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WaPo Op-Ed: ISIS Fighters Are Human Beings Too Just human beings who behead captives, burn children alive, and enslave women. Mark Tapson

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Last Friday a Washington Post contributor penned an op-ed with the provocative title, “ISIS kidnapped my best friend. But when I met its fighters, I couldn’t hate them.” The op-ed seems intended to convey a poignant, emotional insight about the tragic human cost to everyone trapped in the hell that is ISIS-controlled territory. But the end result is moral equivalence.

Photojournalist Sebastian Meyer relates that his best friend was kidnapped in 2014 by ISIS militants. Meyer can’t say much more than that, he claims, without further endangering his friend, who presumably then is still being held captive somewhere even after all this time. Given the opportunity months later to question an ISIS captive, Meyer – eager to get some answers and some catharsis – was surprised to find himself becoming sympathetic to the fighter for having been recruited into service with the Islamic terror group at what we in the West would consider the tender age of 13.

Meyer detailed the captive fighter’s background:

Ali was born in 1995 and joined the Islamic State in 2008, at the age of 13, he told me. He was trained as an assassin and given his first mission two years later. He and three friends were sent to kill four Iraqi police officers in Mosul. The group tracked the men down, executed them with shots to the back of their heads and buried them where they fell. Ali said he had killed eight or nine men in battle, not including the five he’d beheaded.

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Sorry, Madeline Albright, but I’d Rather Go to Hell Than Support Hillary Clinton No problem! By Katherine Timpf

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

If you are a woman, you don’t get to pick which presidential candidate to support based on his or her stances on the issues like men do — you have to support Hillary because she’s a woman like you are.

Think that sounds sexist? Well, it is. In fact, it’s some of the most idiotic pieces anti-woman garbage I’ve ever heard — which is why it’s so sad that it’s coming from Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright, both of whom are widely considered to be feminist icons.

On HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Steinem said that women “get more activist as they grow older. And when you’re younger, you think: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie.’”

First of all, there are approximately 9 million reasons to support Bernie over Hillary if you’re a liberal woman. Bernie has a long, consistent record of supporting the things that liberal voters consider important — like fighting for LGBT rights and against Wall Street — while Hillary has a record of supporting whatever the hell happens to be politically convenient at the time.

Now, Steinem eventually sort of apologized by saying that she “misspoke” and actually wasn’t trying to say that “young women aren’t serious in their politics.”

First of all, that’s crap. Saying that young women decide who to vote for based on how to get boys absolutely is saying that they “aren’t serious in their politics.” It can’t be interpreted any other way.

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Will Britain Vote to Leave the European Union? By John O’Sullivan

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

As the referendum on Brexit (i.e., Britain’s departure from the European Union) gets closer, advocates of Britain remaining a member, such as prime minister David Cameron, are looking and sounding more and more like “Baghdad Bob” denying the arrival of the U.S. Army even as, over his shoulder, we see GIs pulling down Saddam Hussein’s statue.

Over David Cameron’s shoulder, we can see the young migrant men storming Europe’s porous borders, the scenes of mass sexual assault in Cologne, the long lines of people in southern Europe made permanently jobless by the Euro, the toppling of moderate governments (left and right) weakened by the Eurozone’s “austerity” policy, the relentless rise of populist, nationalist, and Trotskyist parties across the continent, and the dithering and incompetence of the EU’s central institutions in the face of these massive problems.

Seemingly oblivious, Cameron tells us how the European Union guarantees Britain’s prosperity and security today, but that soon it will be even more beneficial as a result of the reforms he has just secured in his European negotiations. On even cursory examination, however, these reforms don’t do what they’re supposed to do, and even if they did, they would still be inadequate because they are dependent upon future EU agreements rather than being firmly agreed now.

The best example is immigration because, by 80–20 majorities, British voters want to see it cut drastically and control of Britain’s borders regained by London. Cameron promised to meet these demands until recently. But when he realized that the EU would never agree to limits on the free movement of labor, he quietly shelved them and instead called for a “waiting period” of four years before new EU migrants to Britain became eligible for social benefits. It was argued that this fulfilled Cameron’s pledge to reduce immigration levels by making “benefits migration” less attractive.

This maneuver was both a cheap appeal to popular prejudices and completely ineffective as a means of reducing immigration. Most — the great majority — of intra-European migrants come to Britain to work, not to go on welfare. They would be largely unaffected by this “reform.” Immigration levels would not fall or even moderate significantly. After four years, however, the immigrant workers would be able to claim welfare benefits for themselves and their dependents — including those dependents living in their country of origin.

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You Don’t Know What Obama Said at the Mosque By Dennis Prager

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

If you seek to understand Barack Obama and his views, the best place to go is his speeches. But you have to read them in their entirety, not rely on hearing them or on the media’s summary of them. When you do, you come to realize how often what Obama says is morally and intellectually confused and even untrue.

The most recent example was his speech last week at a mosque in Baltimore. In addition to reassuring Muslim Americans that they are as American as Americans of every other faith — a point that any president, Republican or Democrat, would and should make — President Obama spoke a lot of nonsense, some of it dangerous nonsense.

President Obama: “So let’s start with this fact: For more than a thousand years, people have been drawn to Islam’s message of peace. And the very word itself, ‘Islam,’ comes from ‘salam’ — peace.”

Why did Mr. Obama say this? Even Muslim websites acknowledge that “Islam” means “submission” [to Allah], that it comes from the Arabic root “aslama” meaning submission, and that “Islam” is the command form of that verb.

That’s why “Muslim” means “One who submits,” not “One who is peaceful.”

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America’s Balkan Values White liberals and black careerists vigorously reject the MLK ideal of a color-blind society. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

The racial spoils industry survives on several requisites.

One, Americans must be readily identifiable as being non-white or white. Two, once non-white claimants pass the racial litmus test, they must think and speak in a particular progressive manner, in dutiful obeisance to those who set up and perpetuate the racial spoils system. And three, racialism must remain defined as a one-way bias.

The problem with the first criterion is multifold. America today truly is a multiracial, intermarried society in which the old rubric “white” no longer equates to “of European descent.” Obama’s racist former minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright appears whiter than many Americans of Mediterranean heritage.

Lots of Americans of various hues are de facto classified as white, either by themselves or by the government that refuses to make them eligible for affirmative action. Over the years I had hundreds of students who were clearly non-white in appearance, first-generation Americans of Arab, Armenian, and Punjabi background, who did not qualify for any racial set-asides. The vast majority of them were as dark as or darker than third-generation Mexican-Americans who did.

Many whites of European descent are indistinguishable from so-called Latinos. Certainly a Sicilian-American can look more “Latino” than someone of Mexican or South American descent. If Ted Cruz took his mother’s name, no one would know that Ted Wilson was Latino. If George Zimmerman had used the name Jorge Mesa, the Trayvon Martin confrontation never would have made front-page news. Such a rigged system cannot even defend its own biases. Accordingly, it retreats toward the subjective category “diversity” to make up prejudice and its remedies, in ad hoc fashion, on the basis of career and political expediencies.

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Good News: Female Muslim Prof. Says Muslims Can Rape, Rob Infidel Women Only in Some Circumstances By Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Straining at gnats while swallowing camels is increasingly how Islam’s apologists rationalize away the violence and hate Sharia engenders for the “infidel,” the non-Muslim. Consider the significance of yet another video of yet another learned Muslim justifying the enslavement and rape of non-Muslim women.

Suad Saleh, a female professor of doctrine at Al Azhar University, correctly defines the Arabic phrase melk al-yamin — “right hand possession” (see Koran 4:3):

[Non-Muslim] female prisoners of wars are “those whom you own.” In order to humiliate them, they become the property of the [Muslim] army commander, or of a Muslim, and he can have sex with them just like he has sex with his wives.

Ms. Saleh’s comments are not new or unique. Countless Muslims — beginning with Muhammad himself — have confirmed that Islam permits the sexual enslavement of non-Muslim women seized during the jihad.

Saleh cannot even take the “honor” of being the first Muslim woman to support this inherently misogynistic creed.

Of interest here to the West is how the Al Azhar professor claims the Islamic institution of sex slavery is fair and just — it’s just that too many Muslims exploit it, to the detriment of Islam:

Some [Muslim] opportunists and extremists, who only harm Islam, say: “I will bring a woman from East Asia, as [as a sex slave] under the status of ‘right hand possessions.’ And with the consent of my wife, I will allocate this woman a room in the house, and will have sex with her as a slave girl.”

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Madeleine Halfbright: ‘There Is a Special Place in Hell’ for Women Not Backing Hillary By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has warned young women that if they do not vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, they are traitors to their sex. At a Saturday New Hampshire rally for Clinton, Albright repeated her tagline, with a beaming Hillary looking on:”There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

Albright is not alone in attempting to motivate young women to support Clinton. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem also backed Clinton, and recently insinuated that young women only support rival Bernie Sanders because “the boys are with Bernie.” Steinem has since attempted to dial back the accusation, explaining on Facebook that her words were “misinterpreted as implying young women aren’t serious in their politics.”

The Iowa caucus entrance-poll results show women favored Clinton over Sanders, 53 percent to 42 percent. But young voters under the age of 30 overwhelmingly picked Sanders, 84 percent to 14 percent. A recent Marist poll found 76 percent of likely Democratic voters in New Hampshire under the age of 30 supporting Sanders, including a 29-point lead among women under age 45.

Clinton has convinced high-profile millennial women such as Demi Lovato, Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, and Kim Kardashian to stump for her, in an effort to court young women. When Albright delivered her line, Clinton burst into joyous laughter. There is, however, no word yet on what circle of hell is reserved for women who don’t vote for Carly Fiorina.

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NASA Bans the Word ‘Jesus’ By Rick Moran ????!!!!!

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Why would NASA ban the use of the word “Jesus” by a Christian group that advertises its meetings in an agency newsletter?

They’re only following federal guidelines, they say, about preventing the “government endorsement” of a religion.

Fox News:

“It was shocking to all of us and very frustrating,” NASA engineer Sophia Smith told me. “NASA has a long history of respecting religious speech. Why wouldn’t they allow us to put the name Jesus in the announcement about our club?”

Liberty Institute, one of the nation’s largest religious liberty law firms, threatened to file a federal lawsuit unless NASA apologizes and stops censoring the name ‘Jesus’.

The JSC Today newsletter is distributed electronically and includes a number of Space Center events – from salsa dancing lessons to soccer camp.

NASA issued a statement late Monday – that did not refute Liberty Institute’s charge.

“NASA does not prohibit the use of any specific religious names in employee newsletters or other internal communications. The agency allows a host of employee-led civic, professional, religious and other organizations to meet on NASA property on employee’s own time. Consistent with federal law, NASA attempts to balance employee’s rights to freely exercise religious beliefs with its obligation to ensure there is no government endorsement of religion. We believe in and encourage open and diverse dialogue among our employees and across the agency.”

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FBI Makes It Official: Hillary Rodham Clinton Is Under Investigation By Michael Walsh

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Just the thing to propel her into the New Hampshire primary tomorrow:

In a letter disclosed Monday in a federal court filing, the FBI confirms one of the world’s worst-kept secrets: It is looking into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Why say this at all, since it was widely known to be true? Because in August in response to a judge’s direction, the State Department asked the FBI for information about what it was up to. Sorry, the FBI said at the time, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation.

Now, in a letter dated February 2 and filed in court Monday, the FBI’s general counsel, James Baker, notes that in public statements and congressional testimony, the FBI “has acknowledged generally that it is working on matters related to former Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server.”

Baker says the FBI has not, however, “publicly acknowledged the specific focus, scope or potential targets of any such proceedings.” He ends the one-paragraph letter by saying that the FBI cannot say more “without adversely affecting on-going law enforcement efforts.”

The letter was filed in one of the Freedom of Information Act cases brought against the State Department over access to documents from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state. This one was filed by Judicial Watch.

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Pentagon Prioritizes ‘Climate Change’ in All Military Actions By Michael Walsh

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Haven’t had enough “fundamental transformation” yet? Have some more:

The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies. A new directive’s theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show “resilience” and beat back the threat based on “actionable science.”

It says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy — a wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.”

The Pentagon defines resilience to climate change as: “Ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions.”

To four-star generals and admirals, among them the regional combatant commanders who plan and fight the nation’s wars, the directive tells them: “Incorporate climate change impacts into plans and operations and integrate DoD guidance and analysis in Combatant Command planning to address climate change-related risks and opportunities across the full range of military operations, including steady-state campaign planning and operations and contingency planning.”