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2016

Muslims Celebrate Bastille Day: 80 Dead, 68 Injured “The worst tragedy in the history of Nice” – but many more are to come. Robert Spencer

The truck was loaded with explosives and hand grenades as it plowed into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, Thursday night. It was no accident: Nice authorities emphasized that it was a terror attack, which was fairly clear already from the fact that the driver exchanged gunfire with police after he rammed into the crowd.

At least eighty people are dead and 68 wounded, and Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi calls it “the worst tragedy in the history of Nice.” But given the harsh realities of the contemporary world, it probably won’t be the worst for long.

Jihadis have had their eyes on France for quite some time. The Islamic State issued this call in September 2014:

So O muwahhid, do not let this battle pass you by wherever you may be. You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawaghit. Strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. Destroy their beds. Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves. If you can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be….If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him….

Yes, “run him over with your car.”

Then again from the Islamic State in May 2016:

“The French must die by the thousands…. Towards paradise, that is the path….Come, brother, let’s go to paradise, our women are waiting for us there, with angels as servants. You will have a palace, a winged horse of gold and rubies….With a little rocket-launcher, you can easily get one of them… you do something like that in the name of Dawla (Islamic State), and France will be traumatised for a century.”

The French are already traumatized. The BBC reported last week that “more than 5,000 French police will be deployed at key venues in and around Paris ahead of the Euro 2016 football final between France and Portugal,” and that “there will be no victory parade if France win.” Why not? For fear of jihad terror attacks.

Iran Deal Made World ‘Safer’ One Year Later, Obama Declares By Bridget Johnson

WASHINGTON — President Obama hailed the Iran nuclear deal as “avoiding further conflict and making us safer” on the one-year anniversary of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Within that year, Iran has conducted ballistic missile tests in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that the administration says are outside the scope of the nuclear agreement but UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said are “not consistent with the constructive spirit” of the agreement in a confidential report cited by Bloomberg.

Iran has also captured U.S. sailors and humiliated them on-camera before releasing them, indicted an American businessman and a U.S. permanent resident who had done work for the U.S. government, and shipped arms to Yemen. Iran has warned that if the U.S. gives them any grief about their activities, they’ll consider the nuclear deal null and void.

German intelligence reported at the end of June that Iran has continued its “illegal proliferation-sensitive procurement activities” at a “quantitatively high level” — which “holds true in particular with regard to items which can be used in the field of nuclear technology.” The State Department has denied the report.

“The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution also registered a further increase in the already considerable procurement efforts in connection with Iran’s ambitious missile technology program which could among other things potentially serve to deliver nuclear weapons,” states the German report. “Against this backdrop it is safe to expect that Iran will continue its intensive procurement activities in Germany using clandestine methods to achieve its objectives.”

“All of Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon remain closed, and Iran’s breakout time has been extended from two to three months to about a year,” Obama declared in a statement released by the White House today. “The United States and our negotiating partners have also fully implemented our commitments to lift nuclear-related sanctions, and we will continue to uphold our commitments as long as Iran continues to abide by the deal.”

“The JCPOA demonstrates what can be achieved by principled diplomacy and a sustained commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons,” the president added. “America’s willingness to engage directly with Iran opened the door to talks, which led to the international unity and sustained engagement that culminated in the JCPOA. We still have serious differences with Iran, but the United States, our partners, and the world are more secure because of the JCPOA.”

Secretary of State John Kerry did his own victory lap, emerging before the media at the Westin Hotel in Paris to declare that “a program that so many people said will not work, a program that people said is absolutely doomed to see cheating and be broken and will make the more dangerous, has, in fact, made the world safer, lived up to its expectations, and thus far produced an ability to be able to create a peaceful nuclear program with Iran living up to its part of this bargain and obligation.”

“The world is safer today because conflict in the region is not calculated on the basis of the potential of a nuclear confrontation or nuclear explosion, and because we have the ability to be able to work through some issues which we’ve seen, for instance with our sailors who stumbled into Iranian waters and within 24 hours we were able to get them out,” Kerry said. “That could not have happened prior to this agreement having taken place.”

Kerry added that “nobody pretends that some of the challenges we have with Iran have somehow been wiped away.”

THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT MIKE PENCE BY TYLER O’NEILL

Here are five things you need to know about the Indiana Governor.
1. He has a long history in politics.

In the 1990s, Pence had a radio talk show called The Mike Pence Show, and did a Sunday TV show in Indianapolis. He described himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf,” meaning he’s not quite as bombastic as Rush, but just as conservative.

Pence served in Congress for 12 years (2001-2013), before becoming governor of Indiana in 2013. According to Roll Call, of the 90 bills and resolutions he sponsored, only 21 passed one house, and zero became law. Pence was a stalwart conservative who opposed President George W. Bush’s big government policies, such as No Child Left Behind.

As a Congressman, Pence reached the number three post in House Republican leadership, as chairman of the House Republican Conference. His fellow Republicans encouraged him to run for Senate against Evan Bayh, but he declined.
Indiana Democratic Shakeup: Will Evan Bayh Turn the Senate Blue?

He was elected governor of Indiana in 2012 and has served over three years as executive of that state.
2. Pence is an outspoken evangelical Christian.

Pence has described himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” He grew up in what he described as a large Irish Roman Catholic family which celebrated the 1960 election of Democratic President John F. Kennedy.

In a 2010 interview with CBN while he was still a congressman, Pence described his conversion experience in college. “I began to meet young men and women who talked about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and while I cherish my Catholic upbringing and the foundation that it poured in my faith, that had not been a part of my experience.”

“Standing at a Christian music festival in Asbury, Ky., in the spring of 1978, I gave my life to Jesus Christ and that’s changed everything,” Pence confided. “For me it all begins with faith; it begins with what matters most, and I try and put what I believe to be moral truth first. My philosophy of government second. And my politics third.”

THE TACTIC OF VEHICLE RAMMING : PATRICK GOODENOUGH

Jihadist Advice For Vehicle Terror: “To Achieve Maximum Carnage, You Need to Pick Up As Much Speed As You Can”
The tactic of vehicle ramming in terrorist attacks, used to such deadly effect in Nice on Thursday night, has become more prevalent with Islamic jihadists in recent years, actively encouraged in terrorist groups’ online propaganda as a simple yet effective way to kill people.

Until the attack in the southern French city, in which at least 80 people were killed when a truck plowed into crowds watching a Bastille Day fireworks display, previous such attacks have taken a far smaller toll, although some have proven fatal, especially in Israel.

In recent years the world’s two most notorious Sunni terrorist groups, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), have both drawn attention to the tactic in their respective propaganda magazines.

In a December 2014 edition of its publication, Dabiq, ISIS praised, among others, Martin Couture-Rouleau, a jihadist who ran down and killed a Canadian soldier in Quebec two months earlier.

“At this point of the crusade against the Islamic State, it is very important that attacks take place in every country that has entered into the alliance against the Islamic State, especially the U.S., U.K., France, Australia, and Germany,” it said.

More pointedly, AQAP’s Inspire magazine in a fall 2010 edition dedicated an entire article to the use of vehicles to kill.

“It is a simple idea and there is not much involved in its preparation,” the article said. “All what is needed is the willingness to give one’s life for Allah.”

Under the headline “The ultimate mowing machine” and a picture of a pickup truck the writer, identified as Yahya Ibrahim, explained in graphic terms how jihadists should pick their targets and rig their vehicles “to achieve maximum carnage.”

Jihadi Terrorism: You Think It’s Just the Jews? Think Again. by Giulio Meotti

Last night, at least 84 people were murdered in the French city of Nice by a Tunisian-born Islamist terrorist, with dozens more victims wounded.

Whether you are pacifists or warmongers, gays or heterosexuals, atheists or Christians, blasphemers or devout, French or Iraqis, jihadi terrorism does not discriminate. Every one of us is a target: Islamist terrorism is genocidal.

When Islamist terrorists target Muslim dissident bloggers, faraway Yazidi women or Israeli girls, it should concern us in the West. Islamists are just sharpening their knives on them before coming for us.

If we do not speak out today, we will be punished for our indolence tomorrow.

Last night, at least 84 people were murdered in the French city of Nice by a Tunisian-born Islamist terrorist, with dozens more victims wounded. The attacker drove a 19-ton truck into a large crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day, France’s national holiday, running down men, women and children over a 2km stretch of road and sidewalk.On July 2, nine Italian citizens were butchered by Islamists in the assault at a restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh. They were tortured and killed with “very sharp blades” wielded by smiling terrorists who spared the life of those who knew the Quran. For almost a year already, poor Bangladeshis have been experiencing similar shocking massacres. But hose victims were not wealthy non-Muslim foreigners — they were anonymous Muslim bloggers, accused of “blasphemy” and murdered out with “sharp blades” — five victims in 2015 and a law student in 2016, as well as a Christian priest hacked to death.

The same cycle took place in Syria, where the beheaders of the Islamic State first targeted many Western journalists, then expelled and killed Christians in Mosul, and then landed in Paris to exterminate Western civilians.

Two weeks ago, a 13-year-old Israeli girl was stabbed to death while sleeping in her bed. As in Bangladesh, the Palestinian Arab terrorist used a knife to kill Hallel Yaffa Ariel. That is not a simple act of murder; it is a slaughter that wrongly equates building a home with murdering a child. Italian newspapers even deprived her of identity. Il Corriere della Sera, Italy’s second largest newspaper, wrote: “West Bank: 13-year-old American killed”.

After Nice: How can we be surprised by terrorist attacks anymore? By Tiberiu Dianu

1. The Bloody Gift for the National Day

On July 14, 2016, in the Mediterranean city of Nice, at approximately 10:40pm local time (4:40pm EST), at the 227th anniversary of Bastille Day, its national day, France witnessed yet another terrorist attack, resulting in over 80 dead and more than 100 injured. The attacker, a truck driver, drove his vehicle at a high speed into a large crowd of people gathered on the Promenade des Anglais of the French Riviera city for a fireworks display. The driver, who was eventually killed by the police, was zigzagging his vehicle for 1.2 miles (over two kilometers) at the crowd, so that he could hit as many people as possible, and was firing on the crowd as he drove. The authorities found the truck loaded with arms and grenades.

2. Some Good Stats to Wake Us Up

This attack continues a long list of terrorist attacks in France since the beginning of the 21st century.

From 2001 to 2016, France has been confronted with 18 terrorist attacks on its territory, 16 of which were related to Islamist terrorists and two to European radical groups (the National Liberation Front of Corsica, in 2003, also in Nice, and the Basque ETA separatist group, in 2007, in Capbreton, near Biarritz). The majority of the attacks, organized by Muslim jihadist militant individuals or groups, have increased in a geometric progression frequency and number of casualties year after year.

Between 2004 and 2013, there were 3 attacks (1 bombing, 1 shooting, and 1 stabbing), with a total number of victims of 7 dead and 16 injured.

During 2014, there were 3 attacks – all in December, around Christmas (1 stabbing, and 2 vehicle ramming), with 1 dead and 24 injured.

During 2015, there were 6 attacks (2 shootings; 1 shooting and stabbing; 1 event involving shootings, hostage taking, and suicide bombings [the November 13-15 Paris attack], 1 stabbing, and 1 beheading), with 152 dead (including 130 in the Paris November attack) and 383 injured (including 352 in the Paris November attack).

During this first half of 2016, there were 4 attacks (2 stabbings and 2 vehicle ramming events, including the Nice attack), with at least 83 dead (including 80+ in the Nice attack) and at least 103 injured (including 100+ in the Nice attack).

The figures from the Nice attack are not final. But obviously, in terms of number of dead and injured (80+ dead and 100+ injured, respectively), the Nice attack is in solid second place, after the Paris attack in November in the Bataclan club, the national stadium Stade de France, and elsewhere in the city and surpassing the other Paris attack, on January 7-9, at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine office.

It has become noticeable also that some attacks have been scheduled during major celebrations (national days and Christmas).

We Need to Hate By Eileen F. Toplansky

Quite frankly, Western civilization is losing the capacity to hate hatred. Far too many Europeans and Americans are engaging in outright denial of the most heinous and evil occurrences across the globe. Too many people will not truly acknowledge “the age old fact that God’s children are capable of the most horrid things.” Consequently, the West refuses to articulate a message of resistance, mobilize itself, and destroy the evil.

In his essay titled “Home Is Where to Learn How To Hate” Leo Rosten lays out a compelling argument asserting that denying evil is a result of “never having been taught to hate properly: that is (a) relevantly; (b) in proportion, fitting the thing or person hated; (c) without blind rage; and (d) without guilt.” Thus, we find a young woman smiling and holding a sign that says “will trade racists for rapists” and calling for women to cover up so as not to offend. What an odious acceptance of evil. That the horrific crime of rape is accepted in order to avoid the alleged appearance of racism against the perpetrators is mind-boggling. Such sanctimonious depravity needs to be called out. And ignoring Islamic jurisprudence which permits sex-slavery, destruction of pre-Islamic antiquities, and pedophilia merely paves the way for our eventual enslavement if we continue to be meek bystanders.

In fact, Rosten maintains that “not ever to hate is to surrender a just scale of decent values. Not ever to hate is to drain love of its meaning. Not to hate anyone is as crazy as to hate everyone.”

Furthermore, “a world of automatic indiscriminate loving is suicidal — for the good and loving are enslaved or exterminated by those who gratify their cruelty and their lust.” Consider the rapacious cruelty of ISIS and the moral cowardice of a world that will not admit that “neither truth nor justice nor compassion can possibly survive unprepared and unarmed.”

Instead we see an ardent desire to literally disarm law-abiding people while simultaneously and deliberately erasing the facts about our enemies’ intentions. Iran can chant “Death to America” and Kerry superciliously lectures Americans and ignores genuine concerns. Obama dismisses beheadings, amputations, boiling of humans, sexual assaults, kidnapping, stoning, burnings, burials of live human beings, and genocide with mealy-mouthed word games and double talk. He divests the peace warriors of the vital information needed to understand our enemies’ intentions. His flights from truth do not mitigate the intentions of our enemies. Ending the blacklisting of U.S. Islamic charities that are helping to finance terrorist activities is unconscionable. Bribing journalists to paint a favorable coverage of the Iranian nuclear deal is reprehensible. How can we defeat what we cannot identify if their wicked objectives and actions are deliberately camouflaged?

Where Are the Peaceful Muslims? By Amil Imani

Once again, Islamic terrorists attack yet another Western city. This time in France.

A truck crashed into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day in the city of Nice on July 14, 2016. In my opinion, Islam is the problem, because there are Muslims who take its scripture as gospel and carry out its divisive and deadly provisions.

The barbarity and variety of actions of Islamic extremists are seen daily around the globe, committed under the banner of Islam, and have become so commonplace that the world has come to view them as part and parcel of a troubled humanity. From time to time, the world is shocked into a passing and momentary realization of the evil deeds these Islamist robots commit…and quickly gets over it and does nothing to seriously address this affliction of humanity.

The Islamic State – also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh, has taken credit for a number of unconscionable, brutal attacks. “ISIS has actually killed more Muslims than certainly members of any other religion,” noted Democracy Now via Amy Goodman after the Paris attacks. Muslims are the victims of “Between 82 and 97% of Terrorism-Related Fatalities,” according to the U.S. government.

Based on the above premises, a Muslim has a greater chance to become prey of ISIS than to join it, and the huge majority of the group’s victims are fellow members of the belief. This is due to the political motivations behind ISIS rather than religious ones, where it’s receiving arms and funding from nations like Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf sheikhdom. Can the incomparably larger number of Muslims in the world who are so rightly terrified today come together with their own vision – which includes denouncing the extremists? I don’t know.

A common and repeated mantra among experts is that Muslims haven’t bluntly condemned the extremism committed in Islam’s name. How many times we have heard “Where are the moderate and peaceful Muslim voices in condemnation?” “Why aren’t Muslims speaking up against extremists like ISIS?”

If Muslims want to live in peace and harmony with the infidels, they must work together and respect our laws. Let us not forget that religious high authorities play a critical role in steering the masses toward or away from hate. Fatwas – religious decrees – by Islamic muftis and ayatollahs carry considerable weight with their respective followers. Sadly, most decrees and adjudications of these high Islamic authorities are exclusionary and even hostile toward the out-groups.

People are familiar with Islam’s classification of the world into the Dar-ul-Solh, the house of peace, meaning the house of Islam, and the Dar-ul-Harb, the house of war, meaning the house of non-Islam. Ironically, the self-proclaimed house of peace, from its early years, has waged war against the house of war.

Also there is a little-known third “house” according to Islam: Dar-ul-Aman, the non-Islam house of safety where Muslims find refuge. We already know which of the three houses America is to al-Qaeda, the Iranian mullahs, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, and their ilk.

A Trump Economy Beats Clinton’s His plans that would get the U.S. back on track include the biggest pro-growth tax cut since 1981 and repeal of ObamaCare.By Andy Puzder and Stephen Moore

Certain business leaders and prominent conservatives have denounced Donald Trump’s economic policies and even argued that Hillary Clinton would be a better choice in November. This is hard to fathom. Although we disagree with him on some issues, we have both signed on as economic advisers to Mr. Trump because we are confident in the direction he would take the country.

What could possibly be the economic case for Mrs. Clinton? She has vowed to defend President Obama’s “legacy” and double down on job-killers like ObamaCare. Even Bill Clinton knows that the status quo hasn’t worked: In March he told a crowd that it is time to “put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us.”

Since the end of the recession, economic growth has averaged an anemic 2.1%, producing the weakest “recovery” since the Great Depression. That has slowed to 1.4% in the last quarter of 2015 and 1.1% in the first quarter of 2016. The middle class is shrinking, and median household income today, in real terms, is lower than when Mr. Obama took office. By more than two to one, Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.

What does Mr. Trump offer as an alternative?

• The biggest pro-growth tax cut since Ronald Reagan’s 1981 reform. Mr. Trump would simplify the tax code and significantly reduce marginal rates, encouraging investment and economic expansion. His proposed corporate tax rate of 15% would make it easier for American firms to repatriate earnings, bringing capital home and making the U.S. a more hospitable place to invest. Mr. Trump’s tax plan would do more for working-class and middle-class families than any scheme to redistribute income.

Don’t believe the phony claim that it will cost $10 trillion over a decade. As Americans will see when he reveals the entire plan in the next few weeks, any revenue loss would be a fraction of that amount.

• The repeal of ObamaCare, the fastest-growing entitlement program of all. Mr. Trump promises to replace the law with a consumer-choice health plan. He also wants to immediately repeal dozens of President Obama’s antibusiness executive orders.

• A pro-growth energy policy. Mr. Trump wants to employ all of America’s abundant resources—oil, natural gas and coal. His plan could make America the world’s No. 1 energy producer within five years, producing millions of new jobs and trillions of dollars of extra output—along with new royalty payments to the government. Mrs. Clinton, by contrast, brags that she would put “a lot of coal miners” out of work.

The Convention Revolt Peters Out Anti-Trump forces have failed to unbind delegates. What if Donald had agreed? Kimberley Strassel

In the lobby of a downtown building here, the security guard had stopped inquiring about names or destinations. “You going up to 1615?” he asked, pointing at an elevator. “Everybody’s going to 1615.”

That’s because up on the 16th floor, in a temporarily rented office, was Delegates Unbound, one of the nerve centers of the rebel movement against Donald Trump. Volunteers with phones stuck to their ears jockeyed for a quiet office, looked over the latest delegate counts, and hunted for food among piles of takeout boxes. The media never stopped calling.

That’s over now. The fight to unseat Donald Trump as the Republican nominee was the last, great unknown of next week’s GOP convention. Its outcome was decided Thursday night, as it collapsed under the overwhelming might of Republican National Committee power brokers.

The makings of potential fireworks began Thursday evening, when a GOP committee voted down a proposal to add a “conscience clause” to the convention rules. It would have freed delegates to vote for their preferred candidate on the first ballot. The clause had been the goal for months now of Free the Delegates, a group led by Kendal Unruh, an activist and Colorado delegate. To force a floor vote on a conscience clause by the full convention next week, Ms. Unruh needed one quarter of the rules committee (28 delegates). She didn’t get it, thanks to last-minute RNC deal making.