Secretive GOP Group Targets Trump for Destruction

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Top Republican establishment forces are joining up to eliminate Donald Trump from the presidential race through a “guerrilla campaign,” backed by secret donors, The Wall Street Journal reports Saturday.

In a page-one story, the paper reported that anti-Trump efforts are being spearheaded by a one-time Republican National Party online communications director who worked briefly for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s failed bid for the GOP nomination.

The group, called Trump Card LLC , is headed by former RNC employee Liz Mair. A detailed memo of their plans, obtained by The Wall Street Journal, says without efforts from GOP establishment, “Trump is exceedingly unlikely to implode or be forced out of the race.”

Further, Mair asserts in the memo, “the stark reality is that unless something dramatic and unconventional is done, Trump will be the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton will become president.”

Trump Card’s plan is to expose Trump’s policy positions as not being conservative. In the past, Trump has advocated higher taxes, supported affirmative action, called for a government-run, single-payer healthcare system used by Canada and Britain, and backed the Supreme Court’s Lowe decision that gives government the right to easily seize private property for private businesses. (Read more from “Secretive GOP Group Targets Trump for Destruction” HERE)

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House Just Stuck It to Obama With Hugely Defiant Vote – 47 Dems Joined In

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By Jack Davis. The House of Representatives Thursday defied President Obama’s threat of a veto and voted, 289-137, to impose new screening requirements on Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to enter the United States.

The bill was supported by 47 Democrats. Only two Republicans opposed it. The House plan would bar any refugees from Syria or Iraq from entering the United States until the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Director of National Intelligence certify that each one is not dangerous.

“If our law enforcement and our intelligence community cannot verify that each and every person is not a security threat, then they shouldn’t be allowed in,” said Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

“The status quo is not acceptable,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas. “The American people want us to act in light of what’s happened.”

Other lawmakers agreed . . .

The bill comes after Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 129 people. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks. At least one attacker posed as a Syrian refugee, officials have disclosed. These events created new opposition to Obama’s plan to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States. (Read more from “House Just Stuck It to Obama With Hugely Defiant Vote – 47 Dems Joined In” HERE)

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House Passes Bill That Could Limit Syrian Refugees

By Deirdre Walsh and Ted Barrett. The House easily passed a bill Thursday that would suspend the program allowing Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the U.S. until key national security agencies certify they don’t pose a security risk.

The vote was 289-137, with 47 Democrats joining 242 Republicans in favor of the bill, creating a majority that could override President Barack Obama’s promised veto. It also faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Minority Leader Harry Reid said he will try to block the bill.

The high number of Democrats voting against the White House is a clear sign Obama is increasingly isolated in his position on refugees in light of the ISIS terrorist attacks on Paris.

During his trip abroad this week, Obama has offered a forceful defense of the program and derided Republican opponents as being scared of “widows and orphans.”

“We are not well served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic,” Obama said in the Philippines on Wednesday. “We don’t make good decisions if it’s based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks.” (Read more from “House Passes Bill That Could Limit Syrian Refugees” HERE)

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Donald Trump Has Big Plans for ‘Radical Islamic’ Terrorists, 2016 and ‘That Communist’ Bernie Sanders; Muslims in US Must Have Special ID

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By Hunter Walker. Trump has brought his trademark swagger to his presidential campaign. He shocked the political establishment and liberals around the country by becoming a frontrunner after barging into the Republican primary in June with over-the-top insults for his opponents and controversial policy pronouncements for the public at large.

This no-holds-barred approach was on full display in a wide-ranging interview with Yahoo News on Tuesday. During the discussion, Trump weighed in on the presidential race, calling Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., “a communist” and hinting at his plans to go after Hillary Clinton, should he win the nomination. He also discussed the “unthinkable” security measures he believes will be necessary to monitor America’s Muslims in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, the “safe space” and racism controversies on college campuses, and his favorite parts of Latino culture. The conversation concluded with Trump playing a word association game where he shared his opinions on Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian and Charlie Sheen, among others.

Though he stayed true to his ostentatious brand, Trump initially tried to strike a humble note when he assessed his chance of victory.

“I always want to think of myself as an underdog. I never want to think of myself as even leading,” Trump said, before breaking his momentarily modest stride a breath later. “I am leading. I’m leading substantially.”

Trump pointed to a pair of new polls that were released Tuesday. Morning Consult showed him with a 19-point lead in the GOP primary nationwide. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that, in the wake of last week’s Paris attacks, voters were split between Trump and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton as the candidates best prepared to deal with terrorism (though Clinton had the edge). These numbers come after a brief spell in which Trump saw his average standing in Republican primary polls dip, as former neurosurgeon Ben Carson rose in the ranks. (Read more from “Donald Trump Has Big Plans for ‘Radical Islamic’ Terrorists, 2016 and ‘That Communist’ Bernie Sanders” HERE)

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Trump: Muslims in US Must Have Special ID

By Mark Hensch. GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump believes that the war on terror will require unprecedented surveillance of America’s Muslims.

“We’re going to have to do thing that we never did before,” he said during a Yahoo interview.

“Some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule,” Trump said.

“Certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy,” he added. “We’re going to have to do things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago” . . .

He also remained open toward registering U.S. Muslims in a database or giving them special identification identifying their faith, the news outlet added. (Read more from “Trump: Muslims in US Must Have Special ID” HERE)

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Crisis as Cover: Paris Attacks Ringleader Posed as Refugee

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France’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Friday some of the Paris attackers, including the mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, exploited the Syrian refugee crisis to slip into the country unnoticed.

Abaaoud, the ringleader behind last Friday’s bombings and shootings in the French capital that killed 129 people, was able to get into Europe undeterred, according to French authorities. The 28-year-old had also been linked to several plots around France including a thwarted attack by a gunman on a high-speed train in August.

French officials confirmed Thursday Abaaoud was killed in an anti-terror raid Wednesday in a suburb north of Paris. He was identified from skin samples after the Saint-Denis apartment raid.

Abaaoud had claimed he successfully moved back and forth from Europe to Syria coordinating terror attacks, and narrowly escaped a January police raid in the Belgian city of Verviers. “Allah blinded their vision and I was able to leave… despite being chased after by so many intelligence agencies,” he told the ISIS magazine Dabiq.

Two counterterrorism officials told Fox News on Thursday that Abaaoud is comparable to Mohammed Atta – the “tactical guy” who identified and pulled together the operatives. (Read more from “Crisis as Cover: Paris Attacks Ringleader Posed as Refugee” HERE)

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Syrian Community Leader: ISIS Is Already in America

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A leader of New York City’s Syrian community told The Post on Wednesday that ISIS terrorists have “absolutely” sneaked into America by posing as civil-war refugees — and joined sleeper cells just waiting to be activated.

“I believe the terrorists from Syria have been coming into the United States, not only in the past few years, but way before that,” said Aarafat “Ralph” Succar of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, home of the city’s largest enclave of Syrian immigrants. “I think they’re already at work.”

Succar, a member of the Bay Ridge Community Council, said corruption in his homeland is so rampant that anyone could easily pay bribes and obtain official identification papers bearing a fake name to disguise their real identity.

“You can go to the Syrian government today and say to them, ‘I need a piece of paper that says I’m Tony Caterpillar.’ And they give it to you,” he said . . .

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that “a grand total of eight” Syrian refugees had settled in the city as part of an official State Department program, and City Hall later lowered that number to four, blaming the information mixup on the feds. (Read more from “Syrian Community Leader: ISIS Is Already in America” HERE)

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Sheriff Joe Beats Obama to Supreme Court on Amnesty

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The Obama administration plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Constitution does not allow the president to change laws passed by Congress.

In a case brought by Texas and 25 other states, Obama is defending an executive decision to allow up to 5 million illegal aliens to remain in the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court already has been asked to address Obama’s executive amnesty in a separate case brought by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, who is represented by Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch.

The taxpayers of Maricopa County have been hit with an extra $9 million in expenses to house inmates who should have been deported. The costs are rising, so the sheriff challenged the president’s decision to grant even more illegal aliens permission to remain in the U.S.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier threw out the case on an issue of standing, despite one judge’s alarm over the situation and her call for changes. (Read more from “Sheriff Joe Beats Obama to Supreme Court on Amnesty” HERE)

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Rand Paul Demands Vote on Blocking Welfare for Refugees

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A push by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for a vote on refugee benefits has thwarted the Senate’s plan to pass a housing and transportation bill this week.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) came to the Senate floor on Thursday and withdrew cloture motions on the spending bill for the Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The motions would have allowed the legislation to come up for a procedural vote.

The move came after Paul, who is running for president, demanded a vote on an amendment that would ban new refugees from 34 countries or territories from getting assistance from welfare programs funded under the spending bill.

With Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who are spearheading the legislation, opposed to Paul’s amendment, Paul pledged that he would block leadership from trying to speed up procedural votes, as well as block any other amendment from getting queued up for floor time.

“The biggest issue of the day is how we protect ourselves from terrorism. My amendment goes to the heart of the matter. Are we sufficiently vetting those who might come here and attack us from the Middle East?” Paul said, adding that “until we address the issues of the day on a germane amendment, I object.” (Read more from “Rand Paul Demands Vote on Blocking Welfare for Refugees” HERE)

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US Youth Slain by Terrorists Was Bringing Food to Soldiers in West Bank

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Ezra Schwartz, an American yeshiva student who was killed Thursday in a West Bank terror attack, had been volunteering delivering food parcels to Israeli soldiers in the area when he was shot by a Palestinian terrorist.

Schwartz, 18, of Sharon, Massachusetts, was remembered as “a fun person to hang out with, very charismatic.”

He was one of three people killed in a terror attack near the settlement of Alon Shvut. He was studying for a year at Yeshivat Ashreinu in Beit Shemesh . . .

Schwartz was killed when an assailant opened fire from inside his car at vehicles near the Etzion Bloc junction. Police named 51-year-old Ya’akov Don of nearby Alon Svhut and 24-year-old Palestinian Shadi Arfah of Hebron as the other victims of the shooting . . .

The United Synagogue Youth program which Ezra joined in 2013 released a statement saying he “is remembered as being a warm and funny member of the…community. Staff on his trip recalled today that he used his deep experience in Judaism to teach other teens how to participate in Jewish ritual.” (Read more from “US Youth Slain by Terrorists Was Bringing Food to Soldiers in West Bank” HERE)

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Leaked NSA Doc Reveals ‘Sheer Luck’ Needed to Find Useful Info in Sea of Surveillance Data

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The NSA didn’t know it was already sitting on a “goldmine” of data on one of its targets until one of its analysts discovered it by “sheer luck,” according to an internal newsletter entry leaked by Edward Snowden.

The article, dated March 23, 2011, was written by a signals development analyst in SIDtoday, an NSA in-house newsletter. He explains how he discovered the contact and personal information for over 10,000 people, as well as some 900 account login details, after “a ton of hard work,” according to reports from The Intercept and teleSUR.

“By sheer luck, (and a ton of hard work) I discovered an important new access to an existing target and am working with TAO to leverage a new mission capability,” the analyst wrote to colleagues. TAO refers to Tailored Access Operations, an NSA hacking team which had collected the 900 usernames and passcodes . . .

Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute professor, told The Intercept it was “interesting” that the analyst used the word “discovered” because it means that either the NSA “didn’t realize” it had been collecting PDVSA’s information or that, perhaps, there had been a bureaucratic miscommunication on the subject . . .

An NSA review in 2010 found that its data on PDVSA had become “stagnant,” so it is clear why the analyst described the newly found materials as a “goldmine.” (Read more from “Leaked NSA Doc Reveals ‘Sheer Luck’ Needed to Find Useful Info in Sea of Surveillance Data” HERE)

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Earthquake Shakes Oklahoma, Kansas

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A magnitude 4.7 earthquake struck northern Oklahoma early on Thursday, rattling residents out of their beds and shaking the ground across a 100-mile (160-km) radius that included the city of Tulsa and the state of Kansas.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 1:42 a.m. CST (0742 GMT) quake’s epicenter was 8 miles (13 km) southwest of Cherokee, Oklahoma.

With a shallow depth of 3.8 miles (6.2 km), it was one of the most-powerful temblors to shake Oklahoma since the strongest one recorded there struck in 2011 with a 5.6 magnitude.

There were no reports of any major damage or injuries, a Cherokee city hall official said. A local emergency management official said bridges did not appear to be damaged in areas around the quake’s epicenter.

Still, state’s oil and gas regulator, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), moved within hours on Thursday to implement additional curbs on the use of saltwater disposal wells that scientists have linked to a sharp rise in seismic activity in the state. (Read more from “Earthquake Shakes Oklahoma, Kansas” HERE)

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