RUTHFULLY YOURS

Pakistan’s use of Islamic militancy as an instrument of its foreign policy, including knowingly playing host to Osama bin Laden, may now pose a looming threat to its own national security.

According to Pakistani sources, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is gaining strength in Pakistan. Altaf Hussain, the founder and leader of Muttahida Quami Movement, a Pakistani political party representing the Urdu-speaking community, said the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al-Qaeda are merging with ISIS and may challenge Pakistan’s integrity and stability.

Six prominent members of the Pakistan Taliban have turned their allegiance away from Afghan Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Omar to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Five regional Taliban commanders also affirmed their support for al-Baghdadi, who, in June, declared himself the Caliph of the Muslim world and ordered all Muslims to pledge their allegiance to him. Al-Baghdadi’s success has been largely attributed to his ability to consolidate disparate militant factions into a single fighting force.

The October 23, 2014 killing of eight Shia Muslims in the southwestern city of Quetta suggests that ISIS may be having an influence on indigenous Sunni militants in Pakistan. Abdul Khaliq Hazara, leader of the Shia Hazara Muslim community said: “There are indications of ISIS seeking to expand its presence in Baluchistan. I suppose ISIS are [sic] looking to build up a support base here along the border with Iran, to add pressure on Iran from its eastern border [along Pakistan].”

Pakistan remains a central node in global terrorism. For forty years Pakistan has been backing Islamic extremist groups as part of its expansionist foreign policy in Afghanistan and Central Asia and its efforts to maintain equilibrium with India. As early as the 1950s, Pakistan began inserting Islamists associated with a Pakistan-based Jamaat-e-Islami into Afghanistan.

Strategically, Pakistan may present the greatest threat to Afghan independence and the success of American policy in the region. Pakistan views Afghanistan as a client state, a security buffer against what they consider potential Indian encirclement and as a springboard to extend their own influence into the resource-rich area of Central Asia. In 1974, then Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, set up a cell within Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) to begin managing dissident Islamists in Afghanistan. Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq (1977-1988) told one of his generals: “Afghanistan must be made to boil at the right temperature.”

Back in 1970, when I got involved in the first Earth Day and nascent environmental movement, we had real pollution problems. But over time, new laws, regulations, attitudes and technologies cleaned up our air, water and sloppy industry practices. By contrast, today’s battles are rarely about the environment.

As Ron Arnold and I detail in our new book, Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the save-the-Earth money machine, today’s eco-battles pit a $13.4-billion-per-year U.S. environmentalist industry against the reliable, affordable, 82% fossil fuel energy that makes our jobs, living standards, health, welfare and environmental quality possible. A new Senate Minority Staff Report chronicles how today’s battles pit poor, minority and blue-collar families against a far-left “Billionaires Club” and the radical environmentalist groups it supports and directs, in collusion with federal, state and local bureaucrats, politicians and judges – and with thousands of corporate bosses and alarmist scientists who profit mightily from the arrangements.

These ideological comrades in arms run masterful, well-funded, highly coordinated campaigns that have targeted, not just coal, but all hydrocarbon energy, as well as nuclear and even hydroelectric power. They fully support the Obama agenda, largely because they helped create that agenda.

They seek ever-greater control over our lives, livelihoods, living standards, liberties and wealth. They know they will rarely, if ever, be held accountable for the fraudulent science they employ and the callous, careless, even deliberate harm they inflict. They also know their own wealth and power will largely shield them from the deprivations that their policies impose on the vast majority of Americans.

These Radical Greens have impacted coal mines, coal-fired power plants, factories, the jobs that went with them, and the family security, health and welfare that went with those jobs. They have largely eliminated leasing, drilling, mining and timber harvesting across hundreds of millions of acres in the western United States and Alaska – and are now targeting ranchers. In an era of innovative seismic and drilling technologies, they have cut oil production by 6% and gas production by 28% on federally controlled lands.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/nebraska-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand?f=must_reads

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2014/05/30/nebraska-congressional-elections-2014/
Ben Sasse (R) Challenger

Tomorrow night, if things go the way conservatives hope and forecasters predict, Republicans will retake the Senate. Already the process stories have started, claiming that this is essentially “the Seinfeld Election,” an election about nothing. Supposedly, Republicans are winning simply by being against Barack Obama’s bad policies, instead of actually being for good policies.

With constructive optimists like Joni Ernst and Cory Gardner running in my neighboring states of Iowa and Colorado, I completely disagree, but it’s important for Republicans to understand where the narrative is going next. Starting Wednesday, the cry from Democrats and the media will be that Republicans do not have a real governing agenda, that all we care about is shutting down the government, and that the supposed “GOP civil war” is back and worse than ever. Even though there will often be little data to support this handwringing analysis, the media will frame the new majority as a dysfunctional caucus with two warring factions: “Team Small Ball” vs. “Team Shutdown.”

I categorically reject these categories. But there is only one way for Republicans to combat this obsession with intra-Republican debate: Go big.

The media’s portrait of an agenda-less GOP rings true to many because it was true for too long: In each election, Americans had to choose between Democrats with Big Government bad ideas, and Republicans with seemingly no ideas at all and no passion for tackling the nation’s biggest problems. Heading into 2016, we cannot beat something with nothing. We have to get good at explaining what we are for.

If there is one lesson of this election, it’s that the American people are desperate for real leadership. For six years, we have watched our federal government try to do more things than ever before, inserting itself into every sector of life but not really doing anything very well.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence did not pledge their fortunes and sacred honor so the federal government could play “helicopter parent” to a free people. They saw government as our shared project to secure liberty, doing a few big things and doing them well. We need to get back to that.

The first step is explaining to Americans that we must get our house in order. That we must take a hard look at what our government is doing in D.C. and ask tough questions. We have to state more clearly that fixing the broken parts of government is not the same as opposing government in and of itself.

“There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir:

We must rise and follow her,

When from every hill of flame,

She calls, and calls each vagabond by name.”

William Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

Seventy-three years ago my mother wrote, “An Ode to October.” It was the month of her parents’ birth and of their wedding. The poem begins:

“October is a happy month,

A month of love and song.”

This October was more mixed. On the positive side, markets rose, despite the S&P 500 dropping 5.6% in the first two weeks. Oil prices declined 11% during the month, a welcome relief as we head into the winter season.

Of greater concern, market volatility, as measured by the VIX, rose 61% by mid-month; though by the end of October was lower than where it had been at the start. Additionally, there were four days when the DJIA moved more than 1.5%, the most since June 2012. Increased volatility serves as a reminder of the unpredictability of markets. While bear markets always come to an end, bull markets do not grow to the sky.

Terrorism came to the Western Hemisphere, with two instances in two days in Canada and with a hatchet-wielding Islamist whacking a cop in New York. In all three cases, justice was swift. Venezuela won a seat on the United Nation’s Security Council. An unmanned NASA-contracted rocket exploded on lift-off at NASA’s Wallop Flight Facility in Virginia. The craft, a commercial vehicle, was carrying 5000 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station. Fortunately no one was hurt. A Russian spaceship made the trip in its stead. Not so lucky were the pilots of SpaceShipTwo, a Virgin Galactic craft designed for tourists that fell apart over the Mohave Desert. One was killed; the other managed to parachute out, but was badly injured. The two incidents highlight the fact we have lost our leadership in space.

Although you can read the 288 pages of this well-researched, well-written, and passionately argued book over a weekend, its message will stay with you for years. Bret Stephens, the Pulitzer Prize–winning foreign-affairs columnist and deputy editorial-page editor of the Wall Street Journal, believes that America is not in decline but, under the Obama administration, definitely in retreat, and that this trend must be reversed before catastrophe strikes. “Americans seeking a return to an isolationist garden of Eden, alone and undisturbed in the world, knowing neither good nor evil,” he warns, “will soon find themselves within shooting range of global pandemonium.”

America in Retreat had its genesis in “The Coming Global Disorder,” an article published in the July/August 2012 issue of this magazine. Stephens expanded his article backward chronologically to encompass George Washington’s dangerous and, in my view, myopic, farewell address and Thomas Jefferson’s equally irresponsible first inaugural speech, with its warning against “entangling alliances.” This book readily acknowledges the pristine historical pedigree of much of present-day isolationist thought, therefore, before picking it apart piece by piece as extraordinarily dangerous for modern America.

What has happened? “We got out of Iraq, completely,” writes Stephens. “We are on our way out of Afghanistan. We want no part of what’s happening in Syria, no matter how many civilians are brutalized or red lines crossed. We are dramatically curtailing our use of drones in Pakistan. We pretend to ‘pivot’ to Asia, but so far our pivot has mostly been a feint. We are quietly backing away from our security guarantees to Taiwan. We denounce Russia’s seizure of Crimea…but we refuse requests by the Ukrainian government to provide their diminished military with arms.” Last November John Kerry even announced to the Organization of American States the end of the 190-year-old Monroe Doctrine. The world’s policeman is in the process of handing in his badge and gun.

In September, the New York Times published on its front page a lengthy and detailed story with the headline “Europe’s Anti-Semitism Comes Out of the Shadows.” The article contained no breaking news, no revelations, no surprising analyses, and no startling perspectives. Its statistics, anecdotes, and lamentations were sadly familiar not only to Jews but to all friends and allies of the Jewish state.

After all, we do not need the Times to tell us that the murder and assault of European Jews, the destruction of their property, the banning of their religious practices, and the demonization of their communities have become routine. “Synagogues,” said one man in the story, “are burning again in Germany in the night.”

What made the article noteworthy was its very existence. The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe is a trend so noticeable, so flagrant, and so disturbing, that not even the mainstream media can miss it. “Anti-Semitism Row Shines Light on Fractured French Society,” reports CNN. “A ‘New Anti-Semitism’ Rising in France,” notes the Washington Post. “Anti-Semitism Flares in Europe amid Gaza War,” writes USA Today.

Missing from these earnest and well-intentioned pieces, however, was any acknowledgment of the role the media themselves have played in creating the conditions under which anti-Semitism flourishes. The media do not grasp, the media refuse to see, the relation between the biased and hostile coverage of Israel they produce every day and the anti-Semitism on which they report.

That relation should be apparent to any close reader of the “anti-Semitism is back” articles. They all have a similar structure. The problem is introduced: A pro-Nazi salute has become fashionable among soccer players; an anti-Semitic comedian is a sensation in France; protestors in European capitals chant “Death to Jews.” Explanations are offered: Muslim immigrants to Europe carry Jew-hatred in their luggage; Arab, Turkish, and African minorities, poor and alienated from mainstream European society, direct their anger not at French or German or British elites but at the Jewish people; and, inevitably, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is held responsible for the incitement of European publics.

A blog post by Daniel Halper, the Weekly Standard magazine’s online editor, Nov. 1:

This election might determine whether the “climate crisis” is solved, former Vice President Al Gore claims. The former politician makes the statement in a fundraising email from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“Here’s what I believe,” writes Gore.

“There is nothing more pressing in our time than confronting and solving the climate crisis.

“We have no time to spare. We must act now. Luckily, we have all the tools we need to solve this challenge. All we need is political will—but political will is a renewable resource!

“That’s why the election on November 4th is so monumentally important. President Obama is now leading on this issue—but we need to elect more Democrats dedicated to putting the future of our planet before the interests of Big Oil and Coal and other large carbon polluters who demand the right to use our atmosphere as an open sewer without any accountability.”

Gore then goes in for the ask:

“And right now, that means we need to support Democratic candidates facing Koch-funded attacks. There are only a few days left to make a difference in this election. Can you chip in whatever you can today?

Will you step up?”

Standoff between Islamist preacher Sven Lau and German security agents shows the difficulty of drawing a clear line between opinion and sedition.

WUPPERTAL, Germany—Fundamentalist Islamic preacher Sven Lau claims he has a simple test to separate undercover officers from passersby. He gives them the finger. If they don’t respond, he said, “they’re intelligence agents.”

German authorities have spent at least eight years monitoring Mr. Lau, a 34-year-old ex-firefighter from a Catholic family who now practices a strict form of Islam known as Salafism.

Officials say Mr. Lau is one of the most prominent Islamic preachers in Germany, with a charismatic message that lures young Germans into radical Muslim circles. The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency called Mr. Lau one of the country’s “best-known propagandists.” Authorities allege Mr. Lau inspired some of his followers to join Islamic militants in Syria and Iraq, and fear they will eventually spawn terror attacks in Germany and the West.

Mr. Lau, who has delivered sermons to hundreds of listeners at town squares across Germany, denies the allegation. Despite wiretaps and searches of his home and computers by authorities, he remains free. He denied any ties to terrorism or the extremist group Islamic State—“I’m not pro-IS,” he said—and described his past trips to Syria as humanitarian work.

The standoff between Mr. Lau and German security agents illustrates the difficulty of drawing a clear line between opinion and sedition at a time when European authorities face growing numbers of disaffected Muslims, some of them taking on radical views. Security officials say they monitor a wide range of Islamist proselytizing but only a small minority pass the threshold for prosecution on charges of supporting terrorism.

German authorities, who say they still watch Mr. Lau, acknowledge he seems to have found a safety zone.

“He continues to radicalize young people and creates fertile soil for future violence,” said Burkhard Freier, the domestic intelligence chief in Mr. Lau’s home state of North-Rhine Westphalia. “To prove this under the rule of law with means that will stand up in court is, well, difficult.”

The strict state gun-control law enacted in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting is at the center of Connecticut’s hotly contested governor’s race, raising the election to a national profile as outside groups inject large infusions of cash.

Incumbent Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy signed the law in April 2013 requiring background checks and banning many models of assault-style weapons and large ammunition magazines.

Second Amendment defenders say if Malloy wins another term, he will support even more “draconian” measures, including a registration requirements that could enable systematic confiscation of weapons.

His opponent, Republican Thomas Foley, a former ambassador to Ireland and private equity investor, has vowed to sign a repeal of the bill if elected. Foley contends the response to the 2012 Newtown shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six staff members should focus on access to mental health treatment.

Get “Armed Response” and a series of training DVDs from the WND Superstore that show you how and when to use a gun to defend you and your loved ones.

Malloy has received $1.7 million from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg while Foley has received millions from the Republican Governors Association, chaired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Strict gun-control laws also were passed in Maryland, New York and Colorado in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, drawing the protests of sheriffs, including a majority in New York and Colorado.

Michelle Obama campaigned in the state for Malloy this week, and President Obama is scheduled to arrive Sunday as gun-control advocates campaign around the clock, targeting female voters, particularly mothers.

The gubernatorial matchup is a repeat of 2010, when Malloy defeated Foley by just 6,400 votes. Malloy was expected to improve his margin of victory this time, but the gun-control issue has given life to Foley, putting him in the lead in many polls over the course of the campaign.