Displaying posts published in

May 2016

MY SAY: THIS IS THE GOP -REP. PHIL OLIVA (R-NY DISTRICT 18)

http://www.philoliva.com/issues-1/

The number one job of the federal government is to defend the country against foreign enemies.

The national economy is weak. Over 94 million Americans are out of work, incomes have been stagnant for years and 49% of recent college graduates are underemployed or unemployed.

I co-authored an economic plan that was called “A Plan for New York Revival” by the Wall Street Journal, adding that it would “lift the state’s flagging economy” if enacted. The plan focused heavily on cutting taxes and regulations, investing in infrastructure, accelerating hi-tech start-ups, and modernizing our workforce with the necessary skills and training.

I support an E-Verify system, enhanced surveillance on the border, increased border patrol and a crackdown of sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with federal immigration law.

wrong track.png

Obama’s DOJ Won’t Call “Felons”, Felons Anymore Daniel Greenfield

Understandable. We wouldn’t want to stigmatize murderers, drug dealers, rapists and robbers. Their victims might disagree, but they’re just Crimeaphobic.

Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason, who has headed the Office of Justice Programs since 2013, announces in a guest post that her agency will no longer use words such as “felon” or “convict” to refer to released prisoners.

“Many of the formerly incarcerated men, women, and young people I talk with say that no punishment is harsher than being permanently branded a “felon” or “offender,” Mason writes. “This new policy statement replaces unnecessarily disparaging labels with terms like “person who committed a crime” and “individual who was incarcerated,”

Should go over as well as “man caused disasters” for terrorism. But the side benefits of living inside a Groucho Marx movie set in an Orwellian dystopia is that we get plenty of laughs.

“The labels we affix to those who have served time can drain their sense of self-worth”.

I suppose we could discuss the self-worth of their victims, but that would not be politically correct.

Meet the First Muslim Mayor of London by Soeren Kern

Conservative Party candidate Zac Goldsmith accused Khan of giving “platform, oxygen and cover” to Islamic extremists. He also accused Khan of “hiding behind Britain’s Muslims” by branding as “Islamophobes” those who shed light on his past.

“The questions are genuine, they are serious. They are about his willingness to share platforms with people who want to ‘drown every Israeli Jew in the sea.’ It’s about his having employed someone who believed the Lee Rigby murder was fabricated. It’s about his career before being an MP, coaching people in how to sue the police.” — Conservative Party candidate Zac Goldsmith.

In 2008, Khan gave a speech at the Global Peace and Unity Conference, an event organized by the Islam Channel, which has been censured repeatedly by British media regulators for extremism. Members of the audience were filmed flying the black flag of jihad while Khan was speaking.

“I regret giving the impression I subscribed to their views and I’ve been quite clear I find their views abhorrent.” — Sadiq Khan.

“A Muslim man with way too many extremist links to be entirely coincidental is now the Mayor of London. I suppose this is hardly a shock, though. The native English are a demographic minority (and a rapidly dwindling one) in London, whilst Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh are a rapidly expanding demographic.” — British politician Paul Weston.

Khamenei’s Anti-Americanism by Majid Rafizadeh

Khamenei is sending a strong signal to Washington that Iran’s reintegration in global financial system does not mean that the Iranian regime will change its hostility towards the U.S. and Israel.

“The Persian Gulf is the Iranian nation’s home and the Persian Gulf and a large section of the Sea of Oman belong to this powerful nation. Therefore, we should be present in the region, hold war games and display our power.” – Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei

In addition, Khamenei is sending a message to the Iranian people that the current process of implementing the nuclear agreement, lifting sanctions, and partial economic liberalization does not mean that Iran is going to liberalize its politics and allow freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and more political participation.

Some politicians and policy analysts argue that Iran’s sanctions relief and the continuing implementation of its nuclear program would push Iran towards moderation in dealing with the United States and Israel, as well as scaling down Iran’s expansionist and hegemonic ambitions. The realities on the ground suggest otherwise.

As Tehran’s revenues are rising, anti-American and anti-Semitic rhetoric by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are escalating.

The Iranian regime continues to view the U.S. and Israel as their top geopolitical, strategic and ideological enemies. According to Iran’s Mehr News Agency, on May 1, Khamenei welcomed the Secretary General of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, and his accompanying delegation in Tehran:

“Ayatollah Khamenei reaffirmed that with this perspective in regional issues, Iran sees the United States as the main enemy with the Zionist regime standing behind it. He pointed to extensive, unprecedented sanctions of the U.S. and its followers against the Islamic establishment in recent years and dubbed the objective of them as discouraging Iran from continuing its path; ‘but they failed to achieve their goals and will fail in future as well.’ ”

Khamenei is sending a strong signal to Washington that Iran’s reintegration in the global financial system does not mean that the Iranian regime will change its hostility towards the U.S. and Israel.

Palestine – Perpetuating Propaganda Plagues Peace Process: David Singer

McGraw Hill’s decision to trash copies of its textbook Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World has been subjected to intense criticism on web sites propagating the “Palestinian Narrative” of the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict. The “Palestinian Narrative” is a concoction of lies and half-truths based on the 1964 PLO National Charter – as amended in 1968 – and the 1988 Hamas Covenant.

Catherine Mathis – a spokeswoman for McGraw-Hill – explained the Company’s reasons for destroying the textbook – which contained four misleading and inaccurate maps of “Palestine”:

“As soon as we learned about the concerns with it, we placed sales of the book on hold and immediately initiated an academic review. The review determined that the map did not meet our academic standards. We have informed the authors and we are no longer selling the book. All existing inventory will be destroyed. We apologize and will refund payment to anyone who returns the book.”

McGraw-Hill’s action follows similar criticism of MSNBC which aired the same series of maps last year on “MSNBC Live”.

How the green energy bullies drive poverty By Monica Crowley

Although climate change ranks at or near the bottom of issues most important to the American people, the Obama administration continues to push it like its agenda on radical wealth redistribution depends on it. Because in many ways, it does.

The latest move is the climate agreement reached in Paris last December, which will become effective on Earth Day, April 22, with a ceremony at the United Nations headquarters in New York involving at least 162 countries.

The deal set a target of keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. In order to achieve that, the signatory nations will have to undertake the massive and expensive switch to clean energy and low-carbon infrastructure. The Obama administration intends to enforce the agreement by imposing the EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) and other mandates.

The agreement’s cheerleaders reveal its true objective — global wealth redistribution — when they argue that it’s about reducing worldwide poverty.

“It’s a simple relation: More carbon equals more poverty,” says Christiana Figueres, the United Nations’ climate chief. “Net zero emissions is the only way to make poverty eradication possible.”

Climate change mandates aren’t really mostly about climate; they’re really mostly about coercing wealth from the industrialized world and transferring it to the underdeveloped one. The rich irony is that contrary to the agreement’s proponents that it will “eradicate poverty,” green energy mandates actually hurt the poor the most.

MARILYN PENN: HIPOCRISY AT HARVARD

The university has declared that members of the all-male off-campus eating clubs will no longer be eligible for leadership positions on campus, including captains of sports teams. They will also be refused recommendations for post-graduate scholarships and fellowships. These restrictions will equally apply to all-female clubs and single sex fraternities and sororities. Presumably, the impetus for integrating the all-male clubs came from surveys and interviews with women who felt that an atmosphere of misogyny and sexual misconduct was re-enforced at these venues and since sexual assault is apparently a pandemic threat to women on campus, the obvious remedy is to alter the venue. It seems that Harvard students don’t read the classics anymore or they would have immediately thought of the Lysistrata solution for women to simply not attend gatherings, parties or any other events that take place at the offending clubs. Boycotts are popular at all the Ivies and they don’t require anything more than a signature on a petition and negative attendance – both of which students are good at. The boycott would guarantee zero sexual assault of women if no women showed up and before long, those lame-brained, horny men might figure out the problem and check their privilege without administrative interference.

ANDREW HARROD: A REVIEW OF SEBASTIAN GORKA’S “DEFEATING JIHAD-A WINNABLE WAR”

‘This is a good, quick read with insightful analysis of strategies needed to defeat global jihad.”

Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks showed that the “totalitarians are back. This time the dictatorship invokes the name of God, as opposed to the working class or the Führer, but they are back, and they will either kill us or enslave us.” So writes Dr.Sebastian Gorka in his new book Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, an excellent strategic primer for the free world’s current struggle against a totalitarian foe, namely global jihadists.

As Gorka recently explained at a Heritage Foundation presentationin Washington, DC, he views jihadism in a broader history of totalitarianisms like the Communism his father fought against in postwar Hungary. “As an immigrant who chose to become an American and the son of parents who had to fight for their freedom, I understand 9/11 differently from those for whom the threat of totalitarianism is purely abstract,” he writes. Given his personal insight, he finds that the “similarities between groups like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State and USSR are too numerous and fundamental to be ignored.”

Discussing Muhammad, Gorka explains that Islam’s “founder was at the same time a political leader, a military commander, a self-proclaimed prophet. Islam, then, is by its nature and its origins a theocracy.” While Jesus famously taught of the distinction between Caesar and God, “this seminal Christian idea finds no counterpart in foundational Islam.” Groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State “are not in fact ‘perverting’ religious texts but skillfully applying those alleged revelations that best support their cause.” Given jihadism’s doctrinal basis in Islam, “our current enemy predates even fascism and communism…we have been at war with the jihadists since at least the Barbary Wars of the eighteenth century.”

Glazov Gang: Naming the Enemy. Do we say the word?

http://jamieglazov.com/2016/05/07/naming-the-enemy-on-the-glazov-gang/
This special edition of The Glazov Gang was joined by Stephen Coughlin, the co-founder of UnconstrainedAnalytics.org and the author of the new book, Catastrophic Failure.

He came on the show to discuss Naming the Enemy, analyzing the question: “Do we say the word?”

Don’t miss it!

MY SAY: THIS IS THE GOP REP. MARTHA McSALLY DISTRICT 2 ARIZONA

Prior to serving in Congress, Representative McSally served 26 years in the U.S. Air Force, retiring in 2010 as a full Colonel. She is the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat and first to command a fighter squadron in combat in United States history.Rep. McSally is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and after training to fly the A-10 Warthog, flew her first combat mission to Iraq while deployed from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in 1995. During that assignment, she flew nearly 100 combat hours in support of Operation Southern Watch in the Middle East.Rep. McSally was next selected to become an A-10 Instructor Pilot in the 358th Fighter Squadron, becoming the first woman in U.S. history to serve in that role.

In 1999, Rep. McSally was chosen to participate in the Air Force’s Legislative Fellowship Program, serving on the staff of Senator Jon Kyl as national security advisor on issues including terrorism, cyber security, and missile defense.After serving as a Legislative Fellow, Rep. McSally was assigned to Saudi Arabia to oversee combat search and rescue operations over southern Iraq and Afghanistan. While there, Rep. McSally was on the leadership team that planned and executed the initial air campaign in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.

In 2001, Rep. McSally became a Flight Commander and then the Director of Operations in the 612 Combat Operations Squadron at 12th Air Force Headquarters at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. She deployed twice back to the Middle East, holding leadership positions at the Combined Air Operations Center for Operations Southern Watch, Enduring Freedom, and then Iraqi Freedom.While stationed in Saudi Arabia, Rep. McSally challenged a discriminatory Pentagon policy that required servicewomen to wear Muslim garb when traveling off-base. She fought for a total of eight years to get the policy changed, eventually culminating with filing McSally vs Rumsfeld in court. She then helped to successfully shepherd legislation that was signed by the President and into law ending the demeaning policy.

In 2004, Rep. McSally took over as commander of the 354th Fighter Squadron, becoming the first woman in U.S. history to command a combat aviation unit. In that role, she was responsible for deploying her squadron anywhere in the world in 24 hours’ notice. As Squadron Commander, Rep. McSally flew for 225 combat hours, leading her A-10 combat team during Operation Enduring Freedom from September 2005 to February 2006. For her combat leadership, Rep. McSally was awarded the Bronze Star and her squadron was awarded the Air Force Association David C. Schilling Award for the most outstanding contribution in the field of flight in 2006.

During her military career, Rep. McSally flew 2,600 flight hours, including over 325 combat hours, earning six air medals. After her time in the military, she taught and mentored senior military officials from around the world as a Professor of National Security Studies at the George C. Marshall Center in Germany.

Rep. McSally holds Masters Degrees from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the U.S. Air War College in Public Policy and Strategic Studies, where she graduated #1 in her class of 261 senior military officers.