http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/06/republican_party_wont_survive_amnesty_bill_and_neither_will_america.html The Republican Party won’t survive the passing of the Democrat’s illegal immigration amnesty bill. This shouldn’t be too complex for the D.C. geniuses: if you betray your party’s base to pander to the opposition’s base, they win, you lose. If you screw the white working class to pander to the Hispanic vote, whites […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324328204578569270162405156.html?mod=trending_now_4
ByJOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA in Mexico City and JACK NICAS in Chicago
Questions swirled Wednesday over whether fugitive Edward Snowden, the admitted leaker of U.S. secrets, has a clear path to asylum in Ecuador.
As Russian officials reiterated that Mr. Snowden was in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, his ability to leave appeared to hinge on two points—whether there was a country that would allow him free transit on his way to Ecuador, which has said it would consider granting him asylum, and whether he had the temporary travel documents to get there.
Late Wednesday, Univision Networks posted images of what it said was a “safe pass” for temporary travel that had been issued to Mr. Snowden—a document he would need after U.S. officials said earlier this week they had canceled his passport. Word of such a pass echoed comments earlier this week by Julian Assange, the founder of antisecrecy group WikiLeaks, who said Ecuador had given Mr. Snowden a “refugee document of passage.”
But according to a senior official in Ecuador’s foreign ministry on Wednesday, Mr. Snowden had no such pass. “He does not have any documents issued by the government of Ecuador, such as a passport or a refugee identification,” said Galo Galarza, a senior ministry official. He didn’t provide additional details.
Also Wednesday, Ecuador’s foreign ministry said the country would consider whether to grant asylum to Mr. Snowden if he presents himself at one of the country’s diplomatic missions.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323873904578569373649278986.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
As the American people, the world and official Washington continue to unravel the mystery named Barack Obama, a key clue may be found in the booing of Nancy Pelosi—from the Left.
The former House Speaker was booed, shrieked at and vilified for remarks she made last weekend to Netroots Nation, the progressive activists’ convention.
Ms. Pelosi spoke to the convention about Edward Snowden, whose theft of NSA computer data has taken him to China and now Russia. To her credit, Nancy Pelosi told them what they didn’t want to hear:
“I know some of you attribute heroic status to that action, but you don’t have the responsibility for the security of the United States. Those of us who do have to strike a different balance.” She said Edward Snowden had clearly broken the law.
At this, the full-time American Left went ballistic with boos.
“Leave him alone,” they shouted. “Secrets and lies!” And the ultimate articulation of rejection: “You suck!”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323844804578529030063800200.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
Psychiatry’s diagnostic bible has broadened the definition of mental illness to absurdity.
The American Psychiatric Association released a revision of its diagnostic bible in May, the first major rewrite in two decades. “The Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” or DSM-5, is the official guidebook for diagnosing every conceivable psychiatric ailment. This new edition loosens the rules in a disturbing way.
In previous editions, you the patient had to meet certain specified criteria in order to be diagnosed for any particular condition. For example, if I were going to diagnose you as having schizophrenia, then you had to have specific symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations. If you didn’t have those symptoms, then I couldn’t make the diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Not anymore. Last month, DSM-5 introduced a new diagnosis, “Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder.” The only required criterion is that you have some distress from unspecified symptoms, but you “do not meet the full criteria for any of the disorders in the schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders diagnostic class.” You don’t have to have delusions. You don’t have to have hallucinations. In fact if you do have delusions and hallucinations, then you probably don’t qualify for unspecified schizophrenia. (You will find the new diagnosis in one short paragraph at the bottom of page 122 of DSM-5.)
Likewise for every other diagnostic category, including, for example, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Let’s suppose that you occasionally don’t pay attention to your wife. You don’t meet the old-fashioned criteria for ADHD, which included impairment in multiple settings, like on the job or while driving. You are inattentive only when your wife is talking. You pay attention to everybody else. Hey, no problem. You now qualify for “Unspecified Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.”
http://www.juliagorin.com/wordpress/?p=3033
A sort of follow-up to the related story of Syrian “rebels” learning from the “former” KLA that we put in charge of Kosovo — and put in touch with the Syrians. And so one supposes that to U.S. officialdom, the below developments are nothing alarming. Wonderful news, in fact. After all, we organized the Syrian-Albanian note-sharing on how to win an insurgency and have an unfree “liberated” country afterwards.
Comment from American Council for Kosovo director Jim Jatras, who circulated the item below:
“Albanian Islamists”?? What? There’s no such thing!
Shouldn’t that be, “Secular, Democratic, Pro-American Kosovo Albanians Paradoxically Join Jihadists in Syria”?
Funny how US support for political and military empowerment of secular, democratic, pro-American (etc., etc.) Muslims always seems to morph into more jihadists.
Albanian Islamists Join Syrian War
Ethnic Albanians are getting more and more involved in the Syrian war as they join Syrian Islamist groups, writes Mohammad al-Arnaout. (Al-Hayat, Apr. 29)
In recent months, the “Albanian world,” which consists of five contiguous states (Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro), has been increasingly interested in what is happening in Syria and the controversy over whether Albanians should go fight there.
This coincided with the growth of political Islam, which in the past few weeks expressed itself in an unprecedented way with the emergence of Kosovo’s first officially registered Islamist political party: the Islamic Movement to Unite (LISBA). [Didn’t see that coming!] It is headed by Arsim Krasniqi and supported by Sheikh Shaukat Krasniqi and a former Yugoslavian army officer, Fuad Ramiqi [who is al Qaeda-connected]. The latter made no secret of his goal to change Kosovo’s secular constitution in order to “defend the Islamic identity of Kosovo’s Albanians, who make up 95% of the population.”
[Digital Journal on March 6th reported that the party — Levizja Islamike Bashkohu — is actually “the first fundamentalist Islamist political party in the Balkans.” That is, the American-sponsored, “secular”, “nominally Muslim” Kosovo which we’re still feverishly trying to prop up as a fully-fledged state that is Muslim and pro-U.S., has the distinction — a decade-and-a-half after our “help” — of housing the region’s first official Islamist party. Digital Journal quoted a Weekly Standard article by Stephen “Suleyman” Schwartz — Muslim Kosovo’s biggest advocate and war proponent — now “warning” that “‘exponents of Saudi-financed Wahhabism and of the Muslim Brotherhood have penetrated the highest levels of the official Kosovo Islamic apparatus,’ though they are not readily welcomed by the secular population…Kosovans struggling in poverty have been paid (by Gulf-sponsored charities) to the wear the hijab or grow beards…” What was expected to happen after NATO handed Kosovo to ‘Kosovans’?]
There has long been behind-the-scenes talk that young Albanians, influenced by political Islam’s rise in Syria, are participating in the fighting there among the ranks of Islamist groups (Jabhat al-Nusra and others). [Hmm, young, Albanians. Surely they don’t see parallels in Syria to their own “no religious component” struggle in 1998-99 Kosovo?] When news emerged in November 2012 that the first Albanian martyr, Naaman Damoli, had fallen in Syria, the Kosovar newspaper Koha Ditore brought that issue to light in its Nov. 12, 2012, issue.
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/yet-another-enemy-of-israel-poised-to-join-us-foreign-policy-team/2013/06/26/
Whether Robert Malley will be the most anti-Israel person on Secretary of State John Kerry’s foreign policy team may be a tough call, but he sure will fit right in
For people who pay close attention to what is happening in the world of U.S. government diplomacy and the players not just on the field, but those on deck, Robert Malley is a name that rings a bell. For those who care deeply about the security of Israel, the bell that is rung has an ominous, if familiar, tone.
Rumors have been circulating for about a week that Robert Malley will soon be named by Secretary of State John Kerry for a senior advisory role with a portfolio that focuses either on Syria or on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
According to various sources Malley is “under serious consideration” or the decision to appoint him is already “a done deal,” according to the Washington Free Beacon.
So what’s wrong with Malley? He couldn’t possibly be as bad as Samantha Power, or John Kerry or Chuck Hagel, could he?
Well, that depends who you ask.
Robert Malley is so offensive, he was actually kicked off (despite the lipstick smear called “resignation”) the Obama election committee in 2008 for meeting with the terrorist organization Hamas, although he had been one of Obama’s closest advisors for Middle East issues until his affinity for Hamas became public.
Malley is a Harvard-trained lawyer who currently works at the George Soros-affiliated International Crisis Group. There are those Israel supporters who see Malley as an international crisis all on his own – his father, Simon Malley, was a virulently anti-Israel member of the Egyptian Communist Party and a close confidante of Yassir Arafat. (Malley’s mother, who raised him, is named Barbara Silverstein – we’re not going there.)
http://nsroundtable.org/
“We will approve the meeting on condition there are no Jews.” So say officials in the Palestinian Authority when someone requests a meeting with a senior Palestinian Authority official in the West Bank.
To which we would respond: No problem. Let the Palestinian Authority negotiate with itself!
“The next time U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visits Ramallah, will he actually violate U.S. law to make sure there are no Jews among his entourage, lest he upset his Palestinian hosts?” asks Khaled abu Toameh below.
Well, Mr. Toameh, we all look forward to seeing if Mr. Kerry partakes in this very familiar Kabuki dance…
Palestinians: “No Jews Allowed!”
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3785/us-intervention-jihad Libya has now become the main [North African] base for Al Qaeda. Shi’a and Sunni find common cause in hating the infidel with an even greater intensity than they hate one another. As Angelo Codevilla wrote, “They are not our friends and are unlikely to become such.” With the June 13, 2013 confirmation by […]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/26/britain-anti-islam-bloger-pamela-geller-robert-spencer-banned/2460011/
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/06/britian-bans-geller-and-spencer-sanctions-ied-jihadist-squads.html
Pamela Geller,Robert Spencer had planned to speak at far-right march honoring slain soldier.
Story Highlights
Geller called the ban a ‘blow against freedom’
The pair had mounted an anti-jihad poster campaign in NYC subway
British government says it opposes ‘extremism in any form’
The British government has banned two prominent U.S. anti-Islam bloggers who had planned to enter the United Kingdom to speak at a far-right rally, the Home Office said Wednesday.
Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, co-founders of Stop Islamization of America, were planning to appear at a march by the far-right English Defence League in Woolwich, the site in southeast London of the hacking death of a British solider in May.
On their blogs, Geller and Spencer posted copies of a letter from the British Home Office issuing the ban.
A government spokesman said individuals whose presence “is not conducive to the public good” could be excluded by the home secretary, the BBC reported.
“We condemn all those whose behaviors and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form,” he added.
The soldier, Lee Rigby, was killed in a gruesome knife attack near an army barracks. The attacker, whose hands were covered in blood, then walked up to a bystander with a video camera and said he killed Rigby because “Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers.”
Geller, who writes the Atlas Shrugs blog, and Spencer, who blogs at Jihad Watch, are also co-founders of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which mounted a controversial pro-Israel “Defeat Jihad” poster campaign on the New York subway with signs that read: ‘In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2013/06/25/demographic-trends-are-working-israel-favor/wgP8J0AQmX3Wv1RsjOlCIK/story.html
Israel is “running out of time,” Secretary of State John Kerry told the American Jewish Committee in Washington this month. A two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict must be reached soon or “the insidious campaign to de-legitimize Israel will only gain steam,” he warned. “Israel will be left to choose between being a Jewish state or a democratic state, but it will not be able to fulfill the founders’ visions of being both at once.”
It’s an old refrain, erroneous but popular: Israel must make peace with the Palestinians — “peace” being defined as the creation of a 22nd Arab state — before high Arab birthrates turn the Jews into a minority in their own land.
In Jerusalem a few months ago, President Obama echoed the same claim.
“Given the demographics west of the Jordan River,” he said, “the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.”
This so-called “demographic argument” may sound compelling, even ominous. But it rests on an obsolete stereotype of Arab women as baby mills, outbreeding their Jewish sisters at such a pace that it is only a matter of time before Jews are numerically overwhelmed on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
