HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Amer Alhaggagi Gets 15 Years in Prison Bay area ISIS collaborator sought to kill 10,000 with bombs, fire and poison. March 4, 2019 Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273037/amer-alhaggagi-gets-15-years-prison-lloyd-billingsley

Amer Sinan Alhaggagi plotted with ISIS to kill 10,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area, targeting cities with bombs and fire and gay nightclubs with rat-poisoned cocaine. Last week, as Courthouse News reports, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer sentenced Alhaggagi to 15 years in prison. Alhaggagi’s attorney and family argued that he was just an online blowhard but Judge Breyer wasn’t going for it.

“His words were very dangerous,” Breyer said. “Words matter.”

According to ABC News, Alhaggagi told a confidential source “I live close to San Francisco, that’s like the gay capital of the world. I’m going to handle them right, LOL. I’m going to place a bomb in a gay club, Wallah or by God, I’m going to tear up the city. The whole Bay Area is going to be up in flames.” Alhaggagi also plotted to kill gays by distributing cocaine laced with rat poison.

As Fox News reported, Alhaggagi opened several Twitter and Facebook accounts for ISIS supporters. He then allegedly told an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to kill 10,000 people in the Bay Area and brought three backpacks to be used in a future attack.

His attorney Mary McNamara told reporters Alhaggagi was “a young guy who is immature, said some stupid things online,” and that the FBI “sent out their best people to try to get a sting operation going.” A statement from Alhaggagi’s family claimed “Amer is not a terrorist or a violent person, but a young man born and raised in California who said many foolish things on the Internet. Amer did not commit or plan a violent act.” The FBI didn’t see it that way.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Trump Promises Executive Order Denying Funds to Anti-Free Speech Universities Students must be free to challenge “ridiculous and dangerous ideas,” Trump tells CPAC. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273041/trump-promises-executive-order-denying-funds-anti-matthew-vadum

President Trump vowed to issue an executive order protecting free speech at America’s universities Saturday as he invited Hayden Williams, a conservative victim of leftist violence on campus, to share the stage with him at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference.

“We reject oppressive speech codes, censorship, political correctness and every other attempt by the hard left to stop people from challenging ridiculous and dangerous ideas. These ideas are dangerous,” Trump said March 2 in a speech that was interrupted by chants of “USA! USA! USA!” “Instead we believe in free speech, including online and including on campus.”

“Today I’m proud to announce that I will be very soon signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research grants.”

“If they want our dollars, and we give it to them by the billions, they’ve got to allow people like Hayden and many other great young people and old people to speak. Free speech. If they don’t, it will be very costly,” he said. “Every day we’re restoring common sense and the timeless values that unite us all. We believe in the Constitution and the rule of law.”

The president did not provide details about the upcoming executive order. Robby Soave of Reason reports that “an official with knowledge of the executive order confirmed … that a draft exists. Indeed, the plan is to penalize universities that do not protect free speech by taking away their federal grants.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Can pretty-boy Justin Trudeau survive? By Peter Skurkiss

Posted By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/can_prettyboy_justin_trudeau_survive.html

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is on the ropes. He has two thorns in his side that could either force his resignation or at least significantly dim his chances for reelection in October.

The first problem is that Trudeau’s former justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, testified under oath before a parliamentary committee that Trudeau and his top aides tried to pressure her to drop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, a large engineering company headquartered in Montreal.

The company is accused of paying the late Libyan strongman Muammar Khadafy’s family nearly $50 million in bribes between 2001 and 2011 to secure contracts. This is illegal according to Canadian law. SNC admitted to wrongdoing and was angling for an agreement to pay a fine rather than to be criminally prosecuted. But Wilson-Raybould and her office stood firm and said no. In doing so, she testified: “I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

Who Is Paying for Sandy O? By James Lewis

Posted By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/who_is_paying_for_sandy_o.html

So, a new star is born!

Not just a pop star, but a D.C. power pop star.

Alexandria!

But if we have any political brains, we know perfectly well that miraculous new stars coming out of bartending in the Bronx represent Big Money somewhere. You don’t buy a hot new barrista from the Bronx without a lot of careful stage management, big investments, and payoffs to Nancy Pelosi to back off and let this freshling rise far beyond her actual achievements — and the media, let’s face it, are anti-American.

So we have to ask our own questions and guess at some reasonable answers.

In Hollywood, stars are launched, not “discovered” by magic. They represent huge studio investments. Launch the wrong star, and somebody loses a ton of money. Hollywood is not in biz to lose money.

So here is the puzzle.

Alexandria O-C, AKA Sandy O, is suddenly rising to high headline status, followed by a gazillion Twitter-heads, including some actual human beings, perhaps, and it all happened with amazing speed.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

New peer-reviewed study reveals majority of scientists are skeptical of ‘global warming crisis’By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/new_peerreviewed_study_reveals_majority_of_scientists_are_skeptical_of_global_warming_crisis.html

Without the claimed “scientific consensus” on global warming or climate change, the Green New Deal becomes just another progressive con game, but with the highest stakes ever.

Writing in Forbes, James Taylor shows that the supposed 97% “scientific consensus” on global warming is false:

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Is Dan Crenshaw (R-TX District 2)the Future of the GOP? The right’s newest young star in Congress offers a vision for the party somewhere between Trumpism and NeverTrumpism. But it’s not easy walking the line in Washington. By John McCormack

Posted By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/02/i

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland—It’s 4 p.m. on Wednesday, the first day of the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference—not exactly a prime speaking slot—but a standing room-only crowd has gathered to hear from freshman Congressman Dan Crenshaw. While we wait for the 34-year-old Texan, who is running late due to a vote in the House, the first person I talk to at the back of the Eastern Shore meeting room is Jacob Foster, an 18-year-old high-school student at Gann Academy outside Boston, who is attending CPAC for the third time in his young life. Foster is something of an endangered species at the conference: a conservative who likes a lot of the policies advanced by President Donald Trump yet doesn’t intend to vote for him in 2020 because of Trump’s character. But Crenshaw gives Foster hope.

“The glaring difference is he’s not facing accusations of sexual assault, he hasn’t had three marriages, he didn’t dodge the Vietnam draft,” Foster says. “On policy issues, there are meaningful differences. On trade, he’s not as quick to use tariffs.”

When Crenshaw arrives, the former Navy SEAL speaks about how to inspire “people back home” to embrace conservative values—personal responsibility, limited government, virtue, liberty—over a culture of outrage.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.S., China Close In on Trade Deal Both countries could lift some tariffs imposed last year, and Beijing would agree to ease restrictions on American products By Lingling Wei in Beijing and Bob Davis in Washington

Posted By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-china-close-in-on-trade-deal-11551641540

China and the U.S. are in the final stage of completing a trade deal, with Beijing offering to lower tariffs and other restrictions on American farm, chemical, auto and other products and Washington considering removing most, if not all, sanctions levied against Chinese products since last year.

The agreement is taking shape following February’s talks in Washington, people briefed on the matter on both sides said. They cautioned that hurdles remain, and each side faces possible resistance at home that the terms are too favorable to the other side.

Despite the remaining hurdles, the talks have progressed to the extent that a formal agreement could be reached at a summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, probably around March 27, after Mr. Xi finishes a trip to Italy and France, individuals with knowledge of the plans said.

As part of a deal, China is pledging to help level the playing field, including speeding up the timetable for removing foreign-ownership limitations on car ventures and reducing tariffs on imported vehicles to below the current auto tariff of 15%.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Adding to Social Insecurity House Democrats propose to increase the entitlement burden.

Posted By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/adding-to-social-insecurity-11551650108

Memo to young workers: The Democrats you recently elected want to raise Social Security benefits for retirees while taxing you more to pay for it. Too bad they didn’t tell you about this last year when they were running against Donald Trump. Among the many tax increases Democrats are now pushing is the Social Security 2100 Act sponsored by John Larson of House Ways and Means. The plan would raise average benefits by 2% and ties cost-of-living raises to a highly generous and experimental measure of inflation for the elderly known as CPI-E. The payroll tax rate for Social Security would rise steadily over two decades to 14.8% from 12.4% for all workers, and Democrats would also apply the tax to income above $400,000.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Did Ilhan Omar actually like it when Farrakhan called her ‘sweetheart’?By Monica Showalter

Posted By on March 3rd, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/did_ilhan_omar_actually_like_it_when_farrakhan_called_her_sweetheart.html

You want to hope she didn’t, but the Minnesota socialist’s new round of Jew-hating statements and her failure to apologize for them suggests some kind of influence from the famous anti-Semitic pariah.

Here’s here latest controversy over what a Democratic congressional leader called her vile anti-Semitic slur:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is facing new accusations of making anti-Semitic remarks, this time rebuked by a senior member of her party who says the House freshman’s words conjured a “vile anti-Semitic slur.”

Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has demanded an apology over comments Omar made Wednesday, less than a month after she was condemned by bipartisan leadership for suggesting pro-Israel lobbying groups and Jewish politicians influence American politics.

[For Rep. Ilhan Omar, 2 apologies in 3 weeks for ‘anti-Semitic tropes’]

Her comments came during a town hall in Washington while speaking about liberal issues. “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Gas-guzzling car rides expose AOC’s hypocrisy amid Green New Deal pledgeBy Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein

Posted By on March 3rd, 2019

https://nypost.com/2019/03/02/gas-guzzling-car-rides-expose-aocs-hypocrisy-amid-green-new-deal-pledge/

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to save the planet with her Green New Deal, but she keeps tripping over her own giant carbon footprint.

“We’re like, ‘The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,’ ” the progressive darling said in January, speaking of herself and her fellow millennials. “And, like, this is the war; this is our World War II.”

Last week, she ratcheted up the rhetoric: “It is basically a scientific consensus that the lives of our children are going to be very difficult” due to climate change. “And it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: is it OK to still have children?”

The guiding principle of her eco-vision is to bring about “a full transition off fossil fuels and zero greenhouse gases” within 10 years.To achieve this, the GND fact sheet says, the nation must “totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high-speed rail … create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle.”But the woman who boasts of a “razor-sharp BS detector” seems to have trouble sniffing out her own.Since declaring her candidacy in May 2017, Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign heavily relied on those combustible-engine cars — even though a subway station was just 138 feet from her Elmhurst campaign office.