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Ruth King

Muslim Terrorist Training Camp Found in Alabama The second facility linked to jihadist Siraj Ibn Wahhaj. Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273780/muslim-terrorist-training-camp-found-alabama-matthew-vadum

Authorities have discovered a second homegrown Muslim terrorist training facility owned by a terrorist organization presided over by the son of jihadist iman Siraj Ibn Wahhaj.

The FBI found the camp near Tuskegee, Alabama, and reportedly described it as containing a “makeshift military-style obstacle course.” Details are few.

Researchers at WPMI-TV, an NBC affiliate in Mobile, Alabama, uncovered the existence of the second facility after combing through legal documents and reported on it April 29 but the national media only picked up the story in recent days.

The April 29 report states:

NBC 15 News uncovered a heavily redacted court file connecting this property to an alleged terrorist training camp 1400 miles away in New Mexico. Using clues from the cryptic court filing, we found land records showing the Alabama property is owned by accused terrorist Siraj Wahhaj. The recently unsealed federal search warrant says on this two acre Tuskegee property the terror suspects built a second compound.

The U.S. Doesn’t Need China to Prosper By Steven W. Mosher

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/14/the-u-s-doesnt-need-china-to-prosper/

The latest numbers on U.S. economic growth are astonishingly good. The land of the free enjoyed 3.2 percent annual real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2019. It would have been even higher—3.5 percent—without the government shutdown.

The numbers vindicate President Trump’s position on trade. The dealmaker-in-chief has been saying for decades that a trade deficit is a drag on growth. And we now learn that almost 1 percent of our GDP growth was a result of a reduction in imports.

Imports are down because Trump’s tariffs are driving down the trade deficit with China. Now that he’s increased tariffs on $200 billion more of Chinese goods, expect the U.S. economy to grow even faster.

Even investors, who have long been wary of tariffs, are now beginning to understand this. Despite the uncertainty surrounding trade with China, the stock market has experienced only modest losses, reflecting the overall strength of the U.S. economy.

The latest numbers on U.S. economic growth are astonishingly good. The land of the free enjoyed 3.2 percent annual real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2019. It would have been even higher—3.5 percent—without the government shutdown.

The numbers vindicate President Trump’s position on trade. The dealmaker-in-chief has been saying for decades that a trade deficit is a drag on growth. And we now learn that almost 1 percent of our GDP growth was a result of a reduction in imports.

Imports are down because Trump’s tariffs are driving down the trade deficit with China. Now that he’s increased tariffs on $200 billion more of Chinese goods, expect the U.S. economy to grow even faster.

Even investors, who have long been wary of tariffs, are now beginning to understand this. Despite the uncertainty surrounding trade with China, the stock market has experienced only modest losses, reflecting the overall strength of the U.S. economy.

The United States has put up with Chinese economic aggression for far too long, under both Democrat and Republican presidents. The Trump Administration has taken a decidedly different tack, pursuing an economic nationalist agenda that insists:

We must defend ourselves against China’s relentless cyberattacks on American businesses, and its theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in intellectual property each year.
We must stop China’s state-owned, state-subsidized and state-controlled enterprises from the wholesale dumping of products. Flooding foreign markets with steel and aluminum, not to mention autos and robotics, is only the first step. The end game is the destruction of free-market capitalism altogether.
We must stop China from forcing America companies to hand over their cutting-edge technology as a condition of doing business there. Forced technology transfer is theft, pure and simply.
We must stop China from manipulating its currency to gain an unfair advantage in trade.
Finally, we must defend Americans from the flood of fentanyl and other dangerous opioids that are killing them by the tens of thousands. The first two Opium Wars were waged by Great Britain against China. The Third is being waged by China against the United States and its people, and it must stop.

Palestinians: No Freedom of Expression Under New Government by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14226/palestinians-freedom-of-expression

As far as many Palestinians are concerned, there is no difference between Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority and Hamas when it comes to their people being able to tell the truth as they see it.

The two rival parties may disagree on many matters, but they share considerable common ground in their efforts to silence their critics and prevent the emergence of new voices seeking a better life for the Palestinians.

While this muzzling of Palestinian mouths is perfectly visible to the naked eye, the jaundiced eye of the international community and media sees flaws only in Israel.

The first promise the new Palestinian Authority (PA) government made after it was sworn in last month was that it would honor public freedoms, particularly freedom of the media and freedom of expression.

Ibrahim Milhem, the new spokesman for the PA government, headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, said in a radio interview that no Palestinian journalist would be arrested for expressing his or her views. Milhem promised that his government would allow the press to play its role as a watchdog over the performance of the ministers and their ministries.

Palestinian journalists living and working in PA-controlled territories in the West Bank welcomed Milhem’s statement and expressed hope that it would mark the beginning of a new era between the media and the government.

Trump’s China Tariffs Will Succeed By Jesse Richman, Howard Richman, and Raymond Richman

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/trumps_china_tariffs_will_succeed.html

Free trade with China is like “free trade” with the thief who stole your car.

For the last four decades, the United States has often engaged in trading away its future by running up debt and selling assets instead of products. This brought about the stagnant living standards and incomes experienced by the U.S. middle class during the presidencies preceding Trump.

The countries with which the U.S. had the largest trade deficits (goods and services) in 2018 were:

China – $379 billion
Mexico – $78 billion
Germany – $67 billion
Japan – $58 billion.

These countries accounted for 93% of the total, with China, by itself, accounting for 61% of the U.S. trade deficit. Donald Trump was elected by the people who have borne the brunt of this policy failure, with a mandate to fix it.

On Friday, President Donald Trump took a huge step toward doing just that. He raised the U.S. tariff rate from 10% to 25% on $200 billion per year worth of Chinese goods that were being imported into the United States. Back in July, when Trump had initially imposed the 10% tariffs on Chinese imports, China responded by imposing tariffs on $110 billion of U.S. exports to China.

The Real Omar SuleimanBy Anne-Christine Hoff

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/the_real_omar_suleiman_.html
On Sunday, the Dallas Morning News published an op-ed by Muslim Brotherhood linked anti-American Omar Suleiman. In this editorial, the Dallas-based imam claims that the accusations of anti-Semitism by Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, Fox host Lou Dobbs, and others following Suleiman’s delivery of the invocation last Thursday, May 9 are motivated by hate and are comparable to the hate that led to the New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pittsburgh, and San Diego massacres.

After giving the invocation in Congress last week, I have been attacked online and threatened with violence. This hate is similar to the hate that led to the other massacres above. It’s a hate that seeks to fracture the communities it targets. It’s a hate that takes the most vulnerable communities in the country and intimidates them into silence so that the only thing they can do is brace for another attack.

From his rhetoric it’s easy to forget that Suleiman has provided no direct evidence of any threats of violence and that he has also neglected to mention that the criticisms lobbed against him are based on his social media footprint. In other words, the “haters” are using fact-based evidence to make an argument.

It’s also easy to forget that, in terms of growing influence, Suleiman has had a pretty good year. He has 1.3 million Facebook followers and just last year he was able to convince Google to alter its algorithm on searches related to Islam and Muslim-related issues. This year his fellow Islamists Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar occupy seats in congress. And on Thursday, May 9, 2019, Suleiman, by the request of Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, delivered the invocation from the House floor.

Saudi Arabia reports oil pipeline hit by drones

https://worldisraelnews.com/saudi-arabia-reports-

An oil pipeline that runs across Saudi Arabia was hit Tuesday by drones, the Saudi energy minister said, as regional tensions flared just days after what the kingdom called an attack on two of its oil tankers near the Persian Gulf.

While both President Donald Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said they were not planning for conflict, the volatility was felt in oil markets with benchmark Brent crude trading over $71 a barrel, up more than $1 on the day.

The pipeline that runs from the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province to a Red Sea port was shut down, but Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih Al-Falih vowed that the production and export of Saudi oil would not be interrupted.

The Houthis, who are at war with Saudi Arabia, said earlier Tuesday they launched seven drones targeting vital Saudi installations, without elaborating. They later claimed responsibility for the pipeline attack in comments broadcast by Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari.

In a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, al-Falih called the pipeline attack “cowardly,” saying recent acts of sabotage against the kingdom were targeting not only Saudi Arabia but also the safety of the world’s energy supply and global economy.

Frances Fox Piven, Icon Of The Left: Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-5-13-frances-fox-piven-icon-of-the-left

In the New York Times, they have a section that goes by the name “New York” on weekdays and “Metropolitan” on Sundays. This section contains next to no useful information about what is going on in New York and/or the surrounding area. Even local news staples like murders and fires rarely get covered. And if you want to learn about the latest corruption in City government, or important new laws coming out of the state legislature, you mostly have to look elsewhere.

But they have to fill the space with something. A fair characterization of the large part of it would be “support for our team.” To illustrate, yesterday’s “Metropolitan” section was totally dominated by a single article that contained nothing about relevant local news. Instead, it was, to put it mildly, a fawning profile of a woman named Frances Fox Piven. The headline was “This 86-Year-Old Radical May Save (or Sink) the Democrats.”

Have you heard of Frances Fox Piven? She first came to my attention way back in the 1960s, when she had become one of the early enlistees in the “War on Poverty,” and went around leading loud welfare “rights” demonstrations. She’s been doing variations of the same ever since. But I can’t say that I have closely followed her career. This Times profile fills in many details, and in the process makes clear that Ms. Piven is a true archetype of the species sometimes known as the Upper West Side progressive radical. I thought that readers here might like an introduction.

Here is how the Times chooses to introduce its piece:

John Durham for Accountability His investigation can help restore public confidence in the FBI and intelligence services.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-durham-for-accountability-11557876040?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_artPos=2#cxrecs_s

Attorney General William Barr has assigned U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate possible abuses by law enforcement and intelligence officials in the 2016 election campaign, and the reaction has been predictably partisan. Trumpians are demanding heads on pikes while liberals are calling it a hunt for conspiracies that didn’t exist. We see it as a necessary step toward accountability and restoring public confidence in America’s enforcement agencies.

Mr. Durham comes with more experience than even special counsel Robert Mueller in navigating U.S. law enforcement, including the FBI and intelligence services. He uncovered rogue FBI behavior in the case of Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey tasked him to look at the CIA’s destruction of videos of its terrorist interrogation program.

As a U.S. Attorney, Mr. Durham will have the power to convene a grand jury and subpoena people outside the government. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been looking into some of the same questions, but he lacks similar power. Mr. Durham can also pick up any criminal referrals from Mr. Horowitz’s looming report.

Liberals Who Cry Roe An obscure case over state sovereignty triggers a Supreme Court exchange over precedent.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/liberals-who-cry-roe-11557876134

Who would have thought that a Supreme Court ruling in an interstate tax dispute would devolve into a brawl over abortion politics? Such are our political times as the four liberal Justices on Monday chided their conservative colleagues for overturning a 40-year precedent, which progressives warn will create a stare decisis slippery slope to banning abortion.

At issue in Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt was whether states enjoy sovereign immunity in other states’ courts. California urged the Court to overturn its Nevada v. Hall (1979) precedent, which held that states aren’t required to grant legal immunity to other states. Most do for comity purposes, and state courts have entertained only 14 cases by private citizens against other states in the past four decades.

The Court reasoned in Hall that states have a sovereign interest in protecting their citizens, and the Constitution doesn’t explicitly require interstate sovereign immunity. But there are strong opposing constitutional arguments, which Justice Clarence Thomas explained in the 5-4 majority’s opinion overturning Hall.

Tulsi Gabbard Becomes First 2020 Dem to Speak Out against Facebook Censorship By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-becomes-first-2020-dem-to-speak-out-against-facebook-censorship/During a recent appearance on comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast, Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) became the first and only Democratic presidential contender to voice opposition to the censorship of Facebook users.

During the interview, Gabbard split with fellow Democrats — many of whom have cast conservative concerns about tech censorship as a “conspiracy theory” — arguing instead that companies like Facebook have betrayed the longstanding American commitment to free expression by ousting unpopular political commentary from their platforms.

“There’s just been news recently about Facebook banning certain individuals . . . because of their speech. They disagree with the speech they’re using or the ideas they’re pushing forward. Unchecked, First Amendment rights going out the window,” she said, referring to Facebook’s recent purge of users on the political fringes such as Infowars reporter Paul Joseph Watson and notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.

“The argument is [the First Amendment] doesn’t apply because they’re a private company, right?” Rogan responded.

“Yes, but they re trying to get the best of both worlds. The fact that they are claiming to say, ‘Hey, this is a free space for open communication for everyone’ while at the same time saying ‘You know, what Joe, I don’t like what you’re saying about this, so we’re going to ban you and whoever your friends are from this conversation’ — I think that’s a big problem.”