Daily Archives: June 27, 2013

06/27/13

First Order of Concern

Arlene from Israel

There are many issues that beg to be examined, but my attention has been drawn first to an alarming piece by Claire M. Lopez (with thanks to Dan F.).

The piece? “U.S. Keeps Joining the Forces of Jihad.” If that title alone is not enough to get your attention you may be fast asleep. (Emphasis is added.)

“With the June 13, 2013 confirmation by senior Obama administration officials that the president has authorized sending weapons directly to Syrian rebels, there is a trend developing that can no longer be ignored. This is the third country and the third instance in which Barack Obama has leapt into the fray of revolution to the defense of al-Qa’eda and Muslim Brotherhood forces within days of an explicit call for action by Yousef al-Qaradawi, the senior jurist of the Muslim Brotherhood. While no ironclad case for linkage can be proven, even just the appearance, in and of itself, of responsiveness by the U.S. government to declared Brotherhood imperatives ought to be concerning.

“Speaking on Al-Arabiya Television on June 9, 2013, al-Qaradawi called for jihad in Syria:…

“Four days later, on June 13, Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, announced that the intelligence community had arrived at an assessment ‘that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.’ This conveniently-timed and entirely unsourced finding set the stage for the White House announcement the next day about Obama’s authorization of military aid to the Syrian rebels. The Supreme Military Council, which claims leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Free Syrian Army and is headed by BG Salim Idriss, has been selected to receive the weapons.”

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3785/us-intervention-jihad

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A clarification: In recent weeks, when other nations, including Israel, had confirmed to their leaders’ satisfaction, via intelligence sources, that Assad had used chemical weapons, Obama was hemming and hawing, claiming he needed better evidence. He wasn’t ready to act. How suspect, then, is this announcement that suddenly the intelligence community had arrived at an assessment regarding use of chemical weapons. Lopez’s point here, which is critical, is very clear. The Obama administration fell back on assessments made in the recent past — assessments he had labeled inadequate — when it suddenly suited the president to act. There was no new evidence presented.

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Lopez then proceeds to track the other occasions on which Obama pronouncements have followed al-Qaradawi pronouncements: First, with regard to the necessity of Mubarak departing from office. And then with regard to the situation in Libya. In the second instance, al-Qaradawi issued a fatwa (a religious ruling) calling for the murder of Qadaffi, and this was followed by Obama’s signing a secret document authorizing support for the al-Qaeda dominated anti-Qadaffi forces. (What happened in Benghazi was directly related to this: Ambassador Stevens was the US liaison to those al-Qaeda dominated anti-Qadaffi forces.)

“It was the fall of rebel-held Qusayr to Syrian regime forces on June 5, 2013 that seemed to spur both the al-Qaradawi jihad fatwa and Obama’s decision to follow suit and expand assistance to the al-Qa’eda and Muslim Brotherhood-led rebels.

“In each of these instances — Egypt, Libya, and now Syria — it is ‘completely clear,’ as Barry Rubin writes, ‘that the United States is backing people who hate it.’ It is also completely clear that, at least since President Obama green-lighted the Islamic Awakening in his June 2009 Cairo speech, U.S. policy has been turned upside-down: in very tangible terms, the U.S. government has joined the forces of jihad to overthrow the unfaithful Arab and Muslim rulers that the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi so blatantly threatened (along with the U.S. and Israel) in his late September 2010 call for jihad. In so doing, U.S. leadership is deliberately and proactively enabling the self-declared forces of Islamic jihad and shariah, who make no secret of their enmity and loathing for the U.S. and Western civilization in general, to come to power in country after country of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

“The results have been disastrous…

“We have come full circle from going after al Qaeda to indirectly backing al Qaeda,” said one US official, speaking about the recent decision to arm these jihadist Syrian rebels…

“The sooner U.S. senior leadership realizes that, whether Shi’ite or Sunni, jihadis fight for the same objectives — restoration of the Caliphate (or Imamate) and enforcement of Islamic Law — the better for American core national security interests…”

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Are you deeply disturbed yet? Furious perhaps? In my humble opinion both reactions are appropriate. Will the American electorate continue to sit still for this, burying its collective head in the sand? Read this article in its entirety, please, and share as broadly as you can. Ask hard questions. Make your voices heard.

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For the record: Currently a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, the Center for Security Policy and the Clarion Fund and vice president of the Intelligence Summit, Clare Lopez was formerly a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms.

That is, she knows whereof she speaks.

Credit: Gatestone

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An exclusive released yesterday by Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism serves as a companion piece to the Lopez article. Written by David Martasko, it reveals the fact that a deputy of Yusuf al-Qaradawi (the very same al-Qaradawi alluded to by Lopez), Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, met with staffers of the White House Security Council on June 13.

June 13? That’s the very day that the Obama administration announced plans to arm Syrian rebels. How about that?

Bin Bayyah, who poses as a moderate, has referred to al-Qaradawi as “a mountain upon whose peak there is light” and as “a great reformer” who “spreads knowledge and wisdom.”

According to the Investigative Project report, “Al-Qaradawi is generally considered the leading Islamic scholar affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He has called openly for the destruction of Israel and the deaths of all Jews, called Adolf Hitler a divine punishment for the ‘misdeeds of the Jews’ and claimed the Nazi Holocaust has been popularly exaggerated.

“Al-Qaradawi has also said he wants to die ‘in the service of jihad’ by blowing himself up in Israel and killing Jews in the process…

“The two clerics’ close association has caused reputational trouble for bin Bayyah among Western governments, and the U.S. State Department has denied al-Qaradawi entry into the country since 1999. But the Obama administration welcomed bin Bayyah into the White House.” (Emphasis added)

The report documents bin Bayyah’s presence at a “December 2012 International Union of Muslim Scholars’ board meeting in Doha, Qatar…The meeting ended with a call for the destruction of the state of Israel.”

Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Development and Democracy at the National Security Council, met with bin Bayyah. According to the sheikh’s website, so did National Security Adviser Tom Donilon (although that reference was erased after inquiries were made).

http://www.investigativeproject.org/4056/exclusive-deputy-of-banned-suicide-bomb-endorsing

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And then, a piece written by Raymond Ibrahim. Another analyst who knows what he’s talking about, he is a Coptic Christian, American-born of Egyptian immigrants, and fluent in Arabic. A Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Credit: Komonews

His article is entitled, “Obama to Egyptian Christians: Don’t Protest the Brotherhood.” In this instance, emphasis was in the original throughout.

“As Egyptians of all factions prepare to demonstrate in mass against the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi’s rule on June 30, the latter has been trying to reduce their numbers, which some predict will be in the millions and eclipse the Tahrir protests that earlier ousted Mubarak. Accordingly, among other influential Egyptians, Morsi recently called on Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II to urge his flock, Egypt’s millions of Christians, not to join the June 30 protests.

“While that may be expected, more troubling is that the U.S. ambassador to Egypt is also trying to prevent Egyptians from protesting—including the Copts. The June 18 edition of Sadi al-Balad reports that lawyer Ramses Naggar, the Coptic Church’s legal counsel, said that during [Anne] Patterson’s June 17 meeting with Pope Tawadros, she “asked him to urge the Copts not to participate” in the demonstrations against Morsi and the Brotherhood.

“The Pope politely informed her that his spiritual authority over the Copts does not extend to political matters.

“Regardless, many Egyptian activists are condemning Patterson for continuously behaving like the Muslim Brotherhood’s stooge. Leading opposition activist Shady el-Ghazali Harb said Patterson showed ‘blatant bias’ in favor of Morsi and the Brotherhood, adding that her remarks had earned the U.S. administration ‘the enmity of the Egyptian people.’ Coptic activists like George Ishaq openly told Patterson to ‘shut up and mind your own business.’…

“Indeed, the U.S. ambassador’s position as the Brotherhood’s lackey is disturbing—and revealing—on several levels. First, all throughout the Middle East, the U.S. has been supporting anyone and everyone opposing their leaders—in Libya against Gaddafi, in Egypt itself against 30-year U.S. ally Mubarak, and now in Syria against Assad. In all these cases, the U.S. has presented its support in the name of the human rights and freedoms of the people against dictatorial leaders.

“So why is the Obama administration now asking Christians not to oppose their rulers—in this case, Islamists—who have daily proven themselves corrupt and worse, to the point that millions of Egyptians, most of them Muslims, are trying to oust them?

“What’s worse is that the human rights abuses Egypt’s Coptic Christians have been suffering under Muslim Brotherhood rule are significantly worse than the human rights abuses that the average Egyptian suffered under Mubarak—making the Copts’ right to protest even more legitimate, and, if anything, more worthy of U.S support…

“Yet despite the fact that if anyone in Egypt has a legitimate human rights concern against the current Egyptian government, it most certainly is the Christian Copts, here is the U.S., in the person of Ms. Patterson, asking them not to join the planned protests.

“In other words, and consistent with Obama administration doctrine, when Islamists— including rapists and cannibals—wage jihad on secular leaders, the U.S. supports them; when Christians protest Islamist rulers who are making their lives a living hell, the administration asks them to “know their place” and behave like dhimmis, Islam’s appellation for non-Muslim “infidels” who must live as third class “citizens” and never complain about their inferior status.”

http://www.meforum.org/3540/egyptian-christians-brotherhood

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Shocking and shameful. What has the US become?

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All other matters I had expected to write about today will keep until I write again. What is here must be digested thoroughly and used extensively.

06/27/13

Hey GOP: How’d That Gomez Running as a Democrat-Lite Thing Work for Ya’?

By: Lloyd Marcus

RINO Republican Gabriel Gomez lost to Democrat Ed Markey in the special election to fill the Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat vacated by John Kerry. I say, “Thank God”. We can not allow Democrat-Lite RINO Republicans like Gomez to define the GOP.

However, I have little hope that the stuck on fear, panic and stupid GOP will “get it”. Despite wasting tons of money backing Gomez who agrees with 90% of the Democrat agenda, he still lost. And yet, I guarantee the GOP will interpret the loss as evidence that our party needs to move further to the left.

Why should liberal Massachusetts voters select a Democrat-Lite Gomez over a full-bodied Democrat, Ed Markey? Moderate Republicans thought six one, half dozen of the other and stayed home. Conservative Republicans, rightly so, could not bring themselves to vote for Gomez who promised not to oppose Obama’s agenda.

Extremely low voter turnout confirmed that Massachusetts voters, for the most part, did not care. Had there been a true Conservative in the race like Mike Sullivan, at least voters would have had a clear choice, giving the race a little passion, interest and drama.

Folks, I fully realize that sometimes it is wise to hold you nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect human beings. Rarely, if ever, will a candidate embody all the qualities and stand for all the issues and values you hold dear.

Having said that, Gabriel Gomez was a horrible ideologically soulless candidate. Gomez just wanted to be elected; willing to play on either team necessary to land him in political office. Disgusting.

Gomez supported the Gang of Eight Bill, Gun Control, abortion and more. Gomez dis conservatives. To win the primary at any and all cost, Gomez attempted to smear Conservative Campaign Committee whose mission is to hoist conservative candidates to victory across America.

My heart aches for conservative candidates who paint as Reagan advised in bold colors rather than pale pastels. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OznoFCZdS8

We need candidates who can articulate that conservatism equals true compassion and is beneficial to all Americans. Our candidates must not pander to Democratic party socialist/progressive ideas. Quite the opposite. Our candidates must sound the alarm educating voters to the folly of the Democrat’s belief that government is god, can fix everything and can legislate equal outcomes. These foolish Democratic party utopian ideas are destroying lives, weakening, undermining and destroying the greatest nation on the planet.

We need conservative candidates with backbone who proudly stand up for what they believe; candidates who say what they mean and mean what they say. Wow, what a concept. Mr RINO Republican Gomez, I am elated and grateful that you lost.

Lloyd Marcus, Proud Unhyphenated American
Chairman, Conservative Campaign Committee http://bit.ly/12kuAWU
LloydMarcus.com

06/27/13

Media Celebrate Obama’s Green Agenda

By: Bethany Stotts
Accuracy in Media

The IRS scandal refuses to disappear. Benghazi still raises questions. The press is still irate at the Administration because of its treatment of journalists who publish leaked information. This is the perfect time, apparently, for President Barack Obama to ignore the political firestorms. Instead, he moves to grab more power over the environment, and economy, by pushing for more Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

On Tuesday the President outlined a climate change agenda which will circumvent the halls of Congress and place additional authority into the hands of unelected bureaucrats. Far from criticizing such a move, the mainstream media have celebrated the Administration’s speech, and the suggested war on carbon emissions from new and existing power plants. National Public Radio calls it a “sweeping plan” and says the President is “striving to reach” an “emissions-reduction goal” he committed to in 2009 in Copenhagen.

“All of these proposals can be enacted without action on Capitol Hill,” writes Richard Harris. “That’s deliberate. Many Republicans in Congress reject the judgment of the National Academy of Sciences and other authorities who say climate change is a real concern.” In other words, Republicans are supposedly holding up the process to combat human-created global warming, and the President’s undemocratic sidestep is perfectly appropriate because progress must happen now.

Might there just be a reason that a major party in the United States opposes moving forward with climate change regulations?

Fox News even said that “Obama is expected to lay out a broad vision Tuesday, without detailed emission targets or specifics about how they will be put in place” (emphasis added).

U.S. News and World Report’s Michael Shank argued that “Obama Thinks Too Small on Climate Change.” “It is merely more of the same and most of it is safe,” writes Shank, director of foreign policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. 2013 is no time for a small pitch on things like power plant carbon parameters. We needed something big if America is to survive at all,” he writes.

“What the president did not do, but should have, was put a price on carbon, because it is becoming increasingly costly to our country and the world.”

However, carbon is an essential building block of our world. To label it as a pollutant is disingenuous, at best.

In addition, a carbon tax would be detrimental to our economy. “Without accounting for how the revenues from a carbon tax would be used, such a tax would have a negative effect on the economy,” concluded the Congressional Budget Office this year. “The higher prices it caused would diminish the purchasing power of people’s earnings, effectively reducing their real (inflation-adjusted) wages. … Investment would also decline, further reducing the economy’s total output.”

The President’s motivations are clear. Not only did he argue for bankrupting the coal industry in 2008, but one scientific advisor to the President recently called for a “war on coal.” “The one thing the president really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants,” Harvard University geochemist Daniel P. Schrag told The New York Times. (The Times has apparently scrubbed this quote from the original article, despite its being widely republished). “Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed,” said Schrag.

“The President’s advisor calls it a ‘War on Coal,’ but it’s even more than that,” said Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) in a recent statement. “These policies, rejected even by the last Democratic-controlled Congress, will shutter power plants, destroy good-paying American jobs, and raise electricity bills for families that can scarcely afford it.”

“Analysis from The Heritage Foundation (in a forthcoming paper) finds that significantly reducing coal’s share in America’s energy mix would, before 2030, raise natural gas prices by 42 percent,” writes the Heritage Foundation.

“At nearly 40 percent, coal remains the single largest source of power in the U.S., and there’s no question the EPA’s new standards will make its use more expensive,” writes Brad Wieners for Businessweek. The news organization argues that the climate plan to “ditch coal” will “be good for business. Really.” Heritage’s data show otherwise.

“Ultimately, the arguments for and against Obama’s plan come down to deciding who will choose when to get serious about the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels,” writes Wieners.

What the President has said is that he is no longer listening to the “Flat Earth Society.” “Nobody has a monopoly on what is a very hard problem, but I don’t have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real,” he said at Georgetown University. “We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.” This quote was widely republished by a rapt media.

“Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.”

The President also said in his speech that “The 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in the last 15 years.” In reality, some professors argue that we’ve been in a global cooling trend since 2002. “Professor Anastasios Tsonis…published a paper last March that found the world goes through periods of warming and cooling that tend to last thirty years,” according to Climate Depot. “He says we are now in a period of cooling that could last up to fifty years.” And Professor Judith Curry at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta says that “This shift and the subsequent slight cooling trend provides a rationale for inferring a slight cooling trend over the next decade or so, rather than a flat trend from the 15 yr ‘pause.’”

Obama’s statement also ignores the fact that the mainstream media have been searching for a way to explain the temperature rise “plateau” they believe we find ourselves in. The New York Times has sought to rationalize this plateau as the result of heat being trapped in the deep ocean, although measurements of this phenomenon are “not good enough to confirm it absolutely.” More recently, the liberal New Republic tried to grapple with this problem, titling the article “Explaining the Global Warming Hiatus: Grappling with climate-change nuance in a toxic political environment.” “Since 1998, the warmest year of the twentieth century, temperatures have not kept up with computer models that seemed to project steady warming; they’re perilously close to falling beneath even the lowest projections,” writes Nate Cohn.

The problem for the New Republic writer is that “in a political environment where vast swathes of the American right reject even the premise of global warming—and where prominent right-wing pols suggest it’s an enormous fraud—this inconvenient news could easily lead to still more acrimony over the subject.” So, it’s politically inconvenient that the Earth isn’t warming as fast as projected because some might doubt the existence of global warming. “Especially since scientists themselves aren’t entirely sure what the evidence means,” writes Cohn. “If scientific models can’t project the last 15 years, what does that mean for their projections of the next 100?”

The science of climate change is not settled, and Congress remains divided on the issue because of this ongoing skepticism. “A slew of recent studies discredit the ‘planetary emergency’ narrative,” Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, recently said. “For instance, sea-change over the next century probably will be measured in inches, rather than feet.”

Lewis also said that “if [President Obama] put this plan in a bill and submitted it to Congress, it would be dead on arrival.” Shouldn’t this serve as a warning as to what’s in President Obama’s plan?

The media shouldn’t praise unilateral actions by the President to address this climate issue, with the assumption that the debate is over.

Bethany Stotts is a freelance writer, and former staff writer for Accuracy in Academia. She blogs at http://bethanystotts.wordpress.com/.