John Kerry: Internet Needs Stronger Regulations to “Work Properly”

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In a speech in South Korea, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Internet needs heavier regulations to “be able to flourish and work properly.”

Touting the Obama administration’s new policy on the Internet, Kerry insisted that without strict government regulation, the Internet could not reach its potential, and he couched his comments as a way to respond to threats of cyberattacks.

Kerry claimed that his “universal concepts” and “five principles” were necessary to protect the world’s Internet:

First, no country should conduct or knowingly support online activity that intentionally damages or impedes the use of another country’s critical infrastructure. Second, no country should seek either to prevent emergency teams from responding to a cybersecurity incident, or allow its own teams to cause harm. Third, no country should conduct or support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, trade secrets, or other confidential business information for commercial gain. Fourth, every country should mitigate malicious cyber activity emanating from its soil, and they should do so in a transparent, accountable and cooperative way. And fifth, every country should do what it can to help states that are victimized by a cyberattack.

But even with these “five principles,” Kerry said that there is still more work to do to “develop a truly reliable framework—based on international law—that will effectively deter violations and minimize the danger of conflict.” (Read more about John Kerry asserting that the Internet needs stronger regulations HERE)

The Progressives’ Thug Agenda

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If you think that government is force, you probably don’t think much of President Obama’s deceptive line about government being the name for things we do together. “Government is the name of things we do by force,” you retort.

But everyone understands that government is all about force, so we lie about it. When we propose more government we either claim we are fighting injustice, or we hide the fact that we are advancing a thug agenda based on force; we say it’s for the children.

So let’s look at the recently published “Progressive Agenda” and see what we find. . .

It is a demand for government favors: higher mandated wages, higher mandated benefits, more free baby-sitting. And never mind where the money is coming from; enforcement officers will deal with that.

Progressives like to talk about the glory days of good union jobs and good wages in the 1950s, and how Reagan ruined it in the 1980s. What they don’t like to talk about is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. You know what it is; it’s right there in the Progressive Agenda: immigration. If there’s one thing that has been creating income inequality in America it is immigration. If you want to know what is hurting the low paid it is high immigration legal and illegal. It’s simple supply and demand: increase the number of workers by opening the spigots on immigration and wages will go down.

The Progressive Agenda tells us that progressives really don’t care about low-wage people, for their agenda is a mess of thug politics that won’t really help anyone.

Enormous, “Bulletproof” Cross Arises in Pakistan

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A Pakistani businessman who is building a 14-story cross in the heart of Pakistan’s largest city claims he got the idea when God came to him in a dream.

Parvez Henry Gill, part of the small Christian minority in predominantly Muslim nation, is believes his 140-foot-tall cross will be a source of comfort and inspiration for the country’s followers of Christ, who often face persecution and violence.

“I said, ‘I am going to build a big cross, higher than any in the world, in a Muslim country,’” Gill told the The Washington Post. “It will be a symbol of God, and everybody who sees this will be worry-free.”

The cross is being built at the entrance to the largest Christian burial ground in Karachi, Gora Qabristan Cemetery, in the southern section of the city. Made of concrete and steel, the massive monument will boast a 42-foot wide crosspiece and will be the largest in Asia.

Tombstones in the graveyard are often defaced, but Gill hopes the cross while be a beacon of hope in his country for minority Christians and encourage them to remain in Pakistan. (Read more from “Enormous Cross Arises in Pakistan” HERE)

Dems Put Americans at Risk, Push to Extend Afghan Visas

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Once again, liberals in Washington are pursuing a dyslexic approach to national security and immigration. Instead of focusing on homeland security, they are continuing to center their attention on nation building in Afghanistan. Ironically, the continued engagement in Afghanistan is leading to more immigration from this volatile region – the very security risk that serves as the impetus for engaging in military operations there in the first place.

As Conservative Review pointed out last year, tens of thousands of refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan have been admitted over the past decade. The lack of proper vetting has led to numerous cases where refugees immigrated to the U.S. only to be outed as terrorists or potential security risks. Now, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) has inserted a provision into the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2016 (NDAA) – the very bill that reauthorizes much of our continued presence in Afghanistan – which would extend the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program and allow 3,000 more immigrants into the country from this hotbed of Islamic terror.

The Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program, just like its Iraqi counterpart, provides green cards to Afghanis who work for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. They can come over with their families under this process if they meet certain qualifications. Generally speaking, it is a good idea to provide this status to those natives who help the U.S. in foreign wars because they often need protection as a result of their work with the military. But as American citizens have witnessed over the past decade, the rampant spread of radical jihad throughout the Middle East has made it arduous to distinguish friend from foe in the region.

From 2007-2014, the U.S. government has admitted 16,380 translators, interpreters, and contractors from Iraq through this program and 13,015 from Afghanistan [See Congressional Research Service for more information]. These numbers do not include the amount of refugees that have been given green cards because the Special Immigrant Visas are counted as employment-based immigration. Roughly 15,000-20,000 refugees have emigrated here from Iraq each year. With ISIS’s cyber Jihad successfully penetrating so many Muslim communities, especially those who hail from the Middle East, why should the U.S. welcome such needless risk and continue to admit thousands more? It’s important to remember that each interpreter or contractor can bring in an unlimited number of family members. It is very conceivable to have an honest interpreter who has children that are being swept up in the growing Jihadist fervor.

Where is the common sense?

There have been numerous tragedies of our brave soldiers killed in Afghanistan at the prime of their lives because they were double crossed by an Afghani contractor or interpreter. One such “green-on-blue” attack killed U.S. Major General Harold Green in 2014, the highest-ranking casualty in a theater of war since Vietnam. Attacks from supposedly friendly Afghanis accounted for 15% of coalition soldier deaths in 2012.

Last week, an individual who immigrated here in 2009 through the Iraqi Special Immigrant Visa program was arrested near Dallas for travelling to Syria and attempting to join ISIS. According to the New York Times, Bilal Abood served as a translator for the U.S. military in Iraq and has since become a naturalized citizen. Now he faces, at most, up to eight years in prison. On top of that, thanks to the refusal of Congress to bring up Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) Expatriate Terror Act, Abood will keep his citizenship.

This story comes on the heels of an endless stream of American Muslims caught fighting for ISIS or engaging in other activities for terrorist organizations. Just last week, federal officials arrested an entire Lebanese Muslim family in Cedar Rapids, Iowa – yes, in the heartland of America – for allegedly smuggling weapons into Lebanon that were likely headed to Hezbollah.

Think about the dyslexic policies that have been pursued since 9/11. In response to the horrible terror attack that was rooted in imprudent immigration policies, our military was dispatched to engage in endless operations in Afghanistan and Iraq…only to bring in more security risks through immigration from some of the most dangerous parts of the world.

The entire purpose of passing a defense authorization bill is to keep this great nation safe. At the very minimum, this bill should not make security matters worse. If nobody offers an amendment to strip out this Afghani immigration provision, conservative members should have no qualms about voting down this year’s NDAA. (See “Dems Put Americans at Risk, Push to Extend Afghan Visas” HERE)

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Feds Say That Banned Researcher Commandeered a United Airlines Jet

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Photo Credit: Wired A security researcher kicked off a United Airlines flight last month after tweeting about security vulnerabilities in its system had previously taken control of an airplane and caused it to briefly fly sideways, according to an application for a search warrant filed by an FBI agent.

Chris Roberts, a security researcher with One World Labs, told the FBI agent during an interview in February that he had hacked the in-flight entertainment system, or IFE, on an airplane and overwrote code on the plane’s Thrust Management Computer while aboard the flight. He was able to issue a climb command and make the plane briefly change course, the document states.

“He stated that he thereby caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane during one of these flights,” FBI Special Agent Mark Hurley wrote in his warrant application (.pdf). “He also stated that he used Vortex software after comprising/exploiting or ‘hacking’ the airplane’s networks. He used the software to monitor traffic from the cockpit system.”

Hurley filed the search warrant application last month after Roberts was removed from a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Syracuse, New York, because he published a facetious tweet suggesting he might hack into the plane’s network. Upon landing in Syracuse, two FBI agents and two local police officers escorted him from the plane and interrogated him for several hours. They also seized two laptop computers and several hard drives and USB sticks. Although the agents did not have a warrant when they seized the devices, they told Roberts a warrant was pending.

A media outlet in Canada obtained the application for the warrant today and published it online. (Read more from “Feds Say That Banned Researcher Commandeered a Plane” HERE)

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Clinton Foundation Donors Include Newsmax, Fox News Personalities, Many Other “Conservatives,” Media Groups

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Photo Credit: Politico By Josh Gerstein, Tarini Parti, Hadas Gold and Dylan Byers. NBC Universal, News Corporation, Turner Broadcasting and Thomson Reuters are among more than a dozen media organizations that have made charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, the foundation’s records show.

The donations, which range from the low-thousands to the millions, provide a picture of the media industry’s ties to the Clinton Foundation at a time when one of its most notable personalities, George Stephanopoulos, is under scrutiny for not disclosing his own $75,000 contribution when reporting on the foundation.

The list also includes mass media groups like Comcast, Time Warner and Viacom, as well a few notable individuals, including Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecom magnate and largest shareholder of The New York Times Company, and James Murdoch, the chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox. Both Slim and Murdoch have given between $1 million to $5 million, respectively. (Read more from “Clinton Foundation Donors Include Dozens of Media Organizations, Individuals” HERE)
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Listing of Some of the So-Called Conservatives, Groups that Donated to the Clinton Foundation

By ERIC HANANOKI

• Newsmax Media, Inc. The media company, which has billed itself as operating the “#1 Conservative Site in the Nation,” has made donations to the Clinton Foundation of between $100,001 to $250,000 and between $1,000,001 to $5,000,000.
• Donald J. Trump. Trump, a perennial-potential Republican presidential candidate, donated between $100,001 to $250,000 to the foundation.
• Richard M. Scaife. The late Scaife, who published the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, was described as “one of America’s leading funders of conservative causes.” He donated between $250,001 to $500,000 to the foundation.
• News Corporation Foundation. The foundation for News Corp., which is headed by Rupert Murdoch and was formerly the parent company of Fox News, donated between $500,001 to $1,000,000 to the foundation.
• James R. Murdoch. Murdoch, the co-chief operating officer of Fox News parent company 21st Century Fox and son of Rupert Murdoch, donated between $1,000,001 to $5,000,000.

High-Profile Republicans Have Supported The Clinton Foundation’s Efforts

Many Republican Party-affiliated individuals have attended and supported Clinton Foundation-affiliated events, including the annual Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meetings. They include former first lady Laura Bush, Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, Republican billionaire T. Boone Pickens, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Bush Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, and former first daughter Barbara Bush. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Closest Adviser to Hillary Clinton is a “Brazenly Dishonest Cover-up Specialist”

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Photo Credit: NY Post If Congress really wants to get to the bottom of Hillary Clinton’s missing Benghazi and pay-to-play emails, it should call her consigliere Cheryl D. Mills to testify — under oath, and under the klieg lights.

. . . Mills, who served as the former secretary of state’s chief of staff and counselor, knows where the bodies are buried. After all, Hillary tasked her with “identifying and preserving all emails that could potentially be federal records.”

. . . Since the 1990s, Mills has been at Hillary’s side — first as a White House lawyer, then as her closest and most loyal adviser at the State Department, and now as a key member of the Clinton Foundation board, which is under fire for raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from dubious foreign sources in alleged influence-peddling deals.

The job of damage control has fallen to Mills through a parade of scandals. Her lack of cooperation is legendary. In fact, she’s been officially accused of both perjury and obstruction of justice.

Sworn affidavits, depositions and court rulings, as well as congressional reports and testimony, paint a picture of, to put it charitably, a brazenly dishonest cover-up specialist. (Read more from “Closest Adviser to Hillary Clinton is a Brazenly Dishonest Cover-up Specialist” HERE)

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Asian Groups File Lawsuit Against Harvard For Discriminatory Racial Quotas

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By FoxNews.com. An alliance of Asian American groups filed a federal complaint Friday against Harvard University, claiming that the school and other Ivy League institutions are using racial quotas to admit students other than high-scoring Asians.

More than 60 Chinese, Indian, Korean and Pakistani groups came together for the complaint, which was filed with the civil rights offices at the Justice and Education departments. The groups are calling for an investigation and say these schools need to stop using racial quotas or racial balancing in admission.

“We are seeking equal treatment regardless of race,” said Chunyan Li, a professor and civil rights activist, who said they’d rather universities use income rather than race in affirmative action policies. . .

The federal suits say that Harvard and UNC rely on race-based affirmative action policies that impact admissions of high-achieving white and Asian American students. The Harvard lawsuit also alleges that the institution specifically curbs the number of Asian Americans it admits each year.

Yukong Zhao, who organized the groups for Friday’s complaint, challenged Harvard to open its admission books to prove that Asians were not purposefully being put at a disadvantage. “We want to help this country move forward,” Zhao said. (Read more from the story about discriminatory racial quotas HERE)

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Asian Groups: Feds Should Step In and Change Harvard’s Admissions Process

By Camille Cava. A coalition of Asian-American organizations says the federal government should step in to change Harvard’s approach to admissions, accusing the university of racial discrimination.

In a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education and the Justice Department on Friday, the coalition of more than 60 groups claims that the university unfairly holds Asian-American applicants to a higher standard. Asian-Americans have the lowest acceptance rates at Harvard University and other elite universities, the complaint alleges, despite having some of the highest test scores and overall academic achievement.

“People from all over the world came to America for equal opportunities. We are trying to bring those principles back to America,” said Yukong Zhao, a Chinese-American author who helped organize the coalition. “This isn’t just about discrimination and race. It is about justice for everyone, including (people of) all races, and social and economic statuses.” (Read more from this CNN article about discriminatory racial quotas HERE)

US Special Forces Conduct Successful Raid in Syria, Kill High-Value Target [+video]

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Photo Credit: Controversial Times According to a White House press release, United States Special Operations Forces (specifically Delta Force) have killed a senior ISIS official, Abu Sayyaf, during a covert operation inside of Syrian borders.

The team reportedly managed to capture the commander’s wife during the raid while Sayyaf himself was killed. The raid was carried out by United States forces at the authorization of President Obama. The team entered Syria via Blackhawk helicopters and Osprey aircraft. According to statements made by defense officials, US personnel were forced to engage in hand to hand combat after landing at a multi-story building where the raid took place.

According to the White House statement, at least 12 ISIS fighters were killed during the raid. American forces suffered no casualties.

Sayyaf is reportedly in charge of oil and gas operations for the terror group. The sale of oil and gas is one of the reasons ISIS has been able to amass such a large fortune so quickly. With top ISIS leadership in question, it was believed Sayyaf was becoming more and more involved with day to day operations and may have been in line to become one of the top officials in the organization.

(Read more from “BREAKING: US Special Forces Raid in Syria” HERE)

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WORTH REMINDING THEM: In 2013, the RNC Said Mark Levin Should Moderate a GOP Debate

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Given the recent debacle involving ABC News, George Stephanopoulos, and Politico — which highlights the incestuous and corrupt goverment-media axis — I thought it was worth revisiting the topic of GOP debate moderators.

Recall that Snufflapoulos moderated several GOP debates in 2012 with sickening results. In one instance, ABC’s “paid Democrat hitman” suddenly shifted the topic from job creation to “banning contraceptives”, which was the Ass Party’s bogus meme of the month.

In August of 2013, after significant criticism of its choice of moderators, the Republican leadership suddenly announced a willingness to embrace the conservative wing of the party.

Sean Spicer, the Communications Director of the Republican National Committee, made a surprising statement: he said that Mark Levin should moderate the GOP debates. Levin formally accepted the offer.

I was able to interview Spicer at the time and it’s worth revisiting his remarks.

Ross: Sean, a recent statement you made really caught conservatives by surprise — and in a positive way. You said you thought Mark Levin and perhaps other conservative thought leaders should moderate GOP debates. How serious was that statement and did the reaction catch you by surprise?

Spicer: That was a very serious statement. Obviously, we’re not at a point yet of picking debate forums or moderators, but we are definitely committed to energizing the conservative base. It’s common sense: anyone’s who listening to Rush, Levin, Hannity… they are addressing the issues that the grassroots are concerned with.

What I also find absolutely unbelievable is that in 2008 Chris Matthews, of all people, moderated two GOP debates. Yet why wouldn’t we insist on the converse situation?

Now is the time to remind the RNC that we will hold them accountable for their statements.

Mark Levin and Sean Hannity should each moderate a GOP debate.

And I guarantee the ratings would break records. I guarantee it. (See “WORTH REMINDING THEM: In 2013, the RNC Said Mark Levin Should Moderate a GOP Debate”, originally posted HERE)

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