NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hillary Lies Again The loser of 2016 slanders President Trump’s inaugural address. By Deroy Murdock

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

What a way to peddle books.

Hillary Clinton, the woman who lost the White House to a candidate who never competed seriously for so much as a school-board seat, took to the airwaves to slander the man who crushed her political dreams.

President Donald J. Trump’s inaugural address was “a cry from the white-nationalist gut,” the Duchess of Chappaqua proclaimed on Sunday while pitching What Happened, her brand-new, blame-all extravaganza about why her Oval Office bid crashed and burned. As she further pronounced in an audience that she granted to CBS News: “What an opportunity to say, ‘Okay, I’m proud of my supporters, but I’m president of all Americans.’ That’s not what we heard at all.”

Wrong!

In a case of he said/she said “he didn’t say,” President Trump uttered nearly verbatim the very words that Hillary accused him of not expressing. Consider these direct quotes excerpted from President Trump’s remarks, immediately after taking the Oath of Office:

We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people. . . .

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans. . . .

So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words:

You will never be ignored again.

Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.

Together, We Will Make America Strong Again.

We Will Make America Wealthy Again.

We Will Make America Proud Again.

We Will Make America Safe Again.

And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again.

Funny, President Trump’s inclusive, unifying inaugural address contains the words “we” 49 times, “I” thrice, and “white” exactly once: “It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

SYDNEY WILLIAMS: HATE CRIMES

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

Sixteen years ago, nineteen members of al Qaeda, an Islamic terrorist group, boarded four planes in three cities. Within minutes, three thousand people were dead. It was the first act of war by a foreign group on continental U.S. since the burning of Washington, D.C. in August 1814. More people died that bright sunny morning than American servicemen at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, or American soldiers on June 6, 1944.

The war against Islamic militants continues to this day. For anyone who does not believe they pose a threat to western civilization, your naivete is only exceeded by your ignorance. Since 9/11, tens of thousands lie dead in dozens of countries, on every continent except Antarctica, victims of the murderous rampage of Islamic extremists from numerous groups, like ISIS and Boko Haram. Make no mistake; it is religion that drives them. They believe they are serving God. Osama bin Laden is dead, thank goodness, but al Qaeda has quietly rebuilt. It is estimated that they have 20,000 fighters in Syria, 7,000 in Somalia and 4,000 in Yemen.

The end can only come when millions of moderate Muslims rise-up, against those who have hi-jacked their religion.

But this day is also one my family celebrates, for it was on this day 51 years ago that our first child was born – a son and now husband to a beautiful and talented wife and father to four wonderful grandchildren.

These two events are reminders that in death there is birth, that life moves on. They are reminders that, while the past is all of ours, the future belongs to the young. And the greatest legacy we can leave is a knowledge of history, the willingness to face facts unafraid, and to love all those we hold dear.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

WHO ARE THE ROHINGYA? JESICCA DURANDO

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

Who are the Rohingya?

The Rohingya are a minority living in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, where they are not recognized by the government as an official group and are denied citizenship. An estimated 1 million Rohingya are stateless Muslims in an overwhelmingly Buddhist country that has long been hostile to their presence.
Why did the Rohingya exodus from Myanmar begin?

The mass evacuation from Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state began Aug. 25 after a group of Rohingya militants attacked police outposts and a military base, killing a dozen officers. The military responded with what it deemed “clearance operations” to root out fighters it said might be hiding in villages. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have escaped the military crackdown and vigilante attacks that have burned villages and killed hundreds.
What is the U.S. saying?

The United States said it is “deeply troubled” by the Myanmar crisis. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the Trump administration continues to condemn the violence between Rohingya Muslims and Myanmar security forces.
What is Iran saying?

Iran’s Supreme Leader strongly denounced the killing of Muslims in Myanmar. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the deaths of Rohingya Muslims is a political disaster for Myanmar because it is being carried out by a government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. He called her a “brutal woman.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

‘Burma Calling’: Al-Qaeda Orders Jihadists to Rescue Rohingya ‘by Force’ By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

Al-Qaeda has called for jihadists to report to Burma to fight for the Rohingya minority as they fall victim to “a conspiracy hatched by the forces of International Disbelief against Islam and Muslims.”

In a statement issued by al-Qaeda’s general leadership, the terror group said the “conspiracy” is “marked by the usurpation of the rights of Muslims, occupation of their lands, defilement of their holy places, all under the guise of fighting terrorism!”

“The usage and espousal of the term ‘the fight against terrorism’ has become the latest trend which every ruler must keep up with as a pledge of allegiance and devotion to the powerful in the system – a sacrament of penance to secure remission of all his crimes and failings and to be rewarded perhaps with a Nobel Prize for Peace – a badge worn by every professional criminal and murderer,” the statement added.

That’s a reference to Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the prize during her opposition to the junta and has been called out by the United States and others for not acting on the violent pushback against Rohingya people — largely Sunni, with a Hindu minority — after the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked an army base Aug. 25. That has resulted in a flood of refugees — some 300,000, according to the White House — heading for safety in Bangladesh.

“In Rakhine State, the plight of the Rohingya in particular is one of the greatest human tragedies anywhere in the region,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia Patrick Murphy told reporters Friday. “They’re not the only ethnic minority facing challenges even in that area. I mentioned earlier the ethnic Rakhine, themselves a minority population, suffering from underdevelopment and limited rights over many, many years. But the Rohingya certainly stand out, and the fact that over a million of them inside the country have been devoid of basic rights for generations has been a longstanding issue and a longstanding concern for us in the United States. It needs to be addressed.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Monday evening that “the massive displacement and victimization of people, including large numbers of the ethnic Rohingya community and other minorities, shows that Burmese security forces are not protecting civilians.”

“We are alarmed by the allegations of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, burning of villages, massacres, and rape, by security forces and by civilians acting with these forces’ consent,” she said.

UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein told the Human Rights Council on Monday that the United Nations has “received multiple reports and satellite imagery of security forces and local militia burning Rohingya villages, and consistent accounts of extrajudicial killings, including shooting fleeing civilians.” The government claims that villagers have been burning their own homes. CONTINUE AT SITE

ISRAEL Comments turned off

How Do Palestinians Define ‘Terrorism’? As the U.S. moves to cut aid, setting out a clear legal meaning would be a good step. By Jonathan Schanzer and Grant Rumley

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

The Taylor Force Act is gathering momentum in Congress. Named for a West Point graduate who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian during a 2016 trip to Israel, the bill would cut American aid to the Palestinian Authority until it takes “credible steps to end acts of violence” and stops paying stipends to convicted terrorists. The legislation recently passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with rare bipartisan support, and last week Sen. Lindsey Graham attached it to the 2018 Foreign Operations budget, all but guaranteeing it will go into effect next year.

That means the clock is now ticking for the Palestinian Authority, which receives around $350 million from the U.S. each year. The Taylor Force Act wouldn’t block humanitarian or security aid, meaning U.S. funds wouldn’t be zeroed out, but our sources say the total could fall as low as $120 million, depending on how far Congress and the Trump administration want to go. At the same time the PA’s support from other donors is dropping, putting further strain already on the government in Ramallah.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his coterie say they cannot roll back the practice of paying convicted terrorists, which dates to 1964. They say failing to pay the salaries—estimated at around $350 million a year—would create an opening for the terror group Hamas or even Iran. They further argue that pulling the funding would deprive thousands of families of their livelihoods, which could spark protests and threaten the Palestinian Authority’s rule.

Congress will rightly reject these arguments. The PA’s obstinacy is the reason the Taylor Force Act is so close to becoming law. Lawmakers and the White House signaled for months that a cutoff was coming, yet Mr. Abbas refused to take action.

There is one step Mr. Abbas could take to demonstrate that he is taking Congress seriously: He could issue a definition of terrorism to his own people. Remarkably, the Palestinian Authority’s “Basic Law” does not mention terrorism. The State Department says that although the PA has criminalized acts of terror, it lacks legislation “specifically tailored to counterterrorism.”

The PA’s security forces do regularly raid terror cells and detain operatives across the West Bank. In late July, for example, they nabbed Hamas members in four major cities. But the PA typically justifies such actions under presidential decrees, such as one that prohibits “harming public security.”

In the past, PA forces also had claimed jurisdiction under a combination of legal parameters, including the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979 and a set of Jordanian military codes. But since Mr. Abbas’s election in 2005, and especially after the 2006 elections and the devastating 2007 civil war with Hamas, he has governed almost exclusively by executive decree.

A law passed by the PA’s parliament that defines and criminalizes terrorism would carry greater weight and almost certainly garner more respect from the Palestinian people. But internecine conflict has rendered the parliament defunct, making a new law all but impossible to pass.

Mr. Abbas’s decrees provide the Palestinian security forces with a broad mandate for arresting terror operatives who plot attacks against Israel or the PA. Mr. Abbas issued an order in 2007 that states “all armed militias and military formations . . . are banned in all their forms.” At times, he has condemned acts of terror, such as last month after three Arab-Israelis killed two police officers in Jerusalem. The PA’s news agency reported that Mr. Abbas called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “expressed his strong rejection and condemnation of the incident.”

Yet the PA continues to pay stipends to people convicted of such attacks. The Palestinians could buy considerable goodwill merely by defining what the PA considers terrorism. Setting out such a definition would not change Congress’s demands or prevent the Taylor Force Act from passing. But it would signal the PA is taking steps to address the problem. From there, the PA’s next step would be to cut off money to convicted terrorists, pursuant to its new definition. CONTINUE AT SITE

IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Cruelty of Barack Obama On immigration, the ex-president isn’t what he says he is.By William McGurn

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

Throughout his political life, Barack Obama has been hustling America on immigration, pretending to be one thing while doing another.

Now he’s at it again. Mr. Obama calls it “cruel” of Donald Trump both to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protected hundreds of thousands of people who came to the U.S. as children illegally—and to ask Congress to fix it. The former president further moans that the immigration bill he asked Congress to send him “never came,” with the result that 800,000 young people now find themselves in limbo.

Certainly there are conservatives and Republicans who oppose and fight efforts by Congress to open this country’s doors, as well as to legalize the many millions who crossed into the U.S. unlawfully but have been working peacefully and productively. These immigration opponents get plenty of attention.

What gets almost zero press attention is the sneakier folks, Mr. Obama included. Truth is, no man has done more to poison the possibilities for fixing America’s broken immigration system than our 44th president.

Mr. Obama’s double-dealing begins with his time as junior senator from Illinois, when he helped sabotage a bipartisan immigration package supported by George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy. Mr. Obama’s dissembling continued during the first two years of his own presidency, when he had the votes to pass an immigration bill if he had chosen to push one. It was all topped off by his decision, late in his first term, to institute the policy on DACA that he himself had previously admitted was beyond his constitutional powers.

Let this columnist state at the outset that he favors a generous system of legal immigration because he believes it is good for America. Let him stipulate too that a fair and reasonable solution to 800,000 children who are here through no fault of their own should not be a sticking point for a nation as large as America. But once again, here’s the point about Mr. Obama: For all his big talk about how much he’s wanted an immigration bill, whenever he’s had the opportunity to back one, he’s either declined or actively worked to scuttle it. CONTINUE AT SITE

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Throwing Away the Russian Card The love-hate relation with Putin, from the Obama-era red reset button to the current collusion hysteria, has been a disaster. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

“They [the North Koreans] will eat grass but will not stop their program as long as they do not feel safe.”— Vladimir Putin, Beijing, China, September 5, 2017

China has put the U.S. into an existential dilemma. Its surrogate North Korea — whose nuclear arsenal is certainly in large part a product of Chinese technology and commercial ties — by any standard of international standing is a failed, fourth-world state. North Korean population, industry, culture, and politics would otherwise warrant very little attention.

Yet in late 2017 North Korea poses the chief existential threat to the United States. We fret over its daily assertions that it is apparently eager to deploy verifiable nuclear weapons against the U.S. West Coast, U.S. allies such as Japan and South Korea, or U.S. bases and territory abroad such as those in the Marianna Islands.

Even if such offensive thermonuclear threats are ultimately empty, they continue to eat up U.S. resources, demand diplomatic attention, make us spend money on deployment and military readiness, and prompt crash anti-missile programs.

Central to the strategy is China’s “plausible deniability.” The ruse almost assumes that China’s neighbor North Korea — without a modern economy or an indigenous sophisticated economic infrastructure — suddenly found some stray nukes, missiles, and delivery platforms in a vacant lot in Pyongyang. Thus China is willing to “help” resolve the issue it deliberately created.

As the U.S. obsesses over North Korea, China is in theory freed to do even more of what it already does well — intimidate its Pacific and Asian neighbors, in the passive-aggressive style of violating sovereign air, ground, and sea space of other nations. Its tactics are accompanied by implied quid pro quos along the lines of “If you would just join our Chinese Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, there would be no need for such misunderstandings.”

Beijing is following somewhat the Japanese model of imperial construction of the 1930s. Chinese aims are based on similar radical increases in naval construction and air power; massive importation of Western military technology; intimidation of neighbors; assumptions that the U.S. is a spent, has-been power in decline; and reliance on morally equivalent and circular arguments that regional hegemons have a natural right to impose regional hegemonies.

China does not want a pro-U.S. country on it borders. It does not wish reunification of the Korean Peninsula by South Korea. It does not want North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal. It does not want another major land war on its border. It does not want Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan to have either a nuclear deterrent or a missile-defense system.

But it does favor the status quo, in which North Korea every few months upsets the world order, threatens chaos, wins concessions, and then behaves — for a while. So North Korea is an effective surrogate — it keeps the U.S. busy and distracted from China’s aggrandizing strategies while not upsetting the commercial trajectory of the Pacific.

The result of the North Korean crisis is a sort of strategic stalemate, in which both sides in the stand-off try to find advantages or new breakthroughs in technology. North Korea escalates by detonating a heretofore unknown thermonuclear weapon. South Korea responds by taking caps off its conventional missile-delivery weights. The U.S. scrambles to beef up missile defenses while ratcheting up diplomatic pressures.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Vox Trump, Vox Populi Why raising the debt ceiling is an especially revealing moment in our democratic politics. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

Donald Trump’s deal with the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling for three months and fund $15 billion in disaster relief has delighted the Dems and infuriated Republicans. “Trump got rolled!” was the refrain, said in disgust by one side and exultation by the other, since the Dems gave up nothing for the deal. The president seemed to rub salt in the Republicans’ wounds when he called the Senate minority leader and House minority leader “Chuck and Nancy.” The old NeverTrump claim that Trump is neither a true Conservative nor a Republican appeared prescient.

Leaving all that aside, the move probably will satisfy a majority of voters. The vote in the House before the meeting was 316-90, suggesting that the most democratic branch of government, and hence most accountable to the people, had an idea that such a move is what the people want. Later, the presumably more sober and judicious Senate agreed with an 80-17 vote. The old lesson of democracy is still valid: politicians succeed by giving people what they want. Ignoring vox populi is a surefire way to get tossed from office.

Raising the debt ceiling is an especially revealing moment in our democratic politics. The problem is critical: Common sense and simple mathematics tell us our runaway debt, deficits, and entitlement spending will in a few decades hit our economy like a Cat 5 hurricane. But the electorate’s fondness for these programs makes them nearly untouchable.

Nearly two-thirds of the annual budget goes to “mandatory” spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on $20 trillion of debt, along with some of the 83 social welfare programs. This spending will continue to grow as the population ages and interest costs return to normal levels. Social Security illustrates the problem. Its unfunded liability for the next 75 years is $12.5 trillion, an increase of 166% from just ten years ago. Social Security is losing money every year, $54 billion in 2016. In ten years that deficit will reach $215 billion in real dollars. Today, the “trust fund” financing the program is made up of Treasury debt, which means the feds have to borrow more money or raise taxes when the bonds are cashed in to pay recipients. It’s sort of like using one credit card to make a payment on another.

If left unreformed, programs like Social Security and Medicaid will hit the demographic wall: right behind the 75 million Boomers are nearly 76 million Millennials. Increasing longevity means that benefits for more people will be paid out for more years. We can’t grow ourselves or tax ourselves out of this looming disaster. Programs have to be reformed (higher employee contributions and retirement ages, and means-testing benefits), and more importantly, cut.

This problem is well known, amply documented, often decried, and seldom addressed meaningfully. Deficit and debt hawks blame politicians for pandering to the people, especially Democrats who think the “rich” don’t “pay their fair share,” and have secret vaults of money they’ve unjustly finagled from the people, even though the collective wealth of the country’s some 540 billionaires couldn’t fund the federal government for one year. Weak-kneed Republicans go along, afraid of their constituents and the progressive media that will Scrooge them royally every time a modest reform––such as cutting just the rate of increased spending for a program––is put on the table.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

The Unknown Girl – A Review By Marilyn Penn

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

If the Dardenne brothers were filming in English instead of French, it would be easier for critics to admit that The Unknown Girl is a Christian soap opera in which a young idealistic doctor discovers that everyone harbors a secret which is just another version of sin. Whether it’s jealousy, vanity, pride, lust, theft or murder, we’re all guilty and one sure way of atoning is to choose a life of service to the poor and downtrodden

In an early scene, we see Doctor Jenny tending to the infected foot of an overweight elderly diabetic – no gloves for this saintly woman, nor do we see her wash her hands before sitting down to have a snack with her patient. This is but a preamble to her taking on the role of detective to solve the mystery of a young murdered girl’s unknown identity. Jenny will venture into some rough places on her own; she will stand up to shady characters, she will put herself in harm’s way even when it makes little sense. Questioning a man who has procured a prostitute for oral sex as to whether he got her name would be instantly laughable in American English but gets a pass as a sub-title. Would Carmen have been as desirable or successful if her name had been Ms Sonia Perez?

At one point, I had hopes that the Dardenne boys were about to admit that the doctor’s naivete was more disruptive than helpful in a scene where the police complain that her treading on their turf complicated their own investigations and antagonized their inside stool pigeons. Unfortunately, they quickly reverted to some pat scenes of guilt and atonement and our heroine ends on the high note of helping an elderly patient negotiate some stairs. If you like your whodunnits garnished with piety and unlikely remorse, see The Unknown Girl. If you don’t need moralizing with your murder/mystery, especially in French, skip this one – c’est un dud.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“We need to have a transparency revolution. In as real time as possible, citizens, We The People, need to engage and review that spending, and hold our elected officials accountable for their decisions.” Adam Andrzejewski

Posted By on September 12th, 2017

Watch the C-SPAN interview, click here.

Adam Andrzejewski discusses OpenTheBooks, a watchdog organization he founded that tracks government spending at the federal, state, and local levels.Brian Lamb’s inquiries dug into our OpenTheBooks’ mission, vision, data capture and oversight reports. It’s a robust body of work that we are very proud of – there was a lot to discuss over the course of an hour.

In the interview, we had an opportunity to tell our organization’s story from the beginning and explain the vision behind our lifelong commitment to government oversight.

Have you ever wondered how OpenTheBooks conducts its oversight? Adam Andrzejewski explained the process we use to hold government accountable.

Brian Lamb asked hard questions about our federal oversight reports. Here’s a list of our reports covered in the interview:

Ivy League, Inc. – The government’s $42 billion subsidy of the Ivy League schools. Watch the segment. Read the report.

The National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities – Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal arts and humanities grants flowing to asset-rich organizations, not the starving artist. Watch the segment. Read the report.

The Veterans Affairs Scandal Two Years Later – Spending $20 million in luxury art while sick veterans die waiting to see a doctor.
Watch the segment. Read the report.

Farm Subsidies & The Big Dogs – Millions of dollars in federal farm subsidies to urban areas where there are no farms.
Watch the segment. Read the report.

Fortune 100 Companies – $1.2 trillion in federal contracts and grants to the Fortune 100. Watch the segment. Read the report.

Lawyered Up 2017 – 36,000 federal lawyers enforcing the regulated states of America. Watch the segment. Read the FY2015 report.

Watch our interview now posted online:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?432472-1/qa-adam-andrzejewski