Voters [in Hamtramck, Michigan] gave Abu Musa and Anam Miah another term in office. Saad Almasmari was elected for the first time. Now four of the six City Council members will be of Muslim faith.
It’s said to be the first majority Muslim City Council not only in Hamtramck but in the entire country.
“I think that sends a message not only to Hamtramck but throughout the region that people want their representation in offices,” Miah said.
Although there will be more diversity at the table, they want to make clear the goal of public service stays the the same.
“My concern is to give the people, everybody, equal opportunity and be fair for everybody,” said Musa. (Read more from “This U.S. City Has Elected Mostly Muslim Council” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-06 00:40:462016-04-11 10:56:29This U.S. City Has Elected Mostly Muslim Council
The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist organization founded in Egypt in 1928 that could be finding itself in trouble soon with the United States Congress.
Robert Mueller, former director of the FBI, said about the group during testimony in 2011: “I can say at the outset that elements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.”
Although multiple members of the organization are on the Obama administration terror list, thus far the US has not yet officially designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
That could soon be changing. Republican presidential candidate and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, along with Florida Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, introduced a bill this week called the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act.
Passage of the bill would not automatically designate the organization as a terrorist group. Instead, it would express a “sense of Congress” that the Brotherhood meets the criteria of being a terrorist organization. The State Department would be given 60 days to express whether agrees. If the State Department decides against listing the organization as a terrorist group, it would have to provide a “detailed justification as to which criteria have not been met.”
Five countries – Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Russia – already consider the Brotherhood to be a terrorist group. (Read more from “Ted Cruz Just Made an Enormous Move Against the Muslim Brotherhood That Could Impact Obama” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 23:56:372016-04-11 10:56:30Ted Cruz Just Made an Enormous Move Against the Muslim Brotherhood That Could Impact Obama
Is the race for the Republican nomination finally shaking out? Four candidates get double-digit backing — and then there’s a steep drop-off to the rest of the field.
The latest Fox News national poll on the 2016 election finds that Donald Trump has the edge, as GOP primary voters by wide margins identify him as the best candidate on the economy, as well as the one most likely to beat presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The poll also finds Ben Carson remains within striking distance of Trump.
Here are the numbers: Trump has the backing of 26 percent of Republican primary voters and is closely followed by Carson at 23 percent. The next tier includes two first-term Cuban-American senators: Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio at 11 percent each. Those four capture the support of 7 in 10 primary voters (71 percent).
From there, Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, and Rand Paul receive 4 percent each . . .
The favorites among white evangelical Christians include Carson (33 percent), Trump (23 percent) and Cruz (12 percent). Those three are also the top picks among the Tea Party movement, although in a different order: Trump (26 percent), Cruz (24 percent) and Carson (19 percent). (Read more from “Poll: Trump Holds Slim Lead as GOP Race Comes Into Focus” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 23:55:392016-04-11 10:56:30Poll: Trump Holds Slim Lead as GOP Race Comes Into Focus
The challenges faced by Christian Americans right now are similar to the ones faced by Jews in Nazi Germany during the 1930s, Pastor Carl Gallups said during a recent guest appearance at CTN’s “It’s Time with Herman & Sharron.”
He warned Christians to be prepared for the worst forms of persecution since the attack on America’s faith-based groups is only getting started, according to a WND report.
“This is what Americans are beginning to see,” Gallups said. “We see these similarities [with the conditions faced by the Jews in Nazi Germany]. We know that we don’t live under government decree to persecute us like other Christians do, but we see the progression, or digression.”
He mentioned the following initial signs of Christian persecution in the US: the removal of prayer from schools; the banning of Christmas and Easter events in schools; the pending gun registration and eventual confiscation; the apparent fading away of free speech where the media only tell the government’s side; and pastors becoming fearful of addressing serious moral and political issues because of government intimidation.
Gallups said dangers confront Americans all over. As an example, he cited FBI confirmation that there are Islamic State cells in all 50 states. (Read more from “Pastor Sends a Terrifying Warning to U.S. About Christian Persecution” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 23:52:462016-04-11 10:56:30Pastor Sends a Terrifying Warning to U.S. About Christian Persecution
Very few veterans take advantage of a Pentagon policy designed to make it easier for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to upgrade their discharge status and become eligible to apply for veterans’ benefits, according to a Yale Law Clinic report.
At a news conference Monday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., veterans, and Yale law students, blamed the Department of Defense for not adequately publicizing the policy to veterans with less than honorable discharges. Since new guidelines were announced last year, just 201 of tens of thousands of eligible veterans applied for a PTSD-related service upgrade, according to the report. Blumenthal called the statistic “a staggering, outrageous fact.”
“Veterans on the streets of New Haven or Connecticut or the rest of the country have no idea about this,” Blumenthal said. “It takes a vigorous and rigorous effort, which the DOD committed to and they have failed,” he added.
Sundiata Sidibe, a student in the law school’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic, called the number of applicants “miniscule.” In previous years, an average of 39 veterans applied annually for status upgrades in connection with PTSD, the report states.
Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had asked the Pentagon to give the committee a progress report by August 2015 on its efforts to inform veterans about the policy. A report was never submitted, he said. (Read more from “Veterans Are Not Applying for Discharge Status Upgrades, Pentagon Blamed” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 23:46:422016-04-11 10:56:31Veterans Are Not Applying for Discharge Status Upgrades, Pentagon Blamed
A child who was reported missing in Alabama 13 years ago has been found safe and unharmed in Cleveland, Ohio, authorities say.
Julian Hernandez was in the legal custody of his mother when he disappeared on August 28, 2002. He was 5 then.
It was suspected that his father, Bobby Hernandez, took him as part of a noncustodial parental abduction, according to the Vestavia Hills Police Department, just south of Birmingham . . .
The missing child they were able to locate and positively identify is now 18. Julian’s mother and family were notified of his recovery.
Bobby Hernandez was arrested Monday in the abduction. The court records from Cuyahoga County in Ohio did not specify exact charges against him. CNN reached out to attorney Ralph DeFranco’s office for further comment Wednesday night but did not immediately receive a response. (Read more from “More Than a Decade Later, Missing Alabama Boy Found in Ohio” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 23:44:262016-04-11 10:56:32More Than a Decade Later, Missing Alabama Boy Found in Ohio
Trump Shrugs off Obama’s Debate Critique: ‘He Can’t Handle the Country’
By Jeremy Diamond. Donald Trump dismissed Tuesday President Barack Obama’s mocking of the the GOP presidential candidates’ criticism of the CNBC moderators in the last debate.
Trump, whose campaign decided to continue dealing directly with the TV networks rather than forming a united front with other presidential campaigns, said he “doesn’t care too much” about the debate format, instead knocking Obama’s handling of the country.
“They’ve been hitting me one way or the other. I just want to have the debates. I like the debates. They can ask tough questions. … I just want to answer the questions and be done with it, frankly,” Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Of Obama’s criticism, Trump added, “He can’t handle the country. He’s doing a terrible job running the country.”
Obama ripped into the GOP’s field of 2016 hopefuls on Monday night, noting that while they’ve knocked him for being “weak” on the international stage, “it turns out they can’t handle a bunch of CNBC moderators.” (Read more from “Donald Trump Burns Obama’s Debate Critique: ‘He Can’t Handle the Country'” HERE)
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All of Obama’s ‘Achievements’ Are Failing
By Jennifer Rubin. President Obama’s biggest domestic “accomplishment,” Obamacare, and his biggest foreign policy objective, extracting the United States from the Middle East and redesigning our alliances (Iran in, Israel out), are now Exhibits A and B in the argument for jettisoning the Democrats from the White House. At the very least these issues, combined with a lackluster economy, suggest Hillary Clinton will have trouble running for a “third Obama term.”
On the Obamacare front, CBS News reports, “Sign-up season started Sunday for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, now in year 3. Premiums are going up an average of 7.5 percent, but they could be much higher depending on where you live.” It is not hard to see that if this keeps up we are headed for the infamous “death spiral,” as Sally Pipes, a health-care expert and critic of Obamacare explains . . .
If the domestic scene looks less than attractive for Democrats, the foreign policy front is abysmal. The president’s latest, cynical move to send just 50 Special Operations forces to Syria — but not into combat! — encapsulates the absence of a coherent strategy that will leave the region bloodier, less stable and more violent than when Obama took office.
His latest move on Syria has unsurprisingly been poorly received. Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute writes:
The situation is now beyond dire and all anyone can do is offer first steps that might start to drive it in a more positive direction. But any such steps must begin from the understanding of what this conflict is really about and who must actually resolve it: the Sunni Arabs and the non-Assad Alawite community. Those are the groups that will have to decide to put down their weapons and work out a mutually-acceptable deal. Defeating ISIS will still be hard in that context, but at least it might be both feasible and meaningful.
(Read more from “All of Obama’s ‘Achievements’ Are Failing” HERE)
Far more military men are being raped by other men and experience other sexual traumas than is reported by the Pentagon because of the stigma attached to such assaults, says a new study released Tuesday by the American Psychological Association.
“Rates of military sexual trauma among men who served in the military may be as much as 15 times higher than has been previously reported, largely because of barriers associated with stigma, beliefs in myths about male rape, and feelings of helplessness,” the APA said in releasing findings published in its periodical Psychological Services.
Comparing the new study’s numbers and the Pentagon’s survey results produced some shocking statistics.
The Rand Corp., which conducted the most recent Pentagon sexual assault survey in 2014, found that about 12,000 men reported being assaulted. Sexual assault in the military is defined as unwanted sexual contact, including rape and other assaults or the attempt to commit those acts.
Extrapolating the study’s estimates of up to 15 times greater than the Pentagon’s count, it would mean that as many as 180,000 men are assaulted in one year and, of those, 57,750 are “penetrative” attacks. (Read more from “‘Gay’ Rape in Military Is Completely Underreported by Pentagon” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 01:09:162016-04-11 10:56:32COVER-UP: ‘Gay’ Rape in Military Is Completely Underreported by Pentagon
By WLWT. Ohio voters rejected a first-of-its-kind proposal Tuesday that would have legalized both medical and recreational marijuana, following an expensive campaign, a legal fight over its ballot wording and an investigation into the proposal’s petition signatures . . .
The measure known as Issue 3 on Tuesday’s ballot would have allowed adults 21 and older to use, purchase or grow certain amounts of marijuana and made cannabis available for medical uses in the same vote, a unique approach nationally . . .
Issue 2 targeted the system of 10 marijuana-growing sites that would have been created by the pot legalization question known as Issue 3 on the ballot. Issue 3 was defeated, avoiding a court challenge as to which issue would have trumped the other.
A few precincts in southwest Ohio’s Hamilton County reported problems getting voters their ballots because of poll workers’ unfamiliarity with a new electronic check-in system being used for the first time.
The marijuana legalization campaign, ResponsibleOhio, sought the extension, citing those problems. (Read more from “Ohio Voters Reject Legal Pot” HERE)
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Houston Equal Rights Ordinance Fails by Wide Margin
By Katherine Driessen. Houston’s controversial equal rights ordinance failed by a wide margin Tuesday, with voters opting to repeal the law that offered broad non-discrimination protections, according to incomplete and unofficial returns.
The hotly contested election has spurred national attention, drawing comment from the White House and the state’s top officials. Largely conservative opponents of the law allege that it would allow men dressed as women, including sexual predators, to enter women’s restrooms. Supporters of the law, including Mayor Annise Parker, argue that it extends an important local recourse for a range of protected classes to respond to discrimination.
Supporters released a written statement Tuesday night: “We are disappointed with today’s outcome, but our work to secure nondiscrimination protections for all hard-working Houstonians will continue. No one should have to live with the specter of discrimination hanging over them. Everyone should have the freedom to work hard, earn a decent living and provide for themselves and their families.”
The ordinance bans discrimination based not just on gender identity and sexual orientation, but also 13 classes already protected under federal law: sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, pregnancy and genetic information, as well as family, marital or military status. (Read more from “Houston Equal Rights Ordinance Fails by Wide Margin” HERE)
The Republican National Committee reportedly has asked the IRS to audit the finances of one of the Clinton family’s charities following its refusal to re-file tax forms even after acknowledging errors in reporting donations from foreign governments.
Reuters reported the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) said this week that it had decided against re-filing so-called Form 990s because the errors “had no impact” on the total amount of income it reported to the IRS. The charity claimed that the total amount of income was correct, but the breakdown of government and private funding was not. As a result, CHAI spokeswoman Maura Daley said the organization “does not believe a re-filing is necessary.”
In April, Reuters reported that the CHAI had failed to note grants from foreign governments separately from total revenue on its Form 990s in 2012 and 2013. At the time, the organization said it would re-file the documents for both years. It had previously re-filed returns from 2010 and 2011 for over-reporting the amount received in government grants by over $100 million.
The Clinton Foundation also said it would re-file its Form 990s after wrongly reporting that it had received no money from foreign governments on its tax returns for 2010, 2011, and 2012.
Reuters reported, citing tax experts, that it was unusual for a charity to make such large mistakes several years in a row. An IRS spokesman told the news agency that charities should re-file a Form 990 if it becomes aware of an error. (Read more from “GOP Reportedly Asks IRS to Audit Clinton Charity’s Finances” HERE)
