Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has, some might say, been bluntness personified when he comments upon the weaknesses of others. On Monday night, Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon asked Trump to turn the focus on himself and share with America his greatest weakness.
“I never forget,” Trump replied.
He then critiqued himself dispassionately.
“When, you know, it is sort of interesting, I’ve said it, I’m too nice too long, and when…if somebody takes advantage of a situation, I become too bad for too long, so I think I maybe have to have a little bit of a shorter memory wouldn’t be so bad,” he said.
Later in the interview, he gave an example of when he has reaped an advantage from the kind of behavior he cited as a weakness. He was discussing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, when he made an observation.
“She came out with a little bit of a statement about me, and I came out with a very big statement about her and Bill,” Trump said, getting a laugh. “And she stopped talking about me all of a sudden.” (Read more from “Watch: Trump Admits Greatest Weakness With 3 Honest Words That Will Shock You” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-14 00:26:572016-04-11 10:53:51Watch: Trump Admits Greatest Weakness With 3 Honest Words That Will Shock You
By Matthew Clark. President Obama is relentless in his pursuit of legacy, throwing caution (and our national security) to the wind. Tomorrow his reckless Administration is set to release 10 more “hardcore” terrorist enemy combatants from Gitmo – the prison at Guantanamo Bay. . .
The security threats are escalated by the astounding recidivism rate of released Gitmo terrorists. Of the dozens of lower level terrorist detainees already released, 1 in 3 of these jihadist terrorists have ended up back on the battlefield.
For example, just last month Ibrahim al-Qosi, a former top bin Laden aid who was released three years ago after spending a decade at Gitmo, was discovered to have become a senior leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Releasing these battle-hardened terrorists only to have them plot and kill again is a dereliction of President Obama’s sworn duty to protect America. (Read more from “Obama Releasing 10 More Hardcore Terrorists in His Deadly Ploy to Close Guantanamo” HERE)
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Ten Detainees Leaving Gitmo in Bulk Transfer Today, Defense Officials Say
By Lucas Tomlison. The U.S. military is preparing a bulk transfer of 10 detainees on Thursday from its detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, two defense officials told Fox News.
The transfer, amounting to about 10 percent of the remaining prisoners, marks the largest group of detainees to be shipped out of the camp since Defense Secretary Ash Carter informed Congress in December his department would transfer a wave of detainees at the beginning of 2016. . . .
But the moves have heightened security concerns, as some of the latest detainees being shipped out were deemed medium- or high-risk prisoners. “All these guys are the ‘hardcore’ type; if not, they would have been transferred earlier,” said one official familiar with the list of those being transferred Thursday. . . . Right, now, there are 103 detainees remaining at the camp, and all have ties to Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. (Read more from “Ten Detainees Leaving Gitmo in Bulk Transfer Today, Defense Officials Say” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-14 00:25:522016-04-11 10:53:51Obama Releasing 10 More Hardcore Terrorists in His Deadly Ploy to Close Guantanamo
The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) casts itself as a spontaneous uprising born of inner city frustration, but is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded communist/socialist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades. Its agitation has provoked police killings and other violence, lawlessness and unrest in minority communities throughout the U.S. If allowed to continue, that agitation could devolve into anarchy and civil war. The BLM crowd appears to be spoiling for just such an outcome.
Nevertheless, BLM appears to be exercising considerable leverage over the Democratic Party, in part by pressuring and intimidating Democratic candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (VT) into embracing their cause. The movement could also assist President Obama’s exploitation of racial divisions in society beyond his final term in office.
[An interview with the author:]
This report examines in detail, for the first time, how communist groups have manipulated the cause of Black Lives Matter, and how money from liberal foundations has made it all possible.
Leftist Origins
Exploiting blacks to promote Marxist revolution is an old tactic. The late Larry Grathwohl, former FBI informant in the Weather Underground, understood from personal experience how white communists exploited blacks and other minority groups. He said that Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn regarded Barack Obama, whose political career they sponsored, as a tool—a puppet—to use against white America. Obama’s legacy at home will certainly include more racial division.
BLM launched in 2013 with a Twitter hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, after neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman was acquitted in the Trayvon Martin killing. Radical Left activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi claim credit for the slogan and hashtag. Following the Michael Brown shooting in August 2014, Dream Defenders, an organization led by Working Families Party (ACORN) activist and Occupy Wall Street anarchist Nelini Stamp, popularized the phrase “Hands Up–Don’t Shoot!” which has since become BLM’s widely recognized slogan.
Garza, Cullors and Tometi all work for front groups of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), one of the four largest radical Left organizations in the country. The others are the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). Nelini Stamp’s ACORN—now rebranded under a variety of different names—works with all four organizations, and Dream Defenders is backed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center and others.
FRSO is a hereditary descendant of the New Communist Movement, which was inspired by Mao and the many communist revolutions throughout the world in the 1960s and 1970s. FRSO split into two separate groups in 1999, FRSO/Fight Back and FRSO/OSCL (Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organizaci?n Socialista del Camino para la Libertad). Black Lives Matter and its founders are allied with the latter group. Future references to FRSO in this article refer to FRSO/OSCL.
FRSO is comprised of dozens of groups. The radical Left model is based on alliances of many organizations that are working on separate issues but dedicated ultimately to the same thing: overthrowing our society in order to replace it with a hardcore socialist (read communist) one.
The goal is to present the appearance of a formidable mass of organizations. Some are large, but many are little more than a website or Facebook page. When necessary, they can all come together to promote the cause du jour. The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and others were mere pretexts for socialist agitation. The real enemy is “the system.” This is why the BLM crowd denies the facts of those cases. As Stamp has said, “we are actually trying to change the capitalist system we have today because it’s not working for any of us.”
BLM is one of many projects undertaken by the FRSO. Except for the website, blacklivesmatter.com, there is no actual organization. The website implicitly acknowledges this, describing #BlackLivesMatter as “an online forum intended to build connections between Black people and our allies to fight anti-Black racism, to spark dialogue among Black people, and to facilitate the types of connections necessary to encourage social action and engagement.”
FRSO membership is disproportionately represented by blacks, gays and women, and self-consciously emphasizes those issues. Garza, who penned a “Herstory” of BLM, is a “queer,” black veteran activist involved in numerous FRSO organizations. Her resumé includes:
Special projects director, National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA)
Executive Director, People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER)
Board member, School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
2011 Board Chair, Right to the City Alliance (RTTC)
Cullors describes herself as a “working class, queer, black woman.” She claims the country killed her father, a drug addict. At a 2015 Netroots Nation conference, Cullors led chants shouting, “If I die in police custody, burn everything down… rise the fuck up! That is the only way motherfuckers like you will listen!” Cullors founded and directs Dignity and Power Now (DPN), which claims to seek “dignity and power of incarcerated people, their families, and communities.”
Cullors was trained by Eric Mann, a former Weather Underground leader who exhorts followers to become “anti-racist, anti-imperialist” activists. Mann runs another FRSO front, the Labor/Community Strategy Center. Like most professional leftists, he makes good money—over $225,000 annually—living in “the system” he advocates destroying.
Tometi is the daughter of illegal aliens from Nigeria. While in college, she worked for the ACLU defending illegal aliens against “vigilantes” opposed to illegal immigration. She is currently the executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI).
The Funding
FRSO/BLM organizations are generously supported by a universe of wealthy foundations. Some, like those employing BLM founders Garza and Tometi, receive money directly. Others, like Cullors’ DPN, are financed by organizations designed specifically to underwrite the activities of others. Amounts reflect donations received over approximately the past decade.
NDWA (Garza)—2013 revenues were $5.5 million. The NDWA board includes two members of CASA de Maryland, the Illegals’ version of ACORN. CASA also received a grant from NDWA in 2013, as did the radical Left Institute for Policy Studies. NDWA receives funding from the following foundations:
POWER (Garza)—2013 revenues were $456,676, including $92,173 in government grants. POWER evolved from the now defunct communist group STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement). Obama’s former “Green Jobs Czar” the self-described communist, Van Jones, served on STORM’s board.
RTTC (Garza)—2013 revenues were $248,190. RTTC is a nationwide network of activist organizations that resists the gentrification of inner cities because it displaces “low-income people, people of color, marginalized LGBTQ communities, and youths of color…”
BAJI (Tometi)—2013 revenues were $321,570. This modest organization only lists two full-time staff, yet receives support from many recognizable foundations.
Cullors’ DPN is underwritten by Community Partners, a Los Angeles based non-profit with a $24 million budget (including $4 million in government grants) that fiscally sponsors non-profits. It is not an FRSO organization.
Advancement Project (AP)—an FRSO group that funds a variety of radical causes. AP sees America as a racist, oppressive nation and, according to Discover the Networks, “works to organize ‘communities of color’ into politically cohesive units while disseminating its leftist worldviews and values as broadly as possible by way of a sophisticated communications department.” Its 2013 revenues were $11.3 million.
Movement Strategy Center (MSC)—also facilitates funding, development and advancement of FRSO organizations. Its 2013 revenues were $7.5 million, including $156,032 in government grants.
The Return of Van Jones
Mainstream funders have helped fund BLM as well. For example, United Way has partnered with A&E and iHeartMedia to create Shining the Light Advisors, a committee of “nationally known experts and leaders in racial and social justice,” to oversee grant disbursements. These “advisors” include such radicals as Van Jones, Advancement Project co-director Judith Browne Dianis, and Rinku Sen, president of the Applied Research Center (ARC).
BLM’s mission includes a kitchen sink of favored radical Left causes, including support of poverty elimination programs, prison deinstitutionalization, illegal immigration and gay rights. Highlighting FRSO’s orientation toward gay blacks, it describes how “Black, queer and trans folks bear a unique burden from a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us, and that is state violence.”
Its wide network of affiliates and partner organizations like CPUSA and ACORN allows BLM to turn out large crowds. Many participate simply to protest, commit violence, loot or all three.
FRSO was prominent at the Ferguson protests and videoed the event. It has even created a Black Lives Matter button. Following are more FRSO organizations involved with BLM. (Funding estimates provided when known).
Black Left Unity—A Marxist/Leninist organization that supports favored causes of the communist Left, including unity with Cuba, war against capitalism and Occupy Wall Street.
Black Workers for Justice—A North Carolina-based group which claims to struggle on behalf of “oppressed nationalities,” etc.
Causa Justa/Just Cause—A Black/Latino solidarity organization allied with the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, RTTC and others. Its 2013 revenues were $1.6 million, including $689,484 in government grants.
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ)—“a national alliance of US-based grassroots organizing (GRO) groups organizing to build an agenda for power for working and poor people and communities of color.”
Hands Up United—Works for “liberation of oppressed Black, Brown, and poor people through education, art, civil disobedience, advocacy, and agriculture.”
Intelligent Mischief—Their Black Body Survival Guide is in the works and has raised over $8,000 through IndieGoGo.
Organization for Black Struggle (OBS)—This organization is affiliated with the CPUSA. Its website claims its allies as Black Workers for Justice and the Advancement Project. Chaired by FRSO member Montague Simmons.
Revolutionary Student Coordinating Committee (RSCC) a militant group founded in 2012 by CUNY students. It is networked at different U.S. colleges. This group organized the infamous pro-abortion “Hail Satan” chant at Texas capital. Its extremism is captured in the following video:
Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) is a “national network of groups and individuals organizing White people for racial justice.” SURJ quotes Garza saying that “We need you defecting from White supremacy and changing the narrative of White supremacy by breaking White silence.”
Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE)—Its 2013 revenues were $2.8 million. Led by Anthony Thigpenn, a former Black Panther and board member of the Apollo Alliance. Apollo is the secretive alliance of labor, environment and other Left activists that formulated Obama’s trillion dollar “stimulus” plan. Board member Van Jones described Apollo “as sort of a grand unified field theory for progressive Left causes.” It is now a project of the Blue Green Alliance.
BLM groups have also joined with CPUSA, CCDS, DSA, SEIU, Color of Change and many others. Anarchist and top OWS organizer Lisa Fithian, who orchestrated the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization riots, trained Ferguson protesters. Fithian says “Create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.”
Fithian echoes Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven—creators of the infamous Cloward/Piven Crisis Strategy—who spent decades attempting to provoke ghetto blacks to riot, because “Poor people can advance only when ‘the rest of society is afraid of them.’” Rasheen Aldridge, seen above meeting President Obama, was a leader of the Ferguson protests. He has participated in numerous CPUSA events in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Another prominent CPUSA member active in BLM protests is Michael McPhearson, who leads the Don’t Shoot Coalition.
Carl Davidson and Pat Fry, co-chairs of CCDS, exploited the revolutionary atmosphere of the Ferguson riots to create an eight-point plan for “Left Unity” demanding “a common aspiration for socialism.”
Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) is Missouri’s rebranded ACORN group. It created an illustrative chart offering a snapshot of the Left’s grievance agenda. Capitalism is always the problem. Socialism is always the solution.
Interestingly, MORE doesn’t believe in socialism when it is footing the bill. MORE promised to pay Ferguson protesters $5,000/month to hang out and cause trouble. But just as ACORN stiffed its employees while preaching socialist generosity, MORE stiffed the protesters.
Islamist organizations have also jumped on the BLM bandwagon, reminding us of the unholy alliance that exists between them and the radical Left. In September 2015, the Muslim Brotherhood front-group Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) joined BLM activists in storming California Governor Jerry Brown’s office. CAIR also participated in the Ferguson protests. Meanwhile ISIS is recruiting American blacks for its cause.
Intellectual Genealogy of Black Lives Matter
“We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth… We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.”
—Vladimir Lenin
That quote from the Soviet Union’s first leader captures the entire essence of the Left’s strategy. No matter what the issue, no matter what the facts, the Left advances a relentless, hate-filled narrative that America is irredeemably evil and must be destroyed as soon as possible. The BLM movement is only the latest but perhaps most dangerous variant on this divisive theme.
Communists use language and psychology as weapons. Their constant vilification is a form of psychological terror. It puts America and Americans on trial. The verdict is always guilty. Facts don’t matter because the Left does not want to resolve the problems they complain about. They use those problems to agitate and provoke, hoping conflict becomes unavoidable—thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their hatred is tactical.
Obama’s favorite Harvard professor Derrick Bell devised Critical Race Theory, which exemplifies Lenin’s strategy as applied to race. According to Discover the Networks:
“Critical race theory contends that America is permanently racist to its core, and that consequently the nation’s legal structures are, by definition, racist and invalid … members of “oppressed” racial groups are entitled—in fact obligated—to determine for themselves which laws and traditions have merit and are worth observing…”
Bell’s theory is in turn an innovation of Critical Theory—developed by philosophers of the communist Frankfurt School. The school was founded in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923. Its Jewish communist scholars fled Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s, relocating to Columbia Teachers College in New York. Critical Theory—which discredits all aspects of Western society—rapidly infected the minds of newly-minted college professors, who then spread its poison throughout the university system. We know it today as political correctness.
White Privilege
The “racist” narrative was turbocharged with the concept of “White Privilege,” the notion that whites—the dominant group in capitalist America—are irretrievably racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, fill-in-the-blank-ophobic, imperialistic oppressors who exploit everyone. Whites are the only true evil in the world and should be exterminated.
The “White Skin Privilege” idea was created in 1967 by Noel Ignatiev, an acolyte of Bell and professor at Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute (Du Bois was a Communist black leader who helped found the NAACP). Ignatiev was a member of CPUSA’s most radical wing, the Maoist/Stalinist Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (POC). POC was the intellectual forerunner to FRSO.
Writing under the alias Noel Ignatin, Ignatiev co-authored an SDS pamphlet with fellow radical Ted Allen, titled White Blindspot. In 1992 he co-founded Race Traitor: Journal of the New Abolitionism. Its first issue coined the slogan, “Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” Its stated objective was to “abolish the white race.” More specifically, the New Abolitionist newsletter stated:
“The way to abolish the white race is to challenge, disrupt and eventually overturn the institutions and behavior patterns that reproduce the privileges of whiteness, including the schools, job and housing markets, and the criminal justice system. The abolitionists do not limit themselves to socially acceptable means of protest, but reject in advance no means of attaining their goal (emphasis added).”
But do not be confused; “White” does not mean white. “White” in radical construction means anyone of any race, creed, nationality, color, sex, or sexual preference who embraces capitalism, free markets, limited government and American traditional culture and values. By definition, these beliefs are irredeemably evil and anyone who aligns with them is “white” in spirit and thus equally guilty of “white crimes.” Ignatiev still teaches, now at the Massachusetts College of Art.
The Black Lives Matter movement carries this narrative to unprecedented heights, claiming that only whites can be racists. And while justifying violence to achieve “social justice,” the movement’s goal is to overthrow our society to replace it with a Marxist one. Many members of the black community would be shocked to learn that the intellectual godfathers of this movement are mostly white Communists, “queers” and leftist Democrats, intent on making blacks into cannon fodder for the revolution. (For more from the author of “Investigative Journalist Reveals Shocking Roots of Black Lives Matter, Claims BLM Leading To “Anarchy and Civil War” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-14 00:24:552016-04-11 10:53:52Investigative Journalist Reveals Shocking Roots of Black Lives Matter, Claims BLM Leading To “Anarchy and Civil War”
Amid countless endorsements circulating around the 2016 presidential campaign, an announcement by the patriarch of one of America’s most recognizable families this week has gained particular attention.
Phil Robertson, best known for his appearance on A&E’s Duck Dynasty, explained in a new video that his family has a few general – and one very specific – qualifications for any candidate he considers endorsing.
“My qualifications for president of the United States,” he said, “are rather narrow: Is he or she godly, does he or she love us, can he or she do the job, and finally, would they kill a duck and put him in a pot and make him a good duck gumbo?”
Only one candidate currently in the race meets each of those requirements, Robertson explained.
“Ted Cruz is my man,” he declared. “He fits the bill. He’s godly, he loves us, he’s the man for the job, and he will go duck hunting – because today, we’re going.” (Read more from “‘Duck Dynasty’ Star Announces Presidential Endorsement – I Didn’t Expect This” HERE)
Is someone holding a gun to the heads of Western politicians, forcing them to state immediately after every Muslim terror attack that “Islam has nothing whatsoever to do with terror”? Who cares about whether Islam has or has not something to do with terror? The only people who care about Islam’s reputation are the so-called “moderate” Muslims who have been making excuses for jihad terror, and covering up for Islamic atrocities for centuries, while blaming Western foreign policy for their jihad.
As for all the jihadist groups themselves, they couldn’t care less about associating terrorism with Islam. In fact, jihadists have no problem with expressing pride in their terrorism, and love to see us disappointed and confused in our Western dilemma over what is or what is not Islam.
[Listen to this interview between Joe Miller and the author:]
But now Western leaders are joining the ranks of “moderate” Muslims to cover up the real agenda of Islam. While their statements defending Islam are getting more and more outrageous and even sickening in the eyes of the informed Western citizen, they continue to mislead people as they blame Western thinking for not being tolerant enough.
It is not the job of Western leaders to defend Islam’s reputation from being connected with terror, especially if major Muslim institutions have consistently refused any condemnation of ISIS as un-Islamic. In fact, not one major Islamic university or leader in the Muslim world has condemned ISIS as un-Islamic. Usama bin Laden continues to be called Sheikh and held in high regard by many Muslims, even by the Arab media itself. The leaders of Al-Azhar University in Cairo keep telling the world over and over again that if Al-Azhar condemned ISIS, it would mean they are condemning themselves and their own teaching as un-Islamic.
So why do President Obama and the embarrassed moderate Muslims keep hammering us with defending Islam? The only explanation for this defense of Islam as having nothing to do with terror is that it is really not intended to please Muslims, as many might think. But in fact, it is intended to shame the uninformed American citizen into respecting Islam and capitulating to its agenda.
The head of the cheerleading team for Islam, President Obama, has inspired many other American politicians and world leaders to do the same thing, disciplining their own citizens to put up with Islamic tyranny to the point of insanity. In that process, Western leaders have no problem with using twisted logic, such as the idea that whatever negativity is done in the name of Allah must be tolerated because it has nothing to do with Islam.
The virus of this defective logic has penetrated the minds of almost all Western political leaders and the media, including the very people who are supposed to inform and protect us, such as the mayor of Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They are all echoing the same thing in order to silence their citizens into accepting the dawn of a new multicultural era in which lawlessness, rape, and terror are to be tolerated and excused, lest we speak ill of Islam.
Western leaders are acting like hostages of the Islamic State, and are seriously expecting the obedient Western citizens to believe them. Nothing seems to work to remind those leaders as to who they are actually working for. They are not only defending Islam, but are also covering up for it and minimizing its danger to Western freedom, stability and law and order.
Even the mainstream media seems unshaken by all that is going on, and is cooperating with the political leaders into the shaming the side that supports freedom and the truth.
Discontent and fear are now brewing among the average Western citizen, who feels defenseless and scared to death of the Islamic agenda, and of loosing life in an orderly society. But instead of getting the message, Western leaders are doubling down on their assault on their own citizens, in order to force them into respecting anything and everything Islamic and never ever criticizing it.
It is now obvious that the 9/11 terror attack has achieved its Islamic goal, and has worked wonders on the psyche of the West. Terrorism is an old Arabian trick and tool for submission, and has always achieved wonders for Muslims. Even Mohammed was quoted saying, “I have been made victorious through terror.” Now that most Western leaders have capitulated, and instead of fighting back against Islam’s declaration of war, they have chosen to fight their own citizens.
Who could have ever imagined that this would have happened a little over a decade after 9/11? That Islamic rape, terror and violence would be running wild daily all over Europe and America, and Sharia blasphemy laws which go against all Western constitutions are being illegally enforced on Western citizens.
The defense of Islam by Western leaders has become pathological and extremely offensive to the majority of Americans, especially families and friends of victims of terrorism. And thus the only logical explanation for it is that Western leaders are selling out to Islam.
The abuse of the Western citizen, not only by Islam, but also by Western political leaders and its mainstream media, must end, because this is a recipe for disaster and a guarantee of future violent confrontations between the forces of freedom and forces of dhimmitude to Islam.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-14 00:22:002016-04-11 10:53:52Why Have Western Leaders Sold-Out to Islam?
President Barack Obama looked to the future Tuesday night in his final State of the Union address, touching on issues ranging from health care and the economy to climate change, terrorism, and military strength.
Obama touted the achievements of his seven years in office and outlined how he thought his policies will help Americans for years to come.
The president delivered the nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress as well as members of his Cabinet, U.S. Supreme Court justices, military officers, and dozens of special guests.
[Listen to yesterday’s interview this article’s author:]
Here, The Daily Signal provides more context for some of Obama’s claims.
Obama: “Nearly 18 million have gained [health] coverage so far. Health care inflation has slowed. And our businesses have created jobs every single month since it became law.”
Despite the president’s claim that more than 18 million Americans now have health insurance—credited to Obamacare’s implementation—the majority of those who gained coverage qualified for Medicaid because of loosened eligibility.
Since the health care law went into effect in 2013, 31 states and the District of Columbia have opted to expand Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor.
From January 2014 to July 2014, more than 8 million Americans gained coverage under the president’s signature health care law. However, 71 percent of those signups were attributed to Medicaid expansion.
Additionally, an October 2015 report found that though more than 9 million Americans gained health insurance in all of 2014, the Medicaid rolls swelled. Of the 9.25 million Americans who enrolled in health coverage, 97 percent—8.99 million Americans—received insurance through Medicaid.
For Americans who receive coverage through their employer or the individual market, many have been faced with skyrocketing premiums and deductibles. Premiums increased in 49 of the 50 states for 2016 on the individual market, with many premiums growing by double digits.
[Listen to this video with one this article’s authors]
Obama: “More than 14 million new jobs; the strongest two years of job growth since the ’90s; an unemployment rate cut in half. Our auto industry just had its best year ever. Manufacturing has created nearly 900,000 new jobs in the past six years. And we’ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters.”
Though the deficit fell during Obama’s presidency, Romina Boccia, a senior budget analyst at The Heritage Foundation, said this can be attributed to the recovery following the 2008 recession and tax hikes on Americans.
Boccia also noted that Congress has cut spending, largely because of the caps put in place by the 2011 Budget Control Act. Still, in the years since they went into effect, Congress and the White House have weakened the caps.
Labor experts also argue that though the unemployment rate has fallen steadily, millions of Americans have left the workforce.
Obama: “We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined. Our troops are the finest fighting force in the history of the world. No nation dares to attack us or our allies because they know that’s the path to ruin.”
In 2014, the U.S. accounted for more than one-third of military spending worldwide, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
America spends several times more on its military than does second-place China.
Still, U.S. military spending as a percent of total government spending dropped from 10.4 percent in 2013 to 9.5 percent in 2014. And military spending declined from its 2010 peak, although it is higher than in 2001, just before 9/11.
In its 2016 Index of Military Strength, The Heritage Foundation reports that budget sequestration spending caps affected military readiness and capability. Though the U.S. military is able to engage in a single major regional conflict while tending to its normal presence in other countries, it would be “ill-equipped” to fight two significant wars at once, Heritage says.
Obama: “For more than a year, America has led a coalition of more than 60 countries to cut off ISIL’s financing, disrupt their plots, stop the flow of terrorist fighters, and stamp out their vicious ideology. With nearly 10,000 air strikes, we are taking out their leadership, their oil, their training camps, and their weapons. We are training, arming, and supporting forces who are steadily reclaiming territory in Iraq and Syria.”
Most of the airstrikes have occurred in Iraq, not in Syria, where the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has its home base. In Syria, the U.S. has to contend with an unfriendly dictatorship—which it wants neither to coordinate with nor to attack—and with Russian airstrikes, which began this fall.
Some critics have argued that the U.S. should send more ground troops to fight ISIS in Syria, but Obama has said Americans have no appetite for an enduring war, and that Sunni-Arab fighters must lead the effort to defeat the brutal Islamist terrorists.
In October, Obama ordered several dozen Special Operations troops into Syria, representing the first open-ended ground forces sent into that country.
Also in October, the Defense Department abandoned a $500 million program to train moderate Syrian rebels. It decided instead to use the money to provide ammunition and weapons for groups already succeeding in the fight against ISIS.
The decision to drop the training program came after the administration announced it graduated only a few recruits among the Syrian rebels.
Obama: “That’s why we built a global coalition, with sanctions and principled diplomacy, to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. As we speak, Iran has rolled back its nuclear program, shipped out its uranium stockpile, and the world has avoided another war.”
The United States and five other world powers last summer reached a deal with Iran that limits the Islamic regime’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting international sanctions.
Iran agreed to reduce its stockpile of uranium by 98 percent. But the main provisions of the agreement expire in 10 to 15 years.
After that, Iran can produce uranium on an industrial scale.
When Iran meets its obligations—during what is known as “implementation day”—the international community will allow Tehran to access some $100 billion in frozen oil revenue. Iran has not yet reached implementation day, so technically its nuclear program has not been rolled back.
Iran completed an important step Monday when the regime reported it had removed the core of its plutonium-producing nuclear reactor, which limits the amount of plutonium to a level insufficient to make a bomb.
While the U.S. has said Iran is living up to its commitments under the nuclear deal so far, Tehran also has launched ballistic missile tests in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and continues to support unpopular proxies in the region.
The Obama administration argues that the nuclear deal with Iran is about only that issue, and that punishing Tehran for other actions could undermine the agreement.
Obama did not mention Tuesday’s news that Iran was holding 10 American sailors after two naval vessels traveled into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf. U.S. officials said they expected the men to be released by Wednesday morning.
Obama: “But even if the planet wasn’t at stake; even if 2014 wasn’t the warmest year on record—until 2015 turned out even hotter…”
The president is right when he says last year was the warmest year on record, but that data point doesn’t necessarily translate into increased global warming.
In making this claim, Obama was referring to a 2015 study released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA). But there are serious questions about the data driving that study and the conclusions drawn from it by politicians.
Some of the weather stations that collect those measures are located in industrial areas, surrounded by buildings, parking lots, and other structures that retain heat and skew the data.
For instance, the official weather station in Washington, D.C., is located at Reagan National Airport. As Patrick J. Michaels of the Cato Institute explains, that station produces an inaccurate weather report because it measures increased heat produced by “several hundred feet lower in elevation … the brick buildings [nearby], and the pavement of urban Washington.”
Geography could also play a significant role in some NOAA’s dramatic numbers. The weather stations that provide the data for the report are not spread out.
“These stations are not distributed in a regular, comprehensive geological pattern” notes David Kreutzer, a senior fellow in energy economics at The Heritage Foundation. As a result, he concludes that the data “doesn’t prove a climate crisis is evident.”
Obama: “In fields from Iowa to Texas, wind power is now cheaper than dirtier, conventional power. On rooftops from Arizona to New York, solar is saving Americans tens of millions of dollars a year on their energy bills, and employs more Americans than coal—in jobs that pay better than average. “
Wind power isn’t just cheaper than fossil fuels, as the president said. Often, as in Texas last March, wind-generated electricity is sold for negative prices. Slate reports that companies actually were paying Texas public utilities to take their excess electricity.
Among many factors artificially driving the price down was a generous federal production tax credit that pays producers 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Nick Loris, an economist who is the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, explains that subsidies and regulation—like the Texas wind credit—govern and skew significant portions of the energy market.
And although, as the president says, the solar industry does employ more Americans than coal, Loris says, that’s because of an unfair playing field.
“Heavy-handed regulations,” he says, “are driving out coal as an important, reliable energy source and destroying jobs in the process.” Meanwhile, “solar benefits from generous taxpayer-funded subsidies.”
Loris notes further that increased oil drilling, not solar production, does more to push down electricity prices.
[Listen to a recent interview with one of this article’s authors]
The Energy Information Administration reported that in 2015 that“wholesale electricity prices at major trading hubs … were down 27 percent [to]37 percent across the nation” and that the price drop was “driven largely by lower natural gas prices.” (For more from the author of “Fact-Checking Obama’s Final State of the Union” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-14 00:21:082016-04-11 10:53:52Fact-Checking Obama’s Final State of the Union
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is blaming the GOP for his exclusion from the main debate stage in this week’s Republican presidential debate, saying the decision may cost the party the support of libertarian voters.
“They have been saying for months they’re going to narrow the field, but I don’t think it’s the job of the establishment in the Republican Party to decide who is and who isn’t [in],” he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning.
Fox Business Network had announced earlier this week that Paul wouldn’t qualify for a spot on the main stage at Thursday’s night’s debate. The network had given candidates a chance to place in the top six spots of polls nationally or the top five either in Iowa or New Hampshire.
Paul, who is boycotting the “undercard” debate that will be held before the main event, said he’s being pushed out because he has a “unique voice.”
“I am the one voice saying we shouldn’t make the sand glow. I am the one voice saying we shouldn’t be collecting all — the government shouldn’t be collecting all your records, and I’m the one voice saying we shouldn’t lock up every kid for marijuana,” he said. (Read more from “This Is Who Rand Paul Blames for Being Excluded From Debate… He May Be Right” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-14 00:20:442016-04-11 10:53:52This Is Who Rand Paul Blames for Being Excluded From Debate… He May Be Right
The federal government took in a record of approximately $765,645,000,000 in tax revenues in the first three months of fiscal 2016 (Oct. 1, 2015 through Dec. 31, 2015), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.
That equaled approximately $5,107 for every person in the country who had either a full or a part-time job in December.
It is also an increase of about $24,288,810,000 in constant 2015 dollars from the $741,356,190,000 in revenue (in constant 2015 dollars) that the Treasury took in during the first three months of fiscal 2015. (Read more from “$765,645,000,000: Taxes Set Record Through December” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-14 00:19:422016-04-11 10:53:53$765,645,000,000: Taxes Set Record Through December
It has been 43 years. 43 years of children being literally crushed and torn limb from limb for the sake of convenience. Sacrificed at the alter of self-interest, these were individual human beings who deserved to live their God-given lives.
Join us as we memorialize their short lives on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the day in 1973 that their deaths were sanctioned by 9 unelected Supreme Court Justices. We will be gathering at the Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery (corner of 9th and Cordova) on Saturday, January 23rd at 2pm for a short prayer service, calling on God for mercy and interceding for the lives of the little ones who are yet to come. Please make it a priority to come and take part in this memorial service and be re-inspired to be a voice for the voiceless.
We will also be having an organizational meeting for 40 Days for Life at our office on January 23rd at 6pm. If you have been part of 40 Days for Life in the past or would like to be involved now, please come and take part in this meeting. We will be providing dinner. Our office is located at 1220 E Street and we are upstairs in Suite 207.
Even though godless elected officials have waged a war on America’s most vulnerable for 43 years, we believe in the power of an Almighty God who already has won the victory. He is still on the throne and He will be the One with the last Word. His heart is broken for all the lives lost to the tragedy of abortion, just as ours should be. (For more from the author of “Anchorage Memorial: Remembering the Millions Lost Through 43 Dark Years of Abortion” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-14 00:18:162016-04-11 10:53:53Anchorage Memorial: Remembering the Millions Lost Through 43 Dark Years of Abortion
Subtropical Storm Alex has formed in the Atlantic Ocean, making it one of the earliest tropical systems to form in the Atlantic Hurricane Basin since records began in 1851 . . .
Alex is located well in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and doesn’t pose a threat to the United States; however, it will affect the Azores. According to Kottlowski, Alex will bring gale-force winds and several inches of heavy rain to the Azores.
Alex is the first tropical system to form over the Atlantic Ocean in January since Subtropical Storm One in 1978. The earliest tropical storm to form in January was Storm One on Jan. 3, 1939. (Read more from “Rare Tropical System Forms Over Atlantic Ocean” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-01-14 00:15:262016-04-11 10:53:53Rare Tropical System Forms Over Atlantic Ocean