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Congress steamrolls Obama’s veto | TheHill

September 29, 2016

Congress delivered a stinging rebuke to President Obama Wednesday.

Source: Congress steamrolls Obama’s veto | TheHill

Getty Images

By Alexander Bolton and Jordan Fabian – 09/28/16 08:47 PM EDT

Congress delivered a stinging rebuke to President Obama Wednesday as both chambers voted overwhelmingly to override his veto of a 9/11 victims’ rights bill.

It was the first time lawmakers had overturned an Obama veto, with Democrats deserting him en masse to enact the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. The measure allows victims to sue foreign sponsors of terrorism for attacks that take place on U.S. soil.

The bill is aimed squarely at Saudi Arabia’s ruling family, which is suspected of links to the hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi citizens.

Saudi Arabia denies any connection to the attacks and lobbied fiercely against the bill.

The trouncing angered White House officials, who lashed out at what they saw as a wrongheaded move by lawmakers failing to consider the impact on U.S. foreign policy and personnel abroad.“I would venture to say that this is the single most embarrassing thing that the United States Senate has done, possibly, since 1983,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Earnest was responding to a reporter who informed him that the last time the Senate voted in such lopsided fashion to override a veto was in 1983. The Senate that year reversed Ronald Reagan’s veto of a bill giving several acres of land to a group of retirees who inadvertently bought government property because of a surveying error.

Obama called the override a “mistake” and said Congress is setting a “dangerous precedent.”

“It’s an example of why sometimes you have to do what’s hard. And, frankly, I wish Congress here had done what’s hard,” Obama said at a CNN town hall.

In the Senate, Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), who is retiring at the end of the year, was the only member to vote to sustain Obama’s veto. The vote was 97–1. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Hillary Clinton’s running mate, who stated his support for the override, missed the vote.

Not a single Democrat came to the Senate floor before the vote to argue for Obama’s position.

The House voted to override 348–77, clearing the two-thirds threshold required by the Constitution. Eighteen Republicans and 59 Democrats voted to sustain Obama’s action; Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.) was the only member of the Democratic leadership to vote with the president.

Among the Republicans who sided with the president were five committee chairmen: Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (Utah), Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas), Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (Minn.), Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (Texas) and Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (Calif.).

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) voted “present.”

White House officials were shaking their heads over Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker’s (R-Tenn.) observation, made to several reporters Tuesday, that few senators fully understood the legislation when they agreed to pass it in May without a roll-call vote.

“As you look at it and talk to people now, people on the Judiciary Committee didn’t even realize at the time what was happening when it went to the floor,” Corker said.

Recriminations flew both ways, as lawmakers accused the White House of making a lackadaisical effort to stop the bill.

Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas), the lead GOP sponsor of the legislation, said the administration didn’t seem all that concerned about the outcome as the vote neared.

“What’s so remarkable to me is the detachment of this White House from anything to do with the legislative process,” he said.

“They were basically missing in action during this whole process.”

Corker said Wednesday he was unable to get a meeting with White House officials to discuss the legislation after reaching out to them “multiple times.”

“There’s been zero involvement from the White House, zero, and when you have a veto like this it takes involvement,” he said. “There’s nothing.”

Administration officials said they knew from the start that Obama’s veto was unlikely to survive an override vote — the politics surrounding the bill had become so charged that they overwhelmed the more abstract arguments for the importance of respecting foreign sovereign immunity.

Any talk that Obama had a chance of winning a showdown on the Senate and House floors didn’t come from the White House, one official said.

The vote was a big win for New York Sen. Charles Schumer, the bill’s lead Democratic sponsor in the Senate. He pushed the legislation for years at the behest of his home state’s constituents, who suffered the brunt of the terrorist attacks 15 years ago.

Schumer said he didn’t relish taking on his own president but said there was a pressing need to deliver a measure of justice to the victims of Sept. 11.

“This is a decision I do not take lightly, but as one of the authors of this legislation I am a firm believer in its purpose,” he said in a floor speech delivered shortly before the vote.

“Do we really want it established inflexibly in precedent that foreign actors directly responsible for financing terrorist attacks on U.S. soil are beyond the reach of justice?”

The legislation amends the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act so foreign sponsors of terrorism cannot invoke sovereign immunity to stay out of U.S. courts if sued.

Even though senators decided with near unanimity to overturn Obama’s veto, some acknowledged doubts about the bill in the aftermath.

A group of senators huddled on the floor Tuesday to discuss the possibility of moving legislation in the next several months to narrow the scope of the law, potentially limiting the legal options of U.S. plaintiffs but also giving more protection to Americans who might end up in foreign courts.

Jordain Carney, Cristina Marcos and Katie Bo Williams contributed.

Categories: Uncategorized

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NY Times opinion | Hillary Clinton’s Everywoman Moment

September 28, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s Everywoman Moment, NY Times Editorial Board, September 27, 2016

(Trump has even said that has said women don’t deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men. Dear me! Please see also, Hillary’s ‘Body-Shamed’ Beauty Queen Accused of Being Accomplice to Attempted Murder and Threatening Judge. — DM)

The direct confrontation between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton over Mr. Trump’s treatment of women didn’t come until the final moments ofMonday night’s debate. But in many ways, the entire event played out as a big-screen version of what women encounter every day.

There were plenty of aha moments for any woman who is the sole female member of her company’s management team, a female sportscaster, bartender, cop, construction worker, law partner or, yes, a beauty queen. And maybe for the sole female presidential candidate, too.

Mrs. Clinton leads Mr. Trump by double digits among women and minorities. But non-college-educated white women are one of the biggest groups of undecided voters, and her campaign has been wooing them for months, toggling between portraying her as a tough potential commander in chief and a champion of women and girls.

hilltrumpedCredit Damon Winter/The New York Times

On Monday night, those women got to see Mrs. Clinton stand up to that common hazard of working while female: the sexist blowhard, the harasser.

When Mr. Trump began by addressing Mrs. Clinton as “Secretary Clinton,” saying, “yes, is that O.K.?,” Mrs. Clinton laughed off the condescension. But she wasn’t playing along — she was awaiting her moment. After nearly 90 minutes, it came.

Lester Holt, the NBC News anchor who moderated the debate, asked what Mr. Trump meant when he had said in a rally that Mrs. Clinton doesn’t have a “presidential look.”

“She doesn’t have the look,” he said. “She doesn’t have the stamina.”

Mrs. Clinton’s response: “Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.”

When Mrs. Clinton finally got to unload what felt like the pent-up frustration of Everywoman, it was powerful. “This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers, who has said women don’t deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men,” she said. “And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman ‘Miss Piggy.’ Then he called her ‘Miss Housekeeping,’ because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name. Her name is Alicia Machado.”

Mr. Trump blustered, but didn’t deny any of it. Instead, he dug himself in deeper by saying that Rosie O’Donnell, the comedian who was the target of some of those epithets, “deserves it.”

Mr. Trump’s misogyny is unlikely to turn off his core supporters. And his bullying of Mrs. Clinton — as well as his critique of her reversal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and his remarks on the effect of globalization on jobs — may play well with white men reeling from technological change, job losses and addiction. Amid this upheaval, some have come to believe that when minorities, immigrants and women make gains, it pushes them further behind.

The debate’s clash over gender was telling for both candidates, and it may have helped establish Mrs. Clinton as a standard-bearer for more than Democrats.

Categories: Donald Trump misogynist, Hillary Clinton - "Feminist", Media and Donald Trump, Media and Hillary Clinton, NY Times
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Congress rejects Obama veto of 9/11 bill, in first override of presidency

September 28, 2016

Congress rejects Obama veto of 9/11 bill, in first override of presidency, Fox News, September 28, 2016

(House 348 to 77 for override. — DM)

Congress on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected President Obama’s veto of a bipartisan bill letting families of Sept. 11 victims sue the Saudi Arabian government, in the first successful veto override of Obama’s presidency.

Marking a significant defeat for the White House, the House ensured the bill will become law after voting 348-77 to override Wednesday afternoon. This followed a 97-1 vote hours earlier in the Senate.

Despite last-ditch warnings from the Obama administration that the legislation could hurt national security and was “badly misguided,” lawmakers dismissed the concerns.

“This bill is about respecting the voices and rights of American victims,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking on the Senate floor moments before Wednesday’s vote in that chamber, pushed back hard on Saudi government objections to the legislation.

“It’s very simple. If the Saudis were culpable, they should be held accountable. If they had nothing to do with 9/11, they have nothing to fear,” Schumer said.

Lawmakers in both chambers needed to muster a two-thirds majority to override, and did so easily. The lone “no” vote in the Senate was Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

With elections just over a month away, many lawmakers were reluctant to oppose a measure backed by 9/11 families who say they are still seeking justice 15 years after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. A group of senators pledged to find ways to improve the measure during a post-election, lame-duck session of Congress.

Despite an expectation that Congress would override, the White House made a last-ditch attempt to fight it. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Reid, Obama warned the bill could cause chaos in U.S. foreign affairs, as other countries would use the measure to justify the creation of ways to target “U.S. policies and activities that they oppose.”

“As a result, our nation and its armed forces, State Department, intelligence officials and others may find themselves subject to lawsuits in foreign courts.” Obama wrote in a letter delivered Tuesday.

But Cornyn, one of the bill’s leading proponents, dismissed Obama’s concerns as “unpersuasive.” Cornyn, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, and other supporters said the bill is narrowly tailored and applies only to acts of terrorism that occur on U.S. soil.

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, moved to the floor of the Senate in May and passed by voice vote. The bill cleared the House earlier this month, also by voice vote.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in a letter Monday to a senior member of Congress, said he’s sympathetic to the intent of the measure. But the legislation could lead to the public disclosure of American secrets and even undercut counterterrorism efforts by sowing mistrust among U.S. partners and allies, according to Carter.

With the override, the bill will now become law. During his nearly two full terms in office, Obama had never had a veto overridden by Congress.

The legislation gives victims’ families the right to sue in U.S. court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

Courts would be permitted to waive a claim of foreign sovereign immunity when an act of terrorism occurs inside U.S. borders, according to the terms of the bill. Saudi Arabia has objected vehemently to the legislation.

Obama vetoed the measure last week, telling lawmakers the bill would make the U.S. vulnerable to retaliatory litigation in foreign courts that could put U.S. troops in legal jeopardy.

But the bill’s proponents have disputed Obama’s rationale as “unconvincing and unsupportable,” saying the measure is narrowly tailored and applies only to acts of terrorism that occur on U.S. soil.

Kristen Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow and co-chair of September 11th Advocates, criticized Carter’s assessment, saying that the defense secretary had testified before Congress last week that he wasn’t an expert on the bill.

Categories: Obama and Congress, Obama and Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, Veto override
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Cartoons of the Day

September 28, 2016

H/t Hope n’ Change Cartoons

"Then I'd tell America to plead the Fifth Amendment."

“Then I’d tell America to plead the Fifth Amendment.”

 

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

ragging

 

greetings

 

H/t Town Hall Cartoons

debate

 

H/t Freedom is Just Another Word

lalala

 

redcoats

 

H/t Joop

lookalikes

Categories: Hillary Clinton, Humor, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Race riots
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National Security Professionals and Cyber Experts Call for Pentagon Intervention on Surrender of the Internet

September 28, 2016

National Security Professionals and Cyber Experts Call for Pentagon Intervention on Surrender of the Internet, Center for Security Policy, September 26, 2016

csp

Washington, D.C.: Dozens of experienced national security professionals and experts on cyber threats and warfare joined forces today to urge the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to oppose the transfer of the last vestige of U.S. control of the Internet to a non-profit organization in less than a week.

As things stand now, on 1 October, President Obama intends to transfer all responsibilities for naming and numbering domain addresses on the Internet to a non-profit organization known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Should that happen, the United States will no longer have any control over the addresses that serve to make all websites accessible and allow users to connect to the Internet. Currently, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) reviews all new addresses and authorizes them to be posted to the authoritative root server (the “A Server”) by Verisign.

In the attached letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, current and former leaders in industry, national security, homeland and cyber security express strong concerns about the likely implications of such a step and seek a one-year delay to allow full consideration of these issues:

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority function is critical to our nation’s ability to effectively defend our national assets and civilian population and ensure integrity in our cyberwarfare capabilities….DoD is reliant upon private sector critical infrastructure for its operations, and the integrity and security of the IP addresses associated with these assets are equally important to the protection of the American people.

Of…immediate concern to us…is the prospect that the United States might be transferring to future adversaries a capability that could facilitate, particularly in time of conflict, cyberwarfare against us. In the absence of NTIA’s stewardship, we would be unable to be certain about the legitimacy of all IP addresses or whether they have been, in some form or fashion, manipulated, or compromised. Given the reliance of the U.S. military and critical infrastructure on the Internet, we must not allow it to be put needlessly at risk.

The signatories, headed by storied leaders of the defense industrial sector and cyberspace, CACI International’s Executive Chairman, J.P. “Jack” London, and the former Chairman of Network Solutions, Michael A. Daniels, represent several centuries’ worth of experience in safeguarding America and its computer systems. They conclude with the bottom line: “There is, to our knowledge, no compelling reason for exposing the national security to such a risk by transferring our remaining control of the Internet in this way at this time.”

To learn more about what is at stake and the necessity of the executive branch and/or the Congress preventing this needless and avoidable disaster, contact Jody Westby, CEO of Global Cyber Risk LLC, at 202-255-2700 or westby@globalcyberrisk.com.

Here is the letter:

September 26, 2016

Hon. Ashton B. Carter
Secretary of Defense The Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301

General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr.
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff The Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301

Dear Secretary Carter and Chairman Dunford:

As individuals with extensive, first-hand experience with protecting our national security, we write to urge you to intervene in opposition to an imminent action that would, in our judgment, cause profound and irreversible damage to the United States’ vital interests.

On October 1st, the contract between the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will expire. Upon expiration, the President will allow the Government’s remaining control over the Internet to transfer to ICANN. This includes the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function and NTIA’s review of all Internet Protocol addresses and authorization for them to be placed on the authoritative root server (the A Server). In simple terms, nothing now is accessible on the Internet until it has undergone an IP address assignment and NTIA review and NTIA has authorized Verisign to post the address to the A server.

The IANA function is critical to our nation’s ability to effectively defend our national assets and civilian population and ensure integrity in our cyberwarfare capabilities. As Congress has considered this transfer of authority, it has stated that ICANN should ensure that .mil and .gov remain exclusive to DoD and that all IP addresses assigned to DoD are used exclusively by the Government. That ignores the fact that DoD is reliant upon private sector critical infrastructure for its operations, and the integrity and security of the IP addresses associated with these assets are equally important to the protection of the American people.

In the absence of U.S. Government involvement in IANA, it seems possible that, over time, foreign powers – including potentially or actually hostile ones – will be able to influence the IANA process. Even coercing the delay in approving IP addresses could impact military capabilities. From a broader view, given the well-documented ambition of these actors to restrict freedom of expression and/or entrepreneurial activity on the Internet, such a transfer of authority to ICANN could have far-reaching and undesirable consequences for untold numbers of people worldwide.

Of more immediate concern to us, however, is the prospect that the United States might be transferring to future adversaries a capability that could facilitate, particularly in time of conflict, cyberwarfare against us. In the absence of NTIA’s stewardship, we would be unable to be certain about the legitimacy of all IP addresses or whether they have been, in some form or fashion, manipulated, or compromised. Given the reliance of the U.S. military and critical infrastructure on the Internet, we must not allow it to be put needlessly at risk.

Indeed, there is, to our knowledge, no compelling reason for exposing the national security to such a risk by transferring our remaining control of the Internet in this way at this time.

In light of the looming deadline, we feel compelled to urge you to impress upon President Obama that the contract between NTIA and ICANN cannot be safely terminated at this point. At a minimum, given the irreversible character of this decision and its potential for grave and enduring harm to our national security and other vital interests, the decision should be delayed.

Sincerely,

J.P. “Jack” London
Executive Chairman CACI International, Inc.

Michael A. Daniels
Former Chairman, Network Solutions

Jody R. Westby
CEO, Global Cyber Risk LLC and
Former Chief Administrative Officer & Counsel, In-Q-Tel

Adm. James A. “Ace” Lyons, USN (Ret.) Former Commander-in-Chief
U.S. Pacific Fleet

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense (Acting)

Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, USA (Ret.)
Former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence

Hon. Pete Hoekstra
Former Chairman, House Intelligence Committee

Oliver “Buck” Revell
Associate Deputy Director (Ret.) Federal Bureau of Investigation

Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, USAF (Ret.)
Former Deputy Chief of Staff, United States Air Force

Hon. Michelle Van Cleave
Former Counter-Intelligence Executive

Rep. Brian Babin (TX-36)
Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Science Space and Technology Subcommittee

Hon. Jon Kyl
Former Senate Minority Whip

Dr. Lani Kass
Former Director, Air Force Chief of Staff’s Cyber Task Force

Hon. Charles E. Allen
Former Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis

Lt. Gen. C. E. McKnight, Jr., USA (Ret.)
Former Director, Command and Control Systems for Nuclear Forces, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Hon. John G. Grimes
Former Assistant Secretary, Networks & Information Integration and
DoD, Chief Information Officer

Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder, USAF (Ret.)
Former Commander, U.S. Air Force Network Operations

Rep. Dave Brat (VA-7)

Vice Adm. Robert R. Monroe, USN (Ret.)
Former Director, Defense Nuclear Agency

Maj. Gen. Henry Canterbury, USAF (Ret.)
Former Operations and Readiness, Air Staff Pentagon

Daniel J. Gallington
Former General Counsel Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Maj. Gen. Harold “Punch” Moulton, USAF (Ret.)
Former Director of Operations, U.S. European Command

Maj. Gen. Kenneth R. Israel, USAF (Ret.)
Former Director of Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office

Andrew McCarthy
Former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Southern District of New York

Hon. Paula A. DeSutter
Former Assistant Secretary of State and Professional Staff Member, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Rear Adm. Philip S. Anselmo, USN (Ret.)
Former Director of Command Control Communications Computers and Intelligence (C4I)

Rear Adm. Pierce J. Johnson, USN (Ret.)
Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Regional Headquarters, Lisbon (Portugal)

Lt. Gen. C. Norman Wood, USAF (Ret.)
Former Director, Intelligence Community Staff

Dan Goure
Former Director of the Office of Strategic Competitiveness in the Office of the Secretary of Defense

Thomas H. Handel
Former Executive Director, Naval Information Warfare Activity (now Navy Cyber Warfare Development Group)

Vice Adm. Edward W. Clexton, Jr., USN (Ret.)
Former Deputy Commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Commander, Carrier Strike Group, and Deputy Commander in Chief, US Naval and Marine Forces, Europe

Vice Adm. Jerry L. Unruh, USN (Ret.)
Former Commander, U.S. Third Fleet

Rear Adm. Albert A. Gallotta, Jr., USN (Ret.)
Vice Commander, Naval Electronics Systems Command

Rear Adm. H. Winsor Whiton, USN (Ret.)
Former Commander of the Naval Security Group and former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency for Plans, Policy, and Programs

Lt. Gen. Bennett L. Lewis, USA (Ret.)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Mobilization and Director, Defense Mobilization Systems Planning Activity

Lt. Gen. Tex Brown, USAF (Ret.)
Former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

Rear. Adm. Charles R. Kubic, CEC, USN (Ret.)
Former Commander, First Naval Construction Division

Rear Adm. Phillip R. Olson, USN (Ret.)
Former President of the U.S. Navy Board of Inspection and Safety

Victoria Coates
National Security Advisor to Sen. Ted Cruz

Morgan Wright
Senior Fellow, Center for Digital Government

Mike Steinmetz
President & CEO, Digital Executive LTD

Brig. Gen. Peyton Cole, USAF (Ret.)
Former Executive Secretary, U.S. Department of Defense

Capt. David E. Meadows, USN (Ret.)
Former Deputy Commander Naval Security Group

Capt. Scott W. Witt, USN (Ret.)
Former Chief, Weapons and Space, National Security Agency

Capt. Michael Sare, USN (Ret.)
Former Navy Cryptologist / Cyber Warfare Officer

Katherine C. Gorka
President, Council on Global Security

Col. R. J. Peppe, USAF (Ret.)
Former Chief, Selection Board Secretariat

Michael J. Jacobs
Former Information Assurance Director, NSA

Gwyn Whittaker
Former CEO, Mosaic, Inc.

Lynn Schnurr
Former Army Chief Information Officer and Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service

Frederick Fleitz
Senior VP, Center for Security Policy and former CIA Analyst

Daniel J. Bongino
Former Secret Service Agency, Presidential Protection Division

Col. F. E. Peck, USAF (Ret.)

Lt. Col. Jim Webster, USAF (Ret.)

Lt. Col. Floyd H. Damschen, USAF (Ret.)

Col. Raymond C. Maestrelli, DDS USAF (Ret.)

Col. Ed Leonard, USAF (Ret.)

Maj. Gen. Gary L. Harrell, USA (Ret.)

Christian Whiton
Former State Department Senior Advisor

Maj. Gen. John Miller, USAF (Ret.)

Maj. Gen. Timothy A. Peppe, USAF (Ret.)

Col. Richard W. Dillon, USA (Ret.)

Lt. Col. Ronald King, USA (Ret.)

David P. Goldman
Columnist, Asia Times and PJ Media Capt.

James H. Hardaway, USN (Ret.)

Lt. Gen. Gordon E. Fornell, USAF (Ret.)

Rear Adm. Thomas F. Brown III, USN (Ret.)

Col. Daniel Pierre, USAF (Ret.)

S.C. Robinson, Ret.
Section Manager, Y-12 National Security Complex

Richard T. Witton, Jr. (Ret.)

Col. Michael R. Cook (Ret.)

Roger Kimball Editor and author

Larry Cox
President, Western Slopes Security Services

Angie Lienert
President & CEO, IntelliGenesis LLC

Col. Willard Snell, USAF (Ret.)

David Winks
Managing Director, AcquSight, Inc.

Maj. Gen. Michael Snodgrass, USAF (Ret.)

Categories: Cyber security, Department of Defense, ICANN, Internet, National secuity, Obama and internet
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Seven Afghan military trainees have disappeared from U.S. military bases this month

September 28, 2016

Seven Afghan military trainees have disappeared from U.S. military bases this month, Jihad Watch, , September 28, 2016

afganmiloff

They may simply be seizing the opportunity not to return to Afghanistan. Or they may be jihadis. No way to tell. But to question these training programs on the grounds that they may constitute a threat to national security would have been “Islamophobic.”

“Missing Afghans Raise Terrorism Fears,” by Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon, September 27, 2016 (thanks to Cecilia):

Several Afghan nationals undergoing military training in the United States disappeared from U.S. military bases this month, according to Pentagon and Homeland Security officials.

“During the month of September, seven Afghan students were considered absent without leave (AWOL) during international military student programs,” Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Patrick L. Evans said.

Three of the Afghan military trainees fled from a Pentagon training program two weekends ago during the bombing spree in New York and New Jersey by Afghan-born bombing suspect Ahmad Rahami, raising concerns among security officials that the missing Afghan students may be linked to terrorism or plans for attacks in the United States.

The disappearance of the Afghans comes amid heightened fears of increasing Islamist terror attacks around the country. The attacks have included the New York area bombings and attempted bombings, a knife attack at a Minnesota mall by a Somali jihadist, and other regional shootings.

Two of the missing Afghans had been training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and one was training at Fort Gordon, Georgia.

An Army source said the Afghans who left the weekend of the New York area bombings appeared to be part of a coordinated effort. The three men are being probed for possible connections to Rahami. “Initial assessment is that there is not relation and the timing is coincidental,” the source said.

Evans declined to comment on whether the Pentagon has security concerns about the missing Afghans.

Sarah Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service, said authorities are pursuing the Afghans.

“ICE Homeland Security Investigations is aware of the situation, and is actively working to locate these individuals in coordination with the State Department and the Department of Defense,” she said, declining specifics because of the ongoing investigation.

However, the service, which tracks illegal aliens, was notified of the missing Afghans.

Four other Afghan military trainees fled over the Labor Day weekend, two from Fort Benning, Georgia, one from Fort Lee, Virginia, and one from an Army facility in Little Rock, Arkansas.

A defense official said two of the Afghans were accounted for and suggested the two men may have fled the United States.

It is not the first time Afghan military students have disappeared. Two maintenance airmen from the Afghan Air Force disappeared from Moody Air Force Base in Georgia in December. One was later found in Virginia….

Categories: Afgan trainees missing from US military bases, Afghanistan
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Senate votes to override Obama veto on 9/11 bill

September 28, 2016

Senate votes to override Obama veto on 9/11 bill, Fox News, September 28, 2016

(97 to 1 — DM)

senveto

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to overturn President Obama’s veto of a bill letting families of Sept. 11 victims sue the Saudi Arabian government, bringing Congress within reach of completing the first successful veto override of Obama’s presidency.

The Senate voted 97-1 to reject the veto. The measure heads next to the House, where lawmakers will need to muster a two-thirds majority, as in the Senate, to override. 

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking on the Senate floor moments before Wednesday’s vote, pushed back hard on Saudi government objections to the legislation, which has broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.

“It’s very simple. If the Saudis were culpable, they should be held accountable. If they had nothing to do with 9/11, they have nothing to fear,” Schumer said.

An override now appears all but certain and would mark a blow to the president in the final months of his term.

A group of senators pledged to find ways to improve the measure during a postelection, lame-duck session of Congress. With elections just over a month away, many lawmakers are reluctant to oppose a measure backed by 9/11 families who say they are still seeking justice 15 years after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The White House was still fighting the override attempt in the final stages.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, Obama warned the bill could cause chaos in U.S. foreign affairs, as other countries would use the measure to justify the creation of ways to target “U.S. policies and activities that they oppose.”

“As a result, our nation and its armed forces, State Department, intelligence officials and others may find themselves subject to lawsuits in foreign courts.” Obama wrote in a letter delivered Tuesday.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in a letter Monday to a senior member of Congress, said he’s sympathetic to the intent of the measure. But the legislation could lead to the public disclosure of American secrets and even undercut counterterrorism efforts by sowing mistrust among U.S. partners and allies, according to Carter.

If the House also overrides, the bill would become law. During his nearly two full terms in office, Obama has never had a veto overridden by Congress.

The legislation gives victims’ families the right to sue in U.S. court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

Courts would be permitted to waive a claim of foreign sovereign immunity when an act of terrorism occurs inside U.S. borders, according to the terms of the bill. Saudi Arabia has objected vehemently to the legislation.

Obama vetoed the measure last week, telling lawmakers the bill would make the U.S. vulnerable to retaliatory litigation in foreign courts that could put U.S. troops in legal jeopardy.

But the bill’s proponents have disputed Obama’s rationale as “unconvincing and unsupportable,” saying the measure is narrowly tailored and applies only to acts of terrorism that occur on U.S. soil.

Kristen Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow and co-chair of September 11th Advocates, criticized Carter’s assessment, saying that the defense secretary had testified before Congress last week that he wasn’t an expert on the bill.

Categories: 9/11, Obama and Saudi Arabia, U.S. Senate, Veto override
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Hillary’s ‘Body-Shamed’ Beauty Queen Accused of Being Accomplice to Attempted Murder and Threatening Judge

September 28, 2016

Hillary’s ‘Body-Shamed’ Beauty Queen Accused of Being Accomplice to Attempted Murder and Threatening Judge, PJ Media, Debra Heine, September 27, 2016

(Update and a tip of the hat to Conservative Tree House: Here’s a 1997 video of Mr. Trump and Ms. Machado discussing her weight problem. — DM)

(Here’s an interesting video in which “fat shamed” Ms. Machado admits that she was the getaway driver in the attempted murder referenced in the article.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we8OnvlWSHg

Oh well. That was long ago and she is not “perfect.” Currently, Ms. Machado is presented in some pretty raunchy porn videos. There’s more here about the lovely Ms. Machado. What a marvelous role model for Hillary’s anti-misogynist “feminist” fans.– DM)

missvenMIAMI, FL – AUGUST 20: Actress and former Miss Universe Alicia Machado campaigns for Hillary Clinton on August 20, 2016 in Miami, Florida. Credit: MPI10 / MediaPunch/IPX

The Venezuelan beauty queen Hillary Clinton mentioned during the debate with Donald Trump Tuesday night has a dark history with the law, it has emerged. While she was still living in Venezuela, Alicia Machado was accused of driving the getaway car after an attempted murder but “got off” due to lack of evidence. She also stands accused of threatening a judge.

Clinton cited Machado —  the first woman to win the Miss Universe beauty contest after Donald Trump took over the reins in 1996 — as an example of Trump’s boorish misogyny.

“One of the worst things he’s said was about a woman in a beauty contest — he loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them,” Clinton said with a smug smile while Trump grimaced in the background. “And he called this woman ‘Miss Piggy.’ Then he called her ‘Miss Housekeeping,’ because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name. Her name is Alicia Machado!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIkwxyf_dj4

What Clinton left out of this harrowing sob story is the fact that Machado had broken her contract with the Miss Universe pageant by allowing herself to gain nearly 60 pounds — ballooning from 118 to 178 pounds — since she won Miss Universe. And when the media started fat-shaming her, Trump defended her.

In January of 1997, CNN reported that “as her universe expanded, so did she, putting on nearly 60 pounds.”

“Some people when they have pressure eat too much. Like me. Like Alicia,” said Donald Trump, the executive producer of the Miss Universe Pageant.Since winning the crown, the former Miss Venezuela went from 118 pounds to — well — a number that kept growing like the size of the fish that got away.

Rumors also surfaced that she might be forced to give up her Miss Universe crown.

But Trump, as co-owner of rights to the pageant, said he would never let that happen. “We had a choice of: termination or do this,” he said. “We wanted to do this.”

The pageant’s meaning of “do this” was for Machado to get her weight down to about 130 pounds. At a recent photo op, Machado — hardly a blimp at 5-foot-7 — pedaled a stationary bicycle and jumped rope in front of a pack of photographers and reporters who could themselves use a little training.

“A lot of you folks have weight problems. I hate to tell you,” Trump told the rowdy pool of reporters.

In private, Trump admits to “fat-shaming” Machado in order to inspire her to lose the weight. As Jeff Dunetz put it: “Trump’s reaction was no different than any coach or manger faced with an athlete who let themselves go.” Arguably, this episode was not one of his finest moments — but it’s still light years better than the time Hillary gleefully defended a child rapist (since we’re bringing up stories from decades past).

Machado has complained that the humiliation she suffered because of Trump was unbearable: “After that episode, I was sick, anorexia and bulimia for five years,” she said. “Over the past 20 years, I’ve gone to a lot of psychologists to combat this.”

This brought to mind the story of Kathy Shelton, who was just 12 years old when a 41-year-old drifter brutally raped her on the side of an Arkansas road in 1975. Hillary Clinton defended the animal and got his sentence reduced from first-degree rape to “unlawful fondling of a minor.”

Shelton said she was physically beaten during the attack.’I can’t cuss, but [Taylor] was calling me the ‘b’ word, and [saying] ‘You like it, you know it’,’ said Shelton. ‘Slapping me and hitting me with his fist.’

A witness to the assault told the prosecutor that ‘he overheard Thomas Taylor having had sexual relations with the victim’.

Medical examinations ‘reflected that the victim herein had, in fact, had sexual relations consistent with the time stated by her wherein she was attacked,’ according to court filings.

Shelton said she managed to escape her attackers to a nearby house that had a light on, and later woke up in the hospital.

Shelton recounted the brutal assault that she said left her with severe internal and external injuries. She said she was knocked into a coma, and later required stitches in her genital area.

‘When I came out of the coma, I had several stitches down there. They tore me up bad,’ she said. ‘The doctors said there was a 99 percent chance I couldn’t have kids. I have been with a couple men after that, it took me a long time to grow there. But I never had any kids.’

As a result of the attack, Shelton said doctors told her it was unlikely she would ever be able to have children. She said she was devastated by the prognosis.

‘When I was younger I really wanted a kid so bad,’ said Shelton, who has never had children. ‘I love kids.’

Shelton told the Daily Beast in an emotional interview in the summer of 2014 that she was afraid of men for many years after that, and dealt with anger issues well into her adulthood.

At one point, she turned to drugs, a path that ultimately led her to prison. Now 52, she has never married or had children. She said she has been sober for several years and has achieved a level of stability, although she remains unemployed and living on disability assistance.

“Hillary Clinton took me through hell,” Shelton said.

“I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing,” Clinton, then named Hillary D. Rodham, wrote in the affidavit. “I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”Clinton also wrote that a child psychologist told her that children in early adolescence “tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences,” especially when they come from “disorganized families, such as the complainant.”

The victim vigorously denied Clinton’s accusations and said there has never been any explanation of what Clinton was referring to in that affidavit. She claims she never accused anyone of attacking her before her rape.

“I’ve never said that about anyone. I don’t know why she said that. I have never made false allegations. I know she was lying,” she said. “I definitely didn’t see older men. I don’t know why Hillary put that in there and it makes me plumb mad.”

Later on, Clinton would laugh about the case with Arkansas reporter Roy Reed, who was researching an article on the Clintons that was ultimately never published.

In the reporter’s audio recordings (uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon), Clinton “appears to acknowledge that she was aware of her client’s guilt, brags about successfully getting the only piece of physical evidence thrown out of court, and laughs about it all whimsically.”

“He took a lie detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs,” Clinton says on the recording, failing to hold back some chuckles.

This from a woman who bills herself as a leading advocate for women and children. Apparently, as far as Clinton is concerned, Trump’s “fat-shaming” was far, far worse than her blaming the child victim of a brutal rape.

But it turns out Machado — who is now an American citizen and urging other women to vote for Clinton in November  —  is perhaps not the best character witness:

beautyqueen

In February of 1998, the Associated Press reported that Machado threatened the judge handling the above investigation:

A Venezuela judge said Thursday a former Miss Universe threatened to kill him after he indicted her boyfriend for attempted murder. Venezuelan beauty queen Alicia Machado threatened “to ruin my career as a judge and … kill me,” Judge Maximiliano Fuenmayor said on national television.___

The victim’s family accused Machado of driving the getaway car, but Fuenmayor has not indicted her, citing insufficient evidence. The judge said there were no witnesses to place Machado at the scene _ or to back up her claim she was home sick at the time.

Machado could not be reached for comment Thursday. She was in the city of Maracay filming a soap opera Thursday, according to Mariela Castro of Venevision TV network. Machado’s lawyer was also unavailable for comment.

Fuenmayor said he planned to open a new case against Machado for Wednesday’s threatening phone call.

Machado told Inside Edition she’s voting for Clinton in November and she hopes her story will urge others to do the same.

Kathy Shelton — for one — will not be heeding her call.

Categories: 2016 elections, Alicia Machado, Clinton campaign, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton - "Feminist", Hillary Clinton and sexism, Trump and fat shaming
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Daddy’s Issues

September 28, 2016

Daddy’s Issues, Washington Free Beacon, , September 28, 2016

(Even if Hillarys’ top aide Huma Abedin, like the Islamic State, has “nothing to do with Islam,” the article provides insights into the thinking of those who do. — DM)

abedin

Syed Abedin, the father of top Hillary Clinton aide Huma, outlined his view of Sharia law and how the Western world has turned Muslims “hostile” during a wide-ranging video interview that shines newfound light on the reclusive thinker’s world views, according to footage exclusively obtained by theWashington Free Beacon.

Abedin, a Muslim scholar who was tied to the Saudi Arabian government until his death in 1993, has remained somewhat of a mystery as the media turns its eye to his daughter Huma, a top Clinton campaign aide who recently announced her separation from husband Anthony Weiner following his multiple sex scandals.

Syed Abedin explained his views on the Muslim world and spread of Islam during a 1971 interview titled The World of Islam, which was first broadcast on Western Michigan University television.

pic2

Abedin said that Arab states must police the upholding of Sharia, or Islamic law, and explained why the majority of Muslims view Israel and the Western world in primarily “hostile” terms.

The video provides a window into the Abedin family’s ideology, which has been marred by accusations it is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Abedin, who was then a professor in the university’s college of general studies, said that Western intervention in the Arab world has sparked a backlash among many faithful Muslims.

“The response to the West has been of two kinds,” Abedin said. “By and large the response has taken more of a hostile form.”

“The first impulse of the average Muslim in the Islamic world is that this kind of borrowing [culturally] would be somehow an alien factor into our social fabric and thereby destroying the integrity of our ethos … the integrity of our culture,” he added.

In a separate discussion on the state’s role in a person’s life, Abedin said it is necessary to police the application of Sharia law.

“The state has to take over” as Muslim countries evolve, he argued. “The state is stepping in in many countries … where the state is now overseeing that human relationships are carried on on the basis of Islam. The state also under Islam has a right to interfere in some of these rights given to the individual by the Sharia.”

humadady

“Suspicion” runs rampant in the Muslim world, Abedin said, citing it as a reason why Western governing values have not been quickly adopted in the region.

“In the contemporary Islamic world, religious leadership is of very crucial significance because any change that will be abiding, that will make any positive contribution to the development of Muslim life, must come from that source, and that is one reason why ideologies like socialism or communism that have been introduced into the Muslim world have never really taken root,” Abedin said. “They have always been considered as foreign importations. … It’s a kind of suspicion.”

Abedin also discussed the clash between modernity and the Islamic world.

“When you talk of an Islamic state … does it have to have a caliph?” he asked. “What does it mean? What is the Islamic concept of good in the present day world?”

Any cultural change, Abedin concluded, will have to be validated by the tenets of Islam.

“The main dynamics of life in the Islamic world are still supplied by Islam,” he said. “Any institution, as I said before, any concept, any idea, in order to be accepted and become a viable thing in the Islamic world has to come through … Islam.”

Abedin’s views on religion have become a central topic among those who have questioned Clinton’s choice to elevate Human Abedin into such a prominent role.

The Abedins helped create the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, a publication accused of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and of promoting a hardline Islamic ideology.

Huma Abedin served as an assistant editor of the journal for 12 years and also played a role in its offshoot, the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a think-tank established in Saudi Arabia by an accused financier of the al Qaeda terror group, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Categories: Huma Abedin, Islamic integration, Islamic scholars, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Sharia law, Syed Abedin
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Meet the Western Charlatans Justifying Jihad

September 28, 2016

Meet the Western Charlatans Justifying Jihad, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, September 28, 2016

♦ Why has the philosopher, Michel Onfray, become so popular among the French jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq? Journalist David Thomson, a specialist in jihadi movements, explained that “Onfray is translated into Arabic and shared on all pro-ISIS sites.”

♦ Onfray recognizes that we are at war. But this war, to him, was started by George W. Bush. He “forgets” that 3,000 Americans were killed on September 11, 2001. If you remind him that “ISIS kills innocent people”, Onfray will reply: “We have also killed innocent people.” It is the perfect moral equivalence between ISIS and the West. Barbarians against barbarians! With his moral relativism, Onfray opens the door to Islamist cutthroats.

♦ The French intellectual Thomas Piketty, after the massacres in Paris, pointed at “inequality” as the root of ISIS’s success. Another well-known German philosopher, Peter Sloterdijk, claimed that the September 11 attacks were attacks were just “small incidents”.

♦ Famous representatives of European culture also embraced Adolf Hitler’s dream. Their heirs now justify jihad as the ultimate punishment for Western freedoms and democracy.

 

After September 11, 2001, the cream of European intellectuals immediately started to find justifications for jihad. They evidently were fascinated by the Kalashnikov assault rifle, “the weapon of the poor”. For them, what we had seen in New York was a chimera, an illusion. The mass killings were supposedly the suicide of the capitalist democracy, and terrorism was the wrath of the unemployed, the desperate weapon of a lumpenproletariat offended by the arrogance of Western globalization.

These intellectuals have sown seeds of despair in a large Western echo-chamber. From 9/11 to the recent massacres on European soil, the murdered Westerners are portrayed as just collateral victims in a war between “the system” and the damned of the earth, who are only claiming a place at the table.

One of these intellectuals is Michel Onfray. It has been a while since we heard the expression: “Useful idiot.” The cynical expression is often attributed to Lenin, and was used to designate Western sympathizers who justified the horrors of Communism. The French magazine L’Expressused it for Onfray: “the useful idiot of Islamism“.

When his “Atheist Manifesto” was published in 2005, Onfray could never have imagined that ten years later, he would become the darling of the jihadist group, Islamic State (ISIS). Yet, on November 21, 2015, a week after the massacres in Paris, Onfray appeared in a propaganda video of the Islamic State. A few days later, Onfray, this idol of the reflexive European middle class, said that a “truce could be signed between ISIS and France“.

Onfray just gave another interview to the magazine Famille Chrétienne, where he explained that there is no moral difference between “killing innocent lives of women, children and elderly” and “state terrorism” — between ISIS and the Western war on terror.

Onfray is the most widely read French philosopher in the world and has dethroned Michel Serres, Michel Foucault and Jean-Paul Sartre. This philosopher, drunk with the Enlightenment, has written 80 books, translated into nearly 30 languages. He is not a Marxist, but a libertarian hedonist. According to Onfray, the entire Judeo-Christian heritage prevents free, loving enjoyment. Hence his insistence, ultimately, that the Western civilization is “dead.”

How did this great hedonist, the theorist of materialism and atheism, become the darling of Islamist cutthroats? Prime Minister Manuel Valls accused him of having “lost his bearings.”

When Onfray calls for a truce with the Islamic State, it is because he believes that France is responsible for what happened to itself. In his recent book Penser l’islam (“Thinking Islam“), Onfray wrote: “If we look at the historical facts and not at the emotions, the West attacked first.” France is supposedly reaping what it has sown. Of course Islamists kill and massacre, but it is not their fault, as the West, in his view, previously attacked them.

Onfray also gave the impression of finding more excuses for ISIS by speaking a French “Islamophobia.” Why has Onfray has become so popular among the French jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq? Journalist David Thomson, a specialist in jihadi movements, explained that “Onfray is translated into Arabic and shared on all pro-ISIS sites.” Talking to Jean-Jacques Bourdin in 2013, Onfray even defended the right of Islamists to apply Islamic sharia law in Mali.

1911The German philosopher Martin Heidegger (left) was one of many European intellectuals and artists who embraced Adolf Hitler’s dream. Today, French philosopher Michel Onfray (right) has become the darling of the jihadist group, Islamic State, with his view that, while Islamists kill and massacre, it is not their fault; he blames the victims, because “the West attacked first.”

Onfray recognizes that we are at war. But this war, to him, was started by George W. Bush. He “forgets” that 3,000 Americans were killed on September 11, 2001. If you remind him that “ISIS kills innocent people”, Onfray will reply: “We have also killed innocent people.” It is the perfect moral equivalence between ISIS and the West. Barbarians against barbarians! The 130 French people killed on November 13, 2015 are just puppets of the West. With his moral relativism, Onfray opens the door to Islamist cutthroats.

Onfray belongs to a long list of charlatans who abound among Europe’s intellectuals. Writing forLe Monde, the most famous living German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, claimed that “jihadism is a modern form of reaction to the living conditions characterized by uprooting.” Someone should have explained to him that all the terrorists were well integrated into the French and Belgian democracies, and living with welfare subsidies.

Another celebrity-philosopher, the Slovenian neo-Marxist guru Slavoj Zizek, argued that Islamism may seem reactionary, but “in a curious inversion religion is one of the possible places from which one can deploy critical doubts about today’s society. It has become one of the sites of resistance.” Zizek also claimed that “Islamo-Fascists” and “European anti-immigrant racists” are “the two sides of the same coin.”

The French intellectual Thomas Piketty, after the massacres in Paris, pointed at “inequality” as the root of ISIS’s success. Another well-known German philosopher, Peter Sloterdijk, claimed that the September 11 attacks were attacks were just “small incidents“.

José Saramago, a Nobel laureate for literature, claimed that flying two planes into the Twin Towers was “revenge against the humiliation”.

There were also those, like the French thinker Jean Baudrillard, who said that the attacks on the Twin Towers were actually desired by the United States. In short, Islamic terrorists did it, but we had really wanted it. Or to quote from the famous German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, the attack on the World Trade Center was “the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos.”

The peak of cynicism was reached by Dario Fo, the winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize for literature, who said after 9/11:

“The great speculators wallow in an economy that every year kills tens of millions of people with poverty — so what is 20,000 dead in New York? Regardless of who carried out the massacre [of 9-11], this violence is the legitimate daughter of the culture of violence, hunger and inhumane exploitation”.

It has happened before. Philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt, writers such as Knut Hamsun and Louis Ferdinand Céline, musicians such as Wilhelm Furtwangler and Ernst von Karajan, are just some of the most famous representatives of European culture who embraced Adolf Hitler’s dream. Their heirs now justify jihad as the ultimate punishment for the Western freedoms and democracy.

Categories: Islamist terror - justifications
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