When North Korea Tests a Nuke, Assume It’s Iran’s as Well

North Korea briefly reclaimed the global press’ attention again by claiming to have tested a hydrogen bomb. While coverage focused on whether that was an exaggeration, the press missed a much more important question: Was this test only for Kim Jong-Un or was it also for the Iranian regime?

The North Korean and Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programs should be seen as a single entity, as should be their shared cyber warfare programs. The advance of one is an advance of the other. Differences in their activity should be seen as a common-sense division of labor. Gordon Chang, a prominent expert on Asian affairs, has written about the likelihood that this is the case.

Last May, an Iranian opposition group that has accurately identified hidden nuclear sites in the past reported that it had specific intelligence about North Korean nuclear and missile experts secretly visiting Iran. Intelligence analyst Ilana Freedman said in January 2014 that her sources said a relocation of major parts of Iran’s nuclear program to North Korea began as early as December 2012.

For Iran, it is best to let the North Koreans put the finishing touches on the most provocative nuclear and missile work. Whereas the Iranian regime does suffer from sanctions and must always keep the 2009 Green Revolution in the back of its mind, North Korea thrives off isolation and international provocation.

North Korea has nothing to lose and can only gain by such an arrangement. Kim Jong-Un’s regime has already crossed the nuclear pariah threshold, so it might as well let its Iranian allies take the lucrative deal offered by the West. It has been content to spend $1.1-$3.2 billion each year on it. Plus, the deal puts Iran in a moreadvantageous position  and its economic improvements can help it invest more in North Korea’s activity.

The good news is that this latest test—North Korea’s fourth— does not appear to be more powerful than its last one, indicating no significant advance in technology. RAND Corporation analyst Bruce Bennett says North Korea is still working on the “basics” of a nuclear fission bomb.

It is hard for some to accept that an Islamist theocracy like that in Iran would work with a cultish communist dictatorship like North Korea, but there is nothing in either one’s ideology that would prevent such cooperation. In fact, North Korea’s success in building a nuclear arsenal actually encourages Iran to see nuclear weapons as a key lesson for the Islamic Revolution.

“The entire world may well consider North Korea a failed state, but from the view point of [Iran], North Korea is a success story and a role model: A state which remains true to its revolutionary beliefs and defies the Global Arrogance,” Ali Alfoneh, an expert on the Iranian regime, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Given the spotty record of U.S. intelligence assessments (to say the least), the West must operate under the assumption that there isn’t an Iranian WMD problem and a North Korean WMD problem, but an Iranian-North Korean WMD problem.

ABOUT RYAN MAURO

Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org’s national security analyst, a fellow with Clarion Project and an adjunct professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on top-tier television and radio. Read more, contact or arrange a speaking engagement.

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Iran Captures and Releases US Sailors: the Back Story

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No More Shadow Boxing – It’s for Real now

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of a previous nuclear Test made by North Korea. Photo: Video screenshot.

VIDEO: Gitmo ‘High-Risk’ Prisoner Released — Vows to Kill Americans

America released a recruiter for al-Qaeda from Guantánamo. Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Awn al-Shamrani, 40, considered a “high-risk prisoner” is on record as vowing to “kill Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan,” if he was ever let go from the prison.

Al-Shamrani, originally from Saudi Arabia, will be transferred back to the desert kingdom.

See report below:

RELATED ARTICLES:

No Existential Threat From ISIS, Obama Says in State of Union

Putting a Lid on ISIS: US Bombs Islamic State Cash Reserves

CAIR Officials Invited as Guests to State of Union Address

Philly Man Charged for Attempted Murder ‘in the Name of Islam’

Devastating Impact of Marijuana Legalization on Colorado’s Children

National Families in Action reports:

colorado marijuana use youth coverPast-month marijuana use among Colorado’s adolescents, ages 12-17, was 74 percent higher (12.56% vs. 7.22% nationwide) than the national average for the two years following legalization in the state, according to a new report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Further, the average usage rate in states that have not legalized marijuana for medical use is lower (5.99%) than the average in states that have (8.52%) and far lower than the states that have fully legalized pot (11.31%).

Past-month marijuana use among college-age young adults, ages 18-25, was 62 percent higher than the national average (31.24% vs. 19.32%). Use in full legalization states was nearly double that of use in non-medical pot states (27.86% vs. 16.43% in 2014).

Adult past-month use was 104 percent greater than the national average (12.45% vs. to 6.11% in 2014). Adult use in full legalization states was 11.83% vs. 4.7% in non-legalization states.

Read the Rocky Mountain HIDTA Report here.


ABOUT NATIONAL FAMILIES IN ACTION (NFIA)

NFIA consists of families, scientists, business leaders, physicians, addiction specialists, policymakers, and others committed to protecting children from addictive drugs. Our vision is:

  • Healthy, drug-free kids
  • Nurturing, addiction-free families
  • Scientifically accurate information and education
  • A nation free of Big Marijuana
  • Smart, safe, FDA-approved medicines developed from the cannabis plant (and other plants)
  • Expanded access to medicines in FDA clinical trials for children with epilepsy

RELATED ARTICLE: Last Thing Struggling Students Need is More Marijuana – Hudson Institute

University to Hold ‘Segregated’ Diversity Workshops on Race

This month, to relatively little outrage or public notice, Oregon State University is holding segregated “diversity” sessions for students, staff, and faculty. At “retreats,” students and faculty will learn about identity and micro-agressions (for example: expressing a belief in merit, wearing an offensive Halloween costume, or having someone feel like she does not belong).

The Daily Caller reports that a total of four workshops will be held: one for non-white students, another for white students (to educate them about their “white privilege”), one for multi-racial students, and one for white faculty and staff called “Examining White Identity.”

The testimonials at the university’s website indicate that the sessions are sure to foster more “cry-bullies,” as we saw on campuses across the country in 2015. And it seems that among Oregon State’s 30,000 students, none raised significant objections to funding being spent on segregated sessions.

This same outrage almost happened in 2013 at Hamilton College, too. But that proposed segregated “dialogue” never went forward, thanks to students affiliated with the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI).

In 2013, from the lavishly funded on-campus Days-Massolo Center (ironically founded “to embrace the importance of supporting a diverse and inclusive community”), an email was sent inviting students to participate in a “dialogue about internalized racism.” The “dialogue,” however, was for “people of color” only. Another dialogue for white students and faculty was promised for the following semester, and the program would have culminated in a non-segregated session.

AHI students, led by senior Dean Ball, got the administration to back down.

Ball described what happened in a blog post at Legal Insurrection, a site run by Cornell law professor William A. Jacobson, a Hamilton College alum who has been dismayed by what’s been going on at the small elite liberal arts college.

Ball described speaking to Amit Taneja — Hamilton College’s “Director of Diversity & Inclusion” — and expressing dismay at this new form of segregation. Taneja, without any evidence, told Ball that his views were in the “minority” of the student body.

Ball pointed out that Taneja’s job description was to protect minorities.

Ball was a leader of the 150-member student body at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, an independent non-profit education corporation founded by three Hamilton College faculty members: history professors Robert Paquette and Douglas Ambrose, and economics professor James Bradfield. The three were concerned about the decline of academic standards and loss of freedom. As Paquette puts it, AHI upholds the “ethos of a liberal arts education,” countering the all-too common liberal arts college’s “political agenda that masks a totalitarian impulse in a utopian illusion.”

The AHI offers students educational opportunities they rarely get in college: exposure to Augustine, Plato, and Leo Strauss through reading groups; lectures on and off campus by distinguished scholars and writers; the opportunity to write for a student newspaper, Enquiry, that respects their opinions; and internships, directed readings, and social gatherings at the AHI building on the village square, about 1.5 miles from the campus on the hill.

The center was originally to be on campus, but found itself the target of a faculty-led hostile takeover attempt. The story is related in the New Criterion; I now live in the building as one of two resident fellows.

The AHI students contacted the media, prepared a petition for Hamilton’s board of trustees, and wrote an op-ed for the student newspaper. They also sent out a campus-wide email with the heading “RACIAL SEGREGATION AT HAMILTON.” The email stated:

“The Alexander Hamilton Institute believes that no safe zone is worth the price of segregation. All are welcome to join us for a conversation on race.”

That was enough to get Taneja to open the “dialogue” to all races. That victory, however, marked the beginning of the harassment of Ball and other AHI students.

That very night, Ball was threatened with violence and accused of white supremacy, almost entirely by students he had never met. His Twitter and Facebook feeds were filled with “both fury and support over what the AHI had done.”

The following Monday, September 23, his character was attacked at the Student Assembly meeting, which, according to the SA president, drew more students than he’d ever seen. The next morning Ball found the campus littered with “hundreds of pieces of paper posted on trees, windows, doors, and everywhere else imaginable” with sayings about social justice from luminaries like Tupac Shakur.

Ball concluded:

“Hamilton’s campus was no ‘safe zone’ for me or anyone sympathetic to what the Alexander Hamilton Institute did.”

Now manager of state and local policy at the Manhattan Institute, Ball recalls those days. Although it was a student-led initiative, “[w]e always knew we had the full-throated support of [Executive Director] Professor Paquette and everyone else at AHI.” The agreement was implicit: “Professor Paquette and I had been through enough of these incidents at this point that this dynamic between us was understood.”

Paquette had challenged Taneja from the time of the self-identified social-justice activist’s hiring. Paquette recalls sending the trustees a lengthy letter in 2011 that used Taneja’s own words to describe who he was and to inform of what he intended to do as director of the “so-called cultural education (indoctrination) center.” Although the trustees and administration did not heed Paquette’s words in 2011, in 2013 AHI students forced Taneja’s hand.

To be sure, places like AHI can’t cure political correctness on our campuses. But when 19 year olds are surrounded by guest speakers like performance artist Rhodessa Jones, are ridiculed by their professors in class, and are punished for failing to complete assignments to their political specifications, it just takes a professor or two and a handful of peers to give them the confidence to face down the mobs of angry students and hostile administrators. Per Dean Ball:

“The AHI connected me to all of the like-minded students on campus and the AHI gave me the intellectual firepower I needed in the first place to effectively counter the administration’s tactics.”

In 20 years of teaching college English, I’ve rarely seen such poised, polite, well-rounded, and confident young people. They are polished writers and public speakers. I also recognize the students giving testimonials for the Oregon workshops, ending statements on question marks and repeating slogans like zombies. Sadly, they are far more common and their numbers have increased in recent years.

It looks like there is a need for something like the AHI in Oregon. Surely, there must be enough students there to confront this new form of Jim Crow: campus brainwashing sessions.

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

Merkel’s Muslim ‘Rapefugees’ Firestorm

Geert Wilders, Leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) and PVV Parliamentarian Machiel de Graff introduced a new Arabic term epitomizing the vicious misogyny of Sharia culture, taharrush, in an Op Ed in the Dutch daily, The Post reprinted by The Gatestone Institute, “Give Women the rights to protect themselves.” The term taharrush represents a permissive form of male  group sexual assault that we  first saw in the virtual rape of South African CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Larson surrounded by a crowd of 200 men in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in the heady days of the Arab Spring in February 2011.

geert wilders Source Gatestone Institute

Geert Wilders. Source: Gatestone Institute

Wilders and de Graff in The Post op ed explain the Sharia underpinnings of this barbaric practice:

Taharrush is the Arabic word for the phenomenon whereby women are encircled by groups of men and sexually harassed, assaulted, groped, and raped. After the Cologne taharrush on New Year’s Eve, many German women bought pepper spray. Who can blame them?

A culture that has a specific word for sexual assaults of women by groups of men is a danger to all women. The existence of the word indicates that the phenomenon is widespread. Frau Merkel, Prime Minister Rutte and all the other open-door politicians could and should have known this.

The Islamic world is steeped in misogyny. The Koran explicitly states that a woman is worth only half a man (Suras 2: 228, 2: 282, 4:11), that women are unclean (5:6), and that a man can have sex with his wife whenever he wants (24:31). The Koran even says that men are allowed to have sex slaves (4:24), and that they have the right to rape women whom they have captured (24:31).

The hadiths, the descriptions of the life of Muhammad, the ideal human being whose example all the Islamic faithful must follow, confirm that women are sex objects, that they are inferior beings like dogs and donkeys, and that there is nothing wrong with sexual slavery and raping female prisoners.

Taharrush is quite common in Islamic countries. Women are frequently surrounded by men and subsequently abused. The Egyptian website Jadaliyya points out that it also happens to veiled women. Women are victims simply because they are women and not because they have provoked the men by their conduct or “provocative” clothing. It can happen in the streets, public transport, supermarkets, or during protest demonstrations.

merkel protester with card

Protester with “Merkel Must Go” card.

What erupted in Cologne, Germany and other major cities on New Year’s eve when a crowd of 1,000 North African and Arab appearing migrant young men surrounded young women was taharrush resulting in the filing of more than 553 claims by defenseless young women in Cologne, 45% of them for sexual assaults. The preponderance of assailants were migrants. Wilders and de Graaf in the immediate wake of the Cologne incidents confronted  Mark Rutte,  Dutch leader of the ruling coalition in the Hague Parliament and the Justice minister with a list of questions about what they were going to do to protect Dutch women from untoward group sexual assaults from  migrant men in Holland. See our Iconoclast post, “Geert Wilders on New Year’s Eve Sexual Assaults in Cologne Germany by Arab and North African men”.

Angela Merkel in the wake of multiple occurrences of group sexual assaults has had to face a veritable firestorm of criticism arising from the admittance of more than 1.1 million migrants and refugees, in the benighted belief that Germany’s acute demographic deficit and labor shortage might be solved. Instead of compliant asylees respectful of the laws and values of the welcoming German society, they witnessed ingratitude in riots in reception centers, attacks on German citizens and the multiple taharrush episodes.  On January 10th, a migrant from a German reception center was shot and killed in an attempted attack at a Paris police station. The BBC reported that a note found on his body indicated he pledged loyalty to  the Islamic State and perpetrated the attack  in reprisal  for French air attacks on the self-declared Caliphate.

The BBC reported that 2,000 protesters marched in Leipzig at a Legida rally, the local affiliate of  Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization  of the West (Pegida). They were  protesting the Merkel government admittance of the flood of asylees and migrants.  211 extremists at a separate demonstration in the section of Connewitz  were detained  by police for vandalism. The following day , German Justice Minister Hiko Mass announced relaxation of deportation rules:

Speaking days after Chancellor Angela Merkel said “clear signals” had to be sent to potential offenders, Mr. Maas tweeted that the core of the government’s reforms would be to ease extradition of foreign criminals and strip them of refugee status if they had committed particular offences.

Penalties for sexual offences would be appropriate “regardless of current events”, a government statement said (in German).

“We will tighten criminal law to make deportation easier,” Mr. Maas said, adding that binding agreements would be sought with offenders’ country of origin. But he stressed that migrants should not come under general suspicion.

Several women in Cologne were raped and the justice minister said the definition of the offence in German law was too narrow. “There’s no clear answer in law as to how much resistance a woman has to offer for an offence to constitute rape,” he said.

Wilders and DeGraaf in their  op ed responded to  the cavalier suggestion  by the Cologne Mayor about what might be done to protect women facing the fearsome threat of a  taharrush  attack by Muslim men:

Last week, the Mayor of Cologne advised her female citizens to keep strange men at an arm’s length. In Vienna, the head of the police said that in future women better not walk the streets alone. It seems that Austria will soon resemble Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed alone in the streets. Earlier, in the Netherlands, women from families hosting asylum seekers had already been advised to wear “appropriate” clothes (even indoors), “so no prom dress or bare shoulders,” and to ensure that they are never alone in the room with male asylum seekers.

But the behavior of women has nothing to do with it. Moreover, it is a disgrace that our women are advised to modify their behavior because the government has invited thousands of dangerous men into our country. When one imports Islam in the Netherlands, one also imports the misogynistic culture of Cairo, Damascus, and Riyadh into our cities. Next to headscarves, burkas, mosques, honor killings, and terrorism, we now have taharrush.

The solution is not that our women keep an arm’s length from the male barbarians, but that the government keeps these men thousands of kilometers away from us. Until that happens, other measures are needed. It is irresponsible to turn our country into a jungle and subsequently send women unarmed into the jungle. They must at least have the right to defend themselves. Contrary to countries such as Germany and France, in our country it is illegal to carry pepper spray. With the Netherlands now being overrun by men who see women as inferior sex tools, it is time to legalize pepper spray in the Netherlands as a weapon against taharrush.

RELATED ARTICLE: Germany’s voluntary programs to teach Muslim migrants sex equality and free speech

RELATED VIDEO: Taharrush (collective harassment) of women in Germany.

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

Five Steps To Get Ready For Primary Season

WASHINGTON, D.C. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — We are less than a month away from the start of the 2016 presidential primary and caucus season. On February 1, the Iowa caucuses will kick off the 2016 election cycle. A little over a week later, the New Hampshire primaries will follow. The process goes on through spring as both parties choose a presidential ticket for the 2016 election.

As a U.S. citizen, your vote is not only something politicians compete for, but your constitutional right. And exercising that right is as American as the stars and stripes. Before election year officially takes off, USAGov wants to help you get ready with these steps for participating in your state’s primaries or caucuses:

  1. Mark the calendar. Primaries and caucuses take place from February to mid-June leading up to theNovember 8 election. Find out when your state’s will be and make sure you don’t miss them.
  2. Register to vote. If you’re not already a registered voter, look up your state on Vote.USA.gov to begin the process. States have different deadlines, so check with your state’s election office to see how soon before its primaries or caucuses you have to register.
  3. Research candidates. Debates, town halls, speeches and campaign events–election year is many things, but boring is not one of them. Study the issues, learn how to research candidates, and find out what to look for before, during, and after a debate.
  4. Make a plan. It may sound obvious, but having a voting plan is one of the most important things you can do after registering. Work, school, picking up the kids and grocery shopping can make any day hectic. Making a plan to get to your polling station is key. Are you driving? Taking the bus? If you know you won’t be able to make it, you may be able to vote absentee ahead of time. Active military members can also vote absentee and make their voices heard at the polls. Plan ahead and make sure you get your vote in on time.
  5. Spread the word. Friends, family and acquaintances often talk politics, but sometimes don’t make it to the ballot box. Make sure those around are as prepared as you. If they haven’t registered, send them toVote.USA.gov to register. Be the informed one in your group.

usagov logoStay up-to-date with VoteUSA, USAGov’s yearlong effort to help Americans become more informed and involved in the 2016 election. VoteUSA will also have regular Facebook and Twitter events, as well as virtual office hours to answer your questions live. Join us this Thursday, January 14 at 2:00 PM ET for a Twitter chat and Facebook Q&A for real time answers to your questions about primaries and caucuses. Join the conversation using #VoteUSA or by following us on Facebook and Twitter.

USAGov is a federal program that guides you to tips and tools in English and in Spanish from hundreds of government agencies, departments, and programs. We make it easier for you to find answers you can trust about government information and services–online, by phone, e-mail or chat, and in print.

Iran: ‘Humiliating the United States, with no consequences’

american sailors captured by IranYesterday, when we posted on the IRGC hostage taking of U.S. Navy sailors and their riverine patrol boats to Farsi Island, we wrote of the prior incidents of Iran’s hostage taking in the Persian Gulf.

Shoshana Bryen of the Jewish Policy Center and I commiserated about the seizure of six British Royal Marines in June 2004 by the IRGC naval contingent. The Royal Marines were taken to land, blinded and demanded to apologize for entering Iranian waters. They were then taken out onto the desert and blindfolded while weapons were chambered in a mock execution. They were released three days later in what was billed as a “misunderstanding.”  The Royal Marines were operating in Iraqi waters when seized by Iran.

As noted in a Reuter’s report on today’s seizure of U.S. patrol boats and arrest of U.S. Navy personnel, there was another seizure of British naval and marine personnel by Iranian Revolutionary guards that created a diplomatic crisis in 2007:

In March 2007, Iranian forces seized 15 British servicemen – eight Royal Navy sailors and seven marines – in the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that separates Iran and Iraq, triggering a diplomatic crisis at a time of heightened tensions over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. They were held for 13 days.

Look at Iran’s track record over the last several months since the JCOPA was endorsed by the UN Security Council. Iran fired off two ballistic missile tests in October and November 2015 in violation of UN Res. 1929. Last week, IRGC missile boats hailed the USS Harry Truman giving it and an accompanying destroyer, the USS Bulkley and a nearby French frigate a 23 minute warning before firing rockets in a live fire exercise 1,500 yards away. The Administration has been humiliated time and again by the Ayatollah and will continue to be held in contempt for being weak, even after the, Administration releases $100 billion in sequestered funds in foreign banks, perhaps as early as this week.

Meanwhile the spin at the White House was that the crews of the two patrol boats may be released by daylight to return to their base in Bahrain. Think, also, of those other American hostages held by the Islamic Regime in Tehran, an ex-FBI agent, a former Marine, a Christian Pastor, two American Iranian Businessmen and a convicted Washington Post reporter.

15 hours after the 10 U.S. Navy sailors and their boats were returned, but not before they were put through a humiliating process of being forced to kneel at gun point and ultimately forced to apologize for how the boats found their way into Iranian waters. That awaits a U.S. Navy investigation  into what occurred and possible Iranian violations of the Geneva Convention over treatment of the detained U.S. Sailors and use for propaganda purposes. Both they and their boats returned to the Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain. What the IRGC learned of any technology on board the riverine patrol boats is another matter.

Nonetheless, this was the latest episode of U.S. humiliation by the Ayatollah Khamenei and the IRGC of President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif and President Obama, bound and determined to close the nuclear deal with Iran by releasing $100 billion of sequestered funds early next week on compliance day to this state sponsor of terrorism.

WATCH this Wall Street Journal video of the detention and apology by a possible U.S. Navy riverine boat commander:

us sailors captured by iran

Photo montage by the UK Daily Mail.

The Jerusalem Post published commentary by  Harold  Rhode, former Islamic and Turkish Affairs expert with the Pentagon Office of Net Assessment,  Tony Badran  and Ali Afoneh of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute  on this latest humiliating episode perpetrated by the IRGC navy, Former Pentagon official to ‘Post’: ‘Iran humiliating US with no consequences.’

See our December 2014 New English Review interview with Dr. Rhode, “China’s Islamist Threat”  and March 2014 interview with Dr. Michael Rubin, The Peril of Engaging Rogue States.

The Jerusalem Post opinion article noted:

Iran’s capture and release of 10 US sailors demonstrated that “moderates” such as President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have no real weight, while the real power continues to be wielded by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his hard line allies, such as the Revolutionary Guard, several commentators said Wednesday.

Propaganda videos of the soldiers blindfolded and kneeling released by Iranian media humiliated the world’s superpower and shows that Iran can continue its aggressive behavior with no consequences.

The Obama administration will not allow anything to get in the way of the nuclear deal’s implementation and the lifting of sanctions on Iran, they said.

“Test fire ballistic missiles. Check. Fire missiles near US ships. Check. Torch US ally’s missions. Check. Seize US sailors. Check. Get paid,” tweeted Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Iran’s continued aggressive behavior since the nuclear deal was agreed upon last summer gives it, and other rogue actors, the impression that it can act with a rather free hand.

Such a message must be terrifying to Israel and other US-Arab allies in the region.

Besides the question of whether there was a US apology to Iran, which administration officials deny, it remains unknown whether there was a secret deal or promise that facilitated the release of the sailors.

“Detainment of the US sailors was short, but the IRGC achieved its goal: The IRGC communicated the message to the domestic and the international audience that it calls the shots in Tehran, and humiliated the US,” Ali Alfoneh, an Iran expert and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington- based think tank, told The Jerusalem Post.

Harold Rhode, a distinguished senior fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute and a former adviser at the Pentagon, told the Postthat much of the equipment on the US boats was probably previously unavailable to Iran.

“Did Iran take US equipment? Will it share what it learns with North Korea, Russia and China?” “There is no concept of good will in the Middle East,” said the former Pentagon official.

The fact that until to now the US has not reacted on numerous issues – such as Iran’s testing of a ballistic missile in October in violation of a UN Security Council resolution and the firing of rockets near US naval ships – “demonstrates America’s weakness to Middle Easterners,” Rhode said.

“This is another case of America demonstrating that it is an unreliable ally and a harmless enemy,” he added.

“In the Middle East, when people smell weakness, they pounce,” said Rhode.

“Most amazingly from the Iranian point of view,” he continued, “is that they captured these sailors right before Obama’s State of the Union speech, and the president didn’t even mention it.”

“Did the Iranians do that on purpose to further humiliate Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry? From an Iranian cultural point of view, the answer is yes!” exclaimed Rhode.

This is a huge win-win situation for Iran, he continued, as Iran gets US advanced technology, it humiliates America, and it gives the US administration – so desperate to implement the unsigned Iran-US nuclear agreement – the excuse to say that Iran is cooperating with the US as a result of the agreement.

“A grand-slam for Iran, and a huge defeat for the US. Now Iran can continue advancing its ultimate goal of gaining nuclear weapons,” said Rhode.

Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official, told the Post the incident benefited the IRGC and other hardliners.

“They humiliated the United States. They received a groveling apology. They broadcast photos of the captured Americans.”

Rubin recalled a similar incident involving the UK in 2007, and how the photos and footage of the detained sailors made their way into the campaign commercials of former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“To credit diplomacy for their release is like giving a slap on the back to an arsonist who started a fire and then wants credit for putting it out,” said Rubin.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Iran: Boat seizure “should be a lesson to troublemakers in the U.S. Congress”

Biden: Iran saw US boats in distress, acted “like ordinary nations would do”

After hours of interrogation, Iran says 10 captured U.S. sailors “released in international waters after they apologized”

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

Radical Islam’s Fifth Column

Political correctness gives Islamists the field.

Two days after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, the FBI correctly identified the attack as terrorism, although it was reportedly pressured by the White House to refrain from doing so.  Thirty-six people were killed or wounded by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, husband-and-wife jihadists whose identities were known soon after the massacre but withheld for hours – presumably out of concern for an anti-Muslim backlash that has never really occurred in the United States.

The Obama administration and mainstream media went into obfuscation mode, initially implicating workplace violence and ineffective gun laws as possible causes of the attack, with one CNN reporter stretching credulity by questioning whether postpartum psychosis might have been a factor.  Gun control advocates co-opted the moment to push their agenda – although there is no correlation between gun laws and terrorism – while the president downplayed the role of radical Islam, despite evidence to the contrary.

Mr. Obama waited four days before addressing the nation with a short speech that conceded the shooters were terrorists, but which focused more on gun control than terrorism or the existential threat of radical Islam.  He was swiftly criticized for not discussing the ideological motivations behind the attack or formulating an effective plan for fighting terrorism, and for appearing more concerned about possible Islamophobia than national security.  He was also chided for lauding the effectiveness of his current strategies, despite the exponential growth of ISIS on his watch and in response to his feckless policies.

There was a disconnect between harsh reality and partisan fantasy as Mr. Obama attempted to associate gun control with the massacre.  Such tendentious rhetoric, however, is misplaced in addressing terrorism generally and San Bernardino in particular, considering that California already has the most restrictive gun laws in the country and that the shooters had a stockpile of pipe bombs in their home.  It is simply absurd.

The president’s focus on gun control was deceptive in its implication that terrorism is tractable through regulation, and he compounded the subterfuge by suggesting that the shooters had no international terror connections.  But this suggestion was contradicted by their degree of preparedness and coordination, use of sophisticated assault gear, and receipt of substantial funds a few weeks before the attack.

The depiction of the shooters as isolated actors was further controverted by evidence of longstanding Islamist sympathies, aborted plans for earlier attacks, and communications with other jihadists.  There was solid evidence that they were radicalized long before the White House suggested they were, and none regarding any on-the-job slights that might have prompted workplace revenge.  Malik had actually publicized her jihadist leanings on social media before moving to the U.S., but her postings were ignored when she applied for a visa because of a then secret policy prohibiting authorities from considering an applicant’s online statements in the absence of known involvement in terrorist acts.

Mr. Obama has addressed the nation and commented through spokesmen several times since his initial speech, but his message has not changed.  He continues to tout the effectiveness of his failed strategies and still has no cogent plan for dealing with ISIS.  Moreover, he downplays the influence of religion and international terrorism in order to minimize the significance and doctrinal underpinnings of the threat.  As suggested by recent polls, however, Americans do not believe he is capable of fighting terrorism, defeating ISIS, or even understanding the danger.

Equally troubling is his rush to defend a single religion to the exclusion of identifying those who embrace its more extreme doctrines.  His apologetic sentiments were echoed by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who said her biggest concern in the wake of the shootings was preventing a backlash against Muslims (not cracking down on supporters of terror), and who advocated prosecution for anti-Muslim speech – although the First Amendment clearly prohibits government from restricting even repugnant expression.

Lynch’s comments reflect the administration’s deference to Muslim sensibilities and conciliatory attitude toward radicals.  If she is fearful of prejudice against Muslims and Arabs, who statistically suffer little discrimination in the US, why has she not expressed similar concern for Jews – especially on college campuses, where anti-Semitic speech is encouraged and Jewish students have been verbally abused and physically assaulted?  Multiple surveys show that Jew-hatred far exceeds prejudice against Muslims or Arabs, yet Mr. Obama shows little concern regarding anti-Semitism.  On the contrary, he has fanned its flames by subtly evoking classical stereotypes of undue Jewish influence and divided loyalties in disparaging those who criticize his Mideast and Iran policies.

The president has been pandering to Islamist interests since his first days in office and has fostered a climate of political correctness that has crippled government’s ability to deal with doctrinal extremism.  His policies have made it difficult to identify and neutralize those who preach jihad and genocide for fear of insulting the ideology that mandates both.

Shortly after taking office, he appointed Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security and set about changing how government would deal with Islamic radicalism.  Napolitano announced that the administration would refrain from using terms like “Islamic terrorism” and instead refer to terrorist acts as “man-caused disasters.”  She explained that this terminology was necessary “to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur,” but what it really signified was the use of linguistic artifice as a policy tool.

That was only the beginning of the administration’s campaign to control speech.  Since then, terrorism has been called many things except what it is.  The Fort Hood shooting and Oklahoma beheadings were identified as “workplace violence,” the attacks in France last year were blamed on “violent extremism,” and the assault on a kosher Jewish market in Paris was initially described by the president as “random.”  Terrorism against Jews and Israel is largely ignored, while Israel is excoriated for having the temerity to defend herself.

The administration’s foreign policy regards the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas as legitimate political entities and has facilitated Iran’s nuclear ambitions.  Domestically, it has prohibited the FBI from profiling Islamic radicals, mandated that NASA engage in Muslim outreach as an organizational priority, and restricted federal employees from drawing any connection between terrorism and radical Islam.  Such policies are inconsistent with national security.

Political correctness has diminished government’s ability to monitor radicals and prevent terror attacks.  Consider the consequences of failing to identify the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, as a terrorist despite his open jihadist rhetoric and multiple communications with radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki.  Rather than acknowledge Hasan as a threat, the military promoted him through the ranks, even though he lacked the aptitude for advancement.

Similar scenarios have played out in the civilian sector.  After the San Bernardino massacre, witnesses reported having seen strangers of Middle Eastern appearance in the neighborhood, the delivery of unusual packages, and suspicious activity at the shooters’ home just weeks before the attack.  However, they did not call the police for fear of being branded racists, thus illustrating the deadly consequences of knee-jerk political correctness.

Progressives are quick to deny any connection between terrorism and radical Islam, but have no problem characterizing other kinds of violence as terror, as long as they can implicate and disparage their political opponents – no matter how silly or attenuated the connection.  They jumped to blame recent abortion clinic shootings on Republican rhetoric, although the assailants were apolitical and mentally ill, and to describe school shootings, such as those in Columbine, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut, as domestic terrorism, though they were perpetrated by disturbed teenagers or post-adolescents with no political pretensions.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines terrorism as “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal.”  Whatever prompted the shootings in Columbine, Newtown, or Colorado Springs, none seemed to fit the definition of terrorism.

President Obama has been quick to attribute terrorism to workplace violence or nonspecific extremism, or to pontificate that climate change poses a greater threat to national security.  When those tactics fail, he accuses the media – which has spent seven years ignoring his gaffes and protecting his image – of creating the perception of a global terror crisis by sensationalizing the story.

The president seems to believe the problem is one of messaging, not substance, and that it can be defined out of existence by censorship and semantics, irrespective of any unpleasant facts on the ground.  George Orwell could not have written a more absurd scenario, or a more frightening one.

EDITORS NOTE: This op-ed column originally appeared on Israel National News.

VIDEO: Commander of captured U.S. sailors apologizing on Iran state TV

Dramatic video shows ten American sailors on their knees as they surrendered to Iranian troops in the Persian Gulf while a U.S. ‘commander’ is filmed apologizing to the revolutionary guard.

  • Footage of sailors with hands behind their heads has been released
  • It was aired on the Islamic republic’s state television after they were freed
  • When they were taken off of the boats, they were questioned by the IRGC
  • Later the captives were filmed looking relaxed while sitting on a big carpet
  • They were given plates of food and water as they chatted to IRGC guards
  • One of the sailors apologized for their ‘mistake’ and praised the Iranians
  • A female sailor with the group was given a makeshift head scarf
  • They were moving between Kuwait and Bahrain when they were captured
  • Reports inside Iran stated the U.S. apologized before the sailors were freed
  • However John Kerry’s spokesman has said he did not say sorry.

Dramatic footage has emerged of the 10 American sailors accused of ‘snooping’ surrendering to Iran’s revolutionary guard and being taken into custody.
Video shown on the Islamic republic’s state television shows the U.S Navy personnel kneeling with their hands behind their heads, as armed coast guard officials surround them.

They remained motionless as they waited to be taken into custody on Farsi Island – a an area of land in the Persian Gulf shut off to the public for secret government activities. After they were escorted off the boats, the nine men and one woman were reportedly interrogated for hours by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (IRGC).

Wearing combat fatigues and no shoes, the sailors were then pictured sitting on a carpet inside a bare room. They shared plates of food and bottles of water as they chatted to Iranian officials. A female sailor was also seen wearing a makeshift veil she was given by the captors to cover her head. One sailor, said to be a U.S. commander, was recorded making an apology to the Iranian forces and said their behavior towards them was ‘fantastic’.

RELATED ARTICLE: Former Pennsylvania Congressman and Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Joe Sestak says:” Iran fulfilled its part of the Nuclear Deal”

VIDEO: Benghazi and the Clinton-Obama Gun Running Operation Exposed

13 hours posteerClare Lopez of the Center for Security Policy, a member of the Benghazi Citizen’s Commission and former CIA intelligence officer, exposes Benghazi as a complete national security disaster resulting from the lack of leadership from President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In part one, Lopez explains in simple detail exactly how the United States,  led by Clinton, aligned itself with the Muslim Brotherhood in a way that defies common sense and basic principles of foreign policy.

The United West presents this three-part series as a national security context to better understand the blockbuster Hollywood movie, 13 Hours, the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.

EDITORS NOTE: Reader may f ollow The United West on Twitter @TheUnitedWest

Foreign operatives and foreign-owned businesses changing America by changing the people

The Wall Street Journal’s Miriam Jordan gives us a peak inside the employment services that the nine major refugee resettlement contractors offer American businesses.

I just want to scream when I see stories like this—what about Americans who might like to own a small business or need work?

Everyone working in ‘pockets of resistance’ must begin to expose the businesses in your city and state that work with refugee contractors to displace American workers. And, don’t forget the Chamber of Commerce!  It is all about keeping wages low!

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David Miliband, the former British Foreign Secretary (with Hillary Clinton) is changing America by changing the people as CEO of the financially largest US refugee resettlement contractor. He wants 100,000 Syrians in here by the end of Obama’s term.

And, then be sure to find out which elected officials are receiving campaign donations from those same businesses—expose them!

You also must check out the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s micro-enterprise loan program which gives grants to contractors like the International Rescue Committeeso they can be big shots and hand those loans out to their refugee ‘clients.’ The story says that the IRC is dishing out $4 million in loans to refugees, but if you could ever get to the bottom line, I will bet you find that most of the $4 million comes through federal and state taxpayers’ pockets.

See the story at the Wall Street Journal and take note of the businesses in Ohio and Kentucky that are working with a federal resettlement contractor to get the cheap refugee labor.  It is all the more galling when you know the cheap hourly wages are being supplemented with your welfare dollars in the form of subsidized housing, Medicaid, and food stamps.

BIG MEAT!

Jordan mentions JBS Swift & Co. hiring refugees in the Louisville, KY area.  Swift is a Brazilian-owned company.

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Swift CEO is Andre Nogueira a Brazilian, changing America by changing the people! See all others who are helping bring refugee laborers to your towns.

Think about it, a Brazilian company is changing your American town by bringing in cheap immigrant/refugee laborers with the help of federal government supposedly ‘religious’ refugee contractors!

Click here to see where Swift & Co. is operating (and changing your community).

We first learned about the impact of meat packing in conjunction with the refugee industry here in 2008 when we learned about Bill Clinton bringing Bosnian ‘refugee’ labor to Iowa!

I was told repeatedly for years that meatpacking wages were excellent and American workers were very happy with the work until the industry discovered first cheap illegal immigrant labor and then legal immigrant labor, so I took a few minutes (and it only took a few!) to find out that it is factual—wages in meatpacking were excellent BEFORE the 1980’s.

(Related? Remember Hillary’s special little gig involving Tyson Foods)

Really someone should write a book:  

How the meatpacking industry demographically destroyed America!

So check this out.  Here is some information (and I will bet there is much more if someone really looked into it!) about how wages declined when the industry (now monopolized by four major companies) discovered CHEAP immigrant labor.

The average wage of animal slaughterers and processors remained comparatively strong from the 1960s through the early 1980s. The average wage earned by a meat packing employee during the 60s and 70s was 14-18 percent higher than their counterpart in the larger U.S. manufacturing sector. The peak average hourly wage of a meat packing employee during this period was nearly $20 an hour when adjusted for inflation.  [Remember Jordan reports that the refugees in KY are making about $10 an hour today—ed]

[….]

The 1980s were a transitional decade for America’s meat packing industry. Developments such as improved distribution channels allowed meat packing companies to move out of urban, union-dominated centers and relocate to rural areas closer to livestock feedlots. New industry powerhouses like Iowa Beef Processors (IBP) sought to undercut the competition by operating on slim profit margins, increasing worker speed and productivity, andcutting labor costs.

Please remember readers that this is all about MONEY (Democrat voters, and erasing borders)!

Forget the BS about how bringing refugees to America is all about humanitarianism!  

RELATED ARTICLES:

Germany: Face the facts! Not all refugees are saints!

Kansas governor on Syrian refugees….

Syrian “refugee” to be Obama’s guest at SOTU tonight

Democrats invite Members of Terror-linked Orginization to State of the Union

CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. A California chapter distributed a poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI, and a Florida chapter distributed pamphlets with the same message. CAIR has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented, and has been declared a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates.

House Democrats Caucus

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)

“Muslim group’s officials invited to State of the Union,” by Harper Neidig, The Hill, January 11, 2016:

Two officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations will be attending the State of the Union address Tuesday as guests of Democratic lawmakers.

Reps. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.) and Alcee Hastings (Fla.) will both be hosting representatives from CAIR chapters in their respective states, the group announced Monday.

Lofgren will be bringing Sameena Usman, a government relations coordinator in the San Francisco office, while Hastings will host Nezar Hamze, the chief operating officer of the nonprofit’s Florida branch.

The announcement comes days after Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress, challenged Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to bring a Muslim American as one of his guests to the speech.

“This is an opportunity to really drive the point home that there are no Americans who are suspect just based on their religious identity, that all Americans are welcome in the people’s house,” Ellison said in an interview with The Hill.

Demoratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) has also urged Democratic lawmakers to bring Muslims to the speech as a rebuke to what she sees is anti-Islamic language from the right.

“The rhetoric and vitriol that has been targeted at this community has been absolutely outrageous and unacceptable,” Wasserman Schultz said at a news conference according to The Sun-Sentinel.

“And as a member of a minority religion myself, one that has faced persecution throughout our existence, to me the idea that we would stand idly by and ignore that and not stand up and use our voices to stand up for our brothers and sisters in the Muslim-American community was just unacceptable.”

Yet Muslims have not faced persecution throughout their existence, and are not facing it now.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Robert Spencer in PJ Media: The Migrant Sex Assaults: ‘Uncovered Meat’

Maryland: Muslim indicted for training with jihad terror group

Obama: ‘There are no existential threats’, not even the Islamic State

These are words that are likely to be recalled bitterly in the coming years.

american sailors captured by Iran

American sailors captured by Iran. Photo: IRIB News.

“President Obama: ‘There Are No Existential Threats’ to the United States,” by Alex Griswold, Mediaite, January 12th, 2016:

In an interview with NBC’s Today on the morning of his final State of the Union address, President Barack Obama told interviewer Matt Lauer that the United States didn’t face a single existential threat as his presidency approached its end.

“It is sometimes important for people to step back and measure how far we’ve come,” Obama argued. “The economy right now is better than any other economy in the world by a significant margin. We remain the strongest nation on earth by far and there are no existential threats facing us.”

“If we make some good choices now, whoever the next president is, whoever is controlling the next Congress there, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t own the 21st century,” he said.

Lauer went on to ask Obama specifically about the threat posed by ISIS and other terror groups. “Your daughters are young ladies. When they get to be your age, President Obama, do you believe in your heart that they will be living in a world that is dealing with the threat of radical Islam on a daily basis?”

“I am absolutely confident we will have defeated ISIL,” Obama responded. “I don’t think we have to wait until they are 54 for that to happen.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Islamic State: How Viable Is It?

What Obama Got Wrong in the State of the Union

Fact-Checking Obama’s Final State of the Union

48 Tweets From Conservatives About the State of the Union

Iranian military seizes two U.S. Navy boats, holds ten American sailors

Islamic State jihad suicide bomber murders 10 in Istanbul

VIDEO: 93% of U.S. Counties still in a Recession

Eric Norath from the Wall Street Journal reports:

More than six years after the economic expansion began, 93% of counties in the U.S. have failed to fully recover from the blow they suffered during the recession.

Nationwide, 214 counties, or 7% of 3,069, had recovered last year to prerecession levels on four indicators: total employment, the unemployment rate, size of the economy and home values, a study from the National Association of Counties released Tuesday found.

National Association of Counties (NACo)  in a 2015 study reports:

County economies are the building blocks of regional economies, states and the nation. The conditions of a county economy can constrain and challenge county governments, residents and businesses, while also providing opportunities. This analysis tracks the performance of the 3,069 county economies in 2015 by examining annual changes in jobs, unemployment rate, economic output (GDP) and median home prices. It also explores wage dynamics in 2014 and between 2009 and 2014.

Watch the County Economies 2015 Report – Interview with Dr. Istrate:

To read the full study click here.

The following counties have returned to prerecession levels of total employment, the unemployment rate, size of the economy and home values by the end of 2015:

  • Anchorage Borough, Alaska
  • Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska
  • Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska
  • Marin County, Calif.
  • San Francisco County, Calif.
  • San Mateo County, Calif.
  • Santa Clara County, Calif.
  • Denver County, Colo.
  • Dolores County, Colo.
  • Minidoka County, Idaho
  • Clark County, Ind.
  • Elkhart County, Ind.
  • Gibson County, Ind.
  • LaGrange County, Ind.
  • Marshall County, Ind.
  • Steuben County, Ind.
  • Vanderburgh County, Ind.
  • Adams County, Iowa
  • Clayton County, Iowa
  • Dubuque County, Iowa
  • Jefferson County, Iowa
  • Johnson County, Iowa
  • O’Brien County, Iowa
  • Plymouth County, Iowa
  • Story County, Iowa
  • Douglas County, Kan.
  • Ellis County, Kan.
  • Greeley County, Kan.
  • Hamilton County, Kan.
  • Haskell County, Kan.
  • Hodgeman County, Kan.
  • Johnson County, Kan.
  • Leavenworth County, Kan.
  • Miami County, Kan.
  • Mitchell County, Kan.
  • Norton County, Kan.
  • Rawlins County, Kan.
  • Rush County, Kan.
  • Russell County, Kan.
  • Stevens County, Kan.
  • Wyandotte County, Kan.
  • Bullitt County, Ky.
  • Calloway County, Ky.
  • Campbell County, Ky.
  • Jefferson County, Ky.
  • Madison County, Ky.
  • Marshall County, Ky.
  • Nelson County, Ky.
  • Oldham County, Ky.
  • Scott County, Ky.
  • Shelby County, Ky.
  • Washington County, Ky.
  • Barry County, Mich.
  • Kent County, Mich.
  • Ottawa County, Mich.
  • Blue Earth County, Minn.
  • Carlton County, Minn.
  • Clay County, Minn.
  • Le Sueur County, Minn.
  • Marshall County, Minn.
  • Nicollet County, Minn.
  • Olmsted County, Minn.
  • Pennington County, Minn.
  • Polk County, Minn.
  • Rock County, Minn.
  • Benton County, Miss.
  • Union County, Miss.
  • Custer County, Mont.
  • Dawson County, Mont.
  • Deer Lodge County, Mont.
  • Fallon County, Mont.
  • McCone County, Mont.
  • Meagher County, Mont.
  • Musselshell County, Mont.
  • Powder River County, Mont.
  • Powell County, Mont.
  • Richland County, Mont.
  • Roosevelt County, Mont.
  • Sheridan County, Mont.
  • Valley County, Mont.
  • Box Butte County, Neb.
  • Chase County, Neb.
  • Cheyenne County, Neb.
  • Clay County, Neb.
  • Dawson County, Neb.
  • Douglas County, Neb.
  • Dundy County, Neb.
  • Furnas County, Neb.
  • Garden County, Neb.
  • Garfield County, Neb.
  • Gosper County, Neb.
  • Hayes County, Neb.
  • Keya Paha County, Neb.
  • Kimball County, Neb.
  • Lancaster County, Neb.
  • Loup County, Neb.
  • Perkins County, Neb.
  • Red Willow County, Neb.
  • Sarpy County, Neb.
  • Saunders County, Neb.
  • Thurston County, Neb.
  • Wayne County, Neb.
  • Anson County, N.C.
  • Bowman County, N.D.
  • Burleigh County, N.D.
  • Cass County, N.D.
  • Divide County, N.D.
  • Dunn County, N.D.
  • McKenzie County, N.D.
  • Mountrail County, N.D.
  • Sioux County, N.D.
  • Stark County, N.D.
  • Traill County, N.D.
  • Ward County, N.D.
  • Williams County, N.D.
  • Delaware County, Ohio
  • Fairfield County, Ohio
  • Franklin County, Ohio
  • Greene County, Ohio
  • Knox County, Ohio
  • Licking County, Ohio
  • Madison County, Ohio
  • Putnam County, Ohio
  • Union County, Ohio
  • Alfalfa County, Okla.
  • Canadian County, Okla.
  • Grady County, Okla.
  • McClain County, Okla.
  • Woods County, Okla.
  • Chesterfield County, S.C.
  • Oconee County, S.C.
  • Aurora County, S.D.
  • Anderson County, Texas
  • Andrews County, Texas
  • Atascosa County, Texas
  • Bastrop County, Texas
  • Bexar County, Texas
  • Blanco County, Texas
  • Brazos County, Texas
  • Caldwell County, Texas
  • Calhoun County, Texas
  • Collin County, Texas
  • Comal County, Texas
  • Crane County, Texas
  • Dallam County, Texas
  • Dallas County, Texas
  • Deaf Smith County, Texas
  • Denton County, Texas
  • DeWitt County, Texas
  • Dimmit County, Texas
  • Duval County, Texas
  • Ellis County, Texas
  • El Paso County, Texas
  • Fannin County, Texas
  • Fayette County, Texas
  • Frio County, Texas
  • Gaines County, Texas
  • Glasscock County, Texas
  • Grayson County, Texas
  • Grimes County, Texas
  • Guadalupe County, Texas
  • Hansford County, Texas
  • Hartley County, Texas
  • Hays County, Texas
  • Hockley County, Texas
  • Houston County, Texas
  • Hunt County, Texas
  • Jackson County, Texas
  • Johnson County, Texas
  • Karnes County, Texas
  • Kaufman County, Texas
  • Kendall County, Texas
  • Kenedy County, Texas
  • Kent County, Texas
  • La Salle County, Texas
  • Live Oak County, Texas
  • Lubbock County, Texas
  • McCulloch County, Texas
  • McLennan County, Texas
  • McMullen County, Texas
  • Maverick County, Texas
  • Medina County, Texas
  • Navarro County, Texas
  • Parker County, Texas
  • Parmer County, Texas
  • Randall County, Texas
  • Reeves County, Texas
  • Rockwall County, Texas
  • San Jacinto County, Texas
  • Schleicher County, Texas
  • Scurry County, Texas
  • Shackelford County, Texas
  • Tarrant County, Texas
  • Terrell County, Texas
  • Travis County, Texas
  • Upton County, Texas
  • Ward County, Texas
  • Webb County, Texas
  • Wharton County, Texas
  • Williamson County, Texas
  • Wilson County, Texas
  • Wise County, Texas
  • Yoakum County, Texas
  • Zapata County, Texas
  • Chittenden County, Vt.
  • Franklin County, Vt.
  • Lincoln County, Wash.
  • Calumet County, Wisc.
  • Dane County, Wisc.
  • Eau Claire County, Wisc.
  • Green County, Wisc.
  • Lafayette County, Wisc.
  • Outagamie County, Wisc.
  • Trempealeau County, Wisc.

RELATED ARTICLE: Six Years Later, 93% of U.S. Counties Haven’t Recovered From Recession, Study Finds

LAWSUIT: ‘Neither the Courts nor Government Can Determine What Is a Sin’

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, yesterday, filed a friend of the court brief in the case of Zubik v. Burwell, in support of seven non-profit organizations including the Little Sisters of the Poor who claim they cannot comply with the Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate (“HHS Mandate”) because even the so called “accommodations” make them actively complicit in the sin of abortion.  TMLC’s brief asserts that the Court is not the arbiter of sacred Scripture and, therefore, cannot determine whether or not an act constitutes a sin; it can only determine whether the government’s penalties for refusal to complete the sinful act are a substantial burden on religious liberty.

Thomas More Law Center Files Brief in Supreme Court Declaring Neither Court Nor Government Can Determine What Is a Sin

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of TMLC, portrays this case as a potential turning point in American legal history, stating, “The HHS Mandate is a monumental attack on religious liberty.  If this appeal is lost, the government becomes the head of every religious denomination in the country by its assumed authority to determine what is in fact a sin.”

The HHS Mandate requires religious non-profit organizations to participate in a government scheme to provide free contraceptives, including abortion causing drugs and devices (abortifacients), to their employees or face monumental fines that would result in closing the doors of most non-profit organizations that object to the HHS Mandate.

However, the HHS Mandate allows non-profit organizations like the Little Sisters to receive a so-called accommodation from directly providing free contraceptives and abortifacients to their employees.  The accommodation  requires the non-profit organizations to either (1) fill out a form as notice of their objection to contraceptives and abortifacients and provide that form to their insurers, which includes language instructing the insurers to provide free contraceptives and abortifacients to the women in the non-profits’ health plans, or (2) write and send a detailed letter to HHS with all of the information necessary to notify the non-profits’ insurers of their newfound obligation to provide free contraceptives and abortifacients to the women in the non-profits’ health plans.

These notification requirements trigger the non-profits’ insurers to provide free contraceptives and abortifacients to the women in the non-profits’ health plans. This notification requirement makes the non profits complicit in the provision of a service that they find sinful, thereby causing them to sin themselves.

TMLC’s brief argues, supported by a long line of Supreme Court precedent, that neither the government nor the Supreme Court can determine whether an act does or does not violate a person’s religious beliefs.  Rather, the Supreme Court must accept the non-profits’ assertions that the notification requirement is indeed against their religion.  To accept otherwise is to supplant the Church and the Bible with the government, allowing the Supreme Court and the government to interpret tenants of faith.  This slippery slope would subject all religious exercise to the whim of the government’s approval.

 Excerpts from TMLC’s Amicus brief:

  • “This Court has already determined that the fines for noncompliance with the HHS Mandate impose a substantial burden on employers. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2751, 2776 (2014). The ultimate question, therefore, is whether compliance is actually against the Petitioners’ religion. This is something that is for Petitioners to determine, not the Court.”
  • “The Court is not the arbiter of sacred scripture and cannot determine whether the notification form and letter are attenuated enough from the provision of contraceptives that they do not substantially burden Petitioners’ religion. Delving into this inquiry requires the Court to interpret Petitioners’ religious beliefs on the morality of the different levels of complicity with sin. Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indian Employment Security Div., 450 U.S. 707, 718 (1981).  Therefore, the Court can only determine whether Petitioners are being compelled to do something that violates their faith—here, filling out the notification form or writing a notification letter to HHS, both of which trigger the dissemination of contraceptives and abortifacients to their employees in connection with their employee health plans.”
  • “While women have a right to obtain contraceptives, see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 485-486 (1965), this does not mean they have a right to free contraceptives and abortifacients. Moreover, this right certainly does not mean that a person has the right to obtain contraceptives and abortifacients—either directly or indirectly—from their employer at the expense of pillaging the employer’s religious liberty.”

Click here to read TMLC’s entire 19-page brief  

TMLC, representing thirty-six plaintiffs including six religious non-profit organizations, has filed twelve lawsuits challenging the illegal aims of the HHS Mandate.