RUTHFULLY YOURS

At least 20 people are dead and more than 100 wounded after a shooting late Sunday at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip.

Police said they were first alerted to reports an incident at 10:08 p.m. and then established there was a shooter on the 31st floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino who was targeting the nearby Route 91 Harvest Festival.

Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said officers responded and shot dead the suspect. He said the suspect was a local resident but declined to identify him. Police are also trying to locate a female companion who was traveling with the suspect.

Local television news reports showed crowds of people in Las Vegas ducking for cover as the sound of rapid gunshots rang out, while dozens of patrol vehicles descended on the Strip.

Concertgoers reported seeing muzzle flashes from the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino across Las Vegas Boulevard from the country music festival and the sound of what they described as automatic gunfire.

Witnesses said they saw multiple victims as they fled the gunfire raining down on the concert venue.

Some later huddled in the basement of the nearby Tropicana hotel-casino.

Some officers took cover behind their vehicles while others carrying assault rifles ran into the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.

Authorities shut down part of the Las Vegas Strip and Interstate 15.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/05/25/las-vegas-authorities-on-alert-over-new-isis-propaganda-video.html

An ISIS propaganda video posted on social media last week featured a brief clip of Las Vegas’ famed strip, prompting Sin City law enforcement authorities to perceive a credible threat.
The 44-minute video showed 2015 footage of the strip, along with images from other cities, including New York and Washington, D.C. The video, narrated in English, calls on ISIS supporters living in the U.S. to carry out attacks using knives and vehicles.

“WE WILL OVERTHROW them ALL. US WILL PAY FOR ITS CRIMES” — Nidal Mohamed Sakr.

Sakr is a prime example of a radical Islamist taking advantage of the freedoms that the United States has to offer all its citizens, in order to undermine its existence — in the name of “human rights.”

Although voicing his enmity is precisely one of those rights, membership in a terrorist group is not, particularly if he is using his March of Justice organization as a front. A serious investigation into Sakr and his operations needs be launched to determine whether and to what extent he is a threat to US national security.

On March 19, 2014, Nidal Mohamed Sakr, an American citizen from Providence, Rhode Island, was detained by Homeland Security upon his arrival in the United States from an extended stay in Egypt, the country of his mother’s birth. Although Sakr is an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood and former al-Qaeda associate, he was released and has been operating freely in the U.S., traveling back and forth between Florida and California as the head of a Miami-based, self-described “human rights” organization called The March for Justice.

This was not the first time that Sakr, who describes himself as “US born from Palestinian origin,” had been interrogated by American authorities. According to an account he posted on the March for Justice website, he was questioned by Palm Beach police in January 2002 about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. This occurred as he, Sakr, left an event held by a Jewish organization to express unity and solidarity in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, which had taken place less than four months earlier. At the time, he penned a letter to President George W. Bush complaining that he was being victimized by anti-Muslim Jews.

Prior to 2014, when he was temporarily detained at a US airport, Sakr had spent time in Egypt, where he actively participated in the eruption of the “Arab Spring” — which led to the ouster and imprisonment of then-President Hosni Mubarak and the rise of Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammed Morsi as Egypt’s president. While in Egypt, Sakr gave a lecture in which he recounted how he was recruited by al-Qaeda co-founder and bin Laden mentor Abdullah Azzam to a Palestinian terrorist cell operating out of Jordan in the 1970s and ’80s. He also spoke about having gotten to know bin Laden and his family.

In the aftermath of the July 2013 military coup against Morsi, which led to the current presidency of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Muslim Brotherhood was outlawed and anyone associated with it became a target. Thousands of people were arrested and hundreds sentenced to death, including Morsi — whose sentence was later reversed, but recently reinstated for a term of 25 years in prison.

Sakr was allegedly among 529 Muslim Brotherhood members sentenced to death by an Egyptian court “for murder and other offenses.”

On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notified the election officials of 21 states that hackers targeted their systems last year. DHS had previously told The Associated Press (AP) that more than 20 states were targeted by hackers believed to be Russian agents before the 2016 elections. Many of the states did not know until Friday that their systems were targeted.

“It is completely unacceptable that it has taken DHS over a year to inform our office of Russian scanning of our systems, despite our repeated requests for information,” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D) said in a statement. “The practice of withholding critical information from elections officials is a detriment to the security of our elections and our democracy.”

State election offices in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin verified to the AP that they were among those targeted. Among these, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin are considered swing states.

The DHS did not specify the identity of the hackers, but in most cases, the states were told their systems were not breached. In most of the states, the targeting involved preparatory activity, like scanning computer systems. Targets included voter registration systems but not vote tallying software.

Only Illinois reported that hackers had succeeded in breaching its voter systems. Other states reported that their cybersecurity efforts turned back efforts to get to crucial information.

Election officials in three states did tie the attacks to Russia.

The Wisconsin Election Commission said the state’s systems were targeted by “Russian government cyber actors.” Alaska Elections Division Director Josie Bahnke alleged that computers in Russia were scanning election systems.

“There are constant attempts by bad actors to hack our systems,” Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate (R), said in a statement. “But we continue to deflect those attempts.”

A spokesman for the Colorado secretary of state was hesitant to label the cyber attack attempts. “It’s not an attack. I wouldn’t call it a probe. It’s not a breach, it’s not a penetration,” Trevor Timmons said. “It’s really reconnaissance by a bad guy to try and figure out how we would break into your computer.”

DHS admitted that state and local officials should be informed about cybersecurity risks to election systems. “We are working with them to refine our processes for sharing this information while protecting the integrity of investigations and the confidentiality of system owners,” the agency said.

As North Korea demonstrates America’s vulnerability to ballistic missiles, and as President Trump pledges “many billions of dollars” for “the anti-missile,” establishment Republicans are poised to use missile defense talk today in the same way they did in the wake of Ronald Reagan’s commitment to it: profit politically from rhetoric, funnel money to the best-connected contractors, and accomplish nothing. https://amgreatness.com/2017/09/12/establishment-gop-puts-cronies-over-country-on-missile-defense2/

Since Reagan restored missile defense to the nation’s agenda 34 years ago, Republicans have led the spending of some 80 billion dollars on its behalf. But they have acquiesced as the U.S government has crafted each and every program according to one overarching policy: to put no barrier to missiles from China or Russia reaching Americans.

Accordingly, our so-called National Missile Defense is but a hamstrung token. Using the same logic with respect to technology, we are depriving the equipment we build for defense against threats such as North Korea and Iran from all capacity defend against China and Russia. In practice, this means that it is less capable of doing anything. Today, malnourished North Korea is on the cusp of overwhelming every defense we’ve got, in Alaska and California, as well as in the Western Pacific.

Republicans banked votes, contractors banked the money, and America’s vulnerabilities deepened. Unless President Trump changes basic policy, the cycle repeats.

A $30 Billion Boondoggle
The Establishment Republicans’ intellectual guide, the Wall Street Journal, has just pointed the way. In an obituary (September 2-3) and an editorial (September 6), it celebrated George A. Keyworth, the White House science adviser from 1981 until 1984, as “the Godfather of Missile defense.” In fact, no one was more responsible than Keyworth for turning President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative into a research program that produced zero anti-missile weapons—by design. The so-called Fletcher Panel that he created defined SDI by precluding building defensive devices, restricting its mandate to long-term research. He staffed it exclusively with delegates from the national labs and their contractors. They divvied up some $30 billion to fund their favorite hobby horses.

Some—Edward Teller’s and Lowell Wood’s X-ray laser and free-electron laser—were patent scientific frauds that discredited the initiative. But steering programs to the right people got Keyworth a seat on Hewlett-Packard’s board of directors. Hence from the very first, SDI was a typical U.S-government program: soaring rhetoric that covered a feeding trough for well-connected interest groups. One of its former directors, asked what SDI had produced, waved a report titled, “What We Got for $30 Billion.” An expensive missile-swatter.

The Journal also says, “to the extent that the North Korean nuclear threat is at all containable,” it is because SDI “eventually gave us systems like THAAD.” Thus does the Journal show the Republican Establishment’s nonchalant ignorance. The combination of interceptor missile and radar called Theater High Altitude Defense was a U.S. Army program. All it owes to SDI and its Missile Defense Agency successor are limitations, such as depriving the interceptor of a warhead and requiring it to crash directly onto the oncoming warhead. This added layers of technical complexity—e.g. exquisite reductions in vibrations—and added to the cost of nearly $1 billion per battery. Expense, and hence scarcity, is one reason why even North Korea can overwhelm it quantitatively.

THAAD’s effective range is set by how soon after the offensive missile takes off the interceptor may be launched. The reason why the interceptor, whose physical range is just over 500 miles, has an effective range of only 120 miles is the policy (in the spirit of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) that requires our interceptors to be programmed and launched only by radar/fire control systems co-located with the interceptor. The THAAD warning radar is not equipped to program and fire interceptors. (Just now, Navy Aegis ships networked with one another are being given a partial exemption).

Blinded By Partisanship
More fundamentally, all U.S interceptors continue to be hampered by their radars’ inability to look over the earth’s curvature to see missiles being launched by China and Russia (or Iran, or North Korea’s interior). Already a generation ago a network of infrared satellites was being designed that would have made it possible see all such launches as they happened and to launch interceptors with plenty of time to stop them at maximum range. But the SDI office and its successor canceled that. It would have displeased Russia and China. Thanks, SDI!

Over the weekend North Korea conducted its six, and most powerful, nuclear test to date. Reports indicate that the impoverished nation is preparing to launch yet another Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), this time potentially on a standard trajectory. A highly provocative move without regard to overflight of neighboring countries airspace. North Korea’s accelerated nuclear and ballistic missile developments have many in Washington showing more bipartisan interest in missile defense playing a significant role in defending the American homeland.

However, over the past three decades, the path toward a truly robust homeland missile defense system has been precarious. Political support over five presidential administrations wavered, while historical funding for the Missile Defense Agency averaged less than 2% of the overall defense budget. As Washington considers its options for addressing a threat which has evolved more rapidly than expected, it should carefully consider lessons learned from decades of less than adequate support for homeland missile defense. The Trump administration must avoid the mistake of his predecessors and fully commit to investment in expanded missile defense capabilities

The Reagan Administration

In the early 1980’s, fear that the Soviet Union had achieved a nuclear first strike capability led the Joint Chiefs of Staff to recommend developing plans for ballistic missile defense capabilities. On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan delivered an address to the nation outlining an ambitious new plan for ballistic missile defense called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). During the speech, President Reagan called for a defensive capability that would render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” In 1984, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was established to begin Research and Development (R&D) efforts to create several programs such as Brilliant Pebbles, a non-nuclear, space-based, boost phase anti-missile system. Ultimately, many of the most ambitious SDI technologies were set aside due to political pressure and U.S. obligations to limit testing and development of BMD technology. While the Reagan Administration argued that it could test and develop BMD systems under a “broad interpretation” of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty many in Congress, led by Senator Sam Nunn, argued such an interpretation violated the spirit of the treaty.

The Bush 41 Administration

During the January 29th, 1991, State of the Union Address, President George H.W. Bush citing the success of the Patriot missile defense system during the Gulf War, mandated the “SDI program be refocused on providing protection from limited ballistic missile strikes, whatever their source.” This directive led to the development of Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS), aimed at stopping small ballistic missile attacks on America and thwarting limited strikes against U.S. troops with the use of theater ballistic missiles. GPALS represented a new Post-Cold War mentality in the United States that focused more on limited theater ballistic missile strikes rather than a large-scale Soviet ICBM strike.

The Clinton Administration

The GPALS concept would ultimately be canceled in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. Rather than taking a global approach to a range of ballistic missile threats, President Clinton’s 1993 Bottom-Up Review concluded that, while the threat from “Third World” countries could not be excluded, the missile threat from Russia and China had diminished. Secretary of Defense Les Aspen ultimately recommended that “a robust theater missile defense effort plus a limited national missile defense technology program is the best and most cost- effective approach” for the overall U.S. ballistic missile defense program.

A major casino operator in Las Vegas is matching employee donations to phony civil rights groups, including HAMAS-linked CAIR and the pro-Antifa hate group Southern Poverty Law Center, in order to fight “hate” in the United States.

In response to terrorist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Barcelona, Spain, MGM Resorts International CEO James Murren denounced “hate speech and hate-based actions.” The huge publicly-traded gambling concern, is reportedly the largest casino operator on the Las Vegas Strip and has a global workforce of 77,000. According to WND, Murren “was a lifelong Republican before he endorsed Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.”

Fed by the establishment media’s exploitation of the tragic death caused by a reputed neo-Nazi at a misnamed “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, and after years of relative indifference to the terroristic and racist violence from the Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street movements, suddenly Murren wants to fight “hate” by giving money to groups that exist solely to generate “hate.”

CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is an Islamist group linked to international terrorism that favors the imposition of Sharia law on America and undermines the Global War on Terror at every opportunity.

The fabulously wealthy Southern Poverty Law Center is an extreme left-wing group that smears those who dare to express skepticism about Islam and Muslim organizations as bigots and “Islamophobes.” The mainstream-conservative Family Research Council was attacked by a would-be mass murderer who relied on SPLC research that described FRC as a hate group. Another would-be mass murderer shot and nearly killed House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) after accessing SPLC research materials.

Islam expert Robert Spencer was targeted by the SPLC. His educational website Jihad Watch was accused of “extreme hostility toward Muslims” by the SPLC which led to online payment service PayPal suspending the site as an alleged hate group. PayPal reversed its decision after public backlash.

Liberty Counsel sued charity watchdog Guidestar for posting what it calls SPLC’s “false and defamatory” hate designations on its pages for various mainstream organizations.

But according to MGM’s Murren, CAIR and the SPLC stand against what politically correct left-wingers deem “hate,” so they deserve to be celebrated and funded.

“The events in Charlotttesville and Barcelona can easily cause us to feel overcome by hatred and gutted by violence, leaving open questions about our future – as a nation, a global society and even a human race,” MGM CEO James Murren wrote in a letter to the company’s employees that was published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The protection of human dignity, demonstrated in the form of tolerance and respect for all people is the core of our identity.”