Less Than a Week After Gay Massacre, Obama Holds Meeting That Stirs Outrage

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White House spokesman Erick Shultz told reporters Thursday that President Obama planned to meet with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman on Friday. Shultz spoke at a press briefing (conducted on Air Force One en route from Washington to Orlando) and informed reporters the purpose of the meeting would be “to further discuss issues of mutual concern and cooperation, including the situations in Yemen and Syria, our campaign against ISIL, Saudi Arabia’s national transformation program of reforming its economy.”

But critics charge the president was insensitive for meeting with Saudis just days after the massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., early Sunday. Saudi Arabia classifies homosexuality as a crime punishable by death.

As the Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers reported in March, being gay in Saudi Arabia is criminal. “A published report indicates that people who come out online in Saudi Arabia could face the death penalty,” Lavers wrote. “Oraz, a Saudi newspaper, reported on Saturday that prosecutors in the city of Jiddah have proposed the penalty in response to dozens of cases they have prosecuted over the last six months. These include 35 people who received prison sentences for sodomy.”

And prison sentences are not given just to gay men. Prison terms also apply to cross-dressers. Lavers continued, “Okaz reported that Jiddah authorities have prosecuted 50 cases in which men allegedly dressed as women.”

Sympathizers are also targeted, according to the Washington Blade. “A doctor who lives in the port city on the Red Sea has been released on bail after officials arrested him for allegedly raising an LGBT Pride flag over his home,” Lavers wrote.

Lavers said he conducted an interview with “a gay Saudi man who lives outside the kingdom” and was told the new penalties are being applied to the entire country and fear in the LGBT community is the result. (For more from the author of “Less Than a Week After Gay Massacre, Obama Holds Meeting That Stirs Outrage” please click HERE)

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Wikileaks Hints at Document Leak Big Enough to Haunt Hillary

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said his company has collected quite a dossier of information on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – so much that he could severely hamper her presidential run if he released it all.

And releasing it all is a plan that’s in the works, Assange told a British television station.

“We’ve accumulated a lot of material about Hillary Clinton,” he said, AOL News reported. “We could proceed to an indictment.”

Assange, who has been living in Ecuador’s London Embassy since seeking asylum in August 2012, faces extradition to Sweden for rape allegations if he leaves. He also faces charges in America for leading sensitive information about U.S. intelligence and security via the WikiLeaks organization he founded in 2006. (Read more from “Wikileaks Hints at Document Leak Big Enough to Haunt Hillary” HERE)

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Court-Sealed Videos May Offer Fodder for Trump, Clinton Attack Ads

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The presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both trying to prevent the public release of videos that are critical to legal cases involving the candidates.

Trump’s lawyers are intensifying efforts to stop the release of video of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee testifying under oath in a fraud lawsuit about the now-defunct Trump University. They told a federal judge in San Diego late Wednesday that the video could be used by the media and Trump’s opponents during the presidential campaign.

Lawyers for a top Clinton aide used similar arguments to persuade another judge to keep video depositions sealed in a lawsuit about the likely Democratic presidential nominee’s use of a private email server while she was the nation’s top diplomat. (Read more from “Court-Sealed Videos May Offer Fodder for Trump, Clinton Attack Ads” HERE)

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TED CRUZ: Our Nation Is at War

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Madam President, our Nation is at war. Five days ago, we saw a horrific terror attack in Orlando, FL. From September 11 to the Boston Marathon, from Fort Hood to Chattanooga, from San Bernardino to this attack in Orlando, radical Islamic terrorism has declared jihad on America. As the facts have unfolded, they now indicate that the Orlando terrorist had pledged his allegiance to ISIS in the process of murdering 49 and wounding more than 50 at a nightclub.

All of our hearts go out to those who were murdered. To the families of those who were victims and who are grieving, we stand in solidarity, we lift them up in prayer at this horrific act of terrorism. But it is also a time for action. We need a Commander in Chief who will speak the truth, who will address the enemy we face, who will unleash the full force and fury of the American military on defeating ISIS and defeating radical Islamic terrorists.

In the wake of the attack, many of us predicted what would unfold, and it was, sadly, the same political tale we have seen over and over again. Many of us predicted that Democrats would, as a matter of rigid partisan ideology, refuse even to say the words “radical Islamic terrorist”; that they would suggest this attack was yet another isolated incident, one lone criminal, not connected to any global ideology, not connected to any global jihad; and that, even worse, they would try to use it as an excuse to go after the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. I wish, when we predicted that, that we had been proven incorrect. But this week played out all too predictably.

Yesterday we saw a political show on the Senate floor, with Democrat after Democrat standing for hours, incensed not at ISIS, incensed not at radical Islamic terrorism, but incensed that Americans have a right to keep and bear arms. This is political distraction. This is political gamesmanship. I think the American people find it ridiculous that in response to an ISIS terror attack, the Democrats go on high dudgeon that we have to restrict the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. This is not a gun control issue. This is a terrorism issue. And it is nothing less than political gamesmanship for them to try to shift to their favorite hobbyhorse of taking away the Bill of Rights from law-abiding citizens.

I have spent years defending the Second Amendment–the right to keep and bear arms–the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and I, along with the Presiding Officer, along with a great many Members of this Chamber, am committed to defending the constitutional rights of every American. You don’t defeat terrorism by taking away our guns; you defeat terrorism by using our guns. This body should not be engaged in a political circus trying to restrict the Second Amendment. Instead, we should be focusing on the problem at hand.

Why did we see yesterday’s series of speeches? Because Senate Democrats have an election coming up in November, and they don’t want to talk about the real issue. Let’s talk about ISIS. Let’s talk about radical Islamic terrorism. Let’s talk about the failures of the last 7 years of this administration to keep this country safe.

In response to my criticism and that of many others, President Obama gave a press conference where he said, echoing the words of Hillary Clinton: What difference does it make if we call it radical Islamic terrorism? Well, Mr. President, it makes a world of difference because the failure to address the enemy impacts every action taken to fight that enemy.

I want to talk in particular about three areas where this administration and the Senate Democrats’ refusal to confront radical Islamic terrorism has made America less safe and what we need to do about it. Let’s start with prevention. Over and over again we have seen the Obama administration having ample information to stop a terrorist attack. Yet, because of the political correctness, because of the ideology of this administration that will not even say the word “jihad,” will not even say the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” they look the other way, and the attacks go forward.

In my home State of Texas, Fort Hood, Nidal Hasan–the Obama administration knew that Nidal Hasan had been in communication with the radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The Obama administration knew that Nidal Hasan had asked al-Awlaki about the permissibility of waging jihad against his fellow soldiers. All of that was known beforehand, yet they did nothing. They did nothing. And on that fateful day, Nidal Hasan murdered 14 innocent souls, yelling “Allahu Akbar” as he pulled the trigger. Yet, just to underscore the blindness of this administration even after the terror attack, the administration insisted on characterizing that terror attack as “workplace violence.” That is nothing short of delusion, and it is a delusion that cost 14 lives.

If we know of a U.S. serv ice mem ber who is communicating with a radical Islamic cleric and asking about waging jihad against his fellow soldiers, MPs should show up at that individual’s door within minutes. And if we didn’t have an administration that plunged its head in the sand like an ostrich and refused to acknowledge radical Islamic terrorism, Nidal Hasan would have been stopped before he carried out that horrific act of terrorism.

Likewise, with the Boston bombing and the Tsarnaev brothers, Russia had informed the Obama administration they were connected with radical Islamic terrorism. We knew that. The FBI had gone and interviewed them. Yet, once again, they dropped the ball. They stopped monitoring them. They didn’t even note when the elder Tsarnaev brother posted on YouTube a public call to jihad. Mind you, this did not require complicated surveillance. This was YouTube. Anyone with a computer who could type in “Google” could see this. Yet, because the administration will not acknowledge that we are fighting radical Islamic terrorism, they were not watching and monitoring the Tsarnaev brothers. So they called for public jihad and then carried out that public jihad with pressure cookers at the Boston Marathon–yet another example where we knew about the individual beforehand, and if we had focused prevention on the problem, we could have stopped it.

A third example was San Bernardino, that horrific terror attack. Once again, we had ample information about the individuals in question. The female terrorist who came to San Bernardino had given the administration a fake address in Pakistan. Yet the so-called vetting that this administration tells us they do had failed to discover that it was a fake address. She had made calls for jihad; yet the administration failed to discover that. In San Bernardino, we saw yet another horrific terror attack.

And how about Orlando? Let’s talk about what the facts are in Orlando. Now, we are only 5 days in. The facts will develop further as they are more fully developed, but here is what has been publicly reported.

What has been publicly reported is that Omar Mateen was interviewed not once, not twice, but three times by the FBI in 2013 and 2014. One of the reasons he was interviewed by the FBI was that he was talking in his place of employment, which, ironically and shockingly enough, was a contractor to the Department of Homeland Security, and he was talking about being connected to terrorist organizations, including the Boston bombers. To any rational person, that is a big red flag. Yet it has also been reported that his coworkers were so afraid to say anything because they didn’t want to be labeled as somehow anti-Muslim by speaking out about someone claiming to be connected to radical Islamic terrorists.

We also know that when he was questioned by the FBI in 2004, according to public reports, it was because he was believed to have been connected to and knew Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who traveled to Syria to join the terrorist organization al-Nusra Front and who became the first known American suicide bomber in the Syrian conflict. That is yet another big red flag. If you are palling around with al-Nusra suicide bombers, that ought to be a real flag. If the administration is focused on radical Islamic terrorism, this is an individual we ought to be watching.

We know that Mateen, as it has been reported, traveled to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for 10 days on March 2011 and for 8 days in March 2012. And we also have indications that the FBI may have been aware that he was a follower of the Islamist educational Web site run by radical Imams. Not only that, but his father has posted online videos expressing not only sympathy but arguably support for the Taliban. All of that is what the Obama administration knew. Yet by Sunday morning they were no longer watching Omar Mateen. They were no longer watching Omar Mateen. They were not monitoring him, and he was able to go in and commit a horrific act of murder.

The question that every Member of this body should be asking is, Why is the ball being dropped over and over and over again? It is not once. It is not twice. It is a pattern. It is a pattern of failing to connect the dots. I would suggest it is directly connected to President Obama and this administration’s refusal to acknowledge what it is we are fighting. If you direct the prevention efforts to stopping radical Islamic terrorism–we had all the information we had on Mateen to keep a very close eye on him. Yet if that is not what you are fighting, then you close the investigation and yet another attack goes forward.

I would suggest that this willful blindness is one of the reasons we saw the circus yesterday on the Senate floor. Senate Democrats should be asking these questions, yet we don’t hear them asking those questions. Instead, they want to shift this to gun control. They want to shift this to putting the Federal Government in charge of approving every firearms transaction between law-abiding citizens in America. Mind you, that would not have prevented this attack. Mind you, it was not directed at the evil of this attack. Mind you, it ignores the global jihad we are facing, but it is a convenient political dodge. We need serious leadership focused on keeping this country safe.

A second component of keeping this country safe is defeating ISIS–utterly and completely defeating ISIS.

In yesterday’s circus, when calling for taking away your and my constitutional rights, how often did Senate Democrats say: Let’s utterly destroy ISIS. Not with the pinprick attacks we are seeing, not with the photo-op foreign policy of this administration–a failed effort that leaves the terrorists laughing at us–but instead, using overwhelming airpower; instead, using the concerted power of the U.S. military, with rules of engagement that allow us to fight and win. Right now, sending our service men and women into combat with rules of engagement tying their hands behind their backs is wrong, it is immoral, and it is not accomplishing the task.

Do you want a response to the Orlando attacks? President Obama and Vice President Biden are going down. They will no doubt give a self-righteous speech about gun control, trying to strip away the rights of law-abiding Americans. How about they stand up and have the President pledge that ISIS will be driven from the face of the Earth? Do you want to see a response to murdering innocent Americans? If you declare war on America, you are signing your death warrant. That is the response of a Commander in Chief. That is the seriousness we need.

A third component of focusing on the enemy is that we should focus on keeping us safe–in particular, passing two pieces of legislation, both of which I introduced, the first of which is the Expatriate Terrorist Act. This is legislation which provides that if any American citizen goes and takes up arms and joins ISIS, joins a radical Islamic terrorist group, that he or she forfeits their U.S. citizenship. So you do not have American citizens coming back to America with U.S. passports to wage jihad on America. We have seen Americans such as Jose Padilla, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Faisal Shahzad, just to name a few, who have abandoned their country and joined with the terrorists in waging war against us. Just this week, the CIA Director testified to the Senate that more are coming; ISIS intends to send individuals back here to wage jihad.

Rather than engaging in political showmanship, trying to gain partisan advantage in the November election, how about we come together and say: If you join ISIS, you are not using a U.S. passport to come back here and murder American citizens. That ought to be a unanimous agreement if we were focused on keeping this country safe.

Likewise, let’s talk about the problem of refugees. What are the consequences of the willful blindness of this administration that President Obama, in the face of this terror attack, says that he will admit some 10,000 Syrian Muslim refugees, despite the fact that the FBI Director has told Congress he cannot possibly vet them to determine if they are terrorists?

Here is what FBI Director Comey said:

We can only query against that which we have collected. And so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing to show up because we have no record of them.

This is an FBI Director who was appointed by President Obama who is telling the administration they cannot vet these refugees. Yet what does the administration say? What does Hillary Clinton say? What do the Senate Democrats say? Let the refugees in, even though ISIS is telling us they are going to use those refugees to send terrorists here to come and murder us. This transcends mere partisan disagreement; this is lunacy.

We know the Paris attack was carried out in part by people who came in using the refugee program, taking advantage of the refugee program. Indeed, earlier this year, on January 6, 2016, Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan, a Palestinian born in Iraq who entered the United States as a refugee in 2009, was charged with attempting to provide support to ISIS. He wanted to set off bombs using cell phone detonators at two malls in my hometown of Houston, TX. This is a refugee who came from Iraq. Yet, do you hear the administration saying: This is a dangerous world. Jihadists are attempting to kill us. We have to keep us safe. They don’t say that.

The legislation I have introduced, which I would urge this body to take up, would impose a 3-year moratorium on refugees coming from any nation where ISIS or Al Qaeda or radical Islamic terrorists control a substantial portion of the territory. We can help with humanitarian efforts. We can help resettling refugees in majority Muslim countries in the Middle East. America is a compassionate country that has given more than 10 times as much money as any country on Earth to caring for refugees. But being compassionate doesn’t mean we are suicidal. It doesn’t mean we invite to America, we invite to our homes people who the FBI cannot tell us if they are terrorists or not.

What should this Senate be doing? We shouldn’t be engaging in a sideshow of gun control. By the way, I will say on behalf of a lot of American citizens, in the wake of this terror attack, it is offensive. I sat in that chair and presided yesterday over some of the show. It was offensive to see Democrat after Democrat prattling on about the NRA. It wasn’t the NRA that murdered 49 people in Orlando. It wasn’t the NRA that set up pressure cookers in the Boston bombing. It wasn’t the NRA that murdered 14 innocent souls at Fort Hood. It is offensive to play political games with the constitutional rights of American citizens instead of getting serious about keeping this country safe.

I would urge this body to take up both pieces of legislation–the Expatriate Terrorist Act to prevent terrorists from using U.S. passports to come back to America and TRIPA to prevent refugees from countries with majority control, major control from ISIS or Al Qaeda from coming in, ISIS terrorists as refugees. Those would be commonsense steps. The overwhelming majority of Americans would agree. Yet, in this politicized environment, that is not what our friends on the other side of the aisle want to talk about. Until we get serious about defeating radical Islamic terrorists, we will continue to lose innocents.

I would note one aspect of the attack on Sunday morning. It was widely reported that it was at a gay bar. There are a great many Democrats who are fond of calling themselves champions of the LGBT community. I would suggest there is no more important issue to champion in that regard than protecting Americans from murder by a vicious ideology that systematically murders homosexuals, that throws them off buildings, that buries them under rocks. The regime in Iran, now supported by billions of dollars of American taxpayer dollars at the behest of President Obama, murders homosexuals regularly.

I will confess, some in the press pool were a little bit puzzled: Well, how can a Republican be speaking out against this? Let me be very clear. I am against murder. I am against murder of any American. Nobody has a right to murder anybody because they differ in faith, because they differ in sexual orientation, because they differ in any respect. We are a nation founded on protecting the rights of everyone to live according to their conscience, according to their faith. This murder in Orlando was not random; it was part of a global jihad, an ideology, an Islamist ideology that commands its adherents to murder or forcibly convert the infidel, by whom they mean every one of us.

This body should not be engaged in political games. We should be focused on the threat and keeping America safe and defeating radical Islamic terrorists.

As we remember the victims of this latest terror attack, the greatest memorial we can give to them is to redouble ourselves to a seriousness of purpose to prevent the next terror attack from taking innocent American lives. I hope that is what this body does. I hope we do so in a bipartisan manner.

I yield the floor. (For more from the author of “TED CRUZ: Our Nation Is at War” please click HERE)

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Gun Shop Reported ‘Suspicious’ Orlando Shooter to FBI

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Robbie Abell, owner of a Florida gun shop, says he alerted authorities that a suspicious man had come in asking about body armor. Five weeks later, Omar Mateen – equipped with weapons he bought at a different shop after Abell’s employees refused to sell to him – killed 49 people and injured as many at Pulse night club in Orlando.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Abell as telling them that his store, Lotus Gunworks of South Florida, “shut him down on all sales” after be began asking bizarre questions about body armor and bulk ammunition. “The questions he was asking were not the normal questions a normal person would be asking… He just seemed very odd,” Abell said. The armor Mateen asked about is not traditionally available to civilians.

Abell noted that he made a phone call during his time in the store, and appeared to be speaking in Arabic. Mateen is from an Afghan family, and his father – a prolific pro-Taliban Youtuber – is known to speak at least two Afghan languages, Dari and Pashto. Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman, identifies as “Palestinian,” which would make her a likely Arabic speaker. She has confessed to shopping for weapons with Mateen.

Abell says his store alerted authorities to the suspicious man, though he did not say which authorities– whether he spoke to local police, FBI, or Homeland Security. Local CBS 12 notes that Abell’s store appeared to be following the procedures “in line with the FBI’s push for people to ‘see something, say something,‘ if they witness anything that makes them feel uncomfortable.” (Read more from “Gun Shop Reported ‘Suspicious’ Orlando Shooter to FBI” HERE)

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Walmart Hostage Taker Shot by Cops in TX Was Muslim ‘Refugee’

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A man who took two co-workers hostage at an Amarillo, Texas, Walmart Tuesday was a Muslim refugee from Somalia, and that fact came as no surprise to those who track the federal government’s robust refugee resettlement program.

Amarillo is bursting at the seams with foreign refugees, from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and its mayor has pleaded repeatedly with the government to stop sending refugees to his city . . .

On Tuesday, it was just another example. Mohammad Moghaddan, a Somali refugee, was shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies after he had taken two Walmart employees hostage.

Moghaddan, 54, was a current employee of the store, and his actions were quickly declared “a case of work place violence” by the sheriff’s office. The hostage taker, armed with a handgun, was shot dead by a SWAT team as terrified shoppers were ushered out of the store.

The city’s mayor has been on a crusade since 2011 to get the U.S. State Department, working with the United Nations, to put a damper on the number of refugees flooding into his city. (Read more from “Walmart Hostage Taker Shot by Cops in TX Was Muslim ‘Refugee'” HERE)

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Why Is the Senate GOP Leadership Helping Obama Pass Job-Killing Treaties?

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As Barack Obama becomes the lamest of lame ducks, you can count on him to take every opportunity to aim a parting shot at what’s left of the American economy and the U.S. Constitution. In recent weeks he has abused his executive authority on guns, overtime pay, gender-bending bathroom rules on states and parents, and U.S. “boots on the ground” in Libya, Yemen and Syria.

Unsurprisingly, the GOP leadership in Congress is utterly ineffective in blocking him.

Even worse, on some matters top Congressional Republicans have shown their readiness to carry Obama’s water for him. The best-known examples are the 2014 $1.1 trillion “Cromnibus” abomination (which funded Obama’s illegal actions on immigration) and approval of “Obamatrade” authority last year to expedite horrible deals like TTIP (the “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership” with the European Union) and TPP (the “Trans-Pacific Partnership”), which Donald Trump rightly has called “insanity.”

Now there’s yet another monstrosity waiting in the wings. Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew are trying to shoehorn the United States into a global financial reporting scheme that would trash American sovereignty, suck money out of the U.S. economy, and violate constitutional principles, such as respecting the Senate’s advice and consent to treaties and requiring warrants for searches of personal data.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the Senate is lining up to help Obama and Lew do it.

At issue are seven obscure tax treaties being held up by Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT). Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) is trying to pry loose Paul’s and Lee’s “hold” on the treaties and to rubber stamp them without fixing data reporting standards that violate the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The two Senators are happy to quit blocking the pacts, which are otherwise acceptable, if they are amended to remedy that defect.

A Dear Colleague letter signed by Corker – but clearly drafted by Lew’s Treasury Department – claims to debunk Paul’s and Lee’s objections in what amounts to a rehash of Obama administration talking points. For example, the letter (evidently prompted by my recent commentary opposing the treaties) claims blocking them won’t prevent operation of a little-known 2010 law called the “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act” (FATCA), which the Obama administration has sought to implement using a series of unauthorized and unratified “intergovernmental agreements.” With all due respect to Chairman Corker, this claim is inaccurate. For example, Article 5(1) of the relevant agreement with Switzerland says in so many words that FATCA requests ‘shall not be made prior to the entry into force’ of a treaty the two Senators have a hold on. If that’s not blocking, what is?

From the standpoint of American jobs and foreign investment in the U.S., there is even more at stake. Since the “Panama Papers” story broke, foreign officials have accused the United States of acting as a tax haven as well as permitting states like Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming not to disclose “beneficial ownership” of corporations. There have been calls to blacklist the United States, and even to apply sanctions against us.

Barack Obama has invited these attacks on America by his administration’s practice over the past five years of subjecting our trading partners to one-sided, costly and humiliating FATCA demands under threat of financial sanctions. They have capitulated, in part because Obama – as noted above, with no legal authority – has promised foreign governments the U.S. would provide reciprocal data under the FATCA agreements he refuses to submit to the Senate as treaties. Now he expects Congress to make good on his imprudent and legally deficient pledges.

It’s important to keep in mind the seven tax treaties are themselves innocuous and even desirable from the standpoint of avoiding double taxation for Americans doing business overseas. But contrary to Chairman Corker’s letter, ratifying them without fixing their constitutional defects facilitates their use as vehicles for data reporting under the legally dubious FATCA “intergovernmental agreements,” many of which also require “reciprocal reporting” from domestic U.S. institutions to foreign governments. This would hit U.S. banks, credit unions, insurance companies, mutual funds, etc. with costs comparable to those FATCA imposes on foreign institutions, which run into the millions per financial institution (for example, Canada’s Bank of Nova Scotia alone already had spent $100 million as of 2013). Imposing the same burdens here in the U.S. would mean billions of dollars extracted from American consumers and taxpayers, spurring massive capital flight from the United States and lost jobs. That’s why U.S. credit unions have written to the Congressional leadership to oppose domestic expansion of FATCA, which would “increase regulatory burdens on American credit unions and banks without resulting in a single dollar of new tax revenue to the Treasury.”

Finally, the seven treaties are a stalking horse for another item on Obama’s and Lew’s political bucket list: a so-called “Protocol amending the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters” that would lock in a FATCA-like international “common reporting standard” as treaty obligation. The result would be essentially FATCA gone global—sometimes called GATCA – which in would be set for a global tax under United Nations auspices, pressure on the U.S. to raise our domestic tax rates and subjecting our country to the oversight of bureaucrats at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other international organizations.

Republican leaders should not provide ex post facto authority for Obama’s and Lew’s reciprocal FATCA and GATCA schemes, which would also hand embattled IRS Commissioner John Koskinen sweeping new regulatory powers. It comes as no surprise that President Obama seeks to impose these burdens on America as his parting gift. What is deplorable is that any Republican leader would help him do it. Instead of promoting Obama’s global regime, it’s time for Senate Republicans to put America first. They should join Senators Paul and Lee in ensuring these treaties are not ratified until Obama leaves office, and get ready to send President Donald Trump a FATCA repeal bill early next year if President Obama succeeds. (For more from the author of “Why Is the Senate GOP Leadership Helping Obama Pass Job-Killing Treaties?” please click HERE)

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MARXIST “CONSTITUTIONAL” SCHOLAR ATTACKS 2nd AMENDMENT, Demands Repeal

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Aha! Someone is finally actually taking up the debate that, if you wish to disrespect the Second Amendment, you actually need to repeal it.

I teach the Constitution for a living. I revere the document when it is used to further social justice and make our country a more inclusive one. I admire the Founders for establishing a representative democracy that has survived for over two centuries.

In other words, when the Constitution furthers a “progressive”, “social-justice” end, it is to be revered. When it does not it is to be reviled. Well, so be it — at least this douche declares his intent up front in the first paragraph.

But sometimes we just have to acknowledge that the Founders and the Constitution are wrong. This is one of those times. We need to say loud and clear: The Second Amendment must be repealed.

Ah, now we get to it.

Good. Unlike all the other jackwads who have talked about “gun control” (and managed to pass over 50,000 blatantly unconstitutional laws), this one wants to talk about the lawful means by which one can infringe the Second Amendment — simply write it out of the Constitution itself!

However, in the process of attempting to make his argument he lies — repeatedly. Let’s go through the lies, because virtually the entire argument he makes is a lie.

Sure, the Founders knew that the world evolved and that technology changed, but the weapons of today that are easily accessible are vastly different than anything that existed in 1791. When the Second Amendment was written, the Founders didn’t have to weigh the risks of one man killing 49 and injuring 53 all by himself. Now we do, and the risk-benefit analysis of 1791 is flatly irrelevant to the risk-benefit analysis of today.

Oh really?

Well, don’t tell Jefferson that, who armed a private militia with a couple dozen cannon. Or, for that matter, anyone who owned a Blunderbus back then, which were a crude form of shotgun that was often loaded (as were cannon) with grape — named for it’s rough shape and size. Grapeshot was the preferred anti-personnel load because like a shotgun it spread out and covered a lot of people, but unlike a shotgun each piece was deadly on its own, and in a cannon each piece wasn’t much different in size than a musket ball.

Incidentally, The Founders also didn’t have military weapons that murdered millions with one button push, nor “remote weapons” that could be fired without personal risk. Today we have both, and yet the purpose of the Second Amendment is to prevent any sort of tyrant from using any of their weapons against the people at-large without the risk of the people firing back with equally-effective weapons.

We have spent close to 70 years under the premise in this world that if one party has really horrible weapons then others must develop and keep them because the risk of retaliation is too high and that deterrent effect will inhibit their first use. You can disagree with the premise but not the result; 70 years hence beyond the point at which only one party has had those weapons they have not been used.

The burden of proof is on those who claim that such a policy and capability is ineffective; the overwhelming evidence is that it is. That’s one reason that I have repeatedly advocated that the United States must declare as formal policy that if a weapon of mass destruction is used on our territory by Muslim Nutjobs we will immediate nuke both Mecca and Medina at ground level, rendering both impassible to humans for 1,000 years. Since these nutjobs also believe that you cannot go to heaven without having made said pilgrimage in your lifetime the continuation of the principle of MAD, which has served the world quite well on the manifest weight of the evidence for 70 years, would be promulgated to said Muslim nutjobs quite effectively.

Second, at a more-micro level, the worst rates of crime are where the most onerous gun laws exist. Chicago is just one big fat example; the entire State of Illinois requires a registration with the State Police for any purchase of a gun or ammunition and the bearing of an FOID card, and until recently (when the Supreme Court struck said law as unconstitutional) the mere ownership of a pistol was a crime anywhere in the city itself since the 1960s. Yet the gang-bangers don’t seem to care about such things; they buy, own and use guns and ammunition all the time, every one of them illegally. Unfortunately since those guns are illegal to own and possess they also don’t practice with them so their use tends to be inaccurate and thus they often shoot someone other than their intended victim by accident. Gangbangers and their violence are horrible, but what’s even more-horrible is when they wind up shooting a 3 year old accidentally because they’re a terrible shot.

Third, again at a more-micro level, in states where gun laws have been liberalized violent crime rates have gone DOWN at a rate that exceeds that where such changes in the law have not been made. It appears that “MAD” works on both a macro, international level and at a micro level, in that thugs actually consider the possibility that they may wind up with a bunch of extra holes in their body in unpleasant places if they attempt their crimes. Where that possibility is higher, they are deterred and choose either non-violent, non-personal criminal acts or no crime at all.

In point of fact so far in Chicago (as of 6/15) this year there have been 1451 people shot and 259 killed, or more than five times Orlando. Chicago remains a place where it is basically impossible for a citizen to lawfully own and possess a firearm for self-defense, and the gang-bangers know it. They are also not deterred by lots of cops who cower instead of respond.

But liberty is not a one way street. It also includes the liberty to enjoy a night out with friends, loving who you want to love, dancing how you want to dance, in a club that has historically provided a refuge from the hate and fear that surrounds you. It also includes the liberty to go to and send your kids to kindergarten and first grade so that they can begin to be infused with a love of learning. It includes the liberty to go to a movie, to your religious house of worship, to college, to work, to an abortion clinic, go to a hair salon, to a community center, to the supermarket, to go anywhere and feel that you are free to do to so without having to weigh the risk of being gunned down by someone wielding a weapon that can easily kill you and countless others.

That’s certainly true. But before you repeal the Second Amendment you must first show that doing so will prevent someone who wants to kill you from doing it — and not just with a gun either, instead of increasing the risk that you will fall victim to said violence.

Of course there’s that wee problem; recent history says that the Unicorn-fart utopia this “professor” believes in doesn’t exist. In France, for example, less than a year ago a bunch of Islamic Nutjobs shot up a theater and killed a lot of people — more than double the number of dead in Orlando were accrued. France not only has no Second Amendment it is unlawful for civilians to possess semi-automatic weapons of any sort on a virtually impenetrable basis. Yet these Muslim Whackjobs had no trouble managing to obtain and use both the weapons and their ammunition. I remind you that there are no EU nations with a strong Second Amendment-like part of their governing documents, which means that the common statement that places such as Chicago have a lot of gun violence “because other states that are nearby have loose restrictions” is a flat-out lie.

What France showed us, and what Orlando showed us, is that in the gravest extreme the cops will not help you either because they cannot get there fast enough to matter or will literally cower in the corner despite their superior numbers and firepower while the bastard kills you instead of taking him on. You either have the ability to help yourself or you die. And that leads to the next point:

Just think of what would have happened in the Orlando night-club Saturday night if there had been many others armed. In a crowded, dark, loud dance club, after the shooter began firing, imagine if others took out their guns and started firing back. Yes, maybe they would have killed the shooter, but how would anyone else have known what exactly was going on? How would it not have devolved into mass confusion and fear followed by a large-scale shootout without anyone knowing who was the good guy with a gun, who was the bad guy with a gun, and who was just caught in the middle? The death toll could have been much higher if more people were armed.

Oh really? It appears that one third of the people who were in that building were either shot or killed. The terrorist expended over 200 rounds unanswered (there was one off-duty cop who tried to engage the shooter at the outset but failed) and the cops sat outside for three hours despite the murderous bastard’s proud declaration at the onset of violence via his own 911 call that he was a follower of ISIS and intended to kill everyone.

Rather than storm the building immediately, which incidentally was the lesson that Columbine supposedly taught, the cops cowered outside and let that murderous beast slaughter everyone he wished, literally taking his sweet time to execute the wounded!

If 10% of the 300 people inside had been armed odds are that within seconds the assailant would have turned his back on one or more of them at close range. While there might have been collateral damage from the resulting returned fire it is incomprehensible that the death toll would have been anywhere near the 50 who died and the 3-hour delay would not have occurred — thus more of those who were shot would have received immediate and effective medical attention instead of bleeding out on the floor while the cops refused to do their damned job.

Further let me remind you that Florida Statutes, 790.06 explicitly prohibits the carrying of a concealed weapon into any place where the primary sale is the licensed dispensation of alcoholic beverages for immediate consumption — such as Pulse. That law is blatantly unconstitutional as “Shall not be infringed” is not followed by “except where alcohol is commonly sold under license for immediate consumption.

Therefore, the manifest weight of the evidence is that it was the outrageous and unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment that was directly responsible for a large number of the people who were assaulted at Pulse meeting their demise, and a second level of direct responsibility lies with the intentional dereliction of duty on the part of the police who despite knowing that the shooter intended to kill everyone there because the shooter had made exactly that threat refused to immediately storm the building in an attempt to end the assault.

Next, I’d like to direct this blowhard professor’s attention to Oklahoma City, where a man with a bomb made out of common materials (fertilizer and diesel fuel) blew up a building and killed far more than in Orlando (168, to be exact, not including himself as he didn’t blow himself up in the explosion); in addition he injured something like 600 more people. There is no place in this country where you can go to the “bomb store”, obviously, yet that didn’t stop him from executing his murderous plan.

Finally, please list all the mass-shootings and where they have taken place. I would like you to separate them into two groups; places that are “gun free” zones by law or policy such as schools, bars, movie theaters, military bases (except at the gatehouses) and similar, including those where concealed carry is virtually impossible such as California, and those that were gun-rich zones such as police stations, courtrooms and the like.

You will note that in virtually every single one of these assaults, including but not limited to Chattanooga, San Bernardino, Sandy Hook, Columbine, Ft. Hood, Aurora and now Orlando it was unlawful or prohibited by the policy of the establishment for anyone other than a uniformed officer — and in some cases even for uniformed officers (e.g. Chattanooga) — to possess a firearm.

You will not find said jackwads assaulting police stations, biker bars (where despite policy or even law a material percentage of the people are carrying!) or similar. Gee, might it be that while said murderous nutjobs are willing to die they are not interested in dying as soon as they declare their intentions — and before they can inflict material harm on others?

The manifest weight of the evidence is clear:

Virtually every mass-shooting incident has taken place where the Second Amendment is disrespected. Said incidents do not tend to take place where the Second Amendment is respected.

Conclusion:

This “professor” ought to be stripped of his credentials and any degree granted by his institution burned when presented by a graduate, as he clearly cannot manage to logically analyze basic facts and thus it must be assumed that neither can his students.

The manifest weight of the evidence is clear: The Second Amendment must be restored to its original intent and meaning if we are to effectively deter these sorts of attacks. (For more from the author of “MARXIST “CONSTITUTIONAL” SCHOLAR ATTACKS 2nd AMENDMENT: Suffers Near-Fatal Self-Beclownment” please click HERE)

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Audit Shows Majority of North Carolina Bathroom Bill Protest Petitions Were From out of State

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Petitions delivered by LGBT activists to the North Carolina governor’s office, calling for a repeal of the state’s “bathroom bill,” were mostly signed by out-of-state individuals, the North State Journal reported.

In March, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, signed House Bill 2 that established public restroom facility accessibility be based on biological sex.

A joint project of the Human Rights Campaign, the Campaign for Southern Equality, the ACLU of North Carolina, and Equality North Carolina, called Turn Out! NC, organized a drive in which the groups say they delivered 190,000 opposing petitions to McCrory’s office on April 25.

Media reports showed the groups delivering numerous boxes of petitions to McCrory’s office. A local TV anchor and reporter with WRAL-TV in Raleigh tweeted a photo that shows at least a couple dozen boxes stacked up:

An Associated Press photo shows Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, along with others, delivering boxes to McCrory’s office. The photo is credited to Jason E. Miczek with AP Images for Human Rights Campaign.

“While they made for a compelling visual, the boxes themselves and the signature boasting that followed painted a misleading picture of the public opinion in North Carolina, as was affirmed by a recent analysis of the petitions,” Sister Toldjah wrote in an op-ed for Independent Journal Review.

The governor’s office claimed on Twitter that the groups delivered enough petitions to fill two boxes. McCrory’s office tweeted a photo showing a much larger stack of out-of-state petitions next to a smaller pile of petitions:

Sandy Rios, director of governmental affairs for the American Family Association and host of “Sandy Rios in the Morning” on American Family Radio, says LGBT activists created illusions with empty boxes.

“LGBT activists are masters of PR and public manipulation,” Rios told The Daily Signal. “With the help of the media, they mold public opinion by skewing poll questions and results, masterfully creating inevitability as they did on gay marriage.”

“The truth is, this is a movement fueled by smoke and mirrors…and empty boxes,” Rios added.

The North State Journal obtained an audit of the petitions through a public information request and found that 85 percent of the petitions came from out of state.

“We had so many signatures on the petitions, we printed only the list of names rather than more than 185,000 pages of individually signed petitions. And contrary to what Gov. McCrory has suggested, thousands of these signatories are North Carolinians,” The Human Rights Campaign said in a statement, WRAL.com reported.

The Human Rights Campaign did not respond to request for comment by email or phone.

“House Bill 2 is bad for North Carolina; it’s bad for our reputation and it needs to be repealed,” Chris Sgro, executive director of Equality North Carolina, told The Daily Signal. Sgro said:

Gov. McCrory and legislative leaders have heard from both tens of thousands of North Carolinians, poll after poll that shows that a majority of North Carolinians oppose House Bill 2, and hundreds of thousands of people across the United States that House Bill 2 is detrimental to our civil rights and to our economy.

Under North Carolina’s law, The Heritage Foundation’s Ryan T. Anderson wrote that private schools and business are free to establish whatever bathroom policies they would like.

Retail giant Target implemented an “inclusive” bathroom policy in April, allowing individuals to use the bathroom of their choice, based on gender identity.

Over 1.3 million people have signed a pledge to boycott Target that was started by the American Family Association, a nonprofit that supports Christians values.

“With its profits in the gender-free toilet, Target CEO Brian Cornell was on the hot seat with investors for the decision, which analysts say has cost the retailer more than $4.5 billion—and counting,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins’ Washington Update from Thursday says.

“As everyone on Wall Street knows, Target’s stocks have taken a nearly 20-percent nosedive since April 19, when the change was announced,” the Washington Update added. (For more from the author of “Audit Shows Majority of North Carolina Bathroom Bill Protest Petitions Were From out of State” please click HERE)

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‘Radical Islam’ Does Matter in Identifying Enemy, Experts Say

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Using the phrase “radical Islam” to describe the Islamic State or other jihadist groups will not win the war, but is nonetheless relevant in identifying the ideology—not the religion—that America is fighting, experts said.

“I don’t believe the phrase “Islamist extremism” or “Islamist terrorism” is some sort of incantation that’s going to fix everything,” Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, said in an email to The Daily Signal.

“In fact, I don’t even think it’s the most important thing in this whole issue set. What’s most important are the policies that we pursue and the action that we take to defeat it, whatever you want to call it. But it does matter because we—Muslims, as much as other Americans—are engaged in a war of ideas as well as a war on terrorism.”

In a speech Tuesday, President Barack Obama roundly criticized Republicans who have insisted he use the words “radical Islam,” or “Islamist,” to describe the Islamic State.

“What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to try to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this?” Obama said after meeting with his national security team. “The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction.”

Lohman, who last December hosted a forum, “Muslim Voices Against the Islamic State and Islamist Extremism,” said the point is to understand the ideology.

“Islamism is a political ideology and it has to be taken on,” Lohman continued in the email. “If we physically dissuade terrorists from hurting people, we still have to stop Islamists from coercing people into their way of thinking by other means. Actually identifying the ideology is key to that, and unfortunately, that ideology is cast in religious terms. It’s like a Muslim civil society leader in Indonesia told me one time talking about the much more serious threat in her own country, ‘What difference does it make whether they are terrorists or not. They (Islamists) all want the same thing.’”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest later added that, “It is not uncommon on cable TV to see some GOP congressman I’ve never heard of demand to know why the president doesn’t say ‘radical Islam.’”

During his remarks, Obama said, “Not once has an adviser of mine said, ‘Man, if we use that phrase, we are going to turn this whole thing around.’” The president added that the United States doesn’t want to feed the Islamic State’s narrative that the militant group represents true Islam.

“Since before I was president, I have been clear about how extremist groups have perverted Islam to justify terrorism,” Obama said. “As president, I have called on our Muslim friends and allies at home and around the world to work with us to reject this twisted interpretation of one of the world’s great religions.”

But the “radical” in “radical Islam” is an obvious distinction from mainstream Islam, and it’s Obama that doesn’t seem to recognize that, said James Carafano, vice president for the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute at The Heritage Foundation.

“A label may seem superficial. American soldiers in Normandy didn’t care whether they were fighting Germans or Nazis,” Carafano told The Daily Signal. “The real fear is that the president is not prosecuting the war to win. It’s horrible to imply using the word ‘Islam’ is racist. ‘Radical Islam’ refers to an Islamist ideology, and is by definition a distinction from Islam.” (For more from the author of “‘Radical Islam’ Does Matter in Identifying Enemy, Experts Say” please click HERE)

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