Displaying posts published in

March 2016

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France: Jihad Infecting Army, Police by Yves Mamou

By on March 16th, 2016

Some of these police officers have openly refused to to protect synagogues or to observe a minute of silence to commemorate the deaths of victims of terrorist attacks.
That police officers are armed and have access to police databases only intensifies anxiety.
In July 2015, four men, one of whom is a Navy veteran, were called in for questioning. They had planned to penetrate a Navy base in the south of France, seize a high-ranking officer, decapitate him, and then spread photos of the decapitation on social media networks. The Navy veteran was one of the leaders.

According to a confidential memo, dated January 2015, from the anti-terrorist unit of the interior ministry, France was already host to 8,250 radical Islamists (a 50% increase in one year).

Some of these Islamists have gone to Syria to join the Islamic State (IS); others have infiltrated all levels of society, starting with the police and the armed forces.

A confidential memo from the Department of Public Security, published by Le Parisien, not only details 17 cases of police officers radicalized between 2012 and 2015, but that this increase had accelerated during 2014. Particularly noted were the police officers who listen to and broadcast Muslim chants while on patrol.

Some of these police officers have openly refused to to protect synagogues or to observe a minute of silence to commemorate the deaths of victims of terrorist attacks.

In addition, the police were alerted to a policewoman who incited terrorism on Facebook, and called her police uniform a “filthy rag of the Republic” while wiping her hands on it. When she came out of the restroom she was wearing a hijab. In January 2015, immediately after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Hypercacher market in Vincennes which had left 17 people dead, she wrote on her Facebook page: “Masked attack led by Zionist cowards… They need to be killed.”

That police officers are armed and have access to police databases only intensifies anxiety.

Although Police headquarters in Paris confirm that this situation is rare, they have decided to review on a weekly basis any behavior that overstep the principle of separation of church and state, such as that of Muslim officers who appear to be leaning toward radicalization. Patrice Latron, who manages the office of the Paris police prefect, told Le Parisien that these circumstances are “very marginal.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Open the books on federal pensions By Adam Andrzejewski

By on March 16th, 2016

What has a three-quarter billion-dollar unfunded liability, is manually calculated on paper inside a Pennsylvania mountain, and costs taxpayers more money annually than the entire state budget of Florida? Answer: Federal employee pensions.

It’s national Sunshine Week across America. During this week, good-government groups advocate for open government and transparency in public spending. One area that remains hidden is federal pensions.

Imagine if you could see how much your former congressman makes in federal retirement pension? Just how many years were ‘worked?’ How much money was paid-in? How much did taxpayers finance? And, once retired, just how quickly did the congressman ‘break-even’ on their own contributions?

Even Illinois – where the state’s #1 manufactured product is corruption – has the courtesy to show taxpayers all of the gory details about pensions. The books are open on all 700,000 public retirees at every level of government.

In Illinois, this transparency has been instrumental in identifying pension abuses. For example, our organization OpenTheBooks.com found that a pair of Illinois union lobbyists who substitute taught for just one day in the public school system actually received their $1 million lifetime ‘teacher’ pensions. This happened despite a state law expressly designed to stop them. In another case, a former chief aide to previous Gov. Pat Quinn (D) was receiving an annual pension of $137,000 per year rather than the proper $20,000. A good-government pension hawk exposed the mistake and stopped the over-payments.

Many other states have public pension transparency. Citizen outrage in California drove lawmakers to pass a state law curbing a $545,000 pension to a city manager in Vernon (population 102). Now, that manager is retired on $115,000 per year – an 80 percent reduction.

Inside the cavernous, windowless, Cold War era federal complex in Pennsylvania, what mistakes has the U.S. government made while hand-calculating retirement pensions? Nobody has a clue, because the Obama administration has cited a ‘privacy’ exemption to the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) and refused to shine a light on federal pensions.

Two years ago, we filed a FOIA request for individual federal pension data. The Office of Personnel and Management rejected our request saying it was, “… a clear unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” But, our request for the active salaries of 2.5 million federal employees was fulfilled, with seven-year histories. We post these salaries and bonuses (with names) at OpenTheBooks.com.

If active salaries/bonuses are subject to transparency, why would posting federal retiree pension amounts, service credits and contributions be an invasion of privacy? The same privacy law underlies both records. The Obama administration’s legal argument against revealing pension data is arbitrary.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Peter Mulherin Missing in Action, the United States

By on March 16th, 2016

Whatever Barack Obama aimed to achieve in Syria with half measures and rhetoric, allowing he had any firm notion to begin with, must be deemed far from fruition. The contrast with Putin’s willingness to place military muscle at the service of strategy could not be more clear — or more damning
The announcement by Russia’s truculent leader, Vladimir Putin, that his nation’s forces are to withdraw from Syria confirms what we all suspected: propping up the Assad regime was, and is, Russia’s key priority in the region. Its mission ‘fulfilled,’ only months after entering the fray, the Putin model of pursuing goals is, in its own way, impressive. Granted, the methods chosen by the Russian military have given only slightly more concern for civilian casualties than the Assad regime, however the dogged determination to get things done, and quickly, has shown, along with the war in the Ukraine, the ease with which Putins turns bellicose rhetoric into action. Russia is not alone in its efforts to seek an outcome to the Syrian conflict favourable to its aims, as Turkey also is heavily invested.

Despite the current reprieve in Syria as a shaky ceasefire holds, violence is increasing in neighbouring Turkey, a NATO member and alleged bastion of moderate Islam. The most recent terrorist attack in Ankara, which killed over 30 people, has not yet been claimed by any group, however it is likely to be the work of either a Kurdish separatist movement or the Islamic State. Fighting his own war against the Kurds within his country, as well as against various enemies over the border in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has sought to expand the culpable parties in terrorist attacks. There is no difference, he insists, between ‘a terrorist holding a gun or a bomb and those who use their position or pen to serve those aims.’

The irony of this comment cannot go unnoticed: while an ally quickly claimed by the US, Turkey has not only become increasingly Islamist in recent years, and apparently allows the passage of foreign fighters into Syria, but explicitly supports—along with Saudi Arabia—a coalition of hard-line Islamist factions in Syria fighting the Assad regime. One of the member groups included in this sponsored alliance is the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda spin-off responsible for attacks throughout Syria, and a ‘terrorist’ designated group according to the UN.

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A few simple questions for climate fanatics By Jack Hellner

By on March 16th, 2016

President Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton state that climate change is more dangerous to future generations than terrorism. They advocate destroying industries that have greatly improved our quality and length of life. I believe that the American people are entitled to some actual scientific facts instead of talking points. Here are some questions for the global warming bandwagon.

In the 1920s, scientists were warning that because of warming and the melting ice, coastal cities would soon disappear. Why were they wrong then, and why are the same warnings correct today? How did the Earth cool so much from 1945 to 1976 that the experts were warning about a disastrous ice age if rising CO2, rapidly increasing populations, industrialization, and fossil fuels cause warming?

According to UCAR (the Universal Corporation for Atmospheric Research) the temperature today is around 1.53 degrees warmer than 1880. Wouldn’t that be within the margin of error, especially since the Little Ice Age ended around 1800?

According to scientific studies, CO2 was much higher during the ice age – 2,000-8,000 parts per million vs. 400 today. If CO2 causes warming, why wasn’t the Earth warmer then than it is today?

Recently, the U.S. attorney general said the Justice Department is considering bringing legal action against people who will not go along on climate change caused by humans. Is it any wonder that scientists who are skeptics won’t speak out when their livelihood is threatened?

Shouldn’t the media do some simple research instead of just repeating the talking points that humans cause climate change?

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Plenty of Political Climate Change Sen. Whitehouse used to pretend he opposed jailing dissenters.

By on March 16th, 2016

Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor last fall to assail our coverage of his climate agenda. We had criticized his plan to use the RICO law, created to prosecute mobsters, against people who disagree with him about global warming. We also criticized George Mason University’s Jagadish Shukla, who wrote to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other federal officials urging them to follow the Senator’s advice. New developments aren’t helping the credibility of Messrs. Shukla and Whitehouse.

In October Mr. Whitehouse denied that the RICO litigation threat—with its potential for treble damages—was intended to shut down scientific debate. The Rhode Island Democrat claimed he wants civil rather than criminal prosecutions of climate dissenters. As if bringing financial ruin on defendants accused of independent thought isn’t bad enough.

But now it looks like the campaign to silence climate dissidents could move beyond a potential civil case—and we’re not hearing a peep from Mr. Whitehouse. Attorney General Lynch told the Senate last week that her department had referred a request to prosecute climate dissent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Specifically, it was referred to the FBI’s criminal investigative division. A Justice official says on background that this is “not an indication or recommendation of whether a matter merits investigation, but is simply a referral to an appropriate investigative authority at the Department.”

Even as Sen. Whitehouse questioned Ms. Lynch on this very matter at the hearing, he uttered no criticism. His spokesman says the Senator still doesn’t favor criminal investigations and that Mr. Whitehouse thought the FBI referral “appeared unusual for the pursuit of a civil investigation.” But if Justice does throw people in jail for scientific skepticism, the message seems to be: Don’t count on Mr. Whitehouse to defend your liberty.

While the FBI ponders whether to slap the cuffs on people who don’t believe in U.N. climate models, scientists who agree with Mr. Whitehouse are thriving beyond the dreams of most academic researchers. CONTINUE AT SITE

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Donald Trump’s Reckless Rhetoric He says he’s not responsible for the bad behavior of his supporters. That’s what liberal activists said about the looters and arsonists in Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo. Jason Riley

By on March 16th, 2016

In 1967 the liberal New Republic magazine ran an editorial titled “Blow Up the Cities.” It meant literally. The article hailed “the promise of the riots” that had been traumatizing the country’s largest population hubs.

“Terrifying as the looting, the shooting, the arson are,” wrote the editors, “they could mean a gain for the nation if, as a result, white America were shocked into looking at itself, its cities, its neglect.” The editorial concluded, “The national commitment needed to bring racial justice to the cities is unlikely until New York, Chicago or Los Angeles is brought to an indefinite standstill by a well-organized guerilla action against the white establishment.”

The 1965 race riots that started in the Watts section of Los Angeles resulted in 4,000 arrests and 34 deaths. The 1967 riots in Newark, N.J., claimed 23 lives and left 600 injured. Rioting in Detroit the same year caused 43 deaths and destroyed 2,500 businesses.

“Groping for perspective,” wrote Taylor Branch in “At Canaan’s Edge,” his civil-rights history, “a shell-shocked New York Times editorial observed that the cumulative toll from Newark and Detroit fell far beneath the Pentagon’s latest casualty report in Vietnam.” Relax, folks. Detroit was still safer than wartime Saigon.
Of course, the media’s decision to condone and encourage this violent upheaval reflected orthodox liberal thinking among civil-rights organizations, politicians and leading black activists of the period. The rioting that erupted in Washington, D.C., after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. was described by the head of the local Urban League as a “low form of communication by people who seek to get a response from society that seems to be deaf to their needs.” Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell said that riots were “a necessary phase of the black revolution.” H. Rap Brown, the former Black Panther, called for “guerilla war on the honkie white man” and said that “Violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The African Terror Front The threat is spreading faster than Western efforts to contain it.

By on March 16th, 2016

Americans have long associated the fight against Islamist terrorism with the Middle East, as Sunday’s attack in the Turkish capital of Ankara reminds us. But that geographical horizon is also increasingly out of date. Witness the expanding grip of jihadists in Africa—and the Obama Administration’s belated but increasingly urgent attempts to fight it.

This is apparent from the March 5 air strike, by manned and unmanned U.S. planes, on an al Shabaab training camp in Somalia that killed an estimated 150 terrorists. Four days later U.S. Special Forces assisted the Somali military in taking down another Shabaab camp. In both cases Pentagon officials cited intelligence suggesting an imminent threat of attacks by the al Qaeda-allied group, whose name means “the youth.”

Ostensibly, U.S. Special Forces are in Somalia to train and assist the African Union Mission in Somalia, or Amisom, which helps Somalia’s federal government. Shabaab is a menace to all of East Africa, with outrages including the 2013 attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi and last year’s rampage at Kenya’s Garissa College that massacred 148 Christian students.

But Shabaab is also a menace to the West. A Shabaab member tried to kill Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in 2010 with an ax in revenge for drawing the prophet Mohammed. Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became the first known American suicide bomber when he drove a truck bomb into a Somali government compound, killing 20. An estimated 40 U.S. citizens have traveled to Somalia to join Shabaab, which has called for attacks on U.S. shopping malls. If Islamic State can radicalize the San Bernardino killers from afar, Shabaab can do the same.

Al Shabaab militants parade new recruits after arriving in Mogadishufrom their training camp south of the capital on October 21, 2010. Photo: feisal omar/Reuters

The Obama Administration has sent 300 troops to Cameroon to fight the Islamist terrorists of Boko Haram in neighboring Nigeria, and it’s an open secret that the U.S. operates a drone base in Garoua in northern Cameroon. A U.S. air strike last month near the Libyan city of Sabratha killed an Islamic State leader and 48 terrorist comrades, and the Pentagon is reported to be drawing up plans for a broader air campaign against Islamic State in Libya. CONTINUE AT SITE

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MEDIA Comments turned off

The NYT’s frontal assault on Netanyahu by Ruthie Blum

By on March 16th, 2016

It is not surprising that The New York Times launched a frontal assault on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, bemoaning what its editorial board called his “lost opportunities.” But the timing of the attack, which U.S. President Barack Obama could have written himself, is worth examining.

Not only did it appear mere days after Jeffrey Goldberg’s portrait of Obama appear in The Atlantic, but it came on the heels of a couple of notable Palestinian terrorist rampages in Israel (notable not for their being distinguishable from all the other daily stabbings, car rammings and shootings, but due to their having taken place in Petach Tikva and Tel Aviv rather than Jerusalem and the West Bank); a two-day shuttle-diplomacy visit to the region by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden; a rocket attack from Gaza; and ballistic missile tests in Iran — with an open threat to annihilate Israel engraved in Hebrew on a few of the projectiles.

Anyone who read Goldberg’s piece might have been lulled by his genuine flair for biography into ignoring the disastrous effect of Obama’s Mideast policies. And this emerged in a glowing report; one shudders to imagine how the U.S. president’s words and deeds would have been understood had they been described by an impartial raconteur and interviewer.

Though Obama, with Goldberg’s help, tried to pin his own failures on other leaders — highlighting Netanyahu’s flaws alongside those of additional counterparts who served to “disappoint” him — what emerged was a handbook on how to turn the United States of America into the world’s wimp. Obama’s mentor, “Rules for Radicals” author Saul Alinsky, could not have done a better job.

That the Times took this opportunity to publish a column blaming Netanyahu for the lack of peace with the Palestinians cannot be disconnected from the above. On the contrary, it was like an after-pill; an emergency damage-control measure to place the ball back in Israel’s court. Though Obama is on his way out, a fierce campaign for the election of his successor is underway. The Times, therefore, had to reassure American voters that it is not the Democrats who are at fault for their growing sense of international insecurity, but rather Netanyahu.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

The Feminist Mistake By Marilyn Penn

By on March 16th, 2016

When feminists fought to de-segregate all-male schools and allow women entry to the privileged world of the Ivy League, the argument was that girls were just as bright and ambitious as boys and deserved the opportunity to compete fairly in the most elite arenas. This was an argument based on women’s strength. Now we have colleges and universities acceding to feminist demands that women need special protection. Even though they have freedom to engage in sex, to visit boys’ rooms, to spend the night – they must be protected against the trauma (and alleged stigma) of facing the person they are accusing of forced sex. So the American right of the accused to challenge his accuser is subsumed under the rubric of shielding “victims of rape.” It will be interesting to see whether this rule applies in accusations of same-sex rape as well.

In the current case of Jack Montague, expelled from Yale during his senior year, the woman in question whose privacy is protected, had sex with him several times consensually but claims that on their fourth go-round, she did not give consent. After leaving his room subsequent to this “rape,” she returned and spent the night with him in his bed. A year later, she decided to report this non-consensual episode to the Title IX committee at Yale and the wheels of academic investigation and adjudication were set in motion. Each person was interrogated separately by the Yale Committee and a decision was reached based on the “preponderance of evidence,” which differs from the evidence needed for criminal convictions. A strong argument could be made that by expelling Jack Montague, he received a life sentence, losing both his place as captain of the Yale Basketball Team and his diploma from a university whose tuition now amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars without a graduation degree.

Furthermore, Jack Montague’s name is plastered all over the media while his consenting sex partner for 3 out of 4 encounters is treated by archaic standards – as if her reputation would be ruined by divulgence of her name, her complicity or her non-consent. Or equally old-fashioned in the age of social media, that she would be further traumatized by the public gaze added to her non-consensual rape. We know of course that there have been other instances of accusations by women that have turned out to be false – the most famous being the Duke Lacrosse team affair. What does a woman have to lose by lying if her name and background are never revealed? And if the committee had found Jack Montague’s story more believable than hers, would she have been expelled for lying and/or false accusation? Or is expulsion only the burden to be borne by male students on their wider shoulders. How easily and conveniently we slip back into stereotypes of the damsel in distress when a political agenda is at stake.

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Israeli rocket technology will help explorer ease onto Mars David Shamah

By on March 16th, 2016

A braking system that will let the new European-Russian ExoMars craft touch down on Red Planet without exploding comes from the Rafael defense systems firm .

Man’s latest attempt to search for life on the Red Planet has a critical blue-and-white component – a propulsion system that will gently guide the newly-launched ExoMars spacecraft to the surface of Mars when it gets ready to touch down sometime in 2018.

The craft’s propulsion system was developed by Rafael, the same company that developed, among other things, the Iron Dome missile defense system.

While known for its defense systems, Rafael is also active in the space business, specifically as the manufacturer of controllable propulsion and reaction control systems (RCS), which help “brake” the landing of satellites and missiles. This ensures that their fuel tanks do not crash into the ground as they land and ignite an explosion.

When ExoMars, launched Monday, gets to its destination, it will release a descent module called Schiaparelli which will land on Mars. During the descent phase, a heat shield will protect the payload from the severe heat flux. Parachutes, thrusters, and damping systems will reduce the speed, allowing a controlled landing on the surface of Mars.

The module’s fuel tanks are equipped with Rafael-supplied mini-rockets that will spring into action when the craft gets ready to land on the surface of Mars, according to Zvi Zuckerman, a Rafael engineer who helped develop the system. In comments to Yedioth Ahronoth, Zuckerman said that the landing “will be a dramatic moment, because if anything goes wrong, the spacecraft could explode” due to the impact of landing.

According to Zuckerman, the European Space Agency, which is sponsoring the mission along with Russian space agency Roscosmos, chose Rafael’s propulsion system for the job “because our propulsion tanks are lighter, and use cleaner fuel,” which ensures a smoother landing.

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