RUTHFULLY YOURS

At least 50 people are dead in Florida, killed for their presumed homosexuality by a Muslim who proclaimed his allegiance to ISIS as he opened fire in a nightclub that proudly proclaimed itself “a gun free zone”.

The conclusion, according to the for-the-moment US president, is that more laws must be passed to restrict access to guns:

“How easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school or in a house of worship or a movie theater or in a nightclub,” a reference to other mass killings that have punctuated recent US history.

“We have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be.”

The simple act of passing laws, of course, solves every conceivable problem at a stroke. That is why no America smokes marijuana or snorts cocaine, because there are laws that declare such activities illegal. Similarly, should America’s Second Amendment ever be overturned, no one bent on using terror to make a point will ever be able to obtain a weapon.

Omar Mateen called the cops to pledge his fealty to ISIS as he was carrying out his mass murderer in Orlando early Sunday morning. Twelve hours later, the president of the United States declared that “we have no definitive assessment on the motivation” of Omar Mateen but that “we know he was a person filled with hate.”

So I guess the president thinks Mateen didn’t mean it?

Here again, and horribly, we have an unmistakable indication that Obama finds it astonishingly easy to divorce himself from a reality he doesn’t like — the reality of the Islamist terror war against the United States and how it is moving to our shores in the form of lone-wolf attacks.

He called it “terror,” which it is. But using the word “terror” without a limiting and defining adjective is like a doctor calling a disease “cancer” without making note of the affected area of the body — because if he doesn’t know where the cancer is and what form it takes, he cannot attack it effectively and seek to extirpate it.

So determined is the president to avoid the subject of Islamist, ISIS-inspired or ISIS-directed terrorism that he concluded his remarks with an astonishing insistence that “we need the strength and courage to change” our attitudes toward the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

That’s just disgusting. There’s no other word for it.

Omar Mateen, a U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants, was already known to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which twice investigated him over hints of radical leanings before closing those cases as inconclusive.

Federal agents are now trying to piece together how the 29-year-old Mr. Mateen became the gunman police say is responsible for the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

The night of the Orlando nightclub attack, Mr. Mateen called emergency services and proclaimed allegiance to Islamic State. The FBI is probing the attack as a terrorism act.

Mr. Mateen’s call echoed FBI concerns about him in 2013, “when he made inflammatory remarks to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties,” said Ronald Hopper, an FBI official in Orlando. The bureau, “thoroughly investigated the matter, including interviews of witnesses, physical surveillance, and records checks,” he said, and “ultimately, we were unable to verify the substance of his comments and the investigation was closed.”

What triggered the 2013 investigation, said officials briefed on it, were “wild” claims he made to co-workers about having family and friends in al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and connections to the Boston Marathon bombers. When FBI agents first questioned him, he didn’t admit to making the claims and didn’t have a full understanding of the terrorist groups, they said, suggesting he was making up his claims.

When FBI agents questioned him again, he admitted to making the statements, saying it was simply bluster and he hadn’t known what he was talking about, officials said. Those earlier claims have fueled doubts regarding Mr. Mateen’s assertion about acting on behalf of Islamic State.

“He seems to be looking for any opportunity to associate with the terrorist group du jour,” a senior U.S. official said Sunday. CONTINUE AT SITE

A young American Muslim pledging allegiance to Islamic State is now responsible for the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. Can we finally drop the illusion that the jihadist fires that burn in the Middle East don’t pose an urgent and deadly threat to the American homeland?

We hope so after the Sunday morning assault on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando that killed at least 51 and wounded 53 as we went to press. The killer was Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, the son of immigrants from Afghanistan who was heard shouting “allahu Akbar” (God is great) as he fired away. Mateen attacked a popular night spot for gays, who are especially loathed in Islamist theology.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and it rarely does so unless it played some role. CNN and others reported that a U.S. official said Mateen made a 911 call during the attack in which he pledged allegiance to Islamic State and mentioned the 2013 Boston marathon bombing.

Amicus Brief Supporting FBI’s Quest in Identifying Corrupt Public Officials

Dear Director Comey:

The FBI’s recent radio ads asked public assistance in identifying public corruption. This amicus brief is in response to your request, based on my experience as a State Department employee with a top secret clearance and decades of work in corrupt countries from Albania to Zimbabwe. Therefore, I am alarmed by the steady decline of integrity among U.S. government and public official.

I studied law at Yale, Columbia, and New York University, but I am not a practicing lawyer. I worked as an international planner and a treasurer in Mobil Oil Corporation, a manager in the State Department, with a Top Secret clearance, and an international consultant, evaluating legal issues, studying corruption, proposing remedies and negotiating solutions. I am a fellow at the American Center for Democracy.

My letter is based on publicly available sources concerning what I believe to be one of the most astounding corruption cases involving a politician who wishes to lead my beloved country.

I understand that a large number of your agents are carrying out a criminal investigation of these cases, and I hope my enclosed analysis would help your efforts.

Public statements by federal government officials, and journalists indicate that either they do not understand, or refuse to acknowledge that serious laws were broken, not just a bunch of silly rules.

But the Rasmussen Report on a February 3, 2016, survey of 1,000 likely voters showed 81% “strongly believe the federal government is crooked.” Gallup reported on September 19, 2015, in a survey of 1,000 adults, 75% “perceived corruption as widespread in the country’s government.” In 2007, 67% responded the same way.

The U.S. international reputation is similarly appalling. Freedom House listed the U.S. as being perceived by 75% of respondents as one of the most corrupt countries of the world. Only 12 countries of the world were regarded as worse.

Transparency International (TI) says on their website that 72% of people surveyed believe the U.S. government’s efforts to fight corruption are ineffective. Other TI ratings for the U.S. are:

– 16th for corruption index out of 168 countries in 2015;

– 10th in bribe payers’ index out of 28 countries in 2011;

– 5% reported paying a bribe in 2010;

– 86th percentile in control of corruption;

– 5th in financial secrecy index out of 71 countries.

These perceptions are most disturbing. I hope you and the DOJ would not further this corrupt image by allowing political pressure to cover up and obfuscate the facts of your investigations. Our law enforcement agencies must show that politically powerful famous current and former officials are treated as ordinary citizens when they break the law. A failure to indict and prosecute the Clintons and their enterprise will encourage more corruption and the disclosure of more classified information, further endangering the U.S.

You have the reputation of being honest, competent and diligent, and I hope you will soon refer recommendations and backup research for criminal prosecution of the Clintons and their staff to the DOJ. That would ameliorate the decline in the public’s respect for the rule of law. If the DOJ refuses to impanel a grand jury or to prosecute, I hope you and many FBI agents resign in protest. The integrity of the U.S. government and America’s national security are at stake.

There is no better example of leftist doublespeak than referring to illegal aliens as “undocumented workers” or, as the Library of Congress was proposing, “noncitizens.”

In a rare show of defiance, the House voted to order the Library to continue using the term “illegal alien” – just as it appears in the law.

Washington Times:

The library earlier this had proposed changing, saying that despite being used in law, the term had “become pejorative” and needed to be axed. Instead the library said it would use “noncitizen” to refer to illegal immigrants, and “unauthorized immigration” to refer to the broader issue.

Republicans revolted against the change, and demanded in the annual legislative branch funding bill that the library use terms that reflect federal law. The code repeatedly refers to foreigners as aliens, including those here both legally and illegally, so that would force the library to maintain the term “illegal alien.”

Democrats balked and forced a vote, but the GOP prevailed on a 237-170 party-line vote.

“The words ‘illegal alien’ will be retired. This will change, whether it’s now or six months from now or 10 years from now,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, Texas Democrat. “The question for all of us is whether we today will do the right thing or whether a few years from now will apologize.”

Most Americans were consumed with World War II in June 1944. It started with D-Day and the daily reports of Allied forces marching into France. It was personal for most families, because every street had one or two young men fighting in Europe or the Pacific.

The baseball season went on, as President Roosevelt desired. However, the teams had to get very creative to fill their rosters. They could not rely on Latin players as they do today, and African Americans could not play anyway. I should add that a lot of Cuban young men served in World War II in support of U.S. forces.

On June 10, 1944, the Cincinnati Reds gave the ball to Joe Nuxall, and history was made:

In 1942, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt wrote to Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to ask that baseball continue even though the United States was going to war:

“I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.”

The focus of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information is a series of emails between American diplomats in Pakistan and Washington about drone strikes, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. These emails are among the 22 top secret emails deemed too sensitive to ever be revealed to the American public.

Via Reuters:

The 2011 and 2012 emails were sent via the “low side” — government slang for a computer system for unclassified matters — as part of a secret arrangement that gave the State Department more of a voice in whether a CIA drone strike went ahead, according to congressional and law enforcement officials briefed on the FBI probe, the Journal said.

Some of the emails were then forwarded by Clinton’s aides to her personal email account, which routed them to a server she kept at her home in suburban New York when she was secretary of state, the officials said, according to the newspaper.

A day after she assumed office in 2009, Clinton signed a Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement that indicated it was her responsibility to ascertain whether information shared through her private email server was classified.

Most importantly, the agreement indicated that she understood there are criminal penalties for “any unauthorized disclosure” of classified information. CONTINUE AT SITE

Mohamed Khweis, a non-descript Virginian who sporadically attended mosque, briefly joined the Islamic State (ISIS) but surrendered himself to Kurdish forces in March, saying he was glad to escape the radical Islamist terrorist group. He was flown back to the United States early Thursday morning to face trial. Charges have not yet been made public.

“My message to the American people is — the life in Mosul, it’s really, really bad,” Khweis told Kurdistan 24 News. “The people who control Mosul don’t represent a religion. Daesh [the Arabic name for ISIS] does not represent a religion. I don’t see them as good Muslims.”

Khweis told Kurdistan 24 the story of his brief flirtation with the terrorist organization. “I attended a mosque in America, but not that often … I left the States in the middle of December 2015 and went to Europe. I first went to the UK,” the man said.

He went from London to Amsterdam, and finally to Turkey. There, he met an Iraqi woman whose sister was married to an ISIS fighter. The two smuggled themselves to Syria and then to Mosul, a major city under control of the Islamic State. They arrived in Mosul on January 16.

Once in ISIS terroritory, Khweis was stripped of identification and was given the nickname “Abu Omar.” He lived with 70 foreign fighters in one house before being taken to Mosul.

Despite Khweis’ declaration that Islamic State militants are not good Muslims, they made him attend religion classes all day. “Our daily life was basically prayer, eating, and learning about the religion for eight hours,” he said.

Khweis did not agree with the teachings, however. “I didn’t complete the whole Sharia [the Islamic law]. I didn’t agree with their ideology. That’s when I wanted to escape.”

But his disagreements went beyond religion. “It is not like Western countries,” Khweis explained. “It is very strict and no smoking there. There are a lot of foreign fighters walking around with weapons, and many are from Central and South Asia.”

Khweis spent about a month in Mosul, and “found it very, very hard to live there. I decided to return home.” He found a friend who promised to take him to Turkey, but he could not go all the way. He crossed the Kurdish lines and contacted the Peshmerga forces. CONTINUE AT SITE