CONFUSION: US Humanitarian Aid Going to ISIS

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Photo Credit: The Daily BeastWhile U.S. warplanes strike at the militants of the so-called Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq, truckloads of U.S. and Western aid has been flowing into territory controlled by the jihadists, assisting them to build their terror-inspiring “Caliphate.”

The aid—mainly food and medical equipment—is meant for Syrians displaced from their hometowns, and for hungry civilians. It is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, European donors, and the United Nations. Whether it continues is now the subject of anguished debate among officials in Washington and European. The fear is that stopping aid would hurt innocent civilians and would be used for propaganda purposes by the militants, who would likely blame the West for added hardship.

The Bible says if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him something to drink—doing so will “heap burning coals” of shame on his head. But there is no evidence that the militants of the Islamic State, widely known as ISIS or ISIL, feel any sense of disgrace or indignity (and certainly not gratitude) receiving charity from their foes.

Quite the reverse, the aid convoys have to pay off ISIS emirs (leaders) for the convoys to enter the eastern Syrian extremist strongholds of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, providing yet another income stream for ISIS militants, who are funding themselves from oil smuggling, extortion and the sale of whatever they can loot, including rare antiquities from museums and archaeological sites.

“The convoys have to be approved by ISIS and you have to pay them: the bribes are disguised and itemized as transportation costs,” says an aid coordinator who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition he not be identified in this article. The kickbacks are either paid by foreign or local non-governmental organizations tasked with distributing the aid, or by the Turkish or Syrian transportation companies contracted to deliver it.

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Obama Administration Quietly Prepares 'Surge' of Millions of New Immigrant ID's

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Photo Credit: Breitbart Despite no official action from the president ahead of the election, the Obama administration has quietly begun preparing to issue millions of work authorization permits, suggesting the implementation of a large-scale executive amnesty may have already begun.

Unnoticed until now, a draft solicitation for bids issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Oct. 6 says potential vendors must be capable of handling a “surge” scenario of 9 million id cards in one year “to support possible future immigration reform initiative requirements.”

The request for proposals says the agency will need a minimum of four million cards per year. In the “surge,” scenario in 2016, the agency would need an additional five million cards – more than double the baseline annual amount for a total of 9 million.

“The guaranteed minimum for each ordering period is 4,000,000 cards. The estimated maximum for the entire contract is 34,000,000 cards,” the document says.

The agency is buying the materials need to construct both Permanent Residency Cards (PRC), commonly known as green cards, as well as Employment Authorization Documentation (EAD) cards which have been used to implement President Obama’s “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA) program. The RFP does not specify how many of each type of card would be issued.

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NY Gun Registry Deems Almost 35,000 People Too Mentally Ill To Carry a Gun

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Photo Credit: TownHallA new figure out of New York shows that the state has deemed 34,500 people too mentally ill to carry a firearm. While any responsible citizen would argue a dangerous and mentally unstable person should not be wielding a gun, some mental health advocates are arguing the number is far too high:

“That seems extraordinarily high to me,” said Sam Tsemberis, a former director of New York City’s involuntary hospitalization program for homeless and dangerous people, now the chief executive of Pathways to Housing, which provides housing to the mentally ill. “Assumed dangerousness is a far cry from actual dangerousness.”

The Office of Mental Health pointed out that 144,000 people were hospitalized in New York in 2012 for mental illness, trying to justify the gun registry’s seemingly high number. Yet, other health professionals argue the majority of those cases are not violent.

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Obama Makes Rare Campaign Trail Appearance, People Leave Early

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President Barack Obama made a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Sunday with a rally to support the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, but early departures of crowd members while he spoke underscored his continuing unpopularity.

With approval levels hovering around record lows, Obama has spent most of his campaign-related efforts this year raising money for struggling Democrats, who risk losing control of the U.S. Senate in the Nov. 4 midterm election.

Most candidates from his party have been wary of appearing with him during their election races because of his sagging popularity.

Not so Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown of Maryland, who is running for governor, and Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois, who is running for re-election. Obama plans to appear at an event for Quinn later in the evening.

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Greg Orman: Talking About Abortion "Prevents Us From Talking About Other Important Issues"

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsIn this week’s Kansas Senate debate between Greg Orman and incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts, the moderator asked the two about ultrasound laws. Independent candidate Greg Orman (there is no Democrat running in the race) discussed abortion by saying he doesn’t want to discuss it:

Orman: I think we spend a whole lot of time in this country talking about this issue and we have spent a lot of time over the last couple of decades talking about it. And I think it prevents us from talking about other important issues… I’m pro-choice.

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Common Core Horror Stories From Florida

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerEarlier this week, parents and teachers convened at Royal Palm Beach High School in South Florida to discuss the massive torment which children in taxpayer-funded schools have endured as a result of the implementation of the Common Core Standards Initiative and the standardized tests that go along with it.

The sad misery of kindergarten students subjected to computerized testing was among biggest complaints presented by irate parents and frustrated teachers, reports the Palm Beach Post.

“I watched a student suffer for over an hour,” explained one elementary school teacher. “They had no idea how to work the computer mouse.”

Not surprisingly, teachers discovered that five- and six-year-old students either have insufficient experience with computers or don’t possess the motor skills to use a mouse to take standardized tests. Over the course of one day, for example, five teachers worked with 10 students — out of 120 —to complete their tests, notes the Post.

“What’s ‘drag and drop’ to a child who’s not worked on a computer?” vented another exasperated teacher. The teacher also griped that the textbooks her school purchased aren’t even the rights ones for the standardized test her school uses, according to the local newspaper.

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Biden's Son Keeps Law License Despite Drug-Related Navy Reserve Discharge

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Photo Credit: APDespite being cashiered out of the Navy Reserve for testing positive for cocaine, Vice President Joe Biden’s son is still being allowed to practice law and won’t lose his Connecticut law license.

Late last week the Wall Street Journal reported that in February of this year Hunter Biden, 44, tested positive for cocaine during a drug test administered by the Navy and was immediately discharged from the Navy Reserve.

Days later the Connecticut Bar announced that it was not initiating any reviews of the younger Biden’s law license.

Lawyers in Connecticut face an automatic review of their licenses when they have been convicted of a crime, but Biden’s dismissal from the Navy for cocaine, the Bar Association said, did not rise to that threshold.

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U.S. Hospitals Gird for Ebola Panic as Flu Season Looms

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Photo Credit: Liberty VoiceA young woman complaining of abdominal pain and nausea who had traveled to Africa arrived at a Long Island hospital fearful that she had contracted Ebola. She did not have the virus, but the pregnancy test was positive.

The woman had been to South Africa, more than 3,400 miles (5,400 km) from the three West African countries enduring the worst Ebola outbreak on record, and the trip ended six weeks prior, or twice the potential incubation period for Ebola infection.

“It tells you how ready for panic we can get ourselves,” said Dr. Bruce Hirsch, an infectious diseases specialist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. “There’s a lot of anxiety and the answer to anxiety is information and training.”

The woman’s fear was emblematic of panic across the country since Liberian traveler Thomas Eric Duncan became the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States on Sept. 30. Two of the nurses who treated him at a Dallas, Texas hospital have since become infected, and several hundred more potential contacts, both direct and indirect, have been tracked.

Already dozens of false Ebola scares have been reported by hospitals even though the virus is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and the virus is not airborne.

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Obama: Republicans 'Just Have Bad Ideas'

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Photo Credit: APMarching onto the campaign trail for the first time this year, President Barack Obama cast Democrats’ success in this year’s midterm elections as a chance to further the policies he’s fought for in the White House. “Don’t give up now,” he said. “Not after we’ve made this much progress.”

Returning to the accepting embrace of his home state of Illinois, Obama told voters in Chicago that Republicans mean well, but “just have bad ideas.” He accused the GOP of recycling those ideas over and over, urging voters to take their future into their own hands by showing up Nov. 4 — and electing Democrats.

“The power to move our society, our government, it really is in your hands,” Obama said during a rally for Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn that doubled as a homecoming for the president. “You’re the reason that I had the audacity to actually run for president of the United States.”

Echoing many of the same themes as his own 2008 and 2012 campaigns, Obama said Democrats were fighting to give women equal pay, give children a good education and give all Americans access to decent health care. He contrasted that with the policies of Republicans, whom he claimed were living in the 1950s and belong “in a ‘Mad Men’ episode.”

Obama’s rallies Sunday in Chicago and Maryland marked his first major foray into the 2014 midterm elections. Obama was supposed to rally last week in Connecticut for Gov. Dannel Malloy, but postponed that visit to focus on Ebola.

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Local Government Orders Christian Ministers: Perform Same-Sex Weddings or Face Jail, Fines

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Photo Credit: ADF Media[Coeur d’Alene] City officials told Donald Knapp that he and his wife Evelyn, both ordained ministers who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, are required to perform such ceremonies or face months in jail and/or thousands of dollars in fines. The city claims its “non-discrimination” ordinance requires the Knapps to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies now that the courts have overridden Idaho’s voter-approved constitutional amendment that affirmed marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

“The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “Many have denied that pastors would ever be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith, but that’s what is happening here – and it’s happened this quickly. The city is on seriously flawed legal ground, and our lawsuit intends to ensure that this couple’s freedom to adhere to their own faith as pastors is protected just as the First Amendment intended.”

“The government exists to protect and respect our freedoms, not attack them,” Tedesco added. “The city cannot erase these fundamental freedoms and replace them with government coercion and intolerance.”

The Hitching Post Wedding Chapel is across the street from the Kootenai County Clerk’s office, which issues marriage licenses. The Knapps, both in their 60s and who themselves have been married for 47 years, began operating the wedding chapel in 1989 as a ministry. They perform religious wedding ceremonies, which include references to God, the invocation of God’s blessing on the union, brief remarks drawn from the Bible designed to encourage the couple and help them to have a successful marriage, and more. They also provide each couple they marry with a CD that includes two sermons about marriage, and they recommend numerous Christian books on the subject. The Knapps charge a small fee for their services.

Coeur d’Alene officials told the Knapps privately and also publicly stated that the couple would violate the city’s public accommodations statute once same-sex marriage became legal in Idaho if they declined to perform a same-sex ceremony at their chapel. On Friday, the Knapps respectfully declined such a ceremony and now face up to 180 days in jail and up to $1,000 in fines for each day they decline to perform that ceremony.

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