http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/anthony-weiner-nyc-mayor-fundraiser-93060.html?hp=f3= By MAGGIE HABERMAN | Meet the Women for Weiner. The former congressman, who apologized for the lewd picture scandal that ended his House career before launching a bid last month for New York City mayor, is holding a fundraiser hosted by “Women for Anthony” next week at the Manhattan home of an education activist […]
http://unitedpatriotsworldwide.com/vinienco/2013/06/20/special-report-syrias-islamists-seize-control-moderates-dither/ Obama’s Folly: Why We Cannot Negotiate with the Taliban, by Dr. Martin Parsons Obama’s Folly: Why We Cannot Negotiate with the Taliban, by Dr. Martin Parsons: Fifteen years ago, I had to negotiate with senior members of the Taliban. I was an aid worker in Afghanistan and needed their permission to set up a […]
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-president-elect-implicated-in-1994-argentina-bombing/
Indictment named Rowhani as part of Khamenei-led panel that authorized attack against the Jewish AMIA center that killed 85
Iranian president-elect Hasan Rowhani was allegedly involved in plotting the deadly 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, according to the indictment filed in the case. The attack, attributed to Iran and carried out by the terrorist group Hezbollah, killed 85 people and injured hundreds.
The 2006 indictment (PDF) names Rowhani as a member of the committee headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that planned the bombing, the deadliest attack of its kind in Argentinian history. Rowhani’s name in the indictment was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
The newly elected Rowhani, who raced to a surprise first-round victory on Friday with 50.7 percent of the vote in Iran’s presidential elections, likely served in a subordinate capacity on Khamenei’s committee in the early 1990s.
Though Rowhani was present for deliberations, the final decision to attack the AMIA center was made by Khamenei and then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, according to the indictment. In the indictment, Argentinian prosecutors relied heavily on the testimony of an Iranian defector, former intelligence official Abolghasem Mesbahi.
I am the inspector general identified by James Bovard (“The Reality of Feel-Good Government,” op-ed June 13) as “fired” by President Obama for “refus[ing] to back down from a report condemning a prominent Obama supporter . . . for misusing . . . AmeriCorps grants,” and from another report of wrongdoing “in one of its largest programs.”
The validity of those reports is beyond dispute. The Obama supporter misused for himself $750,000 granted to educate needy youth. The second recipient program was successful without AmeriCorps funds, thus violating the statutory limit to “unmet” needs.
When I left law practice to accept President George W. Bush’s public-service call, I believed in AmeriCorps (and its parent Corporation For National and Community Service’s other “Domestic Peace Corps” agencies) for American youth, to harness enthusiasm and idealism and to help Americans in need.
Mr. Bovard concedes, “they have done much good,” but that overall it has wasted taxpayer funds. That waste is caused by the Obama’s administration’s withdrawal of meaningful oversight. It fired me for policing and then kept the inspector general position vacant for several years. It forced most auditors and investigators to depart by cutting funds. The effect is what this administration wants: no policing of CNCS’s spending of taxpayer money.
Another component is CNCS’s board of directors, appointed by the president, for overseeing the program. The directors were focused solely on good image, resulting in rejecting IG assertions of any material wrongdoing. They supported my firing because I criticized them for not performing oversight duties.
Without changes, the great idea of AmeriCorps won’t work, as Mr. Bovard concludes, and we should stop spending money on it. But if we can set it in the right direction with appropriate and unhindered supervision, including that of a supported IG, it should be given another chance.
Gerald Walpin
New York
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324063304578525871827319936.html
James Bovard: The Reality of Feel-Good Government
After nearly 20 years and billions of taxpayer dollars, AmeriCorps has little to show.
The government-supported service organization AmeriCorps got a boost from President Obama in April, when he announced a new program to “connect more professional scientists and engineers to young students who might follow in their footsteps.” According to a news release, the goal is to place hundreds of AmeriCorps members in nonprofits across the country to mobilize professionals in science, technology, engineering and math “to inspire young people to excel in STEM education.”
A lofty goal, to be sure, but not one AmeriCorps is likely to serve well. Judging by the program’s track record over two decades—or distinct lack of a track record in several cases—taxpayers have better ways to spend some $446 million a year.
A sort of domestic Peace Corps, AmeriCorps was created in 1993 to place adult Americans in community service with nonprofit and public agencies, especially in environmental protection, health, education and public safety. President Clinton declared that AmeriCorps is “living proof” that “if we hold hands and believe we’re going into the future together, we can change anything we want to change.” President George W. Bush was a big supporter, too.
But the halo on AmeriCorps exists primarily because few people have examined what the corps and its members are really up to. The grandiose achievements of AmeriCorps have always been a statistical illusion, full of impressive-looking numbers of people and causes served, and yet—as the Government Accountability Office has pointed out—often missing evidence of real accomplishment.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-education-of-robert-mueller?f=puball Imagine for a moment that I have been elected a U.S. Senator for the state of Virginia, replacing one of the two roll-with-the-punches Democrats who vote the straight Party line, and I am on the Senate Judiciary Committee which is holding a special hearing on the reported misconduct of FBI Director Robert Mueller over […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/more-mega-legislation-senate-takes-up-immigration-reform?f=puball More Mega-Legislation: Senate Takes Up Immigration ‘Reform’ If you liked Obamacare, you will love the proposed immigration “reform” bill which is all about the politics of the Left with no regard to the welfare of U.S. citizens by birth and naturalized citizens. Its final length remains unknown, but it was more than 1,500 pages […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-lack-of-seriousness
Have we reached a stage in our national development where seriousness on almost any subject is impossible? Examples abound.
Edward Snowden, who leaked National Security Agency surveillance projects to the British Guardian, said, “I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.” And he noted, “the public should decide, not the government.”
Here is a remarkable claim of a bureaucrat who has arrogated to himself the role of spokesman for the public. Moreover, he seems to ignore the responsibility the National Security Agency has in lawfully gathering intelligence that assists in targeting prospective terror activity. In fact, the public does make a decision about these surveillance procedures in the form of elections; but no one ever attributed seriousness to Snowden’s arguments.
Reading a catalogue at a major university is also an exercise in frivolousness. From rock climbing to queer studies, from film noir to Lady Gaga, universities demonstrate a loss of purpose. There is an emergent orthodoxy that deals with environmentalism and homosexual marriage, but inquiry of a serious nature is in decline. The Socratic Method has been replaced by Star Chamber psychology of acceptance or banishment.
Popular film has remained popular by appealing to the sensibility of a fourteen year old boy. Films such as “Man of Steel”, “Iron Man”, “Fast and Furious” have scripts that could be composed by monkeys; what they offer are remarkable computer driven special effects, simply breathtaking technology that is riveting yet mindless.
In New York City a man found culpable of lascivious texting to teenage girls and consistently lied about it, (Anthony Weiner) wants to be regarded as a serious mayoral candidate. Remarkably, his Democratic adherents think this is a good idea. Where is the shame? Whatever happened to taste and modesty? Once again, here is an issue put through the cauldron of media cleansing without the slightest regard for serious criticism.
The Obama administration invested millions of taxpayer dollars in an electric car, Solyndra, which was bound to fail from the outset, yet the public response has been ho-hum, another day in Washington. But that money squandered to sustain a marginal company belongs to the taxpayers is theirs, John and Mary Public.
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ann-coulter/we-dont-have-a-spying-problem-we-have-an-immigration-problem/ Well, of course the government is spying on Americans! Look at the havoc caused by American citizens engaging in terrorism. There’s “American citizen” David Coleman Headley, who conspired with Pakistani military officers to commit the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, that left more than 160 people dead. Headley’s ancestors served under Gen. George […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/edward-snowden-traitor-on-the-glazov-gang/
This week’s Glazov Gang had the honor of being joined by Becca Keating, author of the new book, “The Secrets of Powerful Communication: Confronting the Bully Within,” Dr. Karen Siegemund, President of “Rage Against the Media” and Dwight Schultz, a Hollywood actor (dwightschultzfansite.nl).
The Gang gathered to discuss Obama’s Disasters in the Middle East. The discussion occurred in Part II and focused on the White House recently giving $1.3 billion to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — while Syrian jihadists await U.S. arms. The segment also dealt with The Totalitarianism at the Heart of the Obama Scandals, examining how the Left’s lust for power and tyrannical control now lies exposed in front of all.
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=47498a2e1ad97dd3d09ae19c5&id=3167a09c43&e=ce445aaf82 To the Editor The Sydney Morning Herald I am writing to congratulate you on publishing Paul Sheehan’s courageous and fair-minded piece “Twisting Islam to Justify Cruelty” (May 27, 2013). There needs to be a conversation about radical Islamic theology and its Koranic foundations. Sheehan is to be commended for tackling this thorny subject. Concerning […]
