry did nothing, finally passing the information to the one agency the FAA agent had warned him was the most remiss in addressing terrorist threats: the Department of Transportation.

Kerry was never called before the self-described “non-partisan” 9/11 Commission, a commission composed of many members with a deep interest––like Kerry’s––in not turning the spotlight on the real suspects in the Clinton administration who for nearly a decade systematically facilitated the encroaching terrorist threat to our nation. In fact, it was Clinton’s FAA that allowed knives with blades less than four inches long to be taken aboard commercial airliners!

This was a very bad thing for America, so it is easy to see why John Kerry said and did nothing to make it less bad.

As in the Obama years, the Clinton administration loathed the military and tried its best to diminish our military strength. Clinton’s cuts included 709,000 active-duty personnel, 293,000 reserve troops, eight standing army divisions, 20 Air Force and Navy air wings with 2000 combat aircraft, 232 strategic bombers, 19 strategic ballistic missile submarines with 3,114 nuclear warheads on 232 missiles, 500 ICBMs with 1,950 warheads, four aircraft carriers and 121 surface combat ships and submarines, plus all the support bases, shipyards and logistical assets needed to sustain such a naval force.

Kerry voted for every cut! Again…if it’s bad for America, it was overwhelmingly embraced by Kerry!

“Actions have consequences,” “journalist Karen Pittman at the time, and an article entitled, “the CIA’s Plaster Disaster: How Kerry Crippled Intelligence.”

“As night follows day,” Pittman wrote, “effect follows cause. You vote for Kerry, you get a stripped down CIA. You get a stripped down CIA, you get 9/11. You water down plaster, you get mud.”

On September 11th, she added, “we paid in blood for the bad choices made under Carter and Clinton, with Kerry’s encouragement. And now he wants you to absolve him. He wants you to pretend you didn’t see him do it.”

WHO TO THANK

Americans looking forward to a huge economic recovery, a reconstituted military, protected borders and a robust foreign-policy can thank President elect Donald J Trump for decimating the Democrat Party, the far-left media, and the credibility of most pollsters, as well as sending both Clintons and creepy flunkies like Kerry into the political wilderness forever.

I suppose that someday someone will have the stomach to analyze John Kerry––a soldier who turned on his fellow soldiers, an American attracted to all things anti-American, a man with Jewish blood who turned on the Jewish homeland.

In his absence, America will be stronger than ever and Israel will survive and continue to flourish. Translated: Mr. Kerry, with all your pretensions and posturing, your thinly-disguised anger and hostility, your attempts to excise from yourself the things you hated most––your military status, your American identity, your Jewish blood––you failed!

Media blames President-elect Trump for Africans crossing into Canada from U.S. seeking Asylum

Expect to see a spike around the time when Trump takes office until refugees get a sense of the direction in which the new president may take immigration policy.
(Canadian Immigration lawyer Bashir Khan)

Readers might want to first check out a post from a few days ago where we reported that ‘refugees’ from Ghana were found freezing after a long walk across the US/Manitoba border, click here.

For new readers, just a reminder, we have a Canada category, here, with 186 previous posts going back nearly 10 years.

Canadian immigration lawyers are saying there is an increase in the number of mostly Somalis leaving the US and heading north and they predict that when Trump is inaugurated (in 9 days) the numbers will tick up even higher.

What concerned me most about this news is that if these Somalis were legally admitted to the US, they have nothing to fear.  Why bother risking their lives traveling to Canada?  So, that can only mean that they were in the US illegally and were possibly waiting on asylum claims to be processed and simply disappeared. How many more illegal Somalis are wandering around America?

canada-militia

Canadian militia.

Some in Canada aren’t taking this lying down. A Canadian militia has formed to help protect the US/Canada border. One militia member blamed the influx on “pussy” Democrats who love illegals and have weakened the US/Mexico border. Read this!

From CBC Manitoba (hat tip: Joanne). Emphasis is mine:

The number of asylum seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. border into Manitoba on foot instead of through official ports of entry has risen five fold in the past three years. [Keep in mind that the numbers were going up before Trump even came on the scene!—ed]

In the 2013-2014 fiscal year, 68 people illegally crossed the international border near the small, southern Manitoba community of Emerson and claimed refugee status, according to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). That jumped to 340 in 2015-2016.

This fiscal year’s numbers have already surpassed that, with 410 asylum seekers making the journey between April and December 2016.
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According to Jacquie Callin, a CBSA spokeswoman, most of those crossing near Emerson are from Somalia, which has been wracked by civil war and political instability since the overthrow of military dictator Siad Barre in 1991.

Canada has the reputation of being a land of liberty and appeals to the unprecedented number of refugees displaced by the world’s various conflicts and crises, said immigration lawyer Bashir Khan. [Business must be booming for Mr. Khan!—ed]

[….]

CBSA reports 119 asylum seekers came to Manitoba in the coldest winter months between December 2015 and March 2016 without passing through a port of entry or border checkpoint.

Pay attention to this next line! Legitimate asylum seekers are to ask for asylum in the country in which they first arrive. If this international understanding was enforced everywhere then many of the problems the world is experiencing with migrants would be solved.  Instead migrants now believe they can wander around the world looking for the best deal! It is called asylum shopping.

Under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement signed in 2002, individuals must seek asylum in the country in which they first arrive, with a few exceptions. For instance, if a Somali refugee who arrived in the United States presented themselves at the Canadian border seeking asylum, they would be sent back to the U.S. unless they had family in Canada.  [But were the illegal border-crossers sent back, there is no mention!—ed]

[….]

People entering the country without visas or proper immigration papers have been spotted walking through fields and gravel roads near the border in Emerson, whose southern boundary borders the states of North Dakota and Minnesota.

[….]

RCMP D Division patrols 520 kilometres of the Canada-U.S. border, the world’s longest undefended border. When officers find a person trying to illegally cross, they bring them to the nearest port of entry to be assessed by a CBSA official.

If there’s no admissibility concerns and the person’s refugee claim is legitimate, they are released and a date is set for the claim to be heard.  [How many ever show up?—ed]

[….]

Khan said he expects to see a spike around the time when Trump takes office until refugees get a sense of the direction in which the new president may take immigration policy.

NOTE: Emerson is just north of the United States border at the point where the province of Manitoba and states of Minnesota and North Dakota meet [see map above].

LOL! I bet some of you are wondering if you could hire buses to take loads to the border of Justin Trudeau’s ‘welcoming’ Canada.

Tennessee lawsuit challenging refugee program could be filed by end of January

haslam4

Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Haslam

Faithful readers know that this is a long time in coming, but we now see movement with the legal challenge that has the best shot of success in pushing the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program toward reform.

The case, to be litigated by the Thomas Moore Law Center after the Tennessee legislature voted to sue and the governor agreed to hire them, involves the so-called Wilson-Fish provision that many believe is being used to unlawfully place the refugee program in a non-profit groups’ hands in states where the state government has opted out of the federal program.

Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Haslam fought the legislature on this issue. He welcomes more refugees to the state. Tennessee’s two U.S. Senators (Alexander and Corker) also have done nothing to control expansion of the program in Tennessee.

In other words, one of the questions to be resolved is can a non-profit group (working with the feds) say how state taxpayer funds are spent, which is essentially what is happening in states that have withdrawn from the program?

States that could join Tennessee are those that recently withdrew including Texas, Maine, New Jersey and Kansas.  The older Wilson-Fish states, in addition to Tennessee and Kentucky, are also possible litigants, depending on the structure of their program, and include: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont.

Here is the news from The Tennessean yesterday:

Tennessee’s lawsuit against the federal government over refugee resettlement could be filed by the end of the month, a proponent of the effort said Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, R-Collierville, said a team of legal experts was coming to Nashville to discuss the forthcoming lawsuit, which was approved by the legislature last year.

“We will be working on the complaint that we intend to file I hope before the end of the month,” he said, while indicating that there has been interest from some in Kentucky about joining the lawsuit.

Norris said any lawsuit would be filed in the federal court in Nashville or possibly in Washington, D.C.

Tennessee’s lawsuit will be the first of its kind in the nation, given that it will challenge the federal government for noncompliance of the Refugee Act of 1980 based on the 10th Amendment.

[….]

The basis of the lawsuit centers on based on several arguments, including that the federal government has failed to consult with the state on the continued placement of refugees; the cost of administering the refugee resettlement program has been shifted to the state without officials specifically authorizing the appropriation of funds; and that the ongoing placement of refugees is a violation of the 10th Amendment.

Last fall, legislative leaders signed off on the selection of the Thomas More Law Center, a Michigan-based legal group that has taken on several conservative legal causes in recent years.

For our extensive archive on Tennessee, click hereGo here for all of our reporting on Wilson-Fish states.

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And we almost missed it! US Conference of Catholic Bishops celebrates its National Migration week

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More news blaming Trump for Africans crossing in to Canada from US and asking for asylum

Radical Syrian Cleric Comes To Central Florida Preaching Hate

sheikh-mohammed-rateb-al-nabulsi-2

Sheikh Mohammed Rateb Al-Nabulsi

For those who did not see this Channel 9 Investigative report there was a Radical Syrian  Cleric, Sheikh Mohammed Rateb Al-Nabulsi,  who openly calls for the death of Jews and Gays speaking in Central Florida.   Sh. Al-Nabulsi found a welcoming home at the Islamic Society of Central Florida – Imam Musri’s Mosque, AlBir Mosque in Kissimmee, Islamic Society of Pinellas County Mosque, and a Embassy Suites Banquet Hall in Tampa for the American Muslim Leadership Council of Tampa, FL.

Sh. Al-Nabulsi wrote a paper called “Lesson 35: Ruling on Martyrdom Operations in Palestine.

In it Al-Nabulsi says,

…the wicked Jews are a collection of defects and imperfections, and a hotbed of vices and evils. They are the worst enemies of God, against Islam and its people, The Almighty says: Certainly you will find the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe (to be) the Jews and those who are polytheists. [Quran 5:82]”

Sh. Nabulsi goes on,

It is not permissible under Sharia to relinquish to the Jews any part of the lands of the Muslims nor to make peace with them, for they are the people of cunning and deception, and the breaking of pacts.  

All the Jewish people are combatant…this is essentially an entirely aggressive entity from A to Z. This is the Sharia ruling, This is what many of the Ulema say, the Sharia ruling on Fedayeen activity is that it is permissible. “

Sheikh Al-Nabulsi has never retracted his statements publicly.  These statements of hatred for all the Jewish people from A to Z, is part of his schadenfreude or worldview.  In the Muslim world, Sh. Al-Nabulsi is a world renowned Islamic scholar and those who support him must also, by default, share his hate filled worldview.

Imam Mohammad Musri on January 7, 2014 invited this Hate Sheikh into his Mosque.  Imam Mursri was interviewed by Channel 9 reporter Field Sutton on why he would invite such a controversial  figure to his Orlando, FL Mosque.  Imam Musri did not condemn  his friend Al-Nabulsi’s hate speech against the Jews.  In fact, Musri ignored those  anti Jewish comments thinking Mr. Sutton was referring only to Sh. Al-Nabulsi’s anti gay remarks.

Imam Musri’s answers appeared to only reference Sh. Al-Nabulsi’s video saying that, “All homosexuals deserve the death penalty” not addressing any of the hate Sheikh’s Anti Jewish comments.  Imam Musri said, “We would not welcome any person or organization that will bash any group,” Musri said, “after the Pulse nightclub attack, he hopes the visiting scholar no longer feels the way he used to feel. “If he does, then it gives us the opportunity to discuss and maybe challenge those views and maybe change minds or hearts,” I’m sorry to tell you  this Imam Musri,  but any reasonable person would want that little detail of calling for the murder of an entire demographic cleared up before inviting him to speak at your Mosque, instead of giving the Hate Sheikh a clever pass.  Imam Musri – I find your cavalier attitude towards your brother Al-Nabulsi’s hate speech and incitement to violence pathologically disturbing.

Imam Musri’s  refusing to condemn Al-Nabulsi’s hate speech against the Jews specifically, creates a dilemma for many in the Orlando Jewish leadership.

sheikh-mohammed-rateb-al-nabulsi-speak-posterFor example, Imam Musri co-hosts a interfaith radio show on National Public Radio with Rabbi Steven Engel of the Congregation of Reform Judaism in Orlando.  Rabbi Engel must decide if his personal friendship with Imam Musri is more important than his association with a  radical Syrian cleric who says all Jews are legitimate targets for martyrdom operations and death.  Imam Musri had the opportunity to condemn Sh. Al-Nabulsi on Channel 9 News but never did, one must ask why?  Rabbi Steven Engel and his congregation must ask why?

The afternoon of Sh. Al-Nabulsi’s lecture at Imam Musri’s Mosque we went to ask that exact question, but never got the chance.  Before entering the Mosque, we were confronted by Bassem Chaaban, Director of Outreach for  Imam Musri’s Mosque.  Mr. Chaaban told us, “This is a private event and not open to the public…it was not advertised to the public and for our members only.” We were denied entry and asked to leave.

Nowhere on Imam Musri’s flyer for the Hate Sheikh event does it say ‘Private’ or RSVP required.  The Al-Nabulsi lecture was advertised on the ISCF Facebook page.  Clearly Mr. Chaaban, acting on Imam Musri’s behalf, only wanted Muslim’s in attendance, all others not welcome.

Hate Sheikh’s Anti Gay Comments

Sh. Al-Nabulsi said on video tape that, “All homosexuals deserve the death penalty.”  The only person from Orlando’s gay community who publicly  condemned Al-Nabulsi was Randy Ross, the Orange County leader for President Donald Trump’s election campaign.

How deep does the hate and intolerance run in the Central Florida Muslim community? There are three Mosques and the American Muslim Leadership Council of Tampa who hold Sh. ‘Hate’ Al-Nabulsi in such high regard they invited him to speak, knowing his visceral hatred for Jews and Gays.

Conclusion 

Imam Musri was the voice of the Orlando Muslim community after the Pulse Nightclub terrorist attack.  Imam Musri spoke a message of love, togetherness, and that Islam had nothing to do with the attack by ISIS Jihadi, Omar Mateen.

Imam Musri did an interview next to the Pulse Nightclub with Tim Vargas, local gay leader, and George Stephanopoulos.   Imam Musri was saying how the Pulse Nightclub shooter did not represent Islam and how the Muslim community stands with the Gay community and the entire Orlando community at large.  That was a good and much needed message, only now we learn Imam Musri was not telling the truth.  If Imam Musri was truthful in his interview with George Stephanopoulos,  today he would have condemned Sheikh Al-Nabulsi publicly for his call to murder gays and Jews.  Imam Musri invited a hate cleric to his Mosque as an honored guest for his thousands of Muslim congregants, now he must account for his actions.

This is serious business because Imam Musri is well respected in the Jewish, Christian, Gay, and interfaith communities.  Imam Musri has built these relationships over many years telling these local leaders exactly what they need to hear to build bridges of  friendship.

Then while Imam Musri thinks nobody is looking, he shows what lies underneath his slick polished veneer.  Underneath that veneer of bridge building lies a man who reveres an Islamic scholar who calls for the murder of Jews and Gays.  Imam Musri had the opportunity to set the record straight condemning Al-Nabulsi with Channel 9 News reporter Field Sutton, but he did not.

How many followers of Islam in Central Florida who went to hear the Hate Sheikh speak  agree with his views on the killing of Jews and Gays?

How many people who hear Sheikh Mohammed Rateb Al-Nabulsi’s incitement to violence against Jews and Gays will act upon it?  In light of the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack, Ft. Lauderdale airport  attack,  San Bernardino attack, Ft. Hood terrorist attack, bomb scares to 3 Jewish facilities in Orlando, this question can no longer be ignored.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on Family Security Matters. Reprinted under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Rex Tillerson is neither a yes man nor will he be boxed in on U.S. foreign policy

In a The Daily Signal article titled “9 Issues Discussed at Rex Tillerson’s Confirmation Hearing to Be Trump’s Secretary of State” Josh Siegel reported on the confirmation hearing of U.S. Secretary of State designate Rex Tillerson.

Reading Siegel’s article I came away with two impressions of Mr. Tillerson, first he will not be boxed in and second he is not a yes man. How refreshing.

First let’s look at Tillerson as a man who will not be boxed in when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. Siegel reported:

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who ran for president against Trump, pressed Tillerson on whether he backs the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies about Russia’s election-year hacking.

“Do you believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that Russian intelligence services directed a campaign of measures involving the hacking of emails, the strategic leak of emails, the use of internet trolls, and dissemination of fake news to denigrate a presidential candidate and undermine faith in our election process?” Rubio asked.

Tillerson described the findings by the intelligence agencies as “clearly troubling,” and called cyber attacks from foreign actors such as Russia “the greatest and most complex threat” facing the country today. He labeled Russia’s annexation of Crimea to be “illegal” and proposed tougher measures to combat the Kremlin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine, vowing that he would advocate providing Ukrainian soldiers with weapons.

But Tillerson expressed hope that he could help improve relations with Russia, potentially seeking to ally with it in areas of common interest even if America “will not likely to be ever friends with the Kremlin.”

“Dialogue is critical so these [issues] don’t spin out of control,” Tillerson said. “We need to move Russia from adversary always to partner at times.”

Read more…

Tillerson clearly understands that Russia, and many other countries, act in their own self interests and against the interests of the United States. His reply was measured in that he understood that cyberwarfare is a national security threat, that invading another country is wrong and both must be punished. However, diplomacy is not just about jumping into a hot or cold war, as Senator’s Marco Rubio, John McCain and Lindsey Graham seem to want. Rather it is about pressuring those who would do us harm using all means available. The above interaction shows the sophistication of Tillerson, a man who thinks outside the box. Tillerson’s statement, “We need to move Russia from adversary always to partner at times” is that of a man who understands Russia more than some members of the U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike. Again, refreshing.

Tillerson is not a yes man for President-elect Trump either. Siegel noted:

In the presidential campaign, Trump questioned the NATO alliance, and said members need to do more to earn the U.S.’ support.

Tillerson expressed a stronger commitment to NATO, promising to follow Article 5 of the treaty that enshrines the principle that an attack against one member is an attack against all.

“The Article 5 commitment is invaluable and the U.S. will stand by the commitment,” Tillerson said.

He also expressed concern for Baltic states that worry about Russian incursion on their borders.

“Our NATO allies are right to be alarmed about a resurgent Russia,” Tillerson said.

[ … ]

In another contrast with Trump, Tillerson did not say he explicitly opposes the Obama administration’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

“I do not oppose TPP, but I share some of Trump’s concerns that it doesn’t fully support American interests,” Tillerson said.

[ … ]

Echoing Exxon Mobil’s evolving calculus on climate change, Tillerson said he recognized the threat of a warming planet, and that the U.S. should “be at the table” in coming up with solutions to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

If confirmed, he said he and others in the Trump administration would review the 180-country Paris climate change agreement before deciding whether to remain party to it.

“It’s important that the United States maintain its seat at the table with the conversations around how to deal with the threats of climate change,” he said.

As chief of Exxon Mobil, Tillerson publicly backed a tax on carbon in 2009, and expressed support for the Paris Agreement in 2015.

Yet, late in the hearing, he seemed to downplay the threat of climate change.

“I don’t see [climate change] as the imminent national security threat as perhaps other do,” Tillerson said.

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Tillerson will, on some issues, present a President Trump with differing views. That is healthy. It shows that President-elect Trump is filling his cabinet with quality people who think differently than him and provide opposing views. Once again, refreshing.

Donald Trump’s selection says as much about the President-elect as it does about Mr. Tillerson. There is a new way of thinking about foreign policy and a fresh approach that is pro-U.S. interests.

After reading Mr. Tillerson’s testimony it is clear he will not be foreign a policy rubber stamp as were former Secretaries Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and that he will think outside the foreign policy box of the Obama administration.

Very refreshing indeed.

RELATED ARTICLE: Secretary of State Nominee Tillerson Criticizes U.S. Decision to Abstain from UN Israel Vote

Obama farewell: Half the nation can’t wait to be rid of him

Obama the dreamweaver will leave office with the highest favorable ratings he has enjoyed since the honeymoon months following his 2008 election. Despite this, in the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls judging whether the country is heading in the right direction, roughly the same percentage of Americans who approve of Obama also believe the country is headed the wrong way.

This is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, the growing realization that Obama’s massive social spending programs that have doubled our national debt in just eight years were doing serious damage to our economy has been building for the past four years, and led to Donald Trump’s victory in November.

A majority of Americans are fed up with Obama’s policies, while paradoxically they still retain a favorable view of Obama the person.

Every president should be so lucky.

But a president who is so lucky should also be clear-headed enough to recognize the distinction, and not take his success in the personality contest to mean the American people approve of his policies.

Clearly, Obama has not understood this. His limitless narcissism continues to cloud his view of himself, his policies, and his impact on America.

Obama believes that he is leaving the country with an economy far stronger than the economy he inherited. On the surface, that is true. When you come to office as the economy lurches into an apparent death spiral, any recovery seems good.

Certainly, the economy has climbed back from the depths of the recession. But this has been a jobless recovery, with 95 million Americanswho have bowed out of the labor force, an unprecedented number.

These are not fantasy numbers, but official U.S. government numbers compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), based on a total of 252 million Americans over the age of 16 in the labor pool. The under or unemployed equal 37.7% of that total workforce.

In an effort to minimize those disastrous results, the BLS claims that the majority — including an overwhelming majority of young people aged 16-24 — “do not want a job now.” That is just patently absurd.

Along with this unprecedented rise in unemployment, under Obama the number of Americans receiving food stamps has also risen to historic highs, growing from 28 million when he took office to more than 44 million today, or 14.5% of the U.S. population.

Even left-wing websites such as the DailyKos cannot mask the outrageous — and tragic — rise in dependence on government handouts under this president.

And yet, this president claims that “we’ve turned an economy that was shrinking and losing jobs into one that’s growing and creating jobs, with poverty falling, incomes rising, and wages that have jumped faster over the past few years than at any time in the past four decades.”

He claimed unbelievably in Chicago that health care costs are “rising at the slowest rate in fifty years,” when anyone paying for health insurance today knows just the opposite is the case.

Obama believes he can build his legacy on a tissue of lies, just as he built his presidency.

He wants us to believe that he has reduced race tensions, when any sentient being can see just the opposite is the case. He wants us to believe that crime is down, incomes are up, and terrorism is no more than a law enforcement issue.

He wants us to believe that his withdrawal from Iraq has led to a “sustainable” U.S. presence in that country, when in fact our totally unnecessary and unwanted (by the Iraqi people) withdrawal has led to massive bloodshed and an ISIS takeover of one-third of the country.

In addition to creating ISIS, the power vacuum created by the U.S. withdrawal has handed much of Iraq over to Iranian control, with Iranian government agents now running Iraq’s central government and Iranian-backed militias poised to overrun much of the country.

Since the 2008 election, Obama has proclaimed that Afghanistan was the “right war.” And yet, despite his surge loss of more Americans than during the entire Bush years, Afghanistan is a shambles and the Taliban controls more territory today than it did when he took office.

The Obamas are such phonies, it’s hard to confront their lies with a straight face.

To an enthusiastic crowd in Chicago who had drunk the Kool-Aid, Obama claimed that America was “a better, stronger place than when we started.” And then he set to firing up his base, blaming his opponents for dividing America, when he himself bears the greatest responsibility pitting Americans against each other by race, creed, and income.

Obama’s legacy is a graveyard of disasters.

  • Libya: an unnecessary war, where the United States deposed a pro-U.S. authoritarian who had given up his WMD and joined the fight against al-Qaeda. Today, that country is controlled by ISIS and other Islamist groups.
  • Syria: Obama proclaimed “red-lines” in 2012 and stood by passively as Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad trampled them repeatedly. Today, Russia for the first time since the Cold War has military bases in the country, while Iran and its proxies physically occupy a third of the country.
  • Iran: The nuclear deal Obama heralded? It legitimates Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and actually commits the United States to helping Iran develop its nuclear infrastructure. It also commits us to helping Iran defeat cyber attacks, such as Stuxnet the U.S. and Israel jointly launched under Obama’s stewardship to crash Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Obama hinted he wants to become the leader of the anti-Trump movement in the next four years. Certainly, an anti-Trump U.S. media will welcome and promote him.

But as the new president actually grows the economy, expands prosperity, and makes America stronger and safer again in clearly demonstrable ways, my guess is Obama’s game will soon get old.

Let’s hope reality will win out over the delusions of the past eight years.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Obamacare’s ’20 Million’ Number Is Fake

In Revealing Article, Obama Puts ‘Progressive Goals’ Before Due Process

13 Inconvenient Truths About Obama’s Legacy

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Hill.