North Korean Sub-Launched Missiles Threaten US Allies

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North Korea conducted its most successful test launch of a submarine-launched ballistic missile on Tuesday. The missile traveled 500 kilometers (300 miles), a considerable improvement over the 30-km range of the previous launch, and landed within Japan’s air defense identification zone.

South Korean military officials report that North Korea used an unusual 500-km high trajectory so as not to penetrate the Japanese air defense zone further. If launched on a regular 150-km high trajectory, the submarine-launched missile might have traveled over 1,000 km.

After the unsuccessful missile test earlier this year, the South Korean ministry of defense assessed it would take North Korea three to four years before deploying a submarine ballistic missile force. However, after yesterday’s test, some South Korean military authorities warn deployment potentially could occur within a year.

South Korea does not currently have defenses against submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The SM-2 missile currently deployed on South Korean destroyers only provides protection against anti-ship missiles. South Korea has recently expressed interest in the U.S.-developed SM-3 or SM-6 ship-borne systems to provide anti-submarine launched missile defense.

Some experts are dismissive of a submarine-based ballistic missile threat based on the perception that North Korea’s old and noisy submarines would be easy to detect. However, in 2010, a North Korean submarine sank the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan in South Korean waters. In August 2015, 50 North Korean submarines—70 percent of the fleet—left port and disappeared despite allied monitoring efforts.

Despite post-Cheonan efforts, South Korean anti-submarine warfare capabilities remain an area of concern for allied military planners. A strong anti-submarine capability is not only critical for homeland defense but also for protecting sea lines of communication during a crisis on the Korean Peninsula. During a Korean conflict, the South Korean navy could have a critical mission to protect U.S. carrier groups deployed near the peninsula by engaging North Korean submarines.

Expanding Missile Threat

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is pushing forward rapidly on both nuclear and missile fronts. In addition to submarine missile launches, this year he has successfully tested a nuclear weapon, an intercontinental ballistic missile, a road-mobile intermediate-range missile as well as medium- and short-range missiles, re-entry vehicle technology, a new solid-fuel rocket engine, and an improved liquid-fuel ICBM engine. During Kim’s four-year reign, Pyongyang has conducted 34 missile tests, more than twice as many as his father Kim Jong Il did in 17 years in office.

In June, North Korea successfully tested a Musudan intermediate-range missile, which led experts to conclude the regime currently has the ability to threaten U.S. bases in Guam, a critical node in allied plans for defending South Korea. Successful No Dong medium-range missile tests were conducted in July and August, accompanied by North Korean statements that they were practice drills for preemptive nuclear attacks on South Korea and U.S. forces based there.

A North Korean media-released photo showed the missile range would encompass all of South Korea, including the port of Busan where U.S. reinforcement forces would land. Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command, stated that North Korea is capable of putting a nuclear warhead on the No Dong medium-range ballistic missile that can reach all of South Korea and Japan.

In March, Kim Jong Un observed another missile launch simulating a nuclear missile attack on South Korean targets. The regime declared those launches were “a sea port of debarkation ballistic missile test [conducted] under the simulated conditions of exploding nuclear warheads from the preset altitude above targets in the ports under the enemy control where foreign aggressor forces are involved.”

In February, North Korea again used a Taepo Dong missile to put a satellite into orbit, the same technology needed to launch an ICBM nuclear warhead. Assessments indicate that the satellite was approximately 450 pounds, twice as heavy a payload as the previous successful satellite launch in Dec. 2012, and that the missile may have a range of 13,000 km, putting the entire continental United States within range.

Defending Allied Security

The accelerated pace of North Korean nuclear and missile tests reflect Kim’s intent to deploy a spectrum of missile systems of complementary ranges to threaten the U.S. and its allies with nuclear weapons. Kim affirmed at the National Party Congress in May—the first held in 36 years—that North Korea will never negotiate away its nuclear weapons.

The U.S. and South Korea should:

Deploy the THAAD ballistic missile defense system. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, is more capable than any system that South Korea has or would have for decades to defend against North Korean land-based missiles.

Refute fallacious Chinese arguments against THAAD. Beijing asserted that THAAD deployment would impinge on its security interests. However, a careful analysis of THAAD interceptor and radar capabilities and Chinese missile deployment sites reveal Chinese technical objections are disingenuous. Beijing’s true objective is preventing improvement in allied defensive capabilities and multilateral cooperation.

Demonstrate THAAD radar is not a health threat. South Korean critics of THAAD deployment claim fears of radiation risks from the X-band radar, saying it would kill bees and irradiate melons. Independent South Korean measurements show the levels of electromagnetic waves emanating from the radar are at an intensity far safer than required by Korean law.

Deploy sea-based ballistic missile defense against the submarine missile threat. The THAAD system is not designed to counter SLBM threats. The X-band radar can only detect missiles in an approximate 90-degree arc, which would be directed toward North Korea, not the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula. Therefore, Washington and Seoul should discuss deployment of SM-3 or SM-6 missiles on South Korean naval ships.

Augment allied anti-submarine warfare capabilities. North Korea’s apparent ability to evade allied submarine detection systems is worrisome. Washington should facilitate South Korean collection and analysis capabilities and linkage with U.S. naval intelligence. Seoul requires wide-area ocean-surveillance capability, for both coastal defense and blue-water operations.

North Korea continues its relentless quest to augment and refine its nuclear weapons arsenal and missile delivery capabilities. The international community should maintain a comprehensive effort of augmented sanctions for North Korea’s repeated violations of U.N. resolutions and international law.

But the U.S. and its allies must implement measures to defend themselves against the spectrum of North Korea’s military threats. Ballistic missile defense is an important part of the broader strategy of strong alliances, forward-deployed U.S. military forces in the Pacific, and devoting sufficient resources to the U.S. defense budget. (For more from the author of “North Korean Sub-Launched Missiles Threaten US Allies” please click HERE)

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Left-Funded Rally Aims to Pressure Lawmakers to Welcome More Refugees

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Are you concerned about the plight of international refugees? Would you like to see the U.S. government take decisive, constructive action on behalf of displaced persons across the globe who have been forced to flee their homes?

If so, you’re invited to “stand up against the voices of intolerance” this Sunday in Washington, D.C., where you can join forces with other concerned Americans.

But if you do participate, policy analysts who have examined the refugee crisis want you to know they have good reason to believe the rally is a highly politicized event organized for the purpose of lobbying the Obama administration and Congress to allow more refugees into the U.S.—including those from war-torn Syria and Iraq who may have ties to terrorism.

A major contributor to causes on the left, the Tides Foundation, is collecting contributions for the rally.

President Barack Obama said he would boost the number of Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. to 10,000 for the fiscal year beginning last October and ending this Sept. 30. As of June, about 2,800 Syrians had resettled in America, according to Pew Research Center.

But after a slow start, the administration is poised to meet or surpass its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrians, Anne Richard, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, told reporters in a conference call earlier this month.

Skeptics, worried about the effects on the economy and the difficulty of screening for terrorists, point to studies showing resettlement of refugees in the U.S. rather than the Middle East is both costly and counterproductive.

High Costs of Resettling Refugees

A report by the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies found that it costs 12 times as much to resettle a refugee in America than it does to provide for services and relief to the same refugee in the Middle East.

The nonprofit, nonpartisan research outfit included State Department expenditures, welfare use rates, and other figures and benefits from the departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and other U.S. agencies. Its report says:

Based on that information, this analysis finds that the costs of resettling refugees in the United States are quite high, even without considering all of the costs refugees create. We conservatively estimate that the costs total $64,370 in the first five years for each Middle Eastern refugee. This is 61 times what it costs to care for one Syrian refugee in a neighboring country for a single year or about 12 times the cost of providing for a refugee for five years.

“The organizers, funders, and the supporting groups are putting this rally together to exert pressure to ensure that the Obama administration increases the admission of Syrians into the U.S.,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Signal.

For their part, the rally’s organizers insist they have put together a genuine grassroots movement of concerned citizens who want the U.S. government to assume a leadership role in ongoing efforts to alleviate the refugee crisis. This point is made on the rally’s website:

As borders have closed to those fleeing war and violence and as the voices of fear and intolerance have grown louder, we will not let politics or fear stand in the way of our compassion. We urge the United States government to uphold its founding principles and its traditional leadership role in refugee protection by further assisting the countries that are carrying the heaviest burden of the ongoing crisis. We believe that every act of rejection is an affront to humanity and every act of compassion a reminder of what is best in each and every one of us.

The website created for the rally lists the San Francisco-based, nonprofit Tides Foundation as a fundraising vehicle. The foundation and its sister organization, Tides Center, are major benefactors of “left wing” causes for more than 30 years, according to the Capital Research Center, which investigates the “aims and activities of left-liberal special interest groups.”

‘Same League as George Soros’

Foundation financial records put the Tides network on a par with the grant-making efforts of George Soros, the Hungarian-American businessman and progressive political activist. Soros is chairman of Open Society Foundations, an international grant-making network previously known as Open Society Institute.

“Tides’ grantmaking is in the same league as George Soros’s Open Society Institute,” a Capital Research Center report states. “From 1999 through 2008, Tides distributed $630.6 million in grants, a sum within hailing distance of the Open Society Institute’s $901.4 million, according to FoundationSearch.com records.”

Soros is a major funder of National Immigration Forum, a group advocating amnesty for illegal immigrants that is listed as an organization supporting the rally.

The website encourages participants to purchase an orange or white T-shirt with the logo of the DC Rally 4 Refugees, set to take place from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., rain or shine, at the Sylvan Theater near the Washington Monument.

The website also asks supporters to donate to the rally through the Tides Foundation, listing its address and a fund number.

In response to an inquiry from The Daily Signal about the role of Tides, rally spokeswoman Lauren Cozzi said in an email:

DCRally4Refugees is 100 percent dependent on individual contributions. The Tides Foundation is the organizational instrument that provides DCRally4Refugees with tax-exempt status on the donations. The Tides Foundation is not hosting the event, nor is it fundraising on behalf of DCRally4Refugees.

Cozzi also said the DC Rally 4 Refugees organization “was founded by a grassroots group of advocates inspired to help after volunteering directly with refugees fleeing war and violence in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other regions.”

‘We Can Each Make a Difference’

The United Nations Refugee Agency’s figures show more than 65 million people throughout the globe have been forced to leave their homes in response to armed conflict, political persecution, and other extreme circumstances. About 21 million of them are refugees, according to the U.N.

The rally website describes the international refugee crisis as the worst since World War II:

Nearly 5 million human beings have fled Syria alone since the start of its civil war in 2011 and are now living in limbo in neighboring countries. In addition, millions of Iraqis and Afghans have fled their homes under the threat of violence. Millions of refugees from Somalia, South Sudan, and elsewhere also need protection and assistance.

Rally organizers’ volunteer efforts in trouble spots around the world provided them with the impetus for Sunday’s event.

“After seeing the scale of human suffering with my own eyes while volunteering in Lesvos, Greece, I realized I had to help refugees in any way I could,” Kathy Hertz, founder and executive director of DC Rally 4 Refugees, said in a press release. “Despite having no idea how I would finance a rally, I trusted in my desire to educate people about the global refugee crisis and show how we can each make a difference.”

Hertz added:

Many people have shared with me their desire to help refugees, but did not know how to do so. I founded DCRally4Refugees to give them a way to help, provide tools, and create a large coming together of people for increased safe refugee resettlement and support. On the one-year anniversary of the drowning death of Aylan Kurdi, the young boy whose photo shocked the world, we unfortunately cannot say that things have changed. Refugees are still risking their lives daily and too many of them are dying in the process. I know we can do better.

Almost 10,000 displaced persons have drowned while attempting to cross from Turkey to Greece and Libya to Italy, according to the rally website.

‘Timed to Influence the Number of Refugees’

Asked by The Daily Signal to comment on the organizers’ policy objectives, Cozzi, the rally spokeswoman, said: “DCRally4Refugees will raise awareness about the global refugee crisis and urge U.S. action—at home and overseas—to alleviate suffering through relief efforts and refugee resettlement.”

Noting the rally will take place near Capitol Hill, the website said participants “will call on the U.S. to provide more refugee resettlement and increased support to countries and organizations already involved, support proven relief efforts overseas, and offer resources for those who wish to help, raising a collective voice against intolerance.”

Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies, said he sees more than mere happenstance at work in the timing of the rally: Obama is set to play host to a refugee summit at the U.N. on Sept. 20. The president also is expected to release his fiscal year 2017 plan for refugees by the end of September.

The rally is not only “to exert pressure to ensure that the Obama administration increases the admission of Syrians,” Krikorian said, but “timed to influence the number of refugees the State Department is trying to settle.”

Krikorian told The Daily Signal that he makes a critical distinction between refugees and additional Syrians who may be brought to the U.S. from countries, often in Europe, other than Syria:

Once they leave those countries they are basically just looking for a better job. … It seems to me the administration has not made a persuasive case for why any of these people should be brought here, especially since our research shows it costs 12 times as much to take care of a refugee here than it does to take care of them in the Middle East.

(For more from the author of “Left-Funded Rally Aims to Pressure Lawmakers to Welcome More Refugees” please click HERE)

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Alinsky’s Daughter: Here’s the Truth About Hillary the Media Won’t Tell You

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In 1993, the president of Wellesley College approved a new rule upon being contacted by Bill Clinton’s White House. The rule stated that all senior theses written by a president or first lady of the United States would be kept under lock and key. The rule was meant to keep the public ignorant about the radical ties of the first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the radical Marxist organizer, Saul Alinsky. The 92-page thesis was titled, “There is only the fight…: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.”

The thesis became unlocked after the Clintons left the White House and is now posted online. After being ruled by Barack Obama, another Alinskyite, for 8 years, perhaps one might think the fact that the modern Democratic Party is completely taken over by Alinskyites is old news, but the connection between Alinsky and Hillary is special.

Hillary describes Alinsky as a “neo-Hobbesian who objects to the consensual mystique surrounding political processes; for him, conflict is the route to power.” Alinsky’s central focus, she notes, is that the community organizer must understand that conflict will arise and to redirect it and, as she quoted him in her thesis, be “…dedicated to changing the character of life of a particular community [and] has an initial function of serving as an abrasive agent to rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; to fan latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expressions… to provide a channel into which they can pour their frustration of the past; to create a mechanism which can drain off underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. When those who represent the status quo label you [i.e. the community organizer] as an ‘agitator’ they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function–to agitate to the point of conflict.”

The thesis in and of itself is limited to whether or not “social justice” can be attained through the tactics described by Alinsky in “Reveille For Radicals,” and the numerous speeches he gave on hundreds of college campuses in the 1950s and 1960s. What had become clear was that Alinsky’s previous organizing had fallen apart and almost all attempts to recapture the original intent had gone by the wayside.

Hillary noted that, “Alinsky’s lessons in organizing and mobilizing community action independent of extra-community strings appear to have been lost in the face of the lure of OEO money.” Pointing out that the power of the government took away the work of the “local organizer.” It is here that we see her light bulb illuminate. With this reasoning, the better approach would be to be the government who had the power to force social change.

But just because Hillary criticized Alinsky’s model in 1969 doesn’t mean she disagrees with his politics. In fact, it could very well be that Hillary’s model, which was to gain political power and wield it to gain social change, is simply her thesis finally realized. She criticized Alinsky, not so much for his tactics, but for his focus on organization. What is possibly the best way to put Hillary’s philosophy is what she told the Black Lives Matter movement, saying, “I don’t believe you change hearts, you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate.”

Hillary questions whether organizing as Alinsky did in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago and eventually across the country was effective enough because of the unanticipated results. She pointed to other lefty thinkers that criticized Alinsky as a “showman rather than an activist.”

It should also be noted that while Alinsky’s “Reville for Radicals” was directed at labor organizing, “Rules For Radicals” was directed at middle class youth, instructing them how to carry out his model in a new age. Ever the social observer, Alinsky recognized that the blue-collar workers of the 1930s were no longer, “where it’s at,” but that middle class youth of the 60s was ripe for organization. But also, the emphasis in the prologue of working within the system is eerily similar to Clinton’s argumentation. In her 2003 book, “Living History,” Clinton wrote, “He believed you could change the system only from the outside. I didn’t. Alinsky said I would be wasting my time, but my decision was an expression of my belief that the system could be changed from within.”

At the end of Clinton’s thesis, she includes correspondence she received from Alinsky, and notes the personal interviews she conducted with him: twice in Boston in October 1968 and once at Wellesley in January 1969. She followed his organization, Industrial Areas Foundation, which was a training institute for communist radicals. She credited Saul Alinsky for both “providing a topic” and “offering me a job.” She never questioned the organization’s ultimate goal to achieve a Marxist utopia. What drove Hillary was how to get there.

Hillary’s whole life has been dedicated to socialist/communist ends. The fact that the arguments and the anger fomented by Alinsky in the 40s, 50s and 60s are the same arguments and anger of today’s Obama/Clinton model is telling. For 75 years, inner city blacks have been poor, labor unions have worked to put their members out of a job, and everyday there is some new group claiming it doesn’t have equality. All of these groups have been targeted by these so-called organizational geniuses. No matter what happens, either by the power/conflict ideals of Alinsky and Obama or by power grabs/money laundering of the Clintons, the lives of the people get worse. It is not whether Saul or Hillary are right about how to “achieve democratic equality,” or whose tactics are more effective, but of the failure of the philosophy behind it.

Hillary kept in contact with Alinsky throughout college and while in law school, she wrote him a letter claiming that she missed corresponding with him. The letter began, “Dear Saul, When is that new book [Rules for Radicals] coming out — or has it come and I somehow missed the fulfillment of Revelation? I have just had my one-thousandth conversation about Reveille [for Radicals] and need some new material to throw at people,” — she added, a reference to Alinsky’s 1946 book on his theories of community organizing.

David Brock, in his 1996 biography, “The Seduction of Hillary Rodham,” called Hillary “Alinsky’s daughter.” That is an apt label. Where Alinsky tactics are used now on both sides to confuse and agitate, Hillary is poised to become the supreme leader with all the power and tools of our monstrous government at her fingertips.

Saul’s daughter has it all figured out. (For more from the author of “Alinsky’s Daughter: Here’s the Truth About Hillary the Media Won’t Tell You” please click HERE)

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America Needs Gun Control – but Only for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

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“Do what I say, not as I do,” should be the motto of Democrats everywhere when it comes to gun control. President Obama and Democrats have been trying for years to strip the right to self-defense granted by the Second Amendment. But perhaps it’s Obama that needs to experience some gun control of his own.

A shocking story published by last weekend by New York Times Magazine, “How Many Guns Did the U.S. Lose Track of in Iraq and Afghanistan? Hundreds of Thousands,” highlights the negligent nature this president, and Democrats in general, have when it comes to showering the world with firearms — which all too often end up in the hands of enemy terrorists.

In other words, President Obama has simultaneously promoted a policy of “firearms for all” worldwide, while trying to impede the right to firearms here in America. The federal government does background checks on nearly every American that wishes to buy a firearm — and in general, the federal government has a decent idea of who owns guns and where they might be located. If it were up to Obama, however, that data/knowledge would be a certainty.

Abroad, the government’s policy is far different. President Obama (with the support of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) blindly sent firearms throughout the world. The NYT writes,

“Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the United States has handed out a vast but persistently uncountable quantity of military firearms to its many battlefield partners in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today the Pentagon has only a partial idea of how many weapons it issued, much less where these weapons are. Meanwhile, the effectively bottomless abundance of black-market weapons from American sources is one reason Iraq will not recover from its post-invasion woes anytime soon.”

The hypocrisy by Obama, Clinton and Democrats is truly insane.

As the NYT explains, the research to determine the expansive nature of these arms transfers was conducted by Ian Overton, a BBC journalist and executive director of Action on Armed Violence, a charity in London. Overton spent years submitting multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to the Pentagon.

The information Overton received suggests that, at minimum, nearly 1.45 million firearms are roaming Afghanistan and Iraq, presumably with various security forces. Of that number, there are 978,000 assault rifles, 266,000 pistols and almost 112,000 machine guns. Still, Overton found the information provided by the Pentagon to be incomplete in some cases; in others, the information was classified or just simply missing. “It could be twice as much, as far as we know,” Overton states.

Remember: While certain assault rifles and pistols are legal in (some) states, machine guns are not. Therefore, we would argue, liberals should take a moment to ponder the data above. Imagine if Obama allowed 112,000 machine guns to (with the government’s assistance) litter the U.S. More so, ask yourself what you would say if a foreign government — an occupier of our country, no less — handed out machine guns certain to end up in the hands of thugs and/or enemies of the state?

Yet, that’s exactly what Obama and Clinton have allowed to materialize in the countries of Afghanistan and Iraq — and certainly elsewhere in the Middle East.

Really, this story is nothing new. In fact, according to the NYT, the Government Accountability Office brought this topic to light well before Obama was even president. The report suggested that at least 110,000 AK-47’s and 80,000 pistols were missing in Iraq. Effectively, there were more missing weapons than there were American servicemen and women in Iraq at any given time.

The public should be outraged. In fact, provided that nearly 4,500 American soldiers have died, and more than 30,000 have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, the true debate over gun control must begin with the president — not the American people.

Maybe Hillary Clinton’s gun control policy has some merit. The Democratic presidential nominee has campaigned on the need for laws to make gun manufacturers and sellers responsible for the chain of custody on firearms. Perhaps that idea should, and must, be applied equally to the commander in chief, too?

It seems that, based on Clinton’s rhetoric and blame, if gun manufacturers should be culpable, then so too should our nation’s leaders that have allowed hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of guns to possibly fall into the hands of those who engage in genocide, encourage global instability, and threaten the freedom of millions of innocent people around the world.

One can only ponder how many guns have fallen into the hands of brutal terrorists, or are being used to carry out atrocities by groups like ISIS. When a few deranged terrorists commit terrible acts of violence at home, the president seems all too interested to challenge our constitutional rights. Yet, when Pres. Obama allows for American firearms to commit grand atrocities overseas, it’s merely a statistic that encourages new wars.

It’s time for America to discuss gun control. But instead of focusing on law-abiding Americans, it’s time to focus on gun control for our reckless leaders. (For more from the author of “America Needs Gun Control – but Only for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton” please click HERE)

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Newborn Baby Girl Named After Officer Who Saved Her Life

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A newborn baby girl in Texas now shares a name with the police officer that saved her life.

Officer Natisha Lucas of the Pearland Police Department responded to a medical call from a pregnant mother on Tuesday. When Lucas arrived at the scene she found the mother in shock with the newborn baby suffering from an unknown medical complication. What Officer Lucas did next saved a life. Per the police department’s Facebook post:

The mother (still in shock) directed Officer Lucas’ attention to the newly born baby who was experiencing an unknown medical complication. Officer Lucas responded by administering first aid which led to the baby responding by moving and crying. The Pearland EMS arrived on scene and assumed care for both mother and child and transported the two to Memorial Herman for medical evaluation.

When Officer Lucas later visited the mother and baby at the hospital, the mother told Lucas she had named her baby girl A’Miracle Natisha.

Mother and baby are both fine and “resting comfortably,” according to KPRC-TV.

(For more from the author of “Newborn Baby Girl Named After Officer Who Saved Her Life” please click HERE)

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WATCH: Four Iranian Vessels Harass U.S. Destroyer by Straits of Hormuz

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Four patrol boats operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps harassed an American destroyer on Tuesday near the Straits of Hormuz, a U.S. defense official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Two of the Iranian boats came within 300 yards of the USS Nitze in a manner that the unnamed official called “unsafe and unprofessional.” The IRGC boats harassed the Nitze by “conducting a high speed intercept and closing within a short distance of Nitze, despite repeated warnings,” the official added.

The Nitze attempted to communicate with the IRGC vessels 12 times and fired 10 warning flares in the direction of the two closest boats. “The Iranian high rate of closure… created a dangerous, harassing situation that could have led to further escalation, including additional defensive measures by Nitze,” the official said.

The incident is the latest Iranian challenge to American presence in the Persian Gulf and its commitment to keep the area open to international shipping. IRGC naval forces captured ten American sailors and two boats in January, an incident that Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter called “outrageous, unprofessional and inconsistent with international law” during a Senate hearing in March. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson echoed Carter’s assessment while announcing the result of the Navy’s investigation into the seizure in June. “Those boats and crewmembers had every right to be where they were that day,” Richardson said. “The investigation concluded that Iran violated international law by impeding the boats’ innocent passage transit, and they violated our sovereign immunity by boarding, searching, and seizing the boats, and by photographing and video recording the crew.”

The U.S. Navy reported last month that in 2015, there were close to 300 encounters or “interactions” between American and Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf. While most of the encounters were not considered to be harassment, the behavior of the Iranian navy was found to be less disciplined than that of other navies. Lt. Forrest Griggs, the operations officer of the USS New Orleans, explained that risks arise from the unpredictable behavior and uncertain intent of the Iranian vessels. “It’s very common for them to come up to within 300, 500 yards of us, and then they’ll turn, or parallel us and stop,” he said. (Read more from “WATCH: Four Iranian Vessels Harass U.S. Destroyer by Straits of Hormuz” HERE)

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FUNNIEST CHART THIS YEAR: Illinois Obamacare Premiums to Skyrocket up To… 90%

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The hits just keep on coming in the deep blue state of Illinois.

There are the public sector union pension plans, which are simply bankrupting the state.

There are the ever-increasing property, income and sales taxes.

Oh. And then there’s the ultimate irony: the health care system in the state that gave us Barack Obama is going to be — yes, you guessed it — financially eviscerated:

Although [Obama] frequently promised ObamaCare would reduce health insurance premiums by $2,500 for the average family, health insurance costs continue to rise for everyday Illinoisans.

According to new data released Aug. 24 by the Illinois Department of Insurance, premiums for the cheapest silver-level plan on the ObamaCare exchange are set to rise by an average of 45 percent next year. The cheapest bronze-level plans will rise by an average of 44 percent, and the cheapest gold-level plans will rise by 55 percent… In some regions of the state, premium increases will soar far higher…

PREMIUM-INCREASE-BLOG_ca_8-24-900x1024[1]

…If skyrocketing premiums weren’t bad enough, tens of thousands of Illinoisans will also see their plans canceled at the end of the year. UnitedHealthcare and Aetna, two of the three largest insurers in the country, previously announced they were pulling out of Illinois’ ObamaCare exchange altogether. And even the insurers who are staying are canceling many of their existing offerings. Notices for these cancellations will go out in fall 2016.

Come to think of it, this little economic “turbulence” couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of statists. (For more from the author of “FUNNIEST CHART THIS YEAR: Illinois Obamacare Premiums to Skyrocket up To… 90%” please click HERE)

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Republican Calls Grow for Second Look at Clinton Case

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More than seven weeks after FBI Director James Comey’s July 5 announcement closing the case on Hillary Clinton’s personal email use, Republican calls are growing for prosecutors to take a closer look – at everything from perjury questions to the tangled dealings with Clinton Foundation donors during the candidate’s tenure leading the State Department.

And on Thursday, Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy pointed out another potential problem with the bureau’s original email investigation.

After viewing the FBI’s tightly held file on the case, the South Carolina congressman told Fox News it doesn’t appear investigators asked Clinton about the issue that was the basis for not pursuing charges – known as “intent.”

During Comey’s congressional testimony last month, he said while Clinton was “negligent” and “careless” in her use of personal email for official business, “What we can’t establish is that she acted with the necessary criminal intent” . . .

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has steadily racked up endorsements from fellow Republicans for his call earlier this week to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the ties between the family foundation and her State Department. (Read more from “Republican Calls Grow for Second Look at Clinton Case” HERE)

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Coulter Comes Clean on ‘Split’ With Trump

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Ann Coulter is not happy, but she is making it crystal clear in an exclusive interview with WND that she is not splitting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump over his recent amnesty remarks, as several media outlets erroneously reported.

Coulter unleashed a series of tweets early Thursday morning that were critical of comments made the day before by Trump indicating he might flip-flop on his opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants.

In an email to WND titled, “Exclusive on-the-record follow-up,” the influential columnist and best-selling author explained:

“Unlike crazed, cult-like Hillary supporters (and Cruz supporters, fyi), I’ve provided helpful criticism to Trump in the past, e.g., over the Heidi Cruz retweet, over the H-1B sellout, and other things.”

“THAT DOESN’T MEAN I’M ABANDONING HIM,” she wrote in all capital letters, to remove any doubt. (Read more from “Coulter Comes Clean on ‘Split’ With Trump” HERE)

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HILLARY AND SOROS: Their Campaign of Global Chaos

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Major media outlets in the US have ignored the leak of thousands of emails from billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation by the activist hacker group DCLeaks. The OSF is the vehicle through which Soros has funneled billions of dollars over the past two decades to non-profit organizations in the US and throughout the world.

According to the documents, Soros has given more than $30 million to groups working for Hillary Clinton’s election in November, making him her largest single donor. So it is likely the case that the media’s support for Clinton has played some role in the mainstream media’s bid to bury the story.

It is also likely however, that at least some news editors failed to understand why the leaked documents were worth covering. Most of the information was already public knowledge. Soros’s massive funding of far-left groups in the US and throughout the world has been documented for more than a decade.

But failing to see the significance of the wider story because many of the details were already known is a case of missing the forest for the trees. The DCLeaks document dump is a major story because it exposes the forest of Soros’s funding networks.

The first thing that we see is the megalomaniacal nature of Soros’s philanthropic project. No corner of the globe is unaffected by his efforts. No policy area is left untouched.

On the surface, the vast number of groups and people he supports seem unrelated. After all, what does climate change have to do with illegal African immigration to Israel? What does Occupy Wall Street have to do with Greek immigration policies? But the fact is that Soros-backed projects share basic common attributes.

They all work to weaken the ability of national and local authorities in Western democracies to uphold the laws and values of their nations and communities.

They all work to hinder free markets, whether those markets are financial, ideological, political or scientific. They do so in the name of democracy, human rights, economic, racial and sexual justice and other lofty terms.

In other words, their goal is to subvert Western democracies and make it impossible for governments to maintain order or for societies to retain their unique identities and values.

Black Lives Matter, which has received $650,000 from Soros-controlled groups over the past year, is a classic example of these efforts. Until recently, the police were universally admired in the US as the domestic equivalent of the military. BLM emerged as a social force bent on politicizing support for police.

Its central contention is that in the US, police are not a force for good, enabling society to function by maintaining law and order. Rather, police are a tool of white repression of blacks.

Law enforcement in predominantly African American communities is under assault as inherently racist.

BLM agitation, which has been accused of inspiring the murders of police in several US cities, has brought about two responses from rank and file police. First, they have been demoralized, as they find themselves criminalized for trying to keep their cities safe from criminals.

Second, their willingness to use force in situations that demand the use of force has diminished. Fear of criminal charges on the one hand, and public condemnation as “racists” on the other causes police to prefer inaction even when situations require that they act.

The demoralization and intimidation of police is very likely to cause a steep increase in violent crimes.

Then there are Soros’s actions on behalf of illegal immigration. From the US to Europe to Israel, Soros has implemented a worldwide push to use immigration to undermine the national identity and demographic composition of Western democracies. The leaked emails show that his groups have interfered in European elections to get politicians elected who support open border policies for immigrants from the Arab world and to financially and otherwise support journalists who report sympathetically on immigrants.

Soros’s groups are on the ground enabling illegal immigrants to enter the US and Europe. They have sought to influence US Supreme Court rulings on illegal immigration from Mexico. They have worked with Muslim and other groups to demonize Americans and Europeans who oppose open borders.

In Israel as well, Soros opposes government efforts to end the flow of illegal immigration from Africa through the border with Egypt.

The notion at the heart of the push for the legalization of unfettered immigration is that states should not be able to protect their national identities.

If it is racist for Greeks to protect their national identity by seeking to block the entrance of millions of Syrians to their territory, then it is racist for Greece – or France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden the US or Poland – to exist.

Parallel to these efforts are others geared toward rejecting the right of Western democracies to uphold long-held social norms. Soros-supported groups, for instance, stand behind the push not only for gay marriage but for unisex public bathrooms.

They support not only the right of women to serve in combat units, but efforts to force soldiers to live in unisex barracks. In other words, they support efforts aimed at denying citizens of Western democracies the right to maintain any distance between themselves and Soros’s rejection of their most intimate values – their sexual privacy and identity.

As far as Israel is concerned, Soros-backed groups work to delegitimize every aspect of Israeli society as racist and illegitimate. The Palestinians are focal point of his attacks. He uses them to claim that Israel is a racist state. Soros funds moderate leftist groups, radical leftist groups, Israeli Arab groups and Palestinian groups. In various, complementary ways, these groups tell their target audiences that Israel has no right to defend itself or enforce its laws toward its non-Jewish citizens.

In the US, Soros backed groups from BLM to J Street work to make it socially and politically acceptable to oppose Israel.

The thrust of Soros’s efforts from Ferguson to Berlin to Jerusalem is to induce mayhem and chaos as local authorities, paralyzed by his supported groups, are unable to secure their societies or even argue coherently that they deserve security.

In many ways, Donald Trump’s campaign is a direct response not to Clinton, but to Soros himself.

By calling for the erection of a border wall, supporting Britain’s exit from the EU, supporting Israel, supporting a temporary ban on Muslim immigration and supporting the police against BLM, Trump acts as a direct foil to Soros’s multi-billion dollar efforts.

The DCLeaks exposed the immensity of the Soros-funded Left’s campaign against the foundations of liberal democracies. The “direct democracy” movements that Soros support are nothing less than calls for mob rule.

The peoples of the West need to recognize the common foundations of all Soros’s actions. They need to realize as well that the only response to these premeditated campaigns of subversion is for the people of the West to stand up for their national rights and their individual right to security. They must stand with the national institutions that guarantee that security, in accordance with the rule of the law, and uphold and defend their national values and traditions. (For more from the author of “HILLARY AND SOROS: Their Campaign of Global Chaos” please click HERE)

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