Tag Archive for: Washington

No Syrian Muslims migrants have been placed in Washington D.C.! Why?

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Syrian processing to America on steroids, governors like Maryland Governor Hogan can’t do a thing about it.

Remember Simon Henshaw as the State Department official charged with assuring you that Syrians they admit are all good and decent people (like the sexual deviant arrested in Massachusetts last week?) Henshaw’s bio is here.

There isn’t much new and useful in this AP story from Saturday, but wanted to mention it only because once again the feds are telling concerned governors to go fly a kite—the UN/US State Dept. is speeding up the Syrian refugee processing in Jordan and Turkey. Governors are impotent to stop it is the message.

Simon henshaw 3

Simon Henshaw, U.S. State Department official.

There is a little nugget here that I didn’t know about: Apparently the DEMOCRAT mayor of Roanoke, VA did not want Syrians resettled in an already refugee-overloaded city.

We’ve written a few times about Roanoke perhaps most famous for the refugee gang found guilty there for planning to kidnap and ransom some prominent women in the town, here in 2009.  (Gee, I wonder if they were deported when they were released after their short prison sentence?)

Associated Press (at the Washington Post):

Dozens of Syrian refugees were settled in Maryland and Virginia in June, part of a sharp nationwide increase as the U.S. government scrambles to meet its goal of admitting 10,000 refugees in fiscal 2016.

The surge has come despite opposition from more than half of the nation’s governors, including Maryland’s Larry Hogan (R), all of whom say they are not satisfied with the federal government’s assurances that refugees are carefully vetted and screened.

[…..]

The pace of refugee resettlement has quickened in part because processing facilities in Istanbul and in Amman, Jordan, have been upgraded and more Department of Homeland Security teams have been deployed to interview refugees, a State Department official said.

“We pushed all those things together so they would happen sequentially and more quickly,” said Simon Henshaw, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.

In Maryland, 78 Syrians were settled in June – bringing the total to 115 since October. Sixty-seven arrived in Virginia last month, out of 87 resettled in the state this year. Fifteen of them have been placed in Roanoke, where the Democratic mayor attracted national controversy last fall for citing the internment of Japanese citizens as a reason to bar Syrian refugees.

No refugees have been brought to the District of Columbia, according to the State Department data. [No, of course not!—ed]

Continue reading here.

Photo: My reference to the Syrian charged with sexual assault refers to this story.  And, here, Breitbart has Pamela Geller’s reaction to the latest refugee sex crime.

End Note: In truth, Gov. Hogan and other of the governors concerned about the program could do something about it if they had the political will, but most don’t.  It is easy to say they don’t like what is happening to satisfy voters, but quite another to put on the state’s rights fight that would be necessary.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Which resettlement contractors are screwing up in Michigan?

More on Rutland Vermont’s refugee controversy

Toronto Star edited Canadian Press report to remove troubling details on Syrian refugees

Tennessee AG allows 10th Amendment lawsuit to be filed against feds!

D.C. Is Artificial by Richard Lorenc

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As a part of my job, I travel to Washington, DC, fairly often. (More and more, it seems like everyone’s business is centered in that place.)

The monuments and museums are impressive, and the city life is vibrant, but I can never shake the feeling that the nation’s capital is a fake city.

Compare Washington to Chicago, America’s “second city” and my favorite.

It’s not that my trips there are bad. I see a lot of friends and colleagues, meet new people, and usually have pleasant and productive meetings. I’ve enjoyed walking around Georgetown, and I even got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Capitol Building by a friend who works there.

Rather, it’s that, as a city, DC is a place removed from reality. It’s a dream world, where the main economy really is zero-sum, and where people who work for, around, or on government are required to avoid practicing politeness.

Allow me to contrast DC with Chicago along three dimensions: geography, economy, and society.

Chicago exists where it does because it is accessible by water routes. The Chicago River, Lake Michigan, and others made it easier for people and goods to locate to this spot many decades ago.

The District of Columbia, although it too is located on a river, is situated where it is because of a political compromise between the North and the South. It sits between Virginia and Maryland so that no one geographic faction could too easily commandeer the levers of the federal government. DC was not located where it is because that place was the best place to build a city where people wanted to live or make things. It was spawned from contentious political wrangling over issues such as slavery.

Ask yourself whether so many people would live in the DC area were it not for all the power we’ve ceded to the federal government. Chicago, on the other hand, exists because its location offered unique advantages to people engaged in serving their fellow man. Washington is sited through human design; Chicago through human action.

Then there are the cities’ economic differences. Chicago’s economy was based originally on commodities such as fur and meat. It moved to manufacturing, printing, and trading to become the center of finance, banking, and education it is today. Each of these industries emerged locally because people specializing in them here made their services valuable to others. The city’s economy changed because people stopped needing fur so much, meat became cheaper to produce elsewhere, and Chicago was no longer the best place for manufacturing.

Chicago’s economy adapted and evolved according to the demands of others, while Washington’s has not. Its economy has largely remained static, unchanging, and uncreative. That’s not to say its economy hasn’t grown — per capita income in the DC area is now highest among the 50 states, by far. This is because the federal government has amassed more and more power, money, and human capital as the years have passed.

Some time ago, I hadn’t been to DC for a few years, and when I returned, I was shocked at how many ads I saw that aimed to persuade people in power to use your money and mine to fund private energy and agricultural companies. Unlike Chicago, Washington’s economy is not based on creating true value for others. Rather, it is based on redistributing the wealth of the country and skimming some from the top. That skimming represents billions of dollars of wasted resources that might have been used to grow the economic pie had they remained available to those who create value, rather than fueling the ambitions of lobbyists, politicians, and government staffers.

But the most important contrast between Washington and an organic American city: society. Although five of Chicago’s top six employers are government entities, most people and businesses here don’t make their livings by dipping into a Niagara Falls of tax revenues.

That means business dealings are done much more on the basis of voluntary decisions. People expect to receive something valuable when they decide freely whether to exchange their money for something else. Likewise, the seller accepts the buyer’s money because it is worth more to him than what he is peddling. If either condition isn’t met, these people won’t meet again. But when they are met — which is every time you buy a coffee from Starbucks — you have the opportunity to practice politeness with someone with whom you may have never interacted otherwise.

Voluntary exchange gives us the chance to act decently with people of different backgrounds and opinions. Of course, there is voluntary exchange in DC, and there are many opportunities for people to behave civilly outside of their work: concerts, museums, theatre, sports. But given that Washington’s primary industry is government, these opportunities occur with less frequency there.

For example, if I am a staffer who works for Senator Red and you are one who works for Senator Blue, it’s likely we’ll regard the other with suspicion or contempt if we ever meet. Because government can only redistribute wealth created elsewhere, the government-centric economy really is zero-sum: if you win, I lose. Although some of this exists everywhere that government takes from some to give to others, it is most acute in Washington.

I admire the ornate buildings and monuments in Washington as much as anyone else. They’re impressive feats of artistic and architectural expression. They remind us of our history. In those ways, they are valuable. But I am saddened when I think about how they inspire reverence toward government power as the means solve every problem.

DC is an artificial city. Chicago is real.

Richard LorencRichard Lorenc

Richard N. Lorenc is the Chief Operating Officer of FEE and Publisher of the Freeman.

Stop Iran Rally in Washington, D.C.: Remarks by Hispanic Pastor Mario Bramnick

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End the Iran Deal rally on September 8th, 2015 in Washington, D.C. at the Capitol West Lawn. Remarks by Pastor Mario Bramnick, President of the Hispanic Israel Leadership Coalition.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Iran deal bait-and-switch – The Boston Globe

UN IAEA: Iran Violated Nuclear Deal Before it is Even Inked

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Amidst frenetic Administration efforts to spin a possible Iran deal comes evidence that it has already been violated given an IAEA Report and analysis by Washington, DC –nuclear watchdog, the Institute for Science and International Security.   Adam Kredo in today’s Washington Free Beacon  reported these last minute developments, “Iran Violates Past Nuclear Promises on Eve of Deal”:

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) disclosed yesterday that Iran has failed to meet its commitments under the interim Joint Plan of Action to convert recently enriched uranium gas to powder.

While Iran has reduced the amount of enriched uranium gas in its stockpiles, it has failed to dispose of these materials in a way that satisfies the requirements of the nuclear accord struck with the United States and other powers in 2013.

Wednesday’s disclosure by the IAEA sent the State Department rushing to downplay the Iranian violation.

Obama administration officials insisted that despite Iran’s failure to meet its obligations, negotiations were still on track and that Tehran would face no repercussions.

One U.S. official who spoke with the Associated Press on Wednesday said that instead of converting its uranium gas into uranium dioxide powder as required, Iran had transformed it into another substance. The IAEA found that Iran had converted just 9 percent of the relevant stockpile into uranium dioxide.

The official went on to downplay concerns about Iran’s violation, claiming that Tehran was only having some “technical problems.”

The “technical problems by Iran had slowed the process but the United States was satisfied that Iran had met its commitments,” the AP reported the official as saying.

“Violations by Iran would complicate the Obama administration’s battle to persuade congressional opponents and other skeptics,” the AP continued.

David Albright, a nuclear expert and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), warned that the United States is weakening its requirements on Tehran as a final deal gets closer.

“The choosing of a weaker condition that must be met is not a good precedent for interpreting more important provisions in a final deal,” Albright wrote in an analysis published late Wednesday.

While Iran was not in compliance with the oxidation requirement, the IAEA found that it did get rid of uranium gas that surpassed a self-imposed benchmark of 7,650 kg.

The IAEA’s disclosures are in contrast to comments made by Kerry last summer when he assured observers that Iran would live up to the interim agreement.

“Iran has committed to take further nuclear-related steps in the next four months” and “these include a continued cap on the amount of 5 percent enriched uranium hexafluoride and a commitment to convert any material over that amount into oxide,” Kerry said.

The Israel Project (TIP), which has sent officials to Vienna to track the deal, wrote in an email to reporters that the administration looked like it was “playing Tehran’s lawyer” in a bid to defuse potential fallout from the IAEA’s report.

This is not the first time that Iran has been caught by the IAEA cheating on past nuclear arrangements.

As negotiations between the sides slip past their June 30 deadline and stretch into July, Iranian officials have become more insistent that the United States consent to demands on a range of sticking points.

President Hassan Rouhani also threatened to fully restart Iran’s nuclear program if negotiators fail to live up to any final agreement.

One Western source present in Vienna said the administration is scrambling to ensure that nothing interferes with a final deal.

“Once again, the White House will go to any length needed to preserve the Obama-Iran deal, even if it means covering up Iran’s failure to convert all of the nuclear material as promised,” said the source.

“If they had admitted Iran failed to live up to the letter of the JPOA—as is the case—this one-week extension period of the JPOA would be totally invalidated and the talks would be over,” the source added. “Like they have for months, the administration continues to hide violations and is acting more like Iran’s advocate than the honest broker the American people deserve. “

Will these IAEA/ISIS revelations upend the P5+1 Iran deliberations in Vienna?  We bet the Obama State Department and White House spokespersons will continue the charade of “don’t believe your lying eyes”. All while Iran ‘s Supreme Ruler stiff arms the talks in Vienna with new ‘red lines” trusting that greed by the P5+1 over billions of trade and development deals  will  lift $150 billion in sanctions relief upon inking a deal.  Both Israel and the US Congress are increasing wary of this deal that will provide a nuclear breakthrough by Iran. If achieved the deal  will vault Iran’s  state sponsorship of terrorism.  Iran could develop one bomb to wipe Israel off the map of the world and an ICBM to detonate an EMP over the US fulfilling their Mahdist apocalyptic dream and both Israel’s and our nightmares.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of U.S. Energy Secertary Moniz, Secretary of State Kerry and Undersecretary Wendy Sherman taken in Vienna, July 1, 2015. Source: Reuters.

Communist member of the Seattle City Council steps down

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Goodbye Comrade Sally Clark City Council District 9 Seattle, Washington State. Many thanks for your personal email telling me you are now stepping down from this position. I hope my emails telling you over the years what a disaster you are-were for free markets and capitalism in Seattle helped you pack your little ditty bag and clean out your cubicle.

Your mission to raise the minimum wage in Seattle for entry level non skilled jobs from $9.32 to $ 15 was a huge success. Now you are part of the history books and can be remembered for crushing the Seattle economy and destroying jobs. Karl Marx would be very proud of you but now you are quitting and this is great.

So now your job killing strategy is a success and many workers look forward to the higher pay, while employers are looking for ways to absorb the big increase in labor costs. Some plan on eliminating jobs. Some plan on moving out of Seattle. I say come to Florida to a free market capitalist state free of Communism.

“We’re going to be looking at making some serious cuts,” said Cedarbrook Lodge General Manager Scott Ostrander. “We’re going to be looking at reducing employee hours, reducing benefits and eliminating some positions.” Hey Obama-Romney care did this too…. wam wam double wammy on Seattle.

A local trade group it is going to close one of its two restaurants, eliminating 200 jobs.

The plan has also caused Han Kim — who runs Hotel Concepts, a company that owns and manages 11 hotels in Washington state — to shelve plans to build a hotel in SeaTac. The company already has three hotels in SeaTac, and Kim and a business partner were looking to build a fourth on land they own. More jobs lost. Source Fox News.

“Uncertainty is bad for business, and right now we’re right in that area so we’re just putting everything on hold,” Kim said.

One of the biggest supporters is your friend Kshama Sawant, a self proclaimed socialist-Communist who also won her election to the Seattle City Council. She plans on keeping Seattle a $15 minimum wage city. You won’t have many hotels or restaurants left but who cares right ?

Your colleague Sawant said. “There may be a few jobs lost here and there, but the fact is, if we don’t fight for this, then the race to the bottom will continue,” Really…? The race to the bottom will continue ? My friend in Baton Rouge started out flipping burgers in McDonald’s 30 years ago and now he owns 9 restaurants. You call that a race to the bottom? Typical Communist mentality. Sawant needs to move back to North Korea cleaning the barracks at the forced labor camp.

The American Car Rental Association estimates 5 percent of low-wage jobs will be cut; and another 5-10 percent of those workers will be replaced by more experienced workers.

The owner of Dollar Rental Cars told Fox News she’ll outsource some functions, change schedules and cut some staff in response to the new policy. More jobs lost!

So Ms. Sally there you go, your Communist ideology just put thousands of people out of work but you did probably down size the city as more people move to free states. So as Seattle becomes a ghost town and you plug in your iron from your solar paneled apartment and run it over your Hammer and Sickle a few times before draping it over your balcony, smile.

Much luck in your future endeavors. I know you tried to ban plastic bags too and that failed but keep on trying Comrade. Don’t let the door hit you in your rear on the way out.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Alan Berner / The Seattle Times, 2014.

Obama Invoked the ‘Brzezinski Doctrine’ to Shoot Down IAF Planes Attacking Iran?

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Last night, I glanced at a report from a Kuwaiti  news paper and thought it looked suspiciously familiar. The Kuwaiti publication Al-Jarida published a report that a senior Israeli minister with alleged close ties to the Obama Administration had tipped off  Secretary of State Kerry about  a possible IAF attack against selected Iranian nuclear facilities.  Israel National News (INN)  reported:

U.S. President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.

Following Obama’s threat, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to abort the planned Iran attack.

According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel’s back.

Al-Jarida quoted “well-placed” sources as saying that Netanyahu, along with Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon, and then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, had decided to carry out airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear program after consultations with top security commanders.

According to the report, “Netanyahu and his commanders agreed after four nights of deliberations to task the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Benny Gantz, to prepare a qualitative operation against Iran’s nuclear program. In addition, Netanyahu and his ministers decided to do whatever they could do to thwart a possible agreement between Iran and the White House because such an agreement is, allegedly, a threat to Israel’s security.”

The sources added that Gantz and his commanders prepared the requested plan and that Israeli fighter jets trained for several weeks in order to make sure the plans would work successfully. Israeli fighter jets reportedly even carried out experimental flights in Iran’s airspace after they managed to break through radars.

If this sounds like déjà vu all over again, as baseball great Yogi Berra might opine, it should. Back in 2008, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Carter National Security Advisor, was a foreign policy consultant to then Senator Obama in the midst of his first Presidential campaign. He became a center of controversy when he publicly favored the shoot down of IAF aircraft transiting Middle East airspace in an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, in a September 21, 2009, INN report wrote:

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who enthusiastically campaigned for U.S. President Barack Obama, has called on the president to shoot down Israeli planes if they attack Iran. “They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” said the former national security advisor to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in an interview with the Daily Beast. Brzezinski, who served in the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981, is currently a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Maryland.

“We have to be serious about denying them that right,” he said. “If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a ‘Liberty’ in reverse.’” Israel mistakenly attacked the American Liberty ship during the Six-Day War in 1967.

Brzezinski was a top candidate to become an official advisor to President Obama, but he was downgraded after Republican and pro-Israel Democratic charges during the campaign that Brzezinski’s anti-Israel attitude would damage Obama at the polls.

But like a bad penny, the Brzezinski doctrine popped up in an exchange in 2010 between Admiral Mike Mullins, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an Air Force ROTC cadet at the University  of West Virginia. Gil Ronen of INN in an April 21, 2010 report noted:

The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, evaded a question Tuesday regarding the theoretical possibility that the US would shoot down IAF jets en route to attack Iran.

The Weekly Standard reported that in a town hall meeting on the campus of the University of West Virginia, a US Air Force ROTC cadet asked Mullen to respond to a hypothetical situation: if Israel decided to attack Iran, he said, its jets would need to fly through Iraqi airspace, which is considered a “no-fly” zone by the American military. Would US troops shoot down the Israeli jets, the airman asked, if they entered that zone?

Mullen evaded the question. “We have an exceptionally strong relationship with Israel,” he said. “I’ve spent a lot of time with my counterpart in Israel. So we also have a very clear understanding of where we are. And beyond that, I just wouldn’t get into the speculation of what might happen and who might do what. I don’t think it serves a purpose, frankly,” he said. “I am hopeful that this will be resolved in a way where we never have to answer a question like that.”

The cadet insisted: “Would an airman like me ever be ordered to fire on an Israeli aircraft or personnel?”

Mullen still would not answer directly. “Again, I wouldn’t move out into the future very far from here,” he said. “They’re an extraordinarily close ally, have been for a long time, and will be in the future.”

Mullen, appearing in a forum at Columbia University on Sunday, equated the danger of a nuclear Iran with the danger of an attack on it. “”I worry . . . about striking Iran. I’ve been very public about that because of the unintended consequences. I think Iran having a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. I think attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome,”  He did not mention the added danger to Israel of a nuclear Iran that has vowed publicly to destroy the Jewish State.

Israel - Iran War Scenarios 12-14

For a larger view click on the map.

Israel may be prepared to counter an Iranian S-300 threat. We commented in a 2010, Iconoclast Post:

In June 2008, Israel’s air force undertook massive air training exercises involving more than 100 aircraft in the eastern Mediterranean against Greek S-300 Russian air defense systems. That effort demonstrated the canny effectiveness of swarming attacks against the S-300 and later versions that upset the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guards.

That did not go unnoticed by the IRGC Air Force commanders.   They had put in orders for  an advanced version of the S-300 system to counter a possible Israeli air attack threat. However, Russia  was prevailed upon  by Israel and the US not to deliver those air defense systems.  Just after the January 18, 2015 Golan attack that took out senior Hezbollah and Iranian Al Quds commanders, there was a meeting in Tehran  on January 20, 2015 between, Russian Defense Minister Shogui and Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Dehghan. We noted in a January 21, 2015 Iconoclast post:

TAAS reported the US studying the announced Russian –Iranian military agreement, but specifically objecting to possible shipment of the S-300/400 air defense system. Russia might finally ship Iran the advanced S-300 air defense system that both the US and Israeli successfully lobbied former Russian President Medvedev in 2010 to cancel.  Immediate payment by Iran of $800 million for the S-300 system may have cemented the deal.  This defense cooperation deal is a prelude to a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President   Hassan Rouhani in a Central Asian republic location.

The Russian delivery of the S-300/400 air defense system to Iran  maybe a  possible counter to the IAF December 8, 2014 attacks at Damascus  International airport hangars  that destroyed  deliveries of missiles headed for Hezbollah in Lebanon and allegedly killed two senior  terrorist proxy operatives.

While the threat of the Brzezinski doctrine allegedly may have been invoked by President Obama to foil an alleged IAF attack in 2014 against Iranian nuclear facilities, the Israelis are prepared in that eventuality to spring some surprises that neither the US nor Iran had planned to  counter.  These reports reinforce the widening divide that has erupted between the Obama Administration and the Israeli Netanyahu government, the latter facing a general Knesset election on March 17th. PM Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington this evening demonstrates his determination to inform the American body polity of the clear and present dangers of Iran’s closure on becoming a nuclear threshold state  as witnessed by the  leaks of a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding revealed in our February 27, 2015 post.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Obama’s Treachery Report: Israel forced to call off 2014 strike on Iran after Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli jets

Iran behind cyber-attack on Adelson’s Sands Corp.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is courtesy of BreakForNews.com.

Defending Liberty in Washington, D.C. on March 3, 2015

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Today is the final segment of our week-long DEFEND LIBERTY series that focus’ on the imminent visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu to Washington, D.C. and the Defenders of Liberty Motorcycle Club’s fabulous Rally in support of Israel. We get new and important information from the DOLMC spokesperson, “Wall” that will make every patriot in America want to get to D.C. on March 3, 2015 and stand with us for America, Israel and the West!

Also, we have a Skype extravaganza with Ganoe from Tel Aviv, Egozi from somewhere in Israel and Jerusalem Jane from…Jerusalem!

RELATED ARTICLE: Apple CEO Tim Cook on Terrorism: “these people shouldn’t exist. They should be eliminated.”

Obama Administration supports Radical Islam: State Department Hosts Pro-Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian Contingent

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Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council State Department 1-1-27-15

Waleed Sharaby, Secretary  General of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council, who flashes the Rabia Muslim Brotherhood resistance sign. U.S. State Department 1-27-15, Source: screenshot.

Tuesday evening in Washington, D.C., we had more evidence of the Administration’s policy of appeasing Muslim Brotherhood opponents of the Al-Sisi government in Cairo, the latter seeking to reform radical Islamic doctrine espousing Salafist Jihad.  Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon reported this latest example of outreach to Radical Islamist groups in the Ummah, “Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders Hosted at State Department:”

One member of the delegation, a Brotherhood-aligned judge in Egypt, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom in which he held up the Islamic group’s notorious four-finger Rabia symbol, according to his Facebook page.

That delegation member, Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council and a spokesman for Judges for Egypt, a group reported to have close ties to the Brotherhood.

The delegation also includes Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood, and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor.

Sharaby, the Brotherhood-aligned judge, flashed the Islamist group’s popular symbol in his picture at the State Department and wrote in a caption: “Now in the U.S. State Department. Your steadfastness impresses everyone,” according to an independent translation of the Arabic.

Another member of the delegation, Maha Azzam, confirmed during an event hosted Tuesday by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID)—another group accused of having close ties to the Brotherhood—that the delegation had “fruitful” talks with the State Department.

Note this comment of Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

“Maha Azzam confirms that ‘anti-coup’ delegation, which includes 2 top [Muslim Brothers], had ‘fruitful’ conversations at State Dept,” Egypt expert Eric Trager tweeted.

“The State Department continues to speak with Muslim Brothers on the assumption that Egyptian politics are unpredictable, and the Brotherhood still has some support in Egypt,” he said. “But when pro-Brotherhood delegations then post photos of themselves making pro-Brotherhood gestures in front of the State Department logo, it creates an embarrassment for the State Department.”

Sam Tadros, Egypt expert at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, DC commented:

“I think the Muslim Brotherhood visit serves two goals,” Tadros said. “First, organizing the pro Muslim Brotherhood movement in the U.S. among the Egyptian and other Arab and Muslim communities.”

“Secondly, reaching out to administration and the policy community in D.C.,” Tadros said. “The delegation’s composition includes several non-official Muslim Brotherhood members to portray an image of a united Islamist and non-Islamist revolutionary camp against the regime.”

Counter terrorism expert, Patrick Poole said:

What this shows is that the widespread rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East, particularly the largest protests in recorded human history in Egypt on June 30, 2013, that led to Morsi’s ouster, is not recognized by the State Department and the Obama administration,” Poole said.

“This is a direct insult to our Egyptian allies, who are in an existential struggle against the Muslim Brotherhood, all in the pursuit of the mythical ‘moderate Islamists’ who the D.C. foreign policy elite still believe will bring democracy to the Middle East,” Poole said.

It is beyond time for the GOP-controlled Congress to investigate why the Administration deigns to provide auspices to invite Egyptian and other foreign Muslim Brotherhood leaders to meet publicly with White House National Security and State Department officials in Washington. This latest example continues the impression that the Obama Administration supports Radical Islamic doctrine.  It is a further example of how far the Administration has gone in fostering infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood domestic and foreign groups in the U.S. enabling their  “messaging”.  All while this Administration persists in deracinating the vestiges of Jihad threat doctrine training for our military, homeland security and national law enforcement agencies.

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

Naming The Enemy – 2 Million Bikers to D.C.

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The 2 Million Bikers to DC rally is to honor the victims of 9-11, the survivors and first responders.

We salute our members of the Armed Forces and their families who have sacrificed so much in the name of duty, honor, and country. God bless America and God bless our troops.

Our country is rooted in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and rule of law. Our national identity of freedom and liberty is what we’ve been fighting for since the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. The names have changed but our enemies who hit us on 9/11, all fly under the black flag of Jihad. It is also under that black flag of Jihad they will be defeated.

Everyone is invited to join together, on the National Mall, in a celebration of American Exceptionalism.

People will be coming from all over the country by motorcycle, plane and car to remember 9/11 in our nations Capitol.
Last year a group called The American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC) led by Rabbi MD Alam were granted permits for a 9/11/2013 Million Muslim March on the National Mall.

AMPAC picked the anniversary of the largest terrorist attack on United States soil surpassing even Pearl Harbor, to hold their Million Muslim March. The devout followers of Islam coordinating the Million Muslim March knew they would offend most every American in the country who watched our commercial airliners hijacked by Islamic terrorists, fly into the Twin Towers, Pentagon, and the last plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, PA.

AMPAC did not realize its insensitivity toward the American people would result in the largest motorcycle rally ever to descend on our nations capitol.

When word began to spread about the 2013 Million Muslim March a grassroots counter demonstration called 2 Million Bikers To DC was started on a single lonely Facebook page. Belinda Bee and the original group of founders joined forces and upwards of 80,000 bikers descended on Washington D.C. capturing the imagination of the nation.

Belinda Bee, Mike Belair along with their army of volunteers say the 2014 2 Million Bikers To DC Rally will be far bigger than last year. Madison Rising will provide the live entertainment along with a host of speakers. Sponsors include Harley Davidson, Budweiser, Breitbart, The United West, Operation 300, Tea Party Community and America The Movie.com.

Speakers include Dinesh D’Souza, Jan Morgan, Tom Trento, Carl Higbie – Former Navy SEAL, Karen Vaughn, Pastor Manning, Pope Dan Johnson, Manny Vega and more than we can name here.

Biotech Researcher Finds Medical Pot Laced With Feces & Vaginal Bacteria

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One of the fallacies of “medical” marijuana is that it is safe, much like the aspirin or prescription drugs we take based on a doctor’s order. That is not the case according to Bloomberg’s Peter Robinson. Robinson reports:

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Oaksterdam Uk Blue Cheese/Blueberry Kush. Photo courtesy of Mary Janebly.

Months after her biotechnology company sold for $40 million, Jessica Tonani is on Seattle’s Highway 99, where Kurt Cobain in his final days shot heroin in cheap motels. She’s scoring a gram of Blueberry Kush.

Tonani doesn’t plan to smoke the pot. Her typical procedure is to isolate some of its DNA and bank it, sequence its genetic profile, and test it for bacteria. After her stop at Choice Wellness, a medical marijuana store in one of the states where pot is newly legal, she buys the same strain in three more places (often collecting a “new-patient gift” of pot-infused gummi bears or goldfish). The goal for her new company, Verda Bio, is to build a database bringing order to billions of potential DNA combinations and, eventually, create stable strains that people can grow like a Red Delicious apple.

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Tonani analyzed more than 20 samples of Harlequin along with Analytical 360, a Seattle testing lab, and found that 22 percent were high in the psychedelic tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and had almost no CBD. Any kids taking it were likely just getting stoned.

Tonani is also looking at contaminants to determine where they’re introduced and how to control for them. The first two samples turned up a long list of nastiness, including the fecal bacteria Enterobacter asburiae and the vaginal bacteriaGardnerella vaginalis. What this means, politely, is that many people handling pot don’t wash their hands.

Read more.

Others have found pot samples collected contaminated with pot shops rarely testing to insure customers get a safe product. “The whole thing is just so loose and unregulated,” said Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly, Director of the Marijuana Research Project at the University of Mississippi.

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Green Crack ads on The Denver Post’s Cannabist website. For a larger view click on the image.

Bob Doyle, Chairman of the Colorado Smart Approaches to Marijuana Coalition, Christian Thurstone, M.D., General, child and addiction psychiatrist and A. Eden Evins, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School Director, Center for Addiction Medicine Massachusetts General Hospital in a letter to Greg Moore, Editor of The Denver Post, and Ricardo Baca, Editor of The Cannabist, wrote:

We are writing to express serious concerns regarding The Denver Post’s The Cannabist website’s recommendations of various marijuana strains to “treat” mental illnesses, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  We are writing as concerned professionals with extensive experience in mental health treatment, medicine, and/or public health.

The Denver Post’s web site provides information from Leafly.com listing 92 Colorado specific strains of marijuana with 88 claimed to treat depression, 25 to treat PTSD, 23 for bipolar, and 40 for ADHD (see attached document assembled by Bob Doyle, Chair, Colorado SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) Coalition).  And a few strains are noted to treat cancer.  The improper treatment or delay in effective treatment of mental health issues and major psychiatric illnesses can exacerbate the problem and could lead to additional harm to the patient and/or those around them.

In light of the serious potential impact of your recommendations, including possible delay in medical treatment for serious and potentially life threatening mental illnesses, and the potential for worsening of those illnesses by the marijuana you recommend, we request that you release the data upon which these recommendations for dispensing the specific marijuana strains as a treatment for bipolar disorder, PTSD, ADHD, and depression are based.  We are sending a copy of this letter to medical authorities with knowledge of science and regulatory policies and procedures.

The absence of critical information on the web site for those accepting your advice to use the various marijuana strains is alarming and demonstrates a failure to appreciate the potential implications of your protocol.  For each of the strains, we request to know the recommended dosage, duration, the THC and CBD content, whether you’re recommending they be used with or without FDA approved medication or behavioral treatment for the condition, what contraindications are known, and whether other physical or mental health issues should preclude certain people from using the strain.

We look forward to your prompt reply given the seriousness of the claims on your web site and their potential negative impact on serious psychiatric conditions your web site claims will be “treated” by particular strains of marijuana.

This is coming to Florida now and will get worse if the Marijuana Amendment 2 passes in November. Gird your loins.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Jessica Tonani, President of Verda Bio testing pot samples in Washington state.

Pardon My Paranoia

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An organization, Patriots for America, is calling for millions of Americans to descend on Washington, D.C on May 16th for Operation American Spring whose purpose is to demand that President Obama and others in his administration be removed from office.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Ddg7fYtdGUY[/youtube]

Among the rules of engagement set forth on their Internet site include (1) no weapons, no ammunition. “The Communist forces that control Washington, D.C. do not recognize the 2nd Amendment and have banned all weapons and ammunition from the district. Do not give them the opportunity to arrest you and prosecute you.” (2) Follow all rules of the road. (3) Comply with all constitutional requests of local authorities. And (4) travel in groups of four or greater.

Geoff Ross is identified as the senior chief of the organization that wants participants to be prepared to stay as long as it takes for Congress to take action. The event suggests that he and many supportive groups think the U.S. is at risk of losing its constitutional government so long as Barack Obama is President.

The worst possible scenario to the event would be if some element of the law enforcement authority is ordered to fire on the gathering, but I recall that in July 2008 presidential candidate Obama said that Americans could no longer “…continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

America does not need a civilian national security force.

We have the military whose job is to protect us against foreign invasion and we have state and local police authorities in our towns and cities to address riots and large protests. The force the President wants would exist solely to intimidate and control Americans who he deems his enemies.

What we do have in the wake of 9/11 is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and it is not intended to be a military force although it does include the Coast Guard. On March 23, 2013, Capt. Terry M. Hestilow, U.S. Army retired, wrote to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) warning that DHS is preparing to go to war with the citizens of the United States.

“It is with gravest concern that I write to you today concerning the recent appropriation of weapons by the DHS that can only be understood as a bold threat of war by that agency, and the Obama administration, against the citizens of the United States of America.” He expressed his concerns over “recent purchases of almost 3,000 mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) armored personnel carriers, 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition (with associated weapons), and other weapons systems.”

“One needs only look to the rise of Adolf Hitler,” wrote Capt. Hestilow, “and his associated DHS organizations, the SA and the SS, of 1932-1934, to see the outcome of allowing an agency of government this kind of control over the free citizens of a nation.”

In a February 5, 2014 article on Infowars.com, Kit Daniels reported that “The U.S. Postal Service is currently seeking companies that can provide “assorted small arms ammunition in the new future. The U.S. Postal Service joins the long list of non-military federal agencies purchasing large amounts of ammunition.”

What has a growing number of Americans concerned is this arming of government agencies we do not associate with the need to be heavily armed. “Since 2001, the U.S. Department of Education has been building a massive arsenal through purchases orchestrated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms” reported Daniels. “Back in July, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also purchased 72,000 rounds of 40 Smith and Wesson, following a 2012 purchase for 46,000 rounds of .40 S&W jacketed hollow point by the National Weather Service.”

One might assume that the DHS needs to be armed to some degree, but there is no logical reason for the Post Office, the Department of Education, and NOAA to be heavily armed. Reportedly DHS spent over $58 million to hire security details for just two Social Security offices in Maryland and $80 million for armed guards to protect government buildings in New York and more guards for federal facilities in Wisconsin and Minnesota. “Even the Environmental Protection Agency has its own SWAT teams conducting raids on peaceful Americans,” wrote Daniels.

DHS has been engaged in a program to provide military-style weapons and vehicles to local police forces around the nations.

My most profound fear, my paranoia, concerning the May 16 protest, despite its instructions to participants not be armed, is that some incident would escalate to a point where shots were exchanged. One can conceive of that serving as the reason to initiate an “emergency” proclamation and/or to declare martial law.

One gets the feeling that this government, under the direction of President Obama, is preparing for a national insurrection against his often lawless administration. The May 16 event would provide an excuse to initiate actions that would put us all under the gun.

I no longer believe “it can’t happen here.” We have a President who sees no reason to work with Congress and who recently “joked” that he can do whatever he wants.

I worry that members of our military and others would obey orders to impose governmental control to the extent that we might see widespread resistance by millions of armed Americans. I regard the surge in the purchase of weapons by private citizens during Obama’s terms in office as a reflection of the paranoia that I am feeling these days.

But is it paranoia? Or is it a reasonable assumption that a President who feels free to ignore the Constitution might have plans that do not include peaceful elections or his departure from the office?

© Alan Caruba, 2014

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