The Mess Called Common Core

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I was skeptical at first. As a 25-year retired educator I understand how things work on the inside and saw flaws in peoples’ arguments against it – or so I thought. I attended a Common Core Unveiled meeting that gave me evidence of a problem that far surpassed my skepticism, so I began to investigate further. There are several components to Common Core, and they all raise alarm.

First is the standards themselves. Have you ever heard of the ‘dumbing-down’ of America? I have figured one part of how they are accomplishing that. We were sold a philosophy with Everyday Math that I see in the standards of Common Core. It is called ‘spiraling’ and it replaces ‘mastery’ in education. With ‘mastery’ you master certain basic concepts before moving on to more complicated ones. With ‘spiraling’ you are hit with a tiny bit of many concepts every year in the hopes you will ‘catch on’ sooner or later. I saw first hand that it doesn’t work.

Many communities are sounding an alarm about Common Core textbooks incorporating a variety of curriculum that indoctrinates children in such areas as sexuality, homosexuality, and Islam. It is a little long, but I urge you to watch the Common Core video here:

Problems I see with Adaptive Testing are validity, violation of privacy, and potential for outright brainwashing. Districts ahead of us with testing say their length, difficulty, and inappropriate content are major issues. One aspect of Adaptive Testing is the ability to change questions on the tests so that one student/community is given more difficult test questions than another. You might question my brainwashing statement, but ‘forced compliance’ is nothing less than that. Student privacy is violated with the contract that our state DEED signed requiring testing data is shared with the federal DOE, and other ‘end users’.

Data Mining is here, and student testing is one component that those who compile data are looking forward to incorporating into their businesses to share or sell worldwide. We live in a glass bowl – especially if you talk on a phone, use a computer, use the internet, or have email. Did you know they are using our PFD information to identify Alaskans for their database?

Then there is the deception by our State DEED Commissioner regarding Alaska Standards that he claims publicly are not Common Core, but privately are Common Core.

Do you realize where this is headed? Federal control of education is merely a steppingstone toward UN control and world domination. They change the name every so often (right now it is called Common Core), but the goals are the same. How do you feel about that?

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Carol Carman is foremost a Christian, a 25-year retired educator, and secretary of Alaska Republican Assembly.

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Country Music Star Bryan White Talks Faith, Family and His Definition of Success

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Bryan was born in Lawton/Fort Sill, (Comanche County) Oklahoma into a musical family. Growing up he listened to all kinds of music. His parents played in cover bands and thanks to his father, he learned to play drums while he was still very young. Drums came natural to him and he became so good at it that his parents frequently invited him to play with them. Since their bands played all different styles of music, White feels it gave him a great perspective and helped to make him the diverse artist that he is today. “Although country music has my heart, I still love and respect all kinds of musical expression.”

One thing White never tires of mentioning is the day he heard the music of his musical mentor, Steve Wariner. “People talk about defining moments. For me, this was definitely one of them. I heard Steve’s voice and I immediately gravitated toward his tone and phrasing. I knew right then, at the age of fourteen, what I wanted to do with my life.” Fresh out of high school, White says he packed up his guitar, drum sticks, angst, dreams, and five hundred dollars that his family gave him and headed to Nashville to pursue a career in country music.

The move proved to be beneficial. He charted seventeen singles on Billboard’s Country Charts, had six number one singles, two platinum records, two gold records, he joined forces with Shania Twain and together they took “From This Moment On” all the way up to number four on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart. He has garnered several awards for himself, including a Grammy, a CMA Horizon Award, and an ACM Top Male Vocalist award among them. [He’s appeared on] “The Tonight Show,” “Late Night with David Letterman,” NBC’s “The Today Show,” and “CBS This Morning.” (Read more about Bryan White HERE)
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Black History Biden: Joe Biden Calls for ‘Emancipation’ of People’s Wealth

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Vice President Joe Biden used a Black History Month event at his official residence Monday night to decry the rich, both white and black, for stunting economic growth and suggested that “emancipation” is in order.

“A lot of wealthy white and black people aren’t bad but they control 1 percent of the economy and this cannot stand,” Biden told about 100 guests, including past civil rights activists and NBC weatherman Al Roker.

“It’s not fair because the business experts are saying that concentration of wealth is stunting growth. So let’s do something that’s worthy of emancipation,” said Biden, according to a press pool report of the event.

Then, explaining the impact of Civil War era emancipation, Biden concluded, “What happened is not only did we move toward freeing black Americans but also the conscience of white Americans.”

The White House has made income inequality an issue for the last two years of President Obama’s second term in office. (Read more from “Joe Biden Calls for Emancipation of Wealth” HERE)

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The Betrayal Papers: A National Security “Smoking Gun” of Obama’s Conspiracy with Muslim Brotherhood

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The first article of the Betrayal Papers asserted that the Muslim Brotherhood was not only influential in the United States government, but in fact dominated the administration of President Barack Hussein Obama. This article will name several key people who were or are in the Obama administration and who have various, documented associations with organizations which are directly tied to and/or funded by the Muslim Brotherhood and the State of Qatar (home to Brotherhood’s Spiritual Leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi). These individuals have helped dictate national security policies that have crippled counterterrorism efforts at home and abroad. Three more “Betrayal Papers” in this five-part series will be published in the coming weeks.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Network of Civic Organizations: Apologists for Terror

In 1963, the first Muslim Brotherhood front group established itself in the United States and Canada: the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), a group based on college campuses in North America. Through this organizational foothold, the Brotherhood has recruited and indoctrinated generations of American and Canadian Muslims into an Islamic belief system that pits Islam against the world. In more than a few cases, Muslims who join MSA chapters at their colleges have taken this ideology to its logical extreme: terrorism.

For example, it was recently reported by the Canadian Military Association that eleven (11) of Canada’s highest profile terrorists were tied to the MSA.

The Muslim Students Association (MSA): The MSA, the first Muslim Brotherhood organization to gain a foothold in the United States, was founded in 1963. Many founding members were Muslim Brothers or had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. The three most significant founders of MSA were Hisham al Talib, Jamal Barzinji, and Ahmed Totanji, and all of whom were MB leaders of Iraqi descent. While a student at George Washington University, Hillary Clinton’s personal aide Huma Abedin was on the Executive Board of her MSA.

Since the early 1960s, the Muslim Brotherhood’s MSA has birthed a large number of purported “civic organizations,” which are anything but civil. We shall now name some of the groups, and establish the facts that link them to their parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): CAIR was founded by two individuals with close ties to a Hamas operative. Hamas, according to its own charter, is the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. In 2007, founder Omar Ahwad was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing trial. In November 2014, CAIR was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.

Muslim American Society (MAS): MAS was founded in 1992 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to MAS secretary-general Shaker Elsayed. MAS, and the Muslim Brotherhood, advocate for Sharia law in the United States. MAS identifies the Islamic Society of North American (ISNA) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) as organizations with the same goal: the “Islamic revival movement.” In November 2014, MAS was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.

Islamic Society of North America (ISNA): ISNA was created out of four Islamic organizations, including the Muslim Students Association. Its former president Mohamed Magid was appointed an advisor to DHS and the National Security Council by Barack Obama in 2011, and was a recent guest at the White House.

Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC): MPAC was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically Hassan and Maher Hathout, both whom were acolytes of Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan al-Banna. MPAC supports the Tunisian Ennahda (Muslim Brotherhood) Party leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, whom they termed “one of the most important figures in modern Islamic political thought and theory.” Its current President is Salam Al-Marayati, who represented the US to the United Nations and UNESCO in 2010.

Additionally, a 1991 internal memorandum of the Muslim Brotherhood specifically identifies CAIR, ISNA, and the MSA in “A list of our organizations and organizations of our friends.” (Note: CAIR’s organizational predecessor, the Islamic Association of Palestine, is named.)

Finally, CAIR and ISNA were named un-indicted co-conspirators which materially supported terrorism by a federal court, in connection with the infamous Holy Land Foundation trial, an alleged humanitarian charity for Palestine. An incorporating member of MAS, Dr. Jamal Badawi, was named an unindicted co-conspirator. MPAC and MSA members are on the record supporting the Holy Land Foundation against government terrorism charges.

This evidence begs some questions from the honest reader:

• If these are all independent organizations, why is it that each of them is so neatly tied to the same parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood?
• Why are most of them named by the Muslim Brotherhood in their own memorandum?
• Why were all involved, directly as unindicted co-conspirators or indirectly as ardent supporters of the accused, with the Holy Land Foundation trial?

It doesn’t take a super sleuth to realize that these organizations are in fact fronts and subsidiaries of one organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. All one has to do is glance at the published information on their backgrounds, and the fact reveals itself.

The Anschluss (“Annexation”) of Georgetown and the Brookings Institution

You know the sayings. Money makes the world go ’round, and Follow the money, and Money is the root of all evil. These are important to keep in mind when considering the influence that Qatari money has had on two institutions as American as apple pie: Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution.

In 2005, Georgetown University established a new campus for their prestigious School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar (SFS-Q). (It bears stating here that the State of Qatar was the driving Arab force behind the Arab Spring, which resulted in the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.) Today they have a faculty of more than 35 academics.

As part of Qatar’s Education City, Georgetown has had all SFS-Q campus development costs covered by the Qatar Foundation, a charity with noted links to terrorism. May this, perchance, have some influence over the education that Georgetown is giving to future American diplomats in Qatar? At the very least, it may explain some of the blatant anti-Semitic comments in Georgetown’s student newspaper.


The Brookings Institution is also heavily funded by Qatar. In 2013, they received $14.8 million; in 2012, $100,000; and in 2011, $2.9 million. This explains why Obama had Brookings Vice President (and purported diplomat) Martin Indyk, negotiating the ‘peace terms’ between Israel and Hamas. Today, Indyk is busy negotiating with an aggressive and nuclear-aspiring Iran.

Is it any wonder why Israel doesn’t trust this administration? By all reasonable logic, they are on the side of Qatar and Hamas, which is officially the Palestinian franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Obama Administration’s Agents

Given that these organizations function in a coordinated ideological manner, indeed they derive from the same root, it follows naturally that an individual associated with one organization would likely be associated with many, if not most of the others – not to mention the proxies of Georgetown and Brookings.

An experiment: Let’s choose seven Obama administration appointees with suspected ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Where to pluck these seven from? In December 2013, the Egyptian political magazine Rose El-Youssef, in an article titled Not Huma Abedin Alone, named six additional Obama appointees it claimed were operatives of the Muslim Brotherhood. You can read an English translation of the article here. Let’s see if their claims stack up, based on the information above.

Here are the six named operatives (plus Human Abedin) and their titles in the Obama administration:

Arif Alikhan – Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security for Policy Development. 2009-2010.
Eboo Patel – Member of the President’s Advisory Council to the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. 2009-Present.
Huma Abedin – Personal Aide/Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 2009-2013.
Mohamed Magid – DHS Countering Violence and Extremism Working Group. 2011-Present.
Mohammed Elibiary – Senior Member of DHS’s Homeland Security Advisory Council. 2010-2014.
Rashad Hussain – U.S. Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). 2010-Present. Deputy Associate Counsel to Barack Obama. 2009-2010.
Salam Al-Marayati – Administration representative to UNESCO and United Nations. 2010.

(Dates in administration are best efforts based on publicly available information.)

Now let’s compare their affiliations and associations, officially and less formally, across the above named organizations. We’ll also include the Department of Homeland Security, which earlier this week was praised by CAIR for identifying “right-wing sovereign citizen extremist groups,” not Islamic terrorism, as the prime terrorist threat facing the United States.

Green: Has worked or works in an official capacity for organization; is a named member of the organization.
Yellow: Has been associated with org., e.g., authored paper on their behalf; spoke on their behalf and/or at their events; proven personal relationship between the individual and organization’s leadership, etc.
Gray: No known or documented association.

No Coincidences

Notice the heavy concentration of green and yellow boxes, including for Georgetown and Brookings, in the table above. Notice the relatively few gray boxes. Individually these associations mean little; likewise, had this been just one random appointee in the entire administration, this story wouldn’t warrant the attention of the American public.

The intersection of individuals, organizations, Muslim Brotherhood money, and policy recommendations paint a picture of a carefully constructed conspiracy operating in plain sight. The Muslim Brotherhood has hijacked the American government and military and is using them as a tool to build a global Islamic Caliphate. The conspirators are changing the culture at home to accommodate sharia law and using law enforcement to demonize ordinary American citizens as national security threats.

These are Barack Hussein Obama’s appointees. This is Barack Hussein Obama’s administration and these are people chosen to advise him on national security and Islam.

From expunging DHS training materials of the threat posed by Islamic doctrine, to corrupting American foreign policy – the policy ramifications of these and similar appointments will be explored in the next articles.

* This analysis was completed after a careful survey of available press releases, news reports, and credible published information. They will be published in an upcoming report. Source is material regarding Obama’s conspiracy with Muslim Brotherhood available upon request.

The Betrayal Papers is a collaborative effort by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which includes: Andrea Shea King, Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, Benjamin Smith, Bethany Blankley, Brent Parrish, Charles Ortel, Chris Nethery, Denise Simon, Dick Manasseri, Gary Kubiak, Gates of Vienna, Hannah Szenes, IQ al Rassooli, Jeff Bayard, Leslie Burt, Marcus Kohan, Mary Fanning, General Paul E. Vallely, Regina Thomson, Scott Smith, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, Colonel Thomas Snodgrass, Trever Loudon, Wallace Bruschweiler, and William Palumbo.

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Rahm Emanuel’s Corrupt Chicago Police: City has Special “Black Site” for Off-the-Books Interrogation of Americans

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The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.

Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:

•Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
•Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
•Shackling for prolonged periods.
•Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
•Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and was later pronounced dead. (Read more from about the corrupt Chicago police HERE)

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While Russian Anti-American Sentiment Grows to Highest Level Since Cold War, Putin Says War in Ukraine Would be “Apocalyptic”

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War Over Ukraine Would be “Apocalyptic”

By Adam Withnall. The Russian President Vladimir Putin has described war with Ukraine as an “apocalyptic scenario” in his first comments since the signing of a shaky peace agreement in Minsk.

With a ceasefire struggling to take hold and neither the Ukrainian government nor rebels withdrawing heavy weapons from the frontline as promised, Mr Putin gave a confident interview on Russian TV.

Asked if the situation in eastern Ukraine and renewed calls for Russia to return the annexed territory of Crimea meant we could “wake up one day to discover a war has started”, Mr Putin said: “I think that such an apocalyptic scenario is unlikely and I hope this will never happen.”

Foreign ministers from Russia and Ukraine are to meet with those from France and Germany in Paris on Tuesday to discuss how the deal set out on 12 February is progressing. (Read more about what President Putin said about the war in Ukraine HERE)

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Moscow Times: Anti-American Sentiment Reaches 25-Year High in Russia

By Peter Spinella. Russians are more anti-American than they have been at any point in the past 25 years, according to a recent opinion poll.

More than 80 percent of Russians view the United States negatively, the exact inverse of how the public felt in 1992, respected independent pollster the Levada Center said in a statement.

More than 70 percent currently have a negative opinion of the European Union, according to the poll, which was conducted between Jan. 23 and 26.

Russia’s political relations with the West sank to post-Cold War lows last year as Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from neighboring Ukraine, and Russia and the West faced off in a series of tit-for-tat sanctions.

Now, with the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine heating up and U.S. lawmakers renewing a push to supply weapons to the Ukrainian military, popular opinion of the West is not likely to improve anytime soon in Russia. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Report: Crime, Anti-American Harassment in Russia Grows

By Bill Gertz. Anti-American sentiment and criminal activities have increased in Moscow since Russian forces took over Ukraine’s Crimea and continue to destabilize eastern Ukraine, a recent State Department security report reveals.

Security threats in Moscow and Russia include petty crime, physical attacks, activities by organized crime groups, corrupt law enforcement and security officials, widespread cyber crime, and economic espionage, according to the Feb. 6 report produced by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), a State Department group that supports American businesses abroad.


“The social and political unrest in Ukraine has led to increasing political tensions between the Russian Federation and the U.S. and other Western nations,” the report, based on reports from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, said. “As a result, anti-American and anti-Western sentiment appears to be increasing, especially in certain media outlets” . . .

The report said U.S.-Russia ties were “greatly strained” after Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

Embassy reports indicate a number of Americans were verbally harassed and physically assaulted in the last part of 2014 . . . (Read more from this story HERE)

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Are the Feds and Mrs. Obama Starving Us?

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By Elizabeth Harrington. The federal committee responsible for nutrition guidelines is calling for the adoption of “plant-based” diets, taxes on dessert, trained obesity “interventionists” at worksites, and electronic monitoring of how long Americans sit in front of the television.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) released its far-reaching 571-page report of recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Thursday, which detailed its plans to “transform the food system.”

The report is open for public comment for 45 days, and will be used as the basis by the government agencies to develop the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The guidelines are used as the basis for government food assistance programs, nutrition education efforts, and for making “decisions about national health objectives.”

DGAC proposed a variety of solutions to address obesity, and its promotion of what it calls the “culture of health.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Disgusting Meals by Michelle Obama

By Anucyia Victor. Mouthwatering photos of school lunches served around the world reveal even children in Ukraine, Estonia and Greece are treated to delectable meals each day. School children in America, meanwhile, aren’t nearly so lucky.

Whereas a kid in France might be treated to a juicy steak and a hunk of brie, the richest country in the world’s youths are more likely to receive unidentified meat served alongside little more than a starch like white pasta, fries or a roll.

The contrasts between America’s school meals and those in far less fortunate economies are stark and suggest Michelle Obama’s push for more healthful lunches nationwide may not be enough.

The first new school lunch standards championed by Michelle Obama have been phased in over the last several school years.


In addition to whole grain requirements, the rules set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on foods in the lunch line and beyond. While many schools have had success putting the rules in place, others have said they are too restrictive and costly. (Read more about Mrs. Obama starving us HERE)

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You’ll Never Guess What Edward Snowden Says His Only Regret is

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By Military. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden says he wishes he had come forward sooner with documents exposing the agency’s surveillance program.

In a Reddit ask-me-anything interview Monday, Snowden said that’s the one thing he would do differently in 2013 when he revealed NSA practices.

“I would have come forward sooner,” he said.

“Had I come forward a little sooner, these programs would have been a little less entrenched, and those abusing them would have felt a little less familiar with and accustomed to the exercise of those powers. This is something we see in almost every sector of government, not just in the national security space, but it’s very important: Once you grant the government some new power or authority, it becomes exponentially more difficult to roll it back,” he said. (Read more about Edward Snowden and his only regret HERE)

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Oscars Host Slams Edward Snowden at the Event

By Will Oremus. One of the first things users asked the fugitive whistleblower was what he thought of Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris’s pun about him Sunday night.

(“Edward Snowden couldn’t be here, for some treason,” NPH had quipped.)

Many of Snowden’s allies, including Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, slammed the one-liner as insulting and irresponsible.

But Snowden himself took it in stride:

To be honest, I laughed at NPH. I don’t think it was meant as a political statement, but even if it was, that’s not so bad. My perspective is if you’re not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don’t care enough.

(Read more from this story HERE)

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Snowden: Spy Agencies ‘Screwed All of Us’ in Hacking Crypto Keys

By Kim Zetter. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden didn’t mince words during a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Monday when he said the NSA and the British spy agency GCHQ had “screwed all of us” when it hacked into the Dutch firm Gemalto to steal cryptographic keys used in billions of mobile SIM cards worldwide.

“When the NSA and GCHQ compromised the security of potentially billions of phones (3g/4g encryption relies on the shared secret resident on the sim),” Snowden wrote in the AMA, “they not only screwed the manufacturer, they screwed all of us, because the only way to address the security compromise is to recall and replace every SIM sold by Gemalto.”


Gemalto is one of the leading makers of SIM cards used in billions of mobile phones around the world to secure the communications of telecom customers of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and more than 400 other wireless carriers in 85 countries. Stealing the crypto keys essentially allows the spy agencies to wiretap and decipher encrypted phone communications at will without the assistance of telecom carriers or the oversight of a court or government. The keys also allow the agencies to decrypt previously intercepted messages they hadn’t been able to crack. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Persecution: ISIS Abducts at Least 150 Christians Throughout Syria; Saudi Arabia Gives Death Penalty to Man Who Renounced Islam

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By Suleiman Al- Khalidi. Islamic State militants have abducted at least 150 people from Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria they had raided, Christian Syrian activists said on Tuesday.

A Syrian Christian group representing several NGO’s inside and outside the country said it had verified at least 150 people missing, including women and elderly, who had been kidnapped by the militants.

“We have verified at least 150 people who have been adducted from sources on the ground,” Bassam Ishak, President of the Syriac National Council of Syria, whose family itself is from Hasaka, told Reuters from Amman.

Earlier the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 90 were abducted when the militants carried out dawn raids on rural villages inhabited by the ancient Christian minority west of Hasaka, a city mainly held by the Kurds.

Syrian Kurdish militia launched two offensives against the militants in northeast Syria on Sunday, helped by U.S.-led air strikes and Iraqi peshmerga. (Read more about the abducted Christians throughout Syria HERE)

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Saudi Arabia Court Gives Man Death Penalty for Renouncing Muslim Faith

By Richard Spencer. A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a man to death for apostasy after he filmed himself tearing up a copy of the Koran, a new test case for the country’s human rights record just as its most powerful rising prince was visiting Downing Street.

Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the country’s security supremo who was recently made deputy Crown Prince – the presumed heir-but-one to the throne – was due to have dinner with Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, on Tuesday night.

He will meet Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, on Wednesday and then the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, Theresa May, on Thursday – a sign of how important Saudi Arabia is held to be across a range of key political issues, from the fight against Islamic State to home-grown radicalisation.

Human rights groups were already calling on the government to raise their concerns with the prince, including the case of the blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes for criticising the country’s religious establishment. (Read more from this story HERE)

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The Massacre of Assyrians Christians on Way

By Walid Shoebat. Shoebat.com reported yesterday before it became news, that ISIS attacked the Assyrian villages in the Hasaka province in northeast Syria where ISIS fighters were met by members of Natorehs, a Christian brigade which is also called The Assyrian Guards where Assyrian fighters were killed running low on ammunition and help from anyone in the West while killing tens of ISIS fighters. And the fighting is still ongoing in Tel Tamar. In the process an estimated 117 Christians, elderly, women and children were kidnapped by ISIS.

There were 12 Christians abducted from Tel Hurmiz, 15 from Tel Goran. They have been brought to Jabal Abdul Aziz. The residents of the villages of Tel Shamiran (approximately 50) and Tel Jazira (about 40) are being held captive in their own villages by ISIS.


There approximate number (117) is concluded by adding kidnapped and held. These are as good as dead. Hani Zaya, whose parents, who live in Tel Goran, were abducted by ISIS. According to Mr. Zaya, local Arabs who are members of ISIS and who knew the Assyrian village residents reportedly brought them to “safe-houses” in nearby villages. None of the captives have answered or made telephone calls. Calls made by relatives of the captives have been answered by ISIS members, who have said there is nothing to be done for the hostages.

On top of all this, a number of churches have been destroyed, including the church in Tel Hurmiz, one of the oldest churches in Syria, the Mar Bisho church in Tel Shamiran, the church in Qabr Shamiy and the church in Tel Baloua. (Read more from this story HERE)

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17,000 Federal Employees Earned More Than $200K Last Year

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Photo Credit: WNDBy Eric Katz. More than 16,900 federal employees took home in excess of $200,000 in base salary in 2014, according to a partial database of federal salary data.

The information, compiled by FedSmith.com using data from the Office of Personnel Management and other agencies, shows the annual compensation for every civilian federal worker, save those at the Defense Department. The number of workers earning more than $200,000 represented about 1.6 percent of employees on the list and is up from about 15,000 who cleared that salary in 2013. It also makes up a slightly higher percentage of the employees on this list.

Most of the high earners worked as medical officers at the Veterans Affairs Department. Other agencies that require a highly specialized workforce paid several employees at least $200,000; these included the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

More than 1,600 federal employees cleared $300,000 in base salary last year. Just two—VA doctors in Palo Alto, Calif., and Pittsburgh—took in more than $400,000. (Read more from this story about what federal employees earned HERE)

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Lois Lerner Received $129K in Bonuses

By CJ Ciaramella. Former IRS official Lois Lerner received $129,300 in bonuses between 2010 and 2013, records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show.

Over a three-year period, Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division at the heart of the IRS targeting scandal, received a 25 percent retention bonus—averaging $43,000 a year—on top of her regular salary.

The federal government uses retention bonuses to incentivize valuable employees who are considering retirement or private sector jobs to stay at their agencies.


Former acting IRS commissioner Steven T. Miller recommended Lerner for a $42,000 retention bonus in December 2009, when she first became eligible for retirement.

“Ms. Lerner is eligible for retirement and as an attorney with extensive experience would likely command a much greater pay and benefits if she left the Service,” Miller wrote. “Without a retention incentive she will leave the Service.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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