The Iron Dome Works

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Photo Credit: NewscomIt’s been a rough few weeks for one of America’s most vociferous critics of missile defense.

Ted Postol, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and longtime critic of U.S. missile defense, told National Public Radio just three days into the 2014 Gaza missile wars that Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system “doesn’t work.” He said it failed up to “95 percent” of the time.

For it to work, he claimed the system had to hit incoming Hamas-launched rockets “head on.” But he had photos, he said, of smoke entrails and what appeared to be the Iron Dome approaching the Hamas rockets from side angles or from behind. This “proved” the system didn’t work, even though the vast majority of his analysis was from the missile wars of 2012 and not the 2014 battles.

For 50 days from early July through most of August, Hamas launched nearly 4,500 rockets against Israel. Two Israelis died during that time because of rocket fire, but they were in an area not defended by Iron Dome batteries. None died in areas that were protected by Iron Dome, although in Askelon, 30 Israelis were wounded, some seriously, by Hamas rockets that the missile defense did not intercept. But overall, the Israeli government estimated Iron Dome successfully intercepted 90 percent of the Hamas rockets it engaged, compared to an 80 percent success rate achieved in the 2012 Gaza missile wars.

At first the arms control community greeted the Postol “analysis” with little skepticism. Most believe missile defense is a waste of money that will never work sufficiently anyway, and this report only confirmed their biases. Moreover, they’d long believed Israel’s estimate that Iron Dome worked 80 percent of the time in the 2012 missile wars was news too good to be true.

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Islamic State Seeks World Domination

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsNetanyahu addresses Islamic terror threat in speech to UN

By Fox News.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had high praise for President Obama for leading the coalition attacking Islamic militants in Syria, and criticized those who condemned Israel for its war with Hamas in a speech to the United Nations Monday.

Speaking at the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, Netanyahu said the threat of Hamas and ISIS reaches far beyond Israel as Islamic militants across the globe share the same goal of world domination.

“Last week, many countries here rightly applauded President Obama for leading the effort to confront ISIS. And yet weeks before, some of these same countries, that now support confronting ISIS, opposed Israel for confronting Hamas,” Netanyahu said.

“They evidently don’t understand that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree. ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control,” he said.

The Israeli leader compared the spread of Islamic terrorism to a “cancer” that starts small, but left unchecked grows to cover a wider area. “To protect the peace and security of the world, we must remove this cancer before it’s too late,” Netanyahu told the crowd of leaders and diplomats.

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsIran set to execute woman accused of killing attempted rapist

By Lisa Daftari.

An Iranian woman sentenced to death for killing a man who tried to rape her told her mother goodbye and prepared to die, even as the Islamic republic’s president was meeting with world leaders at the United Nations.

Rayhaneh Jabbari, 26, is set to be executed Tuesday, according to reports from Iran. On Monday, her mother, Shole Paravan, recounted on her Facebook page an emotional farewell call her daughter made when a sympathetic guard loaned her a cellphone before she was taken to Rajaiy Shahr Prison to be hanged.

“I am currently handcuffed and there is a car waiting outside to take me for the execution of the sentence,” Jabbari told her mother, whose recounting in Farsi was translated by FoxNews.com. “Goodbye, dear Mum. All of my pains will finish early tomorrow morning. I’m sorry I cannot lessen your pain. Be patient. We believe in life after death. I’ll see you in the next world and I will never leave you again because being separated from you is the most difficult thing to do in the world.”

“I am currently handcuffed and there is a car waiting outside to take me for the execution of the sentence.” – Rayhaneh Jabbari

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DHS Changed Regulation That May Have Stopped Machete Murder

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Photo Credit: APIn July of 2011, Cristian Zamora, a 19-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador, was cited for driving without a valid driver’s license in Walker County, Texas, by a Texas Department of Public Safety officer. According to the police incident report, Zamora arrived at the scene of a crash that was already under investigation in order to pick up family members, “lied about how he got to [the] scene,” and was ultimately found to be driving without a valid license.

Due to the lack of a state law allowing officers to check for immigration status, combined with federal regulations under the Obama administration, Texas authorities never checked Zamora’s immigration status and he was never detained. Zamora was simply ticketed and fined $136, according to Walker County court documents.

Two years later in 2013, Zamora and two other El Salvadorian illegal aliens, all reportedly members of the MS-13 gang, allegedly killed and dismembered 16-year-old high school sophomore Josael Guevara in the Sam Houston National Forest. They first allegedly hit him with a baseball bat and then mutilated him with a machete.

While investigating the two incidents, CNSNews.com asked the Texas Department of Public Safety whether the officer who cited Zamora in 2011 checked Zamora’s immigration status or referred him to federal authorities for being an illegal alien after writing him a ticket for driving without a valid license.

“There is no record that Mr. Zamora was referred to federal authorities,” Texas DPS spokesperson Tom Vinger responded in an email.

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Allen West: ‘How Does Anybody Keep Their Job In The Obama Administration?’

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Photo Credit: WNDFormer Congressman Allen West continued his never-ending assault on President Barack Obama and his administration, asking Monday night how anyone keeps their job in the administration after all of the mishaps over the past six years.

When asked by Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren how head of the national intelligence community James Clapper keeps his job, the former Florida congressman asked rhetorically, “how does anybody keep their job in the Obama administration?”

“How does Lois Lerner keep her job and still get a $600k taxpayer-funded retirement? How does anyone keep their job in the Veterans Administration? That’s the entire fallacy of this administration and that no one is responsible. We continue to see these failures, these misunderstandings, these missteps, whatever you want to call it, and no one is ever responsible,” the former congressman told the host.

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Why Traditional Marriage Supporters Think 2015 Will Be a Turning Point in Debate

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Photo Credit: UPI / Kevin Dietsch / NewscomDespite rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8 from the U.S. Supreme Court last year, traditional marriage supporters are looking ahead to 2015 as a crucial moment in the marriage debate.

Supreme Court justices met for the first time today to consider if they will hear any same-sex marriage cases during the 2014-15 term. The court is faced with seven such lawsuits and has until January to decide whether to hear any of them.

The cases would ultimately decide whether same-sex marriage is legalized nationwide.

The topic was a big draw at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Speakers outlined what the future of marriage looks like as the Supreme Court weighs whether or not to wade into the debate once again.

“This attack on marriage is an attack on the family, and it’s designed to remove an impediment to government control of our lives,” said John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage. “We have got to stand and fight.”

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Study: Recessions Can Postpone Motherhood Forever

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Photo Credit: BreitbartWhen the economy tanks, women have fewer babies. But what happens in the following years, when conditions improve?

A massive new study suggests that for some U.S. women, living through a recession can mean they will never have children.

In fact, the authors project that among women who were in their early 20s in 2008 — early in the so-called “Great Recession” — about 151,000 will forgo having any children as a result, at least by age 40.

Overall, the lingering impact of that recession may ultimately mean some 427,000 fewer children being born over the course of a couple decades, the authors say.

On a societal level these effects are small. The projected number of childless women is a tiny fraction of the 9 million women in that age group, 20-24. The drop-off in births isn’t much for a nation that produces around 4 million babies a year.

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Abortion Activist Defends Infanticide: “Medical Necessity” May Require Killing Baby After Birth

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsBy Steven Ertelt.

When pro-life advocates take the pro-life message to college and university campuses, they never know what kind of response they’ll get. They see it all — counter protests, people changing their minds on abortion, and even violence.

Then, sometimes, they get some of the most outrageous responses from abortion activists who go out of their way to justify their view that abortion should be available on demand, for any reason and any time during pregnancy.

But the pro-life advocates with Created Equal saw that pro-abortion argument taken to the next level when they visited Ohio State University. There, one abortion activist said she saw no problem with infanticide, saying there may be medical cases that require killing a newborn baby after birth.

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsNew 40 Days for Life Campaign Has Already Saved 28 Babies From Abortion

By Shawn Carney.

On Mondays during 40 Days for Life campaigns, we share the best news of the week — the updated number of mothers choosing life for their babies. Thus far during this campaign, there have been 28 babies saved – that we know of!

And that makes the number of lives reported spared from abortion … since 40 Days for Life began as a coordinated effort in 2007 … a phenomenal total of 9,001!

Praise God!!!

Here are some of the beautiful stories behind those numbers…

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Pope Francis: Satan Seduces by Disguising Evil as Good

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Photo Credit: Daniel Ibáñez / CNA.On Monday’s feast of the archangels Pope Francis spoke of the ongoing battle between the devil and mankind, encouraging attendees to pray to the angels, who have been charged to defend us.

“He presents things as if they were good, but his intention is destruction. And the angels defend us,” the Roman Pontiff told those gathered for his Sept. 29 Mass in the Vatican’s Saint Martha residence chapel.

The Bishop of Rome began by pointing to the day’s readings taken from Daniel 7 in which the prophet has a vision of God the Father on a throne of fire giving Christ dominion over the world, and Revelation 12, which recounts the battle in which Satan, as a large dragon, is cast out of heaven by St. Michael.

Noting how these are strong images portraying “the great dragon, the ancient serpent” who “seduces all of inhabited earth,” the Pope also drew attention to Christ’s words to Nathanael in the day’s Gospel from John when he tells him “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

All of these readings, he said, speak of “the struggle between God and the devil” which “takes place after Satan tries to destroy the woman who is about to give birth to a son.”

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'Extremists' to Have Facebook and Twitter Vetted by Anti-Terror Police

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Photo Credit: David HartleyExtremists will have to get posts on Facebook and Twitter approved in advance by the police under sweeping rules planned by the Conservatives.

They will also be barred from speaking at public events if they represent a threat to “the functioning of democracy”, under the new Extremist Disruption Orders.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will lay out plans to allow judges to ban people from broadcasting or protesting in certain places, as well as associating with specific people.

The plans — to be brought in if the Conservatives win the election in May — are part of a wide-ranging set of rules to strengthen the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy.

The announcement at the annual party conference in Birmingham will come as the Conservatives position themselves as the party toughest on the terror threat.

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Obama: U.S. Underestimated Rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria (+video)

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Larry DowningBy CBS Interactive Inc.

President Obama acknowledged that the U.S. underestimated the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also called ISIL) and overestimated the ability of the Iraqi military to fend off the militant group in an interview that will air Sunday on 60 Minutes.

The president was asked by 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft about comments from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has said the U.S. not only underestimated ISIS, it also overestimated the ability and will of the Iraqi military to fight the extremist group.

“That’s true,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s absolutely true.”

“Jim Clappper has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” he said, blaming the instability of the Syrian civil war for giving extremists space to thrive.

The comments were among the president’s most candid to date about the rapid rise of the terrorist group that has ransacked much of Syria and Iraq in recent months.

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European ISIS fighters: Are there really 3,000 jihadis? (+video)

By David Clark Scott.

How big is the homegrown ISIS threat?

The European Union’s Anti-Terrorism Chief Gilles de Kerchove told the BBC Friday that the number of Islamic State fighters from Europe is “probably above 3.000, which is unprecedented.”

That statement prompted a number of sensational headlines – especially in Britain, where the Parliament voted Friday to join the airstrikes against ISIS.

But 3,000 Islamic State fighters is probably an inflated figure. Mr. de Kerchove himself qualifies that total saying 3,000 includes all those who have been to the region, including those who have returned and those who have been killed there.

The European jihadis threat assessment includes the dead? Out of those estimated 3,000, how many of those European ISIS jihadis are still alive?

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