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Merv Bendle The High Cost of the Religion of Peace

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

Vast sums are being spent to combat Islamic extremism, yet George Brandis asserts with a straight face that only “ignorance” can explain the perception that Koranic teaching endorses violence. Either the Attorney-General is a mug or he thinks the rest of us are.
It seems Australia’s Muslim community is very high maintenance. What other religious group needs to have hundreds of millions spent on it to prevent terrorist violence and extremism directed at its host country? And why is this issue always obscured and surrounded by disinformation that treats ordinary Australians as stupid, gullible, and intolerant?

On the one hand, the threat of Islamist terrorism is very real. In the 2015-16 budget the federal government announced spending of $450 million directly linked to combatting terrorism and violent extremism associated with the Muslim community. ASIO will receive $296 million over six years to employ additional staff, information technology and facilities, while the ASIS annual budget in 2015–16 has been increased to $405 million. Telecommunications corporations will receive $131million to assist them implement the mandatory data-retention scheme, and some $22 million will be spent over four years countering online violent extremism. Border security will receive funding for training the new Australian Border Force, new information technology, and smart gates. It was also announced that the government will spend $545 million over four years through the human services budget to support social cohesion and community based programs to complement national security activities.

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Who’s Doing the Stabbing? Noah Rothman /

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

One of the most bizarre presidential election cycles in living memory just got a whole lot weirder

The Trump phenomenon has entered a phase of slow descent for now, paving the way for another outsider candidate to rise. Dr. Ben Carson is almost certainly a man of a more measured temperament and moral fortitude than Trump. Also, unlike Trump, Carson’s accomplishments are due solely to his aptitude, capacity for industry, and intellect. As exemplary men of achievement go, the GOP is far better served by Ben Carson’s rise to the forefront of the pack of Republican presidential candidates than they are by Trump’s ascendancy.

That is not to say that Ben Carson is qualified to serve as President of the United States. He is not. Though he is a lettered and brilliant man, Carson has not demonstrated competency or an understanding of the contours of policy that a modern commander-in-chief must fully grasp. As early as March, Carson was probed by radio host Hugh Hewitt on a range of issues related to foreign affairs. It was then that Americans learned that the pediatric neurosurgeon preferred to view the Middle East’s myriad ethno-geographic conflicts through the lens of Biblical scripture and was unclear on the fact that the Baltic States had been members of the NATO alliance for over a decade. In the months that have passed, the candidate has not boned up on the granular details of policy and process.

This week, Carson was stumped by a question on Cuba policy and confessed that he was unfamiliar with the U.S. asylum policy commonly referred to as “wet foot, dry foot.” That is, when Cuban migrants manage to make it onto U.S. soil, they are provided the opportunity to access expedited refugee status. Carson revealed that he had never heard of that policy. Earlier, he contended that Medicare and Medicaid were plagued by “half a trillion dollars” in losses due to fraud. “If true, that would be almost 50 percent of our total spending on the two programs,” the Washington Post’s James Downie noted. “The real number is somewhere between 3 and 10 percent.”

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Obama’s War Advisors Turn on Him :Noah Rothman

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

Barack Obama remains a fortunate president, insofar as the press is still invested in his success. Or, at least, in muting outrage over his failures. Any other American president who, while prosecuting an unpopular war, saw a series of critical national security advisors resign would probably generate some rather unfavorable coverage.

On September 22, Barack Obama’s hand-selected advisor coordinating global efforts to combat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, retired General John Allen, announced his intention to resign the post. Within a week, Evelyn Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, also handed in her resignation. Given the ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East into which the West is increasingly committing resources, these resignations are alarming.

In general, the flight of Obama’s war advisors from his administration went unnoticed by all but the keenest of observers. Both Allen and Farkas have determined, however, to make it difficult for the public to ignore their warnings. As both these advisors head for the exits, they and others are seeking exculpation for the increasing tensions and accelerating failures in their respective theaters of operations. What’s more, they are shifting blame toward the White House.

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Student Sensibilities Douglas Murray

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

On the tenth anniversary of the publication of the Danish cartoons the country’s Free Speech Society invited four speakers, including Mark Steyn and me, to commemorate the occasion. After the deadly attack on a free speech event in Copenhagen last February, the only place secure enough to house the event was the country’s Parliament. Afterwards I learned that in anticipation of the now traditional terrorist attack, both the US State Department and UK Foreign Office issued official warnings to their citizens not to go near the Parliament building on the day — not a piece of advice they had passed on to the speakers. In any case all fears were unnecessary and several hours of discussion on free speech, cartoons, Islam and the migration crisis played to a full and happily secure house.

I told the audience that apart from the realisation that free speech isn’t that popular, the other thing I had learnt in the last ten years is how rapidly fear spreads. As if on cue, the restaurant we were meant to be having dinner at cancelled when the police went around to do a preliminary security check. We all ended up at a party in a bar that felt slightly like a party at the end of the world — and none the worse for it. Shots of a quite foul Danish spirit, much beer and wine, the dense, uncommon smog of cigarette and cigar smoke, and at some point the opening of a bottle of champagne with a sword all played their part. Only the security guards at the door remained unmoved.

***

A few days later I was at Wellesley College near Boston for more of the same (discussion, that is). One major issue was the now heightened form of student sensibility which demands “trigger warnings” before reading anything and a “safe space” to protect students against uncomfortable ideas. This phenomenon assumes that a very large number of students suffer some form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A girl who was hospitalised after reading a novel is cited by way of example. One professor says that 56 per cent of American students have self-referred for stress, depression, PTSD and other mental illnesses. I feel unsympathetic towards this societal breakdown, and say so.

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Campus Stabber Planned to ‘Praise Allah’ and Behead Someone During Attack By Debra Heine

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

But authorities insist that neither terrorism nor religion were motives.

UC Merced stabber Faisal Mohammad carried a handwritten manifesto that included the names of his targets, a vow “to cut someone’s head off” and as many as five reminders to “praise Allah,” but law enforcement authorities insist that neither terrorism nor religion were motives in the attack.

According to Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke, Mohammad indicated in his manifesto that he was upset because he had been kicked out of a study group.

“There was nothing to indicate he was doing this because of Allah, or because he was going to be rewarded with 72 virgins, or because of ties to a terror group,” Warnke told FoxNews.com. “He appeared to be a devout Muslim, on the strong side of the belief.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

Clinton Signed Nondisclosure Agreement with Criminal Penalties for Mishandling Classified Info By Rick Moran

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

The day after being sworn in as secretary of State, Hillary Clinton signed a Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement that laid out criminal penalties for “any unauthorized disclosure” of classified information.

With the intelligence inspector general finding several instances of Clinton and her aides sending classified emails over a private, unsecured server, it will be interesting to see how Clinton tries to wiggle out from under this one.

Washington Free Beacon:

Clinton received at least two emails while secretary of state on her personal email server since marked “TS/SCI”—top secret/sensitive compartmented information—according to the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general.

The State Department said in September that Clinton’s private email system, set up at her Chappaqua, N.Y., home, was not authorized to handle SCI.

The Democratic presidential frontrunner defended her unauthorized possession of SCI and hersending of emails containing classified information by claiming that the information was not marked as classified when it was sent or received.

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The Truth About Ben Carson and West Point Bad actors in the media, imprecise statements from Carson.By J. Christian Adams

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

The opposing waves of response to the Politico story are a reminder that sometimes the truth is somewhere in between. Some are defending Ben Carson from Politico, and most every mainstream news organ is turning him into wood pulp. The truth about his West Point saga might be somewhere in between.

But whatever the truth is, the incident reveals a recurring and perhaps unrecoverable trait of candidate Carson. He just doesn’t seem to know what he is talking about, whether it be Cuba, the Voting Rights Act, or how West Point works.

First, the easy truth. The heart of the Politico story is this line from Carson’s book, courtesy of Dave Weigel’s snippet of it:

Later, I was offered a full scholarship to West Point.

There you have it. Now things get foggy. To a teenage Ben Carson, this might mean he thought he heard some authority figure tell him he should go to West Point and it wouldn’t cost him anything. That figure might be General William Westmoreland. Carson isn’t clear who offered the “scholarship.” But maybe to a young Ben Carson, that’s what he honestly thought was on the table.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

George Will drew first blood By Colin Flaherty

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

That was his first mistake. And Bill O’Reilly was about to make him pay for it with a dressing down rarely if ever seen between two conservative superstars on a major prime time news show.

The clash began with George Will’s evisceration of O’Reilly’s new book, Killing Reagan. O’Reilly documented how Reagan’s health was much worse than most knew. So bad, that staffers prepared a memo instructing Reagan’s chief of staff, Howard Baker, what to do if it was discovered the President was no longer able to carry out his duties.

Will did not like that on two counts. One, it was untrue. Two, it was unkind. Will’s attack began with the Washington Post headline: “Bill O’Reilly Slanders Ronald Reagan.”

The rest of the review was reminiscent of Mary McGrory quote of Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.”

A few one liners should capture Will’s unusually pugilistic approach:

“Unsubstantiated assertions.”

“Fiction (refuted by minute-by-minute records in the Reagan Library.)

“Pretense of scholarship.”

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Palestinians: A World of Lies, Deception and Fabrications by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

The only astonishing thing is that Abbas and the Palestinian leaders continue to refer to their wave of terrorism and bloodbath as a “peaceful, popular uprising.”

The terrorists were doubtless inspired by their president’s words. It is this kind of officially-sanctioned rhetoric that encourages young Palestinians to stab the first Jew they see.

This is not only a mountainous lie; it is an attempt on the part of the Palestinian Authority leadership to deceive the world into believing that Israeli security forces killed these poor innocent terrorists who were merely part of a peaceful protest. These “innocent” Palestinian men and women were “merely” in the process of trying to stab people to death.

The world in which Abbas and the Palestinian leadership live is a world of lies, fabrications and deception aimed at demonizing Israel and murdering Jews. The goal is not only to murder as many Jews as possible, but also to force Israel to its knees so that it will vanish as soon as possible.

Welcome to the world of the Palestinians, where we lie and then believe our own lies. And then want the rest of the world to believe them, too.

Sadly, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders are continuing to bury their heads in the sand and lying to everyone — from their people to the international community.

The current wave of Palestinian terrorism has entered its fourth week, but our leaders, above all the PA President Mahmoud Abbas, are continuing to talk about a “peaceful, popular uprising” against Israel. This wave of Palestinian stabbings, shootings and vehicular ramming has been anything but either “popular” or “peaceful.”

President Abbas and his top PLO and Fatah leaders have yet to explain to us what is peaceful and popular about stabbing an 80-year-old lady named Ruti Malka in Rishon Lezion, and a 70-year-old Jewish woman Jerusalem.

Instead of denouncing the terror attacks perpetrated by his people, Abbas continues to attack Israel for shooting the knife-wielding assailants to stop them. He has not missed one opportunity in the past four weeks to make false and libelous accusations against Israel. These include claims that Israelis are carrying out “summary executions” of “innocent” Palestinian men and women. In reality, these “innocent” Palestinian men and women were “merely” in the process of trying to stab people to death.

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‘The 33’: A Movie About the Trapped Chilean Miners Antonio Banderas stars in ‘The 33,’ about the Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days By Don Steinberg

Posted By on November 7th, 2015

Along with a billion or so other people, actor Antonio Banderas watched live in 2010 as 33 Chilean miners were miraculously pulled from a hole in the ground, after 69 days trapped 2,300 feet below the surface.

“I was watching the television and said, ‘Somebody’s gonna make a movie out of this,’” he recalls. Five years later he’s starring in it, playing a miner named Mario Sepulveda. “The 33” opens on Nov. 13.

The mine collapse became a media sensation almost the instant it became a catastrophe. It wasn’t exactly the circus that Billy Wilder depicted in “Ace in the Hole” (1951), in which an opportunistic reporter played by Kirk Douglas turns a poor sap trapped in a cave into a scoop and tourist attraction. But world-wide media flocked to Chile, especially 17 days into the ordeal when rescuers drilled a narrow hole, and miners sent up a handwritten note saying “Estamos bien.” (“We’re OK”). While engineers worked to drill a wider hole to get the miners out, the trapped workers got media offers via the mail they were receiving via a small tube.

“Mario had a film offer while down there. Some of them were getting offers to do gigs, to do interviews with Japanese television or go to Spain for a talk show,” says Héctor Tobar, a Los Angeles journalist who wrote the authorized book, “Deep Dark Down: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free.”