The New York Times Can’t Handle Anti-Amnesty Jeff Sessions [+video]

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sessions and foreign bornIn Proverbs 29:9, King Solomon observed that “if a wise man goes to court with a fool, the fool rages and scoffs, and there is no peace.” Nowhere is this more evident than with the debate concerning immigration in the year 2015 between Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and the New York Times.

The political contours of the debate over immigration weren’t always drawn so far to the extreme left as they are today. For example, here is what former Sen. Ted Kennedy said about his immigration bill in 1965:

“First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same … Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset … Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia … In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.” […]

“The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.” [Ted Kennedy at Judiciary Committee hearing on Feb. 10, 1965, commenting on the Hart-Celler Act]

As we know, Kennedy lied to the American people because his bill wound up doing exactly what he promised to avoid. But there is a broader lesson here. Even Ted Kennedy felt he needed to vouch for common sense immigration values – measured and gradual immigration, assimilation, and not using immigration policy as a pungent means of fundamentally altering the orientation of the country.

Indeed, there was a time in America when people could debate immigration policy and provide data and logical arguments advocating for slightly less net immigration – and not be called hateful names.

As late as 1993, the current Democrat leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, inveighed against illegal immigration on the Senate floor and introduced a bill that, among other things, reduced the annual flow of legal immigration from 800,000 to 300,000.

Keep in mind that since 1993 the levels of immigration have only increased; we have admitted over 1 million legal immigrants every single year for over a decade. The foreign-born population has doubled since the time when the current Democrat leader felt that immigration levels were already reaching near crisis levels. Immigration levels have quadrupled since the days when Ted Kennedy misled the public about his immigration bill. At Conservative Review, we have detailed an assortment of data showing the enormity of the size of this great wave of immigration and how it is less diverse and assimilation-inducing than at any other time in history.

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According to a recent Census projection, the current record-high level of immigration will skyrocket based on the existing trajectory – under current law (without even increasing levels). The foreign-born population is projected to jump by 85% – from 42 million to 78 million in four decades. By 2060, nearly one in every five Americans will be foreign-born.

future projections by census

Yet, there is a near consensus among both parties of the political class in D.C. to double or triple the existing baseline, in addition to legalizing all of the illegal aliens.

Nobody involved in public policy is advocating zero net immigration, even after this unprecedented wave. Yet, there is one brave senator – like the wise man mentioned in Proverbs – who simply wants to open a dialogue about the effects of this massive wave and the proposals to double it. He wants to raise questions about the effects on societal cohesion, assimilation, wages, welfare, education, and language. Everyone agrees some degree of immigration is vital for a country’s survival, but why can’t we have a rational debate over the numbers, time frame, and type of immigration? Much like any public policy, the devil is in the details.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), penned an op-ed in the Washington Post outlining the facts and the arguments – not for ending immigration – but for a slowdown from the protracted and sustained record-high baseline of immigration. The Alabama senator is actually advocating a position that is to the “left” of Harry Reid just one generation ago, especially considering how the arguments for a slowdown have only grown stronger. Indeed, Senator Sessions is not the one who needs to vouch for his views; it is those who are advocating an unprecedented wave of immigration…on top of an existing unprecedented wave of immigration…who need to show their work.

It’s time for a legitimate debate over the levels of immigration and it’s time to elicit the input of the American people, not just the political elites. There might be a case to be made for increased immigration, but the New York Times certainly is not positing it. Lacking any of their own legitimate research to rebut his premises, the New York Times resorted to name calling and ugly charges of racism.

Calling policy opponents racist or anti-immigrant is the last refuge for those who are bankrupt of intellectual arguments and devoid of facts. The political elites might be unanimous in their support for reckless immigration policies that benefit their elite institutions and big business, but the American people aren’t buying it. In poll after poll, a plurality of Americans want a slowdown in immigration. According to Gallup, just 7% of respondents want to increase immigration from its current levels. That 7% must all live inside of the D.C. beltway. (See “The New York Times Can’t Handle Jeff Sessions”, originally posted HERE)

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We’re Not Seeing More Police Shootings, Just More News Coverage [+video]

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download (1)It feels like every week, a name is added to the list: another man, often black and unarmed, has died at the hands of police.

The headlines make it feel as if the country is experiencing an unprecedented wave of police violence, but experts say that isn’t the case. We’re just seeing more mainstream media coverage, and for a variety of reasons.

Let’s be clear: That’s just each expert’s sense of things. We rely on hunches because real numbers don’t exist, likely because no one thought it important to keep a tally until recently.

Chat with a publisher or editor at one of the country’s African-American newspapers, and she or he can tell you they’ve been covering these cases for a long time . . . .

“What is being exposed nationally is something that’s been troubling us in Philadelphia as African-Americans,” he said. “Yes, we have written about it. We’ve talked about it. This is the African-American experience, and for some reason non-African-Americans don’t believe it.” (Read more from “We’re Not Seeing More Police Shootings, Just More News Coverage” HERE)

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Marco Rubio: People “Born With” Sexual Preference

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downloadMarco Rubio said he believes that sexual preference is decided at birth, but still believes that states should be able to decide if they want to define marriage as anything other than involving a man and a woman.

“It’s not that I’m against gay marriage. I believe the definition of the institution of marriage should be between one man and one woman,” Rubio said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “States have always regulated marriage. And if a state wants to have a different definition, you should petition the state legislature and have a political debate. I don’t think courts should be making that decision.”

“I don’t believe same-sex marriage is a Constitutional right,” Rubio added. “I also don’t believe that your sexual preferences are a choice for the vast and enormous majority of people. In fact…I believe that sexual preference is something that people are born with.”

Rubio sparked a debate on the issue last week after he said in an interview with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos that he would attend the same-sex wedding of a gay family member or staffer even if he would “disagree with a choice they’ve made.”

Rubio sat down for a wide-ranging interview with “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer at the Manchester Community College, where he was campaigning. In addition to same-sex marriage, Rubio weighed in on immigration, his potential rivals in the 2016 race, the foreign policy landscape, and climate change. (Read more from “Marco Rubio: People “Born With” Sexual Preference” HERE)

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US Warship Heads to Yemen Waters to Thwart Iran From Sending Weapons

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is steaming toward the waters off Yemen to beef up security and join other American ships that are prepared to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying weapons to the Houthi rebels fighting in Yemen.

Navy officials said Monday that the Roosevelt was moving through the Arabian Sea. The U.S. Navy has been beefing up its presence in the Gulf of Aden and the southern Arabian Sea amid reports that a convoy of about eight Iranian ships is heading toward Yemen and possibly carrying arms for the Houthis. Navy officials said there are about nine U.S. warships in the region, including cruisers and destroyers carrying teams that can board and search other vessels . . .

The Houthis are battling government-backed fighters in an effort to take control of the country. The U.S. has been providing logistical and intelligence support to Saudi Arabia-led coalition launching airstrikes against the Houthis. That air campaign is now in its fourth week.

The U.S. Navy generally conducts consensual boardings of ships when needed, including to combat piracy around Africa and the region. So far, however, U.S. naval personnel have not boarded any Iranian vessels since the Yemen conflict began. (Read more from “US Warship Heads to Yemen Waters to Thwart Iran From Sending Weapons” HERE)

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Race to Modify the DNA of Endangered Animals and Resurrect Extinct Ones [+video]

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mammothDe-extinction, or the idea of bringing extinct species back from the dead, has come a long way over the quarter century since Jurassic Park was first published. It has now matured into a quasi-serious science and has even been the subject of its own TEDx conference.

Of course, no-one is talking about bringing back dinosaurs – their DNA is lost for good – but some scientists are proposing to resurrect a range of other, more-recently extinct species such as the passenger pigeon and the gastric-brooding frog, both lost within living memory.

There are quite a few animals that have become extinct relatively recently that are potential candidates for de-extinction. They include the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, a large marsupial carnivore wiped out by sheep ranchers a century ago, the Pyrenean ibex which was hunted for sport until the last one fell dead in 2000, and the Steller’s sea cow, a gentle giant annihilated by hungry sailors in the 18th century.

Perhaps the most emblematic of them all is the woolly mammoth. There are few animals that better represent the lost world of the Pleistocene than these huge, shaggy relatives of the modern elephant. Woolly mammoths roamed the vast grassy steppe of Eurasia and North America for hundreds of millennia. The very last individuals were an isolated population of pygmy woolly mammoths that lived on Wrangel Island off northern Russia about 4,500 years ago.

There is no shortage of woolly mammoth tissue, some of it remarkably well preserved in the permafrost of Siberia and some scientists are confident that they can extract its DNA to bring the species back to life, either as clones or as a kind of mammoth-elephant hybrid. (Read more from “Race to Modify the DNA of Endangered Animals and Resurrect Extinct Ones” HERE)

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Massive Influx of Islamic Terrorists into US Due to Obama’s Open-Door Muslim Immigration Policy

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syrian_refugeesThe genocide of Syrian and Assyrian Christians by ISIL, Al Q’ieda, and Muslim Brotherhood trained Radical Islamic Terrorists, on the Plains of Ninveh in Iraq, has resulted in 3.5 million Muslim and Christian refugees seeking relief. In addition to the hundreds of thousands Muslim refugees who have already been given entry into the US by Obama, more than 360,000 Muslim refugees are being targeted for additional resettlement in the US by the UN Resettlement Program. Obama is encouraging the acceptance of more Muslim refugees, for resettlement in the US, than all the other countries in the world combined. When the UN Muslim Resettlement Program began, it was run and controlled by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by agencies of her State Department. Obama directed Hillary to let the Muslim refugees enter the US without slowing the process down by the time-consuming investigation of their backgrounds to determine if they had terrorist ties. On Obama’s orders, Hillary placed all entering Muslims on a fast track to obtain US citizenship. Obama ordered Hillary to resettle and integrate the Muslim refugees in communities throughout the US without informing elected state and city officials and local law enforcement officials where they were being resettled; this has been going since Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.

George Soros’ is funding the resettlement of Muslim Refugees through his organization, Welcoming America, and Welcome America has been working with LA Raza to also integrate millions of Illegal Aliens to be resettled throughout the US with the funding from George Soros’ Open Society Institute, without informing elected state and city officials and local law enforcement officials where they are being resettled. Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX) sent a letter to the White House on January 28th citing “serious national security concerns” about the UN Refugee Program which is resettling and integrating Muslim refugees in communities throughout the US without investigating their backgrounds to determine if they have terrorist ties, and implored Obama not to let it become a “back door for Jihadists.”

For the first time in 6 years only “ONE” of the 435 US Congressmen, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), is demanding that Secretary of State John Kerry immediately cease the hidden location where Muslim refugees will be resettled in his Congressional District! Congressman Gowdy is demanding that a list of specific questions be answered (listed in the below listed article) directly by Secretary of State Kerry, himself, and that all resettlement activity of Muslim refugees in the Spartanburg, SC UN Resettlement Program cease until he receives a personal response to his questions from Kerry. Rep. Gowdy demanded that South Carolina State and city officials be provided with specific details about who is going to pay for the health care, resettlement costs, transportation costs, education of refugee children, the welfare costs of refugee families, food stamps, and housing costs of thousands of Muslim refugees. We strongly recommend that all Americans write their Congressional representatives and demand that they each ask Secretary of State Kerry to cease the resettlement of Muslim refugees in their Congressional Districts, until Kerry answers the below listed questions posed by Rep. Trey Gowdy.

The FBI has repeatedly warned the Obama administration and the State Department that there is a strong likelihood that ISIL and Al Q’ieda has ordered its trained Radical Islamic Terrorists to sneak into the US posing as “refugees”, as they have been doing in large numbers in Norway and Europe. Yet, Obama has refused to direct the US Immigration Service to complete background investigations on Muslim refugees, to determine if the hundreds of thousands incoming Muslim refugees have terrorist ties, before they are allowed to enter the US through the UN Refugee Program. That refusal of Obama to do background investigations on Muslim refugees, to ensure that they do not have terrorist ties, before being allowed entry into the US, and before they are integrated in thousands of communities across the US, is a further display of Obama’s gross negligence in upholding his oath of office to protect the security of Americans citizens, and the National Security interest of the United States.

The stealthy massive influx of Muslim immigration from the UN Refugee Program has been underway for 6 years, resettling hundreds of thousands of refugees in unsuspecting communities in 49 states, while keeping elected officials in thousands of cities throughout the Republic in the dark about where they are being resettled. According to the Greek Catholic Relief Agency, to date, 300,000+ Syrian and Assyrian Christians refugees are not being allowed to enter the United States. However, thousands of Muslim refugees are being allowed to enter from Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Bosnia, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen, and the FBI has developed and prosecuted terrorist cases where Muslim refugees, with terrorist ties, have been charged and convicted with providing material support for foreign Radical Islamic Terrorists organizations.

To date, it is estimated that 180+ Muslim refugees, who obtained US citizenship, have left the United States to train with ISIL, Al Q’ieda, and el-Shabaab, and participated in the ongoing genocide of Christians by burning them alive, shooting them, beheading them, crucifying them, raping and murdering young Christians girls, and selling Christians women into slavery. The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Royal Family in England, the UK Prime Minister, the King of Jordan, the President of Egypt, the President of Kurdistan, the Prime Minister of Japan, the President of Russia, the Prime Minister of Australian, President George W. Bush, Reverend Billy Graham, the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Prime Ministers of every NATO nations, the Prime Minister of Israel, Christian Religious Leaders of every denomination from throughout the world, the current crop of candidates seeking to run for President of the United States, 51 Congressmen who petitioned Obama, US Senators, Christians worldwide, and the Secretary General of the United Nations have all expressed their revulsion of the barbaric massacres being prosecuted by ISIL, Al Q’ieda, and members of the Muslim Brotherhood. They have all raised their voices in unison to demand that the bloody genocide of Christians in Africa, Syria, and on the Plains of Nineveh in Iraq stop. To date Obama has refused to condemn the wholesale genocide of Christians by Radical Islamic Terrorists and is the only leader of a non-communist country who has not called for a stop to the bloody genocide——Obama’s continued silence is deafening and says a great deal about who Obama really is!

President Putin of Russia told reporters, “As to the Middle East and Christians, the situation is terrible. We have spoken about it many times and we believe that the international community is not doing enough to protect the Christian population of the Middle East (Putin is speaking out and more concerned about ISIL’s genocide of Christians; Obama refuses to speak out against the genocide of Christians by Radical Islamic Terrorists). Many of those newly trained Radical Islamic Terrorists with US citizenship have been returning to the US, without criminal charges being filed against them by the Obama administration for being agents of foreign terrorist organizations. They should be incarcerated, tried as anti-American terrorists, sentenced to prison terms for sedition, have their passports and citizenships voided, and when their prison terms are completed they should be removed from the United States for life.

ISIL, Al Q’ieda, and el-Shabaab Islamic Terrorists have not only been entering the United States through the UN Muslim Refugee Program, they have been targeting the wide open southern border for entry over the last 6 years (the Director of the FBI recently informed the nation that the FBI has identified Islamic Terrorist Sleeper Cells in all 50 states). In October 2014, Congressman Duncan D. Hunter, Capt-USMR (R-CA-52), an endorsed Combat Veteran For Congress, notified the national press corps that US Border Patrolmen warned him that there were Radical Islamic Terrorist training camps south of the Mexican border. But that report was quickly covered up, because the Obama administration, the Democratic and Republican Congressional leadership, and the left of center liberal media establishment did not want to expose just how dangerous to the National Security of the Republic, that Obama and the Congress’ continued failure to close the wide open southern border has become, and just how dangerous it was to the safety of the lives of innocent American men, women, and children.

Now 6 months after Congressman Duncan Hunter’s warning about Terrorist training camps south of the Mexican border, Judicial Watch completed a detailed report that ISIL is operating a base terrorist camp about 8 miles from the US border city of El Paso, Texas, in an area known as “Anapra”, situated just west of Ciudad Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Another ISIL base terrorist camp is located west of Ciudad Juarez, in Puerto Palomas, close to the New Mexico cities of Columbus and Deming, and those US cities are being targeted for easy entry into the United States. In a Joint Operation, the Mexican Army and Federal Law Enforcement Officers reported they discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu with detailed plans for Fort Bliss, Texas, where the 1st Armored Division is based (the Joint Operation sweep recovered Muslim prayer rugs, supplies, and many documents). The Republican and Democratic leadership of the Congress’ refuses to close the wide open southern border in the same manner as the San Diego Border Sector has been securely closed for many years (Congressman Duncan L. Hunter/Ret, a US Army Vietnam Combat Ranger, before he retired from Congress, ensured that the San Diego Border Sector was securely closed, when he was Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee).

ISIL, Al Q’ieda, and el-Shabaab have been infiltrating well trained Radical Islamic Terrorist the wide open US southern border with impunity, entering very easily as chaperones with thousands of children from Central America (those children are carrying many infectious diseases, and are being given immediate entry, then given immediate release to go anywhere they want to go to in the US; they are still not being medically quarantined in violation of Federal Immigration Laws). Obama, and the Democrat and Republican leaders of Congress, continue to look the other way while allowing hundreds of thousands infected children from Central America and an unknown numbers of trained Radical Islamic Terrorists killers to enter the US to murder unsuspecting American men, women, and children. They are complicit in their “gross negligence” and are guilty of perpetrating “crimes against the American people” by their continued “gross negligence” in intentionally keeping the southern border wide open—it is a violation of their oaths of office to protect the lives of defenseless American men, women, and children.

A major security problem, that the US and NATO nations are faced with, is that anyone holding a passport from a NATO nation, has cross border access to any other NATO member nations as a courtesy, and by simply presenting their passports are given entry. Since thousands of Europeans and 180+ Americans have been recruited by ISIL to travel to Plains of Nineveh to execute the on-going genocide against Christians in Syria and Iraq, those trained ISIL Radical Islamic Terrorists holding a NATO nation passport, will be allowed entry by Custom Officers into the US (Egypt recently accused Turkey of issuing 10,000 passports to ISIL Radical Islamic Terrorists who would also have access to every NATO nation). Despite the fact that the external security threat from ISIL Al Q’ieda, and Muslim Brotherhood trained Radical Islamic Terrorists continues to increase, Obama continues to minimize that growing and very dangerous external threat, and refuses to let anyone in the US government identify the true nature of the threat as being from Radical Islamic Terrorists.

The Obama administration is not arresting many of the returning 180+ Americans with passports who traveled to the Middle East to be trained as terrorists by ISIL, is resettling and integrating hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees in 49 states while hiding where they are being resettled from state and local elected officials and law enforcement agencies, is refusing to investigate the background on hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees flooding into the US from the UN Refugees Resettlement Program to determine if they have terrorist ties, is refusing to secure the wide open southern border through which ISIL and Al Q’ieda Radical Islamic Terrorists have been entering the US, and has prevented the US government (Intelligence Agencies, the FBI, the CIA, the DIA, the NSA, and the US Armed Forces) from identifying the major threat to the security of the Republic as Radical Islamic Terrorists who have been perpetrating genocide daily against thousands of Christians in the Middle East and in Africa. The most serious threat to the security of the Republic and the lives of all Americans are the policies that the occupant of the Oval Office has put in place over the last 6 years, and the leftists, Marxists, Communist, and the members of the Muslim Brotherhood he has appointed to positions of leadership in the Obama administration (one of the Communist member of the Obama administration who was unmasked, Van Jones, was forced to resign).

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Ominous: Troops Referred to Ferguson Protesters as ‘Enemy Forces,’ Emails Show

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guard-ferguson-600x400 (1)As the Missouri national guard prepared to deploy to the streets of Ferguson last year during protests sparked by the shooting death of Michael Brown, the troops used highly militarized language such as “enemy forces” and “adversaries” to refer to citizen demonstrators.

Documents detailing the military mission divided the crowds that national guards would be likely to encounter into “friendly forces” and “enemy forces” – the latter apparently including “general protesters”.

A briefing for commanders included details of the troops’ intelligence capabilities so that they could “deny adversaries the ability to identify Missouri national guard vulnerabilities”, which the “adversaries” might exploit, “causing embarrassment or harm” to the military force, according to documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by CNN.

And in an ominous-sounding operations security briefing, the national guard warned: “Adversaries are most likely to possess human intelligence (HUMINT), open source intelligence (OSINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), technical intelligence (TECHINT), and counterintelligence capabilities.”

In less military-style language, the briefing then goes on to detail how protesters might obtain this intelligence – a list of sources no more technical than public records, social media and listening to conversations “being carried out in public” by civic officials or law enforcement, according to the report. (Read more from “Troops Referred to Ferguson Protesters as ‘Enemy Forces,’ Emails Show” HERE)

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BREAKING: ISIS Releases Brutal Video Showing the Beheading of Dozens of Christians

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isis_christians-640x336By Reagan Wilson. The Islamic State (aka ISIS/ISIL) has released a new video on social media showing the alleged beheadings and shooting deaths of dozens of Christians from Ethiopia. The video was allegedly shot in Libya.

The video is one of the most brutal the group has released in recent months.

ISIS has been slowly expanding from their original reach of Syria and Iraq. This video represents a growing ISIS presence in the nation of Libya.

Last month, the radical Islamic group Boko Haram formally joined ISIS which expanded the group’s reach in Nigeria. (Read more from “BREAKING: ISIS Releases Brutal Video Showing the Beheading of Dozens of Christians” HERE)
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Newest Video of Christian Slaughter Shows ISIS is Expanding, Contrary to Obama’s Claims

By Elliott McLaughlin. ISIS operatives have beheaded two groups of prisoners, believed to be Ethiopian Christians, in Libya, according to a video released Sunday by the terror network’s media arm.

The al-Furqan Media video — which is highly produced and titled “Until There Came to Them Clear Evidence” — shows two groups of men in orange and black jumpsuits being killed at different locations in Libya, according to the video’s narrator.

“All praise be to Allah, the Lord and cherisher of the world and may peace and blessings be upon the Prophet Mohammed. To the nation of the cross, we are back again on the sands, where the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, have stepped on before, telling you: Muslim blood that was shed under the hands of your religion is not cheap,” the narrator says in Arabic on the 30-minute video.

The narrator continues, “In fact, their blood is the purest blood because there is a nation behind them (which) inherits revenge. And we swear to Allah: the one who disgraced you by our hands, you will not have safety, even in your dreams, until you embrace Islam.”

Quoting Mohammed, the narrator says that those who “perform prayer and pay alms” will have “their blood and property” protected by the Prophet unless Islam dictates otherwise. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Iran Negotiations: Myth versus Fact [+videos]

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Iran myth vs facts APIn recent weeks the Obama Administration’s attempts at reaching a nuclear deal with Iran have suffered repeated setbacks both at the negotiating table and in the court of public opinion. As a result, the storm of talking points and promises from both the White House and Congress would have the average citizen believing that the Administration’s efforts to court the Ayatollah have been thus far successful, all the while enjoying the full support of Congress and the American people. In reality the current negotiations and the congressional oversight framework for any possible deal with Tehran are proving more and more indecisive and potentially destabilizing than thought possible.

Here’s how the actual situation looks.

Myth: The Corker-Cardin Bill grants adequate constitutional approval to Congress.

Fact: Even though a deal with Iran would be tantamount to a treaty, the approval process contained in the bill compromise effectively lowers the threshold of approval from 67 to 34, in the case of President Obama’s veto. By passing this bill, Republicans will be openly legitimizing his Iran deal without formal ratification, a reversal of their stated position in the “Cotton Letter.”

Myth: The current bill language would provide congressional oversight on Iran’s terror activities.

Fact: Even though Iran has been a recognized sponsor of international terrorism since 1984, the new version of the Corker-Cardin bill scuttled the previous language requiring the Obama Administration to certify to congress that Iran is not sponsoring or committing terror activities against the United States or her citizens. By stripping out this language and allowing Iran to receive $700 million in assets per month while ramping up their support for Hamas and Hezbollah they are implicitly blessing Iran’s war on Israel.

Myth: The current deal with Iran would require a scaling back of Iran’s nuclear efforts.

Fact: No reactors or centrifuges would have to be dismantled. Despite several Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee saying that the current negotiations would lead to a reversal of Iranian nuclear activities, all current operations would continue at facilities in Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan and Arak, while enjoying the economic boon of having sanctions lifted.

Myth: Iran would have to surrender their stockpiles of enriched uranium in a transparent and secure manner.

Fact: Even though a major selling point of recent agreements would be Iran’s surrendering of enriched uranium, the surrendered materiel would be handed over to Russia, the biggest supplier of Iran’s nuclear program. This would be analogous to North Korea being forced to surrender its ballistic missiles to the People’s Republic of China. Meanwhile, there is no recognition in the deal of Iran’s longstanding clandestine program, the real threat. Besides, Iran has already rejected any weapons inspections on their “military” installations.

Myth: The Obama Administration’s current deal would protect and affirm the status of Israel as a legitimate Jewish state with a right to exist.

Fact: The compromise only contains non-binding language expressing “the sense of the Senate” that any agreement “in no way compromises the commitment of the United States to Israel’s security, nor its support for Israel’s right to exist.” This was changed from an earlier condition requiring Iran to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and exist as a Jewish state. While the language sounds good in spirit, it effectively does little to protect Israel’s security, as there is no binding language requiring terror certification or stopping the manufacture of rockets to be given to organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran is stepping up their arming of those terror groups while benefiting from the relief in sanctions pending a final deal.

Myth: Iran would have to scale down its manufacture and testing of nuclear weapons.

Fact: There is no mention whatsoever in the proposed framework that would affect Iran’s continued development of inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and Tehran has even continued to test them throughout the negotiations. Rather, with the economic burden of the sanctions lifted, the Iranian government would have even more fungible assets to develop and test ICBMs. Even more troubling should be the implications of this development. While a ballistic missile may be a really impressive piece of hardware to show off at a parade, it’s essentially little more than a rocket-propelled paperweight unless tipped with some sort of hardware, usually nuclear.

Myth: Although the Corker-Cardin bill is weak, it is still better than nothing.

Fact: Corker-Cardin is not a weak bill, it’s a harmful bill. It implicitly blesses Obama’s negotiations even after both the White House and the Iranians have violated all of the stated objectives and timetables. It explicitly legitimizes ratification of the deal with just 34 votes, providing Republicans with no recourse to block it later on and little leverage to delegitimize the final agreement if they fail to muster enough votes to strike down the agreement.

Republicans have the ability to pass sanctions or vote to disapprove of the deal any time. They don’t need to provide Democrats cover in order to utilize their control of the chamber. This bill does not give them any power they wouldn’t otherwise have held. The majority party doesn’t need the permission of the minority party to conduct a vote, especially when the minority party is still committed to filibustering it. Instead of this bill being a bunt or a base-hit, it’s a groundball into a triple play.

Indeed, just days after this Corker-Cardin deal was forged, Obama used his newfound flexibility to telegraph the message that he is open to lifting sanctions immediately.

Myth: At least this puts Democrats on record as supporting scrutiny of the Iran Deal.

Fact: A dozen Democrats were already on record over a year ago supporting a straight up sanctions bill. After Republicans let them off the hook a number of times, these Democrats finally agreed to vote for sanctions if Iran failed to accede to a framework agreement on March 24. Iran has rejected every tenant of the alleged framework, yet Democrats have not only moved away from sanctions, they watered down a simple congressional oversight bill. Now, instead of Republicans holding them accountable, they are agreeing to a more liberal position than these dozen Democrats held just a year ago.

So while the popular narrative may be that the Obama Administration has finally brought Iran to the negotiating table for a definitive agreement, it seems that both the administration’s efforts, as well as the desire of Senate Democrats to laud them, will do very little, if anything, to secure a more stable and safe nuclear situation for the United States, Israel and the world as a whole. (See “Iran Negotiations: Myth versus Fact [+videos]”, originally posted HERE)

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Teen’s Defense of ‘Under God’ Just Won Big After Atheists ‘Threw in the Towel’ on Pledge of Allegiance Legal Battle

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pledge2-620x424The conclusion of the case means that the legal firm successfully represented New Jersey high school student Samantha Jones in her quest to defend the Pledge after atheists sued in state court in an effort to strip “God” from the traditional wording.

“I’m so grateful to know that I will be able to continue reciting the pledge in peace,” Jones said in a statement. “Ever since I was little, I’ve recited the Pledge of Allegiance because it sums up the values that make our country great.”

The American Humanist Association’s decision not to appeal the ruling comes two months after a New Jersey judge threw out the group’s lawsuit that argued that “under God” is a violation of the state’s constitution.

State Superior Court Judge David Bauman had already expressed doubts about the atheist-led lawsuit during oral arguments back in November, noting that he saw no evidence of bullying or mistreatment of atheists as a result of “under God,” according to Fox News.

The court battle started in February 2014 when an unnamed family in New Jersey filed a lawsuit against Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District in Aberdeen, New Jersey, arguing through representation by the American Humanist Association that mentioning God in the Pledge of Allegiance constituted discrimination against nonbelievers, violating the equal protection clause of New Jersey’s constitution. (Read more from “Teen’s Defense of ‘Under God’ Just Won Big After Atheists ‘Threw in the Towel’ on Pledge of Allegiance Legal Battle” HERE)

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