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Archive for May 30, 2017

Congress to Host Anti-Israel Forum, Sparking Outrage on Hill

May 30, 2017

Congress to Host Anti-Israel Forum, Sparking Outrage on Hill, Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo, May 30, 2017

The US Capitol is seen in Washington, DC, April 28, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Congress is scheduled to host an anti-Israel forum that takes aim at the Jewish state’s military, accusing it of “systematic discrimination” against those living in the “occupied Palestinian territory,” according to an invitation for the event circulating on Capitol Hill that has sparked outrage among pro-Israel lawmakers.

The event, which is sponsored by a member of Congress who has chosen to remain anonymous, will feature several anti-Israel organizations that back boycotts of the Jewish state and distribute propaganda accusing the Israeli military of human rights violations, according to an invitation to the June 8 briefing obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The event, “50 Years of Israeli Military Occupation & Life for Palestinian Children,” has riled several pro-Israel offices on the Hill and sparked a search for the anonymous lawmaker who has provided the organization space in room 122 of Capitol Hill’s Cannon House Office Building, according to conversations with multiple sources.

A number of anti-Israel groups have attempted to hold briefings on Capitol Hill in the past months, with one group of Israel-boycott backers being forced to cancel a briefing after news of the event spilled into public following a report by the Free Beacon.

That event was sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas), who only stepped forward publicly after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) learned about the forum and demanded it be cancelled.

Sources who spoke to the Free Beacon about Thursday’s event—which is being sponsored by a network of anti-Israel activists and boycott supporters tied to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and other Christian groups known for their anti-Israel activism—said that the event seeks to spread anti-Israel propaganda aimed at undermining the Jewish state.

“This event is textbook propaganda aimed to perpetuate anti-Israel falsehoods and misconceptions,” said one senior congressional source familiar with the event and its sponsors.

The member of Congress who is sponsoring the event should publicly step forward and proclaim their support, the source said.

“Any member willing to sponsor this event should do so publicly,” said the official. “Come forward and defend your decision to host this Israel-bashing forum.”

Supporters of these groups are being asked to contact their senators and congressman to “urge them to attend this important briefing to learn more about the struggles of Palestinian children,” according to the event invitation, which further urges activists to ask lawmakers “to work for an end to 50 years of military occupation.”

Groups involved in organizing the event include several advocacy organizations known for their criticism of the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF. They include the Defense for Children International-Palestine and American Friends Service Committee, which operate an affiliated advocacy group dedicated to accusing the IDF of various crimes against humanity.

These organizations have been cited by pro-Israel organizations and watchdog groups for their promotion of anti-Israel propaganda and false information about the IDF.

Speakers scheduled to attend the event include: Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestinian director for Human Rights Watch, which routinely criticizes Israel; Brad Parker, the staff attorney and international advocacy officer for Defense for Children International-Palestine, a group that backs Israel boycotts; Nadia Ben-Youssef, director of the Adalah Justice Project, which has accused Israel of “genocide”; and Yazan Meqbil, a Leonard Education Scholar and student at Goshen College.

The panelists, several of whom have been cited by experts for their vocal anti-Israel activism, are tasked with examining “how persistent human rights violations, systematic impunity, discrimination, and a hyper-militarized environment affect the lives of the Palestinian children growing up under a military occupation with no end in sight,” according to the invitation for the event.

One senior official at a D.C.-based pro-Israel organization told the Free Beacon that lawmakers are being alerted about the event and its agenda.

“It wouldn’t be surprising if whoever is backing this disgraceful event in Congress chose to stay anonymous,” said the source. “Usually lawmakers scramble to take credit for whatever they can. But on an issue like Israel, where there is overwhelming public support for a strong relationship with a critical ally, it’d be understandable if someone didn’t want to put their name on it.”

An email to the American Friends Service Committee, one of the forum’s main organizers, seeking further information about which lawmaker is sponsoring the event was not returned by press time.

Categories: Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Israel, US Congress
Tags: Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Israel, US Congress

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Jerry Boykin – Secretary Mattis: Focus on War-Fighting, Ditch the Social Engineering

May 30, 2017

Jerry Boykin – Secretary Mattis: Focus on War-Fighting, Ditch the Social Engineering, Breitbart, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, May 30, 2017

(Warning: Politically incorrect content. — DM)

The Associated Press

The head of the United States Pacific Command, Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr., testified before the House of Representatives in late April that the threat posed by North Korea has grown sufficiently to endanger the Hawaiian Islands. All around the globe, serious national security problems are coming to the fore in places like Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and the South China Sea. Yet, because of holdover personnel from the Obama administration, and damaging Obama-era policies remaining in place, our military continues flailing.

On June 30, 2016, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced that transgender service members would no longer be discharged from military service solely for being transgendered. Later, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced that as of July 1, 2017, transgender recruits would be accepted into the military. The DOD took these steps even though transgender personnel are likely to need medical, surgical, and psychological care that undermines their readiness for battle by rendering them non-deployable.

Acutely aware of the geopolitical problems we face, President Trump announced his intention to restore the strength of our military. Americans appreciated the priorities described by Secretary of Defense James Mattis during his confirmation hearing: mission readiness, command proficiency, and combat effectiveness. Unfortunately, the implementation of President Obama’s transgender policies did not consider the impact that “transitioning” personnel would have on military readiness and combat effectiveness.

The arguments used by the Obama Administration to support its transgender policy changes stemmed from a few politically correct reports produced by well-funded LGBT activist organizations. The first “study” was released in August 2013 by the pro-LGBT Williams Institute in partnership with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The next March, a private, non-governmental “Transgender Military Service Commission,” headed by Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, released a report through the pro-LGBT think tank, the Palm Center. These two private studies and the various government reports and directives that followed have not focused on how the new transgender policies will affect military readiness and war-fighting effectiveness – the core function of the armed forces. Nor were these policy changes mandated by the Congress. Rather, they were driven by bureaucratic reinterpretations of existing law. Given the magnitude of these changes, it would seem wise to halt the process and seek congressional guidance and statutory language.

In fact, just before the DOD issued the transgender policy change, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services refused to provide national coverage for gender reassignment surgery citing insufficient studies about the health outcomes of such surgeries and small sample sizes in the studies that have been conducted. However, DOD is now requiring taxpayers to foot the bill for gender reassignment surgery, with no benefit to the taxpayer or the military.

If implemented as planned, these transgender policies will require our military to assume the risks of recruiting and retaining persons who may require long-term medical treatment. Such procedures and physical changes often produce uncertain results associated with higher rates of depression and suicide. “Transitioning” service members require that the government bear the cost of hormone treatments, surgery, and post-operative care. This creates a tremendous incentive for individuals to join the military in order to receive the costly medical procedures associated with “transitioning,” since transgender individuals cannot be excluded from joining. And it’s difficult to see how any person undergoing this process would be deployable and combat-ready. What’s more, the time taken away from commanders’ combat-related duties while they take on the responsibilities of medical case workers is significant. It’s unfair to expect them to be judged on their ability to oversee medical-psychological cases like these.

We do welcome the Pentagon’s recent nullification of an October 2016 directive imposing “open-door” shower and bathroom guidelines on all DOD schools. But continuing implementation of Obama’s transgender policies ignores the strongly-felt concerns of women who do not want to be exposed to individuals of the opposite sex in facilities which offer minimal privacy. This is a particular problem when the incidence of rape in the military is so severe.

I received a letter from a known but confidential source in the naval service who asked me to inform the command structure in Washington about the damaging effects of these policies:

As part of the policy, CO’s must facilitate the requests of individuals for transgender treatment (surgery, cross-hormonal therapy, etc.)…. [O]nce the service member is considered “stable” in their preferred gender, and their “gender marker” is changed in a DoD database, they must be accommodated in the berthing and bathroom facilities of their preferred gender regardless of whether they still possess their opposite sex anatomy! (And most are expected to do so). Given the close living quarters that most military members have to share, this is particularly distressing to many of us, especially women.

These policies will ultimately undermine recruitment and retention.

Secretary Mattis must consider the many complex ramifications of these Obama-era policies that remain in effect. The DOD and the Congress need to ensure the priorities of the U.S. armed forces remain those that the Secretary has outlined: mission readiness, command proficiency, and combat effectiveness. Holdover personnel from the Obama Administration need to focus on these new priorities, and not on the last Administration’s social engineering projects that ignore military readiness.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. “Jerry” Boykin serves as Family Research Council’s executive vice president. He spent 36 years in the Army, serving his last four years as deputy undersecretary for intelligence in the Department of Defense.

Categories: Combat effectiveness, Social engineering, Transgender military personnel, U.S. Military
Tags: Combat effectiveness, Social engineering, Transgender military personnel, U.S. military

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Byron York: While other controversies rage, work on border wall moves forward

May 30, 2017

Byron York: While other controversies rage, work on border wall moves forward, Washington Examiner, May 29, 2017

(Please see also, FULL MEASURE: May 28, 2017 – Price of Power on how Congress “works.” — DM)

New revelations come almost by the minute in the Trump-Russia affair. The White House moves into full-defense mode. The Trump agenda stalls on Capitol Hill.

A reasonable observer might conclude that is all that is happening in the Trump administration. But even as those troubles fill news sites and cable TV, administration officials are quietly moving ahead on one of the president’s top campaign promises: the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Although it hasn’t received much attention relative to the president’s many problems, extensive planning for the wall is under way, officials are evaluating specific proposals, sites are being studied, and yes, there is money available to get going.

The work is being done under President Trump’s executive order of Jan. 25, which declared the administration’s policy to “secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall …” The order went on to set a high standard of effectiveness: “the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States” along the border. Finally, the order cited an existing law, the Secure Fence Act, which in 2006 called for the construction of “at least two layers of reinforced fencing” and “additional physical barriers” on up to 700 miles of the 1,954-mile border.

“The executive order calls on the authority in the Secure Fence Act for us to begin immediately,” said a senior administration official who recently provided an extensive update on the state of the wall project. In March, U.S. Customs and Border Protection sent out a request for proposals for companies to bid on the construction of prototypes — not little models to sit on someone’s desk, but full-scale sections of proposed wall designs that will be put in place on the border. So far, Border Protection has received more than 100 proposals.

“We are evaluating what started out as a solicitation to industry and request for proposals — 18 to 30 feet high, concrete, impenetrable, hard-to-scale, the correct aesthetics,” the official said. “We’ve tried to capture the intent [of the executive order] in the requests for proposals, and those proposals are being evaluated now.”

There are some important points to remember before going any further. First, there is no intention to build a wall to stretch the entire border, from San Diego, Calif., to Brownsville, Texas. In his campaign, the president made clear that the wall need not cover every mile of the border. Certainly, no expert who supports more barriers at the border believes it should, either.

And the wall does not always mean a wall. The Jan. 25 executive order defined “wall” as “a contiguous, physical wall or other similarly secure, contiguous and impassable physical barrier.” Planners say that in practice, that will certainly mean extensive areas with an actual wall. But other areas might have the type of fencing outlined in the Secure Fence Act, or some other barrier yet to be designed.

And that leads to a third point: The border barrier will not look the same at all points along the border. The terrain of the border is different — some parts are so imposing they don’t need a barrier at all — and officials plan to design walls and barriers that fit each area, rather than one long, unchanging structure.

Right now, officials are studying how many “buildable miles” will need a barrier. Whatever the precise number, it will be big. In 2015, the Department of Homeland Security told Congress that, of the 1,954 miles of border, 1,300 miles, or 66.5 percent, have no fencing or barriers at all; 299.8 miles, or 15.3 percent, have vehicle fence; and 316.6 miles, or 16.2 percent, have pedestrian fence. Only 36.3 miles, or 2 percent, have the kind of double-layer fencing required by the Secure Fence Act. (The law was passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, but neither Bush nor Congress really wanted to build the fence. So they didn’t.)

“We’ve asked the nine sectors on the Southwest border, if you have to meet the standards in the executive order and the Secure Fence Act, where is it that barriers are required to complete the task?” said the senior administration official. “We’ve then evaluated those areas where the traffic [of illegal border-crossers] is highest.” Planners are considering those factors in light of the executive order’s “prevent all entries” standard — administration officials are taking that edict very seriously — to come up with areas in which a wall would be the best solution, or where some other type of physical barrier would do the job better.

At the moment, planners believe that about 700 “buildable miles” of the border will require a wall or other barrier. That just happens to be about the same amount called for in the Secure Fence Act.

Does the government have that much land available? The answer is mostly yes. Remember, from the numbers cited above, that there are more than 650 miles along the border with something on them — vehicle fence, simple pedestrian fence, whatever. That means the government has already gone through the land acquisition and approval process required to erect a barrier. “It’s federal property now because we’ve either condemned it or purchased it,” said the official.

There’s no doubt that hundreds of miles of truly impenetrable barriers would have a huge effect on illegal border crossings. Talk to some experts who favor tougher border enforcement, and they will say that even as few as 100 well-chosen miles of barrier would make a difference.

In any event, there is a significant amount of border land that is already in government hands. “West of El Paso, a lot of the land is public,” the official noted, while “as you go further east from El Paso towards Brownsville, a lot of that land is private.” Going through the process of condemning or buying land — with all the legal and financial issues involved — will depend “on how we choose the priorities.”

Once planners decide where to build, there will then be the question of what to build. If the decision is to build a wall, then the question is: a wall of what? Planners have decided that concrete will definitely be involved, even though it hasn’t played much of a role in earlier barriers. Why concrete? “It’s an interpretation of the vision,” the senior administration official explained. By “vision,” he meant it is a way to make Trump’s oft-repeated promise of a “big, beautiful wall” a reality. Trump didn’t mean a fence.

On the other hand, using concrete presents one obvious problem. Whatever barrier is built, Border Protection agents on the U.S. side need to be able to see through it. That’s always been a requirement with earlier barriers. So now, officials are looking for creative ideas for a wall that will still allow them full sight of the Mexican side.

That touches on the most important consideration for planners. A wall isn’t just a wall. It is a system — a “smart wall,” as they call it. It involves building a barrier with the monitoring technology to allow U.S. officials to be aware of people approaching; to be able to track them at all times; to have roads to move people around; the facilities to deal with the people who are apprehended; and more. “It’s not just a barrier,” noted the official. (Last year, with the Obama administration still in office, a number of Border Protection officials traveled to Israel to study that country’s highly effective barriers; they came home big believers in a smart wall.)

At this point, it’s impossible to say what building a smart wall will cost, because officials haven’t yet decided on a plan. But how much money does the administration have to get started now? Begin with money that was already to available to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Congress gave us a re-programming for money we were planning to do other things with — mostly technology — to get us through this request for proposals and to get the prototypes underway immediately,” the senior administration official said. “That has happened already. We found $20 million to get that effort underway.”

“Then, the 2017 budget resolution gives us substantial money to continue doing real estate and environmental planning and design, and then replace some fencing,” he continued. “That’s in the neighborhood of $900 million.”

“You won’t get a lot of new fence for that,” the official conceded. “You’ll get some upgrades. But you’ll get some behind-the-scenes work underway — engineering, design, real estate acquisition, title searches, the kinds of things that have to happen to make it work.”

That is a start. Republicans on the Hill argue that they got as much money in the recent spending bill as they could for the project, given that they had to work with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown and fund the government through Sept. 30. “We weren’t going to get anything passed that said, quote-unquote, ‘wall,'” noted one GOP staffer.

The next funding hurdle will come when Congress considers spending for 2018. Most House and Senate Democrats appear determined to stop a border barrier. They say it will be expensive and ineffective, while some Republicans believe Democrats oppose the wall mainly because they fear it will work.

After the recent spending bill passed, some opponents of the wall declared the project dead. (Sample headline: Vanity Fair’s “How Trump’s Wall Failure Will Forever Doom His Presidency.”) But any victory dance right now is premature. Yes, it’s certainly possible the wall won’t be built. But it’s also possible it will be built, or that significant parts of it will be built. The work is already under way.

Categories: Border wall, Trump agenda, Trump and illegal immigration, Trump and U.S. Southern Border, U.S. Congress
Tags: Border wall, Trump agenda, Trump and illegal immigration, Trump and U.S. Southern Border, U.S. Congress

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Judicial Watch Statement Regarding Supreme Court Decision to Hear Ohio’s Clean Voter Rolls Case

May 30, 2017

Judicial Watch Statement Regarding Supreme Court Decision to Hear Ohio’s Clean Voter Rolls Case, Judicial Watch, May 30, 2017

(Please see also, Alien Invasion: Thousands of Foreigners Registered To Vote (and Voting) in Virginia. — DM)

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton issued the following statement in response to today’s announcement from the Supreme Court of the United States that it granted certiorari and agreed to hear a case related to Ohio’s efforts to maintain accurate voting rolls:

“The citizens of Ohio may yet see their right to clean and fair elections upheld. Clearly, dirty election rolls can mean dirty elections. We hope that the Supreme Court will reverse the Sixth Circuit decision and allow Ohio to more easily remove ineligible names from its voter registration lists.”

Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting Ohio’s efforts to ensure that its voter rolls are up to date. The case was on appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which held Ohio’s process is in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) (Jon Husted, Ohio Secretary of State v. Philip Randolph Institute, et al. (No. 16-980)).

Judicial Watch’s amicus brief argued that the Sixth Circuit ruling would adversely affect its settlement agreement with Ohio were it allowed to stand:

In January of 2014 the parties settled the lawsuit, agreeing to terms for Ohio to perform certain NVRA Section 8 list maintenance practices through November 2018. A key provision of this Settlement Agreement was Ohio’s agreement to perform an annual list maintenance “Supplemental Mailing” to voters who had no contact with Ohio’s election offices in two years. The Settlement Agreement required Ohio to send the Supplemental Mailing every year, whereas Ohio had previously been sending the mailing every two years. The Supplemental Mailing portion of the Settlement Agreement was so important to the parties that they subsequently negotiated an amendment solely to give Ohio greater flexibility over which month of the year to initiate the Supplemental Mailing.

Judicial Watch never would have agreed to the Settlement Agreement with Ohio and dismissed its lawsuit if it believed that the Supplemental Mailing was legally impermissible. If the Sixth Circuit’s ruling in this case is allowed to stand, this key provision of Judicial Watch’s Settlement Agreement could be voided.

Judicial Watch Attorney Robert Popper, the director of the organization’s Election Integrity Project, joined with five other former attorneys of the Civil Rights Division Attorneys of the Justice Department to file an amici curiae brief in the Husted case.

Categories: Judicial Watch, Ohio, U.S. Supreme Court, Vote fraud
Tags: Judicial Watch, Ohio, U.S. Supreme Court, Vote fraud

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Report: Turkey Eclipsing Jordan in Old City, Temple Mount

May 30, 2017

Report: Turkey Eclipsing Jordan in Old City, Temple Mount, The Jewish Press, May 30, 2017

Turkish Flag over the Temple Mount

The Jerusalem municipality’s eastern Jerusalem experts have revealed in recent days that Turkey has been competing with Jordan over influence among Arab residents as well as over control of the Temple Mount, Hashiloach—an Israeli journal for thought and policy, created by the Tikvah Fund—reported last week.

The city’s experts, David Koren and Ben Avrahami, also revealed that Turkey has begun pouring millions of dollars into NGO in eastern Jerusalem, in order to strengthen Ankara’s status among the Arab residents, at the expense of Jordan and Israel. Which explains why more and more Turkish flags are hanging in windows in the eastern part of the city.

The Arab population of Jerusalem numbers approximately 320,000, with another 50,000 residents of Judea and Samaria who are staying in the city illegally or through family reunification. Jerusalem Arabs constitute about 37% of the city’s population and about 20% of the Arab population in Israel. In fact, Jerusalem is the city with the highest Arab population density between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea (excluding Gaza). Ramallah has 280,000 residents, and Nazareth, the largest Arab city in Israel, has only 75,000.

The vast majority of Jerusalem’s Arabs are Muslim – the Christian population is estimated at between 10 and 15 thousand.

“The growing involvement of the Erdogan regime, which is now the main patron of the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide, shows that the Turkish actions in Jerusalem are part of a wider process of creating regional Turkish hegemony at the expense of other players,” wrote the Jerusalem mayor’s advisers on the eastern part of the city, noting that “the biggest loser from the increased Turkish presence is Jordan, which for many years had enjoyed the status of Custodian of the Holy Places and the protector of the residents of eastern Jerusalem. The greatest threat to the Hashemite Kingdom on the Temple Mount comes from Turkey.”

Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed Israel for “massacring the Palestinians,” calling on the Turks to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque and dubbing Israel’s control of Jerusalem “an insult.” He also attacked President Donald Trump’s plans to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, and declared that “all Muslims must defend Jerusalem.”

The experts added that in May 2015, Muslim worshipers expelled the chief Jordanian Kadi from the Temple Mount, while at the same time receiving with great honor the Turkish minister of religious affairs. “In recent years, the Turks have poured considerable sums of money into the Temple Mount for a number of activities: Koran reading groups, transporting worshipers to and from the mosque, Ramadan meals, renovations, and cleaning. As a rule, whether deliberately or not, Muslim groups on the Temple Mount are acting in favor of Turkey and to the detriment of Jordan.

“In their view, replacing the Jordanian presence with Turkish presence would be a positive and welcome step,” Koren and Avrahami wrote.

“Erdogan’s Turkey now enjoys unprecedented popularity among the residents of eastern Jerusalem,” wrote the two wrote. “Turkish flags are often seen hanging from rooftops in the eastern part of the city and even on the Temple Mount, and Turkish culture is being revived, which is reflected in Turkish language courses, Turkish music and Turkish cuisine.”

One hundred years after the last Turkish soldier was chased out of Jerusalem by the invading British Empire, “Turkey’s public support for the Palestinian cause and the Al-Aqsa conflict, and their channeling of millions of dollars into eastern Jerusalem, bear many fruits in the form of sympathy and support,” the experts concluded, adding that the Turks’ “involvement is made possible by their cooperation with Muslim Brotherhood elements in the city, who are often being used as their allies and collaborators.”

Categories: Israeli Arabs, Jerusalem, Jordan, Temple Mount, Turkey in Israel
Tags: Israeli Arabs, Jerusalem, Jordan, Temple Mount, Turkey in Israel

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Kellyanne Conway Full One-on-One Explosive Interview on Fox & Friends | Video | Fox News (5/30/2017)

May 30, 2017

Kellyanne Conway Full One-on-One Explosive Interview on Fox & Friends | Video | Fox News (5/30/2017) via YouTube, May 30, 2017

(“Explosive?” — DM)

Categories: Faked news, Kellyanne Conway, Trump administration, Trump agenda
Tags: Faked news, Kellyanne Conway, Trump administration, Trump agenda

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Alien Invasion: Thousands of Foreigners Registered To Vote (and Voting) in Virginia

May 30, 2017

Alien Invasion: Thousands of Foreigners Registered To Vote (and Voting) in Virginia, PJ Media, J. Christian Adams, May 30, 2017

In the age of Obama, politics prevented voter fraud prosecutions. Obama’s Justice Department didn’t prosecute alien registration and voting because their governing philosophy opposed it. The Justice Department ignored the information gift-wrapped by local election officials.

*****************************************

Some inside the Beltway are in a froth about foreign influence in our elections.

Yet I’ll wager they won’t say a word about real foreign influence in elections — even when actual evidence exists.

A new report released today documents that in Virginia alone, 5,556 voter registrations were cancelled because of citizenship defects. Many of those cancelled had gotten on the voter rolls despite saying on their voter registration form that they were an alien and not eligible to vote.

Voter history records also show that many thousands of ballots were cast by registrants removed for citizenship defects.

Only Americans should be electing American leaders, but that isn’t happening.

Even worse, the report documents the extensive efforts by state and local election officials to conceal the extent of noncitizen registration and voting.

These efforts include internal emails which revealed an intent to alter public records to hide the full extent of noncitizen cancellations.

The report, entitled Alien Invasion II: The Sequel to the Discovery and Cover Up of Non-Citizen Registration and Voting in Virginia, notes that the 5,556 removed for citizenship defects in Virginia are only the tip of the iceberg. These 5,556 were only caught by accident after each told a state agency of his or her alien status after previously registering to vote. Had they never provided an inconsistent answer to citizenship status, they never would have been detected.

The report released by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, of which I am president, can be accessed here.

PILF originally asked in 2016 for election records demonstrating registrants removed from the voter rolls for citizenship defects. Under federal law, all list maintenance records are subject to public inspection. You would have thought election officials would be transparent and keen to comply with federal disclosure laws.

You would be wrong: it took three separate federal lawsuits — against Alexandria City, Manassas City, and Chesterfield County — filed by PILF to finally obtain the information.

Along the way, other election officials in internal email discussions obtained by PILF contemplated altering list maintenance records to conceal the extent of cancellations for citizenship status.

For example, Arlington County General Registrar Linda Lindberg, in an email obtained by PILF, contemplated providing an altered and shorter list of registrants removed for citizenship problems. Her email stated:

This group [PILF] has and will interpret the fact that there may be voting credit on the cancelled record as “illegal aliens” registering and voting, despite the voter having subsequently affirmed his citizenship. … I am going to delete or otherwise notate these names from my report, either by deleting the rows from the Excel version or marking them on the report.

Lindberg specifically contemplated hiding the full report of non-citizen cancellations from PILF and then producing an abbreviated list that excluded anyone on the list who subsequently cast a ballot regardless of the timing of any naturalization process.

Arlington registrar Linda Lindberg

Federal law requires list maintenance records to be public, and does not entertain alteration of those records prior to release or the production of derivative records that conceal original removal data.

Some officials claim that the list of those cancelled for non-citizenship eventually affirmed citizenship or may have been citizens in the first place. Even that excuse — that the government was cancelling valid voters for citizenship defects — illustrates the mess that American voter rolls are in regarding aliens.

Without robust citizenship verification procedures at the front end, downstream failures occur in election administration. States like Virginia, which utilize no means to verify citizenship at registration, find themselves cancelling valid registrations occasionally if Lindberg’s story is to be believed.

Neither cancelling valid citizens nor registering aliens is good government.

Yet the PILF report demonstrates that hundreds of foreigners ended up on Virginia voter rolls even after telling Virginia election officials they were aliens on their voter registration form.

Consider Jiling Xiao. Xiao registered to vote during Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign for president. Indeed, the report notes that 2008 was the year with the highest rate of alien voting in Virginia. Xiao plainly marked “NO” to the question “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?”, yet was registered to vote. Such is the flimsy check used to prevent alien voting:

Jiling Xiao registration form obtained by PILF

Or take Yun Ok Bae. Bae plainly answered “NO” to the citizenship checkbox question on the federal form, but was still registered to vote — and remained on the rolls for four years:

Yun Bae registration form obtained by PILF

Juan Mones Cazon was registered to vote in Charlottesville despite marking “NO” to the citizenship question. Cazon also marked his form that he wished to serve as an election official.

Juan Mones Cazon registration form obtained by PILF

PILF obtained 700 pages of similar examples.

All can be accessed by law enforcement personnel at this link.

As day follows night, the people most obsessed with Russian influence in American elections will excuse away the behavior uncovered in the PILF report. Here are some voter fraud axioms:

— The more in a froth you are about Russia and Trump, the less you care about alien registration and voting.

— The more you believe foreigners in Russia handed Trump the White House, the less you worry about foreigners like Xio, Bae, Cazon, and thousands of others participating in our election system.

Yet the law takes a different approach. (Remember that quaint institution — the law?) The PILF report documents election felonies piled on top of felonies.

Federal law 52 U.S.C. Section 20511 makes it a felony to submit a false voter registration form. Federal law 18 U.S.C. Section 1015 makes it a crime to make a false statement to register to vote. Federal law 18 U.S.C. Section 611 makes it illegal for foreigners to cast a ballot. Virginia law also criminalizes the casting of an illegal ballot.

So you may think there should have been hundreds, or even thousands, of voter fraud prosecutions in Virginia in the last few years. Again, you’d be wrong.

And it’s not for a lack of information. Federal and state prosecutors were made aware of the problem of alien registration and voting by the Fairfax County electoral board years ago. Hans von Spakovsky, who served on that board, told me the information “disappeared into the equivalent of a cosmic black hole.” Not a single alien voter fraudster was prosecuted — even those who cast ballots.

Voter fraud deniers use this absence of prosecutions to argue that voter fraud doesn’t exist. The referrals by Fairfax election officials provide an excellent example of how the lack of prosecution is meaningless data for determining the extend of voter fraud.

The PILF report documents over 7,000 ballots were cast by those cancelled for citizenship defects.

In the age of Obama, politics prevented voter fraud prosecutions. Obama’s Justice Department didn’t prosecute alien registration and voting because their governing philosophy opposed it. The Justice Department ignored the information gift-wrapped by local election officials.

For good measure, Democrats in Virginia launched a successful campaign against von Spakovsky to get him removed from the Fairfax County electoral board. There was no question that the data the board provided was valid. The real issue is that the question was even raised.

If you ask questions and collect empirical data about voter fraud, you must be extinguished.

It explains why Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed multiple bills that would have addressed the problems found in the PILF report, including using jury recusal forms filled out by aliens to see if the same recused juror is also registered to vote.

The PILF report catalogs the bills vetoed by McAuliffe.

Ignorance and denial is the preferred approach of voter fraud deniers, with ridicule toward those who ask the questions tossed in for good measure.

In another American age, when government records revealed that crimes were committed by the hundreds or thousands, that foreigners were registering to vote, that thousands of citizenship defects were caught on the voter rolls, everyone would have cared. Democrats would have joined Republicans in seeking solutions. But these days, our political discourse is corrupted by the same lack of intellectual honesty and factual curiosity that Solzhenitsyn described to his bunkmate: they don’t care what you have to say, they don’t care about the truth. They only care about destroying you.

Let’s see what happens. Will there be any intellectual curiosity, any effort to expound on what we now know about defects in at least one state’s election administration?

Or will we hear, yet again, the tired propaganda about “voter suppression” and the “myth of voter fraud?”

Maybe, just maybe, those tasked with enforcing the law at the United States Department of Justice and county prosecutors will ignore the nonsense and click the links — where hundreds of pages of real evidence can be found.

Categories: Law enforcement, Lawlessness, Virginia, Vote fraud, Voter registration
Tags: Law enforcement, Lawlessness, Virginia, Vote fraud, Voter registration

Comments: 3 Comments

The Murder of Seth Rich – A Basic Primer for Corporate Media Hostages

May 30, 2017

The Murder of Seth Rich – A Basic Primer for Corporate Media Hostages, Canada Free Press, Doug Hagmann, May 30, 2017

(I pondered for a while before posting this, but since the “Seth Rich conspiracy theory” has more basis than the “Trump is Putin’s puppy conspiracy theory,” I decided to post it for whatever it may be worth.

Had a Trump campaign official, who had favored one of Trump’s opponents, been murdered in comparable circumstances and alleged to have had damaging information about Trump, might the media and law enforcement officials have been more interested in having a complete investigation? Judicial Watch is now looking into the Seth Rich murder. — DM)

This weekend, my neighbor asked me what I knew about the murder of Seth Rich. Instead of answering him, I asked him what he knew about it, which admittedly was not much. He only heard about it from a drive-by media report and couldn’t understand why a shooting during an “attempted robbery” almost a year ago in Washington, DC was being discussed.

It was then I realized that not everyone, even those seemingly knowledgeable about current events, understands the potential significance of this incident. It was then I decided to write this most basic report intended for those who are just learning of the murder of Seth Rich, and explain why it is of such importance.

I also hope to convey why there is such opposition to the investigation and discussion of this tragic event, and why there is such vitriol levied against anyone who is searching for answers to what many want to dismiss as a “botched robbery.”

The following is a very basic introduction of the case compiled from limited releases by official sources, my personal interviews with investigative journalists on my radio show, the Hagmann Report and my own investigation. First, here are the most basic facts.

Subject & Incident Profile

Victim: Seth Conrad Rich
Address: 2113 1st St.
Washington, DC 20001

Age: 27 DOB: 1/3/1989
Prior Address: 1222 Euclid, Washington DC 20009
Employer: Democratic National Committee (DNC)
Position: Data Analyst
Parents: Joel & Mary Rich, Farnam St, Omaha, NE (Douglas County)
Date of Crime: 10 July 2016 Time: 0419 hours
Location of crime: Southwest corner of W Street & Flagler Place NW, Washington, DC
Incident Type: GSW (Gunshot Wound(s)) – The victim was reportedly shot twice in the back with a small caliber handgun.

Metropolitan Police Public Incident Report (CCN #16113797; Issued 10 July 2016 at 0710):

“CIC reports the sound of gunshots at 2134 Flagler Pl. NW. Upon arriving to the scene, the decedent was laying in the Southwest corner of the intersection of W St. and Flagler Pl. NW. The decedent was conscious and breathing with apparent gunshot wound(s) to the back. The decedent was transported to local area hospital and was pronounced dead by attending physician at 0557 hours.”

The public incident report listed the following [capitals/punctuation in source document]:

Responding officer: Jody O’Leary (#7859) – MPD. Assisting officer: ROBERT WINGATE ROBINSON (#7634) (Body Worn Camera), Derek Tarr (#9237) (Other Officers At Scene): Shea Ellis (#9499) (Other Officers At Scene), Benjamin Velez (#6631) (Body Worn Camera), Mark Lee (#6141) (Body Worn Camera).

Motive for the shooting

The motive for the shooting, according to subsequent statements by or on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Department or the Rich family, was that the shooting was a “botched robbery” attempt. This despite that nothing was reportedly taken from the victim. The victim also reportedly sustained pre-mortem wounds to his face, hands and knees in what was described as defensive wounds.

Also according to reports, the victim was conscious upon the arrival of police, although he allegedly provided a previous address to authorities. It is unclear whether the responding officers, as is customary in a shooting, asked the victim who shot him or a description of the shooters. No BOLO alerts were sent out as a result of the initial contact with police.

The preceding information concludes the public information either provided by or admitted to by public officials. Numerous important factors and relationships have been left out by police and public officials.

Mr. Rich reportedly sustained two gunshot wounds from a small caliber handgun. One wound was alleged to be a “through and through” wound, while the other bullet reportedly struck his liver. He was transported to an unidentified hospital where he allegedly died a few hours later.

His murder might have gone as just another statistic and testament to the violence that plagues our inner cities, except for nagging questions about the activities of Seth Rich prior to his murder, combined with other oddities that involve departure from standard operating procedure by the MPD.

On March 17, 2017, GOP lobbyist Jack Burkman announced the creation of the Profile Project and announced a $105,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the Rich murder. As reported by investigative journalist Liz Crokin, Burkman is now claiming that the MPD is thwarting his efforts through non-cooperation.

While other people and groups have added to the reward that now totals well over a quarter of a million dollars, conspicuously absent is his own employer – the DNC.

In the face of accusations of departure from police department SOP and other oddities, the Rich family spokesman, Brad Bauman, has been vitriolic in his condemnation of anyone asking questions about the murder of Seth Rich.

Family spokesman Brad Bauman happens to be a Public Relations crisis manager with the Pastorum Group in Washington, D.C., a firm with progressive ties. In his role as a communications consultant, Bauman offers “strategic communications advice to Democratic candidates and labor unions,” according to his public profile page on LinkedIn.

The real problems with this case, however, have yet to be addressed.

Trouble at the DNC

In the matter of the murder of Seth Conrad Rich, the core issue exists in the growing body of evidence that strongly indicates that Mr. Rich, though his position as a data analyst at the DNC during a hotly contested primary election, might have discovered fraudulent and perhaps criminal activity that could affect the outcome of the party nomination (from Bernie Sanders to Hillary Rodham Clinton).

Subsequent reports verified that Seth Rich was an ardent supporter of then-DNC candidate Bernie Sanders. By virtue of his job description, Rich was positioned to have access to data that could prove poll tampering in favor of Clinton. Concurrently, his importance to anyone conspiring to maintain the specific narrative of foreign interference rose exponentially, if not unexpectedly, should his alleged discovery be exposed. Should such alleged tampering be made public, it would obviously have devastating consequences to those “fixing” the polls.

Accordingly, Mr. Rich might well have found himself in a very lonely and unenviable position of possessing information which, at the very least, is vital to the integrity of our election process. Specifically, this information would be most problematic for those conspiring to assure the party nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

This situation is further clouded and exacerbated by constant media allegations of “hacks” of our election process by foreign entities, specifically the Russians, which has become and continues to be the official account of the DNC and supporters of Hillary Clinton. While these alleged hacks reportedly both pre-date and postdate the murder of Seth Rich, he has nonetheless become a key subject of interest due to his position with the Democratic National Committee and the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election.

It is important to note that on June 14, 2016, about a month before Seth Rich was murdered, The Washington Post reported that “Russian hackers” obtained DNC communications, and reportedly had access to DNC computers for approximately one year before discovery and lockdown. It is also vital to note that this information did not come from the FBI or any law enforcement agency of the United States government, but from the private cyber security firm CrowdStrike, which was called in to handle the DNC breach despite the FBI offering its services which were curiously rejected.

These odd rejections were verified by former FBI Director James Comey himself during his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on January 10, 2017. Comey testified that the FBI made multiple requests, but was denied direct access to the Democratic National Committee’s email servers and other “hacked devices” as part of its probe of Russian hacking.

It was within this environment of alleged poll fixing and reports of Russian intrusion into the DNC computers that Seth Rich found himself. Having direct access to the DNC computers and perhaps finding irregularities that could impact the outcome of the primaries, it is conceivable that Seth Rich might have been long on critical information but short on trusted friends.

Anyone who has spent any time in Washington knows that trust within the beltway is a rare commodity. Consider then, the predicament of a young man from Nebraska at the moment he realizes that he possesses evidence of fraudulent and criminal activity at the highest levels of the DNC.

Seth Rich & Wikileaks

For the last decade, Wikileaks has existed and received millions of leaked documents that exposed, among many things, the machinations of the powerful and those in power. The methods used to provide information to Wikileaks have consisted of electronic transfer as well as the transfer of information through handoffs of portable storage devices.

Is it possible that Seth Rich reached out to Wikileaks to expose the possible and alleged fraud within the DNC?

According to published reports by at least two sources, the answer is yes. One source is Rod Wheeler, the DC private investigator hired by a representative of the Rich family to investigate his murder. Another is the infamous hacker Kim-Dot-Com. One might also consider Julian Assange of Wikileaks himself, although not directly, but by his offering a $25,000 reward on August 9, 2016, less than one month after Seth Rich was murdered.

Considered in totality, there appears to be sufficient circumstantial evidence to suggest that Seth Rich did, in fact, communicate with Wikileaks at some point prior to his murder. Direct evidence in the form of forensic analysis of his computer devices and cell phones, however is presently non-existent. Why? There appears to be a problem locating his electronic devices, as both the DC police and the FBI deny custody.

The Russian Conspiracy Theory

The primary component that is used to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election of Donald Trump is foreign interference of our election process, specifically by Russia. To this day, this unproven conspiracy theory is repeated ad nauseum by the corporate media without any authenticated proof from any government law enforcement agency.

The primary source of this narrative is the private cyber security firm CrowdStrike as referenced by the June 14, 2016 report in The Washington Post and picked up by other media outlets. CrowdStrike was hired and paid for by the DNC in June 2016, essentially making the Russian hacking account a paid product of the DNC.

All told, there were at least four-(4) separate hacks into the DNC computers: the Democratic Caucus “hack(s),” the Podesta email “hack(s),” the DNC “hack(s)” and the Clinton Foundation “hack(s).” Included in the above is the strange account of the Awan brothers, three highly-paid Pakistani nationals who were employed as IT specialists shared among House Democrats. Working under Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the Awan brothers are at the center of controversy in a series of thefts discovered early this year.

Also overlapping this period was the FBI investigation into the handling of classified emails by Hillary Rodham Clinton and staff. On July 5, 2016, FBI Director James Comey held a press conference at the conclusion of his investigation, where he accused Clinton of serious mishandling of classified information contained in emails and computer documents, but stopped short of recommending any referrals to the Department of Justice.

As one can see, there exist numerous problems with computer security, both party data and government equipment and information. The Seth Rich case, however, surrounds the DNC polling data that might have given the party’s nomination to Hillary Clinton rather than Bernie Sanders.

The importance of exposing the information possessed by Seth Rich is two-fold and very significant. Obviously, it would expose the false Russian hacking narrative that has been used to delegitimize the Presidency of Donald Trump, and also expose the “rigging” of the DNC nomination process.

Just the Beginning

There is more – much more – about this. There is much more information that will break this week about this case. For now, however, I am going to print this explanation for my neighbor, who is a hostage of the corporate media.

Perhaps this will help your neighbor when the murder of Seth Rich arises in conversation in the coming days. And I suspect it will.

Categories: 2016 elections and Russia, Democrat establishment, Democrat National Committee, Leaks, Media and Russian hacking, Media and Trump, Seth Rich
Tags: 2016 elections and Russia, Democrat establishment, Democrat National Committee, Leaks, Media and Russian hacking, Media and Trump, Seth Rich

Comments: 1 Comment

UK Government to Hold Pro-Terrorism Expo in London?

May 30, 2017

UK Government to Hold Pro-Terrorism Expo in London? Gatestone Institute, Denis MacEoin, May 30, 2017

(Will Formerly Great Britain soon hold a celebration in honor of the Islamic State in Manchester? Failure to do so would be Islamophobic. A concert would, of course, be appropriate. — DM)

“‘Friends of Al-Aqsa’ is one of the more extremist Islamist organizations at work in Britain today. It supports the Muslim Brotherhood-linked charity ‘Interpal’ (proscribed by the US Treasury) and advertises it on its website. It collaborates with the Khomenist Iranian-funded faux human rights organization known as the Islamic Human Rights Commission in organizing events such as Al Quds day at which public support is expressed for the Iranian proxy militia Hizbollah.” — UK Media Watch.

Under these definitions, Hamas is exposed as a terrorist organization both by its repeated use of indiscriminate killing and the contents of its two Charters from 1988 and 2017.

“There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except through jihad…” — Hamas Charters of 1988 and 2017, Articles 18 and 21.

Hamas is not the only extremist organization to which Friends of Al-Aqsa has lent its support.

Mere weeks after the terrorist attacks in Britain — on May 22 in Manchester and earlier in Westminster — there is planned in London, on July 8-9, a major event which its organizers describe as:

Palestine Expo: the biggest social, cultural and entertainment event on Palestine to ever take place in Europe. In a year of immense significance for Palestine, we are pleased to announce, Palestine Expo 2017

The “biggest ever in Europe”: heady stuff. In a major coup, the exposition will take place, not in a scruffy hall on the outskirts of the city, but in the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, near the Houses of Parliament, in the shadow of Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. The prestigious centre is owned by the UK Government and its operation is conducted by an executive agency of the Department for Communities and Local Government. It has 2,000 square metres of exhibition space, four main auditoria, seven conference rooms and many smaller rooms, and specialises in events for more than 1,000 delegates. Palexpo[1] will occupy five of its six levels.

Events listed include:

Inspirational Speakers
Interactive Zones
Knowledge village
Food Court
Live Entertainment
Academic Workshop (“will be run by a group of academics from leading UK universities”)
Student Hub
Gallery
Shopping Quarter

On the surface, it might appear that this is merely a cultural event designed to give the British public a taste of Palestinian cooking, music, art, in particular, history (starting in 1948!). A closer examination, however, reveals something less pleasant. Underneath the surface, this exposition is dedicated to a presentation of Palestinian victimhood and “resistance” (read terrorism), the same “resistance” as in Israel, and on similar false pretexts.

In Israel, the false pretext is that Jews — who have lived in Canaan and Judea for 3,000 years, as is substantiated by enough documentary and archaeological evidence to sink a supertanker — are supposedly occupying “Palestinian land”. In Europe, the false pretext is “revenge for colonialism”, which has historically existed under the Muslims, in their conquests of Iran, the Byzantine Empire, North Africa and the Middle East, northern Cyprus, Spain and most of Eastern Europe. This expansion has continued in the present day to Lebanon, northern Cyprus, Indonesia, the Philippines and is working its way through Europe, Canada and Australia. The Europeans are evidently gullible enough, it seems, to swallow all pretexts without bothering to check any facts.

The Queen Elizabeth II Centre is the venue for the upcoming “Palestine Expo 2017”, organized by the anti-Semitic pro-Hamas activist group, “Friends of Al-Aqsa”. (Image source: Jdforrester/Wikimedia Commons)

Who has organized this massive upcoming London event? One might have expected it to be the Palestinian Mission of the UK (often treated erroneously as an embassy, as it claims to represent the “State of Palestine”, which does not exist). However, although the Mission will probably be a participant in the exposition, a direct link for it cannot be found. The same is true for the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority.

The organizers of the event are, in fact, a relatively small British organization, Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), founded in 1997 by a British optician, Ismail Patel, closely involved in several Islamic organizations such as the British Muslim Initiative (BMI). The BMI is a front group for Hamas, and has been for many years “the most active organization in the U.K Muslim Brotherhood”. Patel was a spokesman for the BMI. And the BMI was the chief organizer of London’s 2008 IslamExpo, which Britain’s Minister of Communities and Local Government at the time, Hazel Blears, strongly criticized:

“It was clear that because of the views of some of the organisers, and because of the nature of some of the exhibitors, this was an event that no Minister should attend. Organisers like Anas al-Tikriti, who believes in boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day. Or speakers like Azzam Tamimi, who has sought to justify suicide bombing. Or exhibitors like the Government of Iran.”

Friends of Al-Aqsa is, itself, an anti-Semitic pro-Hamas activist group. It helped establish in London the anti-Israel al-Quds Day events, in which extremists march to support the terror group Hizbullah and the theocratic Iranian regime that calls for England, Israel and America to be wiped from the pages of time.

Patel himself is an outspoken upholder of these values. In 2009, he addressed a Stop the Gaza Massacre demonstration in support of Hamas:

“Hamas is no terrorist organization. The reason they hate Hamas is because they refuse to be subjugated, occupied by the Israeli state, and we salute Hamas for standing up to Israel […] to the state of Israel: you no longer represent the Jewish people.”

Hamas has, in fact, been condemned as a terrorist group by the US, the UK, the EU countries, Egypt, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Terrorism itself has been difficult to define legally, mostly because the countries that use it do not wish to define it; nevertheless, several countries have matching definitions. The British 2006 Terrorism Act provides a basic list of activities that constitute terrorism:

(1) In this Act “terrorism” means the use or threat of action where-

(a) the action falls within subsection (2),

(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and

(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

(2) Action falls within this subsection if it-

(a) involves serious violence against a person,

(b) involves serious damage to property,

(c) endangers a person’s life, other than that of the person committing the action,

(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or

(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

Section 1(3) to (5) goes on to expand on the effect and extent of this definition.

The Canadian Department of Justice definition reads in similar terms. Another definition also attributed to Canada reads:

“A terrorist is a man who murders indiscriminately, distinguishing neither between civilian and innocent and guilty nor soldier and civilian.”

Under these definitions, Hamas is exposed as a terrorist organization both by its repeated use of indiscriminate killing and the contents of its two Charters from 1988: (“la hall li’l-qadiyya al-Filastiniyya illa bi’l-jihad — There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except through jihad.” Article 13) and 2017:

“Hamas confirms that no peace in Palestine should be agreed on, based on injustice to the Palestinians or their land. Any arrangements based on that will not lead to peace, and the resistance and Jihad will remain as a legal right, a project and an honor for all our nation’s people.” — Article 21. (Emphasis added.)

Hamas is not the only extremist organization to which Friends of Al-Aqsa has lent its support. The outlawed Northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, which has close Hamas affiliations, is led by Shaykh Raed Salah. Salah has aided organizations that fund Hamas, and claims that Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks (and that 4,000 Jews stayed away from work at the World Trade Center that day). Salah has also called Osama Bin Laden a martyr, and has said that honor killings of young women are acceptable.

According to Tamar Pileggi:

“In late 2015, Israel banned the radical Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, accusing it of maintaining links to terror groups and of stoking a wave of violence that saw dozens of deaths in a spate of stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks.”

Before that, in 2011, FOA along with other extremist groups brought Salah to the UK, despite a travel ban. When Salah was arrested and to be deported, Patel spoke out in support for him. But Salah had well before that delivered bloodcurdling sermons calling on Palestinians to become martyrs while attacking Israeli soldiers.

According to UK Media Watch:

“Friends of Al Aqsa” is one of the more extremist (sic) Islamist organizations at work in Britain today. It supports the Muslim Brotherhood-linked charity “Interpal” (proscribed by the US Treasury) and advertises it on its website. It collaborates with the Khomenist Iranian-funded faux human rights organization known as the Islamic Human Rights Commission in organizing events such as Al Quds day at which public support is expressed for the Iranian proxy militia Hizbollah.

For the Jewish community of the UK, Friends of Al-Aqsa and Patel represent a real threat. The group has published anti-Semitic authors. One, the journalist Khalid Amayreh, claimed that Jews control America, and that the Iraq war “was conceived in and planned by Israel through the mostly Jewish neocons in Washington”. Another was the Jewish British self-declared Holocaust denier Paul Eisen, who runs the anti-Israel organization Deir Yassin Remembered. Friends of Al-Aqsa has also published material by Gilad Atzmon, who has accused the Jews of Germany of waging war against Hitler and has said of the Holocaust:

“The Holocaust became the new Western religion. Unfortunately, it [the Holocaust] is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, no nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse. It made vengeance and revenge into a Western value.”

Of the speakers listed for Palexpo, several are well-known for their pro-Hamas, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views. Ilan Pappé of Exeter University is a highly radical and much-criticized historian who has called for the elimination of Israel and its replacement by a single Arab state.

John Pilger is an Australian journalist and film-maker, one of whose documentaries has been described as “a veritable encyclopedia of every anti-Israel canard in existence today”. He has suggested that terrorist group Hezbollah represented “humanity at its noblest”; approvingly cited the arguments of the above-mentioned anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Gilad Atzmon; has suggested that “influential” Jews around the world are culpable in “Israeli crimes” and has likened Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews. According to Pilger , “the Zionist state remains the cause of more regional grievance and sheer terror than all the Muslim states combined.”

Pilger has also asserted that “killing children seems like sport for the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]”. His distortions are breathtaking. He has defended Hamas strenuously. Here, for example, he accuses his most hated countries, American and Israel, of distorting the truth:

“The majority [of Gazans] voted for the ‘wrong’ party, Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel, with their inimitable penchant for pot-calling-the-kettle-black, describe as terrorist.”

He added the astonishing comment that, “Indeed, the vote for Hamas was actually a vote for peace” — about an organization whose Charter declares that, as mentioned, “The only solution to the Palestinian question is through jihad”.

Ben White is one of the UK’s most extreme anti-Israel speakers and writers. In his eyes, Israel can do no right; the Palestinians, including Hamas, no wrong. He “writes extensively about what he terms ‘Palestine/Israel’ to the point of near obsession and was a regular contributor to [the Guardian’s] ‘Comment is Free’ and the virulently anti-Israel ‘Electronic Intifada'”. Here is a list of quotations from his writings. He is a supporter of the anti-Jewish one-state solution and an ardent promoter of the fiction that Israel is an “apartheid state”. He regularly downplays Hamas and Palestinian terrorism, and instead places all blame for violence on Israel.

Among other speakers with reputations for extremist views are Miko Peled, who regards the Israeli army as terrorists (despite international recognition of it as “the most moral army in the world”). His anti-Semitism became clear when, commenting on a US-Israel aid deal, he said:

“Then theyr [sic] surprised Jews have reputation 4being sleazy thieves. #apartheidisrael doesn’t need or deserve these $$.”

Peled has compared Israel to Nazi Germany and called for a Palestinian state to replace Israel.

Tariq Ramadan is a famous Egyptian-Swiss Muslim scholar, philosopher and writer closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood (he is the grandson of the Brotherhood’s founder, Hasan al-Banna’). He is famous for duplicity and use of doublespeak.[2] He has donated money to the terrorist group Hamas, which is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and he has been denied a visa to the United States for his links to Hamas. He “was barred under a section of the Patriot Act, which bars entry to foreigners who have used a ‘position of prominence … to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.'” He “has often been accused of being an Islamist, anti-Semitic, and sexist. He has drawn severe criticism from numerous Western public figures, ranging from scholars and journalists to political, religious, and community leaders”.

The other speakers listed fall into similar categories as supporters of trying to destroy Israel through economic means, Palestinian “resistance” to Israel, and anti-Semitism.

Currently, Friends of Al-Aqsa and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign are planning to sue Jewish Human Rights Watch (JHRW) for libel, forcing the rights group to instruct lawyers to act in their defence. From the evidence presented here, JHRW could scarcely have a better case. Its appeal to the management of the Queen Elizabeth II Centre for the cancellation of a terror-linked event is entirely in line with British concerns about radical and terrorist ideologies, anti-Semitism, and international terrorism. Friends of Al-Aqsa, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, their supporters, and the various organizations to which they are linked, have never changed their beliefs regarding Israel, the Jewish people, or the West.

Dr Denis MacEoin PhD (Cambridge 1979) is a scholar of Islam and Persia, a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies and currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

[1] Not to be confused with Geneva’s Palexpo: Palais des Expositions et des Congrès

[2] See Caroline Fourest, Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, New York, London, 2008 and Paul Berman Flight of the Intellectuals, NY and London, 2011, Chapter One. See also Christopher Hitchens here.

Categories: Britain and Islamic terrorism, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Palestinians, Hamas, Islamisation of Britain, Islamists in Britain, Israel, Israel's enemies
Tags: Britain and Islamic terrorism, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Palestinians, Hamas, Islamisation of Britain, Islamists in Britain, Israel, Israel's enemies

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Kushner Added to Russian Conspiracy Theory

May 30, 2017

Kushner Added to Russian Conspiracy Theory, Front Page Magazine, Matthew Vadum, May 30, 2017

News consumers are now suffering through the practiced, hyperbolic, omnipresent outrage that follows revelations that presidential adviser Jared Kushner allegedly tried to create what the New York Times is calling “a secret channel between his father-in-law’s transition team and Moscow to discuss the war in Syria and other issues.”

According to the leaders of the ongoing witch hunt against the Trump administration, Kushner even had the temerity during the presidential transition process to exchange words with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

This supposedly important news about Kushner put the White House in panic mode, we are told by our betters in the media, forcing Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus to return prematurely from a presidential trip overseas to control the public relations damage.

The fateful conversation took place on Trump’s home turf, according to the Old Gray Lady:

The discussion took place at Trump Tower at a meeting that also included Michael T. Flynn, who served briefly as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser until being forced out when it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and others about a separate telephone conversation he had with Mr. Kislyak. It was unclear who first proposed the secret communications channel, but the idea was for Mr. Flynn to speak directly with a Russian military official. The channel was never set up.

And that’s all of it. There was a meeting. No deals came out of this Russian round table. No evidence exists of nefarious activities. No quid pro quo. Nothing. It is yet another nothing burger in a long series of nothing burgers.

A late-breaking Fox News story Monday night absolves Kushner of responsibility for the back channel proposal, indicating the idea came from the Russians.

The December meeting between Kushner and Kislyak “focused on Syria,” an unidentified source said.

During the meeting the Russians broached the idea of using a secure line between the Trump administration and Russia, not Kushner, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News. […] The idea of a permanent back channel was never discussed, according to the source. Instead, only a one-off for a call about Syria was raised in the conversation. In addition, the source told Fox News the December meeting focused on Russia’s contention that the Obama administration’s policy on Syria was deeply flawed.

NBC reports that Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter and fellow presidential adviser Ivanka, is reportedly being investigated by the FBI as part of the fanciful, politicized probe into supposed collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

The Fox account continues:

Kushner suggested the use of Russian diplomatic facilities as a way to shield pre-inauguration discussions with Kislyak from monitoring, according to The [Washington] Post.

Kislyak allegedly then relayed the suggestion to his superiors in Moscow. That was based on intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials, although neither the meeting nor the communications of the Americans involved were under U.S. surveillance, officials told the Post.

The source has told Fox News that Kushner is eager to tell Congress about the meeting and any others of interest.

While the investigation moves forward and the manufactured mass hysteria continues to build in Congress and the media, Americans need to be reminded that merely communicating with an unfriendly foreign power in peacetime is not an inherently seditious or even suspicious behavior. It’s the content of the discussions that matters, not the mere fact that Americans and foreign officials broke bread.

Russian envoys and other pro-Russia special pleaders routinely meet with American officials, including lawmakers on Capitol Hill and administration officials regardless of which party controls the White House.

Never mind that the virtue-signaling Barack Obama routinely reached out to hostile foreign governments –swapping five Taliban generals for a single American traitor, to provide just one notorious example of the fruit of Obama’s plotting– when he was president. Obama even wore such illicit cloak-and-dagger communications with head-cutting barbarians as a badge of honor. Democrats and their Deep State allies didn’t give a farthing’s cuss at the time.

But that was when Democrats controlled the apparatus of the American state. Now that a Republican is president the rules have been changed.

Sunday on “Meet the Press,” the Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel tried to inject some sanity into the debate, saying the current discussion is “astonishing” and “absolutely divorced from reality.”

“Let me set the scene for you,” she explained.

It’s 2008, we are having an election and candidate Obama, he’s not even president elect, sends William Miller over to Iran to establish a back channel, and let the Iranians know should he win the election they will have friendlier terms. Okay? So this is a private citizen going to foreign soil, obviously in order to evade U.S. intelligence monitoring and establishing a back channel with a sworn enemy of the United States who was actively disrupting our efforts in the military in the Middle East.

So, is that bad judgment? Is that a bad thing that happened? Back channels are completely normal, they happen all the time. Reagan did them. Obama did them. Everyone did. So, I am not quite sure why, supposedly having at least the president [who] is now elected setting up a back channel with the Russians, it is somehow out of bounds.

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster had previously said much the same thing.

We have back channel communications with any number of countries, so, generally speaking, about back channel communications, what that allows you to do is to communicate in a discreet manner. It doesn’t predispose you to any kind of content in that conversation.

Strassel and McMaster are right, of course.

And it was President Obama himself who openly encouraged keeping in touch with governments not aligned with the United States.

Recall the answer then-Sen. Obama gave to a question during a July 23, 2007, debate. He was asked if he would be “willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?”

Obama famously replied in the affirmative. “I would, and the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.”

He added that “Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire.”

And no one colluded with Russia more than Obama when he became president.

Obama worked “behind the scenes for months to forge a new working relationship with Russia, despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown little interest in repairing relations with Washington or halting his aggression in neighboring Ukraine,” Bloomberg News reported in 2014.

Obama advanced Russia’s interests in so many ways.

In 2009 Obama killed President Bush’s missile defense program for the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Then he renegotiated the New START nuclear arms agreement, which curbed the U.S. missile defense arsenal while letting the Russians add to theirs. In March 2012 Obama was caught on an open microphone telling then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to wait until after the upcoming election when he would be able to make even more concessions on missile defense. As Russia engaged in what one expert called the largest military buildup since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Obama flipped off Mitt Romney during a presidential debate. After Romney on the campaign trail referred to Russia as “without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe,” Obama mocked him, saying “the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.” And Obama did virtually nothing but talk when Putin invaded Ukraine.

Obama was the most pro-Russian U.S. president of all time, which makes the Left’s conspiracy theory about Trump’s collusion with Russia seem especially far-fetched.

The claim that “Russia ‘hacked’ the American election –to the extent that it changed the outcome– never made any sense,” observes Michael Walsh, who previously described the outlandish theory as the driving force behind a “rolling coup attempt” by the Left.

This “fever dream” was “cooked up by Sore Loser Hillary and her malignant consigliere, John Podesta … [and] began its demonic life as a way to explain Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton’s astonishment and anger at losing an election all her media buddies told her was in the bag, and for which she felt sure the fix was in.”

Those of us who habitually smell rats knew right off that there was nothing to it. But from that night forward, the Clintons, the Leftist media and the Democrats have been pounding the notion that, somehow, the Russians affected the election and that Trump is corrupt, morally unfit, an imbecile and an embarrassment to America. Take a good look at their reaction, ladies and gentlemen, for not since Linda Blair rotated 360 and spewed puke on a priest have we seen such deracinated contempt.

Democrats have much to fear from the congressional investigation into the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, he adds.

Before last November Democrats “never met a communist they didn’t like or a Russian they didn’t want to embrace.” They have “overplayed their hand” and in so doing have placed themselves in jeopardy.

“They’re so fully invested in this fairy tale that when it blows up in their faces, and another underlying reason for its concoction becomes clear, years of lamentation and wandering in the electoral wilderness should follow.”

This, of course, assumes Republicans will stand up for President Trump.

It is a risky assumption.

Categories: Democrats and Russia, Democrats and Trump, Great Trump - Russia conspiracy, Hypocrisy, Jared Kushner, Media and Democrats, Media and Russia, Media and Trump, Obama and Russia, Obama and Trump, Trump and Russia
Tags: Democrats and Russia, Democrats and Trump, Great Trump - Russia conspiracy, Hypocrisy, Jared Jushner, Media and Democrats, Media and Russia, Media and Trump, Obama and Russia, Obama and Trump, Trump and Russia

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