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There is a bill being presented again in the State of Ga. Legislature assuring that Sharia law will not become the basis of judging legal issues in our state. It failed to get the required support last year and is being resubmitted this year.
If you think this is not of concern now you are probably correct. However, it is the beginning of getting the camel's nose under the tent, so to speak, and it will become part of our legal system in time because the PC'ers and bleeders will support it as the egalitarian thing to do in a mixed society.
That is the same way illegal immigration started. One at a time then the flood followed.
Multi languages will be followed by a multi law system. After all it only 'fair and what difference does it make."
Well the difference it makes is the underpinning of our democracy which will go the way of all flesh!
Yeah, call me an alarmist! (See 2 and 2a below.)
Brigitte Gabriel and Frank Gaffney join Judge Jeanine for a compelling discussion of Sharia and it's role in Radical Islam. Jan 12, 2015. Click here to watch this eye opening news report
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New twist on why Osama 'sealed' his own fate :"Osama Bin Laden was living with 3 wives in one compound and never left the house for five years.
It is now believed he called the Navy Seals himself."
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Factual thoughts relating to Netanyahu and the Pope's address before Congress. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Our fearless leader: https://www.facebook.com/
And I cannot think of a better liar to follow the current one than Hillary! (See 4 below.)
A message from someone you have to love. (See 5 below.)
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Liberals have many critical issues they like to 'bleed' about. Gun control, welfare, oil drilling and its ecological impact etc. but the one they that really turns them on is saving those polar bears because of global warming.
Before man inhabited the earth we know there was a temperature period that killed a lot of animals. In order to press their argument apparently there has been some fudging, not the chocolate kind. (See 6 below.)
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In my introduction of John Podhoretz this coming Monday,I plan to begin by referring to John's father, Norman. I am going to specifically comment on his book "World War 4" so this article is most timely.
Taub's article is excellent and a very insightful read. (See 7 below.)
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Dick
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The War Irresolution
Obama wants Congress to endorse his hesitant anti-ISIS strategy.
Napoleon famously said that in warfare if you vow to take Vienna—take Vienna. President Obama ’s version of that aphorism might be—on the way to Vienna stop to summer in Salzburg, only use air power, and if the fighting isn’t over in a couple of years call the whole thing off.
How else to interpret the amazing draft of a resolution that Mr. Obama sent to Congress Wednesday requesting an authorization to use military force against Islamic State? The language would so restrict the President’s war-fighting discretion that it deserves to be called the President Gulliver resolution. Tie me down, Congress, please. Instead of inviting broad political support for defeating ISIS, the language would codify the President’s war-fighting ambivalence.
***
The draft is especially notable for its disconnect between military ends and means. The preamble contains a long and accurate parade of horribles about the “grave threat” posed by Islamic State. These include “horrific acts of violence” against women and girls, the murder “of innocent United States citizens,” and its intention “to conduct terrorist attacks internationally, including against the United States, its citizens, and interests.” Really bad guys.
But then the resolution proceeds to inform these killers about the limits of what the U.S. will do to defeat them. Mr. Obama wants Congress to put into statutory language that it “does not authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces in enduring offensive ground combat operations”; and that “the use of military force shall terminate” in three years “unless reauthorized.”
The time limit alone is reason to oppose the resolution, as we’ve seen in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama’s deadline on U.S. operations there has given the Taliban confidence to wait us out. A time limit also tells our coalition allies that the U.S. commitment against ISIS could end no matter the state of war at the time. Mr. Obama has said himself that degrading and destroying ISIS may take years, yet his draft would force the next President to seek a new authorization in 2018.
As for ground troops, Mr. Obama is asking Congress to endorse a military strategy that his own generals have said may be deficient. In a letter to Congress elaborating on the draft authorization, Mr. Obama says his draft “would provide the flexibility to conduct ground operations” in “limited circumstances, such as rescue operations” or “the use of special operations forces to take military action against ISIL leadership.” He says the resolution would only bar “long-term, large-scale ground combat operations” as in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But then get ready to parse the meaning of “enduring” and “offensive” ground operations. Is enduring more or less than a year? Or a month? We’d guess that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders takes the under.
“Offensive” is even more subject to interpretation. Does that mean ground troops are acceptable as long as they shoot in self-defense? Or that they can do everything but take territory? Winning a war is hard enough without such legal complications.
Mr. Obama’s draft language fairly describes his current war strategy. But a flawed military strategy that is ambiguous is better than a flawed strategy written into law. Mr. Obama’s strategy can be changed by the next President—unless it is codified by a flawed authorization.
Mr. Obama’s language could also get worse as it moves through Congress. Many Democrats and GOP libertarians want even more specific limits on ground troops, a shorter time limit, and a geographic limit on where the U.S. can fight.
Yet the flaws in this half-hearted war strategy are already clear. ISIS continues to hold nearly all of the territory it did when Mr. Obama announced his plans in September. One exception is the town of Kobane in Syria, where Kurdish troops drove out the jihadists with U.S. bombing help. But Kobane now resembles Dresden after World War II—a bombed out, empty shell.
Many ISIS commanders have been killed, and they have been forced to move more furtively. But they were still able to stage an attack on the Kurdish oil city of Kirkuk in the last month. And they are conducting widespread assassinations against Sunni tribal leaders who resist them and ought to be allies of the U.S.-led coalition.
ISIS is also using its staying power against U.S. bombing to burnish its credentials as the jihadist vanguard. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials now say foreign fighters are joining Islamic State “in unprecedented numbers,” including 3,400 from Western nations out of 20,000 from around the world.
***
Rather than put shackles on his generals, Mr. Obama should be urging them to mount a campaign to roll back ISIS as rapidly as possible from the territory it holds. That would be a genuine defeat—and the world would see it as one. It would also be a demonstration to potential ISIS recruits that if you join the jihad, you are likely to die, and soon.
Many Republicans will be tempted to vote for some resolution as a show of anti-ISIS resolve, and we’d support one without restrictions. But Mr. Obama already has the power to fight this conflict from the 2001 al Qaeda and 2002 Iraq resolutions and as Commander in Chief under the Constitution. He says so himself. What he really wants from this new authorization is political cover for his military strategy. Better no new authorization than one that makes victory more difficult.
1a)
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President Obama has just submitted his request for Congress to authorize the use of military force against the Islamic State. Does this mean the President is finally getting serious about waging an all-out war to crush the Radical Islamic force commonly known as "ISIS" or "ISIL"?
I wish the answer was yes. Unfortunately, I am not convinced. As with his Iran policy, the President appears to want to look like he is taking serious actions, without actually doing anything decisive to solve the grave problems we face.
Let me explain.
First, some facts:
· "The Obama administration has informed lawmakers that the president will seek a formal authorization to fight the Islamic State that would prohibit the use of 'enduring offensive ground forces' and limit engagement to three years," reports the New York Times. "The approach offers what the White House hopes is a middle way on Capitol Hill for those on the right and left who remain deeply skeptical of its plans to thwart extremist groups."
· "The sharpest debate is likely to focus on the prohibition of 'enduring offensive ground operations,'" notes the Times, adding that "the omission of any language setting geographic boundaries appeared to anticipate the possibility of attacking the group should it gain a foothold in Lebanon or Jordan, which has fought off sporadic attacks from Islamic State fighters. It could also be used to address future threats from small bands of violent Islamist militants in Libya, Yemen and other Middle Eastern and North African countries that have 'rebranded' their identities to take the Islamic State name, and benefit from its notoriety, American officials said."
Second, some analysis:
· Yes, in keeping with the U.S. Constitution, Congress should absolutely pass a resolution to authorize use of "all means necessary" to defeat ISIS.
· But this isn't what the President has requested. The President is not seeking the use of all tools to defeat this barbaric enemy.
· Rather, his request specifically rules out use of ground forces, even if that is what our commanders deem necessary to protect us from ISIS.
· Six months into his campaign of limited bombing runs against ISIS, the President and his team have still not developed a serious and comprehensive strategy to truly defeat the Islamic State and protect the American people and our allies from the scourge of Radical Islam.
· Indeed, the Obama administration refuses to name our enemy "Radical Islam."
· This AUMF request is another example of the President engaging in half-measures and trying to "lead from behind" in face of sheer evil, an enemy that is beheading Americans, engaging in genocide, and threatening our security and that of our allies.
· Tragically, by not taking firm and decisive action against our enemy, the President is foolishly creating conditions for "the gathering storm" of Iran, ISIS and other Radical Islamic to kill many Americans at home and abroad.
· The President's policy is also putting our allies such as NATO, Israel, friendly Arab states (like Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Morocco), and others at severe risk of being attacked by ISIS.
· In The Third Target, I paint a worst-case scenario of what could happen if an American President doesn't take decisive action against ISIS. I pray what I have written does not come to pass. Indeed, I hope that the debate over the AUMF resolution will help persuade President Obama to take wise and courageous steps to defend America and our allies before it is too late.
Third, some experts:
A growing number of experts on both sides of the aisle say the President has seriously and consistently misunderstood the nature of the ISIS threat, has repeatedly mishandled the situation, and has not shown prudent leadership in Iraq, Afghanistan or throughout the Middle East.
· Leon Panetta, the President's former Defense Secretary, recently wrote a book and gave a series of interviews asserting that the President has not listened to solid military advice. For example, Panetta said the President unwisely withdrew all U.S. military forces out of Iraq in 2011, against the counsel of his top advisors, and thus enabled ISIS to rise. The President "created a vacuum in terms of the ability of that country to better protect itself, and it's out of that vacuum that ISIS began to breed," noted Panetta.
· Robert Gates, another former Obama Defense Secretary, has also written a book castigating the President's leadership. "In scathing memoir, former SecDef Bob Gates describes his 'seething' anger against the President & his approach towards leadership and Mideast wars," I wrote in a blog post in January of 2014.
In this context, I commend the following to your attention.
· "America's Strategy Deficit," a must-read op-ed by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal.
· "National Security Threats," a recent U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with three expert witnesses: General Jack Keane (ret.), former Vice Chief of the U.S. Army; General James Mattis (ret.), former commander of CENTCOM; and Admiral William "Fox" Fallon (ret.). I watched the entire hearing and highly recommend all of it. But most important was General Keane's testimony on how al Qaeda/ISIS has grown four-fold in the past six years. (CSPAN video)
· "National Security Strategy," a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with three additional expert witnesses: Former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and Madeline Albright. They focused on the Iran nuclear threat, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the ISIS threat. Kissinger and Shultz are particularly helpful while Albright says that global climate change is the most serious threat facing U.S. national security. (CSPAN video)
Yes, I am critical of the President's policies. But I refuse to be a cynic. I am praying for him and believe he is smart enough to change direction. The Bible is full of stories of kings whose hearts and policies were changed by the living God. Mr. Obama has two more years in office and we need him to make important course corrections before it is too late. Please join me in faithfully praying for the President and his senior advisors.
1b)From a retired US Army Colonel in the Washington DC area.
You see, the difference between having a community organizer as a president and what Israel and Jordan have is a world of difference.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is a former IDF airborne commando. King Abdullah of Jordan is an American-trained Special Forces officer. These are warrior leaders. We in America have Kumbaya Ken dollThe head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) admitted in a hearing today that Obama did not consult his agency before releasing the five senior Taliban leaders.
When America, when are we going to stand up to this evil?
We are living in a world where we are accepting evil. Trust me, if we had a leader who was clear in issuing guidance and intent, if we had a leader who unleashed the killing power of the American military without the overly restrictive Rules of Engagement - the enemy would run.
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2)ISLAMIC TRIBUNAL IN THE STATE OF TEXAS USES SHARIA LAW
Author: Jessica Headley
DALLAS, Texas (KEYE) – Sharia Law, it's how Muslims settle disputes in many countries. Now that law is being practiced in what's believed to be a first-of-its-kind institution operating in the United States. In North Texas, just outside of Dallas, three men are the judges who make up what they call the Islamic Tribunal. “To help to solve the problems and the disputes between two parties,” said Imam Moujahed Bakhach.
Following Sharia, or Islamic law, the tribunal is operating as a legal nonprofit registered with the state of Texas. Their website states, “The need for a mediation and non-binding arbitration firm that adheres to Islamic principles in the Muslim community has been a long time in the making.” The judges say they only deal with civil cases in the community, helping settle issues ranging from business disputes to divorce. Most of their cases have concerned divorce. This tribunal has nothing to do with crime or punishments, the men say.
“Our work, we just fix the religious part and we file another suit as a regular case to the civil courts,” said judge Dr. Taher El-badawi. They believe the tribunal offers the Muslim community an option to resolve conflicts and disputes according to the principles of Islamic law. “This tribunal is not there to circumvent legal laws, federal laws, state laws — it is simply an arbitration,” said Imam Zia ul Haque Sheikh. “A tribunal where two parties that are disputing get together, they come to an agreement and then they present that agreement to a judge.”
They say the tribunal is there to help and can save people in the Muslim community time and money. But do their rulings conflict with U.S. laws? “The general rule is if you decide to use something other than a government-sanctioned court to resolve your dispute, then generally that will be respected and enforced,” said Austin-based attorney Pete Kennedy.
Kennedy says these types of organizations are not unique to the Muslim community. The judges say participating in the tribunal is voluntary, and even after a decision is made the case could still end up in traditional U.S. courts. “We do not have that kind of authority to force anyone to follow our decision. That's your decision if you accept it,” said El-badawai. “If you do not accept it, that's between you and your God.”
They say the idea for the Islamic Tribunal had been kicked around since 1991, but wasn't able to become a reality until 2013. During the past year, they can remember handling about 25 cases. They also noted there's no time limit to the length of the tribunal, but they can't remember exceeding three sessions for a case. According to the men, Islamic leaders from other states have been calling to find out how they started the tribunal. It could be something that's seen more in the future.
2a) Rush Limbaugh: GOP Doesn't Want To Stop Executive Amnesty
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh says that the Republicans aren't really "serious about opposing [President Barack] Obama's executive amnesty" because they don't really want to stop it.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the House needs to go back to the drawing board to come up with a Department of Homeland Security funding bill, which Republicans are trying to use to de-fund Obama's executive action on immigration, saying that the current measure is "stuck in the Senate," and it won't pass in it's current form because the Senate Democrats are filibustering the procedural motions. However, Limbaugh said during his program Wednesday that "there's no such thing as a bill that Democrats are going to support that does not fund the Department of Homeland Security."
To draw a comparison, the popular conservative talk show host asked, "how many weeks did the Senate Democrats spend ramming through Obamacare, illegally, via budget reconciliation?
"How come the Republicans give up so quickly? Why don’t they just use budget reconciliation in this case?" he continued.
"They tell us that they’re serious about opposing Obama’s executive amnesty, but they’re not. They don’t want to stop Obama’s executive amnesty, and so that’s why they’re not going to really work on this," he explained. According to Limbaugh, the reasoning behind delaying the DHS funding bill, after lawmakers passed the CRominibus bill in December, "was that rather than risk a wider government shutdown over Obama’s amnesty, Republicans would focus on the Department of Homeland Security funding, and they would risk a limited shutdown of that department and that department only if Obama and the Democrats refused to scale back his amnesty intentions."
However, he contends that "the Republicans were never really willing to shut down DHS either, and they made no secret of the fact.
"The Republicans were bluffing, and they admitted they were bluffing . . . so the Democrats have no reason to support the Republican bill. The whole thing is an out-and-out joke, folks,” he said.
"The Republicans are all set to squander it again," he added.
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3)-A Jew And A Catholic Were Invited To Congress, The Jew Was Treated Differently By The Dems And The Media
3)-A Jew And A Catholic Were Invited To Congress, The Jew Was Treated Differently By The Dems And The Media
A Jew and a Catholic went to Congress kind of sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it is what will be played out over the next few months. The Jew of course is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Catholic Pope Frances. Each was invited to speak under the same circumstances, but the reaction to the invitations was totally different.
Speaker Boehner invited two people to speak to a joint session of congress. The speaker didn't check with the President before making either invitation (nor did he have to). Each of the two speakers has something important to say to the members of congress.
The Premier of the Jewish State didn't accept the invitation until the President was informed he was roundly criticized for accepting. The head of the Catholic Church was invited and when he accepted no one asked if the President knew...everyone just cheered.
Only the Jewish man's visit was criticized. I am not saying his visit was bashed only because he is Jewish---I'm just pointing out a fact.
As of this writing all of these Progressives are refusing to listen to the Jew speak; Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, Representative John Lewis of Georgia, Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Representative G. K. Butterfield of North Carolina, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, and Vice President Joe Biden. Not one of these Democrats (and one Socialist) is refusing to listen to the Catholic speak.
Just because they will show up for the Pope and not for the Jew, it doesn't mean they made they made the decision based on religion. I am just pointing out what is happening.
The mainstream media is still saying the President didn’t know the Prime Minister was invited to speak, but the NY Times says Obama was informed before the Jewish man said yes.. On the day the head of the Catholic Church accepted the invitation the President didn't call it a breach of protocol even though he wasn’t consulted, in fact he said he was eager to welcome the pope to the U.S. "Like so many people around the world, I've been touched by his call to relieve suffering, and to show justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable."
The President says the breach of protocol was that the Jewish man is running for re-election and voting day is soon. But the president sent his Vice President and Secretary of State to meet with the man running against the Jewish Prime Minister.
It was strange that the President praised the leader of the Catholic Church but called the Jewish leader's acceptance of an invitation a breach of protocol. I am not saying the Jew's visit was a breach of protocol only because of his faith; I'm just pointing out fact.
A few months ago the President blasted the same Premier of the Jewish State for allowing Jews to purchase homes in certain areas of Jerusalem. It was a very unique criticism. That President had never criticized people of any other faith for buying homes in any other spot in the world.
Now I am not saying the President hated the home sale because the buyers were Jewish---I'm just pointing out a fact.
On Thursday, Nancy Pelosi said that many members of her caucus would be too busy to show up when the Prime Minister of the Jewish State spoke before Congress. "I don't think anybody should use the word 'boycott,'" Pelosi said. "When these heads of state come, people are here doing their work, they're trying to pass legislation, and they’re meeting with their constituents and the rest. It's not a high-priority item for them." Just a few hours earlier when she heard that the leader of the Catholic Church was going to speak before congress Pelosi said in a written statement that she looks forward to "hearing his call to live our values, to protect the poor and the needy, and to promote peace."
Why was Pelosi's reaction different for the Jew and the Catholic? I am not saying it had anything to do with the Jew's faith; I'm just pointing out the difference.
Essentially both leaders will be delivering a message about how we should be treating each other. The Pope is going to Congress to deliver a message of peace; his teachings are usually about how mankind should be nicer to each other no matter who they are. He speaks of a Savior who saves souls. The Jewish Premier is going to congress to talk about preventing one evil nation from creating a super weapon to kill millions of people, both in his country and in this country. People of both parties share his opinion.
One of the speakers is talking about saving souls; the other is talking about saving lives. But only the Jew's message is criticized in the mainstream media as a "slap" at the President. I am not saying its because he is Jewish, I am just point out a fact.
Two leaders invited to speak before a joint session of Congress, both were invited without first asking the White House, the president was aware of the invitations before each was accepted. Each of the leaders were close friends of the United States, each will deliver an important message designed to make this world a better place. But only the Pope is being welcomed.
I am not saying the Prime Minister visit is being criticized because he is Jewish and he leads the only Jewish country in the world, a country which is threatened by terrorists and by Iranian nuclear weapons, there must be a more logical reason---I just can't think of one right now.
BTW for those of you who believe my argument to be "over the top," I say rubbish! If I can be called racist every time I have disagreed with this President over past six years, people who are making these bogus claims about Netanyahu's visit especially member of the CDC who are making an organized effort to boycott Bibi's speech must be motivated by Antisemitism
![Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington.]()
5)-
3a)Black U.S. lawmakers: Netanyahu's Congress speech 'disrespects’ Obama
Congressional Black Caucus members vow to skip Netanyahu's March 3 speech, calling it a slight to the president, Politico reports.
The backlash to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned speech before Congress continues, as black lawmakers say they will skip the speech that some view as an insult to the U.S. president.
"Many members" of the Congressional Black Caucus will not attend Netanyahu's speech, Politico reported Tuesday. Israeli officials were so surprised by the caucus' reaction that they have been working to arrange meetings between black caucus members and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer – who had a hand in arranging the invite to Netanyahu – and even the prime minister himself.
According to Politico, Democratic lawmaker John Lewis, a civil rights leader from Georgia, said he would not attend the March 3 speech, and other lawmakers quickly followed suit.
“To me, it is somewhat of an insult to the president of the United States,” Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) told Politico. “Barack Obama is my president, he’s the nation’s president, and it is clear therefore that I’m not going to be there, as a result of that, not as a result of the good people of Israel.”
Netanyahu followed up that tweet with two more, saying, “I intend to speak in the U.S. Congress because Congress might have an important role on a nuclear deal with Iran.”
He added that he is going to the U.S. “not because I seek a confrontation with the President, but to speak up for the very survival of my country.”
The planned speech, which is set to take place two weeks before Israeli elections, has particularly riled Democratic lawmakers as the invitation to Netanyahu was made by John Boehner, the Republican House speaker, without consulting Democrats or the White House.
“It’s not just about disrespect for the president, it’s disrespect for the American people and our system of government for a foreign leader to insert himself into a issue that our policy makers are grappling with,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) told Politico. “It’s not simply about President Obama being a black man disrespected by a foreign leader. It’s deeper than that.”
Obama has said he will not meet Netanyahu during his visit and top Democrats, including Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Patrick Leahy are vowing not to attend the speech.
Despite the backlash, Netanyahu is adamant about addressing Congress, as he tweeted on Tuesday, “I’m determined to speak before Congress to stop Iran. RETWEET if I have your support.”
CBC chairman Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) told Politico that the group understands "Israel's plight" and supports it. He also said he holds Boehner responsible for the affront to Obama.
“I don’t hold Netanyahu responsible,” Butterfield said. “I hold Speaker Boehner responsible but I would hope that Mr. Netanyahu would not want to get involved. I personally think it is disrespectful.”
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4) Forget Brian Williams, it’s Hillary Clinton’s lie that matters
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
One rainy evening, three people walked into a bar and sat down. One was grim, another solemn, while the sole woman among them was absolutely giddy. The bartender poured a few shots of whiskey and said to the trio, "Why so grim, so solemn, so giddy?"
The grim man with squinty eyes and a huge forehead went first. "My life is over. I 'conflated' a couple of war stories, said I was aboard a helicopter in Iraq that got shot down when I wasn't. Now, everything I've worked for my whole life is gone."
"Gee, that's tough," said the bartender.
The even more-horse-faced solemn man next to him went next. "I said I won a bunch of medals for honor and bravery as captain of a fast patrol boat in Vietnam, but then all my comrades swiftly said I was lying. I lost the job I really wanted."
"Damn. Rough. What about you, lady?" the bartender said to the broadly smiling blonde.
"Ha! I once lied and said I outran sniper fire in Bosnia. They even had videotape of me walking calmly across the tarmac to meet a little girl who gave me a poem — a poem! And I'm probably going to be the next president of the United States!"
Let's get something straight right out of the chute: Brian Williams is just a guy on TV. He's not even a reporter, he just reads a 20-second intro into a story gathered by real journalists. In Europe, he wouldn't even be called an "anchor" — a too-lofty term for what he does — he'd be called a "presenter." Rightly so.Second, no one elected Mr. Williams to anything. He's a paid employee (reportedly $10 million a year) at NBC — which also operates the decidedly liberal MSNBC (of course, there's a lot of crossover between the two). In that way, he's like a plumber who works for Roto-Rooter: An employee who calls in sick now and then and occasionally has to attend that HR presentation on sexual harassment in the office.
So, here's the thing: If you don't like that he lied about being in a helicopter that was hit by an RPG — you have but one way to voice your displeasure: Turn the channel. (And by the way ... he most assuredly did "lie about," not "conflate" the RPG attack. How do you "conflate" the time you weren't on a helicopter that was hit with an RPG with the time you were on a helicopter that didn't get hit with an RPG?)
It's far from clear whether Mr. Williams will survive his now-too-numerous-to-list lies — another whopper comes out every day (like the one about seeing a dead body float by in the French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina, except that the French Quarter never flooded). A few sources inside NBC tell me it's touch and go: The top brass want to ride out the storm while lower-level managers — you know, the ones who do the real work — say he just can't stay.
But he's just a TV personality, another hubris-filled, shallow egotist. NBC doesn't care what you think, and if they decide he stays, he stays. You don't have any say in the matter: It's a corporate issue.But not at all so for Hillary Rodham Clinton. In March 2008, giving a foreign policy speech on Iraq about her days as first lady and a trip to Tuzla, Bosnia, she delivered an unbelievable tale.
"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
So, picture that: Chopper lands, sniper bullets pinging and zinging everywhere, she and her comrades sprinting across the tarmac, perhaps zigzagging to throw off the sharpshooter.
But it didn't happen. None of it. Right after the speech, she was asked about the sniper fire. "There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened," she lied.A week later, she changed her whole story, telling the Philadelphia Daily News editorial board that she "misspoke." Yes, she said that word. When she said snipers had fired at her, when really a little girl had given her a poem, that was her just "misspeaking."
The next day, she told reporters: "So I made a mistake. That happens. It shows I'm human, which for some people is a revelation." Ha ha, oh, she's so lovely — and human.
Oh, and an incredible liar, a valor thief, a fabulist. And dangerous.
Now, Mr. Williams you're stuck with. But Hillary? She's different. She's no employee of some company — she wants to be the top employee of the American people. You'll decide. Probably best to just say, "Thanks for applying for the job, but we checked your resume and, well, too mendacious. So, don't call us, we'll call you."
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• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.
5)-
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Dick, As Abraham Lincoln celebrates his 206th birthday today, I will offer some of his wise words... For too long, government has interfered where they should not. How ironic, that now Big Government itself is the greatest threat to the American Dream — and not what our Forefathers envisioned for America. My life story is proof that their dreams for America came true! As a first generation American, I'll always be grateful for the freedom and opportunity my family has found in America. But big Government debt-and-dependency politics are killing the American dream for millions of Americans — from all backgrounds — today. Our federal debt now stands at a staggering $18 trillion dollars — of which Barack Obama has added more than $7.5 trillion himself. We have a moral obligation to do better for our children and grandchildren, who will be forced to pay the price for the federal government's current reckless spending — erasing the American Dream with an avalanche of insurmountable debt. Will you stand with me now as I work in Congress to pass a balanced budget amendment, put forth serious proposals to cut spending, and revamp, repeal, or replace any federal program that is not working or accomplishing its stated goals? I hope to hear from you today. Sincerely,  Mia Love P.S. As Ronald Reagan said, "Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6)--Christopher Booker of the UK Telegraph calls man-made global warming the “biggest science scandal ever,” and it’s easy to see why.
Recent studies have shown:
None of this is news to John Casey, who has been at the forefront of the movement calling man-made global warming a total hoax.
Casey, a former White House space program adviser, consultant to NASA headquarters, and space shuttle engineer, found evidence — buried right in the government’s own environmental studies — that destroys the argument for “global warming.”
Using their own data, John has proven that “global warming” is a sham backed by a network of politicians, corporations, and scientists conspiring to promote the fear of “global warming” . . . despite clear evidence that no such “global warming” exists.
Casey’s analysis is shocking, but I have to say, it’s a must-read exposé, which is why I put together a free report that reveals some of the key findings.
Tom Luongo
Editor, Resolute Wealth Letter
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7)
THE WORLD WAR INSIDE ISLAM
Author: James Traub
In the aftermath of America’s invasion of Iraq, Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative polemicist and editor of Commentary, wrote a long essay arguing that the battle against Islamist extremism amounted to “World War IV.” Podhoretz had a flair for the apocalyptic coinage, but many commentators on both the right and left understood al Qaeda’s shocking attack on American soil as the opening round of a war between the West and “Islamofascism,” as Christopher Hitchens called it. That mood subsided as the terrorists failed to mount similarly spectacular attacks (at least in the United States) and as the grotesque failure of the war in Iraq cooled the ardor of many armchair combatants for a battle to the death between radical Islam and the West.
Suddenly, however, the metaphor of world war does not seem so hyperbolic. The establishment of a self-declared “caliphate” in the heart of the Arab world, as well as the slaughter of a group of cartoonists in the heart of Europe, has made radical Islam look far more effective, more powerful, and more threatening than it had when the movement was led by a handful of men in caves. Even some of the realists who would have laughed off Podhoretz’s call to arms — and would have recoiled at the premise that the Cold War constituted World War III — now fear that the West is in peril. George Friedman, the Kissingerian analyst who runs the global intelligence firm Stratfor, recently wrote that “a war between two worlds” — Islam and Christianity — has dawned. Foreign Policy’s own Aaron David Miller, a reliable skeptic of grandiose adventures abroad, has described the conflict with Islamic extremism as a “generational struggle” and “the long war.”
I do not find this language ridiculous. The radical Islamist denial of the primacy of individual choice in a secularized public space, along with the willingness of large numbers of people to kill others and themselves in order to destroy that way of being, poses a fundamental challenge to the West. Yet the metaphor of civilizational struggle misleads us into believing that we can do, and must do, what we cannot do and therefore should not do.
What kind of “world war” do we now find ourselves in? The only world war of the 19th century, that between France and Britain in the decades after the French Revolution, was — despite France’s republican pretensions — a classic struggle for mastery between great powers. World War I constituted the last of these geopolitical, rather than ideological, convulsions. Global struggle since that time has been precipitated by totalitarian ideologies that seek to extend themselves across the globe. Both the struggle against fascism and the struggle against communism, though global in their geographical spread, were wars between a liberal and a profoundly anti-liberal conception of how to organize Western society.
Islamist extremism presents the exact opposite situation — a war inside a non-Western civilization that has overtaken and consumed the West. This did not at first seem to be the case. Long before al Qaeda, Islamic terrorists targeted U.S. Marines in Lebanon, European and American airlines, and synagogues and Jewish institutions. But the 9/11 attacks, as well as Osama bin Laden’s own rhetoric, gave Podhoretz and many others good reason to believe that radical Islam had declared war on the West. That rhetoric, and those tactics, have continued to this day in the form of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, the plots against the United States that were hatched in Yemen, and the mayhem inflicted by terrorists in London, Madrid, and other cities. Western capitals constitute the citadels of the secular order that jihadis have pledged themselves to destroy, and for those terrorists who live in the West, these cities and their citizens are ready targets of opportunity.
But even if we say that we have entered upon a war between Islamist extremism and modernity, the locus of that struggle is shifting from the West to the Islamic world itself. This is the significance of the rise and spread of the Islamic State.
The “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria represents a very serious threat to the West, but it is an existential challenge to the Islamic regimes in the region. Like al Qaeda, the Islamic State views the nation-state as a Western invention alien to Islam, but unlike al Qaeda, the Islamic State has actually created an alternative model that reflects pre-modern Islamic tradition. The Islamic State “brand” has spread with astonishing speed — to Libya, Nigeria, and Afghanistan. Even if these new groups represent little more than a few terrorists with a black flag, the wish to drape oneself in that flag shows the tremendous power of the idea of setting up a “pure” Islamic state inside an allegedly corrupted Islamic world.
The 9/11 attacks thus gave the misleading impression that the rise of Islamist extremism was “about” the West and required the West to fight a war on terror in order to defeat it. But Islamist extremism is about Islam and about the regimes that rule in the name of the faith; it is hard to imagine the extremist narrative losing its appeal unless and until Arab regimes gain real legitimacy in the eyes of their own citizens. Alternatively, the very act of setting up a protostate, as the Islamic State has done, may expose the jihadi ideology to expectations of effectiveness it cannot possibly satisfy, so that the radical vision will collapse of its own contradictions, as communism eventually did.
There is a great deal that the West can, must, and will do to defend itself from the terrible consequence of this struggle inside another civilization. Much of that will come under the heading of “homeland defense” — police work, intelligence, border security, and the like. Some will involve rethinking national policies on the treatment of Muslim immigrants. And some, but not much, will involve the use of force abroad. The United States and Europe cannot afford to allow the Islamic State to consolidate its control over territory any more than neighboring states can; it would be absurd to gamble that a Wild West nation of fanatics will not seek to destroy other Islamic regimes and kill all those they deem apostates. The actual fighting, however, will have to be done by Iraqis, Syrians, and other local forces.
The West can defend itself, but there’s little it can do to change the terms of that struggle.
If in fact we’re facing a civilizational war inside someone else’s civilization, then many of the tools we used during the Cold War will prove unavailing. From the first years of the long struggle against the Soviets, the United States engaged in a vast public diplomacy campaign, covert and overt, designed to demonstrate the superiority of democratic capitalism over communism. President George W. Bush sought to revive this effort immediately after 9/11, appointing Charlotte Beers, a leading Madison Avenue figure, to develop new “messaging” for the Islamic world. Beers’ TV spots touting America’s respectful treatment of Muslims were ridiculed in the Arab world and were soon pulled. She later conceded that America should not expect to win hearts and minds. Her successors did no better. President Barack Obama’s public diplomacy office is now hard at work manning an anti-Islamic State Twitter feed to match the vast, uncoordinated pro-Islamic State one. It’s a futile endeavor — not because the United States isn’t good at public diplomacy, but because so few people in the target audience will be listening.
One common criticism of public diplomacy is: It’s deeds that matter, not words. Happy talk about American tolerance means nothing when the United States is torturing Muslim detainees and locking them up in Guantánamo. Obama announced on his first day in office that the United States would forswear torture. He gave a major address in Cairo promising “a new beginning” in relations between the United States and the Arab world based on “mutual interest and mutual respect.” As an experiment in influencing Arab public opinion, this seems to have been little more effective than advertising happy talk. It would be good to perform the additional experiment of closing Guantánamo, another alleged irritant, but I can’t believe it would matter. Forging a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians would constitute the supreme test — one of Beers’s successors, Karen Hughes, admitted to me that she told Bush that she wasn’t likely to get anywhere with Arab public opinion until Washington pushed Israel to make peace — but it probably wouldn’t do much to drain the swamp of jihadism.
Of course, a far more fundamental American strategy during the Cold War was delivering military, economic, and diplomatic support to allies threatened by communism. Despite a theme reiterated from President Harry Truman onward that the United States would come to the aid of imperiled democracies, virtually all the beneficiaries were authoritarian states — Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Chile, Morocco, etc. Only with the waning of the Cold War, during the tenures of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, was the United States prepared to take the risk of criticizing such autocratic allies as Chile and the Philippines. In the aftermath of 9/11, Bush concluded that supporting authoritarian regimes in the Middle East had become a self-defeating strategy. The United States had learned, as he said in his 2005 inaugural address, that it would remain vulnerable to terrorism “as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny.” This was the foundation of Bush’s policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East
The Freedom Agenda, like public diplomacy, made only a modest dent on its intended targets. Iraq, which Bush saw as an opportunity to prove that democracy could take root in the Arab world, proved notoriously resistant to American efforts to improve governance, much less to establish democratic principles. What’s more, the Bush administration found that it still needed autocratic allies like Egypt and, of course, Saudi Arabia.
Obama took his cues from those failures, soft-pedaling the language of democracy and emphasizing a doctrine of “engagement” with autocratic regimes in the hopes of winning their compliance on global goals like nuclear nonproliferation — in effect, restoring the status quo ante. The Arab Spring briefly kindled hopes that Arab publics would demand a voice in their own affairs, leading the president to restate, in a more modest key, Bush’s claim that America had a compelling interest in democratic reform in the Middle East. But the collapse of popular movements everywhere save Tunisia has largely put an end to that rhetoric. Obama’s recent decision to change his plans in order to visit Saudi Arabia immediately after the death of King Abdullah showed just how heavily Washington continues to rely on traditional sources of Arab stability. The Saudis are prepared to join the West in the campaign against the Islamic State, just as Iran under the Shah was prepared to stand firm against communism.
Of course, that very analogy demonstrates the brittleness of autocratic stability. I suspect that the time will come when the United States will rue its single-minded support of the Saudi royal family, as it once did with the Shah. Perhaps more so, for in this war the legitimacy of Islamic states is an even more central issue than was the legitimacy of capitalist ones half a century ago. Islamist extremists are motivated by many of the same grievances that moved non-extremists to protest against brutal, corrupt, paralytic regimes. (If you doubt this, just read FP Middle East editor David Kenner’s recent dispatch from Jordan.) The reactionary fantasy of the caliphate, even the sectarian rule embraced by millions of both Sunnis and Shiites, can only be upended by a state that rules in the name of more inclusive principles. In that very central respect, Bush was right, even if he was wrong about the capacity of the United States to address the problem.
It’s understandable that the Obama administration goes to endless lengths to soothe ruffled Saudi feathers — every prior administration has done the same. But the immediate benefits that the Saudis provide, in the form of oil and security and emollient rhetoric, is more than offset by the malign influence of the harsh, intolerant Wahhabi faith in whose name Saudi kings rule, and of the brutal repression that makes the implicit claim that Islam is inimical to democracy, human rights, and self-expression. Let’s be clear: Saudi Arabia is more a fountainhead of extremism than a bulwark against it.
A far more appealing, and potentially legitimate, form of Islamic rule appears in islands of stability like the United Arab Emirates, where the practice of religion is privatized, as it is in the West — though public morals, in matters of dress and alcohol consumption and the like, comport with mainstream Islamic precepts. As someone who travels regularly to Abu Dhabi (where I teach at NYU Abu Dhabi), I can testify that this system — at least when underwritten by billions of dollars in oil revenue — works very well for the people who live in it, though no one would mistake it for a democracy. Perhaps such a system might even have worked in a relatively prosperous, relatively moderate state like Syria had it been governed more benevolently; we’ll never know. But it will not work in bigger, poorer, more pious places like Egypt. As Shadi Hamid points out in Temptations of Power, his book on political Islam, Egyptians are deeply pious people who do not accept the idea that religion belongs in a privatized space. They want to live under sharia, though they disagree among themselves about what that means. So do hundreds of millions of people in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
In a recent conversation, Hamid argued that the only Islamist movement that has seriously tried to accommodate the nation-state is the Muslim Brotherhood, which came into being in the 1920s as the Ottoman caliphate disappeared. The Brotherhood, as Hamid makes clear in his book, is in no sense a liberal organization — but it has largely come to terms with democracy and has even accepted non-Islamic democratic outcomes, as Islamists do in countries like Morocco and Tunisia, which permit the consumption of alcohol and the like. The election of a Brotherhood government in Egypt in 2012 gave the Arab world its greatest chance to demonstrate that Islam and democracy are compatible. But thanks to the incompetence and narrow-mindedness of the government of President Mohamed Morsi, as well as the active conniving of the military and the judiciary, Morsi’s government was overthrown after a year in office — one of the great self-inflicted wounds of the Arab Spring. Egypt is once again, as it long was, a secular autocracy dominated by the military. I wonder how long the Egyptian people will put up with brutal repression and economic stagnation. Whether or not President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime endures, though, the events of recent years have demonstrated to Islamists that there is no place for them in the Arab political order.
The destruction of the Muslim Brotherhood is now treated as a tremendous success in Egypt and across the Persian Gulf (except in Qatar, a Brotherhood stronghold). Yet it is hard to think of anything that would strengthen the long-term legitimacy of Arab governance more than an embedded, democratic role for moderate Islamists. It is as deeply in the interest of the United States to encourage its Arab allies to find a place for such groups as it is to encourage democracy itself. But it won’t happen. I recently asked a senior administration official whether she thought Washington could nudge regimes to rescind the prohibition of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization across much of the Middle East. “No,” she said, flatly.
At least for the moment, the issue is an existential one: The only acceptable form of political Islam will be that practiced by the regimes themselves.
In this war of the civilization next door to our own, there is very little that the West can do to fortify the legitimacy of Arab regimes — even if it seems that those regimes are harming their own long-term prospects.
But doing little is not the same as nothing. Anything outside actors can do to fortify the legitimacy of Arab states — in the eyes, that is, of their own citizens — will help tip the scales in the war inside Islam. This includes economic assistance aimed at improving education or public health, or at increasing entrepreneurship, or at providing jobs for young people. It is a simple fact that young men and women with jobs will be less angry than they were without jobs. It includes the kind of training and education programs organized by groups like the National Democratic Institute. And above all it includes the kind of hardball diplomacy that led Iraqis to dispose of the harshly sectarian Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in favor of the far more inclusive Haider al-Abadi.
Such things matter; but only just so much. The United States is not about to separate itself from Saudi Arabia; the Obama administration has not even been prepared to punish Bahrain, a minor ally that has repeatedly crushed any hint of political dissent. After all, it wouldn’t do any good: Bahrain is effectively a satellite of Saudi Arabia, which has sent in troops to help throttle the political opposition. The administration has begun to sharply criticize the mass trials through which peaceful protesters in Egypt are given endless prison terms, but Cairo remains a crucial ally in the face of spreading chaos in the region.
If the United States and other outside actors can do very little to change the Islamist narrative and improve the legitimacy of Arab states, what is left is the use of force. This, too, will raise a series of fundamental questions. At the outset of the Cold War, many of Truman’s military advisors, along with senior political and policy officials, argued for an all-out mobilization in order to roll back Soviet gains in Eastern Europe. Despite deploying the rhetoric of rollback, both Truman and President Dwight Eisenhower adopted the more measured policy that came to be called containment. The public execution of American hostages gave an exhausted and largely apathetic American public the appetite for Obama’s air war in Iraq and Syria; even a modest attack on American soil could have the public baying for revenge. One of the problems with the rhetoric of civilizational war is that it prepares one for actual, not metaphorical, war.
Obama has tried to adjust the dialing-up of hostilities with exquisite care. He agreed to bomb the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria only after Abadi replaced Maliki — only, that is, after Iraq made a serious bid to establish legitimate political authority. I think he has done right there. I can’t quite fathom his policy in Syria, where two to three years ago he passed up the chance to support nationalist, if still broadly Islamist, rebels in the face of the homicidal regime of Bashar al-Assad; now he hopes to train those rebels, currently decimated, to fight against the Islamic State rather than against Assad. Meanwhile, he hopes to contain and degrade the Islamic State in Syria through a separate campaign of bombardment until the rebel force is ready. Or so we’re told. Perhaps, in fact, he expects little to come of his training program; his real policy may be to make peace with Assad in the hope of enlisting him against the extremists. Assad, however, is a cunning realist: He may be prepared to live with the Islamic State so long as it stays within its current borders in northeast Syria. He may believe, in fact, that this is the best of a series of bad options.
So, yes, it will be a long war — not between “us” and “them,” but inside the Islamic world. The next U.S. president may prove to be a more bellicose figure than Barack Obama. The nation may tire of appeals to patience in the face of more attacks by al Qaeda, or from an expansionist Islamic State. Containment may begin to look like appeasement. But in this one respect, at least, the Cold War metaphor is right: Americans will have to learn to contain an enemy that they can neither destroy nor convert. And that will be a great national test.
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