Here's Who's Responsible for the Racist Killings of the NYPD Officers

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new-york-city-shootingOn Day of His Murder, NYPD Officer Would Have Been Commissioned as Lay Chaplain

By Sami Martin. Officer Rafael Ramos was passionate about serving God and saw his work as a police officer as a form of ministry; he would have been commissioned as a lay chaplain this past Saturday, the day he was killed.

Ramos was shot and killed execution style along with his partner, Wenjian Liu, on Saturday by a lone gunmen who took his own life inside a New York City subway station after committing the double murder.

Rev. Marcos Miranda, the president of the New York State Chaplain Task Force where Ramos was studying to be certified as a chaplain, remembers the officer as kind man.

“It was an honor to have him (Officer Ramos),” Miranda told The Christian Post. “He had just taken the 10-week course and was a faithful member of his local church, Christ Tabernacle. He was due to graduate this past Saturday, where we graduated 144 chaplains. Ramos would have been a lay leader and been endorsed by his denomination.”

“I will remember his kindness the most — even the kindness in his eyes — in our talks, he asked what I thought of him being a police officer, and I said it was an honorable job. He said he thought it was ministry because he was helping those in need. He never thought he could be a chaplain, he saw himself doing this type of ministry after he retired from the NYPD. He was very excited about that possibility,” Miranda added. Read more from this story HERE.

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The Four Who “Gave Aid and Comfort” to the Racist Murders of the Two NYPD Cops

By Patrick Buchanan. “NYPD, KKK, How many kids did you kill today?”

That was one of the chants of anti-police protesters in New York City. Another was, “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!”

Well, the marchers got their wish Saturday in Bedford-Stuyvesant when Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, firing into a patrol car, murdered NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. . .

[H]ere is where the moral culpability of de Blasio, Holder, Al Sharpton and President Obama lies. They gave aid and comfort to the cop-haters and cop-baiters.

When did any of these four speak up or speak out to denounce the blocking of squares, highways, bridges, tunnels, shops and stores, from New York to the Mall of America?

When did they denounce the protesters for their hateful anti-police rhetoric? When did they demand that these mobs go home and respect the rule of law and decisions of the grand jury, even if they disagreed?

When a Staten Island grand jury voted not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, the mayor did not urge the city to accept it calmly, but expressed astonishment, called it a “very painful day for so many New Yorkers” and said he had warned his biracial son to be especially careful dealing with cops. Read more from this story HERE.
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Poll Shows Major Differences by Race in Perception of Police

By Z. Byron Wolf. There is a defined racial divide in America between how whites and non-whites view police and the criminal justice system, according to a CNN / ORC poll released Monday.

More than half of white Americans – 57% – think none or almost none of the police in their area are prejudiced against blacks. Just one quarter of non-white Americans feel the same way.

The survey, which was mostly conducted before the shooting of NYPD Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos in New York over the weekend, found similar results on perceptions of the justice system as a whole. While 41% of Americans say the criminal justice system treats blacks fairly, far more whites – 50% – see equity. Among non-whites, that figure drops to just 21%. Two-thirds of non-whites said that the criminal justice system favors whites over blacks. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin. Trying to Shut Down Crude Transport in US?

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rail road oil tankersFollowing the lame-duck Senate’s defeat of a bill that would have authorized construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, attention has shifted to concerns about transporting crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale and oil sands in Alberta to U.S. refineries, many of which are located on the Texas and Louisiana coast. . .

Railroads move hazardous materials—crude oil and chemicals, among other flammable cargoes—without mishap more than 99 percent of the time. Nevertheless, railroads in 2012 pumped a record $25.5 billion into upgrading and maintaining the freight railroad system’s infrastructure. And, since then, billions more have been invested in making the system more efficient and safer. The same attention to safety is true of the pipeline system, which carries some of the nation’s oil and most of its natural gas.

Even so, the U.S. Department of Transportation wants the existing fleet of rail cars to be replaced or upgraded in two years. Such a rapid phase-out, however, could restrict the production of oil and gas, costing consumers as much as $45 billion, according to a study done by ICF International Inc. Lengthening the replacement period to four years would help hold down that cost. So, too, would repealing the outmoded Jones Act and allowing U.S. crude oil to be exported to the rest of the world.

Without oil trains, oil production in the United States would not be booming, and the United States would not be on the verge of becoming the world’s biggest oil producer, surpassing even Saudi Arabia. Thanks to the shale revolution, the nation’s economy is gaining strength, manufacturing is making a comeback, and tens of thousands of jobs have been created, along with billions in new tax revenue.

Read more from this story HERE.

CIA panel to suggest no punishment for spying on Senate Intelligence Committee

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Widespread_US_Police_Surveillance_Is-219f71accff4c57da00fcb7272c025e4CIA officials accused of tampering with a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the agency’s use of torture will not be punished, The New York Times reported.

After several years, the Senate investigation’s findings were finally released earlier this month, causing a public stir with exhaustive descriptions of CIA torture methods and a conclusion that the agency received little or no useful information using the techniques.

But the 6,000-plus page document had a fraught path to existence, highlighted by a public feud between the Senate and the CIA over accusations that the agency had searched a computer network being used by Senate staffers conducting the investigation.

Reportedly, the CIA was looking to see if investigators had gotten hold of documents the agency claimed were off limits.

In its own review of the matter, the CIA inspector general cited three CIA technology officers and two lawyers as culpable of ordering the clandestine searches. The accused have defended the actions as lawful, and even said CIA Director John Brennan condoned the searches.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP goes on K Street hiring spree

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Mitch McConnell, Roy Blunt, John Thune, John CornynAs Republicans take control of Congress, they are bringing in veteran influence peddlers to help them run the show. Nearly a dozen veteran K Streeters have been named as top staffers to GOP leaders or on key committees as lawmakers prepare to take the gavel in January.

For instance, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell named Hazen Marshall policy director earlier this week. Marshall, a former staff director for the Senate Budget Committee, has spent the last 10 years as a lobbyist at the Nickles Group representing dozens of clients like AT&T, Comcast and energy company Exelon.

The trend is in part because Republicans are taking control of the Senate next year, opening up attractive jobs once held by Democrats.

And while former staffers-turned lobbyists often end up back in public service — the revolving door has been swinging for years — there is a notable increase in the pace of K Streeters making the move back to Congress this month.

Read more from this story HERE.

Fmr FBI Asst Director: ‘Race Provocateurs’ Incited Violence Towards Police

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Ronald T. Hosko — a former assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and current president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund — issued a statement Sunday condemning the brutal murder of two New York Police Department officers and placing the blame for their deaths on “race provocateurs.”

“While the criminal who shot these officers down is ultimately responsible for their murders, a thoughtful society must examine the social circumstances that fostered such outrageous criminal conduct,” Hosko stated. “To those who have chosen to incite violence against law enforcement through the reckless vilification of police officers — shame on you.”

Hosko then went on to single out racial activists, the media and even government officials for fostering a hostile anti-police sentiment that led to the deaths of two officers Saturday.

“From race provocateurs looking for five minutes of fame, to those in the media who wantonly mischaracterized and sensationalized recent criminal cases, to the government officials who have repeatedly made statements designed to undermine legitimate law enforcement efforts across our nation – it’s time to reexamine your own words and actions and take your share of responsibility,” the statement continued.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: Immigrant workers account for all employment growth since 2007

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Credit - Breitbart

Credit – Breitbart

Labor statistics show that foreign-born workers account for all net gains in U.S. employment in the past seven years, according to a group that advocates low immigration.

The Center for Immigration Studies issued a report Friday that found 1.5 million fewer U.S.-born workers employed in 2014 than prior to the recession in 2007. Foreign-born employment for both legal and illegal immigrants increased by more than 2 million workers during the same time period.

The data, which CIS obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is evidence that native-born workers could have a harder time finding jobs under President Obama’s plan to allow more than 5 million illegal immigrants to obtain work permits, CIS officials said.

“If we continue to allow in new immigration at the current pace or choose to increase the immigration level it will be even more difficult for the native-born to make back the ground they have lost in the labor market,” the report’s authors, Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler, wrote.

Read more from this story HERE.

Fox News Dropped by Dish Network

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fox-news95372WASHINGTON – No. 1-rated Fox News Channel was unceremoniously dropped by Dish Network Saturday night – surprising viewers who were told Fox had pulled the programming from the satellite TV system.

Fox climbed to the top of the ladder in cable news by offering what it calls “fair and balanced” programing – and what many progressives, including Barack Obama, call biased.

Dish used the pretext of stalled negotiations over a new distribution deal to pull the plug on both Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network – two favorites of conservatives and independent thinkers.

Dish, which has for weeks been negotiating a new carriage contract for the 21st Century Fox channels, said the channels were blocked after Fox introduced fee increases for other sports and information channels not part of the original contract.

“It’s like we’re about to close on a house and the realtor is trying to make us buy a new car as well,” Warren Schlichting, Dish’s senior vice president of programming, said in a statement. “Fox blacked out two of its news channels, using them as leverage to triple rates on sports and entertainment channels that are not in this contract.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Tea party to defend its small government champions in 2016 Senate races

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Sen. John McCain likely has a bull’s-eye on his back, but tea party groups have signaled that they expect the 2016 Senate races to be a lot more about defending the small government champions the movement helped win in the 2010 wave election than in headhunting ‘establishment’ Republicans.

Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican and the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2008, has already said he expects to face a primary challenge, and tea party groups are talking up apparent early interest in the seat shown by Rep. David Schweikert.

On the other side is Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, who was part of the 2010 tea party wave and who the groups are now rallying around, hoping to head off an establishment-backed challenge.

“If the Republican establishment wants to defeat Sen. Lee in a primary, they have their work cut out for them,” said Ken Cuccinelli, head of the Senate Conservatives Fund. “Not only do voters in Utah value him, there are thousands of freedom-loving Americans across the country who are ready to go to battle for him.”

The tea party ended with little to show for its election battles in 2014. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was unseated in a primary, but senators they targeted managed to survive in Kansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky. But the chief storyline of 2014 was the GOP establishment getting its candidates and those candidates going on to capitalize, winning many of the seats Democrats had to defend.

Read more from this story HERE.

Two NYPD Officers Slain in Apparent Retribution Attack

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

NEW YORK – A gunman shot dead two New York City police officers in what officials called an “assassination”, hours after warning on social media that he planned an attack in retribution for recent U.S. police killings of unarmed black men.

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday ordered flags flown at half staff around the city, hours after the city’s main police union harshly criticized the city’s first Democratic mayor in two decades for being insufficiently supportive of the department during recent waves of anti-police violence.

The shooter, 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Abdula Brinsley, traveled from Baltimore, where police said he had shot and wounded his girlfriend, to New York and during the day posted on the social media service Instagram that he would be “putting wings on pigs today,” using an anti-police slur.

Baltimore police said they learned of the suspect’s posts on Saturday afternoon and called NYPD officials to alert them that digital data showed he had traveled to the city’s borough of Brooklyn. But the call came in less than an hour before officials said Brinsley, who was black, shot and killed two officers as they sat in their patrol car near a major housing project.

The officers he killed were Hispanic and Asian-American.

Read more HERE.

Obama Does Not Have Authority to Change Cuba Policy

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Credit - Washington Post

Credit – Washington Post

By Mike Gonzalez

Exchanging three hardened Cuban spies for American hostage Alan Gross establishes a wrong moral and legal equivalency. Worse, extending recognition to Cuba’s dictatorial regime harms U.S. national interests and fails to advance freedom in Cuba.

The White House “Fact Sheet” on Cuba makes clear that the Obama administration received nothing in exchange for its many and substantial concessions to Havana’s Communist regime. In essence, after five years of “negotiations,” the White House ended up where Raul Castro started: Gross would be exchanged for three Cuban spies whose activities led to the death of an American in the 1990s.

The administration’s announcement that “the president has instructed the secretary of state to immediately initiate discussions with Cuba on the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba,” also gives in to a longstanding Castro demand. Cubans will not gain freedom of expression, of association, of thought or of anything else as a result.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Obama announces the ‘most significant changes’ in Cuba policy in more than 50 years

By Katie Zezima

President Obama announced the normalization of relations with Cuba Wednesday, stating that while the decades-old policy toward Cuba was “rooted in the best of intentions,” it has had little effect.

In what Obama called the “most significant changes” in Cuba policy in more than 50 years, the president announced that the United States plans to reopen its embassy in Cuba and ease travel and trade restrictions. The changes end an “outdated approach,” Obama said.

“Neither the American nor the Cuban people are served by a rigid policy that’s rooted in events that took place before most of us were born,” Obama said.

While the policy was “rooted in the best of intentions,” Obama said, “…it has had little effect.”

Obama said he spoke with Cuban President Raul Castro yesterday, the first time the leaders of the two countries have spoken since the Cold War. Obama said he told Castro that Cuban society remains constrained due to restrictions, and said that he is under “no illusion” that barriers to freedom remain for Cuban citizens.

Read more from this story HERE.