http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/350622/power-and-power-wielders-andrew-c-mccarthy In the latest NSA surveillance controversies, there are two major, inseparable issues: (a) Is the awesome power to collect information essential for national security in light of our current threat environment, and (b) even if it is, should we trust the government to wield this power both lawfully and prudently? The problem national security […]
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/06/10/are-we-being-imprismed Is there anyone in government we can trust? It seemed as if we’d be able to focus on the Eric Holder subset of the Obama scandal parade for at least a few days. But we were interrupted by revelations about Obama’s telephone and email snooping published in the Guardian, a Brit newspaper not known […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/kill-bill-killians-assault-on-freedom-of-speech
As I noted in my last column, “The Stinking Badges of Our Federales” (June 2nd), the Department of Justice is again on the attack against freedom of speech. The occasion for this guerilla attack is a talk to be given by United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee Bill Killian during an event sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee.
His talk will be about civil rights restrictions on speech in the “social media” as it applies to Muslims – that is, speech that criticizes Muslims and Islam, not speech by Muslims that could be defined as “bigoted” or “hateful” – and there is far, far more of that than there is of the occasional nose-thumbing of Muslims and Islam). It will be about “inflammatory speech,” which could mean anything, even a scholarly disquisition on the origins and practice of Islam. Judicial Watch reports that the event, called “Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society,” will
feature the region’s top DOJ official, who serves as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and an FBI representative. The goal is to increase awareness and understanding that American Muslims are not the terrorists some have made them out to be in social media and other circles, according to a local newspaper report. The June 4 powwow is sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee.
The area’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Killian, will address a topic that most Americans are likely unfamiliar with, even those well versed on the Constitution; that federal civil rights laws can actually be violated by those who post inflammatory documents aimed at Muslims on social media. “This is an educational effort with civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising freedom of religion,” Killian says in the local news story. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.”
So, civil rights laws will be “interpreted” to identify “harmful” statements made on Face Book and other social media and help the DOJ and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to lodge suits against anyone expressing his freedom of speech if it offends Muslims and Islam.
Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs is on the warpath and is urging readers near and far to assemble in Manchester, Tennessee to vigorously demonstrate opposition to Killian’s trial balloon of selective censorship in favor of Muslims and Islam.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/us-naval-academy-instructor-teaching-on-behalf-of-us-muslim-brotherhood?f=puball
Three high level Muslim Brotherhood operatives will be teaching a 6-week course titled “Muslim World Affairs” at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.
Collectively, they are members of two Muslim Brotherhood organizations – IIIT and ISNA – named as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the Holy Land Foundation – Hamas funding trial, the largest terrorist funding trial in U.S. history.
The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) is a Saudi-Wahhabi organization that promotes Islam and shariah. It receives most of its funding from an organization that finances Al Qaeda (SAAR or SAFA Trust). IIIT and ISNA are listed in the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan for America (The Explanatory Memorandum for the General Strategic Goals for the Group in North America written in 1987) as organizations that share the common goal of “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within” in order to make Islam “victorious over all other religions.”
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which finances terrorism, is the largest Islamic organization in North America and is charged with enforcing strict Wahhabism in America’s mosques. (A 2005 Freedom House study found that over 80% of America’s mosque taught Saudi Wahhabist hate ideology).
The U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and the U.S. mililtary work closely with ISNA, which was one of 57 organizations that demanded that ALL federal government training materials deemed biased against Islam be purged and a mandatory re-training program for FBI agents, U.S. Army officers and all federal, state and local law enforcement be instituted. The “purge” was completed in six weeks and the retraining has begun.
Janet Levy,
Los Angeles
http://www.jihadwatch.org/
Every day brings new confirmation of how compromised the U.S. government, military, and intelligence apparatus really is. After the Obama Administration purged counterterror training materials of all truth about Islam and jihad, this is what they replaced it with.
“FEATURED STORY: US Naval Academy Instructor Teaching On Behalf Of US Muslim Brotherhood,” from the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch, May 14 (thanks to Jeff):
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-law-eric-holder-ignored
The Justice Dept. rules for press subpoenas ….
Attorney-General Eric Holder talks about adopting new rules for how the feds subpoena reporter records. This is a typical Beltway ploy, one that “fixes” violations of old rules on the books by passing new ones. Doing so implies that there is a loophole in existing law that needs closing.
But, inconveniently for Holder, there has been since 1980 a DOJ press subpoena regulation (28 C.F.R. sec. 50.10) on the books. And Eric Holder clearly violated it. Rules in the Code of Federal Regulations carry the force of law, and thus bind those subject to them.
The full set of rules merits a read, but here is the money part:
(a) In determining whether to request issuance of a subpoena to a member of the news media, or for telephone toll records of any member of the news media, the approach in every case must be to strike the proper balance between the public’s interest in the free dissemination of ideas and information and the public’s interest in effective law enforcement and the fair administration of justice.
(b) All reasonable attempts should be made to obtain information from alternative sources before considering issuing a subpoena to a member of the news media, and similarly all reasonable alternative investigative steps should be taken before considering issuing a subpoena for telephone toll records of any member of the news media.
(c) Negotiations with the media shall be pursued in all cases in which a subpoena to a member of the news media is contemplated. These negotiations should attempt to accommodate the interests of the trial or grand jury with the interests of the media. Where the nature of the investigation permits, the government should make clear what its needs are in a particular case as well as its willingness to respond to particular problems of the media.
(d) Negotiations with the affected member of the news media shall be pursued in all cases in which a subpoena for the telephone toll records of any member of the news media is contemplated where the responsible Assistant Attorney General determines that such negotiations would not pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation in connection with which the records are sought. Such determination shall be reviewed by the Attorney General when considering a subpoena authorized under paragraph (e) of this section.
(e) No subpoena may be issued to any member of the news media or for the telephone toll records of any member of the news media without the express authorization of the Attorney General….
In cases of exigent national security, the A-G, or a senior national security official, can contact the press & request that the story be held. When six American diplomats were sheltered in Tehran by Canadian diplomats, reporters sat on the story for some three months, until the Americans were safely exfiltrated back to the States.
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-puder/the-six-day-war-46-years-later/ It is hard to believe that 46 years have passed since the Six-Day War of June, 1967. The world has changed a great deal since then. Technology has revolutionized communications and warfare. Instead of war between nations and world wars, most of today’s conflicts occur within states as witnessed in recent years in the […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/fjordman/muslim-riots-and-left-wing-nonsense/ The May 2013 riots in certain immigrant-dominated suburbs of Stockholm raised eyebrows abroad. While I found them disturbing I cannot say that I was totally surprised by them. I’ve consistently warned against such a likely outcome under this pen name for what is now nearly a decade. The political elites not just in Sweden […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/middle-east-peace-process/
Editor’s note: Below is the first installment of a new FrontPage series that will expose the “Middle East Peace Process” and the true genocidal intent of the Arab Palestinians, Israel’s so-called “peace partners.” The translated video below was produced by Palestinian Media Watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_GcZLMSGk4&feature=player_embedded
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
Ever since FDR made it his campaign song in 1932 while running for office during the Great Depression, the unofficial anthem of the Democratic Party has been that Tin Pan Alley classic, “Happy Days are Here Again.” But no matter how often the old Victor spun, it would not be until well after Roosevelt’s death that happy days would be here again.
Like Hope and Change, Happy Days are Here Again was a blandly optimistic and non-specific promise that good times were coming. Someday the happy days would arrive, an appropriate enough sentiment for a song whose pivotal moment came in the movie “Chasing Rainbows” where it was sung to reassure a cuckolded husband who is threatening to kill himself. And in an even more appropriate bit of symbolism, the actual movie footage of that moment is as lost as the happy times.
No matter how often the Democratic Party cheats on the American people, it can always break out a new rendition of “Happy Days are Here Again” to win them back. And even if the happy days never seem to actually arrive, the promise of “So long sad times” and “Howdy gay times” where “your troubles and cares are gone” is always a winner.
While the American Democratic Party may not have an official anthem, the British Labour Party does and its anthem, “The Red Flag” would be entirely appropriate for the new Democratic Party that no longer has anything in common with Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson.
It might be awkward to imagine Harry Reid or Joe Manchin trying to make it through verses like, “The people’s flag is deepest red” and the sonorous chorus, “Then raise the scarlet standard high /Within its shade we live and die/Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer/We’ll keep the red flag flying here.”
They would probably look almost as awkward singing it as Labour Party leader Ed Milliband does, but you could easily imagine Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett belting it out. And that would be only right because while The Red Flag never gets around to mentioning Manchester, despite its popularity there, it does namecheck two cities. “In Moscow’s vaults its hymns were sung/Chicago swells the surging throng.”
These days red flag songs, once mandatory, are confined to all sorts of vaults in Moscow. The new Russian anthem is Putin’s redress of the old Soviet one, with lyrics by the same composer. And the Soviet National Anthem, that secular hymn, has a familiar pedigree going back to the Anthem of the Bolshevik Party in 1938, which took its melody from “Life is better, Life is fun.”
Democrats try to paint the gubernatorial candidate as a wacko with a crazy sidekick.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350596/cuccinelli-bogeyman-virginia-john-fund
After President Obama won Virginia for the second time in a row last November, Democrats were crowing that the state’s governorship would be theirs for the taking this fall.
Their reasoning was simple: Obama had won twice, incumbent GOP governor Bob McDonnell is term-limited, Republicans have lost every U.S. Senate race in Virginia since 2000, and Democrats have said for years that Ken Cuccinelli, the hard-shelled conservative attorney general who is the GOP nominee this year, is unelectable.
But their confidence has gotten a little shaky of late. The Real Clear Politics average of all recent polls shows Cuccinelli with a slim lead, 43 to 42 percent, over Democrat Terry McAuliffe, best known for being Bill Clinton’s fundraising consigliere and the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005. In sizing up the race, the liberal American Prospect magazine admitted that McAuliffe was “a weak candidate” who “would have struggled to win the nomination this time if anyone had contested it.” When he had real opponents in the 2009 race, McAuliffe placed a poor third in the Democratic primary. His advantage this year is that as a master fundraiser, he has oodles of money for the kind of get-out-the-vote efforts that pulled Barack Obama across the finish line to victory in Virginia.
But Democrats also think they have a silver bullet. They are frustrated that Cuccinelli has drifted to the center (he has refused to sign Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge and endorsed Governor McDonnell’s relaxing of restrictions on felons’ regaining the right to vote). But they think they can still paint Cuccinelli as a wild-eyed extremist by linking him to E. W. Jackson, the African-American minister who, in a surprise win, nabbed the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor. (In Virginia, the governor and lieutenant governor do not run on the same ticket.) Jackson is strong medicine for many voters, having said such things as that “Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities” and that liberals have “done more to kill black folks whom they claim so much to love than the Ku Klux Klan, lynching and slavery, and Jim Crow ever did.”
