In One Day, 20 Shot in Chicago; Officials Blame the Weather, We Blame the Officials

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Irish Central According to the Chicago Tribune’s May 1 edition:

“At least three people were killed and 17 wounded in shootings across Chicago overnight as the city saw its warmest weather in seven months.” See article.

In the past, Chicago’s Chief of Police Garry McCarty, has blamed warm weather for his city’s gun violence, along with pointing the finger of blame at Sarah Palin and “government sponsored racism.”

By using this metric, if the weather keeps heating up we can expect more gun violence to erupt on the streets of Chicago. Where’s Al Gore?

According to the Tribune article, “warm weather” is behind the outbreak of gun violence, not the lack of enforcement of some of the toughest anti gun laws in the United States.

Checking statistics in different countries known for their warm weather and violence, the following stats were observed:

In Afghanistan for the entire month of April a total of 17 coalition force personnel were killed, see report.

In a recent 5 day period in all of Iraq, a total of 25 civilians and police were killed, see report.

Chicago, one of our nation’s biggest cities outpaced the violence in 2 war torn countries.

Instead of pointing the finger of blame at outside forces, perhaps it’s time for the people of Chicago to point the finger of blame at their leaders.

Not long ago, NRA’s President Wayne LaPierre noted Chicago had the nation’s toughest gun laws, yet was failing to enforce them. He noted that if federal gun laws already on the books were enforced, instead of putting even more restrictions on gun legal ownership, it could help solve the city’s violence problems. See story.

La Pierre had also called on federal officials to bring in forces to patrol Chicago’s streets in order to restore order: “We need a federal task force, if it takes 500 agents; if it takes a thousand agents, go into Chicago.”

The law abiding citizens of Chicago deserve to have safer streets and adding more laws to the over 9,000 gun laws already on the books isn’t going to make any difference.

Chicago’s violence is not due to the weather, the NRA or Sarah Palin, it’s due to the lack of will by city officials to enforce the law.

_____________________________________

Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Your Tax Dollars Fund Ethnic Cleansing of Christians

/0 Comments/in , /by

On April 22, two Orthodox bishops of Aleppo, Syria, were kidnapped by U.S.-supported Islamist fighters. Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim and Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Boulos Yaziji were kidnapped as they were returning from an attempt to obtain the release of two priests previously kidnapped. The priests, Father Michel Kayyal, an Armenian Catholic, and Father Maher Mahfouz, a Greek Orthodox, were kidnapped in February and still remain in the hands of the Islamist fighters the Western media refer to as “rebels.”

In a Huffington Post article, Orthodox priest Peter-Michael Preble said of the two kidnapped bishops: “They were on a mission of peace, to bring aid and comfort, and they were taken hostage as part of the systematic extermination of the Christian population in Syria.”

As an eyewitness to Capitol Hill, I can say without hesitation that the Republican Party leadership is allowing the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Syria in order to obtain some minor political gain over President Obama. A momentary “we got you” win against Obama is more important to the Republican leadership than the lives of millions of Christians and the destruction of the ancient churches founded by Peter, Paul, John and the other early Saints. Rather than Speaker John Boehner using the power of his office to stop Obama’s support of the jihadist fighters in Syria, he is pushing for our overburdened and over-deployed Armed Forces to get directly involved.

On the Senate side, it is John McCain, who is the principal Republican promoter of the destruction of the Syrian church. McCain seems totally blind to the human suffering of war and has no regard for Christians suffering at the hands of the jihadists in Syria. As McCain sees it, Iran is currently our main enemy and eliminating one of its power bases – its alliance with Syria – is worth the human suffering and ethnic cleansing of the Christian population. McCain is actually pushing Obama to do even more damage in Syria. McCain has demanded that our Air Force face one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world, the Russian SA-22 Pantsir S1, so that we can assist jihadist fighters.

It is very true that Iran is a threat to the peace of the Middle East and to Israel, but arming jihadists associated with al-Qaida and allowing them to murder Christians and destroy churches in Syria does not seem to me as the optimal way to limit the power of Iran. Indeed, the harsh persecution of Christians by jihadist fighters supported in Syria by Barack Obama is no different than the persecution of Christians in Iran. At least in Iran the Christians get a phony show trial before they are jailed and tortured. In Syria, Christians are tortured and murdered with no trial at all and using American tax dollars given to jihadists by Barack Obama.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Lies Go Deeper Than You Ever Imagined

/0 Comments/in , /by

If you read the newspapers and listen to the perpetual happy talk out of D.C., you might become convinced that the economy is improving. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is supposed to tell us the unemployment rate; and currently, it says the rate is 7.6%. But in reality, we’re being misled.

It’s understandable… we all want to believe the best. And most likely, you feel a little better off than you did four years ago. You can probably look around your neighborhood and see some people doing just fine. But the sinister truth is that we’re being lied to. The government is sponsoring a campaign of misinformation, and we’re all the victims of a mass hypnosis. It leads us to think – falsely – that all’s well in the U.S. of A.

A Stark Contrast

I just spent four days on the beautiful Island of Coronado. I was at a board meeting at a 125-year-old resort, the Hotel Del Coronado. All seemed like a fairy tale. I drove into the city of San Diego and had dinner at a lovely Zagat-rated restaurant. I met a group of friends in a skybox, complete with a buffet line, to watch the Padres beat up on one of their rivals. But that’s where the fairy tale ends.

I also took the time to visit the community of El Centro, California. It’s down Interstate 8 from San Diego. In that town, headline unemployment is nearly 23%. Coming upon a church, I saw a line, winding around the block, of people simply wanting a hot meal.

This is the part of America the media is hiding. They don’t want to blemish President Obama. He feels people’s pain, so he can’t be responsible… right? But the reality is that every Coronado, America has at least one El Centro.

If you dig deeper and calculate unemployment, adding those people standing in the food line who are unemployed, discouraged, and dropping out of the job search, the unemployment rate is 14.3%.

Read more from this story HERE.

Militia Hired by State Dept. Warned It Wouldn’t Protect Stevens’ Movements in Benghazi

/0 Comments/in , /by

(CNSNews.com) – The February 17th Martyrs Brigade, a Benghazi-based militia with Islamist elements that the State Department hired as a “quick reaction force” (QRF) to protect the department’s mission in Benghazi, warned the State Department that it would not protect the movements of Amb. Chris Stevens when he visited there last September.

That warning was relayed to the regional security officer (RSO) at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli–the top security adviser to the ambassador–in an internal State Department email dated Sept. 9, 2012.

That was one day before Stevens departed Tripoli for Benghazi–for what was scheduled to be a five-day visit.

“[O]n September 8, 2012, just days before Ambassador Stevens arrived in Benghazi, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade told State Department officials that the group would no longer support U.S. movements in the city, including the Ambassador’s visit,” said a report on Benghazi released last week by the chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Oversight, Judiciary and Armed Services committees.

In a footnote, the report attributed this information to an “Email from Alec Henderson to John B. Martinec, ‘RE: Benghazi QRF agreement,’ (Sep. 9, 2012 11:31 PM).”

Read more from this story HERE.

Chinese Create New Strains of Bird Flu in Lab

/0 Comments/in , /by

Senior scientists have criticised the “appalling irresponsibility” of researchers in China who have deliberately created new strains of influenza virus in a veterinary laboratory.

They warned there is a danger that the new viral strains created by mixing bird-flu virus with human influenza could escape from the laboratory to cause a global pandemic killing millions of people.

Lord May of Oxford, a former government chief scientist and past president of the Royal Society, denounced the study published today in the journal Science as doing nothing to further the understanding and prevention of flu pandemics.

“They claim they are doing this to help develop vaccines and such like. In fact the real reason is that they are driven by blind ambition with no common sense whatsoever,” Lord May told The Independent.

“The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring. They are taking it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It’s appallingly irresponsible,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

875,000 On Suspected Terrorist Watch List

/0 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: swankslot The number of names on a highly classified U.S. central database used to track suspected terrorists has jumped to 875,000 from 540,000 only five years ago, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said.

Among those was suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose name was added in 2011. The increase in names is due in part to security agencies using the system more in the wake of the failed 2009 attack on a plane by “underpants bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in Detroit.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials acknowledged in Congress that they had missed clues to that attack despite Abdulmutallab’s name appearing in the main database, known as TIDE.

Maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, the highly classified database is not a “watchlist” but instead is a repository of information on people whom U.S. authorities see as known, suspected or potential terrorists from around the world.

The “Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment” is a master database which agencies use to build other catalogs of possible terrorists, like the “no-fly” list which prevents people who feature on it from boarding airplanes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Holder Threatens Kansas Over New Gun Law

/0 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: USDAgovKansas Governor Sam Brownback received a letter today from Attorney General Eric Holder threatening action against the state should it enforce SB102, the pro 2nd Amendment law Brownback signed into law last month.

The new law declares that the federal government has no power to regulate guns manufactured, sold and kept only in Kansas.

Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas.

The legislation made it a felony for a federal agent to enforce any law, regulation, order or treaty regulating ammunition made, sold and kept in the state because the federal government does not [have] “interstate commerce” authority over such items.

The law became effective only a week ago, but already Holder has leapt into action, firing off a letter to the governor of Kansas threatening to take “all appropriate action including litigation if necessary” to prevent the state of Kansas from protecting the 2nd Amendment. (Amazing for a guy who didn’t even know about his own department’s gun-running operation, Fast and Furious until months after a border patrol agent was killed by one of its guns.) But when a state passes a law he doesn’t like – this Attorney General is FAST!

Read more from this story HERE.

State Investigating Alaska State Troopers’ Altercation with Woman ‘Arrested for Nothing’ (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTubeA video that has gone viral since its posting earlier this week has spawned an investigation into the actions of two Alaska State Troopers in Kodiak.

Since the woman’s arrest, the state has charged her with several counts of assault, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct.

After watching this video, you will likely find these charges difficult to believe:

How Porn Links and Ben Bernanke Snuck Into Bitcoin’s Code

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: CNN MoneyHere’s a little-known quirk of cyber currency Bitcoin: There are coded messages hidden in the ledger that track bitcoin transactions. Most are innocuous, but this week, the discovery of a malicious transmission filled with porn links set the Bitcoin community abuzz.

Bitcoin, a four-year-old digital currency developed by a hacker who still remains anonymous, is a favorite plaything of libertarians and cryptography geeks. It burst into the mainstream this year when investors took note of its wild price swings. One bitcoin is now worth around $112, down from a record high of $266 last month, but up from $5 a year ago.

At the core of the bitcoin network is a database recording every single transaction.

Bitcoin enthusiasts have long known about a technical loophole that allows people to inject coded messages into the database. The trick is typically used for pranks or harmless notes, but Bitcoin discussion boards lit up on Monday with the news that someone took advantage of it for a nastier purpose: adding encoded links that claim to lead to porn sites, some featuring children.

A technical analysis posted on BitcoinTalk.org delves into the details. There doesn’t seem to be much danger for the casual bitcoin user. The porn links are concealed in hexadecimal code, and a decoder is needed to translate them into English. In other words, you’d really have to be looking for it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boston Bombing Not a ‘Lone Wolf’ Op: 3 More Suspects Arrested, Drove Car with ‘Terrorista’ License Plate (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: VKontaktBoston Police Announce 3 More Suspects In Custody In Marathon Bombings

By Michael McLaughlin. Three men were arrested on charges that they helped Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after the deadly attacks last month.

Federal prosecutors allege that Dias Kadyrbayev, 19, and Azamat Tazhayakov, 19, tried to conceal and destroy a laptop computer and backpack full of fireworks belonging to Tsarnaev, a friend from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where all three were students at one time. They were charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Massachusetts.

A third man, Robel Phillipos, 19, was accused of lying to law enforcement officials, who questioned him about the bombing.

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov live in New Bedford, but are originally from Kazakhstan. They were already accused of violating the terms of their student visas.

Phillipos is from Cambridge, Mass., where Tsarnaev grew up and attended UMass-Dartmouth with the others. Read more from this story HERE.
___________________________________________________

New Boston suspects drove car with ‘Terrorista #1′ license plate


Two suspects who have been taken into custody in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings drove a car with “Terrorista #1″ printed on the front plate.

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev were reportedly arrested, along with one other person, for allegedly making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice during the federal investigation into Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, officials said Wednesday. Read more from this story HERE.

Watch video here:


___________________________________________________

Official: Arrested student entered US without visa

BY Alicia A. Caldwell. One of three college students arrested Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombings case was allowed to return to the United States from Kazakhstan in January despite not having a valid student visa, a federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

Authorities charged the student — a friend and classmate of one of the men accused of setting off the deadly explosions — with helping after the attacks to remove a laptop and backpack from the bombing suspect’s dormitory room before the FBI searched it.

The government acknowledged that U.S. Customs and Border Protection was unaware that the student was no longer in school when he was let back into the United States.

The disclosure was another instance of possible lapses by the federal government in the months before the Boston bombings. The Obama administration earlier this week announced an internal review of how U.S. intelligence agencies shared sensitive information and whether the government could have disrupted the attack. Republicans in Congress have promised oversight hearings starting next week.

Federal authorities on Wednesday arrested three college friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a bombing suspect, including Azamat Tazhayakov, a friend and classmate of Tsarnaev’s at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Tazhayakov left the U.S. in December and returned Jan. 20. But in early January, his student-visa status was terminated because he was academically dismissed from the university, the official told the AP. Read more from this story HERE.