Monthly Archives: March 2014

Somehow The New York Times Missed This

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Yesterday The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released its report on Lois Lerner’s role in IRS targeting.

These are the highlights of the report (The link above provides a link to the entire report. The highlights include page numbers):

Key Document Based Highlights (documents and testimony in appendix):

  • Tea Party “itching for a Constitutional challenge:” Lerner and her colleagues, after being under public pressure from President Obama and other Democrats, engaged in an e-mail exchange about how they could showcase their scrutiny of a Tea Party applicant for public disclosure, despite rules protecting the secrecy of unapproved applications.  The conversation turned to the possibility of a court case – if a Tea Party applicant would challenge the IRS ruling.  On this, Ms. Lerner opined, Tea Party groups would litigate because they are “itching for a Constitutional challenge.” – p. 41
  • Lerner discusses political scrutiny that isn’t “per se political:” In one e-mail exchange that began with a discussion of an article noting, “organizations woven by the fabulously rich and hugely influential Koch brothers,” Lerner told colleagues, “we do need a c4 project next year.”  While she initially says, “my object is not to look for political activity,” later in the exchange she acknowledges that it will examine political activity. “We need to be cautious so it isn’t a per se political project.  More a c4 project that will look at levels of lobbying and pol. Activity along with exempt activity.” – p. 17
  • Lerner broke IRS rules by mishandling taxpayer information:  While Lerner told Congress under oath, “I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations,” e-mails show Lerner handled protected 6103 taxpayer information in her nonofficial e-mail account. In a November 2013 letter from Daniel Werfel, Werfel notes, “We do not permit IRS officials to send taxpayer information to their personal email addresses. An IRS employee should not send taxpayer information to his or her personal email address in any form, including redacted.” – p. 33
  • Lerner planned to retire in October all along: While House Democrats have pushed that Lerner was forced out by the IRS as a result of the TIGTA report; new e-mails indicate that Lerner had planned an October retirement long before TIGTA released its report.  Her paid leave amounted to a paid vacation preceding her retirement – it does not appear that the IRS penalized her in any way for her conduct. – p.  40-41
  • Despite knowing about improper scrutiny, Lerner had IRS blame victims: An IRS document bearing Lerner’s signature shows that in March 2012, despite knowing about improper scrutiny at that time, Lerner reviewed and signed off on a response to Congress that blamed applicants for heightened scrutiny.  “[T]he IRS contacts the organization and solicits additional information when the organization does not provide sufficient information in response to the questions on the Form 1024 or if issues are raised by the application …. The revenue agent uses sound reasoning based on tax law training and his or her experience to review the application and identify the additional information needed to make a proper determination of the organization’s exempt status.” – p. 36
  • Concern Citizens United hurting Democrats:  Lerner believed the Executive Branch needed to take steps to undermine the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.  A senior advisor to Lerner e-mailed her an article about allegations that unknown conservative donors were influencing U.S. Senate races.  The article explained how outside money was making it increasingly difficult for Democrats to remain in the majority in the Senate.  Lerner replied:  “Perhaps the FEC will save the day.” – p. 21
  • Citizens United created pressure for IRS to “fix the problem”:  According to Lerner: “The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow, overturning a 100-year old precedent that basically corporations couldn’t give directly to political campaigns.  And everyone is up in arms because they don’t like it.  The Federal Election Commission can’t do anything about it. They want the IRS to fix the problem.” – p. 20
  • “Multi-Tier Review”:  Lerner personally directed that Tea Party cases go through a “multi-tier review.” An IRS employee testified that Lerner “sent [him an] e-mail saying that when these cases need to go through multi-tier review and they will eventually have to go to [Judy Kindell, Lerner’s senior technical advisor] and the Chief Counsel’s office.”  A D.C. IRS employee said this level of scrutiny had no precedent. – p. 24-25
  • Head of the IRS Cincinnati office’s testimony refutes Lois Lerner and President Obama’s O’Reilly interview assertion that this was all about a “local office”: “[Y]es, there were mistakes made by folks in Cincinnati as well [as] D.C. but the D.C. office is the one who delayed the processing of the cases.” – p. 44

Unless we are willing to live in a country where the laws are made and changed at will by whichever political party is in charge, Ms. Lerner has to be held accountable for her behavior. There is enough evidence against her to move forward with legal action. It is time to do that. Unfortunately, her behavior is typical of the Obama Administration’s disregard for the U.S. Constitution and the law.

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Learning From Indiana

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In most states, Common Core is coming to a school near you. I have been involved in movements trying to stop Common Core in two states. I believe the program is not good for America–it doesn’t allow individual communities, schools, and teachers the flexibility to teach the children in the communities effectively. I strongly object to the idea of curriculum and testing being controlled by Washington rather than individual communities.

The Heritage Foundation posted an article on what is happening with Common Core in Indiana. The article states:

Common Core began as a broad reform, dreamed up by the bipartisan National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, to provide a high-quality base of academic standards that any state in the country could choose to use. In 2010, Indiana became one of the first states to adopt the standards. By June 2012, 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, also began the implementation process.

Common Core already is woven into the fabric of American education. And where the words “Common Core” appear, protests are not far behind.

The article quotes one parent’s response to Common Core. This response totally sums up the problem:

“When parents still weren’t buying what [the publisher’s representative] was selling, our principal in frustration threw up his hands and said, ‘Look, I know parents don’t like this type of math because none of us were taught this way, but we have to teach it this way because this is how it’s going to be on the new [standardized] assessment. And that was the moment when I realized control of what was being taught in my child’s classroom  —  in a parochial Catholic school  —  had not only left the building, it had left the state of Indiana. And to me, that was a frightening thought.”

The complexity of the way mathematics is taught to first, second and third graders is unnecessary and confusing to many of the students. Problems that parents can easily do in two or three steps now take as many as fifty steps.

The article at Heritage reports that Indiana has put Common Core on hold until further investigation is completed:

“By pausing implementation, Indiana wanted to assess the cost to taxpayers and the quality of the standards – something every state that adopted the standards should have done prior to adoption,” says Lindsey M. Burke, The Heritage Foundation’s Will Skillman fellow in education. “While it’s still unclear exactly what the long-term outcome will be in Indiana, the Hoosier State provided a blueprint for other states that are interested in putting implementation on hold.”

The article reports some of the efforts to stop Common Core:

Angela Davidson Weinzinger founded the Facebook group Parents and Educators Against Common Core Standards in early 2013 and saw membership jump to thousands by that summer. She was taken by surprise by the Common Core standards in California, where she is a school board member in the Travis Unified District.

“When people first join the [Facebook] group, it’s usually because they’ve noticed the homework coming home with their kids,” Weinzinger says. She encourages new members to read information shared on the Facebook page, then contact their local representatives. “Common Core can’t be fought on a national level at this point. It has to be done in your states,” she tells people.

There will be a hearing in Raleigh on March 20 on Common Core. If you have children in school in North Carolina, you need to be there to fight for your children’s education.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. When you know what is in Common Core, you will want to stop it.

 

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The Mystery Deepens

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The world is searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The Diplomat posted an interesting story yesterday about the flight. There were at least two passengers on the plane with stolen passports.

The article notes:

“The counterfeiting of all sorts of identifications is very widespread, particularly out of Thailand,” Steve Vickers, a Hong Kong-based risk consultant, told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s pretty easy to pick up a stolen or a counterfeit passport.”

…“Any flight of that size in Asia would be carrying a couple of people with false passports,” said Clive Williams, a counter-terrorism expert at Macquarie University in Australia. “When you think about the number of passports that have been stolen or gone missing around the world, it could be related, but it is probably not.”

This morning, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said that a total of four passengers are being investigated: the two impersonating Kozel and Marald, as well as two other travelers with European passports described as “possibly Ukrainian.”

There are a lot of theories as to what has happened to the plane. One commenter on the article in The Diplomat explained how an empty fuel tank could have exploded. While that explanation is as feasible as any other, it doesn’t explain why the plane would have changed direction and dropped below the radar. I would also wonder if there are any old World War II airfields in the area that could be used without raising suspicion. But what would be the purpose of stealing an airplane? Why has no one demanded ransom or claimed credit?

It is also somewhat odd that we have not heard stories from anyone who is relieved that by some chain of events that they missed the plane. Usually after a plane crash, at least one person comes forward explaining that they got caught in traffic and missed the plane. I personally know a soldier who was coming home from Iraq and had to change planes in an American airport and missed at least three flights because kind, patriotic Americans kept on buying him drinks!

Like everyone else, I really have no clue as to what has happened.

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I Don’t Think This Was Part Of The Plan

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Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted an article about the Maryland Obamacare exchange. It is currently under federal investigation for fraud.

The article reports:

The inspector general’s office for the Department of Health and Human Services reportedly told Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris that it will proceed with an investigation into how Maryland’s Obamacare exchange spent copious amounts of federal grant money in the face of its failing exchange.

Oregon’s Obamacare exchange will also be investigated by the General Accountability Office after a separate request from House Republicans.

Large amounts of federal money were given to these two states to set up their exchanges–Oregon was awarded $304 million in federal funding for its Obamacare exchange — in addition to $160 million spent in state funding so far, the Maryland Health Benefits Exchange expects to spend $261 million, over 80 percent of its federal grants, by the end of 2015.

It seems to me that any person with some degree of common sense would be looking at these numbers and wondering how Obamacare was going to save money. It really is time to get the federal government out of the health insurance business and let the free market reign. There are ways that the government can set basic regulations to make it easier for people to afford health insurance–more competition in the free market would allow prices to drop, as would portability across state lines, tort reform, tax credits for individuals purchasing health insurance, and some other basic changes. It’s time to admit that Obamacare does not work and needs to be done away with and replaced with a free market system. The insurance industry is a business. There is nothing evil about business. Businesses work best with the least amount of government interference.

 

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This Isn’t A Surprise, But It’s Sad

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Yesterday Newsbusters reported that Sharyl Attkisson has resigned from CBS News. Ms. Attkisson’s coverage of the Fast and Furious scandal won an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2012.

Politico reported Monday:

Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network’s liberal bias, an outsize influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt that her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air.

At the same time, Attkisson’s reporting on the Obama administration, which some staffers characterized as agenda-driven, had led network executives to doubt the impartiality of her reporting. She is currently at work on a book — tentatively titled “Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth in Obama’s Washington” — that addresses the challenges of reporting critically on the administration.

…Attkisson joined CBS News from CNN in 1993. She served as an overnight anchor for two years before becoming a Washington-based correspondent, a position she held until this week. She has won five Emmy awards for her reporting on Fast and Furious, the Red Cross, Republican fundraising, TARP and border patrol.

Ms. Attkisson is a very good investigative reporter, and I hope she can find a job where her skills will be appreciated and she will be able to bring us more great reporting.

 

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I’m Not Sure Where This Came From, But I Love It!

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A toothpaste factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty boxes without the tube inside. This challenged their perceived quality with the buyers and distributors. Understanding how important the relationship with them was, the CEO of the company assembled his top people. They decided to hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem.
The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, and third-parties selected. Six months (and $3 million) later they had a fantastic solution – on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased.
They solved the problem by using a high-tech precision scale that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighed less than it should. The line would stop, someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and then press another button to re-start the line. As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes were being shipped out of the factory.
With no more customer complaints, the CEO felt the $3 million was well spent. He then reviewed the line statistics report and discovered the number of empty boxes picked up by the scale in the first week was consistent with projections, however, the next three weeks were zero! The estimated rate should have been at least a dozen boxes a day.
He had the engineers check the equipment; they verified the report as accurate. Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed just ahead of the new $3 million dollar solution sat a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. He asked the line supervisor what that was about.

“Oh, that,” the supervisor replied, “Bert, the kid from maintenance, put it there because he was tired of walking over, removing the box and re-starting the line every time the damn bell rang.”

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Where Does Your Tax Money Go

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Investor’s Business Daily posted an article showing some of the details of President Obama’s proposed budget.

The article includes the following chart:

This chart illustrates the fact that 70% of all the money the federal government spends will be in the form of direct payments to individuals.

The article reports:

In effect, the government has become primarily a massive money-transfer machine, taking $2.6 trillion from some and handing it back out to others. These government transfers now account for 15% of GDP, another all-time high. In 1991, direct payments accounted for less than half the budget and 10% of GDP.

…Where do these checks go? The biggest chunk, 38.6%, goes to pay health bills, either through Medicare, Medicaid or ObamaCare. A third goes out in the form of Social Security checks. Only 21% goes toward poverty programs — or “income security” as it’s labeled in the budget — and a mere 5% ends up in the hands of veterans.

The fact that so much of the federal spending is going toward direct payments makes it very difficult to cut the budget. Rather than cut these payments, the government is forced to cut programs it is actually constitutionally required to fund, such as defense.

The bottom line here is simple. We need to elect fiscal conservatives to Congress. We have reached the point where Democrats and establishment Republicans are no longer fighting over cutting spending–they are simply fighting over who will control the out-of-control spending. It is time for a change. It is also time to understand that Democrats and establishment Republicans will be working against that change.

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Who Is Actually Running Things?

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Last Monday, Heritage.org posted an article about Congress. It wasn’t the usual article blaming Congress for the various ills of the country–it was an article noting the declining power of Congress–they’re giving their power away!

The article cites a number of examples:

Consider several of the items Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus listed in a recent column headlined, “Losing the art of legislating as John Dingell retires”:

This is not how our government is supposed to work–it is rule by agencies in the executive branch–not three branches of government balancing each other.

 

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Information We All Need

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I received this article in my email today from ACT for America. This is a very concise picture of the threat CAIR poses to free speech in America.

CAIR’s Attack on Zuhdi Jasser’s Funders Begs the Questions:
Who is CAIR and Where Does Its Money Come From

by John D. Guandolo

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), served for eleven years as a medical officer in the United States Navy where he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. Dr. Jasser is a Past-President of the Arizona Medical Association, and currently has a private practice in Phoenix specializing in internal medicine and nuclear cardiology.

Dr. Jasser, as many are aware, is an outspoken critic of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Movement in the United States, and is harshly critical of those seeking to impose sharia (Islamic Law) in America. He strongly supports the U.S. Constitution as the supreme law of the land.

Zuhdi Jasser is a patriot, an American hero, and a Muslim – which is why Hamas (doing business as CAIR) is attacking him.

Last week, Hamas (dba CAIR) launched yet another assault on Dr. Jasser. In 2012, CAIR unsuccessfully tried to block his appointment to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), where he currently serves. CAIR is calling on the USCIRF to investigate the sources of funding for Dr. Jasser’s organization AIFD.

The fact that a Hamas organization like CAIR could operate so openly in the U.S. without disruption from the current administration is, in and of itself, astonishing. CAIR’s brazenness in attacking an honorable American like Dr. Jasser begs questions that must be answered – Who is CAIR and Where Does Its Funding Come From?

Let us together take a walk through the place CAIR never wants us to go – into the land of facts and evidence.

CAIR was incorporated in 1994 by Nihad Awad, Omar Ahmad, and Rafeeq Jaber. All three of these men were leaders of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), a now-defunct Hamas organization in the U.S. Musa Abu Marzook, the Deputy Political Chief for Hamas and the Leader of Hamas in the United States (Chairman of the U.S. Palestine Committee), was a member of the IAP Board of Directors. FYI, Hamas is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. government.

In 1993 and 1994, Omar Ahmad served as the National President for IAP, and from 1994-2005 was the Chairman of the Board for CAIR. Omar Ahmad was also on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Palestine Committee (Hamas). Rafeeq Jaber served as the National President of IAP from 1996-98 and 1999-2005.

U.S. government prosecutors and the Department of Justice identify CAIR as a member of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, which is Hamas in the United States.

In 1993, the leaders of the U.S. Palestine Committee (Hamas) met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The meeting was covered by the FBI via physical surveillance, microphones in meeting rooms, and wiretaps on phones. An “Action Memo” from FBI’s Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Dale Watson declared this was a “Meeting among senior leaders of Hamas, the HLFRD, and the IAP.” FBI analysis of the Philadelphia meeting, which was entered into evidence at the US v Holy Land Foundation (hereafter “HLF”) trial reveals “All attendees of this meeting are Hamas members.” Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad were present at this meeting.

Recorded conversations of this meeting captured Awad and Ahmad discussing the creation of a new public relations organization for Hamas which investigators testified was CAIR, created in summer of 1994, less than a year after the Philadelphia meeting.

The HLF Indictment (2004) states: “The purpose of this (1993 Philadelphia) meeting was to determine their course of action in support of Hamas’ opposition to the peace plan and to decide how to conceal their activities from the scrutiny of the United States government.”

In a 2004 FBI raid at the Annandale, Virginia residence of Ismail Elbarasse, a senior Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood (MB) operative, the archives of the U.S. MB were discovered. One of the documents found lists the leaders of the U.S. Palestine Committee (Hamas) – the names of CAIR founders Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad (alias Omar Yeheya) are on that list.

Because of the overwhelming evidence that CAIR is a Hamas entity, U.S. prosecutors list CAIR as a member of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee (Hamas) and as an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial – the largest Hamas and terrorism financing trial ever successfully prosecuted in U.S. history.

In the government filing requesting a denial of CAIR’s motion to have its name removed from the Unindicted Co-Conspirator list in the HLF case, U.S. prosecutors state, “The U.S. Muslim Brotherhood created the U.S. Palestine Committee, which documents reflect was initially comprised of three organizations: the OLF (HLF), the IAP, and the UASR. CAIR was later added to these organizations…the mandate of these organizations, per the International Muslim Brotherhood, was to support Hamas.”

In his ruling, the federal Judge in this case, Jorge Solis, stated: “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA, and NAIT with the HLF, the Islamic Association of Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.”

The question of why the President of ISNA sits on the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Committee, works directly with the Secretary of State, briefs National Security staffs, moderates panel discussions at CIA Headquarters, and has been given awards by the FBI will have to be addressed at a later date.

Is anyone else wondering how CAIR and its leaders are allowed to operate freely and unimpeded in America, with their headquarters only a block from the U.S. Capitol?

More evidence…

In the December 2007 government filing in the US v Sabri Benkhala appeal, the government stated: “From its founding by the Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists.” So, CAIR is a Muslim Brotherhood organization which supports terrorists. It would appear federal law is being violated here.

This would explain why CAIR has a long record of defending jihadis and jihadi organizations, while publicly condemning the counterterrorism efforts of the U.S. government and local law enforcement. Noteworthy is CAIR’s vigorous defense of Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzook after his arrest, and their criticism of our government for its investigation and indictment of the Holy Land Foundation – another Hamas entity.

What do senior government officials who have seen the evidence have to say about CAIR?

Former FBI Assistant Director Steve Pomeranz stated: “By masquerading as a mainstream public affairs organization, CAIR has taken the lead in trying to mislead the public about the terrorist underpinnings of militant Islamic movements, in particular, Hamas.”

In a 2003 Senate Sub-Committee hearing on radical Islam, Senator Charles Schumer stated, “To make matters worse, the prominent members of the Council’s (CAIR’s) current leadership who you Mr. Chairman invited to the hearings today – they declined to testify – also have intimate connections with Hamas.”

In June 2009, on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Frank Wolf (VA) gave a lengthy speech in which he laid out a great deal of the evidence against CAIR and its ties to Hamas. The transcript of this speech can be found at http://wolf.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/wolf-gives-major-floor-speech-on-fbis-cooperation-with-cair

In a letter dated April 28, 2009 from the FBI’s Assistant Director, Office of Congressional Affairs, to U.S. Senator John Kyl (AZ), the FBI leader details why the FBI cut off all formal ties to CAIR and identifies it as an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial because of its relationship with Hamas.

In a letter dated February 12, 2010 to U.S. Congresswoman Sue Myrick (NC) from Assistant U.S. Attorney General Ronald Weich, Mr. Weich wrote “Enclosed (is)…evidence that was introduced in that trial (US v HLF) which demonstrated the relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders, and the Palestine Committee. Evidence was also introduced that demonstrated a relationship between the Palestine Committee and Hamas.”

For those of you who forgot Junior High School math, please allow me to review: If A=B and B=C, then A=C. There is a relationship between CAIR and the U.S. Palestine Committee. There is a relationship between the U.S. Palestine Committee and Hamas. Therefore, there is a relationship between CAIR and Hamas. As was previously stated, on the order from the International Muslim Brotherhood, the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood created the U.S. Palestine Committee to raise “media, money, men and all that” for Hamas. The U.S. Palestine Committee created four organizations to support Hamas with propaganda, money, and recruits: The Occupied Land Fund (which became the HLF), the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), and CAIR.

In the sporting world we call this a slam dunk. But what about the money CAIR receives. Certainly if they are attacking Dr. Jasser and his organization for improprieties in his sources of funding, CAIR must be squeaky clean, yes?

No, actually.

Actually, the Hamas front called the Holy Land Foundation provided CAIR with $5,000 of seed money shortly after CAIR was founded, and, in return, CAIR raised money for HLF. Is there another violation of U.S. law here?

CAIR has also received funds from overseas organizations like WAMY (World Association of Muslim Youth) and IIRO (International Islamic Relief Organization). Both WAMY and IIRO are Saudi-funded groups whose U.S. offices were raided by the government because of their possible ties to Hamas and Al Qaeda.

Most notably, In 1999, CAIR received $250,000 from a Saudi-based bank headed by the former Director of the Muslim World League (MWL). Osama bin Laden identified MWL as a primary source of funds for Al Qaeda. Federal investigators raided MWL’s U.S. offices. It is not a far reach to see that CAIR received money from a source the leader of Al Qaeda recognized was a “primary” source of funding for AQ.

It should be noted the information in this article is a small amount of the massive evidence revealing the Council on American Islamic Relations is a Hamas entity whose role in the greater Islamic Movement here is to “support terrorists” as the U.S. Department of Justice has stated. They do this in a variety of ways. As a matter of fact, CAIR’s website acknowledges that all money donated to it via zakat goes to jihad fisabillillah – the seventh category under Islamic Law – but maybe we should save that discussion for another article.

As CAIR launches its attacks against honorable Americans like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser who are standing firm on the truth about a real and present threat to the American people and our nation, another question must be asked…

Where are the U.S. agencies charged with protecting and defending Americans like Dr. Jasser, and why are they not shutting CAIR down, arresting its leaders, and seizing all of its assets? Maybe they haven’t seen the facts.

John Guandolo is the founder of UnderstandingtheThreat.com and the author of the book Raising a Jihadi Generation, detailing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Movement in the United States. He works closely with ACT! for America and helped with the creation of ACT’s Thin Blue Line Project which educates law enforcement, military, and intelligence professionals about the threat from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Movement, and gives them investigative tools and strategies for addressing this threat. Mr. Guandolo is a 1989 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, a former active duty combat Marine Infantry and Reconnaissance Officer, and a former Special Agent with the FBI. For more information, please go to www.UnderstandingtheThreat.com.

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Does Workers’ Compensation Cover This?

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The Blaze is reporting today that a Hamas Field Commander was killed in a work-related accident.

The article reports:

A field commander for Hamas’ military wing was killed Saturday and nine others were injured during a training session on building bombs, Israeli and Palestinian media reported.

The military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, released a statement saying its operative was killed in an accidental “internal explosion” in Gaza.

On its English-language website, the militant group wrote that the man, identified as Ibrahim al-Ghoul, 30, “was martyred after a long bright path of jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice.”

About a month ago, there was a similar event in Iraq. I think the terrorists need better instructors.

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The Latest Dumb Thing Our State Department Has Said

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Breitbart.com posted an article today quoting State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki. Mr. Psaki stated, “Our position is that Israel is a Jewish state, but it is not necessary for the two sides to agree on this in the final agreement.” Wow.

So Israel should agree to set up a Palestinian state and Palestine doesn’t have to agree that Israel is a Jewish state? Does Palestine have to agree that Israel has the right to exist? That might be a little detail to get straightened out before Palestine becomes a state and forms an official military.

The article reports:

Recently, the U.S. had appeared to agree with Israel. President Barack Obama referred to “the State of Israel–a Jewish state” in his recent State of the Union address, and Secretary of State John Kerry twice referred to “the nation-state of the Jewish people” in recent remarks to the AIPAC conference of pro-Israel activists in Washington. However, both were careful to avoid insisting upon Palestinian recognition of Israel’s identity.

The Palestinians did not agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993, and considers such recognition to be a new demand. Palestinian propaganda denies Jews the right to sovereignty.

America needs to grow up and realize that we cannot bring peace to the Middle East until Palestine agrees to recognize the existence of Israel and until Palestine stops training its children to hate Israelis (see rightwinggranny.com). Until the culture of hatred changes, there will be no peace.

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Law Enforcement In Connecticut Knows What the Second Amendment Says Even If The Lawmakers Don’t

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Yesterday The Examiner posted an article about the latest development in Connecticut’s war on gun owners.

The article reports:

Gun rights legal expert and activist David Hardy reported Friday that 250 law enforcement officers in Connecticut have signed an open letter stating that they will not enforce the new anti-gun and magazine laws, which they consider to be a violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

David Hardy is reporting that Tyler Jackson, the head of the Connecticut Peace Officers Association, has emailed him a letter stating that the head of the Connecticut Peace Officers’ Assn has released an open letter stating that the police will not “be party to the oppression of the people of the state by enforcing an unconstitutional law.” So far 250 LEOs have cosigned the letter.

The Second Amendment states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Why is the State of Connecticut attempting to disarm its citizens?

Moving to North Carolina from Massachusetts has been something of a culture shock in a number of areas. One of those areas is the attitude toward guns. Generally speaking, I can assume that wherever I am in North Carolina there are probably at least three or four people around me with concealed carry permits that are carrying guns. Although I am not particularly interested in carrying a gun myself, I feel perfectly safe in the midst of people who do concealed carry. Actually, I feel safer than I did in Massachusetts. I know if someone comes into the mall with bad intentions, he will be met with a number of armed citizens with good intentions. That’s a good thing. Most of the mass shootings we have had have been in gun-free zones. People who intend to harm people generally like to do it where they will meet the least resistance. I have no problem with gun permits, but guns should not have to be registered, and they should not be subject to seizure by the state or federal government. Taking guns away from law-abiding Connecticut citizens is not gun control–it is disarming the civilian population–never a good idea!

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A Scapegoat Speaks Out

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RULE 12 of Saul Alinsky‘s Rules for Radicals states: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

The latest example of the use of this rule is the political left’s attack on the Koch Brothers.

As I reported on February 14th (rightwinggranny.com):

Open Secrets has posted a list of the top donors to Republicans and Democrats from 1989 to 2014. It is not really a surprise to me that you have to go down to number 17 to find a donor who donated more to the Republicans than Democrats. Koch Industries, the organization liberals love to cite as the buyer of elections, is number 59 on the list.

Well, the Koch Brothers are speaking out, and John Hinderaker Power Line posted  the story yesterday.

John Hinderaker states:

I asked Koch Industries’ general counsel, Mark Holden, who sometimes acts as a spokesman for the company, whether he would like to comment on the Times’ account of the Democrats’ new strategy. He responded with these observations:

It is disappointing, but not surprising, to see the NY Times become the launch pad for Senator Reid’s and his allied group Patriot Majority USA’s most recent dishonest and desperate attack campaign against Charles Koch and David Koch. It was very surprising, however, to see the Times’ headline that this was a “new strategy” by the Democratic leadership. For the past several years, the Times has been reporting and opining, and sometimes joining in, the attacks against us.

This is a living example of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Rule No. 12.

John Hinderaker compares the New York Times with Koch Industries:

Indeed. It is revealing to compare Charles and David Koch with the owners and managers of the New York Times Company. The Koch brothers employ a growing, highly-paid work force of 60,000 in the United States, around one-third of whom are unionized. Koch Industries enjoys excellent relationships with its unions. The New York Times Company, on the other hand, employs a shrinking, largely ill-paid work force, and is embroiled in a long-running feud with its unions.

Koch Industries and its subsidiaries produce tangible products that enrich the lives of Americans–among other things, Koch transports and refines oil, makes products that are used in construction, and manufactures a wide array of consumer products that are staples in most American homes. The New York Times Company produces nothing but shoddy left-wing journalism that is of questionable benefit to anyone.

This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. The issue here is what Americans want from their politicians and media. We can have a media that is objective and tells voters what they need to know to make informed choices, or we can have a media that lies to us and attacks people in a partisan way. The destruction of an honest man running a successful business does not do anyone any good. It is harmful to our representative republic. If Americans want honest news sources, they need to stop buying newspapers from sources that are not helpful to the political debate. We all need to support the sources telling the truth, and let the sources not telling the truth deal with a pile of unsold newspapers.

 

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This May Make The Peace Process Rather Difficult

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Yesterday The Times of Israel posted a story quoting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The article states:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said there is “no way” he will recognize Israel as a Jewish state and accept a Palestinian capital in just a portion of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, rebuffing what Palestinians fear will be key elements of a US peace proposal.

…Speaking to youth activists of his Fatah party, he suggested he would stand firm again, particularly over the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

“They are pressing and saying, ‘no peace without the Jewish state,’” he said, though not spelling out who is applying the pressure. “There is no way. We will not accept.”

I may be missing something here, but it seems to me that if Palestine is demanding to recognized as a state that they should also be willing to recognize Israel as a state. I have seen the maps drawn by various Arab countries that do not include Israel, and it seems to me that if we are ever going to have peace in the Middle East that kind of foolishness has to stop. If the Palestinian government is going to demand recognition as a Palestinian state, they should be willing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

In case you are new to reading this blog, I am going to end this article with something I have quoted before. To me, this quote sums up the history of the Palestinians. It is a quote by Walid Shoebat: “Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?” There has never been a Palestinian state (unless you consider Jordan, which is made up of land promised to Israel and then given to the Arabs to form a Palestinian state and then given to the Hashemites when they were driven out of Mecca). The whole argument for a Palestinian state is a rewriting of history. The land has never belonged to the Palestinians–the British called it Palestine as an affront to the Jews.

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Sometimes It Just Takes A While For The Truth To Come Out

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Fox News posted an article today about some of the testimony on the attack on Benghazi that simply does not add up. The testimony relates to whether or not the attack was a spontaneous event or the result of careful planning.

The article states:

In addition to Rogers’ (Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee) assessment, military experts say the mortar strike on the CIA base was evidence of a planned terror attack, and because it forced the evacuation of the annex, it must have been known immediately in Washington. But in a letter to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2013, Morell said “the nature of the attacks suggested they did not involve significant pre-planning.”

Two of the witnesses that have previously testified before the committee are expected to be called back–former CIA Director David Petraeus and his ex-deputy Michael Morell.

The article reports:

In addition to Rogers’ assessment, military experts say the mortar strike on the CIA base was evidence of a planned terror attack, and because it forced the evacuation of the annex, it must have been known immediately in Washington. But in a letter to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2013,Morell said “the nature of the attacks suggested they did not involve significant pre-planning.”

…Separately, Morell is accused by Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee of misleading lawmakers over the White House’s role in the so-called Benghazi talking points by stating the text was provided to the administration for their awareness, not for their input. Emails later released by the administration showed otherwise. Morell, who excised half of the talking points text, previously told Fox News that “neither the Agency, the analysts, nor I cooked the books in any way.”

When pressed on the sophistication of the mortar attack, two sources familiar with Petraeus’ statements to Congress said he also seemed to downplay the necessary planning and skill, stating the mortars could have been fired from the back of a truck with the same accuracy.

None of the five military officers contacted by Fox News said the truck explanation was plausible.

There has been so much misinformation put out by the Obama Administration about Benghazi that I really wonder what in the world is the truth and what is the reason for all the misdirection. It is amazing to me that the only person who has actually spent time in jail for the Benghazi attack is the filmmaker of the video that had nothing to do with the attack. The bad guys have been interviewed by CNN, but somehow out government can’t find them. It would be really nice if we found out what all the lying was about so that we could move on to other things.

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The IRS Scandal Summed Up In One Paragraph

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Yesterday’s Washington Examiner summed up the IRS scandal in one paragraph:

These simple questions – each based on indisputable facts – establish that somebody outside of the IRS told her they wanted the tax agency to “fix” something involving groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax status, that she directed subordinates to begin a (c)(4) project she feared could be seen as “political,” that she viewed Tea Party groups as “dangerous,” and that she ordered that such groups be subjected to “multi-level review.” Those are the four essential points of the IRS scandal: Who ordered the tax agency to get involved, who in the tax agency responded, who they targeted and what actions they took. She cannot answer these questions because, as she herself has claimed, that would be incriminating. Lerner and others must hope Issa doesn’t already have the answers.

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This Might Be A Problem For The Middle East Peace Process

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Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama have continued to put pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians in order to bring peace. The problem is that the Secretary of State and the President are ignoring the actions of the Palestinians while this ‘process’ is being discussed.

Breitbart.com posted a story on Wednesday about some recent events in the Middle East:

When naval commandos from the Israel Defense Force (IDF) boarded the Panama-registered Klos-C merchant ship early Wednesday morning, they uncovered the most significant illicit Iranian arms shipment since the Karine A incident in 2002. According to news reports, the shipment included “advanced Syrian M-302 missiles, with a range of up to 200 kilometers (125 miles) and a payload of up to 170 kilograms (375 pounds).”

The M-302 missiles were bound for Gaza via Sudan, according to the IDF. If fired from Gaza, the M-302 would easily be able to strike Israel’s major population centers, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Klos-C had embarked from Iran and stopped in Umm Kasr, Iraq, before it was intercepted on its way to Port Sudan, the IDF said. At least one analyst suggested that Egypt may have assisted the IDF operation with intelligence.

That does not sound like “partners for peace.” Israel has been criticized for its quarantine of shipping to Gaza, but the seizure of this cargo illustrates why that quarantine is necessary. Israel allows some goods and humanitarian aid to reach Gaza by land, after inspection, but does not allow ships to bring in cargo.

The seizure of this cargo also illustrates Iran’s role in creating trouble in the Middle East.

 

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Phantom Spending Cuts

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One of the biggest scams in Washington is something called baseline budgeting.  It is a way for Congress to claim that they are making spending cuts while increasing the amount of the federal budget. It is actually a rather clever use of the language to mislead the American public. Hopefully the public is beginning to get wise. The budget recently announced by President Obama and the way it is being reported by most of the press is an amazing example of political doublespeak.

Yesterday the Washington Examiner posted an article explaining the real numbers behind the President’s budget and the fact that in the stories in most of the media, the exact numbers are not being reported. All that is being written is that the President’s budge represents a reduction in government spending.

In a nutshell:

...in the current year, the federal government is expected to spend $3.77 trillion. With all the spending cuts being talked about, a reasonable person might assume that spending next year will be down a bit. But it’s not. In fact, the president’s budget calls for spending $3.90 trillion in 2015. That’s approximately $230 billion more than this year. It’s not a one-year aberration either. Spending increases are projected every single year for the next decade and beyond.

It’s hard to write that the president’s budget is cutting spending by $600 billion while also reporting numbers showing spending going in the opposite direction.

Sadly, Washington reporters have chosen to overcome this difficulty by leaving the real numbers out of their stories. That’s a huge problem. We can reasonably expect politicians to spin the numbers and hide the truth because that’s what they do. However, in a free society with a free press, we should be able to count on journalists to report the facts rather than the spin. Unfortunately, we can’t.

Until the average voter gets wise to this sort of journalistic spin, we can expect government spending to increase. This is a game played by both political parties and by journalists. The Washington insiders are not fighting about cutting the budget–they are fighting over who gets to spend the money. Until America elects fiscal conservatives to office, Washington will continue to drive the country into bankruptcy.

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No Parent Who Reads This Will Be Surprised By It!

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Yesterday’s U.K. Daily Mail reported that since Michelle Obama has overhauled the school lunch program, more than 1 million students have stopped buying school lunches. This has happened despite the fact that the number of students who receive free, taxpayer-subsidized lunches has risen sharply.

The article reports:

The Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency inside the federal government, told members of Congress in a little-noticed January 28 report that participation in the school lunch program declined by 1,086,000 in that one year, the biggest drop on record.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to revise its school lunch standards to bring them in line with a new set of nutrition requirements.

The first lady rolled out the law’s final regulations in January 2012 with a presentation linked to her ‘Let’s Move!‘ children’s health initiative. Changes took effect that fall. In the ensuing nine months, 33 states cited ‘challenges with palatability – food that tasted good to students’ as one reason sales tumbled.

It is not news to any parent that an unsupervised child is not going to eat food he does not like. If Mrs. Obama truly wanted to end childhood obesity, she might begin with food processors who infuse everything we eat with additives and high fructose corn syrup. Going back to more natural food with less additives and bringing recess, tag, and dodge ball back to our schools might be a more successful approach.

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Things That Happen In An Election Year

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Yesterday’s Washington Post reported that seven Senate Democrats voted with the Republicans to block the nomination of Debo P. Adegbile as chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Adegbile voluntarily took up the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, after Black Panther member Abu-Jamal was convicted of the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

The article reminds us that these votes were not about principle, they are about politics:

A senior aide to one of the senators who voted against the nominee said several senators’ offices were “very angry” at the White House for moving ahead with the nomination even though it could leave Democrats who are facing tough reelection races vulnerable to attack ads.

…Reid had spoken in defense of Adegbile and initially voted in favor but later switched his vote to no, making him the eighth Democrat to vote against the nominee. But Reid did so only to reserve his right as Senate leader to bring up the nomination again. Later Wednesday, aides couldn’t say whether that will happen.

Under President Obama, the Justice Department has become very politicized. Had the nomination of Debo P. Adegbile been allowed to proceed, the Justice Department would have become even more political. In the beginning of the Obama Administration, the direction of the Justice Department became clear when the New Black Panthers were not prosecuted for voter intimidation. In the past, the Justice Department has not been a political arm of the President’s political party. Hopefully, when we are free of the Obama Administration in 2016, the Justice Department will go back to being an impartial judge of the laws of America. We can probably expect the nomination of Debo P. Adegbile to appear again after the 2014 mid-term elections.

 

 

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Mistreating Our Friends (Again)

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Haaretz.com posted a story today about America’s denial of Visas to Israeli defense and intelligence officers.

The article quotes a government defense official:

“During the past year, everything has changed: I’ve heard many stories of defense establishment people who weren’t able to renew their visas, and it didn’t make sense to me until I tried to renew my own – and failed,” the official said, adding he would have to cancel a forthcoming trip to the States because of the visa issue.

Evidently the defense and intelligence officers are not the only Israelis having trouble entering the United States.

The article reports:

Late last month, Israeli media reported that the number of Israelis being denied tourist visas to the U.S. has risen significantly in recent years.

According to i24news, which cited State Department data, 9.7 percent of Israelis (12,000 people) who applied for tourist visas in 2013 were denied, up from 5.4 percent of requests that were rejected in 2012 and 2.5 percent that were refused in 2007.

A senior Israeli official surmised that the increase stems from reluctance in the U.S. to allow Israel entry into the Visa Waiver Program. That policy allows travelers from 37 countries to enter the U.S. for business or leisure as visitors for up to 90 days without a visa.

Meanwhile, as I reported on February 11 of this year (rightwinggranny.com):

The Obama administration has issued new exemptions to a law that bars certain asylum-seekers and refugees who provided “limited material support” to terrorists who are believed to pose no threat from the U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department published the new exemptions Wednesday in the Federal Register to narrow a ban in the Immigration and Nationality Act excluding refugees and asylum seekers who had provided limited material support, no matter how minor, to terrorists.

So let me get this straight, we have decided to let people with ties to terrorism in and keep Israeli defense and military officials out. Are we confused as to who our friends are?

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Why Foreign Policy Matters

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None of us have a 100% chance of predicting the future, but we expect our leaders in Congress and the White House to be well enough informed to make sure they don’t do anything that will hurt us internationally in the future. The current situation in Ukraine is one example of a Congressional bill that later had serious unintended consequences.

Today’s U.K. Daily Mail posted a story about a bill passed by Congress that destroyed the stockpile of weapons Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russia.

The article reports:

As a U.S. senator, Barack Obama won $48 million in federal funding to help Ukraine destroy thousands of tons of guns and ammunition – weapons which are now unavailable to the Ukrainian army as it faces down Russian President Vladimir Putin during his invasion of Crimea.

In August 2005, just seven months after his swearing-in, Obama traveled to Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine with then-Indiana Republican Senator Dick Lugar, touring a conventional weapons site.

The two met in Kiev with President Victor Yushchenko, making the case that an existing Cooperative Threat Reduction Program covering the destruction of nuclear weapons should be expanded to include artillery, small arms, anti-aircraft weapons, and conventional ammunition of all kinds.

After a stopover in London, the senators returned to Washington and declared that the U.S. should devote funds to speed up the destruction of more than 400,000 small arms, 1,000 anti-aircraft missiles, and more than 15,000 tons of ammunition.

…Many of the artillery shells shown in photographs from Donetsk, multiple weapons experts told MailOnline, would be the same types of ammunition required to repel advancing Russian divisions as they advanced to the west, had they not been destroyed.

…’Vast stocks of conventional munitions and military supplies have accumulated in Ukraine,’ Obama said in am August 30, 2005 statement from Donetsk. ‘Some of this stockpile dates from World War I and II, yet most dates from Cold War buildup and the stocks left behind by Soviet withdrawals from East Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungry and Poland.’

‘We need to eliminate these stockpiles for the safety of the Ukrainian people and people around world, by keeping them out of conflicts around the world.’

More than a year later, President George W. Bush signed into law a proposal authored by Obama and Lugar.

In addition to the destruction of these weapons, many of the weapons were sold to the United States, Libya, and Great Britain. There is no way any of this activity made the world one bit safer.

The article concludes:

Sky News video broadcast on Tuesday showed Russian troops firing automatic weapons over the heads of apparently unarmed Ukrainian Air Force personnel near a contested airfield in Crimea.

Foreign policy matters. This is an example of what happens when Congress and the White House do something that down the road endangers the freedom of people in other nations.

 

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A Short Summary Of The Internal Revenue Service Scandal

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Robert Stacy McCain posted an article in the March issue of the American Spectator that summarizes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal and sums up where we are today. The article reminds us that Tom Perez, now Secretary of Labor,  was head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division where his key aide Barbara K. Bosserman was chosen to head up the investigation of the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups. The first question regarding the investigation of the IRS is, “Why was Barbara K. Bosserman chosen?” Ms. Bosserman’s background is as a civil rights attorney–she does not have a background in tax law. It is also an incredible coincidence that Ms. Bosserman has historically been a major donor to Democrat party coffers.

The article reports:

During a January hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan raised that question with the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz. In his 12 years of DOJ experience under three different administrations, did Horowitz “ever recall the civil rights division investigating tax law matters?” Jordan asked.

“I don’t recall that during my time,” Horowitz answered.

The article reminds us that conservative political groups who applied for tax exempt status had their applications held up for a year or more. In some cases, organizations were asked for lists of donors and those donors were harassed.

The article points out the media’s role in downplaying the IRS scandal:

The media has been complacent,” said Becky Gerritson of the Wetumpka (Alabama) Tea Party, whose group was one of those the IRS targeted. In a telephone interview, Gerritson mentioned that the traffic-related “scandal” involving New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie had gotten 17 times as much major network news coverage in a single 24-hour period as the IRS scandal had received in the previous six months. From July 2013 through early January 2014, ABC, CBS, and NBC had barely two minutes of coverage to IRS scandal, according to the Media Research Center’s Scott Whitlock.

Even a basic investigation shows that some very fundamental laws were broken by the IRS:

Perhaps the most egregious example of that “climate of hostility” was the illegal release of donor information from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). Congressional investigators say the source of that leak was an IRS staffer in Lerner’s Exempt Organizations Division. NOM opposes the legalization of same-sex marriage and the IRS leaker, who cannot be named because of confidentiality laws, provided NOM’s donor information to a gay activist, who then gave it to NOM’s arch-enemy, the pro-gay Human Rights Campaign. The illegal IRS leak led to news stories in 2012 identifying GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a donor to the conservative group. NOM filed its own lawsuit against the IRS in October, and pointed out that former HRC president Joe Solmonese served as co-chairman of Obama’s re-election campaign. “This is a federal crime,” NOM president Brian Brown said. “Worse, the confidential information contained in the illegally leaked documents included the identity of dozens of our major donors and the HRC used this confidential donor information to harass our donors. This is a chilling set of circumstances that should ring alarm bells across the nation.”

The straw that broke the camel’s back for the conservative organizations targeted by the IRS is the fact that the investigators have only actually interviewed one of two of the organizations that have registered complaints.

The only way the IRS’s abuses of power will be dealt with is if those people impacted by the crimes of the IRS continue to speak out. If the sort of abuse of power is allowed to continue, all of our freedom of speech is in danger.

 

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From The Heart

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This is a post from a site called militaryspouse.com. Sometimes we forget the price the families of our military pay.

Weary Military Spouse Confessions

I am tired. I am over this thing we call “military life”.

Right off the bat I can hear the comments. “You knew what you were getting into”, “What do you have to complain about… you are not the service member”, “Suck it up, Buttercup”.

And all those comments make me want to punch a hole through the wall. This white wall that I am staring at, in a place that is supposed to feel like home because “home is where the heart is” or some other well-meaning cliché. But this doesn’t feel like home. At all.

I have been a military spouse since many reading this were in diapers. I was a spouse before 9/11… a young spouse then, new to military life and full of positivity and an eagerness to embrace this strange new world I married into. Even years after the towers fell, I was still optimistic. That first war-time deployment was hard, but my fellow military spouses saved me. We saved each other. Re-connecting with my husband was a bit challenging, but nothing we couldn’t handle. He was home alive… and that was all that mattered, right?

The first couple of PCS moves brought tears to my eyes… but the kids adjusted well and we all made new friends and it was an adventure. I was getting the hang of re-arranging our stuff to fit a new place. I knew all the tips and tricks about how to make a move go smoothly. I tried not to be too upset if something was damaged. It happens… and they are just things after all. Our immediate family was together, and that was the most important thing in the world.

I don’t know exactly when the shift happened. It kind of feels like a gradual thing… each deployment, each TDY, each PCS move, each homecoming… all chipping away at me. Wearing my skin thin. Making me more tired by the minute. And now, I just feel weary… all of the time.

I am weary of turning on the news and not seeing the numbers of dead reported… because it has just become too commonplace to be newsworthy.

I am weary of watching my children fight back tears as they say goodbye, again… and of watching them struggle to find their place in a new school.

I am weary of sending my husband away again… not knowing if this will be the time he doesn’t get so lucky.

I am weary of spending a large portion of my married life alone… even when he is “home”.

I am weary of lying in bed awake with worry at night over all of the unknowns of military life… and that doesn’t even count deployment.

I am weary of being told how lucky we are to have free health insurance and a steady paycheck… as if it were a gift.

I am weary of being away from extended family… I miss them terribly.

I am weary of making great friends and then saying goodbye… never seeing them again except on Facebook.

I am weary of witnessing the heartbreaking changes in my husband, that he won’t get help for… because he didn’t see combat after all. It wouldn’t be right.

I am weary of wondering what changes I will continue to see in my kids… who have known nothing but a life as a military child, with an active duty parent, during a time of war.

I am weary of the changes I KNOW are happening within in me… but I am too busy worrying about everyone else and just trying to get by, to ever seek help for myself.

I am weary of trying to be positive about the whole thing.

I am weary of people telling me how wonderful this life can be.

I am weary of putting on a brave face.

I am weary of not being honest about it all.

My husband only has a short time left in the military, and I am hopeful that my feelings are just indicative of how long we have been a part of this life… and that we are ready to move on to the next chapter. Am I grateful for the things that we have gained from my husband’s military service? Of course. But I am also well aware of the things we have given up. And I know that our weariness is a clear sign that it is time for his service to this great nation to come to an end.

I don’t write this for sympathy… I write it in hopes that if there are others out there feeling the same, they will feel a little less alone. I write it so that I can be honest about my feelings, an important first step in trying to get past them. Please don’t misunderstand. I am extremely proud of my husband, his service, and how our family has supported him for all of these years.

But I am weary. So weary.

And I don’t believe I am alone…

Remember our military and their families in your prayers.

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