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FBI Makes It Official: Hillary Rodham Clinton Is Under Investigation By Michael Walsh

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Just the thing to propel her into the New Hampshire primary tomorrow:

In a letter disclosed Monday in a federal court filing, the FBI confirms one of the world’s worst-kept secrets: It is looking into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Why say this at all, since it was widely known to be true? Because in August in response to a judge’s direction, the State Department asked the FBI for information about what it was up to. Sorry, the FBI said at the time, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation.

Now, in a letter dated February 2 and filed in court Monday, the FBI’s general counsel, James Baker, notes that in public statements and congressional testimony, the FBI “has acknowledged generally that it is working on matters related to former Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server.”

Baker says the FBI has not, however, “publicly acknowledged the specific focus, scope or potential targets of any such proceedings.” He ends the one-paragraph letter by saying that the FBI cannot say more “without adversely affecting on-going law enforcement efforts.”

The letter was filed in one of the Freedom of Information Act cases brought against the State Department over access to documents from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state. This one was filed by Judicial Watch.

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Pentagon Prioritizes ‘Climate Change’ in All Military Actions By Michael Walsh

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Haven’t had enough “fundamental transformation” yet? Have some more:

The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies. A new directive’s theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show “resilience” and beat back the threat based on “actionable science.”

It says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy — a wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.”

The Pentagon defines resilience to climate change as: “Ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions.”

To four-star generals and admirals, among them the regional combatant commanders who plan and fight the nation’s wars, the directive tells them: “Incorporate climate change impacts into plans and operations and integrate DoD guidance and analysis in Combatant Command planning to address climate change-related risks and opportunities across the full range of military operations, including steady-state campaign planning and operations and contingency planning.”

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New York is falling down By David Lawrence

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Tonight I walked onto the subway and saw the car was half-empty because a stinking bum was lying on a seat, and no one wanted to smell him.

Rome fell. New York is falling down. It is filled with illegalities and filth as a result of the good intentions and failed ideas of liberals. Politicians pretend to want the best while they deliver the worst.

De Blasio and New York City Council speaker Melissa Mark-Mark-Vivirito have decriminalized public urination and quality-of-life offenses. Are they kidding? De-civilizing a beautiful city is not a positive. It is a fall from grace.

The Broken Windows theory states that small crimes lead to major crimes. De Blasio and Mark-Vivirito should study sociology. Their ignorance is ruining our city.

They pretend to be kind to the poor while they destroy their lives and leave them scantily clothed with no toilet paper on street corners. They whisper sweet things in bums ears while they throw their lives into sewers.

De Blasio and Mark-Vivirito want to lower the quality of life in New York. They are doing a good job at making New York into a third-world country.

When I get on a subway, there are small Mexican bands singing and break-dancers stepping on my feet. I don’t interfere with their solitude; why should they bother me? And I’m supposed to tip them for failing to entertain me?

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Russ Ramsland: A Principled Conservative By Amil Imani

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Russ Ramsland is a Tea Party leader and a Harvard MBA who has built businesses and created jobs in countless fields including oil & gas, communications and real estate right here in Texas. He is a native of West Texas and a long-time resident of Dallas who currently lives in Texas’s 32nd congressional district. This is the same district that Congressman Pete Sessions, the chairman of the House Rules Committee and a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee currently represents. Russ is running against Rep. Pete Sessions because as he states “our so-called representatives, some of whom have been in Washington almost 20 years, are no longer representing our values and priorities. Washington is no longer listening to us,” Ramsland states.

As a principled constitutional conservative, Ramsland is in the same place as Katrina Pierson was two years ago, challenging incumbent Rep. Pete Sessions in the Republican primary. Sessions won a seat in Congress in 1996. He now chairs the powerful House Rules Committee, which shapes legislation and decides how bills are debated and amended on the floor. Pete Sessions is considered by some pundits to be a loyal establishment-type Republican, a Republican in Name Only (RINO) to be precise.

Ramsland says, “The voters of the 32nd district want to secure the border and enforce our immigration laws, replace Obamacare with free market healthcare reforms and return control of education to Texas and to parents. I am running because I believe that they should have an opportunity to be represented by someone who wants the same things.”

The question on everyone’s mind is: can Rep. Sessions be defeated? Can Mr. Ramsland dethrone the heavyweight, deep-pocketed Republican Pete Sessions with deep pockets? Russ says yes. It has been done before here in Texas when Ted Cruz defeated the wealthy and powerful establishment-backed David Dewhurst in the 2012 GOP primary and went on to win the nomination in a runoff.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Christians Who Demonize Israel – Part II by Denis MacEoin

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

It is commonly repeated by Palestinians that there were never any Jews in the Holy Land before the 19th century and that the first and second Jewish Temples never stood in Jerusalem. Not only do these claims fly in the face of over a century of archaeological work and the records of Greek, Roman and other historians in antiquity, they flatly contradict and annul the texts of both the Old and New Testaments. By their own rejection of Jewish rights in Israel, Christians unwittingly repudiate their own rights and history.

Christians in St Thomas Church did not once criticize or deplore the Palestinian glorification of violence, this delight at the murders of children, this dancing in the streets when innocent throats are cut.

Is it the Christian thing to demand that hospitals and doctors across the globe should refuse to use Israeli medicines or surgical devices or advanced medical equipment? Would Christians who work with bodies like Christian Aid call on countries damaged by natural and man-made calamities to ban Israeli aid teams?

Abandoning Israel will not soothe the hearts of the Palestinian people or make the Christians less vulnerable — as we are now seeing from the throat-slittings and mass displacements throughout the Middle East, done not by Jews but by Muslim fanatics.

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Turkey and Israel: A Loveless Date by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

“Writing anti-Israel speech on the wall of a synagogue is an act of anti-Semitism,” Ivo Molinas, editor-in-chief of Salom.

Turkey’s ruling Islamists have systematically nurtured and exploited anti-Semitic sentiments.

The architects of Turkish anti-Semitism will now have to use the same propaganda machine they used to fuel anti-Semitism to diffuse it, if they want a sustainable courtship with their old Jewish friends.

There is official evidence and credible speculation that Turkey and Israel may be on the brink of a historic handshake. Some say that it may be a matter of weeks, some speak of a couple of months before old friends, new foes, Turkey and Israel, will befriend each other once again. Probably until they become foes once again.

Ankara and Jerusalem look like two teenagers being forced into an unwilling date by their classmates, friends, foes and schoolteachers, and also because they feel alone and threatened; not because they feel even halfheartedly warm toward one another. They are nervously, grudgingly going on their date.

After nearly six years, staggering diplomacy and pragmatism will probably win over emotions and deep mistrust. Since Turkey and Israel downgraded their diplomatic ties in 2010, Turkey’s Islamist leaders have been careful about distinguishing between the “Israeli people” and “Israeli government.” Deviating from that rhetoric for the first time, Omer Celik, spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development Party, said that “the Israeli state and people are friends of Turkey.” That was a powerful confidence-building effort on Turkey’s part.

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Notable & Quotable: College ‘Common Reading’ From the executive summary of ‘Beach Books: 2014-2016,’ a report released by the National Association of Scholars.

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

From the executive summary of “Beach Books: 2014-2016,” a report released Feb. 9 by the National Association of Scholars on its study of more than 350 universities’ “common reading” programs—usually books assigned to freshmen to read the summer before starting school:

Colleges presume students regard reading as a strange and difficult activity, to which they must be introduced with careful thought and great caution. Since these colleges usually do not dare to enforce consequences for not reading the books, they instead have to allure the students with the sweetener of easy, exciting reading. The colleges therefore tend to assign no-fuss digestibles—memoirs and nonfiction, young adult books, science fiction, and comic books, books with young protagonists and books where the students might already have seen the movie, and affirming books that make the students feel good about themselves and what they can do with their college education.

Mission statements for common reading programs further limit the selected texts. Common reading programs that require an author available for a campus visit have to select a recent work, and probably from an author associated with a book publisher specializing in the commercial genre of common reading books. The desire to create community limits the common readings to the most anodyne of topics, excludes any intellectual topic interesting enough to be controversial, and has a marked tendency to redefine community around a shared catechism of belief rather than around a shared love of inquiry into truth. The emphasis on fostering non-academic values such as community, civic engagement, and social justice leads to selecting books that emphasize collective effort for non-academic pursuits rather than the solitary disengagement that is a fundamental component and delight of the life of the mind. College, this sort of common reading tells the incoming student, is a place to indulge a jolly, earnest desire to change the world for the better—and nothing more.

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Sher Zieve: An Interview with Joan Swirsky Author of ” The Caregiver’s Survival Guide “

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Over the past 10 or so years, I’ve followed the writings of author Joan Swirsky. Although we’re separated by many miles, many States and have never met face to face, we’ve established an e-mail and telephone friendship.

A few months ago, Joan told me that she was completing her new book about a subject that is relevant to every human being on the planet. I asked if she’d like me to interview her as soon as the book was published. That day has, finally, arrived. The book is out! The interview below is Joan’s in-depth discussion on her book and a few other subjects that should be of interest to all.

BIO: Joan Swirsky is the the recipient of numerous Long Island Press Awards, has written health, science and feature articles for The New York Times Long Island section for over 20 years, as well as for many regional and national publications. A former obstetrical nurse, Lamaze teacher and psychotherapist, Joan is the book-and-lyric writer of four musicals, one of which, “Oh Baby!” – about three couples facing parenthood – was produced in New York City in 1983.

Joan is a clinical nurse specialist (R.N., M.S., C.S., C.E.) and NY-State-certified psychotherapist. She was awarded a Nurse of Distinction Award by the New York State Legislature in 1991, received the Master’s Faculty Leadership Award from Adelphi University, and is a member of Sigma Theta Tau Nursing Honor Society.

She was also the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of REVOLUTION -The Journal of Nurse Empowerment from 1990 to 1995. The national quarterly magazine received First Prize for Editorial Excellence from the prestigious national media Folio Awards in 1994. In addition, for 15 years, she was the founding editor of The Caucus Current, a monthly magazine on conservative Jewish political issues.

For 15 years, Joan wrote a monthly column on pregnancy and childbirth for Newsday’s Parents & Children Magazine and for Long Island Parent. She was also a political writer for Newsmax.com and Newsmax Magazine. To this day, she writes for numerous conservative websites.

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And the Progressives Laughed By Frank Salvato

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Whether you believe that there were nefarious motives behind the advancement of inaccurate information about the Carson campaign by Cruz ground operatives in Iowa or not, one thing is certain, true and undeniable. The leading candidates for the Republican Party’s nomination for President of the United States are feeding on each other. By doing so, they have effectively created an “emotional division” between the voters of the Right. To prove this out all one has to do is spend some time on social media threads related to the topic. Phrases like “Cruz haters,” “Carson’s a whiner” and “Trump is an idiot” are myriad. So, too, is the Conservative rank-and-file’s sudden acceptance of CNN as a credible, non-biased news source.

This election cycle the best that the Democrats can offer is a throwback hippie Socialist and the most disingenuous and opportunistic politician in recent history. The prospects of one of these improbably political creatures reaching the White House relies exclusively on the Republicans finding a way to shoot themselves in the foot; damaging each other so extensively in the primaries that the bleeding continues into the General Election. On the heels of eight years of Progressive rule and their disastrous policies for our economy and national security; in light of myriad scandals and a possible indictment hounding the DNC frontrunner, Republicans should have been able to nominate a potato chip and won in November.

Enter the politics of division. Enter opportunistic political tactics ala the Chicago machine. Enter the type of politics that each and every one of the Republican candidates says they abhor; that each says they will excommunicate from the lexicon of American politics should they be elected to the presidency.

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Israeli Research Contradicts World Health Organization Findings on Zika Virus

Posted By on February 9th, 2016

Haifa University has conducted a preliminary study that has identified a correlation between the exceptionally hot and dry winter of northeast Brazil and the recent outbreak of the Zika virus which has led to numerous of birth defects.

The study was led by Dr. Shlomit Paz of the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Haifa and Professor Jan Semenza of the Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

The main findings of the provisional research contradict the conclusions drawn by the World Health Organization (WHO), which declared a state of emergency last week over the outbreak of the virus.

According to the WHO, the virus is associated with heavy rains in parts of Central and South America as a result of El Nino, a phenomenon that involves a substantial increase in Pacific Ocean water temperatures.

Preliminary research led by Haifa University, however, indicates that the relevant factor associated with the virus is in fact the wave of exceptionally hot and dry conditions, which have reached record levels in the latter half of 2015 in northeastern Brazil where the Zika virus has broken out.

The research argues that the outbreak is not attributable to heavy rains rather it can be attributable to another factor involving climate change and global warming patterns that have affected the planet over recent decades.