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Ruth King

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Roots of anti-US Islamic terrorism Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

By on December 10th, 2019

The roots of the December 6, 2019 murder of three US soldiers on the Pensacola Naval Air Station, by an Islamic Saudi terrorist, are independent of US policy in the Middle East and beyond, as are all previous cases of anti-US and anti-Western Islamic terrorism. 

For instance, the launching of the anti-US terror stampede by Iran’s Ayatollahs was initiated in 1979, while the US supported the Ayatollahs ascension to power in Teheran and betrayed the Shah of Iran. Moreover, Erdogan’s intense support of Muslim Brotherhood terrorism, which has targeted the US and all pro-US Arab regimes, is aimed at advancing Erdogan’s vision to reestablish the Ottoman Empire and undermine US interests, in spite of Turkey’s NATO membership and the multi-year, mega-billion dollar US investment in Turkey’s national security since 1947.

Islamic rage and anti-Western terrorism are not driven by economic, social, or educational goals.  The roots of the Islamic rage against Western culture, in general, and the US – the leader of Western democracies – in particular, are nurtured by a worldview, which precedes the 1776 independence of the USA and the 1620 landing of the Early Pilgrims in New England.

According to Prof. Bernard Lewis, a world-leading expert on Islam and the Middle East, the anti-Western Islamic rage represents an early edition of a clash of civilizations: “If the fighters in the war for Islam, the holy war ‘in the path of God,’ are fighting for God, it follows that their opponents are fighting against God…. The army is God’s army and the enemy is God’s enemy…. In the classical Islamic view, to which many Muslims are beginning to return, the world and all mankind are divided into two: the House of Islam… and the House of Unbelief, or the House of War, which it is the duty of Muslims ultimately to bring to Islam…. Muslims from an early date recognized a genuine rival – a competing world religion…. This was Christendom…. The struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some 14 centuries.  It began with the advent of Islam, in the 7th century…. It has consisted of a long series of attacks and counterattacks, Jihads and crusades, conquests and re-conquests…. America had become the archenemy, the incarnation of evil, the diabolic opponent of all that is good, and specifically, for Muslims, of Islam….”

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MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: SOLDIER RODGER YOUNG AND FRANK LOESSER BY RUTH KING

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/rodger_young_so

In public school in the Bronx, after World War II, we gathered in the schoolyard, recited the “Pledge of Allegiance,” and made way to the auditorium before classes. There we sang the national anthem and other patriotic songs. Among them was one, “The Ballad of  Rodger Young,” whose melody I found myself humming last week after so many decades. Who was Rodger Young and who wrote the stirring music and lyrics?

Young was born on April 28, 1918 in Ohio. Of small and thin stature, only 5 feet 2 inches, he was athletic and competitive and during his first year in high school in a trial game for the football team he sustained an injury which left him unconscious and led to significant deafness and damage to his vision. His disabilities forced him to leave high school during his second year.

In 1938, at the age of 20, Young joined the Ohio National Guard hoping to earn some money, convinced that his disabilities would foreclose the regular army. He was posted to Company “B” of the 148th Infantry regiment with the 37th Infantry Division. He was a disciplined soldier with small arms skill and when his unit was activated for federal service in 1940 he was promoted to sergeant and squad leader.

In 1942 after America entered the war his regiment was deployed to Fiji and then to the Solomon Islands in preparation for combat in New Georgia. He requested a reduction in rank, fearing that his eye and ear deficits would create a potential risk to his squad.

On July 31, 1943, near Munda on New Georgia, Young was part of a 20-man patrol that was sent out to track Japanese ordnance in enemy occupied territory. Returning from this task, his group was ambushed and pinned down by heavy fire from Japanese machine guns. Four soldiers were killed and Young was wounded. The commanding officer ordered withdrawal, but Young crawled towards the Japanese position and despite being wounded again, he attracted enemy fire. He threw hand grenades at the Japanese and was killed by return fire. His valor and determination enabled his platoon to withdraw with no further casualties.

Young posthumously received the highest military commendation — the the Medal of Honor. CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Obama and Biden: Three Scandals, One Day The Russian collusion hoax, Burisma, and the disastrous Afghanistan war just blew up in their self-proclaimed “scandal-free” faces. Julie Kelly

By on December 10th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/09/obama-and-biden-three-scandals-one-day/

The Democrats’ Ukrainian impeachment gambit is backfiring on Joe Biden. The three-time presidential hopeful is getting awfully testy with voters and journalists who dare to confront Biden about his son’s ghost-payrolling gig for a corrupt Ukrainian energy company while dad was vice president and acted as President Obama’s point man for that country.

Biden taunted an Iowa farmer during a campaign event for raising questions about Hunter Biden’s lucrative Burisma board seat; over the weekend, he repeatedly scolded a female NPR reporter who pressed him on the matter. (An outrageous display that would now dominate headlines had it been President Trump.) 

But Biden’s in-your-face reaction when presented with valid inquiries about his son’s multi-million-dollar patronage job, a post that he surrendered this year only after the senior Biden announced his run for president, is telling: This is how you behave when the press runs cover for you and your boss for more than a decade.

The American public often is reminded, usually by Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and their loyalists in the American news media, that Obama’s eight-year reign was “scandal-free.” Of course, that is nowhere near the truth. From the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scam and IRS targeting of Tea Party activists to the egregious Benghazi terror attack cover-up two months before the 2012 election, the Obama Administration was among the most corrupt in U.S. history. And they have laughed all the way to Martha’s Vineyard and the Democratic presidential debate stage.

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HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Terror Attack At Naval Air Station Highlights Immigration Catastrophe Limitations in the vetting process endanger national security. Michael Cutler

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/terror-attack-naval-air-station-highlights-michael-cutler/

The nearly all-consuming fixation on the lack of border security along the U.S./Mexican border ignore the many other elements of what should be a cohesive and coordinated immigration system.

Contrary to the claims made by the open borders, immigration anarchists, the purpose of the border wall is not to prevent the entry of aliens and/or cargo into the United States, but to make certain that all who enter the United States are properly vetted and records of their entry are created.

However, not enough attention is paid to the vetting process itself upon which the integrity of the immigration system depends.

The issue of border security must include the process by which visas are issued and by which aliens are screened at ports of entry.

The great majority of foreign terrorists who have attacked our nation have actually entered the United States through ports of entry either with visas that were obtained by concealing the backgrounds and true identities of the aliens in question, or by making bogus claims to political asylum, getting released and then disappearing.

The issue of the vetting of aliens has made it to the front page of newspapers and the “A block” of television news program because of the deadly shooting at the Pensacola Air Naval Station by a 21 year old member of the Saudi military, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a second lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force as reported in the New York Times on December 6, 2019, Trainee on Military Base Mounts Deadly Attack.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

From Tough ‘Dirty 30’ Prosecutor to Tame Deep State Drone Corrupt cops and government bosses now get protection from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Lloyd Billingsley

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/tough-dirty-30-prosecutor-tame-deep-state-drone-lloyd-billingsley/

“I think we’ll learn part of the story tomorrow,” Carter Page told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. As Page had learned, “there’s a lot of exculpatory evidence that’s remaining classified, and there’s been internal battles.” On Monday, the former Trump advisor was on full alert when the Department of Justice Inspector General released the massive Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.

“We identified at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications, and many additional errors in the Woods Procedures” of the FBI, the report explains. On the other hand, the Inspector General did not conclude that the decision to surveille Page “was based on improper considerations in the absence of documentary or testimonial evidence to the contrary.” That leaves open the possibility the someone in the DOJ wasn’t talking, or advanced false information.

The FBI’s Peter Strzok, known for texts with Lisa Page touting an “insurance policy,” appears in the report 66 times. Strzok’s supervisor, William Priestap, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, “ultimately made the decision to open the investigation,” and that decision came “after multiple days of discussions and meetings that included Strzok and other leadership in CD, the FBI Deputy Director, the FBI General Counsel, and an FBI Deputy General Counsel.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

IG Report Says CIA Dismissed Steele Dossier as ‘Internet Rumor’ By Mairead McArdle

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ig-report-says-cia-dismissed-steele-dossier-as-internet-rumor/

The CIA considered the now infamous dossier from former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to be nothing more than an “internet rumor,” according to the Justice Department inspector general.

According to the Intel Section Chief and Supervisory Intel Analyst, “the CIA expressed concern about using the Steele election reporting in the text of the [January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment into Russia’s election interference],” Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in his report released Monday on the FBI’s handling of investigations into the Trump campaign.

“The Supervisory Intel Analyst explained that the CIA believed that the Steele election reporting was not completely vetted and did not merit inclusion in the body of the report. The Intel Section Chief stated that the CIA viewed it as ‘internet rumor,’” the report states.

The controversial dossier came under scrutiny when its unverified and salacious information about then-presidential candidate Trump showed up in the FBI’s applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to surveil the Trump campaign during the 2016 election cycle.

The dossier alleged that the campaign had conspired with Russian operatives to benefit Trump in the election. However, Horowitz’s report asserts that the FBI found Steele’s information about a Russian government connection to be dubious, but nevertheless declined to mention as much in its later applications to the FISA court for warrants to surveil Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

WALTER RUSSEL MEAD ON TRUMP FOREIGN POLICY

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukrainegatetreason-or-common-sense-11575937739?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

EXCERPT

Among the administration’s most consistent features is a belief that the U.S. should change the priority it gives to the different theaters in world politics. From this perspective, the center of gravity of American policy must move from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. Latin America deserves more attention as a growing social and political crisis creates larger threats in the hemisphere—of which the chaos on the Southern border may be only a foretaste.

After Latin America, the threats of jihadist violence and Iranian expansionism make the Middle East the next-highest priority for the Trump administration. Europe, America’s highest priority for much of the Cold War, has fallen to fourth place. For the Trump administration and many of its Republican allies, Russia, because it is weaker and poorer than China, comes after Beijing on America’s list of geopolitical concerns—an important disagreement with the liberal Atlanticist foreign-policy establishment and not the only one.

Beyond geopolitics there is ideology. The rules-based world order means much less to Mr. Trump and to many Republican senators than it does to liberal Atlanticists. The president isn’t a believer in the application of the broken-windows theory of foreign policy—that a violation of one rule in one place materially increases the chance of other rules being broken in other places. A “realist” in the jargon of international relations, Mr. Trump thinks that national power matters much more than international law.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Schiff Threatens Press Freedom When the surveillance state exposes a journalist and his sources, there’s an instant chilling effect. By John Solomon

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/schiff-threatens-press-freedom-11575937690?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, the bible for agents, has long recognized that journalists, the clergy and lawyers deserve special protections because of the constitutional implications of investigating their work. Penitents who confess to a priest, sources who provide confidential information to a reporter, and clients who seek advice from counsel are assumed to be protected by a high bar of privacy, which must be weighed against the state’s interests in investigating matters or subpoenaing records. Judges and members of Congress also fall into a special FBI category because of the Constitution’s separation of powers.

The FBI and Justice Department have therefore created specific rules governing agents’ actions involving special-circumstances professionals, which include high-level approval and review. There are also special rules for subpoenaing journalists.

If the executive branch, and by extension the courts that enforce these privacy protections, observe the need for such sensitivity, it seems reasonable that Congress should have similar guardrails ensuring that the powers of the state are equally and fairly applied.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff apparently doesn’t see things that way. His committee secretly authorized subpoenas to AT&T earlier this year for the phone records of President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and an associate. He then arbitrarily extracted information about certain private calls and made them public.

Many of the calls Mr. Schiff chose to publicize fell into the special-circumstances categories: a fellow member of Congress ( Rep. Devin Nunes, the Intelligence Committee’s ranking Republican), two lawyers (Mr. Giuliani and fellow Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow ) and a journalist (me).

More alarming, the released call records involve figures who have sometimes criticized or clashed with Mr. Schiff. I wrote a story raising questions about his contacts with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, a key figure in the Russia probe, that brought the California Democrat unwelcome scrutiny. Mr. Nunes has been one of Mr. Schiff’s main Republican antagonists, helping to prove that the exaggerated claims of Trump-Russia election collusion were unsubstantiated. Messrs. Sekulow and Giuliani represent Mr. Trump, who is Mr. Schiff’s impeachment target.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Principled Dissident Turns Despotic Premier Suu Kyi once wrote that the fear of losing power corrupts. She’s proved that she’s no exception. By Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-principled-dissident-turns-despotic-premier-11575937539?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident turned politician Aung San Suu Kyi will again capture the world’s attention this week. To those who still remember her as a prisoner of conscience with a serene smile, the reason may come as a surprise. As Myanmar’s civilian leader, Ms. Suu Kyi has taken on a new mantle: spokesperson for mass atrocity.

Ms. Suu Kyi will appear Tuesday to lead her country’s defense against allegations of genocide before the International Court of Justice at The Hague. The Myanmar military has persecuted the country’s ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority for years. During two brutal ethnic-cleansing campaigns in 2016-17, the military reportedly oversaw the murder of people in their homes, the rape of women and girls, and the arson of entire communities. In the aftermath, more than 800,000 Rohingya have fled and sought refuge in Bangladesh.

After Ms. Suu Kyi’s 15 years under house arrest for criticizing the regime, many outsiders, especially her longtime supporters in the West, thought that she would use her position of power and moral authority to curb the military’s excesses. Instead, Ms. Suu Kyi is defending the crackdown, claiming that Rohingya terrorists are creating an “iceberg” of misinformation about the military’s treatment of the group.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Trail of FBI Abuse The Horowitz report confirms that the bureau deceived FISA judges with the Steele dossier.

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-trail-of-fbi-abuse-11575938300?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The press corps is portraying Monday’s report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz as absolution for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but don’t believe it. The report relates a trail of terrible judgment and violations of process that should shock Americans who thought better of their premier law-enforcement agency.

Readers can look at the detailed executive summary and decide for themselves. But our own initial reading confirms the worst of what we feared about the bureau when it was run by James Comey. The FBI corrupted the secret court process for obtaining warrants to spy on former Trump aide Carter Page. And it did so by supplying the court with false information produced by Christopher Steele, an agent of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

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How can anyone, most of all civil libertarians, pass this off as no big deal? The absolution is supposedly that Mr. Horowitz concludes that the FBI decision to open a counter-intelligence probe against the Trump campaign in July 2016 “was sufficient to predicate the investigation” under current FBI rules.

Yet Mr. Horowitz also notes that these rules amount to a “low threshold for predication.” John Durham, the U.S. Attorney investigating these matters for Attorney General William Barr, said Monday he disagrees with Mr. Horowitz’s conclusions on predication, albeit without elaboration for now.

Mr. Horowitz confirms what the FBI had already leaked to friendly reporters, which is that the bureau’s alarm in July 2016 was triggered by a conversation that former Trump aide George Papadopoulos had with Australian Alexander Downer. But we learn for the first time that the FBI immediately ramped up its counter-intelligence probe to include four Trump campaign officials: Messrs. Page and Papadopoulos, then campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency Michael Flynn.

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