03/10/15
Daily Archives: March 10, 2015
03/10/15
Egyptian President Crushes Jihadists While Obama Coddles Them
By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze
Few Americans would want to live under the rule of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s authoritarian president. But on the other hand, neither would any jihadist.
An Egyptian administrative court recently upheld the nation’s Ministry of Religious Endowment’s decision to shutter 27,000 mosques deemed most supportive of jihadism.
Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, President of Egypt, speaks during the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014. (Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
This marks the latest in a series of steps taken by the Sisi regime to cripple terrorists.
Such actions evince an attitude and approach toward countering the threat of Islamic supremacism entirely counter to that espoused by the Obama administration.
Consider four critical areas in which Presidents Sisi and Obama have taken opposing sides:
Defining the Threat
President Sisi has very publicly criticized Islam — linking it to jihadist destruction and backwardness in the Arab world. President Barack Obama has made every effort to de-link Islam from Islamic terror, arguing that Islam itself, not its reformation, is essential to combating jihadism.
During a December 2014 speech at the seat of Sunni Islamic learning, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, President Sisi stated:
It is inconceivable that the ideology we sanctify should make our entire nation a source of concern, danger, killing, and destruction all over the world. It is inconceivable that this ideology… I am referring not to “religion,” but to “ideology” – the body of ideas and texts that we have sanctified in the course of centuries, to the point that challenging them has become very difficult.
It has reached the point that [this ideology] is hostile to the entire world. Is it conceivable that 1.6 billion [Muslims] would kill the world’s population of seven billion, so that they could live [on their own]? This is inconceivable…You cannot see things clearly when you are locked [in this ideology]. You must emerge from it and look from outside, in order to get closer to a truly enlightened ideology. You must oppose it with resolve. Let me say it again: We need to revolutionize our religion.
In a less-noticed interview with Der Spiegel in February of this year, President Sisi stated:
For 1,400 years, the Koran has represented the absolute truth. But interpretations differ. I propose removing wrong and distorted ideas from the religious discourse.
Contrast this with a seminal speech delivered by President Obama at Al-Azhar University in June 2009, in which he stated that “Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.”
During the recent Countering Violent Extremism Summit, President Obama said:
Al Qaeda and [Islamic State] do draw, selectively, from the Islamic texts. They do depend upon the misperception around the world that they speak in some fashion for people of the Muslim faith, that Islam is somehow inherently violent, that there is some sort of clash of civilizations.
President Obama sees misperception of the Muslim faith in Islamic terror; President Sisi has shown no such illusions.
Moreover, in addition to promoting “jobs for jihadis,” the Obama administration’s agenda for countering jihadism — euphemistically called “violent extremism” — consists largely of a laissez-faire law enforcement and oversight approach to the communities that pose the greatest danger, coupled with millions in funding for likely superficial programs, such as $15 million for the Department of Justice to support “community-led efforts to build resilience and counter violent extremism.”
Acknowledging the Incubator
Among other measures, President Sisi has sought to counter jihadists by attacking them at their source – mosques that espouse Islamic supremacy.
While President Sisi’s Ministry of Religious Endowments has granted 400 preaching permits to Salafist leaders, his move to close down 27,000 mosques — in the world’s most populous Arab country — is as dramatic as it is telling.
Consideration of such a policy would be unthinkable in America, as it would be seen as a violation of religious freedom, even if the facilities in question were to house those espousing anti-social and anti-American acts bordering on treason.
In fact, under President Obama America has taken a diametrically opposed approach: Actively seeking to partner with mosques, and creating significantly tougher standards for surveilling them.
A pillar of the Obama administration’s “countering violent extremism” policy is to engage more closely with Islamic communities and their leaders, i.e. imams.
The administration holds up as one of its outreach models a pilot program in Boston. The group said to be serving as primary liaison with the federal government is the Islamic Society of Boston. Problematic is the fact that the group has been linked to jihadists and jihadist-sympathizers, and was reportedly funded by Saudi and other Gulf sources to the tune of over $8.6 million.
As mentioned in an earlier piece, the Mapping Sharia project indicates that imams in over 80 percent of 100 randomly surveyed American mosques recommend the study of violence-positive texts. Given the large percentage of mosques that fit this profile, it stands to reason that the federal government is likely partnering with some of these very institutions.
Recognizing the Aims of the Muslim Brotherhood
During the Arab Spring, President Obama tacitly supported Hosni Mubarak’s ouster — effectively backing the favored candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood — Mohamed Morsi.
Among General Sisi’s first acts upon deposing Mr. Morsi was to ban the Muslim Brotherhood. When asked whether Islamic State or the Muslim Brotherhood posed a greater threat, Sisi responded:
They both share the same ideology. But the Muslim Brotherhood is the origin of all of it. All these other extremists emanated from them.
Such a statement – or even the sentiment — has never flowed from President Obama’s lips.
President Obama has instead actively embraced members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Obama administration recently invited Muslim Brotherhood-linked leaders to the White House, and the State Department hosted a Muslim Brotherhood delegation, much to the chagrin of the Egyptians.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group, but the White House declined a petition that would have similarly given it such a designation in the United States.
Views of Israel and Iran
Egypt has become a key partner with Israel in fighting jihadists by dint of recognizing a common enemy in the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies in Gaza.
Under President Sisi, Egypt reportedly sealed off 95 percent of the Hamas terror tunnels under Egypt’s border with Gaza, and demolished thousands of homes to create a massive buffer zone in the Sinai, to the benefit of both Egypt and Israel.
Furthermore, Egypt believes – as does Israel – that Iran is a true threat to regional stability – especially if Iran succeeds in acquiring nuclear weaponry.
Conversely, President Obama has desperately sought to cast Iran – which has been at war with the United States since 1979 — as a worthy ally. Perhaps because of this, the president has worked with abandon to publically denigrate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leading up to and following the congressional address in which Netanyahu explained the threat posed by a nuclear Iran. The politicization and histrionics displayed by Democrats regarding Netanyahu’s speech speaks volumes in showing how far U.S.-Israel relations have fallen under the Obama administration.
Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post summarizes the relationships between Egypt, Israel and the United States accordingly:
Israel’s ability to take effective action against Hamas in concert with Egypt is hampered by the Obama administration that is insisting that Israel facilitate the Hamas’s rearmament – a development that threatens Israel and Egypt alike.
And Israel isn’t alone in its plight. Egypt is also being pressured by President Barack Obama and his administration.
In its war against Sunni and Shiite jihadist forces that threaten to destroy Egypt, and among other things, cause mass harm to the global economy by imperiling maritime traffic, Egypt finds itself betrayed by the Obama administration.
…Today Israel’s closest ally is Egypt. Under Obama, the U.S. is a force to be worked around, not worked with.
***
None of these points are presented in order to romanticize President Sisi’s rule.
He is an authoritarian overseeing a military regime that crushes its opponents as a means of survival.
Further, as Dr. Andrew Bostom has noted, President Sisi’s strident rhetoric on Islam has not matched his past words and deeds. For example, Bostom writes:
While Sisi was “ambiguous”/“apologetic” in his romanticized 2006 view of the (Shariah totalitarian, jihad promoting) Caliphate system as an idealized form of Islamic governance, he was unequivocal in his denunciation of precisely the kind of secular consensus, tolerant form of rule Egypt requires if it is ever going to make its Coptic Christian minority, and truly secular leaning Muslims, equal members of the society. Sisi rejected that pursuit in 2006, and his government’s actions under his aegis—a continuing campaign against freedom of conscience, coupled to ongoing “blasphemy” prosecutions—pace soothing “rhetoric”—indicate he meant what he articulated then.
Certainly, President Sisi’s regime is illiberal, violent and generally antithetical to Western values.
Nevertheless, when it comes to fighting jihadism, President Sisi looks like a paragon of moral clarity compared with the putative leader of the free world, Barack Obama.
There are few sadder commentaries on the current state of American leadership than this.
03/10/15
Obama and Hillary: What Did They Know, and When Did They Know It?
By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media
The latest revelations about Hillary Clinton’s use of private emails while Secretary of State for the Obama administration have proven “politically problematic,” and invited discomfort by some of her fellow Democrats, possibly encouraging other ambitious Democratic hopefuls to contend for the presidential primary, according to some in the media.
By defining the problem as just “political,” these reporters can cast the issue as one dividing political parties to distract from the pressing issues of the day. This media frenzy works in the Obama administration’s favor. “…why did Hillary Clinton become the Obama administration’s bête noire this very week…? questions Lee Smith writing for Tablet Magazine. Perhaps because Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech before Congress reflected badly on the administration’s plan for an Iran deal. “This week’s tarring of Hillary Clinton is part of the White House’s political campaign to shut off debate about its hoped-for deal,” he asserts.
Smith’s suspicions are raised by the fact that Gawker’s John Cook emailed then-deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest, now White House press secretary, about the issue of Clinton’s private email account back in 2013—two years ago!
Yet on Saturday, President Barack Obama told CBS News’ Bill Plante in an interview that he learned about Mrs. Clinton’s private email system at “The same time everybody else learned it through news reports,” much like he claims to have learned about so many others of his scandals.
The most recent claim apparently didn’t stand up to common sense scrutiny. After all, one needed only to ask if the President and Secretary of State hadn’t exchanged emails for years. On Monday Josh Earnest told the press that President Obama and Secretary Clinton had exchanged emails, that the President had noticed the private address, and that “The point that the President was making is not that he didn’t know Secretary Clinton’s email address… But he was not aware of the details of how that email address and that server had been set up or how Secretary Clinton and her team were planning to comply with the Federal Records Act.” Yeah, that’s the ticket.
But few in the media seem to be asking about who actually saw Cook’s email back in 2013. Either the White House has known about the potential political fallout for years, or someone failed to pass the word up the chain of command.
Some members of the media prefer to view this latest scandal, like so many others, as some sort of right-wing conspiracy, with conservatives out to get Mrs. Clinton. Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast stubbornly refuses to define this growing debacle as a “scandal,” writing instead, “If she does become president, the right is going to be gunning for her from Day One, sniffing around for impeachable offenses from the second she takes the oath.” This implies, again, that opposition to Clinton’s lack of transparency is rooted in politics and ideology, as if real outrage were impossible or unjustified.
It’s not just the right this time, with people like Ruth Marcus, Mark Halperin, Mika Brzezinski, Maureen Dowd and Ron Fournier also taking Hillary to task. It’s enough to suggest a different conspiracy theory: that the left wants to dump Hillary for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), or someone they believe would be more electable, and more to their liking.
And while some in the media may have tacitly admitted that there is already blood in the proverbial water, and that Clinton may see greater challenges coming from other candidates, the narrative persists that the Select Committee on Benghazi was established simply to damage Mrs. Clinton. So the villain in this growing scandal, for Clinton acolytes, is not Clinton herself. It is, instead, the Select Committee on Benghazi, which apparently had known about her multiple private email accounts since at least last summer, according to National Review’s Andy McCarthy.
“The panel’s Republican House members are seizing on the revelations regarding Clinton’s private e-mail domain to expand their committee’s mandate, delay Clinton’s testimony and extend their investigation indefinitely,” write Josh Rogin and Eli Lake for Bloomberg. Similarly, Tomasky writes that “… it smells like the Times may have been rolled by the Republican staff of the Benghazi panel. And hey, great work by them and Chairman Trey Gowdy to use the nation’s leading liberal newspaper in this way.”
Mrs. Clinton and President Barack Obama were some of the main decision-makers during the 2012 Benghazi attacks, and have always dominated the heart of the Benghazi scandal—as inconvenient as this may be for some in the media.
The media are, once again, accusing the Republicans on the Select Committee of engaging in run-away politicking during an election season. “Republican Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy has insisted he wants his investigation to be impartial, not to be partisan nor about Hillary Clinton personally,” reports The Daily Beast. “But the pull of conservatives clamoring for answers regarding the scandal has focused the committee’s attention on the presumptive front-runner for the Democratic nomination.”
These politicized assessments ignore and minimize the valid security and transparency concerns raised by Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email account during her entire term as Secretary. But the lack of transparency revealed by this latest Clinton scandal demonstrates that Mrs. Clinton has a problem with humility, and as “heir apparent” for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination may have internalized a feeling of invincibility—as if she is above public accountability and standards of conduct.
The additional debate about fairness to Mrs. Clinton in The New York Times reporting also ignores the larger, overlooked picture: the Obama administration’s culpability in enabling Mrs. Clinton’s behavior. In cases where Clinton’s email was requested by citizens’ groups and news reporters, “the State Department acknowledged receipt of the [Freedom of Information Act] requests and assigned case numbers but did not produce any of the requested documents,” The New York Times reported.
According to the Associated Press, the State Department “never suggested that it didn’t possess all her emails” when the A.P. requested records more than a year ago. That is a scandal in and of itself.
To put it mildly, the fact that there were no records to produce from Mrs. Clinton’s service until this recent date likely proved politically convenient for the administration, and provides further evidence of a government cover-up on Benghazi. Now-public records have already demonstrated Mrs. Clinton’s guilty knowledge about the attacks. Her pro-active attempts at concealing her communications through the use of a private email server have already been thwarted by the Freedom of Information Act.
The newly released Judicial Watch emails documenting correspondence sent to Cheryl Mills (then-Chief of Staff to Sec. Clinton), Jacob Sullivan (then-Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy), and Joseph McManus (then-Hillary Clinton’s Executive Assistant) provided ample evidence that Mrs. Clinton had guilty knowledge of the nature of the terrorist attack in Benghazi as early as a half an hour after the attack.
“Also littered throughout the State Department emails, obtained by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, are references to a so-called Benghazi Group,” reports Catherine Herridge for Fox News. “A diplomatic source told Fox News that was code inside the department for the so-called Cheryl Mills task force, whose job was damage control.”
And as I have previously reported, the President was told this was an attack by terrorists—not the result of a spontaneous demonstration that got out of control—by his military advisors on September 11, 2012, shortly after the attacks began.
Mrs. Clinton has now requested her emails’ public release, and may hold a press conference in the next several days, according to Politico. Perhaps it was the ridicule from Saturday Night Live that convinced her to speak up, or the sting from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on Meet the Press calling on Hillary to come clean if she expects to be the party’s standard bearer. But the process of releasing her emails could take months, according to Reuters, which reports that “The email controversy could intensify long-standing Republican criticism of Clinton’s transparency and ethics.”
Clinton’s request to make her emails public should be treated with urgency, and may yet yield additional information regarding the Benghazi attacks and other administration policies during her time as Secretary. But in a real sense it may not matter now whether the State Department actually releases this set of emails, as they were first vetted by Clinton’s advisers. One must ask: What did these advisers choose to omit?
The media shouldn’t be fooled by these “latest [Clinton] efforts to demonstrate transparency” if they are designed to conceal politically damaging material from the public while appearing to be open and fair. Neither should they accept platitudes from Mrs. Clinton if and when she does hold her press conference. But in an even greater sense, the media spotlight shouldn’t be on Mrs. Clinton—it should be on President Obama. What did he know, and when did he know it?
03/10/15
Our Weasel Of The Week Nominees!! – 03/10/15
It’s time once again for the Watcher’s Council’s ‘Weasel Of The Week’ nominations, where we pick our choices to compete for the award of the famed Golden Weasel to a public figure who particularly deserves to be slimed and mocked for his or her dastardly deeds during the week. Every Tuesday morning, tune in for the Weasel of the Week nominations!
Here are this weeks’ nominees…
Mistress if E-Mails, Serial Liar, Benghazi Babe And A Law Unto Herself, Hillary Clinton!!
The Noisy Room: My nomination this week is Hillary Clinton for her illegal email escapades. Hypocrisy, thy name is Hillary Clinton.
On June 20, 2007, Hillary Clinton whined and bloviated shrilly about Bush officials shredding the US Constitution by having secret email accounts. Not even two years later, as Secretary of State, Clinton set up a secret email account and secret servers in her basement for all of her official business to skirt federal law. The computer server that transmitted and received Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails traced back to an Internet service registered to her family’s home in Chappaqua, New York.
The Washington Post points out that this would give Clinton: (1) âimpressive control over
limiting access to her message archives and (2) secretive email practices far more sophisticated than some politicians. Hillary is keeping mum on all of this and her silence is damning.
Hillary is a crafty weasel, she figures since she asked the State Department to release the 55,000 pages of emails she provided to the agency, that everything will quiet down. In fact, that is now her team’s strategy, to do nothing. It is a time-tested Clintonian approach: take a concrete step to ease the pressure, then sit back and wait it out.
You watch, she’ll pooh pooh this as a non-issue. That it is irrelevant – you know, like breaking the law always is for the Clintons. Unfortunately, for Hillary, this has legs and isn’t going away and won’t just fade off the radar either. Rumor has it, those email accounts that she has so carefully hid and labeled with pseudonyms, have been hacked. Huma Abedin is caught up in this as well. Those emails should finish the Hildebeast off if there is any justice in the universe. She is an accomplished weasel.
The Right Planet: Once again, when it comes to the Clintons, we see a classic example of the old “the rules don’t apply to me” schtick. Hillary Clinton not only refused to use an official government email address for her official communications when she was serving as Secretary of State, she went as far as to set up a private email server in her own home in an obvious effort to retain complete control over her all official communications. Why? What is she trying to hide? This seems to be a pattern with this administration (see former EPA head Lisa Jackson and her “Richard Windsor” email account).
I really can’t put it any better than “Zip” over at Weasel Zippers:
“So let’s review. [Hillary Clinton] violated the rules of her Department, violated the Federal Records Act, required employees to follow the rules and kicked one out for not following them, failed to respond to prior requests for the emails, and then when she finally turned over some, there were huge gaps of months missing. Now we don’t even know where the server she exposed all kinds of info on is, and how exposed it was to attack. Let’s elect this woman President, yay!”
Shameless Obama Enabler and Professional RINO Doormat, GOP Speaker John Boehner!
Virginia Right!: Although John Boehner is a frequent flyer on the Weasel of the Week program, I feel he is deserving of the dubious honor again. He cast aside the Hastert Rule that would only allow a bill to come to the floor if a majority of Republicans were in favor of it.
Boehner, however, ignored this common sense rule and formed what can only be called a Coalition Government by taking the Liberal wing of the Republican Party with him over to the Democrats to force Obama’s illegal amnesty program to be fully funded.
And then came news that Obama has already allowed over 100,000 illegals into his amnesty program before the start date.
So I again nominate John Boehner.
Diversity Dawg, Quota Qaddaffi and DeBlasio Political Appointee, Tom Finkelpearl, NYC’s own Cultural Affairs commissioner!
The Independent Sentinel: Extremely, very far left mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio has his minions in cultural organizations, such as museums, orchestras and dance troupes, looking to inflict affirmative action when hiring staffs. It’s not legal but the administration won’t let Supreme Court decisions get in the way.
These people are into equity not equality, social justice, not justice, and there is nothing fair about all of this.
Cultural Affairs commissioner, Tom Finkelpearl gets my nomination as weasel for being a toady who thinks we should hire employees by race instead of talent, experience, ability.
“If you’re living in a city like we are in New York — with 65 percent people of color right now — maybe we’re missing out on some of the talent if we don’t have diverse audiences, staffs and boards,” said Tom Finkelpearl, the city’s commissioner of cultural affairs, whose department will commission the study.
Finkelpearl said, “…diversity should be a priority for institutions when it comes to naming trustees or hiring employees.”
“Over 90 percent of staffs at museums nationally are white,” Mr. Finkelpearl said.
[Hello, he’s white. He needs to fire himself.]
[And what’s the percentage of minority NFL players?]
“The arts cannot be the exclusive purview and playground of the privileged,” said the president of the Ford Foundation.
[The privileged are the white of course, not the elites who run the Ford Foundation or the white guy in Gracie Mansion.]
“Everything we do in the organization now is seen through the lens of equity,” said Anne Pasternak, the president and artistic director of Creative Time.
Self-Styled Intellectual And Soros ‘Writer’ David Brock!!Nice Deb: David Brock earned my nomination for Weasel of the Week based on his hair alone.
But there’s so much more to this Media Matters Maven than his hair. One expects someone this in the tank for Hillary to come out and defend her indefensible email practices in media venues like Morning Joe, (beclowning himself in the process.)
But David Brock went above and beyond the call of duty.
Host Joe Scarborough then read Brock a 2009 federal regulation that requires all federal employees to preserve emails “in the appropriate record keeping system.” This is something Clinton did not do until recently, at least until two years after leaving the State Department. Brock appeared to argue that in doing so she did in fact comply. Of course, Brock has no way of knowing that. Because she skirted the law for 6 years, and apparently used her own email server, there is no way to know if she turned over every email.
This appears to violate both the letter and spirit of the law that requires “a system not operated by the agency MUST ensure that “emails outside of the federal system are preserved.” [emphasis mine]
Unbound by facts, Brock added this to his bizarre defense, “The State Department said yesterday that the emails were regularly preserved.” Brock is arguing here that the emails were preserved by … Ms. Clinton.
When reminded that the law requires that the emails be “preserved in the appropriate agency” and not by the individual’s home-brewed server, Brock didn’t appear to grasp what that meant. “It’s not clear that didn’t happen, Joe,” Brock replied. “The New York Times doesn’t establish that at all. In fact, the 2009 law you’re referring to isn’t even cited in the New York Times.”
If I’m interpreting Brock correctly, he is again demanding a New York Times retraction — not because there isn’t a law that Ms. Clinton appears to have broke — but because the Times didn’t publish the law Ms. Clinton appears to have broke.
A favorite Media Matters ploy is to find one tiny flaw – one perceived weakness in an inconvenient narrative and exploit the heck out of it, betting (usually correctly) that the MSM will be happy to latch onto any excuse to stop reporting the story. Brock gave it his best shot on Morning Joe, but alas, fell on his face. Sad but true – not to mention weaselly.
Well, there it is. What a despicable group of Weasels… ANY OF THEM COULD WIN! Check back Thursday to see which Weasel walks off with the statuette of shame!
Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum.
And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.
It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.
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03/10/15
Here’s how Ted Cruz could win the GOP nomination for president
Last night, author Trevor Loudon joined Glenn for an in-depth discussion on the growth of the progressive movement. In the interview, Loudon said that he believed Ted Cruz could be the leader America needs to lead it away from progressivism and back towards freedom. To secure his nomination, and eventually the presidency, Loudon suggested an unusual strategy: Cruz should name his cabinet and run as a team.
Glenn: So Trevor, you say that it is not the battle between Republicans and Democrats that is coming. You say it is the battle between…?
Trevor: It’s basically between the constitutionalists and the Communists. Those are the forces operating in the country today. The Communists are basically taking over the Democratic Party to a large degree, and on the other side of the fence, you’ve got the Republicans who are about a third progressives, a third go-alongs-to-get-alongs, and a third constitutionalists, and they have their Tea Party allies, the 9/12 allies, etc. So, to save America, that third of the GOP with the Tea Party, with the 9/12s, they have to be the people that do this. They are the only force that can turn this country around.
From a distance, you watch what’s happening here in America. Do you see anybody on the horizon that you think really gets it?
Yeah, look, I’m a big Ted Cruz fan, to be honest. I think he’s the one with the inspiration factor. He’s got the leadership qualities. He’s the most Reaganesque out there. I’m advocating that he runs early and names his entire cabinet, runs as a team, and barnstorms this country, you know, he puts Rand Paul as Secretary of the Treasury, do what he damn well wants to the Federal Reserve and the IRS, you know?
Nobody’s ever done that.
No, but there’s nothing to stop it. Well, Reagan named his cabinet in ’76 when he first tried for the nomination. He didn’t do it again in 1980, but look, unite the whole base. Name your whole cabinet, somebody to appeal to every element of your base, you know? John Bolton, Secretary of State.
Can you imagine John Bolton as Secretary of State?
Imagine what he would do to your enemies.
Oh my gosh.
Imagine how he could rebuild the Western alliance, basically flip the bird to your enemies.
If that would happen, it would be one of those things where Ted Cruz would put his hand on the Bible and take the oath, and our enemies would do exactly what happened in 1980 with Ronald Reagan. I mean, it’s just a different world overnight.
You know, how bad were those Carter years? A lot of people thought when Jimmy Carter was president that America would never be great again. The mood of despondency was that bad, and it took Reagan two years to flip the whole mood of the country, lower taxes. You know, he got the economy working again. He rebuilt your military, took out the Soviet Union without firing a shot, you know? He changed the whole mood. Well, I think that can happen again, because you’ve never had a bigger base out there.
Reagan had a base of conservatives, but with what you’ve done, what Mark Levin’s done, what the Tea Party has done, look, I’ve been to 43 states. There are millions of people out there now who talk about the Constitution, love the Constitution, understand what makes America great. That base is out there. If Ted Cruz gets up and runs and names his entire cabinet, runs as a team, barnstorms against the country, I think there will be nothing to stand in your way. I think it could just flip this country around just overnight.
03/10/15
03/10/15
Russia, the Caliphate and the Shadow of World War III
By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
We are already in the beginnings of World War III and the clouds of war are getting darker each day. Who is behind most, if not all, of this? In a word… Russia.
The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism had a very interesting guest – Alexander Bortnikov, the director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB, formerly the KGB). Now, exactly why do you think he was there? Considering we are supposedly standing against Russian-backed Marxist-Leninist Ukrainian separatists, while barely backing Ukrainian forces, this makes for some very strange bedfellows. By the way, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he ordered officials to start work on taking control of Crimea weeks before a referendum which, the Kremlin has asserted until now, prompted the region’s annexation from Ukraine. Putin finally lets slip the truth, which makes Bortnkiov’s attendance even more suspicious. Since it is widely known that the Soviet KGB was hip deep in creating, funding, training and directing a vast terror network that spread over the globe from the 1960s through the 1980s, one has to wonder what Obama could possibly have been thinking when inviting Russia to his counter-extremism event. Russia is the author and master of a great deal of extremism across the planet. Perhaps Obama wanted pointers.
To hit home that Russia is just like the US and the rest of the world, Bortnikov stated that there are 1700 Russian citizens fighting with ISIS and they want to control violent extremism just like we do. I’m sure he’s referring to the Chechens. Well, that may be true, as we have no intention of controlling it either. Sly words from an old Russian bear. Under the guise of security, Russia is proposing that our intelligence services and the FSB partner up. Not only that, Russia wants us to ally with Iran as well. That is one of the most frightening propositions I have ever heard in my life. It should make every American head for the bathroom.
Consider this… Russia is behind ISIS and other terrorist groups. They fund both sides of the fence – whatever benefits them in the end the most is what they endeavor to do.
From The New American:
In his book Disinformation (2013), former high-ranking Soviet-bloc defector Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who served as chief of the Securitate, the Department of State Security for Communist Romania, revealed the Soviet Union’s role in exploiting and radicalizing Muslims against the West:
By 1972, [Yuri] Andropov’s disinformation machinery was working around the clock to persuade the Islamic world that Israel and the United States intended to transform the rest of the world into a Zionist fiefdom. According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a petri dish in which the KGB community could nurture a virulent strain of American-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxism-Leninism thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep. The message was simple: The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology.
A predecessor to Bortnikov, Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was the longest serving chairman of the KGB (1967 to 1982) and briefly general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1982 until his unexpected death in 1984. Pacepa refers to Andropov as the “father of today’s anti-Semitism and international terrorism.”
If you dig deep enough behind the radical Islamist groups and behind those moving Europe, you will find Russia. In the end, Russia wants the destruction of Israel and the US. They are in the way and a nuisance to their global agenda. Vladimir Putin has called Andropov an “outstanding political figure.” Along with his admiration of Andropov, Putin is reviving the cult of personality for Communist dictator Joseph Stalin, the restoration of the Soviet Union’s national anthem as the anthem for the Russian Federation, military invasions of Georgia and Ukraine and the erecting of statues to former Soviet Communist leaders such as Yuri Andropov. He is orchestrating intense nationalism within Russia, using the Russian Orthodox Church as an instrument to do so and to justify his aggression in Europe. Radical Islam is another tool being used to clear the way for Russia across the planet. One that is deadly and effective.
In 1990 Astrakhan, an oblast in the lower Volga region of Russia bordering Kazakhstan, hosted the inaugural congress of the Islamic Revival Party. Russia also authorized the establishment of the Islamic Revival Parties in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. With the Soviet creation of the Islamic Revival Parties in the Muslim-populated areas of Russia, they were able to provide more radicalized Muslims with a political home and voice to further spread their message throughout the Muslim world both inside and outside of Russia.
Russia has used terrorists in many ways… to create chaos so they can move in and snap up natural resources and to pave the way for geopolitical conquest. They even use them within their own country to set up false flag events to further their political agenda. You see, the alliance between Russia and the Islamists has each of them thinking they will win in the end after they have worked together to bring down their biggest enemies: the US and Israel. Take for instance, Ayman al-Zawahiri. On July 16, 2005, the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita published an article in which Litvinenko identified that al-Qaeda second-in-command “Ayman al-Zawahiri trained at a Federal Security Service (FSB, former KGB) base in Dagestan in 1998.” According to Litvinenko, al-Zawahiri “was transferred to Afghanistan, where he had never been before and where, following the recommendation of his Lubyanka chiefs, he at once … penetrated the milieu of Osama bin Laden and soon became his assistant in Al Qaeda.” In 2006, the FSB poisoned Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 and he died horribly in a hospital on November 23, 2006. With the assassination of Osama bin Laden by US Special Forces on May 2, 2011, Ayman al-Zawahiri, whom Litvinenko had previously referred to as “an old agent of the FSB,” became the leader of al Qaeda. That was not a coincidence. The Russians have used a carefully orchestrated plan to spread disinformation and terror across the planet. They have been using terrorists to assist in their plans for over 40 years. Successfully, I might add.
And as terrorism engulfs the planet, there are other stirrings. Russia’s anti-American fervor is now at a fever pitch.
From the Washington Post:
After a year in which furious rhetoric has been pumped across Russian airwaves, anger toward the United States is at its worst since opinion polls began tracking it. From ordinary street vendors all the way up to the Kremlin, a wave of anti-U.S. bile has swept the country, surpassing any time since the Stalin era, observers say. […]
There are drives to exchange Western-branded clothing for Russia’s red, blue and white. Efforts to replace Coke with Russian-made soft drinks. Fury over U.S. sanctions. And a passionate, conspiracy-laden fascination with the methods that Washington is supposedly using to foment unrest in Ukraine and Russia.
Today’s anti-American fervor in Russia exceeds that of the Soviet era and the Cold War. Putin is stoking American hatred every chance he gets – we are his scapegoat and as I said before, America must be brought to her knees and destroyed, so that Russia can fully ascend.
Russia is also ratcheting up their military provocations. Their fighter jets have been using NATO ships in the Black Sea as target practice to run “attack scenarios,” a situation that NATO military officials say they are aware of and are prepared to defend against if necessary. This is just one in an ever lengthening list of Russian military probes to see where NATO, European and American military weaknesses exist. The US is claiming they are providing heavy military equipment to NATO-allied Baltic states to protect themselves, but what they are sending is far too little and they know it. The Russians would not even blink at these minor attempts of deflecting their forces. We’re also sending 3,000 troops for training exercises. None of this is serious and is simply propaganda dressing to make it seem as if Obama gives a crap.
Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Juncker of the EU is calling for them to form an army to show Russia they can defend themselves. They can’t agree on the most minor of issues, much less an army. I’m sure Putin is having a really good laugh over that one. Besides, I think Juncker is calling for this as a way to reunify the EU (not gonna happen) and relieve some of their impending debt doom (also, not gonna happen).
Trevor Loudon believes a European Spring is coming. I agree. An American one could happen as well with all the contrived emergencies and violence being pushed here by Leftists. It’s only a matter of time. Glenn Beck said yesterday that a call to arms, a global depression and a disenchanted youth are in the future and it is critical that Americans be aware of the ramifications before they hit. He’s absolutely right on this one. Russia, the Caliphate and the Shadow of World War III are in play now. If you are looking for the grand architect – look to Russia.
In Memoriam
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