Syed Farook was the son of Pakistani divorced parents. Syed’s wife, Tashfeen Malik was also Pakistani. Syed was born in Chicago, raised in Southern California and they met online via a Middle Eastern dating service. Tashfeen arrived in the United States with a Pakistani passport via a (K1)fiancé visa. Syed is a Sunni Muslim according to yet another dating site.
Syed traveled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in 2014 and returned in July of 2014. Upon the recent return from Saudi Arabia, Syed grew a beard which is an early gesture of subscribing to jihad. It is uncertain when and if he traveled again to Saudi in 2015, as it has been said he recently returned and subsequently participated in a workplace baby shower and a 2 month long paternity leave. The baby is apparently 6 months old and during the massacre was left with a grandmother.
Syed has a brother with the same first name but a different middle name.
LATimes: Years before he was associated with the deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, Syed Rizwan Farook endured a turbulent home life, according to court records.
In 2006 divorce filings, his mother detailed a violent marital history in which her children often had to intervene.
Rafia Farook said her husband of 24 years was physically and verbally abusive and was “negligent and an alcoholic,” according to documents filed in Riverside County Superior Court. Her husband, she said, forced her and three of her children to move out. They moved into an Irvine residence.
Later, in multiple requests for domestic-violence protection, Rafia Farook detailed the maltreatment she said she encountered and that her children witnessed: Her husband had once drunkenly dropped a TV on her. Another time, he pushed her toward a car. After a drunken slumber, he shouted expletives and threw dishes in the kitchen.
“Inside the house he tried to hit me. My daughter came in between to save me,” she said about one incident. Police were not called to the home, she said.
“He is always mad,” she said. “Screaming on me, shouting at my kids for no reason. … My son came in between to save me.
When her husband was served with legal separation papers, he was reached at an address in Karachi, Pakistan.
At this time, she said her sons, Syed Raheel Farook, then 23, and Syed Rizwan Farook, then 20, lived with her, along with her younger daughter. Another daughter, Saira, apparently lived elsewhere.
The killer couple were in possession of 4 weapons, all purchased legally, the dates of purchase are unknown. (2) 9mm handguns were purchased by Syed but the long guns were not. The name(s) of the person who purchased the long guns is at this time also unknown. The long guns used .223 rounds.
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said that Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, fired between 65 and 75 rifle rounds during the shooting at a county health department holiday party, then unloaded about that number in a later confrontation with police.
Syed Farook’s brother-in-law, Farhan Khan appeared almost immediately after the shooting event standing with The Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) for a press conference stating this was a shocking event.
There were clustered pipe bombs at the public building where the shooting took place, there were failed pipe bombs in the rented SUV that had Utah tags and there were even more pipe bombs located at the residence.
Syed became radicalized online using social media and phone calls to known terrorists which has been determined after the shooting. Neither were ever on a no-fly list or terror list.
On the latest episode of #LoudonClear on the TK Radio Network, Trevor explains what amnesty is really about. Allowing this influx of illegal immigrants to remain unchecked, coupled with potentially dangerous “refugees” from war-torn countries in the middle east will have the same impact on America that it has had in California:
The creation of a one-party state.
Listen here:
Don’t take Trevor’s word for it, listen to the words of Eliseo Medina, President Obama’s “go-to” man on issues of “comprehensive immigration reform”! Here Medina neglects to mention the plight of illegal immigrants. Rather, he discusses the creation of “a governing coalition for the long term:”
Far from how Medina is portrayed as an “immigration activist,” former SEIU executive Vice President is a hard-core Marxist who served on Obama’s Latino Advisory Council in 2008 and was described by the Los Angeles Times as “one of the most successful labor organizers in the country.”
Here President Barack Obama listens to former SEIU executive Vice President Eliseo Medina:
President Barack Obama listens to former SEIU executive Vice President Eliseo Medina via CNN
Watch Obama brag to SEIU about how he “consults” with Medina on immigration:
While history shows that illegal immigration is detrimental for social stability; the REAL motivation behind the relentless push for amnesty has nothing to do with “compassion” but to create a one-party state.
The nation is fiercely debating the Iran nuclear deal and the significance of the Ayatollah’s “death to America” tweets when the real problem is Iran’s sponsor, Russia, and its lunatic ruler, Vladimir Putin. By controlling the media, killing off the opposition, and smearing Ukrainian freedom fighters as Nazis, the former KGB colonel has his country worked into a collective frenzy over a concocted Western threat. Some experts believe Russia is preparing for nuclear war on a global scale. If Putin carries out his threats, America is no more.
In this case, the U.S. is facing not only a nuclear weapons program, which is the case with Iran, but what our top generals are calling an “existential threat” to our survival as a nation.
As the National Institute for Public Policy documents in the report, “Foreign Nuclear Developments: A Gathering Storm,” Russia has a new military doctrine that anticipates using nuclear weapons, and the regime has embarked on “a massive strategic modernization program to deploy new nuclear weapons and delivery systems.”
Not only that, but Russia has a ballistic missile defense to use against us.
Geopolitical analyst Jeff Nyquist tells Accuracy in Media, “The Russians became angry and threatening when NATO tried to build a very modest missile defense system to stop an Iranian missile. Yet Russia has over 10,000 dual purpose SAM/ABMs for defense against our missiles and will be deploying a new ABM prototype next year.”
He adds, “Russia has potential war winning advantages over the U.S. and NATO—not necessarily in the number of nuclear weapons but in the number of its ABM batteries, and the upgrading of these batteries with a new generation of interceptor rockets while the American side makes no effort in this direction. The U.S. ABMs in Alaska and California would be lucky to stop 12 Russian warheads.”
Despite the preoccupation with Iran’s nuclear program, Iran currently has nothing of that nature which can threaten the homeland of the United States. Yet, Russia can obliterate the United States, a fact that has been highlighted recently by no less than three top American generals. The term, “existential threat,” has been used repeatedly to describe the Russian challenge. That term means the Russians can destroy the United States as a nation.
Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, nominated to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia.”
His statement, made during his Senate confirmation hearing on July 9, got a significant amount of media attention. Similar warnings came from Army General Mark A. Milley, commander of U.S. Forces Command, who has been nominated to become the next Army chief of staff, and Air Force General Paul Selva, nominated to become Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Dunford and the other generals acknowledge the real or potential nuclear threats from Iran, North Korea, and China. But it’s Russia that is deemed an “existential threat.” It is the most significant.
Some conservatives have been complaining that patriotic military officers are being purged from the Armed Forces. Well, it appears that the purge missed Generals Dunford, Milley, and Selva. These generals are taking a risk by going against the conventional wisdom of the Obama administration. Indeed, the White House and the State Department have gone out of their way to say that the Obama administration does not agree with the assessment that Russia is an existential threat to the United States.
For the generals to go public in this manner—and to contradict the official stance of the Obama administration—suggests that the threat from Russia is very real indeed, and may be more serious than they are willing to publicly acknowledge.
When you consider how the Iran nuclear deal came about, you begin to realize how serious it is. Obama actually thanked Putin for bringing it about.
The CNN story, “Obama, Putin congratulate each other for Iran deal,” demonstrates the nature of the problem. Although the story is designed to highlight the alleged positive roles Obama and Putin played in the deal, CNN reported that in a readout of the conversation between the two leaders, “the White House said Obama thanked Putin for Russia’s role in the Iran nuclear negotiations.”
Thanked Putin? This demonstrates something worse than the deal itself and the real nature of the Iranian threat. Putin should thank Obama because the U.S. is helping Iran, Russia’s client state, get tens of billions of dollars in international financial aid. Down the line, Russia gets U.S. approval to supply more weapons to the anti-American regime.
Iran is certainly a potential nuclear threat to Israel, the so-called “little Satan.” But the U.S. is the “Great Satan,” and our biggest nuclear threat at the current time is Russia, as our top military officers have said. Yet, Obama is treating Putin as an ally.
Israel and its defenders have to come to grips with the fact that Iran is a threat to the Jewish state, the region, and the world because of its Russian sponsorship. Iran can’t be viewed in isolation, apart from Russia. Indeed, Iran is considered to be part of a “strategic alliance” with Russia.
As we have noted on several occasions, the Iranian Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei, is KGB-trained, having been “educated” at the KGB’s Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. This means he is under Russian influence, if not an agent.
Obama has a blind spot regarding threats from the Islamic world, and that includes Iran. But his unwillingness to face up to the Russian threat, which is more serious than any on the face of the earth today, puts the very existence of the United States in jeopardy.
Remember that Obama mocked Mitt Romney’s statement during the 2012 campaign that Russia was our geopolitical adversary. Obama hasn’t learned anything, despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He keeps refusing to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons to defend themselves. Praising the Russians for their role in the Iran deal signals something worse than just incompetence. It appears that Russia is exercising some sort of control over the Obama administration.
We got a taste of that control when it was reported that, on Independence Day, the Kremlin announced that Putin had sent Happy July 4th greetings to Obama. We only later learned that Putin, on the same day, had also sent nuclear-capable Russian bombers off the coast of California that had to be intercepted by American aircraft.
This duplicity is another sign of the lunatic mindset of the former KGB spy running the show in Moscow. This nuclear blackmail is much more serious than a tweet from the Iranian Ayatollah showing Obama with a gun to his head. Putin has a nuclear gun pointed at America and we have practically no defense against it.
Ted Cruz threw down the conservative gauntlet in the Senate this week. This was inspiring… it is something I have never seen happen before in my lifetime. He boldly and honestly called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar. It was long overdue and immensely satisfying. The straw that broke the elephant’s back was the vote on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank. McConnell went one lie too far this time.
Cruz voted for Obama’s Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) the first go-around in the Senate based on McConnell’s word and he famously turned against the fast-track trade authority later. Because it was based on lies.
In a stunning attack on a leader of his own party, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying to him and said he couldn’t be trusted.
Cruz, a Texan who is running for president but ranks low in early polling, delivered the broadside in a speech on the Senate floor, an extraordinary departure from the norms of Senate behavior that demand courtesy and respect.
At issue are assurances Cruz claimed McConnell, R-Ky., had given that there was no deal to allow a vote to renew the federal Export-Import Bank – a little-known federal agency that has become a rallying cry for conservatives. Cruz rose to deliver his remarks moments after McConnell had lined up a vote on the Export-Import Bank for coming days.
“It saddens me to say this. I sat in my office, I told my staff the majority leader looked me in the eye and looked 54 Republicans in the eye. I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie, and I voted based on those assurances that he made to each and every one of us,” Cruz said.
“What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again, was a simple lie.”
A spokesman said McConnell would have no response. The majority leader was not on the Senate floor when Cruz issued his attack.
“Today is a sad day for this institution,” said Cruz with a heavy heart. “What we just witnessed this morning is profoundly disappointing.” Betrayal always is, especially from someone you really, really want to believe in. Cruz made his statements after McConnell set up a procedural vote to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which expired last month. Democrats claim McConnell agreed to allow a vote on attaching the Export-Import Bank to “must-pass” legislation to win support from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) for a trade package earlier this year.
When Cruz approached McConnell on the floor in a private conversation, McConnell, with biblical overtones, denied to him three times that there was such a deal. “The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask him such a question,” Cruz said. “The majority looked at me and said ‘there is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.'” The good senator’s staff tried to warn him about McConnell, but Cruz just couldn’t believe that McConnell would lie to his face and to every other conservative out there like this. He was wrong and learned of McConnell’s treachery the hard way. But then Ted Cruz did something that no one in my memory has done… he called McConnell out for his lying ways on the Senate floor. McConnell’s errand boy say’s he has no response. Maybe not verbally, but Ted Cruz has made a very powerful and evil enemy. You know what? I don’t think he cares. Good.
Cruz pointed out that McConnell’s move to allow the Export-Import Bank vote shows that he does not always mean what he says – that he’s dishonest. “Well, we now know that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes an explicit commitment that he is willing to say things that he knows are false,” Cruz added. He also pointed out that it could have ramifications down the road. That’s an understatement. We now have open warfare in the Senate and that is a good thing. “That has consequences for how this body operates,” Cruz said. “If you or I cannot trust what the majority leader tells us, that will have consequences on other legislation, as well as on how this institution operates.” Plainer and truer words have never been spoken.
It doesn’t end there. Cruz also berated McConnell for using a procedural maneuver to prevent other amendments from being offered to the Highway Bill. That’s the vehicle that will be used for the Export-Import Bank vote. In a breathtakingly hypocritical move, McConnell “filled the tree” just as Harry Reid frequently did. This was to stop amendments when Democrats had a Senate majority. Of course, when McConnell did it, Reid screamed to the heavens. McConnell also set up a vote on repealing ObamaCare. That particular maneuver was a faux move to appease conservatives – it would not have succeeded and McConnell knew it, so it was safe to set up the vote. Cruz is a smart guy and saw right through McConnell’s machinations. “I agree with Senator Reid when he said the ObamaCare amendment is a cynical amendment. Of course it is. It is empty showmanship,” Cruz added.
This is a bitter fight between the GOP leadership and conservatives and it’s about to get real. While Donald Trump is excoriating the media and bringing illegal immigration to the forefront, Cruz is in the Senate stirring the pot and calling out the Washington Cartel. Joining Cruz in the political brawl are Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY).
From the Conservative Review:
McConnell has avoided one procedural blockade. The Senate Majority Leader has attached the highway bill to an unrelated bill from the House to make sure that he does not violate the Constitution.
Leader McConnell called up a House passed bill and added the text of the highway bill to it, then he called up an amendment that allows the Export-Import Bank to continue. This married an unrelated House bill to the highway bill and EX-IM. But then Senator McConnell did something that was unexpected.
Next, Senator McConnell offered an amendment for a full repeal of Obamacare. This seemed to be an attempt to intimidate the Tea Party faction in the Senate to take the vote on a full repeal of Obamacare and walk away from the fight over EX-IM. The problem is that nobody believes the Obamacare amendment to be anything other than meaningless vote.
McConnell then proceeded to use a parliamentary maneuver, abhorred by many conservatives and Senate procedure strict constructionists, to block all other amendments to the bill. This tactic, known as “Filling the Amendment Tree,” enraged many members of the Republican caucus who wanted to offer their own amendments to the bill. When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) ran the Senate he frequently filled the amendment tree as a way to block Republicans from ever offering amendments. This obstructionist tactic still rubs many conservatives the wrong way and is still considered by many to be an abuse of power.
Enter Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz took to the floor and offered an amendment to condition the Iran deal on Iran recognizing the right of Israel to exist and calling on Iran to release Americans held hostage. The Cruz amendment violates the Senate’s rules, because, under the current scenario, only certain amendments are allowed.
Do you see the shady dealings that McConnell is engaged in here? It’s dirty political pool. All meant to reinstate the Export-Import Bank by whatever means necessary. It’s a slap in the face to conservatives and furthers crony capitalism in the ranks.
This is a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party between Progressives on the Right and Constitutional conservatives. As Reagan did, the conservatives are trying to reform the Republican Party from within. The fight will be bloody and definitive. If the Progressives win, a third party will be born and the GOP will go the way of the Whigs. Marxist rule will most likely prevail in America for the foreseeable future if that happens. If the conservatives ascend, then the GOP will take a much needed sharp turn to the right and the Tea Party and other conservatives will become the new face of the GOP. It will mark the beginning of the war to return the US to its Constitutional roots and freedoms.
Conservatives in the U.S. Senate are gearing up to challenge Republican leadership today, setting their sights on a plan to repeal Obamacare with 51 votes—a measure that will easily pass if the 54 GOP senators support it.
The move comes after several contentious days of fighting over the GOP leadership’s priorities. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., allowed a vote Sunday to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank despite his stated opposition. It passed, 67-26, but drew a sharp rebuke from conservatives.
“The American people elected a Republican majority believing that a Republican majority would be somehow different from a Democratic majority in the United States Senate,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said. “Unfortunately, the way the current Senate operates, there is one party, the Washington party.”
Mike Lee and Ted Cruz couldn’t get anywhere over the weekend in the Senate on their Planned Parenthood and Iran amendments. Both were denied a roll call vote, a maneuver Senate experts said was highly unusual. Cruz called it an “unprecedented” plot by McConnell and Reid. And that is exactly what it was.
“What we just saw a moment ago is unprecedented in the annals of Senate history,” Cruz said. “It consisted of the majority leader and the minority leader denying members the ability to have votes on their amendments and indeed the ability even to have a roll call vote.” Mike Lee will be making his move for an amendment on repealing Obamacare shortly and we can only hope and pray that it goes through, but I doubt it. The Export-Import Bank measure easily passed Sunday with unanimous Democrat support. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell renewed funding for the Export-Import Bank despite previous promises. Then McConnell blocked defunding Planned Parenthood and Ted Cruz’ Kate’s Law, which mandates that undocumented aliens who are deported and return to the United States would receive a mandatory five year sentence in a federal penitentiary upon conviction. That piece of legislation arose after Trump turned a spotlight on Sanctuary Cities – specifically San Francisco where Kate Steinle was murdered by an illegal alien criminal who had been deported five times. Tell me again whose side McConnell is on?
Ted Cruz was predictably rebuked by McConnell’s henchmen: Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. All because he exposed the backroom deals of Mitch McConnell and the fact that he’s a prolific liar. McConnell is sooo busy with his backroom deals, bribes, schemes and illicit doings that he can’t bother with being subtle anymore. I guess he figures Americans are either too stupid to get it or just aren’t paying attention. We’re broke as a nation – utterly bankrupt. Yet, McConnell is for more and more taxation and deficit spending. He doesn’t care what the fallout is down the road… he’s in it for the here and now and how much power, control and wealth he can amass personally. Constitution and America be damned. There is no difference between what Mitch McConnell does and what the Marxist Democrats do – none.
In the end, this also benefits not only McConnell, but Obama’s minions, Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce. Cruz has criticized politicians on both sides of the aisle for this type of complicity and corruption. He has stood for principle and the Constitution unfailingly. McConnell despises him for it as do his cronies.
Ted Cruz defended himself in a special session against charges that he broke Rule 19 of the Senate rules by calling Mitch McConnell a liar concerning what he had promised him personally. Cruz says there is nothing wrong with telling the truth on the floor. There certainly isn’t and it takes courage to do so. He went on to say, “I entirely agree” with Hatch’s call for civility. But says “speaking the truth” is “entirely consistent with civility.” I couldn’t agree more.
Ted Cruz has set his sights on the Washington Cartel. He means to take them down with his band of conservatives. I believe Reagan would approve and this is a fight that must happen. It’s what I have been waiting for and I roundly applaud Cruz for leading the fight in the Congress and Trump for taking on the media and rallying the grassroots. This is a brilliant divide and conquer technique playing out. I don’t know who will be president in the end, but I can tell you this… when the dust settles, the GOP will never be the same. And I suspect standing in the midst of victory will be a man of honor – Ted Cruz.
Slater took the opportunity to survey the attendees, asking them questions such as, “What percentage of the male population do you think is gay?” He received a wide variety of answers, the lowest being 28% and the highest, 70%
Using statistics from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Slater surprised virtually every person he encountered telling them the CDC says 1.8% of males are gay.
The radio talker also played a little game with the attendees called, “Which Bigot Said It?”
On a white board, Slater had photos of Donald Trump, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin.
He also posted the following four quotes about gay marriage.
“Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time.”
“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.”
“I think marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman.”
“For me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”
Slater read the quotes and asked the gay pride parade supporters, “Which bigot said it?”
After they made their guesses, it was revealed the quotes came from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
In the fight between Donald Trump and John McCain (R-AZ) over the senator’s military service, the liberal media have taken McCain’s side. But since when did the media get concerned about the noble cause of fighting communism in Vietnam?
Our media, led by CBS Evening News anchorman Walter Cronkite, who was then an influential media figure, protested the Vietnam War and prompted the U.S. withdrawal and communist takeover. His FBI file demonstrated Cronkite’s contacts with Soviet officials and how he was used as a dupe by the communists.
More than 58,000 Americans sacrificed and died to save that country from communism.
The liberal media never supported the war against communism in Vietnam. Yet they are now browbeating Trump over avoiding the war through deferments. Our media are full of hypocrites. They don’t admire McCain for fighting in Vietnam. They admire him because he is a “maverick” who frequently takes the liberal line, such as on “comprehensive immigration reform.”
If the liberals in the media are so enamored of McCain’s military service in Vietnam, let them revisit the history of the Vietnam War and express some outrage over the fact that it was a Democratic Congress that cut off aid to South Vietnam, leading to the communist takeover and the genocide in neighboring Cambodia.
What about some critical coverage of Obama’s recent meeting with Nguyen Phu Trong, the head of Vietnam’s Communist Party? Vietnam is one of the beneficiaries of Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement. If passed, it would benefit Vietnam’s communist rulers.
As we have pointed out, “Interestingly, Obama is trying to sell the agreement as a counter to China’s influence throughout the world. He wants us to believe that China and Vietnam somehow differ on their common objective of achieving world communism at the expense of America’s standing as the leader of what used to be the Free World. Both countries would gladly welcome the U.S. to help pay to accelerate the growth of their socialist economies and expand their markets.”
McCain supports the TPP; Trump does not.
We have pointed out that Vietnam is “a dictatorship with the blood of those Americans on its hands,” a reference to what the communists did to McCain and our soldiers, and “which has no respect for the human rights of its own people.”
A bipartisan congressional letter about Obama’s meeting with the Vietnamese communist reaffirmed this fact. It was signed by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), who represents one of the largest Vietnamese populations outside of Vietnam in the world, in Orange County, California. She said, “I am disappointed that the administration has chosen to host Nguyen Phu Trong, the General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party. There continues to be egregious and systemic human rights abuses in Vietnam, including religious and political persecutions. As an advocate for human rights in Vietnam I cannot ignore the dismal state of freedom of the press and freedom of speech.”
This is precisely what McCain and tens of thousands of other Americans were fighting to prevent.
Yet, McCain issued a statement, saying that he “warmly” welcomed Trong’s “historic trip” to the United States. He added, “This visit demonstrates the growing strength of the U.S.-Vietnam partnership as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the normalization of relations between our countries.”
Why is McCain celebrating a “partnership” with a dictatorship that he and thousands of Americans fought against?
What’s more, McCain says the U.S. “must further ease the prohibition on the sale of lethal military equipment to Vietnam…” Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry had partially lifted a ban on lethal weapons sales to Vietnam in October of 2014.
If our media are so concerned about an American Vietnam veteran being the target of a perceived insult from Trump, why haven’t they put pressure on the Obama administration to clean up Vietnam’s human rights record before going ahead with another agreement to benefit that regime? After all, this is the same regime that captured and tortured Sen. McCain.
The answer is that our media are using the current McCain controversy to damage Trump, who has almost single-handedly made illegal immigration into a national issue. They don’t really care about McCain’s service in Vietnam.
When President Bill Clinton normalized relations with communist Vietnam in 1995, he thanked Senator McCain and then-Senator John Kerry (D-MA) for agreeing with the notion that America had to “move forward on Vietnam.”
What has happened in the meantime?
We pointed out 11 years ago that President Clinton’s lifting of the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam in 1995 was followed by a bilateral trade agreement. Kerry and McCain supported that, too. The U.S. trade deficit with Vietnam has been consistently rising ever since, to the point where it was $19.6 billion in 2013.
In his statement on Trong’s visit to the United States, McCain said, “Since 1995, annual U.S.-Vietnam trade has increased from less than $500 million to $36 billion last year.” He conveniently ignored the trade deficits that have cost American jobs. For example, the communist regime has been dumping shrimp products into the United States at artificially low prices, and has become the fourth largest shrimp supplier to the U.S. market, even though several shipments have been detected with banned antibiotics.
At the time he extended diplomatic relations, Clinton said, “Whatever we may think about the political decisions of the Vietnam era, the brave Americans who fought and died there had noble motives. They fought for the freedom and the independence of the Vietnamese people. Today the Vietnamese are independent, and we believe this step will help to extend the reach of freedom in Vietnam and, in so doing, to enable these fine veterans of Vietnam to keep working for that freedom.”
False. The Vietnamese people did not become independent. They became slaves of the communists.
Obama recently met with their slave master. But our media didn’t utter any tears for the victims of communism.
You may also recall that then-Senator Kerry ran a Senate investigation that brought the search for live American POWs from the war to a close. McCain was a member of the Kerry committee.
Since McCain has been in the news for his military service, this should have been a newsworthy topic for our media.
Roger Hall, A POW/MIA researcher, went to court, having sued the CIA for documents on missing or abandoned Vietnam POWs. Hall and many others are convinced that hundreds of American POWs were left behind in Vietnam.
Former Senator Bob Smith (R) of New Hampshire wrote the legislation creating the Senate Select Committee on POWs and MIAs in the early 1990s in order to get the truth released to the public.
“Despite the release of thousands of documents and the testimony of dozens of witnesses, I could not complete the job. Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Select Committee, and Senator John McCain were more interested in establishing diplomatic relations and putting the war behind them than they were about finding the truth about our missing,” said Smith. “I fought them constantly to the point of exhaustion. It was a very sad chapter in American history.”
A YouTube video exposed McCain’s efforts to block access to POW information and examines his alleged cooperation with the North Vietnamese while he was in captivity. Senator Smith is one of those featured in the video.
Why don’t the media remind us of that? We have the answer. They are too busy bashing Trump and trying to look patriotic about the Vietnam War.
There are 4 Americans in prison in Iran for which there have been countless calls and efforts for their release. Major Garrett of CBS asked Barack Obama during a press conference if he was content with leaving those Americans behind to which Obama responded by shaming Garrett for even asking the question.
It should also be noted that the Palestinian Authority demanded that thousands of terrorists in prison in Israel be released for a scheduled round of peace talks between Israel and the PA. Barack Obama forced Israel to comply for face financial extortion. Israel complied where later many of those terrorists were re-arrested in Qatar. The betrayal continues. The secrets were effective.
Mojtaba Atarodi, arrested in California for attempting to acquire equipment for Iran’s military-nuclear programs, was released in April as part of back channel talks, Times of Israel told. The contacts, mediated in Oman for years by close colleague of the Sultan, have seen a series of US-Iran prisoner releases, and there may be more to come
The secret back channel of negotiations between Iran and the United States, which led to this month’s interim deal in Geneva on Iran’s rogue nuclear program, has also seen a series of prisoner releases by both sides, which have played a central role in bridging the distance between the two nations, the Times of Israel has been told.
In the most dramatic of those releases, the US in April released a top Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who had been arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs.
American and Iranian officials have been meeting secretly in Oman on and off for years, according to a respected Israeli intelligence analyst, Ronen Solomon. And in the past three years as a consequence of those talks, Iran released three American prisoners, all via Oman, and the US responded in kind. Then, most critically, in April, when the back channel was reactivated in advance of the Geneva P5+1 meetings, the US released a fourth Iranian prisoner, high-ranking Iranian scientist Atarodi, who was arrested in California on charges that remain sealed but relate to his attempt to acquire what are known as dual-use technologies, or equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs. Iran has not reciprocated for that latest release.
Solomon, an independent intelligence analyst (who in 2009 revealed the crucial role played by German Federal Intelligence Service officer Gerhard Conrad in the negotiations that led to the 2011 Gilad Shalit Israel-Hamas prisoner deal), has been following the US-Iran meetings in Oman for years. Detailing what he termed the “unwritten prisoner exchange deals” agreed over the years in Oman by the US and Iran, Solomon told The Times of Israel that “It’s clear what the Iranians got” with the release of top scientist Atarodi in April. “What’s unclear is what the US got.”
The history of these deals, though, he said, would suggest that in the coming months Iran will release at least one of three US citizens who are currently believed to be in Iranian custody. One of these three is former FBI agent Robert Levinson.
Solomon told The Times of Israel that the interlocutor in the Oman talks is a man named Salem Ben Nasser al Ismaily, who is the executive president of the Omani Center for Investment Promotion and Export Development and a close confidant of the Omani leader Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
The latter tells the fictional tale of John Wilkinson, a successful American businessman who fails in all of his business endeavors in the Gulf until he meets Sultan, who explains to him, according to the book’s promotional literature, how to forgo his hard-charging Western style and “surrender to very different values rooted in ancient tribal customs and traditions.” Those mores have been central to the murky prisoner swaps surrounding the nuclear negotiations, Solomon said.
Solomon said he identified Ismaily’s role back in September 2010, when Sarah Shourd, an American who apparently inadvertently crossed into Iran while hiking near the Iraqi border, was released, for what were called humanitarian reasons. She was delivered into Ismaily’s hands in Oman and from there was flown to the US — the first release in the series of deals brokered in Oman. One year later, in September 2011, her fiancé and fellow hiker, Shane Bauer, was set free along with their friend, Josh Fattal. The two men were also received at Muscat’s Seeb military airport by Ismaily before being flown back to the US.
The US began reciprocating in August 2012, Solomon said. It freed Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan, an Iranian convicted on three counts of weapons trafficking. Next Nosratollah Tajik, a former Iranian ambassador to Jordan — who, like Gholikhan, had been initially apprehended abroad trying to buy night-vision goggles from US agents — was freed after the US opted not to follow up an extradition request it had submitted to the British. Then, in January 2013, Amir Hossein Seirafi was released, also via Oman, having been arrested in Frankfurt and convicted in the US of trying to buy specialized vacuum pumps that could be used in the Iranian nuclear program.
Finally, in April, came the release of Mojtaba Atarodi.
The facts of his case are still shrouded. On December 7, 2011, Atarodi, a faculty member at the prestigious Sharif University of Technology (SUT) in Tehran — a US-educated electrical engineer with a heart condition, a green card and a brother living in the US — arrived at LAX and was arrested by US federal officials.
He appeared twice in US federal court in San Francisco and was incarcerated at a federal facility in Dublin, California and then kept under house arrest. The US government cloaked the contents of his indictment and released no statement upon his release. His lawyer, Matthew David Kohn, told The Times of Israel he would like to discuss the case further but that first he had to “make some inquiries” to see what he was allowed to reveal.
In January, shortly after Atarodi’s arrest, his colleagues wrote a letter to the journal Nature, protesting his detention. “We believe holding a distinguished 55-year-old professor in custody is a historical mistake and not commensurate with the image that America strives to extend throughout the world as a bastion of free scientific exchange among schools and academic institutions,” they said.
Solomon, who compiled a profile of Atarodi, believes that the scientist, prior to his arrest, played an important role in Iran’s missile and nuclear programs. Atarodi, he said, has co-authored more than 30 technical articles, mostly related to micro-electric engineering and, in 2011, won the Khwarizmi award for the design of a microchip receiver for digital photos. “That same technology,” he said, “can be used for missile guidance and the analysis of nuclear tests.”
Solomon further noted that the then-Iranian defense minister and former commander of the revolutionary guards, Ahmad Vahidi, attended the prize ceremony and that Professor Massoud Ali-Mahmoudi, an Iranian physics professor who was assassinated in 2010, was an earlier recipient of the prize.
“There is no doubt in my mind that Atarodi came to the US at the behest of the logistics wing of the IRGC [the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps],” Solomon said.
On April 26 Atarodi was flown from the US to Seeb military airbase in Oman, where he met with Ismaily, and onward to Iran. “The release of someone who holds that sort of information and has advanced strategic projects in Iran is a prize,” Solomon said. The US, said Solomon, must have already received something in return or will do so in the future.
Thus far, US-Iran prisoner swaps have been conducted in a manner utterly distinct from the old Cold War rituals, in which, as was the case with Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky, spies or prisoners from either side of the Iron Curtain walked across Berlin’s old Glienicke Bridge toward their respective home countries. Instead, with Iran claiming it knows nothing about the whereabouts of former FBI agent Levinson, for instance, and the US eager to show that it will not barter with hostage-takers, the deals have taken the form of a delayed quid pro quo.
There are currently three US nationals — Levinson, Saeed Abedini, and Amir Hekmati — still believed to be held in Iran.
US President Barak Obama raised the issue of the imprisoned Americans in his historic September phone call to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor, Tony Blinken, told CNN that aside from the nuclear program it was the only other issue that was brought up in the call.
The interim deal in Geneva did not include any reference to prisoner dealings. Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN, “you’ve got to decide how much you’re going to try to accomplish, and just tackling all the dimensions of the nuclear agreement is ambition enough.” A spokeswoman for the National Security Council added that the “talks focused exclusively on nuclear issues.”
The omission prompted the chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, Jay Sekulow, who is representing Pastor Saeed Abedini’s wife Naghmeh, to charge Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry with turning their backs on an American citizen. On the center’s website, he called the decision “outrageous and a betrayal” and said it sends the message that “Americans are expendable.”
Abedini, who was born in Iran and later converted to Christianity, was arrested earlier this year in Iran for what would seem was strictly Christian charity work and sentenced to eight years in prison. He was recently transferred from Evin Prison, a notorious jail for political prisoners in Tehran, Sukelow wrote in a letter to Kerry, “to the even more notorious and brutal Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj.”
Amir Hekmati, a 31-year-old former Marine from Flint, Michigan, who allegedly obtained permission to visit his grandmother in Iran in 2011, was charged with espionage and sentenced to death in 2012. In September, Hekmati managed to smuggle a letter out of prison. Published in the Guardian, it contended that his filmed admission of guilt had been coerced and that his arrest “is part of a propaganda and hostage-taking effort by Iranian intelligence to secure the release of Iranians abroad being held on security-related charges.”
Levinson, a 65-year-old veteran of the FBI, was last seen on March 9, 2007, on Kish Island, Iran. According to Solomon, Levinson was stationed in Dubai at the time as part of a US task force comprised of former officers operating in the United Arab Emirates, training officials there to combat weapons trafficking, and was tempted to come to Kish for a meeting.
The last person he is known to have had contact with, and with whom he shared a room the night before his abduction, according to a Reuters article from 2007, is Dawud Salahuddin, an American convert to Islam, who is wanted in the US for murder. According to a New Yorker profile of the Long Island-born Salahuddin, he showed up at the home of Ali Akbar Tabatabai’s Bethseda, Maryland door in July 1980, dressed as a mailman, and shot Tabatabai, a Shah supporter, three times in the abdomen, killing him. From there he fled to Canada and on to Switzerland and Iran.
Salahuddin has indicated that Levinson had come to Kish to meet with him.
In September, Rouhani denied any knowledge of Levinson’s whereabouts. In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, he said that, “We don’t know where he is, who he is. He is an American who has disappeared. We have no news of him.”
This is highly doubtful. In 2010 and 2011 Levinson’s family received a video and photographs respectively of him in captivity. In January of this year the AP reported that “despite years of denials,” many US security officials now believe that “Iran’s intelligence service was almost certainly behind the 54-second video and five photographs of Levinson that were emailed anonymously to his family.” The photos and the videos traced back to different addresses in Afghanistan and Pakistan, suggesting, perhaps, that Levinson, the longest-held hostage in US history, was imprisoned in Balochistan, a desert region spanning the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, Levinson’s son Dan wrote a column in the Washington Post calling Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif “well-respected men committed to the goodwill of all human beings, regardless of their nationality.”
Several hours later, White House Spokesman Jay Carney published a statement saying that the US government welcomes the assistance “of our international partners” in attempting to bring Levinson home and, he added, “we respectfully ask the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to assist us in securing Mr. Levinson’s health, welfare, and safe return.”
As was the case with the Geneva negotiations, and as is likely happening with the upcoming round of talks regarding Syria, there is good reason to believe, and in this case to hope, that the movements played out under the spotlights of the international stage have been choreographed well in advance, perhaps in the sea-side city of Muscat, under the careful tutelage of Salem Ben Nasser al Ismaily.
Donald Trump has been roundly criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for saying that 80 percent of women crossing the border are being raped. NBC decided to drop his popular show, “The Apprentice,” and the Miss Universe pageant he produces. Mexico says it will withdraw its entrant to the pageant based on Trump’s offensive statements. ESPN, NASCAR and others have piled on. But Trump was just quoting an article from Fusion magazine. The piece, “Is rape the price to pay for migrant women chasing the American Dream?,” leads off by saying:
“Before they can reach the American Dream, many migrant women have to survive a Mexican nightmare. A staggering 80 percent of Central American girls and women crossing Mexico en route to the United States are raped along the way, according to directors of migrant shelters interviewed by Fusion.”
In fact, the problem is infinitely worse than the article reveals. For example, of 61,529 criminal cases initiated by federal prosecutors in 2013, 24,746—fully 40 percent of the total—originated in five border jurisdictions in Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, West Texas and South Texas. Almost all were committed by illegals.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its 2011 report, Criminal Alien Statistics, included a review of 249,000 criminal aliens. They were arrested a total of 1.7 million times, an average of about seven arrests per alien. Among them they committed 2.9 million crimes. Roughly 50 percent were arrested at least once for either assault, homicide, robbery, sex crimes or kidnapping. Here are the eye-popping stats:
Homicide: 25,064 (8% of total)
Sex Offenses: 69,929 (12%)
Assault: 213,047 (35%)
Kidnapping: 14,788 (4%)
But this doesn’t provide any context. These crimes were committed over multiple years. It is obviously significant, but difficult to tell how these figures stack up to the total without reviewing all crimes committed during the measured period. And since the period involved was not defined, it becomes impossible. However, the following statistics will help put this situation in proper perspective.
The GAO studied a subset of five states with large illegal alien populations: New York, Florida, Arizona, Texas and California. At the time of the study, the latest data available were for 2008. In New York, 28 percent of illegal alien convictions in 2008 were for murder. Another 11 percent were sex offenses. That sounds like a lot, but the GAO did not provide the numbers that generated those percentages, so a FOIA request was submitted.
The unpublished numbers provided by the GAO have been placed side-by-side against the total of each type of crime committed in each state in 2008 (total state numbers available here):
New York
Total Murders: 835. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 1,168 (140% of total)
Total Sex Crimes: 2,775; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 459 (17% of total).
New York Illegal Alien Population: 2.9% of total
California
Total Murders: 2,143. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 2,859 (135% of total)
Total Sex Crimes: 8,906; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 3,325 (37% of total)
California Illegal Alien Population: 7.3% of total
Texas
Total Murders: 1,373. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 934 (68% of total)
Total Sex Crimes: 8,004; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 1,825 (23% of total)
Texas Illegal Alien Population: 6.8% of total
Arizona
Total Murders: 404. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 326 (81% of total)
Total Sex Crimes: 1,654; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 391 (24% of total)
Arizona Illegal Alien Population: 5.2% of total
Florida
Total Murders: 1,169. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 1,762 (151% of total)
Total Sex Crimes: 5,972; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 2,971 (50% of total)
Florida Illegal Alien Population: 3.7% of total
Consider these facts. While illegal aliens compose just 2.9% of New York’s population, (if Census figures are to be believed), more illegals were convicted of murder in 2008 than the total number of murders committed that year!
The reason convictions exceed state total crimes in some cases is because the convictions are for crimes that may not have been committed that year, but went to trial in 2008. However if total murders for the previous three years 2005 – 2007 are added up, the 2008 illegal alien convictions still account for an astronomical percentage:
New York, 45%
California, 40%
Texas, 22%
Arizona, 24%
Florida, 55%
North Carolina has become a haven for illegals. Sex crimes committed by illegals against children in this state are off the charts. For example:
In North Carolina there were 752 arrests of illegals for sex crimes against children in 2014. Each illegal was arrested on an average of five charges, for a total of 3,695 charges! Statistics were not available for November 2014, so the actual number is doubtless higher.
For comparison purposes, in 2013, the latest data available, in all of North Carolina there was a total of 1,821 forceable rape cases—including of adults.
Despite this glaring issue, and the serious vote fraud problems in North Carolina, the newly elected GOP majority in the state just passed a law providing driver licenses to illegals. One must scratch deep to uncover something more irresponsible. Does the GOP have a death wish?
Should Trump be pilloried for pointing out an inconvenient fact? People are being killed and raped in epidemic numbers. Illegals are preying on our children! President Obama’s catch and release program for illegal aliens, including violent criminals, is directly responsible for 121 murders committed by illegal alien criminals released from jail under Obama between 2010 and 2014.
It is absolutely indisputable that San Francisco’s sanctuary policies contributed to the horrific, senseless, shooting death of 32-year-old Kate Steinle on July 2. Francisco Sanchez, the illegal alien who admitted killing her, has said that it was the city’s sanctuary policies that attracted him to that location. The city leaders have Kate’s blood on their hands. But that blood is a drop in the bucket compared to the outrages regularly being committed by the illegals among us, while politicians of both parties sing their praises.
By coddling illegals at the expense of Americans, President Obama, Eric Holder, Jeh Johnson, as well as leaders of both parties in the U.S. House and Senate and countless state and local politicians, are personally responsible for this violent crime wave.
This corrupt, self-serving political calculation—allowing criminal, illegal aliens to stay in this country despite federal law—cannot be tolerated. Trump should be praised for speaking out on this outrageous situation.
In Memoriam
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