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November 2015

POLITICS Comments turned off

Is the FBI Closing in on Hillary? By Amil Imani and James Hyde

By on November 9th, 2015

In an administration known for its disdain for accountability and appalling disregard for justice, FBI Director James Comey sets himself apart as a straight shooter and strong adherent of the equal application of the law. To those who know and/or have worked with him, Comey’s character is unimpeachable, his integrity unique, and his pursuit of justice determined, focused, and incorruptible in a capital where such traits are routinely eschewed.

According to Dr. Monica Crowley, quoted below, Comey is closely overseeing his crack cyber-forensic team, which has masterfully managed to do what many claimed couldn’t be done: they accessed the files on Hillary Clinton’s “wiped” email server. If they find ample evidence to indict her, as Crowley intimates below, and the Justice Department decides not to pursue charges, many political pundits foresee Comey resigning, or looking the other way when whatever illegal activity they found starts to leak.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Notable & Quotable: Sen. Tom Cotton Why closing Guantanamo by executive action would be a mistake.

By on November 9th, 2015

Washington, D.C.- Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today released the following statement in response to White House and Senate Democrats comments about using unilateral executive action to shut down the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay:

“Any suggestion that the prison at Guantanamo Bay is a terrorist recruiting tool is disingenuous and aimed solely at scoring political points. Terrorists did not attack us on 9/11 and do not attack us today because of a prison. They attack us for who we are and what we stand for. Guantanamo Bay is a safe and humane facility. Moreover, it is an important tool in our counterterrorism strategy as nearly thirty percent of released detainees are confirmed or are suspected of having returned to terrorism. The number of recidivists at Guantanamo is zero. Just last week the Obama Administration released Shaker Aamer, a Guantanamo detainee, to the United Kingdom. I am deeply concerned this dangerous terrorist still poses is still a threat to our safety. We would be safer if he were still in his cell at Guantanamo Bay. I will continue to fight to keep dangerous terrorists like Shaker Aamer from returning to the fight and against any efforts by the Obama Administration to close the terrorist detention facility.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

I Was an Oil Spill Scapegoat I helped to cap the Deepwater Horizon well. The Justice Department then turned my life into a legal nightmare. By Kurt Mix

By on November 9th, 2015

At 6:30 a.m. on April 24, 2012, federal agents, wearing Kevlar vests and with guns drawn, raided my home in Katy, Texas, with a warrant for my arrest. This was as shocking to me as it would be for any normal, law-abiding citizen.

I’m not a drug dealer, violent criminal or money launderer. I’m an engineer. In 2010 I helped stop the BP oil spill after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig left a damaged well spilling crude directly into the Gulf of Mexico.

On the morning of the raid I left early for work, so I was not at home when it occurred. My wife was alone and had to deal with the shock of a squad of FBI agents ripping through our home. We’ve seen it a hundred times on “Law and Order.” They raced through our house and badgered and interrogated my wife.

Later that morning, after a frantic call from my wife, I drove to a local police station to surrender. As bad as that day was, I had no idea what was about to happen. I didn’t realize I had become a central focus of the Justice Department’s investigation into the BP oil spill. For the next three and a half years, a Justice task force was dedicated to putting me in jail.

What had I done to merit this? I had worked as hard as I knew how for nearly 90 straight days to help stop the Deepwater Horizon spill. Plugging the well, as fast as possible, was the focus of my life.

Looking back now at the Justice Department’s conduct, I realize that I made one egregious error: I naïvely believed that the task force simply wanted the truth. I was certain that once it had the full record of my actions, everything would be fine, and the trauma my family and I had gone through would end.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

From Kristallnacht to the Kindertransport to, Finally, America A group of Berliners said a stain on the street was a Jew’s blood. Even now I can hear their laughter.By John H. Lang

By on November 9th, 2015

Monday, Nov. 9, marks the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1938, when Nazi hordes ran wild throughout Berlin, as well as in other German cities. Jewish houses of worship were desecrated and then set afire. Thousands of Jews were rounded up, some beaten to death, others sent to concentration camps. Jewish-owned businesses and homes were looted.

I will never forget seeing the unimaginable horror of the night and the following day 77 years ago. By luck, my parents were not in Berlin. I was at my grandmother’s. Through the window I could see my beautiful synagogue engulfed in flames as desperate screams rose from the street below. Each knock on our apartment door brought terror, followed by incredible relief. By some miracle, two of my uncles made it to my grandmother’s seeking safety from the savagery of this night.

The next morning as I wandered through my neighborhood, I saw shards of plate glass everywhere, as every Jewish-owned shop had been looted and painted with vile Jew-hating slogans. Uniformed Nazis and their sympathizers were having fun as they surveyed their brutality. One group looked at a large stain on the street that was said to be the blood of a Jew. Even now I can hear their laughter.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Prosecuting Climate Dissent Progressives target Exxon for punishment over its research.

By on November 9th, 2015

Sheldon Whitehouse got his man. The Rhode Island Senator has been lobbying for prosecutions of oil and gas companies over climate change, and New York Attorney General and progressive activist Eric Schneiderman has now obliged by opening a subpoena assault on Exxon Mobil. This marks a dangerous new escalation of the left’s attempt to stamp out all disagreement on global-warming science and policy.

Progressives have been losing the political debate over climate change, failing to pass cap and trade even when Democrats had a supermajority in Congress. So they have turned to the force of the state through President Obama’s executive diktats and now with the threat of prosecution. This assault won’t stop with Exxon. Climate change is the new religion on the left, and progressives are going to treat heretics like Cromwell did Catholics.
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We mention Mr. Whitehouse because he has been the lead Cromwell in calling for the use of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statute, a law created to prosecute the mafia, to bring civil cases against companies that fund climate research of which he disapproves. After we called him out in a recent editorial, Mr. Whitehouse denounced us on the Senate floor and compared everyone who disagrees with him to tobacco companies.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Censorship by Commission and Omission Edward Cline

By on November 9th, 2015

A Muslim’s freedom of speech is sacrosanct; yours is not.

Censorship by omission can only be committed by a government, and for legitimate or illegitimate reasons. A legitimate reason is withholding information from the public if in the public are enemy agents whose own government would benefit from the knowledge. A nation doesn’t need to be at active war to censor information its government might otherwise release to the public.

An illegitimate reason is to defraud the public, to portray the economy as better than it is, to gloss over government failures that were taxpayer supported, to lie to the public, to lead the public to believe that certain things are true or untrue. Illegitimate censorship by omission can show up in official government reports of the gross national product, reports of global climate change, the actual debt ceiling, and so on.

Every press conference held at the White House since Barack Obama’s accession has been a sometimes-successful, off-times not, exercise in duplicity, fabrications, lies, waffling, and misinformation. It has never mattered who was speaking: Obama, his press secretary, or anyone else at the podium.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Aram Bakshian Jr. Reviews Sol Sander’s book “People!- A Memoir

By on November 9th, 2015

Readers who remember Mel Brooks‘ hilarious routines as the Two Thousand Year Old Man — the quintessential old Jewish codger who has seen it all, knows it all, and is going to tell you all about it — will have no trouble enjoying “People!,” veteran journalist Sol Sanders‘ rambling, far-reaching and often moving memoir. While not two thousand years old, Mr. Sanders is pushing 90 … and has he got a tale to tell.

Although it ranges around the globe, his story is a uniquely American one, and of a special kind: that of small-town Southern Jewry. As a Jewish friend of mine from New York once remarked, “What you’ve got to understand about Southern Jews is that they’re very Jewish, but they’re also very Southern.” Such is Sol. Raised by immigrant parents in a small community in rural North Carolina where his parents, the only Jews in town, ran a successful variety store, young Sol’s love of woods, streams, farm animals and local characters was sometimes overshadowed by a sense of otherness, of apartness from his surroundings and those populating it. This gives his early reminiscences both an authentic feel and a critical objectivity that might otherwise have been lacking. Perhaps it is this same ability to absorb and appreciate the world around him while viewing it with an outsider’s eye that made Sol Sanders a born journalist long before he knew anything about the profession. It is also possible that his homosexuality, which he discusses candidly but, mercifully, not at excessive length or in morbid detail, enabled him to understand and empathize with people, places and situations very different from himself over a long, globe-trotting career in Europe, Asia and Latin America for major publications including the Christian Science Monitor, U.S. News & World Report, Business Week and The Washington Times, among others.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

SWEDEN: ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE — ON THE GLAZOV GANG

By on November 9th, 2015

http://jamieglazov.com/2015/11/08/sweden-on-the-verge-of-collapse-on-the-glazov-gang/

This new special edition of The Glazov Gang was joined by Ingrid Carlqvist, a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Ingrid came on the show to discuss Sweden: On the Verge of Collapse, unveiling the cliff that Sweden is speeding toward — as the mass wave of Muslim “refugees” overwhelms the country. [See also Ingrid on The Glazov Gang special: Islam’s Rape of Sweden].

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