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David Horowitz: Trump’s Speech is a Game Changer It will change the dynamic of this election.

Posted By on June 14th, 2016

Trump’s speech on national security, which he delivered today, will change the dynamic of this election. The speech was specific, detailed and on the money. Trump showed how strategic securing the border is, how important stopping immigration from terror zones like Syria is, and how deadly political correctness has become. Political correctness – which transforms the Islamic world, which has a lot to answer for, from aggressors into innocent victims – functions as a shield for Islamic terrorists, and handcuffs law-abiding citizens prompting them not to report suspicious activities by Muslims for fear of being called racist.

Trump was especially courageous (and politically incorrect) in pointing out that the Muslim communities in which the terrorists operate know what is going on but don’t say anything. What a contrast with Hillary’s speech today, which focused on reinforcing political correctness – attacking so-called assault rifles, as though guns and not fanatics were the problem, and emphasizing the importance of not alienating Muslims by acknowledging that a large and growing segment of the Islamic world is at war with us. What contempt for Muslims who are also victims of Islamic terror! Does denying reality encourage non-belligerent Muslims to help us? For seven and a half years the Obama administration has closed its eyes to the Islamic dimensions of the terrorist threat, has refused as long and as much as possible to even use the word “terror.” And what has been the result? Muslims in San Bernardino and St. Lucie – as Trump had the political courage to point out – saw something but said nothing about the atrocities brewing in their communities. At the same time the progressive enablers of Islamist terror have been busy blaming Christian conservatives for the anti-gay hatred that is a core belief of the Islamists, rooted not only in their religious texts but relentlessly broadcast through their Imams and mosques.

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Jamie Glazov: Boys of the Taliban The taboo pathology that fuels Islamic rage.

Posted By on June 14th, 2016

The worst mass shooting ever on American soil has now transpired in Orlando, Florida. Omar Mateen, a Muslim who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, opened fire at the Pulse gay nightclub on Saturday night, murdering at least fifty people and wounded another 53. With the issue of Islam’s teachings about homosexuality now confronting a shocked world, we are re-running Jamie Glazov’s article “Boys of the Taliban,” from Frontpage’s Jan 1, 2007 issue, to help shed light on a taboo pathology that underlies the structures of Islam — and that serves as one of the primary ingredients of Islamic rage and terror. The article has been edited and updated.

*Just recently, the Taliban issued a new set of 30 rules to its fighters.

Many of the instructions were to be expected: rule No. 25 commands the murder of teachers if a warning and a beating does not dissuade them from teaching. No. 26 outlines the exquisite delicacy of burning schools and destroying anything that aid organizations might undertake — such as the building of a new road, school or clinic. The essence of the other rules are easily left to the imagination, basically involving what Islamic Jihad is all about: vile hate, death and destruction.

But there is a curious rule that the Western media has typically ignored. Rule No. 19 instructs that Taliban fighters must not take young boys without facial hair into their private quarters.

Aside from the question of what is permitted if a young boy does have facial hair, this new Taliban commandment brings light to a taboo pathology that underlies the structures of Islam. And it is crucial to deconstruct the meaning of this rule — and the horrid reality that it represents — because it serves as a gateway to understanding some of the primary ingredients of Islamic rage and terror.

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MY SAY: EVELYN BEATRICE HALL

Posted By on June 13th, 2016

Evelyn Beatrice Hall (28 September 1868 – 13 April 1956) was an English writer who used the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre. She is best known for her biographies of Voltaire.

In” The Friends of Voltaire”, Hall wrote the phrase: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it “-which is often incorrectly attributed to Voltaire. It is often quoted in praising free speech.

Just try to tell a liberal that you are voting for Trump and you will get insult, opprobrium, accusations of racism and stupidity, lack of morals, and more of “I disapprove of what you say and you have no right to say it.” rsk

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Washington Funds Ignorance of Mental Illness The federal government doesn’t even try to estimate the number of Americans with schizophrenia. By E. Fuller Torrey

Posted By on June 13th, 2016

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/436484/print

The federal government collects accurate data on the number of pigs in Iowa, on milk cows in New York, and on turkeys in Delaware but none whatsoever on the number of people with schizophrenia. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps a long list of diseases that must be reported, including cryptosporidiosis, chlamydia, and cancer, but not schizophrenia.

This is remarkable, since schizophrenia is among our most consequential and expensive diseases. In a 2013 study, the annual economic burden of schizophrenia was estimated to be $156 billion. Three studies have reported that individuals with schizophrenia are responsible for 10 percent of all homicides in the United States; other studies suggest that people with schizophrenia — such as Jared Loughner in Tuscon, Aaron Alexis at the Washington Navy Yard, and James Holmes in Aurora, Colo. — are also responsible for up to one-third of mass killings. Even Adam Lanza in Newtown, Conn., had had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, in addition to autism spectrum disorder.

Other developed nations believe that it is important to ascertain the prevalence of schizophrenia and whether it is increasing or decreasing. For example, recent European studies have reported that schizophrenia is twice as common in England and the Netherlands as in Italy or Spain, that it has been steadily increasing in south London over three decades, and that early-onset schizophrenia is increasing in Denmark.

And what do we know about the United States? Nothing. Could an increasing incidence of schizophrenia be partly responsible for the sharp increase in the number of homeless who are mentally ill? We have no idea. Or the increase in mentally ill persons in jails and prisons? Or the startling increase in the number of mentally ill individuals who now receive psychiatric disability benefits, and are therefore eligible for Medicaid, under the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs? We know nothing. Our last prevalence study of schizophrenia was in 1980–84, when four cities and one rural area were studied and, from the results, a national prevalence was estimated. The last complete enumeration of “insane” persons in the United States was in the 1880 census.

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No, We Are Not ‘Doing Everything We Can’ The lie at the heart of our national-security argument By Kevin D. Williamson

Posted By on June 13th, 2016

One of the great problems we face in our ongoing confrontation with Islamic fundamentalism is that our enemies are rational and we are not.

It is a mistake — one that we insist on repeating — to tell ourselves that the jihadists and ISIS groupies who perpetuate terrorist spectaculars such as the attack on the Pulse nightclub outside Orlando are irrational, that they are mentally disorganized lunatics of the familiar-enough sort exemplified by Jared Lee Loughner and John Salvi, who may or may not believe themselves to be acting in the service of a particular cause. (Salvi was an abortion opponent who believed that a Vatican-based currency-manipulation scheme was shaping world affairs, and who believed himself to have been targeted by, among others, the Cosa Nostra and the Freemasons. Loughner, too, was obsessed with a currency-manipulation conspiracy.) Lunacy is not what we are seeing with domestic jihadists. What we see instead is the pursuit of specific cultural and political ends through acts of violence directed at symbolically important soft targets.

We speak of “lone wolf” jihadists as though this phenomenon were somehow independent of the wider Islamist project. It is not. The model of “leaderless resistance” in the service of terrorist projects is not new, and it has not been employed by the Islamists at random. Leaderless resistance has long been a part of the thinking of neo-Nazi groups such as Brüder Schweigen, and the Islamists have had a great deal of opportunity to develop that approach in various insurgencies around the world. Equally important, the emergence of the Internet as a worldwide medium for political communication and cultural expression has provided 21st-century terrorists with opportunities that were far out of the reach of their mimeograph- and fax-dependent predecessors a generation ago. If Omar Mateen turns out, as expected, to have had little or no substantive contact with organized Islamist groups, that fact will demonstrate the success of their communication strategy rather than the limitations of their reach.

We must be honest with ourselves about the enemy and his characteristics. He is not crazy. He has goals, and we know what they are and how he goes about pursuing them.

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Killing Homosexuals Is Not ISIS Law, It Is Muslim Law For nearly 25 years, we’ve been clinging to the fiction that groups such as ISIS are anti-Islamic. By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on June 13th, 2016

Various reports indicate that the death toll from the jihadist attack overnight at a popular gay club in Orlando may exceed 50 people, with more than 50 others wounded. The terrorist’s identity has been reported: He is Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen and devout Muslim from Fort Pierce, Fla., the son of immigrants from Afghanistan.

The FBI has indicated that Mateen, who was killed in a shootout with police at about 5 a.m., was an Islamic extremist. Representative Peter King (R., N.Y.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, says the shooter was “trained in the use of weapons.” As we have noted here many times, military training is generally the key that separates competent terrorists from wannabes. But whether actual or would-be jihadists, these Muslims are motivated by Islamic supremacism, the belief that sharia, Islam’s ancient, totalitarian law, must be imposed on society.

Based on all this, there is abundant Washington and media speculation that the attack is “ISIS-inspired.” This is consistent with the bipartisan, government-approved inanity we have been following for a quarter-century, what I often call the political class’s concoction of “An Islam of Their Very Own.” It goes something like this:

Islam is a religion of peace, period. End of discussion. “Violent extremist” outfits such as ISIS and al-Qaeda kill wantonly, with no real ideological motivation. ISIS and al-Qaeda are thus not Islamic, but actually anti-Islamic — and if they cite Islamic scripture to justify their atrocities, they are “hijacking” and “perverting” Islam. Because we must see these groups as “anti-Islam” rather than Islam, it is acceptable to call a mass-murder attack “terrorism” only if law-enforcement develops some plausible tie to these groups. Otherwise, if a Muslim is involved, stick with “workplace violence” and the like. Finally when an attack committed by a Muslim is too obviously terrorism to deny, call it “ISIS-inspired,” or “al-Qaeda-inspired,” or “Hamas political resistance,” etc. — but by all means do not, absolutely do not, ascribe it to Islam in any way shape or form.

This is idiocy. Will today’s event, the worst mass shooting in American history, help us see that?

We need to consider separately Islam and its sharia law.

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GAO Revelations: Our Open Door For Terrorists The deadly failures of the visa waiver program. June 13, 2016 Michael Cutler

Posted By on June 13th, 2016

Visas are a component of border security. While much has been made about the need to erect a fence along the U.S. / Mexican border to enhance border security, an effectively administered visa program in essence, moves America’s borders out to the U.S. embassies and consulates in countries around the world where the visa applications for aliens seeking entry into the United States are processed.

Most terrorists who have been identified, entered the U.S. through ports of entry.

An effectively administered visa program essentially moves America’s borders out to the U.S. embassies and consulates around the world where our consular officers adjudicate applications for visas. Aliens who are unable to secure a visa are not only not able to legally enter the United States, they are not even able to board airliners destined to the United States- keeping them as far from our shores as possible.

The very first paragraph of the preface of “9/11 and Terrorist Travel – Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” makes that nexus between visas and border security crystal clear:

“It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.”

Apparently bowing to pressure from a number of deep-pocketed lobbying organizations- especially the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the United States created the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) that strips our nation of a vital layer of security and a half dozen specific ways that the visa requirement can enhance airline safety, national security and the safety and well-being of America and Americans.

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This Is How Democracy Dies Why more left-wing violence is likely on the horizon. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on June 13th, 2016

The attacks on Trump supporters at a rally in San Jose last week were another example of the left’s violent assaults on free speech and association. Before the election there is likely to be more thuggery, as an emboldened left lets slip their dogs of war to foment disorder to continue Obama’s aim to “fundamentally transform” America. As the long history of political philosophy teaches, this undermining of law by violence is an important sign of democracy’s impending doom.

Over 2100 years ago, the Greek historian Polybius described how democracy dies:

So when [the rich] begin to hanker after office, and find that they cannot achieve it through their own efforts or on their merits, they begin to seduce and corrupt the people in every possible way, and thus ruin their estates. The result is that through their senseless craving for prominence they stimulate among the masses both an appetite for bribes and the habit of receiving them, and then the rule of democracy is transformed into government by violence and strong-arm methods. By this time the people have become accustomed to feed at the expense of others, and their prospects of winning a livelihood depend upon the property of their neighbors, and as soon as they find a leader who is sufficiently ambitious and daring . . . they introduce a regime based on violence.

It takes only a few revisions reflecting the modern world to see how closely Polybius’s analysis describes how the ideology and policy of the progressives are degrading America’s democratic republic.

First, the progressives have “seduced and corrupted” the people not, like the aspiring tyrants of old, by spending their own money, but by redistributing the property of other citizens via the 16th Amendment, which instituted the federal income tax. Over the next century the funds appropriated by the IRS have financed the “bribes” for the people: the various social welfare programs and transfers that relentlessly have escalated in number, scope, and cost––in 2014 these programs ate up two-thirds of the federal budget.

These transfers have indeed “stimulated” both the “appetite” of the people for even more government programs, and the “habit” of receiving them. That is why today the biggest problem facing our economy––the unsustainable entitlement spending that threatens in decades to gobble up every dollar collected by the feds––got only cursory attention in all the speeches of the presidential candidates from both parties. Indeed, the Democrats want to create even more programs and spend even more money on these “bribes.”

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Ramadan Massacre in Orlando At least 50 dead and 53 wounded. Robert Spencer

Posted By on June 13th, 2016

It was the worst mass shooting ever on American soil: Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire at the Pulse, an Orlando, Florida gay nightclub, on Saturday night. Mateen murdered at least fifty people and wounded another 53. The death count is almost certain to go higher, as many are quite gravely wounded. Mateen was a Muslim who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and mentioned the Boston Marathon jihad killers in a 911 call just before he started shooting. Thus in the wake of the jihad massacre, it was time for the Leftist political and media elites to do what they always do first and foremost after every jihad massacre: make sure that no one thought ill of Islam.

The FBI, to its credit, immediately declared the massacre a terror attack, but Barack Obama was circumspect about what kind: he declared that it was too early to know “the precise motivations of the killer.” This despite the fact that not only had Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and made reference to the Tsarnaev brothers, but also the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the FBI is investigating reports that Mateen recited Islamic prayers during the massacre. On top of all that, the attack took place during the Muslim month of Ramadan, during which the Islamic State has called for jihad attacks against Americans.

Nonetheless, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, along with many other Leftists, tried to turn the jihad attack into a commercial for rolling back Americans’ Second Amendment rights, tweeting: “We mourn with the people of Orlando and the LGBT community as a whole on the news that -once again- we have lost precious lives to the gun.” Who knew that guns could be so diabolical and anti-gay?

Leftist responses ranged from the ominous to the absurd. Ominously, Facebook and Reddit turned to censorship to try to prevent people from thinking ill of Islam. Facebook removed the Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) page, which had been up for six years and had over 55,000 members, and Reddit began banning people who dared to mention that the killer was a Muslim.

On the absurd side, ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted that the massacre was the fault of conservative Christians: “You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate.” Does the illustrious Strangio actually believe that Omar Mateen was incited to commit mass murder in the gay nightclub in Orlando by an “anti-queer climate” created by Christian conservatives? He probably does, since, as a Leftist, he knows that non-Muslims are always and everywhere to blame for atrocities that Muslims commit.

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Imam Speaking in Orlando Said Gays Must Be Killed Out of ‘Compassion’ By Patrick Poole

Posted By on June 13th, 2016

There is new information on the horrific terror attack in Orlando last night that has killed at least 50 and wounded more than 100 in the largest mass shooting in American history.

Sources are telling the Daily Beast that suspected killer Omar Mateen had previously been investigated by the FBI in 2013 and 2014, making this yet another “known wolf” terror attack:

Omar Mateen of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, came to the attention of federal authorities twice prior to being identified as the gunman in the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, a senior law enforcement source told The Daily Beast.

Mateen 53 people and shot more than 100 in total at the Pulse gay nightclub early Sunday morning, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

The senior law enforcement source reports that Mateen became a person of interest in 2013 and again in 2014. The Federal Bureau of Investigation at one point opened an investigation into Mateen but subsequently closed the case when it produced nothing that appeared to warrant further investigation.

“He’s a known quantity,” the source said. “He’s been on the radar before.”

Mateen was a U.S. citizen; his parents are from Afghanistan, CBS News reports.

Man Arrested with Guns, Explosive Ingredient Reportedly Headed to L.A. Pride Parade

The FBI is already circling the wagons that Marteen was just “one of hundreds” of ISIS sympathizers known to the FBI: