By Tamar Auber. Last summer, two little Amish girls were taken from a roadside farm stand, shackled and sexually assaulted before being dropped off miles from their home a day later.
Their kidnappers were quickly captured thanks to information the girls were able to provide to investigators.
Now, both federal and local prosecutors have offered the callous couple behind the assault a deal to plead guilty to the charges stemming from the horrific crime.
Stephen Howells, 39, and girlfriend Nicole Vaisey, 25, both currently in federal custody, were presented with a deal last week in order to spare the little Amish girls – ages 7 and 12- the pain of reliving their terror at a trial.
The deal would see the couple spending the rest of their lives behind bars for a laundry list of federal and local charges. (Read more from “More Victims, Planned Murders: More Harrowing Details Emerge in the Case of the Kidnapped Amish Girls” HERE)
‘I Was in a Master-Slave Relationship’: Woman Who Kidnapped Amish Girls Tries to Avoid Full Blame
By Tamar Auber. The woman who kidnapped two little Amish girls in upstate New York says that it is not entirely her fault that it happened; she was in a master-slave relationship with her boyfriend.
Nicole Vaisey, 25, did not speak at a hearing this week where she was denied bail for kidnapping the girls.
Through her lawyer, though, she made it clear that she intends to argue the bulk of the blame should go to her ‘master’ and co-conspirator Steven Howells.
“She was in a master-slave relationship,” her attorney Bradford Riendeau said yesterday. “I believe she’s not as culpable as he is.”
Riendeau also said that Vaisey should be considered a victim as well. “I am currently researching on what happens when prisoners of war go through enhanced interrogation,” he said. “What torture has done to her personality to determine just how compliant she was? Was it really voluntary? Can you really give consent to be tortured?” (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-04-09 01:51:222015-04-09 01:51:22More Victims, Planned Murders: More Harrowing Details Emerge in the Case of the Kidnapped Amish Girls
North Korea accused Mexico on Wednesday of illegally detaining one of its ships with some 50 crew and warned it would take “necessary measures” to release the vessel, which United Nations sanctions monitors say belongs to a blacklisted shipping firm.
The 6,700-tonne freighter Mu Du Bong, which had come from Cuba, ran aground in July on a reef 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Tuxpan in Mexico’s Veracruz state. Mexico said the ship remains in the port of Tuxpan.
North Korea’s Deputy UN Ambassador An Myong Hun told a small news conference on Wednesday that the Mu Du Bong was not linked to the blacklisted firm, Ocean Maritime Management Company, and therefore not subject to U.N. sanctions.
He said North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), had paid an undisclosed sum to Mexico for damages to the reef where the ship had run aground and now the ship and its crew should be released.
“This ship is totally a peaceful and legitimate commercial ship which sails under the direction of the Ministry of Land and Sea Transportation,” An said. “The detention of Mu Du Bong is a rampant violation of the dignified sovereignty of the DPRK.” (Read more from “North Korea Warns Will Act to Get Back Ship Held by Mexico” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-04-09 01:50:452015-04-09 01:50:45North Korea Warns Will Act to Get Back Ship Held by Mexico
By Matt Wilstein. Towards the end of his speech at Tuesday morning’s Easter Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama appeared to veer off script to make some comments that implicitly referenced the fierce debate that has been raging over the last week about “religious freedom” laws in Indiana, Arkansas and elsewhere.
“On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love,” Obama said. “And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.” As the crowd began to murmur, the president backed off, saying, “But that’s a topic for another day.”
“I was about to veer off,” he explained. “I’m pulling it back.” (Read more from “Obama Denounces ‘Less-than-Loving’ Christians at Easter Prayer Breakfast” HERE)
By Ian Hanchett. Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh stated that the left has a “fear and hatred of Christianity” on Monday.
Rush said that he thought it was odd that people on the left seem to believe Pope Francis I agrees with them on many issues, “even though they hate religion, even though they’re frightened of it, even though they’re scared to death of it, which is the real truth of it all, they so desperately want the pope to be one of them. It’s one of the most amazing psychological things, I think. Modern leftists, particularly modern really extreme leftists — I mean, most of the culture war that is occurring in this country and has been going on for 30 years, if the truth be known, at the root of it is a fear and hatred of Christianity and religion in general, Christianity specifically, but religion in general.”
He continued, “that is what people on the left just have the biggest struggle with. It’s a giant enemy. It’s a powerful enemy, an enemy they have no control over, an enemy they will never be able to dominate, an enemy they will never be able to obliterate and they know it, but they nevertheless try.” (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-04-08 02:23:272015-04-08 02:23:27Obama Makes Another Anti-Christian Statement, This Time at Yesterday’s Easter Prayer Breakfast
There is something surreal about the media and the far-left tearing up our nation the past two weeks over the right to force religious business-owners to bake a cake, for example, for gay marriages. Meanwhile, their ideological leader, Barack Obama, has just forged a deal with the most genocidal and regressive regime that will pave the road for them to build a nuclear bomb and afford them more latitude to fund and export global terror – unencumbered by sanctions that have been in place for years. For the Left, it’s all about priorities.
While the media and Obama will continue to try to sell a different story in an attempt to paint the deal as one of Obama’s biggest ‘achievements,’ here is what the mainstream media isn’t reporting about the deal:
• Allows Iran to keep reactors, centrifuges, and infrastructure: No existing nuclear reactors or centrifuges will have to be dismantled. All of Iran’s activities will continue at their main facilities in Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan and Arak. Iran will keep its entire base infrastructure. In return, all the sanctions will be removed, granting Iran more economic breathing room to help develop a bomb and proliferate terror. Obama claims: “if Iran cheats we will know it,” but the only way we will know it is when it’s too late. And at that point, the decision to reinstate sanctions is in the hands of the UN Security Council, which means that there is no incentive for Iran to comply with the deal. Russia will never agree to reinstate sanctions.
Iran will be allowed to maintain its underground Iranian enrichment facility in Ferdo with 1,000 centrifuges spinning. According to the terms of the deal as espoused by the White House, those centrifuges must only spin non-nuclear materials, which will be almost impossible to verify in the long-run once they are allowed to keep all the nuclear infrastructure spinning and operating in a bunker. As late as 2012, Obama said “we know they don’t need to have an underground, fortified facility like Fordo in order to have a peaceful program.”
[Author David Horowitz was interviewed on The Joe Miller Show and talked about endemic problems in the US political system]
In an Orwellian twist, Iran will rename the facility the “nuclear physics and technology center.” This facility was originally built in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran signed in 1970. Now it will be allowed to develop far more advanced centrifuges than it currently holds.
• Obama goes back on his promise to dismantle Arak: Obama also said in the past that the Iranians “certainly don’t need a heavy-water reactor at Arak in order to have a peaceful nuclear program.” Well, the Arak facility will be intact, even according to the White House’s version of the agreement.
• The Fox Guarding the Henhouse: One of the selling points of the agreement from last Thursday was that Iran would have to surrender its current stockpiles of enriched uranium. But those stockpiles would have to be shipped to….Russia! They are the biggest supplier of Iran’s nuclear program. Now, Iran is denying that they agreed to surrender their uranium at all.
• Terrorism and threat to Israel: There is not one word in this agreement about Iran’s appalling sponsorship of terror. In fact, this agreement, and the legitimacy and economic benefits that are bestowed upon Iran therein, implicitly blesses and enables them to continue building Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal.
Obama said that “if Israel were to be attacked by any state, that we would stand by them.” The problem is that Israel will likely be attacked with rockets from the north by Hezbollah, which is not a state (although they are supplied and trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard). Obama chose his words carefully because we all know that he would be the first world leader to condemn Israel for counter-attacking Hezbollah, much like he did with Israel’s campaign against Hamas last summer. In fact, Iran is already restocking Hamas with rockets and materials to rebuild their network of terror tunnels. Not to mention, Hezbollah’s leader voiced his support for the deal, rightfully noting that it will help them in their struggle against Israel. Obama also rejected Netanyahu’s request that Iran be forced to recognize Israel’s right to exist as part of the agreement to lift sanctions.
• Conventional Weapons: There is absolutely no mention in the framework of Iran’s continued development of long-range ballistic missiles or ICBMs. In fact, they have continued to test long rage missiles throughout the entire duration of the negotiations. The relief in sanctions will only grant Iran more resources to continue developing their military assets, which will not only threaten Israel but Europe and the U.S. as well.
Taken as a whole, this deal will allow Iran to keep all of its nuclear infrastructure and come within arm’s length of the breakout point by the time the deal expires. And this all assumes that they will allow in the weapons inspectors and comply even with the cosmetic changes to their nuclear program. In reality, once the sanctions are taken off in such spectacular fashion, there will be no incentive for them to comply with anything, much like the North Koreans did in the ‘90s. It’s akin to the deals of ‘amnesty now, promises of security later’ or ‘tax increases now in return for spending cuts later.’
Furthermore, the Iranians are refusing to recognize the White House talking points on the agreement and have made it clear that their version of the agreement is a national victory for their country. They actually have their own version of the tentative agreement circulating domestically in Persian. This means that the agreement is worthless because Iran will pocket the relief on sanctions but never agree to any of the supposed accountability measures in the White House’s version of the framework.
It is clear that the entire dog and pony show at Lausanne last week was designed by the White House and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif to serve as a dilatory tactic to block sanctions indefinitely. If there is this much public ambiguity over the details of the framework, one can only imagine what Obama has told the Iranians privately in order to secure the support of Ayatollah Khamenei.
In short, Obama has essentially told the Iranian Mullahs that if they like their nukes, long range missiles, and terror networks they can keep them. No wonder the Iranians are declaring victory.
The time for Congress to act is now. (See “#IranDeal: If You Like Your Nukes You Can Keep Them”, originally posted HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-04-08 02:23:132015-04-08 02:23:13Obama Screws the World with #IranDeal: “If You Like Your Nukes You Can Keep Them” [+videos]
Russian hackers behind the damaging cyber intrusion of the State Department in recent months used that perch to penetrate sensitive parts of the White House computer system, according to U.S. officials briefed on the investigation.
While the White House has said the breach only affected an unclassified system, that description belies the seriousness of the intrusion. The hackers had access to sensitive information such as real-time non-public details of the president’s schedule. While such information is not classified, it is still highly sensitive and prized by foreign intelligence agencies, U.S. officials say.
The White House in October said it noticed suspicious activity in the unclassified network that serves the executive office of the president. The system has been shut down periodically to allow for security upgrades.
The FBI, Secret Service and U.S. intelligence agencies are all involved in investigating the breach, which they consider among the most sophisticated attacks ever launched against U.S. government systems. The intrusion was routed through computers around the world, as hackers often do to hide their tracks, but investigators found tell-tale codes and other markers that they believe point to hackers working for the Russian government.
National Security Council spokesman Mark Stroh didn’t confirm the Russian hack, but he did say that “any such activity is something we take very seriously.” (Read more from “White House Computers Hacked by Russians, Sensitive Information Accessed” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-04-08 02:22:542015-04-08 02:22:54White House Computers Hacked by Russians, Sensitive Information Accessed
A 2009 NCIS investigation into Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s activities while in Afghanistan reveal that there is clear evidence Bergdahl was “going over to the other side with a deliberate plan,” Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” Monday night.
Shaffer, a former military intelligence officer and Fox News contributor, said two senior sources told him that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation included a forensic review of his computer, which show Bergdahl’s apparent intent to travel to Uzbekistan.
“He was going to go off to Uzbekistan,” Shaffer told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. “He had made contact with local Afghans and wanted to be moved to Uzbekistan and then made contact with the Russians because he wanted to talk to Russian organized crime …
“Clearly he was not all there relating to what he was doing,” Shaffer told O’Reilly. “I think we’re going to see more and more, as this report is made public that there were a number of disconcerting things within Bergdahl.”
A military source also told Fox News there was strong intelligence after Bergdahl’s 2009 disappearance indicating he was handed over to the Taliban about 10 days after he left his base, and that the group wanted him. The source, who is familiar with the investigation and efforts to recover Bergdahl, said there was an effort to pick up Bergdahl — and potentially block his crossing into Pakistan — but the intelligence was either bad or old and the effort was not successful. (Read more from “NCIS Investigation Reportedly Shows Bergdahl Had ‘Deliberate Plan’ to ‘Offer Himself up’ to the Taliban” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-04-08 02:22:532015-04-08 02:22:53NCIS Investigation Reportedly Shows Bergdahl Had ‘Deliberate Plan’ to ‘Offer Himself up’ to the Taliban
The second wave of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children has begun, with more than 3,000 of them surging across the Mexican border into the U.S. last month — the highest rate since the peak of last summer’s crisis and a warning that another rough season could be ahead.
Immigration officials warned that they expected another surge as the weather improved. Although the numbers are down some 40 percent compared with last year’s frenetic pace that sparked a political crisis for the Obama administration, fiscal year 2015 is shaping up to mark the second-biggest surge on record.
Authorities report having captured 15,647 children traveling without parents who tried to jump the border in the first six months of the fiscal year. Through this point in 2014, they had apprehended 28,579.
Just as worrisome is the rate of whole families — usually mothers with young children — who are crossing. So far this fiscal year, authorities have captured 13,911 “family units,” down 30 percent from last year.
“These statistics show that the surge of illegal arrivals from Central America was never really over,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies. (Read more from “Illegal Immigrant Children Surge Across Border at Highest Rate Since Last Summer’s Peak [+video]” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-04-08 02:22:152015-04-08 02:22:15Illegal Immigrant Children Begin Surging Across Border Again, Highest Numbers Since Last Summer’s Peak [+video]
The U.S. government started keeping secret records of Americans’ international telephone calls nearly a decade before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, harvesting billions of calls in a program that provided a blueprint for the far broader National Security Agency surveillance that followed.
For more than two decades, the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed logs of virtually all telephone calls from the USA to as many as 116 countries linked to drug trafficking, current and former officials involved with the operation said. The targeted countries changed over time but included Canada, Mexico and most of Central and South America.
Federal investigators used the call records to track drug cartels’ distribution networks in the USA, allowing agents to detect previously unknown trafficking rings and money handlers. They also used the records to help rule out foreign ties to the bombing in 1995 of a federal building in Oklahoma City and to identify U.S. suspects in a wide range of other investigations.
The Justice Department revealed in January that the DEA had collected data about calls to “designated foreign countries.” But the history and vast scale of that operation have not been disclosed until now.
The now-discontinued operation, carried out by the DEA’s intelligence arm, was the government’s first known effort to gather data on Americans in bulk, sweeping up records of telephone calls made by millions of U.S. citizens regardless of whether they were suspected of a crime. It was a model for the massive phone surveillance system the NSA launched to identify terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks. That dragnet drew sharp criticism that the government had intruded too deeply into Americans’ privacy after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked it to the news media two years ago. (Read more from “U.S. Secretly Tracked Billions of Calls for Decades” HERE)
With 99% of the ballots counted in the Anchorage mayoral race, Amy Demboski and Ethan Berkowitz are the top two vote getters and will face a run-off election in May as neither candidate passed the 45% threshold to win outright.
Ms. Demboski, a current Anchorage Assembly member, and Mr. Berkowitz, a former Democratic state legislator, are near-polar opposites with respect to a number of political issues. Anchorage voters will have a clear choice between a strong advocate for limited government and fiscal restraint versus a traditional, big government liberal.
On election night, Ms. Demboski stated that, “I truly believe the people of Anchorage were galvanized behind a truly fresh message. It’s going to be either big government and more taxes or less government and lower taxes.”
Mr. Berkowitz (37%) was endorsed by liberal Mark Begich in the race. One of Ms. Demboski’s (24%) first endorsements was from conservative firebrand Joe Miller, former U.S. Senate candidate.
The other top vote getters, Andrew Halcro (22%) and Dan Coffey (15%), were both registered Republicans but were not considered traditional conservatives. Halcro, who won a miniscule portion of the statewide vote in his bid for governor several years ago, has aligned himself with leftist issues and politicians for years, while ex-lobbyist and former assembly member Coffey had only been a registered Republican since this past January.
Undoubtedly, this will be a challenging race for Ms. Demboski. Given the low turnout anticipated in the run-off election, Ms. Demboski’s get-out-the-vote effort will be critical, and she must retain and expand her conservative base.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-04-08 02:22:052015-04-08 02:22:05Joe Miller-Endorsed Amy Demboski Pulls it Off, Will Face Liberal Berkowitz in Run-Off Election for Anchorage Mayor
Delegates from Arab and Muslim states, some without formal ties with Israel, were expected in Jerusalem next week for a conference on nuclear testing sponsored by the United Nations.
Some 100 delegates, including from Egypt and Jordan, were set to arrive for a conference organized by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), an international organization set up to outlaw nuclear weapons headed by Dr. Lassina Zerbo. Israel is a member of the treaty but has yet to ratify it.
To ensure the arrival of those invitees from states with no diplomatic relations with Israel, the Foreign Ministry had to issue travel and safety assurances, the Israeli daily Maariv reported Tuesday.
The purpose of the conference, as reported by Maariv was to discuss the results from a recent experiment in Jordan in November 2014. The experiment tested CTBTO inspectors’s abilities to monitor, identify and neutralize nuclear testing, according to the report.
Zerbo was set to meet with Intelligence Minister Dr. Yuval Steinitz, heads of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission and other Israel officials to try to persuade an Israeli ratification of the treaty, according to Maariv. (Read more from “Arab, Muslim Delegates to Arrive in Israel for Nuke Conference” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-04-08 02:21:002015-04-08 02:21:00Arab, Muslim Delegates to Arrive in Jerusalem for United Nations’ Nuke Conference
By Tamar Auber. Last summer, two little Amish girls were taken from a roadside farm stand, shackled and sexually assaulted before being dropped off miles from their home a day later.
With 99% of the ballots counted in the Anchorage mayoral race, Amy Demboski and Ethan Berkowitz are the top two vote getters and will face a run-off election in May as neither candidate passed the 45% threshold to win outright. 