http://frontpagemag.com/2013/humberto-fontova/state-department-goes-all-out-to-protect-terror-sponsor/print/ Protecting U.S. diplomats from terrorists on foreign soil is one thing. Protecting terror-sponsoring diplomats on U.S. soil is quite another. Our State Department is currently under heavy fire for failing at the former. But a diplomat from a nation the U.S. officially classifies as a State-Sponsor-of-Terror has no complaints whatsoever against our State Department’s […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/senator-ted-cruz-confronting-the-threat-of-radical-islam/
Editor’s note: Below is the video and transcript of Senator Ted Cruz’s speech at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Texas Weekend. The inaugural event took place May 3rd-5th at the Las Colinas Resort in Dallas, Texas.
David Horowitz: We need leaders like Ted Cruz. And that’s why we are honored to have him on the platform today. (applause)
Ted Cruz: Thank you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you very, very much. It is great to be joining you all this evening. You know, I will observe, David, Washington is a strange, strange place. People are very, very surprised when you actually go there and do what you said you were going to do. (laughter)
I want to start by observing for all of you non-Texans, I apologize that Louie Gohmert is so soft-spoken. (laughter) That he has no opinions or courage or willingness to charge into the fray. And no sense of humor whatsoever. For the love of God, tell a joke once, Louie. (laughter)
I will point out that he described being mistaken for James Taylor. I haven’t had that experience. (laughter) But I have, in fact, been on an airplane once when a page went over asking for Tom Cruise to please come up.
And I walked up fairly sheepish. I said, “I’m — I think maybe you’re looking for me.” (laughter) You have never seen so many disappointed flight attendants. (laughter) Yes, it was, they’re just, like, “Oh.”
And I have to admit, Louie, your story of your five-year-old also remind me or Caroline, our eldest, who’s five. And in the course of the senate campaign there was one Saturday morning about 6:30 in the morning. And I was at home in the bedroom and I was on the phone doing a radio interview.
And Caroline came bursting into our room to come play with mommy and daddy. And Heidi, my wife, ran over and grabbed Caroline, pulled her out and said, “Not now, sweetie. Not now. Daddy’s doing a radio interview.” Caroline crossed her arms and she said, “Politics, politics, politics. It’s always politics.” (laughter) So, Louie, I feel your pain. (laughter)
And, you know, Bill, I have to say the Star Wars analogy at the end I thought was really quite compelling and I’m really waiting for the next presidential cycle when we can put Bill on national television and have him do a Jedi mind trick. (laughter) These aren’t the candidates you’re looking for. (laughter)
And I will confess as I sat there, I had an image suddenly of Jimmy Carter saying, “Barack, I am your father.” (laughter) And let me say additionally, the host of this gathering, David Horowitz, is a man who is utterly fearless. (applause)
And that is a very, very rare commodity. You know, David reminds me of a Texan, Chuck Norris. (laughter) Now, some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas. (laughter) And Chuck Norris wears David Horowitz pajamas. (applause)
But David is someone who understands we’re fighting to take our country back. He understands the severity of the threat in significant part because he’s been on the other side.
You know, we were visiting over dinner about how couple of months ago Jane Mayer in The New Yorker Magazine wrote a nasty hit piece. And David knew about that because he’s had a nasty hit piece written on him by her as well. Where she recounted that some time ago I’d talked about the fact that Barack Obama was four years ahead of me at Harvard law school.
And I made the point that when he and I were both students there were more Communists on the Harvard law school faculty than there were Republicans. There were quite a few who were self-described Marxists.
And she wrote this as a sensational, horrible Joe McCarthy has returned because this is terrible. And then the media all went crazy. I have to admit, our response in our office is we put up on Facebook a clip from Casablanca that MSNBC is shocked, shocked to discover there are Marxists at Harvard. (laughter)
I’m just impressed they think it’s a bad thing. (laughter) Hey, that’s making real progress. If they’re running away from it, I am glad of it. My favorite was actually this obscure blogger that was attacking me and said, “Cruz just doesn’t understand the difference between Marxist and Marxian.” (laughter)
I confess that is correct. I have utterly no idea what the difference is between Marxist and Marxian. And I would welcome anyone to make that argument to the American people.
I want to thank you all for being here. I want to thank you all for being engaged in the fight to turn our country around because it is — we are facing enormous perils. We are facing enemies abroad and at home.
And everyone’s here because we love this country. We love what the United States of America has meant for the world. And we are committed to doing everything we can to preserving this nation as a bacon — beacon of freedom to the world.
What I want to talk to you all tonight about is three different things. Number one, defending national security. Number two, preserving US sovereignty. And number three, restoring growth and opportunity.
Let’s start with national security. The major focus of this gathering. We have all sorts of challenges. We have a challenge that you all have done a terrific job examining. The challenge of radical Islamic terrorists.
And what a sad statement that we are living in a country where the president of the United States is unwilling to utter the words radical Islamic terrorist. You’re not going to win a war on terror if you’re not aware you’re fighting a war on terror.
And we have perils across the globe. We have number one the nation of Iran which I think may well pose the greatest national security threat to this entire country as Iran is proceeding by all appearances headlong towards developing nuclear weapons capacity.
And a nuclear Iran poses, in my opinion, an existential threat to this nation and to the nation of Israel. And if there’s one principle we have learned from history it’s that bullies and tyrants don’t respect weakness. The only thing they respect and understand is strength.
And one of the things that is so concerning about this president’s foreign policy is that I think it is hard to imagine that the Iranian leaders are doing anything but scoffing at the prospect of any serious repercussions from their proceeding to gaining nuclear weapons.
That is extraordinarily dangerous not just for what it would do for the region. Because once Iran acquired nuclear weapons we would immediately see proliferation throughout the region. And that’s just what we need is a bunch of nations with unstable governments and major radical Islamic elements in their society have nukes throughout the Middle East.
But it also exponentially increases the chances that those weapons would tragically be used against the nation of Israel or the nation of the United States. There are only two places those weapons would be used.
A second threat that has been driven home recently is you look at North Korea. North Korea’s a nation that has nuclear weapons. It is a nation whose leader is explicitly and openly drawing up targeting plans to launch those nuclear weapons to US cities.
One of the cities they targeted was Austin. (laughter) I have to admit, I was speaking at a gathering in Austin and someone from Austin observed that it must’ve been a mistake. They could not have meant to target the People’s Republic of Travis County. (laughter)
But, you know, look it is easy to make light of this. Because we don’t think they have the technology to miniaturize their nukes and put them on an ICBM and get them here. So they probably can’t do that. Isn’t that comforting?
Although, again, our intelligence services are disagreed on that. So some of our intelligence services think in fact they can do it. Others in the intelligence community think they can’t. So there’s a reasonable disagreement.
But think of the consequence. We have an unstable new leader who we don’t understand publicly declaring hostilities and an intention to target and potentially fire nuclear weapons at US cities. These are dangerous times.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348757/three-signs-there%E2%80%99s-cover-john-fund “Mistakes were made….I don’t recall” and other surefire clues. The late columnist William Safire once said that a good clue that someone in Washington was engaged in “an artful dodge,” i.e., a cover-up, was that they used the phrase “mistakes were made.” Safire defined it as a “passive-evasive way of acknowledging error while distancing […]
The government is the worst vendor possible for managing health-insurance exchanges. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323528404578452462042737232.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion On Oct. 1, millions of Americans are supposed to be able to go online and acquire health insurance on electronic exchanges in the states where they live. But here is a question that is being increasingly asked by people in the insurance industry: […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/05/the_complete_irs_scandal_timeline_in_spreadsheet_format.html
A huge thank-you to Doug Ross of the invaluable Director Blue website for compiling a complete timeline of the IRS scandal. So many lies and misleading statements have already been made that the American public must evaluate Obama administration representations clasely, and compare them to the known record. Here it is:
Hat tip: Clarice Feldman
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/05/the_complete_irs_scandal_timeline_in_spreadsheet_format.html#ixzz2TpPckWAf
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http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/05/what_hurts_the_most_about_benghazi.html I can’t look my old liberal friends in the eye after Benghazi. Most partisan disagreements are forgivable, and I try hard not to lose dear friends over politics. Benghazi is different. Benghazi isn’t political for me. Benghazi is about Americans fighting jihadis for their lives and being abandoned to die by politicians. It is […]
http://www.steynonline.com/5536/the-bickering-genocides
Justin Bieber, my successor as Canada’s teen heartthrob, is currently touring Europe. Passing through Amsterdam, he was taken to visit the Anne Frank House and afterwards signed the guest book. “Anne was a great girl,” he wrote. “Hopefully, she would have been a belieber” — the term used by devoted fans of young Justin. Miss Frank did not live to become a belieber because she was shipped off to Belsen concentration camp and died of typhus in 1945. But had she lived I feel it safe to say she would have regarded Justin’s oeuvre as complete bilge: As a teenager, she liked Liszt, so she was a beliszter; she belonged to the franz club. Anyway, Justin’s poignant message set off a Twitterstorm of criticism at what the Washington Post called “the insensitivity and the sheer ego” of it.
I’m inclined to cut him some slack here. As the years go by, Anne Frank’s supposedly inspiring story makes me a little queasy. Europe venerates its dead Jews even as a resurgent anti-Semitism chases out its living ones. Everyone loves Jews as victims. In other roles, not so much.
http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/05/20/benghazi-and-going-the-full-nixon/?print=1 Choosing which is worse between the Benghazi and IRS scandals is probably as much a Rorschach test of the chooser as it is anything else. Both scandals are hugely serious and likely to be with us for a long time. For me, however, Benghazi is worse, in part because it is easier for some […]
http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2013/05/19/benghazi-as-lazarus-back-from-the-dead/?print=1 “The more we know, the more rancid, not to say criminal, the administration’s behavior appears.” Last fall, I thought [1] the premeditated terrorist attack on our consular facility in Benghazi — an attack, let us remember, that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead — would cost Barack Obama the election. I […]
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3161/i_used_to_be_an_islamist
Ahmad Mansour, EFD Policy Advisor, is an Arab-Israeli who has been living in Berlin since 2004. In addition, he is a Research Associate at the Centre for Democratic Culture, part of the Astiu Project (Conflict with Islamic extremism and ultra-nationalism) and is a member of the Prevention Work with Youths working group at the German Islam Conference
Ahmad Mansour tells of how he turned his back on the allure of religious fundamentalism
At 13-years of age, I was a shy boy with wild curly hair. I was keen on playing football and I would regularly quarrel with my grandparents. Until then, the world I knew reached the end of our dusty Arab village near Tel Aviv.
I was a good pupil, but had difficulties finding friends, because my shyness often got in the way. So I felt flattered when one day our local imam took an interest in me. He stopped me on my way to school telling me he wanted to talk to me.
After telling me I was a good boy, he said he saw potential in me for bigger things. When he proclaimed: “Islam needs you, my son!” I listened to him with wide eyes and open ears.
“All at once I was among the chosen ones”
Shortly afterwards and in an auspicious gesture, he invited me to attend his Koran classes. The presence of this impressive, elderly man with a full beard and bushy eyebrows, made me think that I was among the chosen ones. Although my parents were not very happy – they were anti- religious at the time – they preferred that I learnt something useful instead of joining a local youth gang, like the boy next door.
Our neighbourhood mosque was a white-washed building with a modest minaret and a turquoise gate. Each Thursday after evening prayers, we would gather for lessons in its coolly ventilated basement rooms. With its carpets and framed surahs, I found the place quite cozy and I enjoyed the coolness on hot summer days.
I still happily recall the first lessons. A whole new world opened up to me, and it was an intellectual sport to get one’s tongue around the Arabic words in the Koran. Our imam taught us the complexities of standard Arabic grammar and we listened to his interpretations and especially to his captivating portrayals of paradise with its blissful gardens, fresh springs and its many conveniences – which all fascinated me. To hear that I belonged to a people that had once been great and powerful filled me with exhilaration. But the best thing was I had finally found friends and we were united by a common purpose.
The Islamic school helped broaden my horizons. For the first time I could imagine a world beyond the edge of our village. In a ramshackle bus we would travel to seminars on Islam in other cities. There we saw imams who had attained superstar status. We accompanied our imam to weddings or excursions to lakes or sacred sites. Excitement had come into my once dreary life.
The lessons changed
But it didn’t take long before the nature of the classes shifted. All of a sudden it was not about poetic surahs or Arabic grammar. The focus shifted to frightening scenarios in which the imam evoked the oppression of the umma, or community of believers, who had to fight for the liberation of Palestine. He forcefully spoke of the accursed Jews; the inevitable recapture of Spain; and finally the Islamisation of Europe.
Sinning started to play a major rule. Our imam was verbose on the matter. Women were particularly dangerous; looking at them was forbidden, holding hands was forbidden and unveiled women were doomed to hell.
From that moment we weren’t allowed to feel affection for our female classmates. Instead they became enemies; creatures intended to lead us astray. It even became natural for me to despise the really pretty girls and lose interest, since they already seemed unattainable. Apart from that, our neighbours, who secretly drank alcohol, were, also apparently damned.
Arab girls, Jews and drinking villagers were the prime enemies in our midst, but the imam disclosed that in the outside world there were more foes: Christians, Americans, Europeans, Nationalists and Communists. They were all our enemies and aligned with the Devil. Our imam preached that a cruel and agonizing death was in store for them. One day, in order to maximize our respect for his words, he subjected us to a dramatic test.
Late in the evening we went to our village cemetery in our imam’s old car. As we got out, we recognised the cemetery’s little wall in the darkness. The whole group followed the imam who was muttering surahs. Around us there was nothing but the silver moonlight lighting our path between the graves. Finally we stood at the front of an open, freshly excavated grave. There the imam commanded us to stand around in a semicircle.
The test of courage: a bizarre initiation ceremony
With sudden and loud exclamations he said: “Think of your death! Think of your encounter with Allah! Bear in mind that you are all going to end here! Maybe tomorrow or in a month!” Then we were told to each climb down into the hole and lie flat one by one. It was a test of courage, but also a bizarre initiation ceremony. As we descended into the dugout one after another, the imam kept calling: “For all the people who didn’t follow Allah in their lives, snakes and demons are waiting in their graves to beat and torture them for all eternity!”
