A poll just released says that 70% of Americans do not want our government to send arms to the Syrian forces attempting to oust President Assad. One would think that since it has been proven that many of the “rebels” in those forces are members of Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda is on the record as wanting to destroy America and all Americans, our illegal president would heed their wishes and keep his hands off the situation. He doesn’t and hasn’t, which is glaring evidence that he does not represent us but is aligned with the global Jihadist movement.
Barack Obama was born and raised a Muslim. Even he doesn’t dispute this. From the day he entered our White House, he has waged his personal religious crusade to force out of office any secular government in the Middle East, to be replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood. He has been successful in this and Syria is now in his crosshairs. Even 70% of Americans can’t stop him.
Seventeen years after the Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 blew up off the coast of Long Island, producers Tom Stalcup and Kristina Borjesson have released a new documentary –simply titled “TWA Flight 800” – that has the very real potential to re-open the investigation into the plane’s destruction.
Kudos, in particular, to Stalcup. A Ph.D. physicist by background, he has dedicated the last 16 years of his life to exposing what is arguably the most flagrant government cover-up in American peacetime history.
Borjesson has likewise been involved from the beginning. As a producer at CBS in 1996 when TWA 800 was destroyed, she sacrificed her future at CBS to get at the truth. Together, they have produced a documentary that is compelling, convincing and, finally, deeply moving. [More...]
(Reuters) – As the Syrian civil war got under way, a former electrician who calls himself Sheikh Omar built up a brigade of rebel fighters. In two years of struggle against President Bashar al-Assad, they came to number 2,000 men, he said, here in the northern city of Aleppo. Then, virtually overnight, they collapsed.
Omar’s group, Ghurabaa al-Sham, wasn’t defeated by the government. It was dismantled by a rival band of revolutionaries – hardline Islamists.
The Islamists moved against them at the beginning of May. After three days of sporadic clashes Omar’s more moderate fighters, accused by the Islamists of looting, caved in and dispersed, according to local residents. Omar said the end came swiftly.
The Islamists confiscated the brigade’s weapons, ammunition and cars, Omar said. “They considered this war loot. Maybe they think we are competitors,” he said. “We have no idea about their goals. What we have built in two years disappeared in a single day.” [More...]
That’s the haunting opening line of “Stardust,” the magnificent ballad (some argue — not without plausibility — that it’s the biggest selling song in music history) as created by Hoagy Carmichael (music) and Mitchell Parish (lyrics).
As a lamentation of lost and altogether unforgotten love, “Stardust” is exquisitely evocative. Ironically, perhaps heartbreakingly, that opening line can, these days, serve as a sobering descriptor for where the United States of America now stands.
Not so long ago they told us it was morning in America. But we are now arguably lurching headlong toward something cold, dark and foreboding.
There is no leadership in America because we can no longer have any faith in our government to do the right thing. Faith is gone because trust is gone. Any semblance of accountability in this current crop of “leaders” has been eviscerated. They don’t provide it. Even worse, not enough of us demand it. We are waltzing toward nighttime, or toward a precipice which seems to beckon, just like that cliff in Hamelin, over which the Pied Piper led those enraptured — or entranced — children.
Barack Obama was a snake oil salesman from the start, an enigma to the Nth degree. But no one ever called him on it. Still, no one calls him on it. We just roll on, toward that cliff, into the night.
We have finally reached a point (a minor miracle) where we can categorize his inept or calculating administration as “scandalous.” Still we do little about it. Benghazi is a tragedy for many reasons. All these months later, we have yet to hear definitively regarding who made the decisions on that fateful, tragic night. We don’t even know where Obama was, or what he was doing, when Americans were left to die.
The IRS fiasco? Listen to this ignoble administration and they’ll have you believe, despite logic, despite proof to the contrary, that it was all about a few “rogue agents” in Cincinnati who took matters in their own foolish, deceptive hands. That’s utter nonsense. Yet we hear from Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, that “this case is solved.” According to the congressman from Georgia, “I think we’re in great shape.”
The truth is this: nothing is solved. Not with the IRS and not with a blatant abuse of power. Not with Benghazi and flagrant, callous ineptitude. Not with an administration (including a “Justice” Department) that goes after its enemies in ways that surpass Nixon and abut the moribund ground of Stalin.
And that brings us to Syria, to a conflict that, in all the important ways, evokes memories of the Spanish civil war, of how the world is choosing up sides, of how the forces of evil are showing up first and foremost, while the rest, those who could oppose, should oppose, are largely missing in action or dithering with pretense.
Months after the rest of the world understood clearly that Assad used chemical weapons, Obama suddenly came to “see” that his inane red line was crossed. Now this feckless president mumbles about sending “small arms” (pea shooters and squirt guns, perhaps) to the “rebels” who today, unlike ayear and a half ago, are composed more of al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria) than anything else.
Here’s the only remotely mitigating factor in this current comedy: Given that any aid at this point would be going to a sworn enemy of America, Obama’s too little/too late “decision” is meaningless anyway. Only fools “lead from behind.” And only fools buy into such nonsense.
No, nothing is solved. The guilty are not held accountable. Even worse, we allow the band to play on. It didn’t work in 1938. It won’t work now. We’re just tacking on to the bill that will ultimately be paid, one way or another. Ayn Rand said it best: “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of reality.”
So we evade the truth and we continue our dance toward the edge. Ineluctably through the purple dusk, to twilight time and beyond.
Michael Podwill’s Viewpoints appear in The DC Post regularly. He is a freelance writer and a creative marketing/advertising consultant. He can be reached at mpodwill@aol.comor on Twitter @michaelpodwill.
(Reuters) – China made its first substantive comments on Monday to reports of U.S. surveillance of the Internet, demanding that Washington explain its monitoring programs to the international community.
Several nations, including U.S. allies, have reacted angrily to revelations by an ex-CIA employee over a week ago that U.S. authorities had tapped the servers of internet companies for personal data.
“We believe the United States should pay attention to the international community’s concerns and demands and give the international community the necessary explanation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily briefing. [More...]
Exclusive: phones were monitored and fake internet cafes set up to gather information from allies in London in 2009
Documents uncovered by the NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, reveal surveillance of G20 delegates’ emails and BlackBerrys. Photograph: Guardian
Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic.
The revelation comes as Britain prepares to host another summit on Monday – for the G8 nations, all of whom attended the 2009 meetings which were the object of the systematic spying. It is likely to lead to some tension among visiting delegates who will want the prime minister to explain whether they were targets in 2009 and whether the exercise is to be repeated this week. [More...]
JERUSALEM – In a bombshell admission that has until now gone unreported, Martin Dempsey, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded that highly trained Special Forces were stationed just a few hours away from Benghazi on the night of the attacks but were not told to deploy to Libya.
In comments that may warrant further investigation, Dempsey stated at a Senate hearing Wednesday that on the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, command of the Special Forces – known as C-110, or the EUCOM CIF – was transferred from the military’s European command to AFRICOM, or the United States Africa Command.
Dempsey did not state any reason for the strange transfer of command nor could he provide a timeline for the transfer the night of the attack.
Also, Dempsey’s comments on the travel time between Croatia and Benghazi were incorrect.
His remarks for the first time confirm an exclusive Fox News interview aired April 30 in which a special government operator, speaking on condition of anonymity, contradicted claims by the Obama administration and a State Department review that there wasn’t enough time for military forces to deploy the night of the attack. [More...]
Sixty percent surveyed say opposition ‘may be no better than the current government.’ | Reuters
By KATIE GLUECK | 6/17/13 1:56 PM EDT Updated: 6/18/13 6:45 AM EDT
Americans overwhelmingly oppose arming anti-government groups in Syria even as a new U.S. policy looks to do just that, a poll posted on Monday says.
According to a survey from the Pew Research Center, 70 percent of Americans don’t want the United States and allies to send arms and military supplies to those factions challenging Syrian dictator Bashar Assad; 20 percent support that strategy. The Obama administration, however, has decided to send such aid to some elements of the Syrian opposition. [More...]
There’s a reason George Orwell’s 1984 is a predominant theme in my new book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (available now on Amazon.com and in stores on June 25). It’s the same reason Orwell’s dystopian thriller about a futuristic surveillance society has skyrocketed to the top of book charts in the wake of recent revelations by former CIA employee and National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden that the nefarious spy agency is collecting the telephone records of millions of Verizon customers, with the complete blessing of the Obama administration.
Orwell understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan flag-waving, are still struggling to come to terms with: that there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people – even the best intentions among those in government inevitably give way to the desire to maintain power and control at all costs. [More...]
All over the United States, frustrated homeowners are banding together, arming themselves and patrolling their own streets. One of the primary reasons this is happening is because police budgets all over the nation are being slashed at a time when violent crime rates in the United States are increasing and many our our largest cities are being transformed into crime-infested war zones. So instead of waiting for government to come up with a solution, many Americans are taking matters into their own hands. For example, one community group in Milwaukie, Oregon has started posting flyers with an ominous message for potential criminals: “This is a Glock block. We don’t call 911.” You can see a photo of this flyer right here. One of the founders of the “Glock Block” is a breast cancer survivor named Coy Tolonen. She decided to arm herself after a thief stole one of her favorite statues out of her front yard while she was watching… [More...]
WND readers know Ann Coulter’s incisive political analysis and keen wit from her weekly columns on this website.
She has warned WND readers about the danger of including an amnesty provision in the immigration bill the Senate is now considering.
We asked her 10 questions delving deeper into the issue to let Americans know just what is at stake and what they can do about it.
Why won’t passing amnesty help Republicans?
Look at California! The state that gave us Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan is now a state where a Republican cannot be elected statewide. Not even attractive, successful businesswomen like Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman can beat a tired old dinosaur like Jerry Brown or a dried-up prune like Barbara Boxer. The most beautiful state in the union is ruined, and the greatest nation in history is about to be.
Why will passing amnesty hurt Republicans?
Amnesty will lead to the immiseration of millions of Americans as low-wage workers will be out of work entirely or working at meaningless low-wage jobs. In either event they’ll be required to depend on government to get by. The 30 million Hispanics who already are citizens or legal residents will be in the same boat as the rest of us. Many of them will be earning less and less, unable to get ahead or to assimilate. It’s not just amnesty, but legal immigration that needs to be curtailed to give the mass of immigrants from the last several decades time to make money, get ahead and assimilate to American culture. That’s how you create a Republican: Give him a job. You create a Democrat by giving him welfare. A lot more Americans of all races will need government assistance, thanks to Rubio’s amnesty/mass immigration bill.
If amnesty won’t help the GOP, why are prominent Republicans pushing it?
Because the plutocrats want it. All the rich Republican donors want cheap labor, and their high-priced lobbyists have convinced the stupidest Republicans that it’s a great idea. As Jorge Borjas of Harvard has pointed out, amnesty transfers wealth from the bottom of society to the top. The rich get cheap labor and the bottom third get crappy, low-wage jobs.
Would those in the House leadership do something that harms America just to help their own careers?
Ha! Ironically, if it helps them at all, it will only help in the next few election cycles when they are paid back in large campaign contributions from the plutocrats – Foster Freize, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, Mark Zuckerberg, etc., etc. But then they will have created a country where Republicans will be a permanent minority and no Republican can ever be elected nationwide. You will notice the smartest members of Congress – Jeff Sessions, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Steve King – are categorically opposed to the amnesty bill Chuck Schumer has conned Mario Rubio into flacking.
It’s Schumer’s bill! Why is Rubio the one pushing it? Remind me again: Are Princeton and Harvard Law School (Cruz ’92 & ’95) tougher to get into than a non-accredited community college in Florida (Marco Rubio)?
How will amnesty hurt America?
I’d say being a country where the political spectrum runs from Gavin Newsom to Nancy Pelosi is not a country most Americans want to live in. But we weren’t consulted on whether to turn the country into Mexico. And at best it will be Mexico – with the very, very, very rich doing quite well, attended to by hordes of servants, while the rest of us live in huts and scrape by on less than today’s minimum wage. For a preview of this new country, see California.
How will amnesty hurt illegal immigrants already in this country?
See above – it will hurt all low-wage workers by driving down their wages, making it hard for them to find jobs and requiring them to take government assistance. The rich don’t care, as long as they’re making money. The Republicans don’t care, as long as they win their next elections.(Though many won’t.) Democrats don’t care, as long as the newly legalized illegals all vote for the Democrats.
Historically, immigration has helped America – why is it now hurting our country?
That’s nonsense!
1) As Peter Brimelow points out ALL NATIONS ARE NATIONS OF IMMIGRANTS. STOP CALLING AMERICA “A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS!” Do people imagine the British simply emerged from the mud as proper, common law-respecting, tea-drinking Englishmen? The Romans occupied it, the Normans invaded, Germanic tribes replaced the Normans, the Vikings invaded and a thousand of years later, the Muslims came and wrecked the place. I may have gotten some of the invasions mixed up, but that’s it in a nutshell.
2) As Milton Friedman has said: You can’t have open borders and a welfare state. For roughly the first three centuries of America’s existence, anyone could come here – and good luck to them! If they couldn’t make it, they went home. About 30 percent did. We skimmed the cream of the world! By the time of the American Revolution, this had created something distinctive about Americans, as described absolutely beautifully by Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.”
Even after the Democrats ginned up the welfare machinery, the country maintained the same national character and stayed largely the same demographically because our immigration policy imposed quotas to replicate the nationalities of the people already here. But in 1965, Teddy Kennedy’s immigration act intentionally changed the ethnicity of immigrants to favor those from the Third World and freeze out people from countries that had traditionally sent us our immigrants. Since the late 1970s, more than 90 percent of the immigrants to America have been from the Third World. This has led to wider income inequality, a higher crime rate, more unemployment and on and on and on. The 1965 immigration act was the worst thing that ever happened to this country.
Rep. Bachmann tells us amnesty would end our constitutional republic – do you agree?
Is Mexico a “constitutional republic”? If not, then yes, I agree.
Is there any way to stop amnesty – what should people do?
CALL CONGRESS! There is no issue on which the elites and the people are so divided – but patriotic Americans have been lulled into a sense of complacency. Right now, there is a good chance this monstrosity will become law.
Call NOW and say:
1) We will primary any Republican who votes for this bill.
2) We want absolutely no House bill on immigration! Not even a bill to build a fence and enforce E-Verify. Until the Senate is safely in Republican hands – and preferably Rubio-free – the House should not vote on anything resembling an immigration bill. If it does, the House bill will go to “conference” with the Senate … and come out an amnesty bill. An amnesty bill would pass in the House right now. (It will get the votes of 100 percent of Democrats and enough stupid Republicans, e.g., Paul Ryan.)
If amnesty passes, is it time to ditch the GOP and start a new party? (Or would it already be too late?)
Too late. If the Rubio amnesty bill passes, the country will be finished. There will be no point in fighting for anything anymore. All we will have left to do is take revenge on the people who destroyed this country, starting with desecrating Teddy Kennedy’s grave and moving on to primarying every Republican who voted for it.
President Barack Obama will travel to Boston Wednesday to help drum up support for Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in his Senate race against Republican Gabriel Gomez.
President Barack Obama’s approval rating is plummeting in the midst of American dissatisfaction with the recent privacy controversies and other scandals.
The president’s approval rating is 45 percent, marking an 8-point drop in the last month, according to a CNN survey. Weighing down on the Obama administration are the revelations of government domestic spying programs, the Justice Department’s secret pursuit of journalists’ phone records, the Internal Revenue Service’s inappropriate scrutiny of conservative political groups seeking tax-exemption status, as well as the lingering questions over the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, last fall.
“The drop in Obama’s support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition,” says Keating Holland, polling director for CNN. “It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs have damaged Obama’s standing with the public, although older controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their toll as well.” [More...]
Eventually the money runs out. Much of America was shocked when the city of Detroit defaulted on a $39.7 million debt payment and announced that it was suspending payments on $2.5 billion of unsecured debt, but those who visit my site on a regular basis were probably not too surprised. Anyone with half a brain and a calculator could see this coming from a mile away. But people kept foolishly lending money to the city of Detroit, and now many of them are going to get hit really hard.
Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has submitted a proposal that would pay unsecured creditors about 10 cents on the dollar. Similar haircuts would be made to underfunded pension and health benefits for retirees. Orr is hoping that the creditors and the unions that he will be negotiating with will accept this package, but he concedes that there is still a “50-50 chance” that the city of Detroit will be forced to formally file for bankruptcy.
But what Detroit is facing is not really that unique. [More...]
By Michael Snyder, on June 17th, 2013
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