NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Remembering 9/11 Fifteen Year on: Sydney Williams

Posted By on September 11th, 2016

September 11 has long meant a lot to my wife and me. It marked the birth of our first child, a son Sydney, born fifty years ago this Sunday. Their first child, Alex, was born March 13, 2001, six months before the attack on 9/11.

Sunday marks fifteen years since we were attacked without warning by a small group of Islamic terrorists acting under the authority of al Qaeda. Fifteen years later we are still involved in a war against Islamic extremists. It has been a long time, and there is no end in sight. Thinking about this returns me to my own youth. Like Alex, I was born ten months before Pearl Harbor. Fifteen years after that attack the War was a distant memory. I was in boarding school. Japan and Germany, our former enemies, were now allies and on their way to becoming major economies. General Eisenhower had been President for four years. The economy was booming and, apart from periodically being told to duck under our school desks during simulated atomic bomb attacks, life for a fifteen-year-old, was peaceful and happy. How long will it be before such idyllic conditions return?

The horrific facts of what happened on 9/11 should never be forgotten. More people were killed that day than died at Pearl Harbor, or Americans killed on D-Day…and those killed on 9/11 were all civilians! Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly on November 10th, 2001, President George W. Bush said: “Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America there will be no forgetting September 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children.”

Take a moment to think of what happened. Remember those who were lost. And recognize that the evil that perpetrated those attacks still lives. It must be eradicated if my grandson is to live with the hope and optimism that was mine sixty years ago.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS: REFLECTIONS ON 9/11

Posted By on September 11th, 2016

To honor and to keep alive the memory of the victims of 9/11, at each year’s anniversary, FSM’s contributing editors share their thoughts about that day. This year, one of our favorite quotes from those remembrances is from Dr. Robin McFee who said,

“9/11, fifteen years later…To those we lost, may their memory be a blessing. And may God comfort those who mourn, and bless this great nation, and all who defend her.”

To that we say…Amen.
Reflections on 9/11 Fifteen Years Later by Ruth King

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/reflections-on-911-fifteen-years-later?f=must_reads#ixzz4JwXq2GaD

9 – 11 Fifteen Years Later: Don’t Let Future Generations Learn the Wrong Lesson by Robin McFee
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/9-11-fifteen-years-later-dont-let-future-generations-learn-the-wrong-lesson?f=must_reads
Fifteen Years On I Wonder What the Falling Man Would Think by Frank Salvato

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/fifteen-years-on-i-wonder-what-the-falling-man-would-think
The Lessons of 9-11–We Were–And Still Are–Unserious by Peter Huessey

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-lessons-of-9-11-we-were-and-still-are-unserious?f=commentary#ixzz4JwWeXoPp

Why I Fight, Why I Write by Edward Cline

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/why-i-fight-why-i-write?f=must_reads#ixzz4JwXEZyHG

POLITICS Comments turned off

What the Benghazi attack taught me about Hillary Clinton By Gregory N. Hicks

Posted By on September 11th, 2016

FoxNews.com

Last month, I retired from the State Department after 25 years of public service as a Foreign Service officer. As the Deputy Chief of Mission for Libya, I was the last person in Tripoli to speak with Ambassador Chris Stevens before he was murdered in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on our Benghazi post. On this, the fourth anniversary of the Benghazi tragedy, I would like to offer a different explanation for Benghazi’s relevance to the presidential election than is usually found in the press.

Just as the Constitution makes national security the President’s highest priority, U.S. law mandates the secretary of state to develop and implement policies and programs “to provide for the security … of all United States personnel on official duty abroad.”

This includes not only the State Department employees, but also the CIA officers in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012. And the Benghazi record is clear: Secretary Clinton failed to provide adequate security for U.S. government personnel assigned to Benghazi and Tripoli.

The Benghazi Committee’s report graphically illustrates the magnitude of her failure. It states that during August 2012, the State Department reduced the number of U.S. security personnel assigned to the Embassy in Tripoli from 34 (1.5 security officers per diplomat) to 6 (1 security officer per 4.5 diplomats), despite a rapidly deteriorating security situation in both Tripoli and Benghazi. Thus, according to the Report, “there were no surplus security agents” to travel to Benghazi with Amb. Stevens “without leaving the Embassy in Tripoli at severe risk.”

Had Ambassador Stevens’ July 2012 request for 13 additional American security personnel (either military or State Department) been approved rather than rejected by Clinton appointee Under Secretary of State for Management Pat Kennedy, they would have traveled to Benghazi with the ambassador, and the Sept. 11 attack might have been thwarted.

BOOKS Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL; MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on September 11th, 2016

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Use your brain to control nanobots. (TY Nevet) Researchers at Israel’s Bar Ilan University and the IDC in Herzliya have used brainwaves of humans under strain, to control the release of medicine by tiny robots made from shells made of DNA. The technique could be used (for example) to treat schizophrenia or depression.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3759832/Mind-controlled-nanobots-release-drugs-inside-BRAIN-Tiny-machines-help-treat-depression-epilepsy.html

To diagnose genetic disorders. Israeli-based NRGene is the only company in the world to map the genome for bread, pasta and wild emmer wheat. Now it is turning its attention to the human genome in order to help diagnose genetic disorders at an early stage and strive to personalize medications.
www.timesofisrael.com/nrgene-eyes-human-genomes-with-game-changing-tech/

Pain-free bladder treatments. (TY Atid-EDI) Israeli startup Vensica Medical is developing the ‘VensiCare, a painless needle-free ultrasound catheter system to deliver treatments for overactive bladder, bladder cancer and interstitial cystitis. Vensica has just raised $500,000 for R&D and completion of device design.
http://vensica.com/bladder-treatment-co-vensica-raises-500000-2/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH7078lg7EY
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-overactive-bladder-treatment-co-vensica-medical-raises-500000-1001140530

First US patients for Chameleon balloon catheter. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Jun 13) that Israel’s AV Medical had completed trials of its unique balloon catheter that allows simultaneous angioplasty and fluid injection. AV Medical has just commenced using Chameleon on patients in the US.
http://www.a-vmedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Chameleon-First-US-Cases-7-18-16-PDF.pdf

Tattoo removal laser gets US approval. (TY Atid-EDI) The US FDA has approved three wavelengths of the PicoWay picosecond laser from Israel’s Syneron Medical. The device successfully removes tattoos of various colors. Recent trials removed 22 tattoos from 15 patients with no side effects.
http://investors.syneron.com/releases?item=320

Monitoring insulin levels. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s DreaMed Diabetes is developing a decision support technology platform called the Advisor to determine optimal patient-specific insulin treatment plans leading to balanced glucose levels in people with diabetes. DreaMed has just raised $3.3 million for development.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dreamed-diabetes-raises-33-million-from-norma-investments-and-a-strategic-investor-300303138.html

Rejoining his family after 18 months as a vegetable. The amazing story of how Moti’s family realized that, despite the paralysis from his stroke, Moti was still there. Now he uses the Israeli device Click2Speak to take part in conversations. And he says that he’s happy! http://www.ezermizion.org/blog/is-he-still-there/

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Precarious Nature of Our Existence Since 9/11 by Cynthia E. Ayers

Posted By on September 10th, 2016

Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Cynthia E. Ayers is currently Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. Prior to accepting the Task Force position, she served as Vice President of EMPact Amercia, having retired from the National Security Agency after over 38 years of federal service.

“Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

Indeed – there is no peace. There hasn’t been for a very long time. In spite of the peace that many world leaders thought was being ushered in following the destruction of the Berlin Wall, there has been no real peace. We discovered this much too late, when our country was attacked fifteen years ago, on September 11, 2001.

We were not really “at peace” during the years between November 1989 (when the Berlin Wall came down) and the events of 9/11 (2001). Acts of terrorism occurred throughout the 1990s, and at least some actors were supported by one or more nation-states. While Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was spreading nuclear technology around the globe, North Korea and Iran (with assistance from Khan) spent the decade rattling nerves with their progress on the nuclear weapons front. The Iranian regime continues to act aggressively in the belief that the United States has been in a state of war with them since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Similarly, North Korea’s dynastic rulers have used the notion of a war that never ended to poke, prod, threaten and try to provoke the United States.

Do we still have liberty? Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective. President Lincoln predicted that if war were to come to the shores of America, it would spring from within – a form of national suicide. Unfortunately, the partisan politics of our day would seem to add credence to that notion. The scandals of late have people wondering if we are sitting in abeyance like proverbial boiling frogs while our liberties are being systematically destroyed.

We fear more substantial and lethal attacks on the homeland, and the rising tide of global unrest may portend such events. There are credible threats from external sources of intent to attack us internally. Regardless, decisions recently made by U.S. leadership have raised concern as to whether we have already succumbed to the desires of our enemies.

No sane individual in Western civil society wants war. War is an vicious, destructive process in which disputes are generally terminated only long enough to re-arm. Miraculously, our country has, for the most part, escaped the violence of war on our soil for 150 years (relative to the turmoil that other countries have long endured).

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Lunatic is in the Mosque

Posted By on September 10th, 2016

There has been a wave of attacks in which crazy people (who may also have been bullied at school) attack people, especially police officers, with guns, machetes, knives, axes, and anything else handy that might inflict bodily harm, all while screaming “Allahu Akhbar!”

The following article from the news site Boulevard Voltaire discusses all the lunatic allahu-akhbar attacks that have occurred recently in France. Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation:

When is the psychiatric hospital “Allahu Akbar” opening?

by J.-P. Fabre Bernadac

According to La Depeche du Midi, a young security assistant named Valentin, 23 years old, was brutally assaulted with a knife, Tuesday, August 30 early afternoon, in a police station in Toulouse, rue du Rempart St.-Étienne by an individual who attempted to cut his throat.

The individual definitely prepared his attack carefully, since he entered the office on the pretext of filing a complaint, before jumping on the young detective and trying to take his gun. A struggle ensued. Seeing that he could not take possession of the gun, he pulled out a kitchen knife and stabbed the young auxiliary in the throat. Fortunately, colleagues pounced on the assailant and neutralized him. They were then able to help the victim, who was taken to the hospital serious injuries.

The arrested attacker, aged 31, is of Algerian origin, as we learned from a police union source. He allegedly attacked the safety deputy, according to the same source, “Because he represents France.” You notice: neither taboo word — terrorist and radical Islamic — have been uttered neither by the police nor by journalists. They could have at least asked the question. Well, no, the only thing Luke Escoda of the Alliance union said was: “The individual was apparently fixated on DGSI [General Directorate for Internal Security — French intelligence agency]” and “was known to have psychiatric disorders.”

Thus, without any investigation, without searching the home of the perpetrator, without interrogating his family, without having checked the contents of his computer, without having made a list of his contacts on his smartphone, the authorities of this country know, a priori, that our attacker is insane, a crazy, as we say in the South. France Info goes even further by saying: “According to a source from the Interior Ministry, the attack wasn’t a terrorist attack.”

The Ministry of Interior is incessantly warning people about future and possible attacks, and when an act looks like it, the media and the state begin by saying, “Make no mistake, this is not a terrorist attack!”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Germany: Beginning of the End of the Merkel Era? by Soeren Kern

Posted By on September 10th, 2016

The anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged ahead of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in elections in her home state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.

The election was widely seen as a referendum on Merkel’s open-door migration policy and her decision to allow more than one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to enter Germany in 2015.

Merkel rejected any course correction on migration policy: “I am very unsatisfied with the outcome of the election. Obviously it has something to do with the refugee question. I think the decisions that were made were correct.” She went on to blame German voters for failing to appreciate her government’s “problem-solving abilities”.

Many of the AfD’s positions were once held, but later abandoned, by the Merkel’s CDU.

A September 1 poll showed Merkel’s popularity rating has plunged to 45%, a five-year low. More than half (51%) of those surveyed said it would “not be good” if Merkel ran for another term in 2017.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a major blow on September 4 when the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged ahead of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in elections in her home state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.

With 20.8% of the vote, the AfD came in second place behind the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) (30.6%). Merkel’s CDU came in third place, with 19% of the vote, the worst result it has ever had in Meck-Pomm, as the state is called for short.

The election in Meck-Pomm was widely seen as a referendum on Merkel’s open-door migration policy and her decision to allow more than one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to enter Germany in 2015. The migrant influx has resulted in a notable increase in crime in the country. The growing sense of insecurity has been exacerbated by a series of attacks this summer by Muslim migrants in which ten people were killed and dozens more were injured.

The CDU debacle in Meck-Pomm yields two main conclusions: 1) Merkel’s hopes of winning — or even running — for a fourth term in general elections in 2017 are now in doubt; and 2) the AfD is a force to be reckoned with in German politics. It can longer be simply dismissed as a “fringe party.”

Observers from across the political spectrum seem to agree that the election in Meck-Pomm marks a turning point for Merkel, who has been head of the CDU since 2000 and chancellor since November 2005. Some say her political career may effectively be over if the CDU suffers heavy losses to the AfD in state elections in Berlin on September 18.

“This was a dark day for Merkel,” said Thomas Jaeger, a political scientist at the University of Cologne. “Everyone knows she lost this election. Her district in parliament is there, she campaigned there, and refugees are her issue.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Obama Messes Up Our Relationship with Another Important Ally Why did the president go out of his way to antagonize the Filipinos? By Josh Gelernter

Posted By on September 10th, 2016

Last week I wrote about the shortening odds of a war in Asia over China’s rapacious land claims. China is threatening war with Japan over Japanese-controlled islands that it claims, and is threatening war with Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and every major seafaring power over its claim to control the shipping lanes through the South China Sea.

Under President Obama, the U.S. has launched several freedom-of-navigation voyages and fly-overs of China-claimed territory to indicate our disregard of the Chinese position. But those saber rattles have been half-hearted: After a U.S. Navy vessel sailed past a Chinese artificial island, a Defense Department official told the U.S. Naval Institute that the voyage had been conducted under the principle of “innocent passage”: that a ship can sail through another country’s territorial waters so long as its intentions are non-belligerent. Of course, this concedes China’s control — and makes it look like the Obama administration is interested only in appearing tough to America, not to Beijing.

The Philippines have been less sanguine. They took China’s claim of sovereignty in the South China Sea to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in The Hague, and won, though China refuses to recognize the result. (Why should they? The Hague is a laughingstock.) More substantially, the Philippines have grounded a naval ship on a reef in the Spratly Island chain, in the South China Sea, and keep a permanent detachment of marines there. The physical Filipino presence is meant to dispute the Chinese position. The Chinese coast guard has blockaded the ship to prevent food and water from being delivered, and now the marines are resupplied by helicopter.

To this extent, the Philippines — a nation protecting its own claims — serves as our proxy in the South China Sea. But it’s not just a marriage of convenience: The Filipinos are our genuine, hard-and-fast friends. Pew Research regularly polls world opinion of the United States; as of last year, the U.S. had an approval rating in the 80s in just seven countries: Senegal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, South Korea, Israel, and Italy. There’s only one country where we break 90 percent approval: the Philippines, where 92 percent of Filipinos have a favorable opinion of the U.S. That’s 9 points higher than Americans’ approval of America. Statistically, the Philippines is the most pro-American country in the world.

The Philippines recently elected a new president, Rodrigo Duterte. He was elected thanks to the popularity of the ruthless anti-drug war he led as mayor of the Philippines’ fourth largest city, Davao. As mayor, he opened drug-rehabilitation centers, offered pensions to recovering addicts, and called for private citizens to murder drug dealers. He has continued the policy as president, openly advocating vigilantism.

POLITICS Comments turned off

‘Make America Great Again’ Is (Wait for It) Racist Democrats will stop at nothing to slime the Republican nominee. By Deroy Murdock

Posted By on September 10th, 2016

Donald J. Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” is racist. What seemed like an inclusive, inspiring call to national renewal really is a cry for Caucasian power.

How do we know this? Bill Clinton said so.

“If you’re a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don’t you?” Clinton told voters in Orlando, Fla., on Wednesday. “What it means is, ‘I’ll give you the economy you had 50 years ago, and I’ll move you back up on the social totem pole, and other people down.”

But wait.

On Friday morning, Fox & Friends excavated several examples of when this divisive, cruel, ugly motto was deployed to whip up white hate by none other than . . . William Jefferson Clinton.

“I believe that, together, we can make America great again,” Bill Clinton said in Little Rock, Ark., in 1991.

Standing before a flapping American flag, with his appropriately white shirt sleeves rolled up, Bill Clinton addressed voters in 1992. He promised “to secure a better future for your children and your grandchildren and to make America great again.”

Clinton also looked straight into a camera that year and said, “I want to attack these problems and make America great again.”

“It’s time for another comeback,” Bill Clinton said in a radio ad for his wife’s 2008 U.S. Senate campaign. “Time to make America great again.”

Now that my Fox News Channel colleagues have hog-tied Bill Clinton with archived video and audio tape, perhaps he will dump his utterly absurd and disgusting charge that there is anything even microscopically racist, biased, or even snooty about the words “Make America Great Again.” This phrase is perfectly innocuous, and Trump is just the latest of many candidates to use it.

While Clinton, his wife, and their Democratic surrogates may drop this one foolish argument, they most assuredly will not stop trying to split the country with grotesque ethnic appeals and ludicrous “updates” on how Trump and the GOP are itching to advance white supremacy, if not reinstate segregation.

The Democrats play the race card, again and again, since it’s the last one left in their deck.

The Democrats cannot run on the Obama-Clinton economy, which is growing at an annual rate of 0.95 percent. The Democratic recovery is the weakest in 67 years. That is, since 1949.

The Democrats cannot run on Obamacare, which Hillary Clinton calls “one of the greatest accomplishments of President Obama, of the Democratic party, and of our country.” Premiums have soared 26.4 percent, on average, in the 14 states that have approved next year’s prices. Among 23 state-level Obamacare co-ops, 16 have collapsed, from Oregon to South Carolina. Health insurers are stampeding out of Obama’s vaunted exchanges, leaving Obamacare consumers with a choice of exactly one carrier in 31 percent of U.S. counties. (The map below notwithstanding, Pinal County, Ariz. had zero Obamacare plans lined up for 2017, until Blue Cross Blue Shield changed its mind and decided to stick around, lest that jurisdiction’s residents face no Obamacare coverage.) Miles from its stated destination, the Obamacare jalopy is careening into a ravine.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Would Hillary’s ‘Not Marked CONFIDENTIAL’ Story Work for You? Saying ‘I don’t understand the most basic things about my job’ should not keep you out of prison. By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on September 10th, 2016

John Lester, the Air Force vet who buzzed Hillary Clinton at this week’s candidate forum with a tough question on her mishandling of classified information, is a smart guy. And that’s not the only reason he’s got me jealous. I have been trying since the e-mail scandal broke 18 months ago to think of a good example to convey the fatuousness of Mrs. Clinton’s “I never sent or received anything ‘marked classified’” talking point (which, as I explain here, she has now morphed into “I never sent or received anything with a ‘header’ labeling it ‘classified’”). While I’ve been spinning my wheels, Lieutenant Lester has come up with a great example.

He posited it Thursday in an interview on Fox with Neil Cavuto (aside: How great to have Neil Cavuto back, and looking so fit). Since I have a bit more time and space to develop Lieutenant Lester’s example, I’ll be more expansive.

Let’s say you are the chief executive officer (CEO) of a publicly traded company. You’re sitting at your desk when an e-mail from the chief financial officer (CFO) comes in. It says: “The company had a great quarter! Huge — way, way better than projected! Plan is to announce the results at presser next Tuesday.”

After a fist pump or three, you then e-mail your son, explaining, “Sorry, I need to cancel that lunch we were going to have next Tuesday. It’s quarterly-report time and my company’s got unbelievably great news to break. We’ve got a press conference that day to announce it. Gonna be a bombshell!”

Your son reads the e-mail. He picks up the phone and calls a broker with instructions to buy 20,000 shares of stock in your company. The broker buys the stock. Then, on Tuesday, shortly after your company holds its big press conference announcing far-better-than-expected quarterly earnings, the stock price zooms through the roof. Your son promptly sells the stock at a mega profit. He’s so thrilled, he even buys you that BMW you’ve been eyeing.

On these facts, which are hardly unheard of, is there any chance that the FBI, the SEC, and the Justice Department would not come a-hounding? Any chance you and your son would not be hit with a felony-laden indictment for trading stock based on confidential insider information?

Well, let’s think about this.

What if the FBI asks to interview you before deciding whether to recommend felony charges. You tell the Feebs, “Gee, I had no idea the information in the CFO’s e-mail was confidential. Have a look at the e-mail: it isn’t marked ‘confidential’ anyplace. In fact, there isn’t even a ‘(C)’ in the margin, and there certainly isn’t a big, bold ‘confidential’ header on top. How could I possibly have known it was confidential information that I wasn’t allowed to transmit in casual e-mail exchanges with my son? And how could I have known he’d use the information to make a killing in the stock market?”