During his speech in Miami on Friday, President Trump called on the regime in Cuba to extradite wanted terrorist Joanne Chesimard (who goes by the name Assata Shakur) to the United States.
“Return the fugitives from American justice. Including the return of the cop-killer, Joanne Chesimard,” Trump demanded of the regime in Cuba.
Chesimard is a well-known, infamous figure in the law enforcement community. But many outside of that community, especially millennials, may not be so familiar with her case.
A convicted murderer, Chesimard was a prominent member of the ruthless Black Liberation Army (BLA), a splinter group comprised of the most radical members of the Black Panthers. Shakur was the leader of a notorious New York City BLA cell that hunted down police officers for brutal assassinations.
Chesimard has become a folk hero among the fringe Left. Because of her background in far-left activism, some in movements like Black Lives Matter see her as a hero, and not the terrorist cop-killer that she really is.
The Black Liberation Army, which rose to prominence in the 1970s, was known for its ruthless methods. In one incident showcasing their carnage, three BLA militants killed two NYPD officers in the East Village. But that wasn’t the worst part. The assailants stood over the officers and continued to shoot into their bodies repeatedly.
By 1973, Shakur was the subject of a multi-state manhunt. The FBI labeled her the “revolutionary mother hen” of the cell that had carried out the murders of NYPD officers. Later that year, Shakur bolted New York City with fellow BLA members.
On her escape down the New Jersey turnpike, she was pulled over by state troopers. At that time, her accomplice, Zayd Shakur, was killed in a gunfire battle. A police officer was also killed in the incident, with help from Chesimard, who again sped away in her vehicle
But ultimately, she was captured sitting on the side of the highway after being wounded in the gun battle.
In 1977, Chesimard was charged with murder and convicted of firing the shots that killed New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster. She was also convicted of seven other felonies. She was sentenced to life in prison plus thirty years for her crimes.
She was later transferred to a lax security prison facility. The facility did not screen guests, so anyone was able to visit her. This allowed Chesimard to plot with members of the BLA to break her out. And on Nov. 2, 1979, three militants held a correctional officer hostage and proceeded to break Chesimard out of prison, with getaway cars waiting outside.
Two years later, she surfaced in Cuba. A wanted fugitive, Fidel Castro’s dictatorial regime provided Chesimard with asylum. Her path from prison to Cuba is largely unknown, and has baffled even the experts who traced every step of her case. Some speculate that she made her way to the Bahamas and was later picked up by a Cuban patrol boat. There are as many as 70 American fugitives living in Cuba under protection of the tyrannical Castro regime.
In 2013, the FBI placed Chesimard on its most wanted terrorists list, giving her the distinct honor of becoming the first woman to ever be placed on the FBI fugitive roster.
As former President Obama opened up diplomatic relations with Cuba, many had hoped that Chesimard would be on his list of priorities for extradition. This turned out not to be the case. Obama ignored the pleas of the law enforcement community and her victims families’ who sought to bring Chesimard to justice.
Many in the law enforcement community hoped that President Trump would act on behalf of their slain colleagues, and get to the bottom of Chesimard’s case. Today, they are surely thankful that the president demanded the Cuban regime extradite her back to America to face justice. (For more from the author of “Who Is the Cop-Killer Trump Said He Wants Extradited From Cuba?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Donald_Trump_August_19_2015.jpg679630Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-19 00:27:512017-06-19 00:27:51Who Is the Cop-Killer Trump Said He Wants Extradited From Cuba?
A Russian fighter jet last week intercepted a formation of 11 NATO aircraft, including U.S. bombers, as they flew within international airspace over the Baltic Sea as part of a military exercise.
This correspondent for The Daily Signal was onboard a U.S. Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling tanker, part of the formation June 9, and witnessed the intercept by the Russian Su-27 fighter jet.
“It’s a game,” Air Force Lt. Col. Kristofer Padilla, commander of 52nd Operations Group Detachment 1, tells The Daily Signal afterward. “They [the Russians] broke no rules.”
Watch the video:
On this day, NATO warplanes join for an extraordinary aerial formation, comprising two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers, one USAF B-52H bomber, two German Eurofighter Typhoon fighters, two Polish F-16 fighters, two U.S. Air Force F-16s, and a U.S. Navy P-8 surveillance aircraft.
The aerial refueling tanker, which flies in front of and above the rest of the formation, carries The Daily Signal’s correspondent and other members of the media.
The event is part of an annual NATO maritime exercise in the Baltic Sea called BALTOPS, running from June 1 to 16.
The exercise dates to 1972. But with Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, and heightened tensions across Eastern Europe between NATO and Russia, the exercise is now more than just a chance for NATO forces to practice operating together in the high-stress environment of simulated combat.
Today, BALTOPS is a signal to NATO’s eastern members that the alliance is committed to their defense. It’s also a message of deterrence to Moscow, underscoring that military aggression against a NATO member could lead to war.
The New Normal
The NATO formation comes together while it orbits on a refueling track over the Baltic Sea within international airspace. Then, unannounced, a Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter merges to intercept the NATO aircraft.
Out of the rear refueling boom operators station, with a window facing down and behind the aircraft, this correspondent observes as the Russian fighter jet, painted in light blue camouflage, approaches.
The Russian fighter moves in from the front right side, merging to intercept within a few hundred meters laterally and at the same altitude as two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers—approximately what the Air Force calls tactical formation.
The Russian warplane cuts laterally across the formation from right to left, briefly trailing a U.S. B-52 bomber. The NATO formation does not modify due to its unanticipated presence. After a few minutes, the Russian Su-27 breaks off and the formation continues as planned.
U.S. pilots and their commanders downplay the Russian intercept, underscoring that it was not provocative and that U.S. and NATO aircraft never were in danger.
In an email to The Daily Signal, a U.S. military spokesman confirms the Su-27 had its transponder switched on, so the aircraft could be identified.
“We were flying with our allies in the Baltic Sea and we were intercepted by Russian fighters as expected,” writes Lt. James Fisher, an Air Force public affairs officer who was on the KC-135 flight to observe the Russian intercept.
“It was in international airspace and has been characterized as safe and routine,” Fisher says of the intercept. “It was all handled very professionally.”
Still, the sight of a Russian fighter jet merging alongside a pair of B-1B bombers and then cutting across the tail of a B-52 bomber is extraordinary, underscoring the new normal of NATO-Russian military encounters in the region.
The Western alliance is engaged in a delicate, peacetime back and forth with Russia, in which both sides are prone to see routine military operations and exercises by the other camp as provocative acts of brinkmanship, or regional power plays.
‘We Expect Intercepts’
Russia’s air activities over the Baltic Sea have been more aggressive since 2014, the year it invaded Crimea and launched a proxy war in eastern Ukraine. Resultantly, NATO has stepped up its air policing mission in the region, doubling the number of warplanes tagged to patrol the Baltic skies from four to eight in 2014.
“In 2014 and 2015, the number of NATO Air Policing flights over the Baltic and Black Sea areas increased significantly due to increased Russian air activities,” according to the 2016 NATO Secretary General’s Annual Report.
Russian warplanes now routinely intercept NATO warplanes and ships in the Baltic Sea. U.S Air Force personnel say that as long as Russian jets abide by international norms of air safety, they are free to do what they want within international airspace.
“We expect intercepts to happen,” Fisher, the Air Force public affairs officer says. “We act as professional airmen when they do. … There are a number of intercepts that take place on a regular basis. The vast majority are conducted in a safe manner.”
Russian state media and U.S. Air Force personnel portrayed the June 9 intercept in sharply contrasting ways.
Kremlin officials and Russian state-controlled media painted the intercept as an instance of Russia’s standing up to NATO aggression.
“The fact that NATO forces are converging near Russia’s borders and carrying out military exercises supported by strategic bombers from the USA capable of carrying nuclear weapons hardly helps de-escalate tensions in Europe,” Russian Foreign Ministry official Mikhail Ulyanov said, according to Sputnik, a Russian news agency.
For their part, U.S. pilots dismiss this intercept as a normal part of flying in international airspace.
“We’re professional fighter pilots; that’s not something that would be a distraction, or would require any focus to prep. That’s kind of normal ops for us,” Lt. Col. Benjamin Freeborn, commander of the 510th Fighter Squadron, says.
The 510th is an F-16 squadron based in Aviano, Italy, which deployed here to Krzesiny Air Base, Poland, to support BALTOPS and Saber Strike, a concurrent NATO exercise in the region.
“Everything we’ve seen in the exercise so far has been safe and professional,” Freeborn says.
Assurance and Deterrence
BALTOPS is an annual multinational, maritime-focused exercise. This year, 14 countries participate. The exercise involves 4,000 shipboard personnel, 50 ships and submarines, and more than 50 aircraft.
Like other military exercises in Eastern Europe involving NATO and its partners, the simulated enemy forces confronted by NATO in BALTOPS are not specifically labeled as Russian.
The simulated enemy aircraft, called aggressors, are considered to be near-peers—a hypothetical military adversary with technology and training on par with the U.S. and its allies.
The BALTOPS aggressors are, for the most part, simulating Russian military aircraft.
“It’s not focused in any cardinal direction or against any specific adversary,” Freeborn, the F-16 squadron commander, says.
The U.S. has no permanent Air Force bases in Poland. Yet, different units rotate throughout the country in a noncontinuous cycle, and U.S. pilots are embedded within the Polish Air Force as instructors and advisers.
Detachment 1, from the 52nd Operations Group, which is commanded from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, is the first U.S. permanent operational military unit in Poland.
Beginning in 2012, the detachment supports four annual U.S. aircraft rotations into Poland, two each of F-16 fighters and C-130 Hercules planes.
Most U.S. pilots are too narrowly focused on their day-to-day mission to gauge the overall effect of their presence on how allies feel about U.S. security guarantees–or on deterring Russia.
Yet, at the back of their minds is the realization that every mission flown is not just about learning or perfecting a combat skill. Every sortie is also a diplomatic statement.
“Success for me is our unit getting to exercise our multirole airpower that we train to with our NATO partners, and hopefully that contributes to some sort of long-term stability, independence, and prosperity in the region,” Freeborn says.
Ambassadors
There is another, deeper, layer to exercises such as BALTOPS, and it involves more than just ironing out logistics or developing common tactics.
A level of human-to-human trust develops when working side by side with other countries’ militaries in the high-stress environment of simulated combat.
“It takes time to build that trust,” Staff Sgt. Marcus Mathews, an F-16 crew chief with the 510th Fighter Squadron, tells The Daily Signal. “By week two, you start to feel things out. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s not about us, it’s about the whole NATO alliance.”
“We’re ambassadors of our nation,” Mathews says.
Mathews is from Killeen, Texas. He speaks in a measured clip and says “sir” a lot when talking to this correspondent. Walking among the 510th Squadron’s F-16 fighters lined up on the Polish ramp, he is upbeat and full of pride about his job.
Much of the media attention in an exercise such as BALTOPS focuses on the aircraft and the pilots—especially with B-1B and B-52 bombers in the mix.
However, some of the most important lessons learned, and the hardest work done, happens on the steaming hot tarmac of airfield ramps such as here at Krzesiny Air Base. That’s where Mathews and other crew chiefs work day and night to keep jets flying.
Transplanting the squadron’s maintenance infrastructure from Aviano Air Base in Italy up to Poland requires maintainers like Mathews to start from scratch in many ways.
Even the simplest things–where to get fuel, where to throw out the trash–can be headaches at an unfamiliar base. Then there’s the language barrier with Polish counterparts.
Those minutiae of day-to-day operations are some of the biggest hurdles to sort out in peacetime exercises.
“No matter where we’re at, our job doesn’t change,” Mathews says. “Every time a jet goes up, there’s a life in that seat that we’re responsible for. I never forget that.”
Deploying to an unfamiliar airfield is a challenge for pilots, too.
Freeborn says that flying daily simulated combat operations out of a new base, with unfamiliar airspace and local procedures, takes pilots out of their comfort zones and better simulates the real world complications that come from rapidly deploying away from home station to respond to a crisis.
“They have to adapt their normal habit patterns to an unfamiliar setting,” Freeborn says.
Enduring Bonds
BALTOPS is a peacetime military exercise occurring above the actual location where a conflict could break out. It comprises frequent aerial run-ins with NATO’s most likely adversary, Russia.
It’s not an exercise held over a desolate desert range in Nevada, or a swath of empty terrain in Alaska. NATO forces are not simulating, in some distant place, the battlefield over which they could fight the next air war. They’re at it. And the enemy is watching their every move.
As a result, this exercise is more than a chance to rehearse combat operations. It’s also a dry run of the logistics operation necessary to move U.S. military assets to the Baltic region.
“Even the simple things are difficult,” Freeborn, the F-16 commander, says.
Another novelty of the exercise for the Air Force is the battlespace.
Air Force pilots typically spend less time training to operate in the maritime environment than their Navy counterparts. Yet, as part of NATO’s air policing responsibilities in the Baltics and the Arctic to counter the Russian threat, many Air Force missions occur over the water.
BALTOPS is a chance to hone skills supporting maritime operations, which only can be simulated at other Air Force training sites.
“In day-to-day training we don’t have access to that level of joint assets,” Freeborn says, adding:
At least for us in the 510th, that’s an absolutely unique experience for us to actually get to physically work with the naval component of our joint team.
Certainly working with the physical assets and not having to simulate something is great. Both with the Army, the Marines, the Navy … those are just usually fake voices on the radio.
Team Players
The U.S. trains to go to war with its allies.
“I’m conditioned to operate and think as a coalition,” Padilla, an F-16 pilot based in Poland with Detachment 1, says. “At a minimum, to be joint minded. And to be humble and gracious enough to know we are not the big bear in the room.”
Poland, a former Warsaw Pact member state, joined NATO in 1999. Today, the U.S. F-16 pilots hold their Polish counterparts in high regard for the rapid transition they’ve made from a post-Soviet military into a valuable NATO asset.
“It’s remarkable what they’ve done in such a short amount of time,” Padilla says. “They’re motivated.”
On the ramp here at Krzesiny Air Base, Soviet-era Russian fighter jets that the Polish Air Force operated as part of the Warsaw Pact are lined up beside a U.S.-made F-16 fighter—the Polish Air Force’s modern workhorse, which it began flying in 2006.
Every so often, on this day, U.S. and Polish F-16s roar overhead.
On the ramp beside the old Russian fighter jets, Padilla, a seasoned American fighter pilot for whom jet noise is a humdrum part of his workday routine, can’t help but look up.
“What’s the modern day Warsaw Pact?” Padilla says. “There is none. But NATO endures.” (For more from the author of “Watch as Russian Fighter Jet Intercepts US Bombers Over Baltic Sea During NATO Exercise” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/military-aircraft-568641_960_720.jpg643960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-16 23:11:452017-06-16 23:11:45Watch as Russian Fighter Jet Intercepts US Bombers Over Baltic Sea During NATO Exercise
Attorneys Jared and Elizabeth Beck of the DNC Fraud lawsuit publicly announced today via Facebook live stream that they had filed a motion to the court seeking an order of protection. Jared Beck spoke, explaining that the decision was based in part on the unusual deaths of Shawn Lucas, Beranton Whisenant, and Seth Rich, as well as threats and bizarre phone calls the plaintiffs and counsel had received.
Beck said…“After much consideration and deliberation, we have concluded that it is time to bring these concerns to the court’s attention. Today we filed a motion asking judge William Zloch to provide protection of the plaintiffs, their counsel and their families, as well as all of the witnesses in the DNC Fraud lawsuit. In support of this motion, we have cited the following events: the untimely death of our process server Shawn Lucas, the unsolved murder of DNC employee Seth Rich.”
Beck went on to say, that he believed Mr. Rich might have been a potential witness in this case. He also cited the recent untimely death of attorney Beranton Whisenant in South Florida, as well as recent bizarre and disturbing conduct including threats, that have been directed at plaintiffs, counsel and their employees.
The motion provided via the Beck’s website JamPAC included the declaration of a plaintiff in the suit, who described allegations that her laptop computer had been tampered with, possibly by an individual who had illegally entered her home.
Today’s announcement comes after the Becks had reported receiving a voice-modulated phone ominous phone call whose caller ID number matched that of former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ Aventura office. Disobedient Media reported on this event in addition to further anonymous calls made to the Beck’s pro-counsel Cullin O’brien. (Read more from “Citing Seth Rich Murder, Two Other Mysterious Deaths, Harvard and Yale Attorneys Seek Court’s Protection in DNC Fraud Lawsuit” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Taize-Silence-1.jpg6851024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-13 21:59:572017-06-18 01:52:27Citing Seth Rich Murder, Two Other Mysterious Deaths, Harvard and Yale Attorneys Plead For Court’s Protection in DNC Fraud Lawsuit
By Assemblyman Tim Donnelly. On Saturday, hundreds gathered to protest against Islam’s sharia law at the site of the December 2015 terror attack in San Bernardino, California, and elsewhere throughout the state.
Protest rallies sponsored by ACT for America — Bridgette Gabriel’s anti-jihadist group — were held nationwide.
As the Los Angeles Times noted, a diverse group of over 500 demonstrators gathered at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino to protest what they described as the spread of sharia law in the United States.
They were met by smaller groups of counter-demonstrators, many from so-called “Antifa” groups. San Bernardino Police Officers handled security without any major incidents, except a few scuffles on the Anitfa side.
The San Bernardino protest was organized by Latinos for Trump co-founders Marco Gutierrez and Denise Ruiz. (Read more from “Large Anti-Sharia Rallies at San Bernardino Terror Site, LAX” HERE)
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Anti-Sharia Protest, Counter-Demonstrations Held in Chicago Saturday
By Ash-Har Quraishi. It was supposed to be a rally against Sharia law, but those demonstrators were quickly outnumbered by counter-protestors in Chicago on Saturday afternoon.
The rally, part of a nationwide series of demonstrations organized by the conservative group ACT for America, saw some heated back and forth exchanges, but was largely a peaceful affair as the two sides each held sides and chanted slogans during their respective rallies.
“I have a fundamental human right to oppose an ideology that defines me – a non-Muslim woman- as an inhuman slave,” anti-Sharia protestor Mary Magdalene Moser said. (Read more from “Anti-Sharia Protest, Counter-Demonstrations Held in Chicago Saturday” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2017-06-11-at-10.24.51-PM.png7681366Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-11 22:30:242017-06-11 22:30:24Large Anti-Sharia Rallies at San Bernardino Terror Site, LAX
Shortly after James Comey’s public testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee ended, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin casually let out a blockbuster that nobody else had reported. Toobin told Anderson Cooper that Trump was “under criminal investigation.” Toobin provided no evidence to back up his statement.
Here’s what Toobin said:
Toobin: … he said three times you told me that I was not under investigation and that was in May. Well, here we know in June Donald Trump is under criminal investigation, and that’s a big deal, and that’s important.
The only thing that was explicitly revealed in today’s testimony is the fact that before Comey was fired, Donald Trump was not under investigation. Comey was asked multiple times about this fact; each time, he answered no.
The only other mainstream news source with Toobin’s take is Newsweek. But the author doesn’t report that definitively. What is reported is a statement made by Comey that the Newsweek author, and presumably Toobin, interpret as meaning that Trump is under investigation. Here’s what Newsweek reports Comey as saying:
“I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct,” he said in response to a question from Republican Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning. But that’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work toward, to try and understand what the intention was there and whether that’s an offense.” [Emphasis added]
That’s not Comey saying Trump is under “criminal investigation.” That statement is more like Comey saying he hopes Trump’s conversations with him will be investigated. This is a large leap by both Toobin and Newsweek.
Toobin owes it to CNN’s viewers to provide evidence to back up his assertion. CNN, and the rest of the mainstream media, has been quick to use the phrase “without evidence” when describing Trump’s statements. But CNN’s record has been less than stellar when it comes to this Comey business.
Just this week CNN said sources said Comey would testify that “he never told Trump he was not under investigation.” Which has now been proven false.
The media want the American people to trust them. Well, trust needs to be earned. Toobin, and by extension CNN, should share how he knows Trump is under investigation. (For more from the author of “Toobin: Trump Under Criminal Investigation, Provides No Evidence” please click HERE)
A deaf singer is moving on to the semifinals of America’s Got Talent after delivering a performance judge Simon Cowell calls “one of the most amazing things” he’s ever seen or heard.
Mandy Harvey told the judges on the NBC reality competition that she suffers from a connective tissue disorder and she lost her hearing when she was 18. Now 29, the St. Cloud, Florida, resident says she taught herself to sing again using muscle memory and visual tuners.
(Read more from “Deaf Singer Wows Crowd, Judges on America’s Got Talent” HERE)
I learned of filmmaker and pro-life activist Jason Jones’ new project in the usual way (for Jason): He called me from the front lines where he was already making it.
I mean “front lines” quite literally. He told me on the crackling phone call that he was five or ten miles, max, from ISIS-controlled territory in Iraq. It was just him, a few Kurdish militiamen, and a camera guy. They were driving from ruined town to town, from makeshift refugee camps to blasted shells of churches. He was talking to women, children, bishops, pastors, fathers who’d lost their families, and volunteer freedom fighters. On a shoestring and a bunch of rapidly maxing out credit cards, he was determined to capture the footage. “Who knows if all these people will still be alive next year?” he said. “If ISIS turns the tide.” He said he could smell the cordite from exploding IEDs.
Later on he would figure out how to pay for editing, post-production, and distribution, he promised. Now that he’s safely back in the States, Jason settled in to tell me much more about the project.
Stream: You’re a father of seven. What on earth moved you to go to one of the most dangerous regions on the planet to make a film?
Jones: What has driven me since age 17 was a passion to protect the vulnerable from violence. That started when I couldn’t protect my own daughter. So I swore then, for her sake, to fight with every fiber of my being to defend people like her: the abandoned, the forgotten, who would otherwise die in darkness.
The unborn are still treated as public enemy number one. But a close second are religious minorities in the Middle East, such as the Christians and the Yazidis.
Some might ask why you don’t concentrate your efforts closer to home. Focus on the homeless in America’s streets….
Jones: I do work with the homeless in U.S. cities. And I’ve spoken out against the abuses of capital punishment. But those causes get a great deal of attention from Americans already. I’ll give some liberals and a lot of Christians credit for taking those issues on.
But there are certain victims whom Americans really don’t want to look at. I feel especially called to put those victims’ stories in the public eye. We don’t really want to see the Planned Parenthood videos. That’s why you have judges perverting the law to try to ban them. News organizations falsely claiming that the videos were doctored. Prosecutors trying to put the journalists who made them in prison. Kamala Harris of California rode her persecution of David Daleiden all the way to the U.S. Senate.
What other victims don’t Americans want to see?
The victims of our own country’s failed foreign policy. You and I were among the few conservatives who opposed the Iraq war back in 2002. We saw that there was no plan for protecting religious minorities, or keeping that fragile country from collapsing into chaos. Sadly, that’s what happened. U.S. forces obeyed their orders to stand down, while jihadis ethnically cleansed almost a million Iraqi Christians right under our troops’ noses.
Then we opposed Obama’s reckless decision to pull out American forces and abandon Iraq to its fate. Sure enough, ISIS emerged to fill the vacuum, and launch its campaign of genocide, religious persecution, mass rape and sex trafficking — not to mention terrorism in countries around the world. We protested again when Obama went further than the looniest neoconservative fantasy, and encouraged the “Arab Spring,” which replaced thuggish but secular dictators with howling Islamist mobs from Cairo to Benghazi to Aleppo.
You and I were both vocal during the 2016 presidential campaign in opposing reckless calls for the U.S. to do to Syria what it had done to Iraq. The best thing about Donald Trump was his refusal to keep on pursuing the same policies and expect a different outcome. The U.S. is being much smarter on Syria as a result — helping the Kurds to liberate themselves, their own way and on their own terms.
This is a documentary. So what are you trying to document?
The real-world impact, in the lives of hundreds of thousands of helpless people, of careless rhetoric. Of utopian daydreams cooked up in comfortable corner offices in Washington, D.C., with no regard for real-world constraints. Of shallow breast-thumping and hollow promises.
With abortion, there’s a clear causal connection between our sex-drenched culture and dumpsters full of the parts of unborn American babies. Well the same is true of foreign policy. You can draw a bright, unbreakable line between Obama’s messianic promises and sloppy “idealist” policies — and Iraq’s burned-out villages, ISIS-run rape camps, and shallow graves full of victims young and old.
Exposing How Obama Cleared the Field for ISIS
Does the film tell a story?
Instead of presenting a straight history lesson, we personalize it. On my visit to Iraq I met dozens of amazing people whom I’ll remember the rest of my life. Soldiers, pastors, parents…. But two really stuck out to me: A Kurdish Muslim surgeon, and a young girl whose name I can’t use — because she was a Yazidi captured by ISIS. They processed her into their computerized database of sex slaves, and tortured her for months. She finally escaped, and now she wants to tell her story. But these two women want to do something more.
When I met them in Iraq, they told me how scandalized Iraqi victims are by the fact that Barack Obama received and still holds a Nobel Peace Prize. That’s the highest international honor that exists. Yet the man who received it yawned his way through eight long years of outrages and horrors. He spoke like a prophet of peace. But his policies made the war worse. They empowered the vilest, most violent organization on earth to take over most of two countries. And that is an outrage.
So what do your Iraqi friends want to do?
They’re campaigning to get the Nobel Committee to revoke Obama’s peace prize. Who knows if they’ll make any progress? But their plan is to collect thousands of signatures, and hundreds of testimonies, from victims of Obama’s foreign policy. Then they will take them to Oslo, and present them to the Nobel Committee, maybe even the King of Sweden — who confers the prize. Imagine (Michael Moore’s breakthrough documentary) Roger and Me, if it focused not on lost auto jobs but rape camps and genocide.
What do you hope this film will achieve?
I want to help Americans understand how dangerous Islamist terrorists really are, and what we can do to help today. I hope that the film will be a powerful document of historical memory — and a powerful tool which activists, political leaders, clergy, and others can use to awaken the consciences of millions of Americans. We will record the testimonies of the most vulnerable, abandoned people on earth, and bring them to the U.S. media, the halls of Congress, and the White House.
What can Stream readers do?
Jones: They can visit our Indiegogo page, which is how we’re crowdsourcing the film. They can give, and share it, and spread the word. We want the world to remember, for the sake of the victims today — and the people who might be victims tomorrow.
(For more from the author of “Pro-Life Filmmaker Documents Quest by Victims of ISIS to Revoke Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Barack_Obama_at_Las_Vegas_Presidential_Forum-2-1.jpg20483072Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-08 00:54:222017-06-08 00:54:22Pro-Life Filmmaker Documents Quest by Victims of ISIS to Revoke Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize
Yesterday, a Londoner by the Twitter name @markantro filmed a CNN crew telling a group of Muslim women wearing head coverings on where to stand for a photoshoot. In the tweet, he claimed CNN was “Staging the event.”
Other critics have also accused them of staging the event. CNN called the claim “nonsense.” They said, “Police let demonstrators through the cordon to show their signs. CNN along with other media simply filmed them doing so.” The CNN report can be seen below.
The Protest
The “mum’s” group holds signs with messages like “ISIS will lose” and “ISIS = Enemies of Islam.” The crew has the women huddle into a tightly packed group to fit them all into camera coverage. At one point, someone steps forward to offer assistance to one or more of the women.
Next, white police officers securing the area are seen leaving as dark-skinned officers take their place. When everything is set, CNN’s Abu Dhabi Managing Editor Becky Anderson begins filming a report. She gushes over them, describing it as “a wonderful scene” and “poignant.” She raves, “Look at all the people around me here, behind me here, sad about last night but hopeful for tomorrow.”
The Inquisitr reports, “Fox News, BBC, CNN, and The Guardian have all allegedly used either images or video footage of these same Muslims carrying the same signs in various parts of London.”
An AP photo appears to capture the same group standing somewhere else. A man from the first group with green around his neck is also in the AP photo.
Fine, cool spring day in London. Barely visible in this photo but five empty red double decker buses are parked on #LondonBridge. pic.twitter.com/3qCu271NbC
The Daily Mail‘s Katie Hopkins tweeted out more photos of the group posing in other locations. She observes that a woman wearing pink pants can be seen in multiple photos.
Same group. Multiple locations. Any more screen shots? Spot the pink trousers. Were this group for hire? #FakeNewspic.twitter.com/8O57YOeQAK
Video from the Dixon Police department shows a car running a red light at low speed, heading into oncoming traffic.
The driver was suffering a seizure. That’s when Randy Tompkins jumpedout of his pickup truck and dove through the passenger window. Tompkins stopped the car in its tracks.
(Read more from “Illinois Man Jumps Into Moving Car to Save a Stranger’s Life: See the Video” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/1024px-I-80_Eastshore_Fwy.jpg7371024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-06 23:45:142017-06-11 02:37:59Illinois Man Jumps Into Moving Car to Save a Stranger’s Life: See the Video
A year and a half ago “Full Measure” first reported on a baffling new illness responsible for nightmarish scenarios: a child wakes up and his legs don’t move. Soon, he’s paralyzed from the neck down.
Since then, the number of cases has grown. Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it still has no clue what’s causing it—and won’t say much else. One thing we know … the disease mimics one of the world’s most feared illnesses: polio. Today, we continue our investigation into the mysterious outbreak that’s left hundreds of American children suddenly frozen.
The following is Sharyl Attkisson’s “Full Measure” report on this issue.
Christopher Roberts, parent: Carter probably developed the flu-like symptoms on a Saturday morning and within 24 hours of that on Sunday morning we found him on the floor and no mobility on his right side. He was unable to move and he was faintly asking for help.
Carter Roberts was just 3 when he was hit by sudden paralysis that looked just like polio. We first caught up with father, Chris, last year at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, where Carter was hospitalized for months.
Roberts: Last night he cried for 25 minutes. Just uncontrollably. He’s in, I think, regular and constant pain. Although he is immobile, he can definitely feel everything all over his body. But then this morning we’ve had a really good day.
CDC gave the mysterious paralysis a new name: acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM. Myelitis is inflammation of the spinal cord. Doctors told Hayden Werdal of Bremerton, Washington, that he just had a sinus infection—but in 10 days he was paralyzed from the neck down. Mandy Baker was a musical honor student about to start her sophomore year of high school and went from feeling fine to being paralyzed in a single day. Her illness ran up a $3 million hospital bill and treatments not covered by insurance.
As cases piled up in fall of 2014, doctors theorized they were connected to a rare outbreak of a virus called enterovirus, or EV-D68. Unusually high numbers of kids were showing up at ERs with severe breathing problems from EV-D68. Some ended up paralyzed. Within five months, there were more than a thousand (1,153) severe cases of EV-D68 in 49 states, and at least 14 deaths. And 120 known cases of AFM paralysis in 34 states, mostly young children.
The CDC—normally quick to raise alarms and speak on TV when there’s any threat of infectious disease—wasn’t saying much at all this time. They declined our repeated interview requests and instead pointed me to this video that it provided WebMD.
Brian Rha, medical epidemiologist, CDC: Infants, children, and teenagers are more likely to become infected with enteroviruses and become ill.
The video offered little insight. I requested information under the Freedom of Information Act. It took CDC more than a year and a half to begin turning over documents. Internal emails show CDC investigated what could be triggering the AFM paralysis in some kids, including West Nile Virus, insecticides, international travel, and vaccines—particularly oral polio vaccine.
Officials say they still can’t pinpoint the origin. There was one physician in the email exchanges who treated dozens of the paralyzed children—and seemed to be looking at the bigger picture.
Dr. Benjamin Greenberg wondered if we were seeing the 21st-century version of polio … if it is “in the early stages of evolution,” he urged CDC, “we can get ahead of it.”
I recently tracked down Greenberg at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas.
Sharyl Attkisson: What’s the difference between what we’re seeing with these children and polio?
Benjamin Greenberg: Not much—which is interesting.
Greenberg filled in a lot of blanks on the mysterious afflictions … where the CDC would not.
Attkisson: Is it accurate to say this is less contagious than polio?
Greenberg: We don’t know yet. Part of what we’re lacking is the ability to go through a population, and determine who has been exposed to this virus and who hasn’t. We looked at the papers written 100 years ago describing cases of poliomyelitis in the U.S., and we talked to colleagues from around the world who are actually part of teams who treat polio cases. And to all of our surprises, basically what we were seeing was a polio-like illness but not from the polio virus.
Attkisson: Millions of people had been infected with this EV-D68, but a relatively few actually come down with the paralysis. Do we have any idea why those certain children get paralyzed?
Greenberg: We don’t know that yet, but it’s worth noting that that phenomenon, that the same virus can infect thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people with only a few individuals having catastrophic events from the virus is true for almost every virus in human biology.
At its worst, polio killed 3,000 (3,145) and paralyzed 21,000 Americans (21,269) in a single year back in 1952. In 2014, there were 120 known cases of AFM paralysis in the U.S. In 2015, there were just 21. But last year, the number surged to 138. There have been five confirmed cases so far this year.
Attkisson: Did polio have a pathology that was anything similar to what you’re seeing now?
Greenberg: So if we look at the history of polio, at least in the United States, it started with small outbreaks, and then would disappear for years, and then re-emerge.
Attkisson: Clearly, it’s not a one-time event.
Greenberg: Clearly, as we saw in this last year, we see—we had a spike in cases again. There were about 120 reported in 2014; relative to—monitoring that started in August. In 2016, what we saw is over 130, maybe over 140, cases. And so we know that this virus has the capability, if it is the cause, to come back, and to cause damage.
With CDC saying so little publicly, families struck by the horrible illness have found each other on Facebook. Erin Olivera runs a parent support group. In 2012, she says she noticed her 2-year-old son Lucian crawling oddly; soon he could barely move. In Albany, Oregon, McKenzie Anderson went from having a cold to being paralyzed from the neck down and on a ventilator in 12 days. There’s Sadie Briggs in Oklahoma City, Laura Carton of Oswego, Illinois, and Adrian Dittmar of Seaman, Ohio.
And although CDC told me it has “not received any reports of death in an AFM case…”
The family of 14-year-old Isaac Prestridge of Louisiana says the CDC confirmed to the coroner that AFM was the cause of their son’s death. He got sick last October, complaining of a “weird feeling in his knees,” and died two days later.
Attkisson: Some of these kids die?
Greenberg: “They do. It is—it is a very rare event—to have death related to acute flaccid myelitis; unfortunately, it has happened.”
Attkisson: As a medical outsider, I look and I say more kids have been hurt seriously with this than measles, Ebola, and Zika combined. But you don’t hear anything about it. There’s no emergency funding requests, CDC is not making big public pronouncements. How do you explain that?
Greenberg: So there are some scientist reasons to have priorities around Ebola, measles, and Zika that are very valid. Enterovirus D68 is a common virus with a low rate of causing—significant paralysis or conditions that lead to disability. And so the decisions have been made that, while it is a problem, while it is a concern, it may not garner the level of need that some other public health issues do.
Attkisson: Do you agree with that?
Greenberg: I wish we had the resources to do it all.
Greenberg says there’s reason to hope that AFM isn’t the beginning of another polio. So far, he says, the rate of paralysis after infection seems lower.
Greenberg: The No. 1 question we get asked is about rehabilitation and recovery. Will children get better after the event?
Attkisson: And what’s the answer?
Greenberg: They do. It’s very slow, and it takes a lot of work. When we stay aggressive and we push and we stay with a routine, we’re seeing slowly but surely improvements occur.
Today, Carter is out of the hospital and back at home in Richmond, Virginia. There’s been no improvement in his condition, but he’s considered “stable.”
Roberts: I guess long-term prognosis has varied greatly between the different patients to this point. What I’ve seen, what I’ve read and heard, there have only been two children who have recovered from this, but even then not fully because they’re still demonstrating muscular weaknesses.
Believe it or not, AFM paralysis isn’t a “reportable disease” like West Nile Virus or measles … meaning doctors aren’t required to report cases. Greenberg thinks that should change … in fact, he advocates a broadened surveillance system to track all kinds of sudden paralysis to better find answers as to what’s causing them. (For more from the author of “This Mystery Virus Is Being Compared to One of the World’s Worst Illnesses” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Cellular-virus-wallpaper.jpg8001280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-06 21:19:592017-06-11 02:29:27This Mystery Virus Is Being Compared to One of the World’s Worst Illnesses
