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October 2018

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FBI, Hazmat Team Descend on Sen. Susan Collins’ House in Bangor After Ricin Letter Threat By Debra Heine

By on October 16th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/fbi-hazmat-team-descend-on-sen-susan-collins-house-in-bangor-after-ricin-letter-threat/

A hazmat team was called in to Senator Susan Collins’ home in Bangor, Maine, Monday after her husband received a threatening letter that may have been contaminated with poison. A number of other law enforcement groups descended on the Collins house, including the Bangor Criminal Investigation Division, the Bangor Fire Department, and the FBI, Bangor Daily News reported.

Police shut down a road adjacent to her house for several hours Monday afternoon.

“Senator Collins’ husband, Tom Daffron, today received a threatening letter that the writer claimed was contaminated with ricin, a highly hazardous substance which was used in a previous attack against the United States Senate,” Collins’ spokeswoman Annie Clark said in a statement Monday night. “Mr. Daffron, their dog, and parts of their home were quarantined while the crime lab undertook an analysis of the premises. The affected areas have now been cleared, and Senator Collins and Mr. Daffron will be able to remain at home tonight.”

Preliminary test results indicated there was no threat to the public.

Collins, a Republican, was not at home Monday afternoon while local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including a Hazmat team from Orono, investigated her West Broadway residence. Sgt. Wade Betters of the Bangor Police Department referred questions to the U.S. Capitol Police, the primary investigating agency.

Police had no comment on whether they had identified a suspect, who would probably face federal charges.

Clark said Monday night that the threatening letter was “the latest in a series of threats against Senator Collins, her loved ones, and her staff.”

Collins has had to endure vicious attacks from the left both before and after she cast a decisive vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, including protests in front of her house.

The senator arrived home from Washington, D.C., in the early evening, after most police had cleared the scene, Bangor Daily News reported.

“We are very grateful for the immediate and professional assistance that we received from the Bangor Police Department, the Maine Crime lab, the Maine State Police Department, the Capitol Police, the FBI, the Orono Hazmat Unit, the Bangor Fire Department, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service,” Collins said in a joint statement with her husband on Twitter.

“We are also truly appreciative of the many well wishes that we received today. Our friends and neighbors have been incredibly kind and have even offered to open their homes to us. We feel blessed to live in such a supportive community,” the statement continued. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Spain: Islamic State Recruiting in Prisons by Soeren Kern

By on October 16th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13117/spain-prisons-islamic-state

The group — which Spain’s Interior Ministry described as a jihadi “Prisons Front” (“frente de cárceles”) — was engaged in recruiting, indoctrinating and radicalizing other inmates, as well as in plotting new jihadi attacks.

“We want to prepare ourselves for the jihad for Allah. I have good news: I have created a new group, we are willing to die for Allah at any moment. We are waiting to be released from prison so that we can begin working. We have men, we have weapons and we have targets. All we need is practice.” — Mohamed Achraf, in a letter written from prison to another inmate.

“The majority of the individuals being investigated, far from being deradicalized, have not only remained active in jihadi militancy, but have become even more radical during their incarceration.” — Spanish Interior Ministry.

Spanish police have dismantled a jihadi network operating inside and across more than a dozen Spanish prisons. The network, allegedly linked to the Islamic State, was established and operated by one of the most implacable jihadis in the Spanish prison system — apparently under the noses of prison authorities.

The network’s existence has called into question not only the effectiveness of security procedures in Spanish prisons, but also of Spanish “deradicalization” programs, which are aimed at “rehabilitating” Islamic militants for eventual “reinsertion” into society.

The group’s core members included 25 jihadis in 17 different prisons (accounting for more than half of the 30 Spanish prisons equipped to house jihadi convicts), according to the Interior Ministry, which provided details of the counterterrorism operation on October 2.

The group — which the Interior Ministry described as a jihadi “Prisons Front” (“frente de cárceles”) — was engaged in recruiting, indoctrinating and radicalizing other inmates, as well as in plotting new jihadi attacks.

The network’s members included convicted jihadis as well as common inmates who were radicalized in prison. Among them were several Spanish citizens who are converts to Islam. Some members were nearing the end of their sentences and were waiting to be released from prison.

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Global Zero and Its Nuclear Globaloney by Peter Huessy

By on October 16th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13124/global-zero-baloney

According to the Princeton University disarmament group, Global Zero, an agreement on “No First Use” would be in a new treaty — one in which everyone “sincerely vows” never to use nuclear weapons first.

If warheads were actually removed from both submarine- and silo-based missiles, however, it would take months to put them back on the missiles, assuming the storage facilities used for the warheads were not destroyed in a preemptive Russian or Chinese attack. Talk about painting a bull’s-eye on your nuclear forces.

The Princeton University disarmament group, Global Zero, has released a new 107-page report — “The End of Nuclear Warfighting: Moving to a Deterrence-Only Posture” — that calls for the unilateral disarmament of more than two-thirds of the US nuclear deterrent and the adoption of a Chinese deterrent strategy including placing most US warheads in storage bunkers far removed from the missiles that could carry them.

The report’s conclusions are as follows:
US Deterrent Policy

China and Russia have no incentive to attack the United States, so the US can cut in half its nuclear arsenal — unilaterally — as the US no longer has to worry about the size of the Russian nuclear arsenal in measuring its own deterrent.

A reserve fleet of 40 nuclear bombers, but not readily available for use, is proposed, as opposed to the 75 B52 and 100 B21 bombers for both conventional and nuclear missions in the Trump administration plan. Bomber weapons would be kept in storage only to be used in emergencies.

The US target list to be destroyed in a hypothetical retaliatory strike should only be Russian industry and leadership, including electrical facilities, banking and communications, with 50% of the targets able to be destroyed with conventional weapons and cyber-attacks, further eliminating the need for nuclear weapons.

No Russian conventional or nuclear military targets need to be destroyed. As Russian infrastructure does not “move,” there is no need to destroy it quickly.

Global Zero says the US should unilaterally adopt China’s nuclear strategy, with most of America’s nuclear warheads not on alert but stored elsewhere; a deterrent of no more than 200-300 warheads deployed and in reserve (compared to 3,800 today); and a posture of no first use of such weapons.

Global Zero advocates a submarine-based MONAD deterrent, as opposed to the current US three-legged Triad of bombers, submarines and land-based missiles. Only 260 warheads would be at sea under this deterrence-only plan; at first, total deployed warheads would be 5 submarines x 16 missiles x 8 warheads per missile — or 640 warheads, but then declining after that to under 300.

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What Multiculturalism Hides by Jan Keller

By on October 16th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13128/multiculturalism

Prof. Jan Keller is a Czech Social Democrat Member of the European Parliament, sociologist, analyst, commentator and author of more than 30 books, including Sociology of the Organization and Bureaucracy (2007) or The Three Social Worlds (2011). He studied at the universities of Bordeaux (1985), Aix-en-Provence (1988) and Sorbonne (1992) in Paris. He has lectured sociology at the University of Lille, Poitiers, Trento, Lodz and Barcelona.This article is based on a speech delivered at the seminar, “Is Mass Immigration a Condition for Prosperity of Europe?” held by the Institute Vaclav Klaus in Prague on March 19, 2015 and is published here with the kind permission of the author. It was translated into English by Josef Zbořil.

The policy of multiculturalism, which emphasizes the benefits of cultural diversity for society and the state, is an example of the exploitation of others based on a fantasy of virtue. Those at whom the sweet talk of multiculturalism is aimed, can see that it has done nothing to improve their lot, and are now realizing that their future is bleak.

If we bring in highly qualified immigrants to our workforce, we would be taking away from poorer countries the best they have to offer, and the situation in those countries will further deteriorate. The result will be an even greater flow of unskilled migrants escaping those countries.

The proponents of the new multiculturalism want to share their welfare states with masses of refugees who — through no fault of their own — will be unable to participate in financing themselves for a long time to come.

Multiculturalism is not a manifestation of Europe’s generosity, or some noble embodiment of love and truth. Multiculturalism is what remains after mass migration reveals itself as a threat, rather than a benefit, to the economies of European countries.

Take, for instance, the example of France. After the Second World War, when France underwent a boom of economic growth, waves of migration were viewed favorably: there were many job opportunities for unskilled and medium-skilled laborers, and the native French population aspired to work in the tertiary sector, which offered more qualified, better-paid jobs. From the end of the war until the mid-1970s, foreign workers tended to come to France temporarily, without their families, and return to their countries of origin. These workers were generally recruited from former French colonies to do menial and low-paying jobs — not in order to enrich the culture of the host country.

At the end of the 1970s, that situation changed. Foreign workers began coming to France with their families and also having children after arriving in the country. At the same time, however, there were changes in the economy that ended up leaving descendants of the recruited workers hopeless. While their parents had experienced some upward mobility, they themselves — even those with a higher level of education than their parents — were left with fewer job opportunities and became a surplus on the labor market; they also did not have another place to go. In other words, they had been born in a country that suddenly had nothing to offer. The only thing that the government could come up with was a rationale for the dire situation — a mission for these children of migrants: that they should enrich themselves culturally in the country to which their parents had migrated. This new policy of multiculturalism, which emphasizes the benefits of cultural diversity for society and the state, is an example of the exploitation of others based on a fantasy of virtue. Those at whom the sweet talk of multiculturalism is aimed, can see that it has done nothing to improve their lot, and are now realizing that their future is bleak.

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ELECTIONS ARE COMING: ARIZONA-MARTHA McSALLY FOR SENATE

By on October 16th, 2018

Kyrsten Sinema Promoted a Terrorist Lawyer By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/kyrsten-sinema-promoted-a-terrorist-lawyer/

Don’t buy the Arizona Senate candidate’s excuses.

Last week it emerged that, in 2003, Democratic Senate hopeful Kyrsten Sinema had promoted campus appearances by Lynne Stewart, a radical lawyer, while Stewart was being prosecuted for providing material support to terrorism. Having been called out on this, Sinema has distorted basic facts of the case.

Sinema represents Arizona’s 9th district in the House and is locked in a tight race against Martha McSally, who represents the state’s 2nd district, for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Jeff Flake.

As it happens, Ms. Stewart, who died in 2017, was my main adversary in the 1995 terrorism prosecution of her client, Omar Abdel Rahman, better known as the “Blind Sheikh.” Abdel Rahman (who also died in 2017, just a few weeks before Stewart) was the jihadist whom Stewart was convicted of abetting; she helped him communicate with his murderous Egyptian terrorist organization from the American prison where he was serving a life sentence.

I am thus in a position to counter Representative Sinema’s misrepresentations about her advocacy on Stewart’s behalf.

A leading light of the notoriously jihadist-friendly lawyer left, Sinema now portrays herself as a moderate progressive. To the contrary, her political activism began when she co-founded a “social justice” organization, Local to Global Justice, while studying law at Arizona State University. In that connection, Sinema urged people in what Fox News describes as a “now-closed Yahoo group” to attend two 2003 events at which Stewart was the featured speaker.

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Cherokee nation rains on Elizabeth Warren’s parade By Monica Showalter

By on October 16th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/cherokee_nation_rains_on_elizabeth_warrens_parade.html

Elizabeth Warren was doing a victory dance about her DNA test showing “strong evidence” she may have 1/1,024 or 0.09 percent Native American lineage. In hot pursuit, she called on President Trump to “pay up” with his $1 million offer to the charity of her choice for taking the DNA test he said he would toss to her at a future presidential debate, earlier. As the network press admiringly gushed about the whole “gotcha,” she was convinced she had him cornered.

Well, sorry – that debate hasn’t happened yet, and now it’s doubtful that it ever will, because Warren is hearing from the leaders of the Cherokee nation.

Here is their astonishing rebuke to her for what they rightly view as a shabby little publicity stunt at their expense:

A Cherokee Nation official rebuked Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts after a DNA test report published Monday asserted there is evidence to “strong support” Warren’s claim to have Native American ancestors.

Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. called the test cited by Warren’s report “useless” in determining tribal citizenship and alleged she was “undermining tribal interests” with her “continued claims of tribal heritage.”

“A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America,” Hoskin said in a statement.

“Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong[,]” Hoskin added. “It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its [sic] legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven.”

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We’re All Native Americans Now Elizabeth Warren demonstrates the folly of identity politics.

By on October 16th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/were-all-native-americans-now-1539645420

Any doubt that Elizabeth Warren plans to run for President ended Monday when the Massachusetts Senator released a DNA analysis indicating that she probably does have some trace of distant Native American ancestry.

The former Harvard professor went so far as to unveil a website and video featuring an analysis by Stanford professor Carlos Bustamante, who said that while Ms. Warren is mainly European she likely has some Native American ancestry “in the range of 6-10 generations ago.”

This makes her between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American, which barely spares her the humiliation of not having any after she had listed herself as Native American on federal forms filed by Harvard and Penn law schools where she had worked. On the other hand, she also looks silly for making so much of so little. As Americans are learning as the costs of genetic testing fall, nearly all of us have multiple ethnic and racial backgrounds. Ms. Warren tried to make an identity politics virtue of a genetic banality.

Credit on this point goes to Donald Trump, who mocked Ms. Warren’s genetic boast and no doubt prompted her to get the truth out before the 2020 campaign begins. Ms. Warren now says Mr. Trump should make good on his boast to write a $1 million check to charity if Ms. Warren proved she had Native American blood.

Write the check, Donald. You’ll look gracious, and you’ll have an amusing talking point and photograph that will last the entire 2020 campaign.

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Democrats Abandon the Constitution The Kavanaugh battle lost, they claim the Electoral College, Senate and judiciary are illegitimate. 738 Comments By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey

By on October 16th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-abandon-the-constitution-1539645364

Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court has sparked a firestorm of outrage and recrimination on the left. Some attacks seem aimed at intimidating the justices into supporting progressive causes. “The Court must now prove—through its work—that it is worthy of the nation’s trust,” Eric Holder, President Obama’s attorney general, tweeted Oct. 6.

Yet the attacks go beyond ideology. Detractors of Justice Kavanaugh and President Trump are denouncing the Constitution itself and the core elements of America’s governmental structure:

• The Electoral College. Mr. Trump’s opponents claim he is an illegitimate president because Hillary Clinton “won the popular vote.” One commentator even asked “what kind of nation allows the loser of a national election to become president.” The complaint that the Electoral College is undemocratic is nothing new. The Framers designed it that way. They created a republican form of government, not a pure democracy, and adopted various antimajoritarian measures to keep the “demos” in check.

The Electoral College could be eliminated by amending the Constitution. But proposing an amendment requires two-thirds votes in both houses of Congress, and the legislatures of three-fourths, or 38, of the states would have to ratify it.

• The Senate. The complaint here is that the 50 senators who voted in Justice Kavanaugh’s favor “represent” fewer people than the 48 who voted against him. But senators represent states, not people.

Equal Senate representation for the states was a key part of the Connecticut Compromise, along with House seats apportioned by population. The compromise persuaded large and small states alike to accept the new Constitution. It was so fundamental that Article V of the Constitution—which spells out the amendment procedure—provides that “no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” That means an amendment changing the structure of the Senate would require ratification by all 50 states.

• Judicial independence. Commentators who disapprove of the Supreme Court’s composition have urged, as one law professor put it, “shrinking the power of the courts to overrun our citizens’ democratic decisions.” Some suggest limiting and staggering the justices’ terms so that a vacancy would come up every other year, ensuring that the court follows the election returns. That could be achieved via constitutional amendment, but it would go against the Framers’ wisdom. As Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 78, life tenure for judges is “the best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright and impartial administration of the laws.”

Some of Justice Kavanaugh’s detractors have demanded that if Democrats take the House next month, they open an investigation into the sex-crime allegations Senate Democrats failed to substantiate. But although Congress has wide oversight powers with respect to the executive branch, it has no such oversight authority over the judiciary. The only way the House can legitimately investigate a sitting judge is in an impeachment proceeding.

And Justice Kavanaugh cannot be impeached for conduct before his promotion to the Supreme Court. Article III provides that judges “hold their Offices during good Behavior,” so that a judge can be removed only for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” committed during his term in office. CONTINUE AT SITE

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TIME OUT: OCTOBER 6 TO OCTOBER 17

By on October 5th, 2018

I will be on vacation….rsk

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What Did Brett Kavanaugh Do at the Junior Prom? by David C. Stolinsky ****

By on October 5th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13084/brett-kavanaugh-nomination

One can have complete sympathy for someone who underwent the trauma of experiencing attempted sexual assault, but the fishy timing and discrepancies of this reported incident make it hard not to ask what unprovable and undefendable allegations will the next character assassin toss out. Hard-drug use? Child abuse? How pervasive and surreal are such fact-challenged defamations going to get?
According to a report by Congressman Louie Gohmert, Senator Ted Stevens “was not only completely innocent of the manufactured case against him, he was an honest and honorable man. Under Director Mueller’s overriding supervision, the wrongdoer who helped manufacture the case stayed on and the whistleblower was punished.”
Back where I come from, officials investigate crimes that can be named and that have occurred; they do not go around trying to manufacture them. Back where I come from, officials investigate crimes to discover who committed them; they do not investigate people to see if they can come up with one.
I come from America. It is a nice place to visit, but it is a really great place to live. One day I hope to live there again. A good way to make that day come sooner is to end the government’s framing people, and presumptions of guilt. Ending politically motivated prosecutions, criminal conspiracies to overthrow a duly elected president, and ending criminal abuse of power might also help.

Was it the junior prom or just a high-school party? Was Christine Blasey Ford, who says she was the victim of Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault, 15 or 16 years old at the time? Were there four boys present during the incident, as in the notes of Blasey Ford’s therapist, or two, as she says now? Did Kavanaugh’s friend, Mark Judge, who strongly denies the incident, participate? Was it even Kavanaugh who participated, or perhaps someone who looked like him? Why did the alleged victim wait 35 years (or was it 36) to come forward? Why did Senator Dianne Feinstein refer the complaint to the FBI, which has no jurisdiction?

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