Column: Only American Ground Troops Can Defeat the Islamic State

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Photo Credit: APTwo months ago, President Obama authorized bombing Islamic State (IS) forces in Iraq. One month ago, President Obama authorized bombing Islamic State forces in Syria. His plan: couple American air power with indigenous ground forces.

“This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines,” Obama said last month, “is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.” I disagree with his use of the adverb “successfully.” But Yemen and Somalia are exactly what we’re getting.

Disordered and violent spaces, desultory and pinprick strikes, incompetent and wary allies, determined and implacable enemies—this is the Greater Middle East of Yemen and Somalia, this is the Greater Middle East of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

The Islamic State continues to hold territory and make gains. The Pentagon, Rowan Scarborough reports, fears that the terrorist army is planning to capture Baghdad International Airport, using it as a base for urban warfare in the Iraqi capital. In the east, Islamic State forces have laid siege to the Kurdish town of Kobani, held at bay only by a slapdash increase in U.S. airstrikes. “I am fearful that Kobani will fall,” General Martin Dempsey said this week. You’re not alone, general. Why don’t you do something about it?

I must know better than to ask such questions. Dempsey’s boss, President Obama, is more interested in avoiding the use of large numbers of ground forces than he is in actually seeing the Islamic State defeated. So he leaves the heavy fighting to our “partners.” But the partners are confused, inept. They are silent. And the enemy is gaining.

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If You Bought a Red Bull Since 2002, You Could Get $10

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Photo Credit: Byung Jun Park / Creative Commons Red Bull GmbH — the makers of the popular energy drinks — settled two class action lawsuits, agreeing to pay $13 million to United States customers.

In the lawsuits, consumers argued that they were misled by the company’s claims about the benefits of drinking Red Bull, with a focus on statements such as “Red Bull gives you wings…”

“Red Bull denies any wrongdoing or liability and while Red Bull believes that its marketing and labeling have always been entirely truthful and accurate, it confirms that all future claims about the functional benefits of its products will be medically and/or scientifically supported,” according to a legal notice announcing the settlement.


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WATCH: Michelle Obama Stumps For Candidate, Calls Him Wrong Name SEVEN Times

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First Lady Michelle Obama attended a campaign event in Iowa today for Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley. Only problem was, Michelle accidentally called the man she was stumping for the wrong name… seven times.

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First We Killed Our Unborn Children. Now We’re Killing Our Own Parents.

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Photo Credit: LifeSiteNewsIn a culture that elevates transient pleasure as a “value,” while reducing “value” itself to a subjective and utilitarian status, I suppose it should not be surprising that the worth of human beings is now constantly in question.

We once lived in a culture that drafted laws to protect “dependents”: the very young, the very old, and the disabled. This was done in recognition of the fact that a human being’s increased vulnerability correspondingly heightens our moral responsibility to that human being.

Now, however, the exit strategists of the Sexual Revolution are burning the candle at both ends – abortion for children in the womb, euthanasia and “assisted suicide” for the old. Both children and elderly parents, you see, can be costly and time-consuming.

I noted some time ago that the concept of “dying with dignity” is rapidly becoming “killing with impunity,” as our culture finds all sorts of excuses to assist “inconvenient” people in leaving Planet Earth.

There is a similarity to abortion, here, too—our technologically advanced culture is no longer looking for compassionate and ethical solutions to the complex, tragic, and often heartbreaking circumstances. Instead, we offer the solution that Darkness always has: Death. Disability, dependence, difficult life circumstances: a suction aspirator, a lethal injection, a bloody set of forceps. And the “problem,” as it were, is solved.

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California Man Rescues Baby from Dumpster; Names her ‘Milagros’ – Miracle

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Photo Credit: CBS video screenshotA California man who helped rescue a newborn girl from a dumpster says he believes that the girl’s rescue was a miracle.

Jimmy Alvarez responded when he heard Jorge Miranda call for help Thursday just before 6 a.m.

Miranda was looking for cans and bottles in a south Merced apartment complex dumpster to sell for recycling, according to the Merced Sun-Star, when he found the baby girl wrapped in a towel under pizza boxes and plastic trash bags.

“He was shocked, he was scared,” Alvarez said of Miranda, who speaks limited English. “The baby was lying in the corner of the dumpster, half naked, the umbilical cord hanging.”

Miranda said the discovery made him feel “very bad.”

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150 People Enter U.S. Per Day from Ebola-Stricken Countries–or 4,500 Per Month

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Photo Credit: APBy Susan Jones.

Both Homeland Security Secretary Secretary Jeh Johnson and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden said on Wednesday that 150 people a day arrive in the United States from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, the three West African countries that have been hit by the Ebola virus.

“When somebody travels from one of those three West African countries, even through a transit point (in Europe), we know where they’re coming from. So we’re able to track this. And we know that on average it’s about 150 passengers a day,” Johnson told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“The number of travelers is relatively small. We’re talking about 150 per day,” Frieden told a news conference on Wednesday. He announced that questionnaires and temperature checks will begin at five major U.S. airports that handle “95 percent of all the 150 travelers per day who arrive from these three countries.”

One hundred-fifty passengers a day from West Africa works out to more than a thousand a week (1,050), 4,500 a month, and 54,750 a year.

Given the 21-day incubation period for Ebola and the 150 people coming in each day, that means that at any given time there could be 21 x 150 people in the U.S. who could be asymptomatically incubating Ebola, and who are free to wander around the country.

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Obama: You Can’t Get Ebola ‘Sitting Next to Someone on a Bus;’ CDC: ‘Avoid Public Transportation’

By Brittany M. Hughes.

Speaking in a video message to residents of West African countries currently experiencing outbreaks of Ebola, President Barack Obama dispensed advice on how residents can avoid the disease, including:”You cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus.”

At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is advising Americans who travel to the Ebola-stricken nations to “avoid public transportation.”

“First, Ebola is not spread through the air like the flu,” Obama said in the video released by the White House Thursday. “You cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone one a bus. You cannot get it from another person until they start showing symptoms of the disease, like fever.”

Obama also said that “the most common way you can get Ebola is by touching the body fluids of someone who is sick or has died from it, like their sweat, saliva or blood, or through a contaminated item like a needle.”

The CDC, however, is advising aid workers and others who travel to countries currently experiencing Ebola outbreaks to “avoid public transportation” if they develop a fever or experience other Ebola-like symptoms while on their trip.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Ebola Could Be ‘World’s Next AIDS,’ CDC Director Warns

By MEGHAN KENEALLY.

Ebola is spreading with such speed that it could become a global pandemic to rival AIDS if action isn’t taken now, one of the U.S.’s top health officials has warned.

“In the 30 years I’ve been working public health, the only thing like this has been AIDS, and we have to work now so that this is not the world’s next AIDS,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday.

Frieden spoke at a conference at the World Bank in Washington D.C. Those in attendance included a group of African leaders from countries where the virus has spread.

“Speed is the most important variable here,” Frieden said. “This is controllable and this was preventable. It’s preventable by investing in core public health services, both in the epicenter of the most affected countries, in the surrounding countries, and in other countries that might be affected.”


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BP AGENT: NOTHING DONE TO SECURE BORDER FROM EBOLA, APPREHENSIONS AT 30%

By BREITBART TV.

Border Patrol Agent and National Border Patrol Council #3307 Vice President Chris Cabrera said that “nothing” has been done to secure the border in the event the Ebola virus spreads to Central America, and that the apprehension rate on the border was down to about 30% on Thursday’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on the Fox News Channel.

Cabrera said, “I agree with that 100 percent,” when asked whether he agreed with Marine Corps General John Kelly that there would be a “mass migration” to the US if the Ebola virus spread to Central America.

Then when asked if any steps had been taken to secure the border if such a migration occurred, he stated, “You know, actually, nothing has.”

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Photo Credit: Premium TimesEbola: Another UN staff tests positive

By Premium Times.

The UN Secretary-General’s spokesperson, Stephane DuJarric, on Wednesday, confirmed that an international member of staff who works for UN Mission in Liberia, UNMIL, tested positive for Ebola Virus Disease, EVD.

Mr. DuJarric confirmed this while briefing UN Correspondents on Wednesday in New York.

He said “this is the second case of Ebola in the mission.

“An earlier probable case resulted in the death of a staff member on September 25.

“The Mission has, therefore, taken all the necessary measures to prevent possible further transmission within or outside the mission.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Getty‘Quarantine stations coming to 5 U.S. airports

By CNN.

One person has come to the United States and come down with Ebola here.

Authorities want to keep it that way.

To that end, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday beefed-up measures at five of America’s biggest, busiest airports aimed at preventing the deadly virus’ further spread.

While talk about preventing Ebola’s spread abounds everywhere from coffee shops to TV news, this intervention won’t affect a lot of people.

It applies only to about 150 people a day, by CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden’s estimate, arriving in the United States after having recently traveled from Ebolva-ravaged West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

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Huckabee Threatens To Leave GOP Over Gay Marriage, Abortion

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerFormer Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he will leave the GOP if Republicans abandon their ardent opposition to gay marriage and abortion.

Appearing on the American Family Association’s radio show this week, Huckabee was discussing gay marriage and said: “If the Republicans want to lose guys like me — and a whole bunch of still God-fearing Bible-believing people — go ahead and just abdicate on this issue, and why you’re at it, go ahead and say abortion doesn’t matter, either.”

“Because at that point, you lose me,” Huckabee said. “I’m gone. I’ll become an independent. I’ll start finding people that have guts to stand. I’m tired of this.”

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WATCH: US Airways Pulls Passenger from Plane Who Yelled ‘I Have Ebola’

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By Phyllis Stark.

As Ebola panic grips the world, a US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, was detained after landing Wednesday after a passenger sneezed then yelled “I have Ebola, you are all screwed.”

The 54-year-old man reportedly also screamed “I have been to Africa,” according to Gawker, which cites Dominican news site Diario Libre and Fox News as its sources.

Flight 850 was boarded by men in blue hazmat suits, who escorted the man off the plane as nearly everyone on board shot video of the incident on their mobile phones. Passengers, which included at least one baby, were reportedly kept on the plane for two hours after landing.

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Comment Prompts Ebola Scare On Flight From Philadelphia

By Matt Rivers.

A single comment about Ebola from one passenger on a flight out of Philadelphia prompted a scare in the air and a dramatic response when the plane finally landed.

We want to tell you up front that no one had Ebola on the plane.

But this situation demonstrates how public health officials are trying to stay on top of the threat and how even a mention of this deadly disease is taken extremely seriously.

It all happened on a U.S. Airways flight from Philadelphia to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.

For those on board U.S. Air flight 845, it started normal enough. When that flight landed, a flight attendant made this announcement.

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Fast and Furious: Phoenix Sued by Judicial Watch Over Federal Documents Related to Guns Used in Gang Shootout

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Photo Credit: TownHallGovernment watchdog Judicial Watch has sued the City of Phoenix Police Department over documents surrounding a 2013 gang-style assault on an apartment complex. Long-guns, a handgun, empty casings and buildings riddled with bullets were reported at the scene and two people were wounded in the incident. When the incident occurred and during investigation afterward, police worked with federal law enforcement agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Department of Homeland Security, FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency in the case, raising suspicions the assault wasn’t simply a typical, local gang shootout and prompted questions about the details of the people involved in the shooting in addition to where the weapons that were used came from. Suspects were arrested in the weeks following the incident.

Judicial Watch is seeking all records and communications between Phoenix police and the federal agencies involved. It is suspected the weapons used in the incident are connected to Operation Fast and Furious.

A. Complete copy (including supplements) of Phoenix Police Department report 201-3-01-344558 (621 N. 3Oth Pl., Phx. AZ on or around July 29, 2013). Including but, not limited to copies of crime scene photographs, impound property invoices, audio interviews, case status reports, booking slips, charging documents, and Maricopa County Attorney court /trial/case disposition records.

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'Gender Inclusive' School District says Drop 'Boys and Girls,' Call Kids 'Purple Penguins'

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Photo Credit: APThe fine folks who run the school system in Lincoln, Neb., are on a campaign to make their classrooms gender-inclusive. And that means teachers will no longer refer to boys and girls … as boys and girls.

“Don’t use phrases such as ‘boys and girls,’ ‘you guys,’ ‘ladies and gentlemen,’ and similarly gendered expressions to get kids’ attention,” reads a handout from the Lincoln Public Schools that was given to teachers.

The handout was part of an effort to educate teachers and administrators about transgender issues, educators told the Lincoln Journal Star.

“The agenda we’re promoting is to help all kids succeed,” Brenda Leggiardo the district’s coordinator of social workers and counselors told the newspaper. “We have kids who come to us with a whole variety of circumstances, and we need to equitably serve all kids.”

So instead of asking boys and girls to line up as boys or girls, teachers have been encouraged to segregate the children by whether they prefer skateboards or bikes, or whether they like milk or juice.

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