Egypt Continues to Spiral into Extreme Violence as Obama Fumbles Away (+videos)

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Egypt violence: Gang throws rivals to their deaths from top of a building

By A bloodthirsty gang is filmed flinging r­ivals to their deaths from the top of a building as violence spirals out of control in Egypt.

Horrific scenes captured on a mobile phone and posted on YouTube show a group of men surrounded by captors in the north-east city of Alexandria, the Sunday People can report.

Sickeningly, the victims are tossed head-first from a ledge. They land on the ­concrete roof below, where they are beaten and left for dead.

Clashes between opponents and supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi intensified yesterday, leaving 36 people dead. British tourists were feared to be at risk of terrorist attack last night after the head of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued a call to arms after the military coup ousted Islamist Morsi. Read more from this story HERE.

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Sexual Assaults Reportedly Rampant During Egypt Protests

By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson. From afar, Tahrir Square appears almost festive as protesters chant against the Islamist president who was overthrown by the Egyptian military last week. But inside the crushing crowds, the scene can be a lot more sinister.

In a video posted by the Muslim Brotherhood, an unidentified woman cries out as men attack her. The group, from which former President Mohammed Morsi hails, claims the attack occurred in Tahrir Square in late June.

Human Rights Watch reports a sharp rise in sexual assaults here since anti-Morsi protesters took to the streets in record numbers last week. Activists report more than 100 sexual assaults in or near Tahrir Square during the past week alone, many of them gang rapes.

Most of the victims are Egyptian, though some are Western journalists covering the protest.

The rights group says the latest attacks follow an all too familiar pattern since mass protests began in 2011: A few men force a girl or woman away from the people she’s with; rip off her clothes and assault her. Passersby join in the attacks, which range from groping to gang rapes that can last more than an hour. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Ahmed Ali/APDemocracy doesn’t on its own mean effective government

By Tony Blair. The events that led to the Egyptian army’s removal of President Mohamed Morsi confronted the military with a simple choice: intervention or chaos. Seventeen million people on the street is not the same as an election. But it is an awesome manifestation of people power. The equivalent turnout in Britain would be around 13 million people. Just think about it for a moment. The army wouldn’t intervene here, it is true. But the government wouldn’t survive either.

The Muslim Brotherhood was unable to shift from being an opposition movement to being a government. Of course governments govern badly or well or averagely. But this is different. The economy is tanking. Ordinary law and order has virtually disappeared. Services aren’t functioning properly. Individual ministers did their best. A few weeks back, I met the tourism minister, who I thought was excellent, with a sensible plan to revive Egypt’s tourist sector. A few days ago, he resigned, when the president took the mind-boggling step of appointing as governor of Luxor (a key tourist destination) someone who was affiliated to the group responsible for Egypt’s worst-ever terror attack, in Luxor, which killed more than 60 tourists in 1997.

Now the army is faced with the delicate and arduous task of steering the country back on to a path towards elections and a rapid return to democratic rule. We must hope that they can do this without further bloodshed. Meanwhile, however, someone is going to have to run things and govern. This will mean taking some very tough, even unpopular decisions. It is not going to be easy.

What is happening in Egypt is the latest example of the interplay, visible the world over, between democracy, protest and government efficacy. Democracy is a way of deciding the decision-makers, but it is not a substitute for making the decision. I remember an early conversation with some young Egyptians shortly after President Mubarak’s downfall. They believed that, with democracy, problems would be solved. When I probed on the right economic policy for Egypt, they simply said that it would all be fine because now they had democracy; and, in so far as they had an economic idea, it was well to the old left of anything that had a chance of working.

I am a strong supporter of democracy. But democratic government doesn’t on its own mean effective government. Read more from this story HERE.

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Disgraced Senator Menendez Agrees with Obama: Muslim Brotherhood Should Be Part of Egypt’s Government

Disgraced Senator Bob Menendez believes – as does Obama – that the Muslim Brotherhood should have an active role in the next Egyptian government:

…an Egypt for all includes in my mind, participation from the Muslim Brotherhood. But, you know, President Morsi himself acted rather dictatorially back in November when he said that his decrees were not subject to judicial review, when he said the constitutional assembly was not subject to judicial review. So at the end of the day, while I would have liked to have seen early elections and then see him test his support among the people and the people would have had a choice and, therefore, less likely to have them be further … radicalized, at the end of the day, that’s not what happened. So now the question is can we bring everybody together to create a more inclusive society in terms of the representation that it has in government? If we can do that, then Egypt has a possibility.

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Photo Credit: APRep. Mike Rogers: Egyptian military deserves continued U.S. support

By David Sherfinski and David Eldridge. Rep. Mike Rogers said Sunday that the Egyptian military is a stabilizing force and should continue to receive U.S. aid, despite its role in deposing a democratically elected government.

Mr. Rogers, a Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House intelligence committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he would support making an exception to U.S. law that calls for the suspension of U.S. aid in the case of a military coup.

“We should continue to support the military, the one stabilizing force that can temper down the political feuding that you’re seeing going on now,” he said. Read more from this story HERE.

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Egyptian military supporters flood Tahrir Square

By Ghazi Balkiz and Andrew Rafferty. Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Sunday filled with supporters of the Egyptian military, demonstrating in favor of the army’s actions to remove President Mohammed Morsi and blasting those who have called the leader’s ouster a military coup and not a revolution.

Street clashes between Morsi supporters and opponents in recent days have claimed more than 30 lives.

On Sunday, it was tens of thousands of people gathered in the infamous focal point of the Arab Spring to voice support for the military, whose leaders removed the democratically elected president Morsi last week and put him under house arrest.

“It’s not an army decision it’s our revolution, this is the way that we choose it and we thank the army for supporting us for this decision,” Nasham Basharah told NBC News while demonstrating in the square. Read more from this story HERE.

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Obama Golfing, Kerry Boating, “Terrible Optics” for Administration

Study: Pentagon’s MIA Recovery Program “Woefully Inept and Even Corrupt”

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Photo Credit: APThe Pentagon’s effort to account for tens of thousands of Americans missing in action from foreign wars is so inept, mismanaged and wasteful that it risks descending from “dysfunction to total failure,” according to an internal study suppressed by military officials.

Largely beyond the public spotlight, the decades-old pursuit of bones and other MIA evidence is sluggish, often duplicative and subjected to too little scientific rigor, the report says.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the internal study after Freedom of Information Act requests for it by others were denied.

The report paints a picture of a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a military-run group known as JPAC and headed by a two-star general, as woefully inept and even corrupt. The command is digging up too few clues on former battlefields, relying on inaccurate databases and engaging in expensive “boondoggles” in Europe, the study concludes.

In North Korea, the JPAC was snookered into digging up remains between 1996 and 2000 that the North Koreans apparently had taken out of storage and planted in former American fighting positions, the report said. Washington paid the North Koreans hundreds of thousands of dollars to “support” these excavations.

Read more from this story HERE.

Congressman: IRS Has Been Leaking Personal Financial Info on Political Enemies

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Photo Credit: APIn an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) said that the next stages of the IRS scandal will likely focus on the tax agency’s alleged abuse of power in areas like politically motivated audits and leaking of personal information.

“I think what we’re going to find out and I think that the deeper part is not so much the Tea Party and the ‘Patriot’ and those people who were targeted, but the information that has been leaked,” Kelly, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee which is conducting one of the congressional investigations into the matter, said in a phone interview.

“The information that the IRS has on file on people goes pretty deep into personal lives. It is being leaked out and given to people for very specific political reasons. I think this is something that should be the most chilling thing for Americans to understand.

“This is a branch of government and it is under the executive branch that can be used for a lot of different intimidation elements. Think of what these people have, think of what they have on everybody. If they leak that out to the right person at the right time in the right movement that’s looking to do something, they can completely destroy individuals.”

Kelly believes the revelation the IRS targeting of various conservative organizations was just the beginning of a larger scandal that will continue unraveling. Kelly sees this burgeoning scandal cutting to the core of the IRS as a whole, and likely tying in more prominent Obama administration officials.

Read more from this story HERE.

Amnesty-Backers Bring Bush Out of Retirement to Push for Bill

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Photo Credit: Reuters Bush says immigration reform ‘complex,’ optimistic Congress can fix ‘broken system’

By Fox News. Former President George W. Bush expressed optimism Sunday that Congress will pass immigration reform legislation, expressing disappointment that his attempt failed but suggesting the timing is now right to “fix a broken system.”

Bush, out of office since 2009, expressed understanding about why the White House and both parties in Congress have wrangled over the issue point-by-point while the rest of America waits for them to resolve the issue of roughly 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.

“Sometimes, it takes time for some of these complex issues to evolve, the 67-year-old Republican said in an interview for ABC’s “This Week.” “And it looks like immigration has a chance to pass.”

Bush said immigration reform is very difficult to pass because it has “a lot of moving parts” and the legislative process “can be ugly.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APChair of House Homeland Security Committee: Senate bill throws ‘candy’ at border

By Kevin Cirilli. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said on Sunday the Senate immigration plan just threw “a bunch of candy” at the border in order to gain votes.

“What the Senate just passed was, again, a bunch of candy thrown down there — a bunch of assets thrown down there to gain votes but without a methodical, smart border approach. We want a smart border and smart immigration plan, something that makes sense,” Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” Read more from this story HERE.

Russia, China Ink Enormous $270 Billion Energy Deal, Strengthen Axis vs. US

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Photo Credit: WNDBy F. Michael Maloof. Russia and China have just signed a $270 billion energy agreement that quickly could lead to other lucrative energy projects, with the byproduct of strengthening not only economic but political ties between them, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

The deal was between Russia’s state-controlled oil company, Rosneft, and the China National Petroleum Corporation.

China will now become Rosneft’s largest customer, obviating Moscow’s major reliance on European markets which continue to experience serious economic difficulties and, in some countries, a lingering recession.

It will help ensure that Russia continues to receive the revenue it needs for its own infrastructure development and military reform.

Having Rosneft’s boss, Igor Sechin, as one of the most trusted advisers to Russian President Vladimir Putin also has been a big asset in pushing the Russian president’s political agenda. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Sergei IlnitskyA New Anti-American Axis?

By Leslie H. Gelb and Dimitri K. Simes. THE flight of the leaker Edward J. Snowden from Hong Kong to Moscow last month would not have been possible without the cooperation of Russia and China. The two countries’ behavior in the Snowden affair demonstrates their growing assertiveness and their willingness to take action at America’s expense.

Beyond their protection of Mr. Snowden, Chinese-Russian policies toward Syria have paralyzed the United Nations Security Council for two years, preventing joint international action. Chinese hacking of American companies and Russia’s cyberattacks against its neighbors have also caused concern in Washington. While Moscow and Beijing have generally supported international efforts to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program, they clearly were not prepared to go as far as Washington was, and any coordinated shift in their approach could instantly gut America’s policy on the issue and endanger its security and energy interests. To punctuate the new potential for cooperation, China is now carrying out its largest ever joint naval exercises — with Russia.

Russia and China appear to have decided that, to better advance their own interests, they need to knock Washington down a peg or two. Neither probably wants to kick off a new cold war, let alone hot conflicts, and their actions in the case of Mr. Snowden show it. China allowed him into Hong Kong, but gently nudged his departure, while Russia, after some provocative rhetoric, seems to have now softened its tone.

Still, both countries are seeking greater diplomatic clout that they apparently reckon they can acquire only by constraining the United States. And in world affairs, there’s no better way to flex one’s muscles than to visibly diminish the strongest power.

This new approach appears based in part on a sense of their growing strength relative to America and their increasing emphasis on differences over issues like Syria. Both Moscow and Beijing oppose the principle of international action to interfere in a country’s sovereign affairs, much less overthrow a government, as happened in Libya in 2011. After all, that principle could always backfire on them. Read more from this story HERE.

Fence is 99% Effective for Israel, Why not the US?

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Photo Credit: WNDWhile the merits of building a fence along the USA’s southern border are debated in Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his nation’s new border fence is working very well, thank you.

In comments spoken Sunday and reported in the Times of Israel, Netanyahu claimed Israel’s new security fence along the Israel-Egypt border has not only stemmed the tide of illegal immigration to Israel, but has also protected the Jewish state from terrorists operating in the Sinai Peninsula.

Every day that passes “underscores how correct and how important the decision was to build the fence in the south,” the prime minister said. “You must remember that this fence is equipped with very advanced means … to protect the State of Israel against the double threat of illegal migration and terrorism from Sinai.”

Netanyahu, speaking publicly ahead of his weekly cabinet meeting, argued the fence has blocked 99 percent of African migrants from reaching Israel.

“In practice, nobody has entered and the few who have arrived did not reach Israel’s cities,” he continued. “The fence has completely stopped illegal migration to Israel, but it also has an additional function – namely counterterrorism.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Common Core: In Pursuit of the New Soviet Man

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Photo Credit: APThe Common Core State Standards Initiative is a federal initiative designed to homogenize diverse state educational curricula.

It is also the latest example of destructive federal overreach into the education system.

Like its predecessor No Child Left Behind, Common Core will not produce vibrant, inspired thinkers eager to tackle the world.

Instead, Common Core is designed to churn out young people who will be educated enough to work, consume, and pay taxes, but who are not encouraged to be creative, or to use critical thinking, or to develop anything remotely characteristic of those who possess superior minds and the ability to achieve great things.

Common Core proponents seem more interested in producing what Russian communists called “New Soviet Men” — people who are selfless, moderately educated, and stripped of all nationalist sentiment — than they are in delivering the next Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, or Steve Jobs.

Read more from this story HERE.

Fatwa Now Encourages Chechens to Fight for Jihad with US-Backed Rebels in Syria

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Photo Credit: WNDThe head of the self-styled Caucasus Emirates has reversed his position and now will back Chechens fighting for “jihad” in Syria, so they can bring back their experiences to more effectively take on the Russian security services in their quest to set up an independent Islamic state subject to Shariah law, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Doku Umarov, who leads the Caucasus Emirates, which the Islamist militants want to establish in existing southern Russian provinces, initially was opposed to Chechens leaving the area to fight in Syria.

He even tried to encourage Chechens who had been living in other countries and going to fight in Syria to instead return to the Russian province of Chechnya to fight.

Umarov was in part persuaded by a fatwa issued by a local sheikh, Abu Abdurrakhman al-Magribiy, who backed Umarov’s position that Chechens and other North Caucasians should fight at home and not in Syria.

However, a second part of that fatwa said that the North Caucasians could engage in the civil war in Syria if their goal was to obtain the combat experience needed to return home and use it against the Russians.

Read more from this story HERE.

Cardinals General Manager Orders End to Cross Display on Pitcher’s Mound

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerChristian crosses are not welcome symbols for mound decoration at Busch Stadium.

Late last week, St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak ordered the Busch Stadium grounds crew to stop carving a cross on backside of the pitching mound, according to news reports.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that recently the grounds crew had carved a cross and the number 6 on the mound during home games in honor of Cardinals great Stan Musial.

Musial died this past January at the age of 92…

At least one fan wrote to the Post-Dispatch and the St. Louis Riverfront Times to complain about the “inappropriate” religious display.

Read more from this story HERE.

IVF Baby Born Using New Genetic-Screening Process, Allows “Perfect” Embryos to be Selected

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Photo Credit: guardian.co.ukThe first IVF baby to be screened using a procedure that can read every letter of the human genome has been born in the US.

Connor Levy was born on 18 May after a Philadelphia couple had cells from their IVF embryos sent to specialists in Oxford, who checked them for genetic abnormalities. The process helped doctors at the couple’s fertility clinic in the US select embryos with the right number of chromosomes. These have a much higher chance of leading to a healthy baby.

The birth demonstrates how next-generation sequencing (NGS), which was developed to read whole genomes quickly and cheaply, is poised to transform the selection of embryos in IVF clinics. Though scientists only looked at chromosomes – the structures that hold genes – on this occasion, the falling cost of whole genome sequencing means doctors could soon read all the DNA of IVF embryos before choosing which to implant in the mother.

If doctors had a readout of an embryo’s whole genome, they could judge the chances of the child developing certain diseases, such as cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer’s.

Read more from this story HERE.