RUTHFULLY YOURS

The House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee on Thursday, as part of an investigation of federal law enforcement officers, held a hearing into allegations of serious misconduct by members of the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) working out of their Chicago office, according to a report released by Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Transportation Security Sub-committee Chairman John Mica, R-Florida.
The allegations made against the air marshals, the majority of whom are stationed in Chicago, include hiring prostitutes and using the government telephones and other government-issued equipment to film or videotape pornographic material involving sexual encounters between the marshals and women who were propositioned to participate in what amounts to production of pornographic images.

Among those testifying at Thursday’s hearing was Roderick Allison, the director of the Office of Law Enforcement/Federal Air Marshal Service, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Also testifying was the TSA’s Heather Book, the assistant administrator of the Office of Professional Responsibility, also a part of DHS.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/isis-suspects/

U.S. authorities have charged 64 men and women around the country with alleged Islamic State activities. Men outnumber women in those cases by about 5 to 1. The average age of the individuals — some have been charged, others have been convicted — is 25. One is a minor. The FBI says that, in a handful of cases, it has disrupted plots targeting U.S. military or law enforcement personnel.
The charged, by state
Mufid A. Elfgeeh Rochester, N.Y.
Charged: Sept. 15, 2014 | Age when charged: 30

Elfgeeh encouraged two other people to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State and helped prepare them for the trip, according to the U.S. government. He also discussed the idea of shooting U.S. military members, saying he was thinking that he would “just go around and start shooting.” After he purchased two handguns with silencers and ammunition, the FBI says, he was arrested by members of the Rochester, N.Y., Joint Terrorism Task Force. Source.
Nihad Rosic Utica, N.Y.
Charged: Feb. 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 26

Rosic, a Bosnian native who became a naturalized citizen, is among six other Bosnian immigrants accused of sending money and military supplies to terror groups in Iraq and Syria. The government said that last July, he tried to board a flight from New York to Syria to join the fighting. Source.
Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: Feb. 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 24

Juraboev made a posting on an Uzbek-language Web site propagating Islamic State theology, offering to kill the president of the United States if ordered by the Islamic State, according to the government. The indictment said he then planned to travel to Turkey and then Syria to wage jihad on behalf of the group. Source.
Akhror Saidakhmetov Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: Feb. 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 19

Saidakhmetov, a citizen of Kazakhstan, was arrested while trying to board a flight to Istanbul. The government alleges that he and Juraboev were planning to go to Syria to wage jihad on behalf of the Islamic State. Source.
Abror Habibov Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: Feb. 25, 2015 | Age when charged: 30

Habibov, who is Uzbeki, helped pay for Saidakhmetov’s effort to join the Islamic State, the government alleges. Source.
Noelle Velentzas Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: April 2, 2015 | Age when charged: 28

Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui were allegedly preparing an explosive device to detonate in the United States. According to the government’s complaint, Velentzas at one point pulled a knife from her bra and demonstrated how to stab someone to Siddiqui and an undercover police officer, saying, “Why we can’t be some real bad bitches?” Source.
Asia Siddiqui Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: April 2, 2015 | Age when charged: 31

Velentzas and Siddiqui were until recently roommates in an apartment in Queens. Siddiqui acquired multiple propane gas tanks, as well as instructions on how to turn them into explosive devices, according to the government. Source.
Dilkhayot Kasimov Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: April 6, 2015 | Age when charged: 26

The government alleges that Kasimov, together with Habibo, helped fund Saidakhmetov’s efforts to join the Islamic State, collecting more than $1,600 for him to use on his trip to Syria. Kasimov also encouraged other people to join the fight, according to the charges. Source.
Akmal Zakirov Brooklyn, N.Y.
Charged: June 8, 2015 | Age when charged: 29

Zakirov allegedly helped fund another person’s trip to join ISIS. Source.
Munther Omar Saleh Queens, N.Y.
Charged: June 16, 2015 | Age when charged: 20

Saleh, a college student in Queens studying electrical circuitry, allegedly planned to attack New York City landmarks on behalf of the Islamic State. The government said Saleh also translated Islamic State propaganda into English.

Chancellor Merkel today seems to be promising nothing less than absolution for Germany’s sins of the Holocaust. The problem is, of course, that Muslims are quite different from Jews.

German media outlets have suppressed the stories of rampant rape and child abuse among the migrants housed in government-run accommodations.

The editor-in-chief defended her decision to suppress the rape story on public TV broadcaster ZDF: “We don’t want to inflame the situation and spread the bad mood. [The migrants] don’t deserve it.” That the poor rape victim deserved justice was apparently of no concern to the broadcaster.

Germany under Chancellor Merkel wants to play “Miss Congeniality” at the global scale, and wants Europe to pick up the tab.

Iran hails Jeremy Corbyn for ‘shaking the British ruling class’The Labour leader is lionised in Tehran for taking on the “British aristocracy” – and appreciating Iran’s contribution to peace in the Middle East.

Jeremy Corbyn is a “lifelong human rights activist” who recognises Iran’s ability to “bring peace” to the Middle East, according to a senior ally of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader.

Syed Salman Safavi, who serves as an aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has lavished praise on Mr Corbyn, following the example of Iran’s official media which has chosen to lionise the new Labour leader.

Most British politicians are portrayed in Iran as wicked conspirators, bent on destroying the Islamic Republic at the behest of “Zionists” and “capitalists”. But Mr Corbyn is seen as the great exception.

This statement is so apposite to the pseudo campaign of Donald Trump….and the appeal of Carson and Fiorina….rsk

“Mr Corbyn has spent his political life as an unofficial leader of what Mark Steyn once called the National Coalition Against Anything That Works. Now he is obliged to offer proposals that have to work. Instead, all we are hearing are platitudes about “making the world a better place”. It is time to make the case for professional politics, but for that to be credible, the professionals will have to stop behaving like a confederacy of rule-bending opportunists. ”

Self-serving, rule-bending MPs have a lot to answer for after the rise of Jeremy Corbyn Disgust with our political class made the new Labour leader’s ‘authenticity’ the be-all and end-all of his insurgent campaign.

When exactly did “professional” become a term of abuse for politicians? Or, put that another way: why is running the country the only job in which being unprofessional is considered to be a virtue?

The opposite of “professional” is “amateur”. Would you really want an amateur prime minister presiding over an amateur government that ran an amateur economic policy and an amateur system of national security? I doubt it. Maybe you would trust a doctor who crowdsourced his diagnoses and asked laymen to offer possible treatments. Again, I doubt it. Perhaps you would consider handing over your worldly affairs to a lawyer or a financial adviser who appealed to the public for solutions to your problems. I’m inclined to think not.

Of course, democratic politics is different from the learned professions – or even the skilled trades. It is not supposed to be an arcane expertise in which only the initiated can participate. The power over how people are governed should belong to them, and that power should not require specialist qualifications or technical knowledge. That principle is, supposedly, what Jeremy voice-of-the-people Corbyn’s brand of party leadership is about. This can have a kind of plausibility.

http://jamieglazov.com/2015/09/19/daniel-greenfield-on-the-real-meaning-of-allahu-akbar-on-the-glazov-gang-2/

One of the Glazov Gang’s most popular episodes was joined by Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the editor of Frontpage’s blog, The Point.

Daniel discussed The Real Meaning of ‘Allahu Akbar’, explaining why you should be suspicious of the translation the media provides after every Jihadi attack.

Daniel also focused on Why Jihadists Lust for Their Own Death, How Islam is Different, Why Obama is Helping Iran Get the Bomb, What’s Behind Obama’s Bullying of Israel, Measuring Obama vs. Putin, and much, much more.

Did you miss this BLOCKBUSTER episode?

Here it is below:

I like Jake Tapper, but I already was ready to punch him in the ear over the “let’s you and him fight” structure of the debate questions last week when he abandoned all pretense of adulthood and asked the candidates what they’d like their Secret Service codenames to be. It was a low, cringe-inducing moment, and the candidates made it lower and cringier with their answers. (“Trueheart”? “Justice Never Sleeps”? Ergh.) Marco Rubio just barely acquitted himself with “Gator,” but the correct answer was: “That’s a dumb question, Jake, and I am not going to answer it. Now, back to Iran . . .”

Here’s my question, which nobody ever really asks: “Given that a small number of federal expenditures — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national security, and interest on the debt — typically constitute about 80 percent of all federal spending, and given that we not going to cut non-defense discretionary spending to zero, there is no mathematically plausible way to balance the budget without: 1) cutting spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and/or national security; and/or 2) raising taxes. So, what’s it going to be: spending cuts in popular programs, higher taxes, or deficits forever? And before you give your answer, I’d like you all to know that standing behind each of you is a man with a Taser and instructions to use it on the first person whose answer relies on the Growth Fairy — lookin’ at you, Jeb — or the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Fairy. Go.”

I have had the opportunity to put that question privately to a fairly large number of Republican grandees, including some on that debate stage, and I have never received a truly persuasive answer. If any of the 2016 gang would like to provide one, I am sure that National Review would love to see it.

The State Department has made a number of pledges of transparency lately. What’s mainly clear so far is that these pledges don’t actually translate into much in the way of … well, transparency.

In my previous post, [1] that observation applied to State’s appointment of a “Transparency Coordinator,” a move apparently meant to cope with the rigors of officially revisiting Hillary Clinton’s emails. This time, the non-transparent pledge of transparency involves a State Department briefing on the Iran nuclear deal.

Some background on background briefings: One hallmark of the nuclear negotiating process , as the Iran talks dragged on for almost 17 months, past three extended deadlines, was the ritual of anonymous U.S. senior administration officials providing background briefings to the press. Of course the reporters on the scene were privy to who those officials were, but to be admitted to such briefings you must play by the rules — and the rules were that the public was not to be told who those officials actually were.

It’s been an unusual week for Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old high-school freshman from suburban Dallas who aspires to be an engineer. On Monday, as the Dallas Morning News reports, he brought to school a digital clock he’d built himself:

He showed it to his engineering teacher first thing Monday morning and didn’t get quite the reaction he’d hoped for.

“He was like, ‘That’s really nice,’ ” Ahmed said. “‘I would advise you not to show any other teachers.’”

He kept the clock inside his school bag in English class, but the teacher complained when the alarm beeped in the middle of a lesson. Ahmed brought his invention up to show her afterward.

“She was like, it looks like a bomb,” he said.

“I told her, ‘It doesn’t look like a bomb to me.’ ”

The teacher kept the clock. When the principal and a police officer pulled Ahmed out of sixth period, he suspected he wouldn’t get it back.

They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited. He said an officer he’d never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.”

The cops interrogated him, handcuffed him, took him to a juvenile jail, fingerprinted him, and released him to his parents’ custody. The school suspended him for three days. Dan Cummings, the principal of MacArthur High, issued a statement to parents that “said Irving police had ‘responded to a suspicious-looking item on campus’ and had determined that ‘the item . . . did not pose a threat to your child’s safety.’ ”

By Wednesday, Ahmed was famous. The hashtag #IStandWithAhmed trended on Twitter, and the young man received invitations to visit the headquarters of Google, Facebook and the executive branch of the U.S. government. “Cool clock, Ahmed,” tweeted Barack Obama. “Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”

Well, good for Ahmed. The teachers at MacArthur High and the Irving police certainly deserve criticism for overreaction and heavy-handedness. But the story has also been put into the service of a pernicious myth about “Islamophobia.” From the Morning News article:

While the Middle East remains a hotbed for terrorists, we’ve got our own jihad training compounds set up in rural areas across the United States. They are run by an organization called Muslims of America (MOA). Law enforcement describes these compounds as “classically structured terrorist cells.”

If you visit the MOA website, you’ll get a hefty dose of taqiyya. The home page has an image of a large American flag along with a banner advertising one of their offshoot organizations called the United Muslim Christian Forum. The goal of this bogus group is to find common ground between Muslims and Christians, including mutual hatred of Jews. The web site also features a slick 16-minute propaganda video.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from what the MOA is publically peddling is the non-taqiyya version of who they are. Otherwise known as the truth.

Let’s start with the founder: El Sheikh Gilani. Prior to MOA, he founded Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a Pakistani terror organization. MOA is the American version of ul-Fuqra.

Gilani is also the man Daniel Pearl had set out to interview on that fateful day when Pearl was kidnapped. (May Daniel’s soul rest in peace.)