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August 2016

Pope Francis: A Fool or Liar for Islam? The pontiff’s shocking statements on “Christians” who kill. August 2, 2016 Raymond Ibrahim

At a time when Muslims all around the world are terrorizing and slaughtering non-Muslims in the name of Islam, Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, continues trying to distance Islam from violence.

Last Sunday a journalist asked him about the recent and “barbarous assassination of Fr. Jacques Hamel” in France, and how the priest was clearly “killed in the name of Islam.” To this Francis

replied that he doesn’t like speaking about Islamic violence because there is plenty of Christian violence as well… [He] said that every day when he browses the newspapers, he sees violence in Italy perpetrated by Christians: “this one who has murdered his girlfriend, another who has murdered the mother-in-law… and these are baptized Catholics! There are violent Catholics! If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence. And no, not all Muslims are violent, not all Catholics are violent. It is like a fruit salad; there’s everything.”

Is the Pope really that dense? Is he incapable of distinguishing between violence committed in the name of a religion, and violence committed in contradiction of a religion?

Yes, Catholics—and people of all religions, sects, creeds—commit violence. That is because humans are prone to violence (or, to use Christian language that some—maybe not Francis—might understand, humans are fallen creatures). And yes, the Catholics that Francis’ cites do not commit crimes—murdering girlfriends and mother-in-law—because of any teaching contained in Christianity or Catholicism; on the contrary, Christian teachings of mercy and forgiveness are meant to counter such impulses.

On the other hand, the violence that Muslims are committing around the world—the beheadings, the sex slavery, the church burnings—are indeed contained in and a product of Islam, and they have been from day one.

Francis continued offering half-truths in the interview. After he acknowledged that there are “violent persons of this religion [Islam],” he immediately added that “in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists. Fundamentalists. We have them.”

This is another sloppy generalization. Sure, “in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists,” but that which is “fundamental” to them widely differs. One may say that Muslim and Christian fundamentalists adhere to a literalist/strict reading of their scriptures. While that statement may be true, left unsaid by those who think the issue is settled right there is: what do the Bible and Koran actually teach?

Khizr Khan’s Saudi Ties Is Saudi Arabia trying to manipulate the U.S. presidential election? Robert Spencer

Are the Saudis trying to make sure that the candidate of their choice is elected President of the United States this November?

Khizr Khan is more than just the father of slain Muslim U.S. serviceman Humayun Khan and the mainstream media’s flavor of the moment in its ongoing efforts to demonize and destroy Donald Trump. As far as the Obama administration and Hillary campaign are concerned, he is a living validation of the success of their strategy against “extremism”: by refusing to identify the enemy as having anything to do with Islam, they draw moderate Muslims to their side and move them to fight against terrorism. By contrast, Trump, in their view, alienates these moderates and drives them into the arms of the terrorists.

That all sounds great. There’s just one catch: Khizr Khan, and the Clinton campaign, have extensive ties to the Saudis – far more extensive than any possible connection that Donald Trump’s campaign may have had to Russia’s alleged involvement in the leak of emails that revealed that the entire Democratic Party presidential nominating process was rigged from the start. Not that the mainstream media will pause from speculating about Trump and the Russians long enough to tell you any facts about Khizr Khan, Hillary and the Saudis.

Intelius records that Khizr Khan has worked at Hogan Lovells Llp. According to the Washington Free Beacon, “Hogan Lovells LLP, another U.S. firm hired by the Saudis, is registered to work for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia through 2016, disclosures show. Robert Kyle, a lobbyist from the firm, has bundled $50,850 for Clinton’s campaign.”

The Free Beacon added that the Saudi government has “supplied the Clinton Foundation with millions. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has given between $10 and $25 million to the foundation while Friends of Saudi Arabia has contributed between $1 and $5 million.”

And so we were treated to the spectacle of an employee of a firm that is registered to work for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia lambasting Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention, and then (lo and behold!) becoming a media darling as he excoriates Trump for his “black soul.”

Might the government of Saudi Arabia, which has spent countless bullions of dollars spreading the virulent and violent Wahhabi strain of Islam around the world, have any interest in making sure that a presidential candidate who speaks more forthrightly about the Islamic terror threat than any presidential candidate has since John Quincy Adams, and who has vowed to take concrete steps to counter that threat, is defeated? Is that why Khizr Khan, brimming with self-righteous indignation and misleading disinformation about the relationship of Islamic jihad terrorism to Islam, was not only featured at the Democratic National Convention but has dominated the news cycle ever since?

This has gone on long enough. The 28-page section of the 9/11 report detailing Saudi involvement in the September 11, 2001 jihad attacks were just finally released (albeit with substantial portions still redacted), after being kept classified for fifteen years by one President who held hands with the Saudi King and another who bowed to him. And for fifteen years, the U.S. has done little or nothing to free itself from dependence upon Saudi oil and develop alternative energy sources. Why not? We know the Saudis have kept the Clintons’ palms abundantly greased. Who else’s?

Hillary: ‘Director Comey Said My Answers Were Truthful’ By Debra Heine (Huh????!!!!)

Hillary Clinton has spent a lifetime in politics lying about matters both big and small. This is not exactly a revelation. Over twenty years ago, longtime New York Times political columnist William Safire wrote about his painful realization that then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was a “congenital liar” in his famous essay “Blizzard of Lies.” While most of time her tendency toward dishonesty manifests itself to cover up her own corruption and malfeasance, sometimes her fibs are intended to evoke sympathy. Other times — one suspects — she lies just for the fun of it.

It should be well established at this point that Clinton is not one to shy away from telling whoppers when the situation requires it. Her modus operandi these days in fact seems to be “lie big or go home.”

Which is exactly what she did on Fox News this weekend, earning herself four Pinocchios from the Washington Post.

“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace played a video of Clinton saying: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified materials. I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time. I had not sent classified material nor received anything marked classified.” Following the clip, Wallace said, “After a long investigation, FBI Director James Comey said none of those things that you told the American public were true.”

Clinton said in reply: “Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”

Unfortunately for Hillary, that wasn’t the end of it. Wallace then played a video of the exchange between Comey and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chair of the House Select Committee on Benghazi:

GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her emails either sent or received. Was that true?

COMEY: That’s not true.

GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.” Was that true?

COMEY: There was classified material emailed.

Clinton stumbled a bit after that.

Pope Francis: ‘It’s Not Fair to Identify Islam With Violence and Terrorism’ By Debra Heine

Pope Francis spoke to reporters on board the papal plane again — and that never leads to anything good. His latest comments about Islamic terrorism were doubleplusungood.

Via NBC News:

Pope Francis said he doesn’t like singling out violence carried out by Muslims because people of all religions are guilty of deadly crimes.

He told reporters the situation was like “a mixed fruit salad” and that there were “violent people in all religions.”

“I do not like to talk about Islamic violence because every day when I skim the papers … I read about violence in Italy: this one who killed the girlfriend, another killed the mother-in-law … and they are all baptized Catholics,” he said aboard a Rome-bound flight from Poland on Sunday.

“If I talk about Islamic violence, then I also have to talk of Catholic violence. Not all Muslims are violent, just like not all Catholics are violent,” the pontiff added. “It’s like a mixed fruit salad. There is a bit of everything. There are violent people in all religions.”

Yes, the pope just compared domestic violence to Islamic terror — as if a Catholic dirtbag murdering his girlfriend is the same thing as an Islamic jihadist in a truck mowing down a hundred people watching fireworks in Nice. Or Islamic State jihadists beheading 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya. Or Kenyan jihadists killing 68 people at a shopping mall. Or an Islamic terrorist gunning down dozens of people at a Christmas party in San Bernardino or a gay nightclub in Orlando. I can go on and on, obviously, because Islamic terror attacks around the world happen on a daily basis. But you get the idea — murderous Catholic boyfriends may be bad, but the damage they do is limited to one or two people and their impact on society as a whole is minimal. Islamic jihad is a threat to us all.

But stop the presses — Pope Francis had another pearl of papal wisdom for us with the stunning revelation that there are violent people in all religions. Has anyone ever suggested otherwise? The problem is there is currently only one religion where a significant number of the faithful are finding justification for murder and mayhem against unbelievers in their sacred texts. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi understands this and has called for a religious reformation of the Muslim faith. “We need to revolutionize our religion,” he proclaimed on News Year’s Day of 2015 to an audience of Muslim clerics and scholars.

We shouldn’t be surprised when an intractable ideologue like Barack Obama — the worst president in American history — ignores much-needed calls for the reform of Islam. And we’ve come to expect him to make morally and intellectually vacuous comparisons. But it is beyond disturbing to hear it coming from a pope.

Obama Admin ALREADY Discriminates Against Syrians — if They’re Christians By Patrick Poole

Non-Muslim Syrian refugees have been virtually locked out by the Obama administration, according to current data from the State Department.

According to the Refugee Processing Center, of the 6,877 Syrian refugees that have arrived in 2016 through July 31st, 6,834 of those are identified as Sunni, Shia, or generic Muslim. Only 43 (0.7 percent of total) refugees admitted have been non-Muslim.

That 0.7 percent of refugees arriving this year represents a statistically insignificant fraction of the more than 2.6 million Catholic, Syriac, Assyrian, and Greek Orthodox Christians, as well as Yazidis, other religions, and atheists living in Syria.

Yet all of these groups are being targeted by Islamic extremists — indeed, Secretary of State John Kerry himself has claimed these groups are facing a genocide.

Just yesterday, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he is opposed to any religious test for entering the United States:

Despite Ryan’s rejection, the State Department’s own numbers reveal active discrimination targeting non-Muslim Syrian refugees.

According to The Gulf/2000 Project at Columbia University, the religious breakdown of the Syrian population 2008-2009 shows that 15.98 million are Sunnis (73 percent of the population) while 3.29 million are Shiites (14.7 percent of the population). Christians account for 2.04 million people, or 9.3 percent of the population, while other religions account for 590,000 people, or 2.7 percent of the population.

This past March, Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged at a State Department press conference that minority religious communities in Syria were being targeted for genocide:

My purpose here today is to assert in my judgment, (ISIS) is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control including Yazidis, Christians, and Shiite Muslims.

So why haven’t we heard Speaker Ryan’s outrage over active religious discrimination against non-Muslim minority Syrian refugees?

And why is Kerry overseeing the systematic religious discrimination of Syrian refugees in his own State Department?

I’ve witnessed this discrimination by the State Department against Mideast Christians first-hand. Two years ago, I was introduced to an Egyptian Coptic Christian man who had fled Egypt and made it to the U.S. after he was threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood following the July 2013 ouster of Mohamed Morsi. The introduction was made by my friend, Father Anthony Hanna of the St. Mary and St. Mina Coptic Church in Concord, California. In August 2013, he escorted me into Upper Egypt to survey the destruction of Egypt’s churches and monasteries carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood.

This man’s wife and children had been attacked in their village near Minya, where attacks against Christians continue to this day. They were in hiding with family members elsewhere in Egypt, and had hoped to visit their husband and father in the United States.

With the assistance of several members of Congress who had given the family members letters of support, the family applied to visas with the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

And yet, the State Department denied their visa requests. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Left’s Anti-Trump Political Media Show By Jim Waurishuk

During last week’s Democrat National Convention there was one speaking engagement that was the epitome of mockery and hypocrisy. As a retired military officer I was appalled at this charade. That was the appearance by a gentleman Mr. Khizr Muazzam Khan and his wife, who lost a son in Iraq. I will say this once. I am extremely saddened for any family who loses a loved one in conflict fighting for this country.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media never gave a damn about Gold Star American mothers and their families over the course of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Global War on Terror and their suffering. Now, in just a single case, the case of immigrant Muslim parents who lost their son, there suddenly is extreme and massive interest…albeit, just for these parents.

What is more obvious and apparent, is the degree to which the Democrats and the Clinton campaign demonstrated and showed their hypocrisy by seeking to politicize their story totally for political purposes, to use this stunt to go after Donald Trump. Worst, it is abundantly clear, the parents without any reservation agreed to use their story, themselves, and the unfortunately loss of their son as political props in a made for TV political exhibition.

Again, it is time to speak out on the Anti-Trump Political Media show. What went on last weekend mainly on CNN and Sunday News/Talk shows is an outrage. The liberal media is in the tank for Hillary Clinton, and they know it. First of all the Khans stood on the stage of the DNC Convention and not only told their story, but savagely attacked Mr. Trump. They said two things that were way out of bounds; The First, that Mr. Trump has made no sacrifice, and the Second, that Mr. Trump never read the Constitution.

Mr. Khan’s first attack, presumes that a person needs to lose a child in war as a pre-condition to have an opinion on things. I served nearly 30-years in the U.S. military, through many wars, and have seen death, destruction, and I know many who have lost loved ones; son, daughters, husbands, and wives. In America, there is no pre-condition for opinion. In America there is one condition — it’s called the First Amendment.

Mr. Khan’s second attack on Mr. Trump has nothing to do with whether Mr. Trump has ever read, or did not read the Constitution. That was a clearly Democratic Party scripted stunt for this convention. His comment does however, have everything to do with Mr. Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims, from Muslim countries involved with, and or supporting terrorists and radical-Islamic terrorism.

Is there a backstory about Khizr Khan and Donald Trump? By Eileen F. Toplansky

What is one to make of the Democratic Convention speech of Khizr Khan, a Pakistani-born Virginia lawyer whose son Humayun was killed in action in Iraq in 2004?

According to Byron York:

Khan’s brief speech wasn’t a finely-detailed case. But he suggested that Trump’s Muslim ban and Mexican border wall proposals are unconstitutional. Specifically, Khan cited the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of the law’ in suggesting that Trump’s policies violate the Constitution.

But, in fact, “there’s simply no sense in which a border wall violates the Constitution.” There is also “nothing unconstitutional about deporting people who are in the United States illegally.”

York emphasizes that “[a]s far as a Muslim ban is concerned, Trump … amended his proposal to focus on immigration from countries ‘compromised by terrorism.’ But assume that Khan was addressing Trump’s original, more extensive, proposal: a temporary ban on foreign Muslims from entering the United States.”

In fact, the 14th Amendment of the Constitution applies to “all persons born or naturalized” in the United States. It does not refer to foreign persons in foreign countries. Trump made it clear that this ban “would not apply to U.S. citizens, members of the U.S. military and others with a legal right to be in the United States.” Whether one approves or disapproves of Trump’s building a wall, deporting illegal immigrants, and temporarily banning the entry of foreign Muslims, the fact is that Trump’s proposals are not unconstitutional.

In an effort toward clarification, Donald Trump released a statement:

Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country to do us further harm. Given the state of the world today, we have to know everything about those looking to enter our country, and given the state of chaos in some of these countries, that is impossible.

Moreover, Trump reiterated that “Captain Khan, killed 12 years ago, was a hero, but this is about RADICAL ISLAMIC TERROR and the weakness of our ‘leaders’ to eradicate it!”

A Free People Erasing Their Own Freedoms By Matt Patterson and Lindsey DePasse

The erosion of loyalty to the Constitution by large sectors of the populace and those charged with protecting and preserving it.
The Greek city-state of Athens had no constitutional protections for people who advocated notions radically at odds with prevailing wisdom.

The result: Socrates was put to death for “corrupting” the youth.

Four hundred years later, the Roman province of Judea contained no constitutional protections for wild-eyed preachers who advocated radical alternatives to established political and religious orthodoxies.

The result: Jesus was crucified for claiming to be “King of the Jews.”

Sixteen hundred years later in Italy, there were no constitutional protections for thinkers who discerned profound restructuring of metaphysical realities.

The result: Galileo Galilei was tried and sentenced to house arrest by the Catholic Inquisition for advocating views contrary to Church doctrine.

Four hundred years later, the United States of America did provide constitutional protections of speech and assembly, allowing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead a movement that changed laws and expanded liberty for millions.

Socrates, Jesus and Galileo lacked governmental protection to say crazy things. As a result, they were put to death or imprisoned by the government for saying crazy things.

True, Dr. King also met with an untimely end, slain by a fellow citizen who denied him his constitutionally protected freedoms. But the others were killed or imprisoned by the government because they had no constitutionally protected freedoms.

That is all the difference in the world. And it is a difference that Dr. King died for.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution allowed Dr. King to spread his liberating and glorious message. But let us not forget that for many in the 1960’s South, Dr. King’s message was considered offensive “hate speech.” And so it was — hatred for the established order that kept millions of Americans locked in a horrible caste system. Hatred for an oligarchy that denied them essential freedoms.

Why the Establishment Can’t Grasp the Nature of Islam By Selwyn Duke

The media and effete powers-that-be have been twisting themselves into Halal pretzels Islamsplainin’, rationalizing how a given Muslim terrorist attack isn’t really “Islamic” or isn’t significant. These contortions can become quite ridiculous, such as suggesting that recent Allahu Akbar-shouting Munich shooter Ali Sonboly might somehow have had “right-wing” motives because, among his violent passions, was an interest in Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.

A more common (un)intellectual contortion is the minimizing tactic of claiming, as is politically correct authorities’ wont, that a given jihadist attacker “has no ties to IS” (the Islamic State), as if there’s nothing to see here if a man doesn’t provide notarized evidence of allegiance to the boogeyman du jour. Yet this is much as if we’d claimed during the Cold War that a Marxist terrorist attack wasn’t really a Marxist™ terrorist attack because we couldn’t find a connection to the Soviet Union. The issue and problem wasn’t primarily the Soviet Union but communism (Marxism birthed the USSR, not the other way around), an evil ideology that wreaks havoc wherever it takes hold. Likewise, the IS didn’t birth Islam; Islam birthed the IS.

Nonetheless, moderns will often use the misdirection of focusing inordinately on national or group associations when discussing terrorism. This is a dodge, one designed to help us avoid uncomfortable truths, and which relegates us to playing an eternal game of whack-a-mole. The USSR is gone but communism is still a problem (witness North Korea and Cuba), and insofar as it’s less of a threat, it’s largely because its ideas have been discredited. Bad ideas’ standard bearers will change. But as long as the bad ideas remain tolerated and credible, they’ll always win converts.

In fact, the reality that today’s terrorists are diverse makes the point. They may be Iranian, Afghani, American, Albanian, German or from any nation whatsoever; they may be part of Hamas, IS, al Qaeda, the U.S. Army (Maj. Hassan), some other organization or no organization; they may be of any race or ethnicity, be rich or poor, and male or (occasionally) female. They only have one truly common thread: being Muslim.

The point is that, ultimately, this is a battle not of nations or organizations but of ideas, and ideas are powerful. Beliefs matter. Every action begins with a thought — or, at least, with a reflex response reflecting a worldview that has shaped one’s thoughts and emotions.

Trump on Offense The Republican nominee is the Kevin Kelley of politics: He never punts. By William McGurn

“The truth is that Mr. Trump’s offense is in good part a creature of the campaigns Democrats have run against Republicans for decades. Sooner or later it was inevitable that voters, tired of both political correctness and playing defense, would opt for a Republican nominee who would give as ugly as he got. ”

For Donald Trump’s critics, it’s not just that they disagree with the man and his policies. It’s more that they find him offensive.

There’s a reason for this: Mr. Trump is a man who is perpetually on offense.

Think of him as the Kevin Kelley of politics. Mr. Kelley coaches football for Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark. He’s gained national fame as the coach who almost never punts. Coach Kelley believes that remaining on offense (keeping possession of the ball) is more important than defense (trying to deny an opponent field position).

So he goes for it on fourth down even in his own territory. As a result, Mr. Kelley gives his offense four plays to gain 10 yards instead of three. Just as important, his all-offense approach gives his Bruins a psychological edge.

The strategy is not without its risks. Though Mr. Kelley says the math bears him out, his approach means opponents will sometimes score or intercept when they might not have otherwise. Backfires can be messy.

Mr. Trump is playing the same game. Not only is he always on the attack, he hardly ever backs down—even when he’s demonstrably wrong. The result has been a number of busted plays, whether it’s declaring that John McCain was not a hero because he was captured by the North Vietnamese, questioning the impartiality of an Indiana-born federal judge because the jurist has Mexican blood or his campaign team’s initial denials that Melania Trump had cribbed some lines in her convention speech from Michelle Obama when the theft was clear and obvious.

Mr. Trump’s critics are quick to suggest these kind of things make him unfit for the Oval Office. Especially on the right, they frequently go on to add that any Republican or conservative who does not publicly pronounce him anathema will forever bear the mark of Cain.

It should be noted that his critics on the right are also invested in a big GOP defeat. If Mr. Trump loses by two or three points, they will be blamed for contributing to that defeat. If, by contrast, Mr. Trump loses by a landslide, they will look like prophets.

For the larger Republican Party, however, there’s a catch. If it turns out Mr. Trump loses by a narrow margin, Republican senators and congressmen still have a chance of keeping their seats. A blowout defeat for Mr. Trump, on the other hand, would likely translate into massive Republican losses in both the Senate and House. Even so, it’s a price the NeverTrump movement appears more than willing to pay to make their point.Hillary Clinton’s dilemma is somewhat different. And it points to the great X Factor of the 2016 election: Never before have Democrats faced a Republican nominee who is so relentlessly on offense. CONTINUE ON SITE