Tag Archives: NBC News

This May Not Be Going As Planned

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On Tuesday, NBC News reported that a Michigan judge has refused to hear the case that would remove President Trump from the ballot in 2024.

The article reports:

A Michigan judge on Tuesday dismissed an effort to keep former President Donald Trump off the state’s ballot in 2024.

The judge said that under Michigan law, the secretary of state does not have the authority to intervene in a primary election if the party chooses to list a candidate who would not qualify for the office.

“The ultimate decision is made by the respective political party, with the consent of the listed candidate,” the judge wrote.

The decision comes after a group of Michigan voters in September filed a legal challenge to Trump’s candidacy, arguing that his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and his and conduct surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, making him ineligible for office.

If January 6th was an insurrection, it was the first insurrection in history where the police opened the doors and the insurrectionists had no guns. At some point the full video evidence will be released, and the public will realize that they have been lied to. The only person shot in the ‘insurrection’ was an unarmed civilian. There was also a death in the tunnel due to police brutality (article here).

I firmly believe that January 6th was a false flag operation designed to keep President Trump permanently out of the White House. Otherwise, why were his instructions to the crowd constantly misquoted?

Civilian Casualties Were Not Unintended Collateral Damage

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On Friday, NBC News posted an article about Hamas’ plans for their attack on Israel. The documents reveal something even worse than what actually happened.

The article reports:

Documents exclusively obtained by NBC News show that Hamas created detailed plans to target elementary schools and a youth center in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Sa’ad, to “kill as many people as possible,” seize hostages and quickly move them into the Gaza Strip.

The attack plans, which are labeled “top secret” in Arabic, appear to be orders for two highly trained Hamas units to surround and infiltrate villages and target places where civilians, including children, gather. Israeli authorities are still determining the death toll in Kfar Sa’ad.

The documents were found on the bodies of Hamas terrorists by Israeli first responders and shared with NBC News. They include detailed maps and show that Hamas intended to kill or take hostage civilians and school children.

Israel has a history of refusing to negotiate with terrorists. I wish we had copied that policy in our recent dealings with Iran. I believe that paying Iran $6 billion for American hostages incentivized Hamas to take American hostages. I realize that the Hamas attack of September 7th was planned long before the $6 billion was paid,

As I reported on October 12 (article here):

Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official, told Russia Today in a Sunday interview that Hamas demands that the United States engage in prisoner swaps and cited President Joe Biden’s recent Iran hostage deal as a rationale for taking of American captives.

Baraka noted in a translated excerpt of the interview provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) that there are multiple Hamas members serving life sentences in U.S. prisons. “We demand that the U.S. free our sons from prisons,” Baraka said.

The article notes:

The plan of coordinated attacks flies in the face of recent claims by Hamas that it did not kill children. A video released by Hamas on Friday showed armed terrorists holding and feeding Israeli children taken hostage, including babies.

The Hamas documents, footage of the aftermath of the massacre and interviews with eyewitnesses and first responders tell a harrowing story.

“I saw murdered babies. I saw murdered children. I saw mothers and children murdered together,” said Yossi Landau, a commander of ZAKA, an Israeli first responder organization.

Hamas does not belong in a civilized world. They need to be in prison or eliminated entirely.

Seeding The Epidemic

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America’s two-week lockdown to flatten the curve has lasted for more than a year now. Some states are now opening up. That’s good news. However, some federal policies are putting Americans at risk.

Yesterday NBC News reporting the following:

Miriam Izaguirre, a 35-year-old asylum-seeker from Honduras, crossed the Rio Grande at dawn Monday with her young son and turned herself in to the authorities.

A few hours later she was released, and the first thing she did was take a rapid test for Covid-19 at the Brownsville bus station. They told her her test came out positive.

“Right now we were tested for Covid and they separated about eight of us because we were positive,” she told Noticias Telemundo Investiga. “We are waiting right now.” She was waiting to catch a bus to Houston.

Other migrant families who also said they had tested positive were waiting to go to other destinations: North Carolina, Maryland and New Jersey.

The city of Brownsville administers these rapid tests at the bus station, after migrant families are released by the Border Patrol. A spokesperson for Brownsville confirmed that, since they began doing these tests Jan. 25, 108 migrants have tested positive for Covid-19, which is 6.3 percent of those who took the test.

In response to Noticias Telemundo Investiga, a spokesperson for the city said in an email that Brownsville does not have the authority to retain these migrants who plan to travel to dozens of cities throughout the country. The city assured that municipal workers recommend to those who test positive to keep quarantine as indicated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The city employees suggest to families they go to nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and nonprofits in the the border area who can take them in and isolate them in order to keep quarantine.

This is ridiculous. If the people testing positive were Americans, they would be quarantined. This ridiculous policy will spread the coronavirus throughout the nation. What insanity is this?

There Has Been More Than One Smoking Gun

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The mainstream media has finally decided to report on some of the corruption in the Biden family.

On Friday, NBC News reported the following:

Hunter Biden’s former business partner sent him an email in 2017 saying he did not disclose on his tax returns $400,000 in income from the Ukrainian natural gas company where he sat on the board, according to a copy of the email obtained by NBC News.

The message from Eric Schwerin, then president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, says Hunter Biden would need to “amend” his 2014 returns to reflect the “unreported” income, according to the copy of the email.

“In 2014 you joined the Burisma board and we still need to amend your 2014 returns to reflect the unreported Burisma income,” says the email dated Jan. 16, 2017.

The email goes on to note that Hunter Biden, who is now the subject of a federal tax probe, netted more than $1.2 million for the year. The earnings include the $400,000 from Burisma as well as income from Rosemont Seneca Advisors and a legal firm.

The article also notes:

There’s no indication that his work for the Burisma national gas company is part of the investigation, but the email obtained by NBC News raises fresh questions about Hunter Biden’s tax affairs.

His lawyer, George Mesires, did not return a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Biden transition team declined to comment when sent a list of questions, including whether Hunter Biden amended his 2014 returns.

NBC News could not independently verify whether the email is authentic and unaltered, but provided with a copy of the email, the spokesperson did not dispute its authenticity.

NBC News made multiple attempts to reach Schwerin, but he did not respond to the requests for comment. The Justice Department declined to comment.

The article concludes:

In a 2019 interview with ABC News, he acknowledged that he was likely given the board seat because of his last name and said joining Burisma was “poor judgment.”

Biden stopped working with the company in 2019, NBC News has previously reported.

“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part,” Hunter Biden said in the ABC News interview.

He added that he knows he “did nothing wrong at all.”

Joining the board may have been poor judgement, but somehow I don’t think he is going to return the $400,000.

 

Privacy Is Now A Total Myth

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Yesterday NBC News posted an article that illustrates how the surveillance state can be a problem for perfectly innocent individuals.

The article reports:

The email arrived on a Tuesday afternoon in January, startling Zachary McCoy as he prepared to leave for his job at a restaurant in Gainesville, Florida.

It was from Google’s legal investigations support team, writing to let him know that local police had demanded information related to his Google account. The company said it would release the data unless he went to court and tried to block it. He had just seven days.

“I was hit with a really deep fear,” McCoy, 30, recalled, even though he couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong. He had an Android phone, which was linked to his Google account, and, like millions of other Americans, he used an assortment of Google products, including Gmail and YouTube. Now police seemingly wanted access to all of it.

“I didn’t know what it was about, but I knew the police wanted to get something from me,” McCoy said in a recent interview. “I was afraid I was going to get charged with something, I don’t know what.”

There was one clue.

In the notice from Google was a case number. McCoy searched for it on the Gainesville Police Department’s website, and found a one-page investigation report on the burglary of an elderly woman’s home 10 months earlier. The crime had occurred less than a mile from the home that McCoy, who had recently earned an associate degree in computer programming, shared with two others.

The article goes on to say that McCoy went to his parents, explained what was happening, and they funded a lawyer for him. McCoy was trying to figure out how he got involved in something he was totally unaware of. He began to look at his phone and realized that he was using an exercise-tracking app, RunKeeper, to record the bike rides he was taking for exercise.

The article continues:

The lawyer, Caleb Kenyon, dug around and learned that the notice had been prompted by a “geofence warrant,” a police surveillance tool that casts a virtual dragnet over crime scenes, sweeping up Google location data — drawn from users’ GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular connections — from everyone nearby.

The warrants, which have increased dramatically in the past two years, can help police find potential suspects when they have no leads. They also scoop up data from people who have nothing to do with the crime, often without their knowing ─ which Google itself has described as “a significant incursion on privacy.”

Please follow the link to read the entire article. However, the bottom line is simple–Mr. McCoy’s civil rights were violated when he was accused of a crime simply because his exercise application placed him in the neighborhood of the crime. There was no other evidence other than the illegal surveillance of his movements.

The article concludes with the outcome of the case:

On Jan. 31, Kenyon filed a motion in Alachua County civil court to render the warrant “null and void” and to block the release of any further information about McCoy, identifying him only as “John Doe.” At that point, Google had not turned over any data that identified McCoy but would have done so if Kenyon hadn’t intervened. Kenyon argued that the warrant was unconstitutional because it allowed police to conduct sweeping searches of phone data from untold numbers of people in order to find a single suspect.

That approach, Kenyon said, flipped on its head the traditional method of seeking a search warrant, in which police target a person they already suspect.

“This geofence warrant effectively blindly casts a net backwards in time hoping to ensnare a burglar,” Kenyon wrote. “This concept is akin to the plotline in many a science fiction film featuring a dystopian, fascist government.”

The filing seemed to give law enforcement authorities second thoughts about the warrant. Not long afterward, Kenyon said, a lawyer in the state attorney’s office assigned to represent the Gainesville Police Department told him there were details in the motion that led them to believe that Kenyon’s client was not the burglar. The state attorney’s office withdrew the warrant, asserting in a court filing that it was no longer necessary. The office did not respond to a request for comment.

Kenyon said that in a visit to his office, the detective acknowledged that police no longer considered his client a suspect.

On Feb. 24, Kenyon dropped his legal challenge.

The case ended well for McCoy, Kenyon said, but “the larger privacy fight will go unanswered.”

This is frightening.

Common Sense From NBC?

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Yesterday Breitbart reported some recent statements on NBC News by justice correspondent Pete Williams.

The article reports:

On Monday, during NBC News breaking new following the release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, justice correspondent Pete Williams said Horowitz found that the FBI “screwed up at every level.”

Williams said the inspector general found, “The FBI failed to document to the court assertions in the FISA application that undercut Steele’s credibility.”

…He added, “The IG report says the FISA application was inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported. It says, for example, that the FBI failed to look at some of the problems in Steele’s past work, but that was never sufficiently addressed.”

This is the most important part of what Pete Williams said:

He concluded, “The inspector general is so concerned about these problems that if the FBI so mishandled this application for an investigation into a candidate for president, then how is it doing it for garden variety people who are subject to these warrants? And for that reason, we learned today the inspector general is now opening a new investigation on how the FBI gets these warrants on American citizens.”

It’s time to wake up and realize that privacy is a thing of the past. How does an average American protect himself from this sort of invasion of privacy and unwarranted legal charges? That should be the lesson learned from all of this–if President Trump with all of his money and all of his power is vulnerable to political surveillance and witch hunts, how secure from government attacks are the rest of us?

Quietly Fighting The War On Child Pornography

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NBC News is reporting today that federal agents have shut down the world’s “largest dark web child porn marketplace.”

The article reports:

The now-shuttered English-language site, called “Welcome to Video,” contained more than 200,000 unique videos or almost 8 terabytes of data showing sex acts involving children, toddlers and infants, according to the 18-page criminal indictment unsealed here Wednesday, and processed 7,300 Bitcoin transactions worth more than $730,000.

According to prosecutors, the vast online store was run by Jong Woo Son, a South Korean citizen currently serving an 18-month prison sentence in his home country after his conviction on charges related to child pornography. The site operated from June 2015 until it was seized and shut down by U.S. authorities in March 2018.

At a press conference Wednesday morning, U.S. officials said 337 suspected users of the site had been arrested worldwide to date.

…In addition to Son, more than 300 other suspects have been arrested in South Korea as of Wednesday, while still more suspects were identified in other countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, including a Washington, D.C., man who was caught with the equivalent of 50 years worth of video footage he had downloaded.

The website ran solely on the dark web, a section of the internet that can only be accessed via a Tor browser, which is designed to protect users’ tracks online and obscure digital footprints. Users could purchase videos using cryptocurrency and an annual membership was priced at 0.03 bitcoins (at current exchange rates, around $300).

The article concludes:

When they announced the arrest of “Mr. A” in 2018, the South Korean police also said they had arrested a total of 156 South Koreans for either uploading or downloading child porn materials, which was unusual given that the site operated entirely in English.

“Most of the users were in their 20s, unmarried and white-collar office workers and first-time offenders, although some were ex-convicts of sexual crimes, including juvenile sex offenders. One possessed as many as 48,634 child porn [files],” the KNPA said.

Paul Henkins, head of the Americas region for the U.K.’s National Crime Agency, said at the Wednesday press conference that 18 investigations of alleged site users had yielded seven convictions, with one defendant sentenced to 22 years.

The case, Henkins said, demonstrates the “increase in the scale, severity and complexity of child sexual abuse offending.”

Hopefully the people arrested will spend the rest of their lives in prison.

When The Press Works Hand In Hand With A Political Party

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We have all heard examples of news articles being withheld until after an election or until the politicians involved can figure out a spin. (see article here). Well, someone blew the whistle on NBC recently. In an article posted at The Daily Wire today, investigative reporter Yashar Ali reported that the managing political editor for NBC News and MSNBC bullied him on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) into holding a scoop that he broke yesterday. Think about that–the managing political editor for NBC News and MSNBC was helping the DNC.

The article reports:

“Yesterday, I received a call from @DafnaLinzer who serves as managing editor of NBC/MSNBC politics,” Ali tweeted. “Dafna’s conduct during the call was highly inappropriate and unethical. So what was the purpose of her call? She called me to bully me on behalf of the DNC.”

“Dafna, who oversees the political coverage for NBC and MSNBC, was calling to bully me into delaying the publication of an innocuous scoop and at no point did she advocate for her network, it was only about the DNC,” Ali continued. “Yesterday morning I received a tip from a trusted source. The source told me the DNC would be announcing the dates of the first 2020 primary debates later that day. The source gave me the dates they would be announcing: June 26 and 27.”

This is the most interesting part of the story:

“I realized that @DafnaLinzer, the head of all political coverage for NBC News and MSNBC wasn’t calling to advocate for her network, she was calling to advocate the DNC’s position,” Ali continued. She wanted me to wait so they could call state party leaders. I thought to myself ‘this is how people think it works.’ It’s not. But Dafna was doing it. She kept pressing me. Now I acknowledged, for stuff that isn’t about serious investigative reporting, there is no problem holding something. But I knew once others got the call.”

So much for objective reporting.

Misleading The Public About International Affairs

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NBC News posted an article today about the relationship between President Trump and the nation of Turkey.

The article reports:

As Trump administration officials presided over the second day of an international conference in Warsaw dominated by calls to ratchet up pressure on Iran, one longtime U.S. ally and NATO member was noticeably absent — Turkey.

Snubbing the gathering in Poland, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday attended a rival conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where he planned to meet his Russian and Iranian counterparts to work out a final settlement of the war in Syria.

The dueling summits illustrate President Donald Trump’s struggle to forge a united front against Iran, and reflect Turkey’s drift away from Washington as it finds common ground with Moscow and Tehran, experts and former officials said.

These three paragraphs are totally misleading and paint a negative picture of President Trump’ foreign policy that is totally inaccurate. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became President of Turkey in 2014. He had previously served as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2014. As he moves Turkey in the direction of an Islamic State, it is only natural that his friendly relationship with America would deteriorate rapidly.

On July 28, 2014, The Jerusalem Post reported:

Harold Rhode, a senior fellow at the New-York-based Gatestone Institute and a former adviser on Islamic affairs in the office of the American secretary of defense, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Sunday that the real issue in the ongoing conflict is that Turkey and Qatar are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in their goals.

“[Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan has been associated with the Muslim Brotherhood long before he was prime minister,” Rhode said.

It should now be clear to all that Erdogan “is now out of the bag,” Rhode said, adding that US President Barack Obama does not speak to the Turkish leader anymore despite previously describing him as one of his closest friends among the world’s leaders.

“Erdogan is doing whatever he can to help Hamas,” he said, asserting that it will only hurt the Palestinian people in the end.

On January 7, 2019, Clare Lopez posted an article at the Center for Security Policy that stated:

As National Security Advisor John Bolton heads to Turkey today for discussions about President Trump’s announced decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syrian battle spaces, he might question Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about his expressed intent to re-establish the Ottoman Empire and how Erdogan calculates U.S. policy in the region to figure into that ambition.

He might cite from Erdogan’s February 2018 assertion that “modern Turkey is a ‘continuation’ of the Ottoman Empire,” or ask exactly what Erdogan meant when, in November 2018 he declared that “Turkey is bigger than Turkey; just know this. We cannot be trapped inside 780,000 kilometers [Turkey’s total area].” He might perhaps ask also what exactly Erdogan meant by threatening the U.S. with an “Ottoman Slap,” in reference to American support for Kurdish forces fighting against the Islamic State.

Then there was the November 2018 “International Islamic Union Congress,” held in Istanbul. Headed by Erdogan’s chief military advisor, Adnan Tanriverdi, the event’s participants endorsed the aim of “unity of Islam” through establishing the “Confederation of Islamic Countries.” It was not entirely clear how or if such a “Confederation” would differ from a Caliphate or Islamic State.

Clearly, U.S. objectives for the region are not the same as Turkey’s.

I don’t think President Trump is the problem in our relationship with Turkey.

A Lie Can Travel Half Way Around The World While The Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes

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The above quote is from Mark Twain. He definitely knew what he was talking about. In America there are six major companies that control our media. Five of them lean left, one tends toward the center right. That is called balance. The alternative media is really the only chance most Americans have to get a balanced picture of what is actually happening.

The Washington Examiner posted an editorial today which listed the stories major media had misreported regarding the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh.

Here is a summary of those stories:

“Accuser’s schoolmate says she recalls hearing of alleged Kavanaugh incident,” NBC News trumpeted on Wednesday and Thursday. The casual reader would believe that someone had corroborated the accusation against Kavanaugh. Instead, the piece was based on a tweet, which was later retracted, by a woman who admits, “I do not have first hand knowledge of the incident.”

NPR followed up on the schoolmate’s claim, reporting that she says she has “no idea” if the assault happened or not. That misleading and suggestive NBC News headline is still drawing in duped readers, popping up on social media and Google News homepages.

On Sept. 20, the Guardian published a salacious article claiming that a “top professor at Yale Law School” told students last year that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female law clerks all “looked like models.” This professor also reportedly said she “would provide advice to students about their physical appearance if they wanted to work for him.”

It’s not until the 10th paragraph of the story that Guardian readers are told, “There is no allegation that the female students who worked for Kavanaugh were chosen because of their physical appearance or that they were not qualified.”

CNN, MSNBC, and Politico circulated a dishonestly edited video this week of Kavanaugh saying in 2015, “What happens at Georgetown prep, stays at Georgetown prep.” The remark came in the larger context of a joke, but MSNBC and CNN viewers weren’t shown that. Neither were Politico’s readers. Audiences are left instead with the impression that Kavanaugh was somehow admitting bad behavior.

These are only a few examples of misleading stories. There are some real questions as to what happened 30-some years ago. There are some real questions as to the timing of introducing this story into the confirmation process. There are also some real questions as to whether or not we will ever know the entire truth about this matter. The accuser has stated that she can’t remember where or when this incident happened–she just knows it was Judge Kavanuagh. How good is your memory on 30-years old incidents.

An Example Of A False Flag Operation

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Yesterday The Washington Times reported yesterday that the fire set at a Houston mosque on Christmas was set by a devout Muslim who attended the mosque.

The article reports:

A man who was charged with setting fire to a Houston mosque on Christmas Day is a devout Muslim who said he worshipped there for years, authorities said Wednesday.

Gary Nathaniel Moore, 37, of Houston, was arrested early Wednesday morning, and appeared in court 7 a.m. that day for the Dec. 25 fire. U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent Nicole Strong said they don’t know a motive but added there’s no evidence that it was a hate crime, The Associated Press reported.

…According to court records, Mr. Moore was identified from surveillance video quickly walking away from the mosque at about 2:39 p.m. and smoke could be seen coming from the mosque about three minutes later, AP reported.

…Despite Mr. Moore’s claim of being a member of the mosque, MJ Khan, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, which operates the mosque, said he’s never heard of him.

This was obviously not an example of hate crimes against Muslims by non-Muslims. Hate crimes against Muslims in America are not a major problem, as shown by the chart below taken from an NBC News post in June of this year:

Hate crimes by religion

Whether encouraged by his local mosque or some other group, this was an attempt to show people that hate crimes against Muslims are a problem. Hate crimes against anyone are a problem, but the majority of hate crimes in America are not directed at Muslims.

What Agenda?

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The Washington Examiner posted an article today pointing out that the big three networks gave the Chris Christie bridge scandal 17 times more news coverage in one day than they gave the IRS scandal in six months. Hmmm.

The article reports:

Since Wednesday night, NBC News included six reports over 14 minutes and 14 seconds. CBS devoted five reports over 12 minutes and 27 seconds. ABC managed 4 stories over seven minutes and 47 seconds, said MRC.

As a comparison over the last six months, NBC featured five seconds on updating the IRS story. CBS responded with a minute and 41 seconds. ABC produced a meager 22 seconds.

Make no mistake, this is about taking out the person the Democrat party considers the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. It also needs to be noted that as the polling numbers now stand, Chris Christie defeats Hillary Clinton in a Presidential campaign.

At this point I would like to state that I don’t want the Republicans to run Chris Christie for President. I think we can do better. There are other governors out there who have good track records, conservative credentials, and a lot more class than Chris Christie.

 

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Giving Away The Store

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One of the major threats to world peace is the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran. Because of that threat, most of the world has agreed to impose economic sanctions against Iran until Iran abandons its nuclear program. Unfortunately, Iran is not likely to do that.

The Daily Beast posted a story revealing that Obama administration began softening sanctions on Iran after the election of Iran’s new president in June.

As I quoted in an article posted on June 17th (rightwinggranny.com):

Ultimate power in Iran rests in any case with Mr. Khamenei and his fellow clerics, who are backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has expanded its control over business and other parts of society in recent decades. Iran today is best understood as a Shite fascist state with a democratic electoral veneer and ambitions to dominate the region.

Lifting the sanctions on Iran will most surely result in a nuclear Iran.

The article at the Daily Beast reports:

A review of Treasury Department notices reveals that the U.S. government has all but stopped the financial blacklisting of entities and people that help Iran evade international sanctions since the election of its president, Hassan Rouhani, in June.

On Wednesday Obama said in an interview with NBC News the negotiations in Geneva “are not about easing sanctions.” “The negotiations taking place are about how Iran begins to meet its international obligations and provide assurances not just to us but to the entire world,” the president said.

The article goes on to explain the Obama Administration’s justification for loosening the sanctions.

The thing we need to remember about Iran is that ultimately the clerics control Iran. No one gets to be President of the country unless he has shown loyalty to the clerics and the clerics approve. There was an election, but the government of Iran has not changed. The goal of the leaders of Iran is still a world-wide caliphate. We need to consider that fact when we deal with Iran.

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The Heroes Among Us

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Monday’s bombing at the Boston Marathon is something everyone will remember for a long time. During the aftermath of the explosion, there were ordinary Americans who did extraordinary things. Some were first responders, marathon first aid staff, and others who were there in case of medical emergencies at the finish line, but there was one ordinary American who acted in an extraordinary manner.

Carlos Arrendondo  is the man in the cowboy hat pictured in numerous news stories of the events immediately following the explosion. NBC News posted his story on Tuesday, the day after the Marathon (CAUTION: the picture in the NBC story is graphic). Mr. Arrendondo was at the Marathon to show support for a group running for fallen veterans, one of them his son, who was killed in Iraq in 2004. Since the death of his son, Mr. Arrendondo has become a peace activist.

Jeff Bauman is the man whose life was saved due to the actions of Carlos Arrendondo. Mr. Bauman’s lower leg was blown off by the explosion. The actions of Carlos Arrendondo remind us that there are heroes among us. Mr. Arrendondo is not a perfect person with a perfect past–he is a man who when placed in a horrendous situation which required immediate action was not afraid to take the necessary action. That is the definition of courage.

 

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The Pope Is Catholic

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It seems like an obvious statement, “The Pope is Catholic,” but the American news media almost seems surprised at his Biblical views.

NBC News posted an article about some of the ‘firsts’ the new Pope represents. Pope Francis is the first Latin American pope and the first Jesuit pope. He also is a believer in traditional Catholic theology–not to be swayed by what those outside the Church are doing or saying.

The article reports:

George Weigel, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Ethics and Public Policy Center who is a Vatican analyst for NBC News, agreed that the choice of Bergoglio “speaks to the church’s commitment to the poor of the world and compassion in a world that often needs a lot of healing.”

At the same time, “this is a John Paul II guy,” Weigel said, referring to Pope John Paul II, who elevated Bergoglio to archbishop in 1998 and cardinal in 2001. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, “he tried to call that community back to orthodoxy,” Weigel said.

The new pope has been a vocal opponent of abortion and especially of same-sex marriage, saying in 2010 that its role was to “seriously injure the family.” He said the practice deprived children of “the human growth that God wanted them given by a father and a mother.”

The Church (regardless of denomination) is supposed to stand for something. Right and wrong do not change, regardless of what society decides to do. It will be interesting to watch how Pope Francis expresses this view. It is also wonderful to see a pope who cares so deeply about the poor and is willing to adopt a humble, simple lifestyle. I am not Catholic, but I think Pope Francis is the right man for the job.

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One Of The Questions Raised By Terrorism

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The successful assassination of Adolph Hitler would have been seen as a blessing. It would have saved many lives–German, British, European and American. Adolph Hitler was leading Germany into war with all of its neighbors and had plans for an even larger war. He needed to be stopped.

Life is a little less black and white when you are dealing with terrorist leaders. The average terrorist leader is not the head of a country, although there are a few exceptions. The average terrorist leader has followers, but there are not necessarily all located in one place. The average terrorist leader may not even be acknowledged as a terrorist–he may be perceived as a moderate Islamic leader. It really is difficult in a war on terror to tell the bad guys from the bystanders. That is part of what makes President Obama’s drone program such a major concern.

NBC News has posted an article about three drone killings that occurred in September 2011. All those killed were American citizens. Americans would be up in arms if Americans were killed overseas by other countries without proper jurisprudence, so why are we doing it ourselves?

The article reports:

Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were killed by a missile strike in Yemen on Sept. 30, 2011, while al-Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman, was killed in the country just weeks later.

Anwar al-Awlaki posted anti-American sermons on the internet and encouraged terrorism by his followers. Major Nidal Hasan, who killed soldiers at Fort Hood while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” is said to be a follower of Anwar al-Awlaki. 

The article reports on al-Awlaki and Khan:

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, he ( Anwar al-Awlaki) became a popular spokesman for moderate Islam, and was often used to juxtapose perceptions that Islam is a religion that spreads hate.  But less than a decade later, he was hiding in Yemen as a name on the CIA’s kill list.

“I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding on every other Muslim,” he said in an audio message in March 2010.    

Conversely, Khan was never interested in the peaceful side of Islam. The New York Times reports that as a teen, Khan’s attraction grew exponentially to militant sites on the Internet after 9/11. Parental concerns and intervention from community leaders proved unsuccessful. Khan was 25 when he died in Yemen.

My point is this. These men were killed without a trial for words they posted on the internet. They were not leaders of countries. Would it not have been better to take them alive and put them in Guantanamo to end their internet postings?

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One Possible Reason The Presidential Race Is Still Close

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Hot Air posted an article yesterday stating that 58 percent of registered voters were unfamiliar with Solyndra.

The article reports:

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 58 percent of registered voters are unaware or unsure of the company, which went bankrupt in 2011 after receiving an Energy Department loan guarantee in 2009 to manufacture advanced solar panels.

Twenty-five percent of respondents had a negative view of Solyndra, 15 percent were neutral and just 2 percent held a positive view on the subect, according to the survey conducted in late September. …

The company’s collapse in late August of 2011, which put more than 1,000 people out of work, was an embarrassment for the White House. Obama had personally visited Solyndra in 2010 to cast it as an example of the emerging green economy.

Attempts to make green energy practical have cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Someone needs to launch an advertising campaign explaining how many government-financed companies related to green energy have been forced to lay off workers or have gone bankrupt. Meanwhile, it would help the Romney campaign to make sure everyone was aware of how much money has been wasted on Solyndra and other green energy companies.

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