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REWIND: FBI Shuts Down Russian Spy Ring for Getting Too Cozy with Hillary Clinton

July 24, 2016

REWIND: FBI Shuts Down Russian Spy Ring for Getting Too Cozy with Hillary Clinton, PJ Media, Patrick Poole, July 24, 2016

(I put the first paragraph in bold face print. All other bold print is as it appears in the article.– DM)

reset

With the Democratic Party set to officially anoint Hillary Clinton as their presidential candidate during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this week, and with accusations of Republican candidate Donald Trump’s supposed close associations with Russia, it is worth noting that Clinton has her Russia issues as well.

In March 2009 (the early days of Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State), in Clinton’s first meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, she presented him with a “reset” button said to be emblematic of the Obama administration’s new openness to Russia after the Bush administration.

Sadly, for Clinton, the word printed on the “reset” button was “peregruzka” [“overcharged”] rather than “perezagruzka” [“reset”].

That is not the only occasion that Clinton has got “lost in translation” with Russia.

Just yesterday the Clinton campaign blamed Russia for the hack on damaging internal DNC emails released by WikiLeaks this past Friday that revealed a cozy relationship between the DNC and Clinton during the Democratic primaries.

So it is a bit embarrassing that two years ago today, Clinton bragged in an interview with NPR that the Russia “reset” worked:

And yet even the pro-Hillary shills at the Washington Post have admitted that Clinton’s Russia “reset failed.

Other cozy relationships tied to Russia have previously caused Clinton headaches.

Take, for instance, one ABC News Radio report from April 2012 that a Russian spy ring was taken down by the FBI in 2010 because one of the spies was getting close to Clinton:

A female Russian agent got “close enough” to a sitting U.S. cabinet member that the FBI felt they had to swoop in and arrest the lot — but it wasn’t the famous femme fatale Anna Chapman, federal officials said Tuesday.

Chapman, the seductive 20-something SoHo spy, was named by a British newspaper Monday as the reason the FBI decided to finally round up the Russian ring, which had long been under surveillance, in 2010. The paper cited an interview conducted by the BBC with the FBI’s counter-intelligence head Frank Figliuzzi.

“We were becoming very concerned they were getting close enough to a sitting U.S. cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue,” Figliuzzi said.

But Figliuzzi never named the Russian agent in question. And although the BBC ran images of Chapman — as well as shots of a look-a-like — during the interview, now the FBI says he wasn’t talking about her at all. Instead, officials at the Department of Justice told ABC News Figliuzzi was referring to another of the arrested spies, Cynthia Murphy.

According to court documents relating to the spies’ arrest, Murphy had been in contact with a fundraiser and “personal friend” of Hillary Clinton, who took the office of Secretary of State in January 2009. The fundraiser, Alan Patricof, said in a 2010 statement that he had retained Murphy’s financial services firm more than two years before, had met with her a few times and spoke with her on the phone frequently. Patricof said they “never” spoke about politics, the government or world affairs.

A spokesperson for Clinton told ABC News in 2010 that at the time there was “no reason to think the Secretary was a target of this spy ring.”

At the time, Attorney General Eric Holder said that they considered the threat “a serious thing.”

A July 2010 report in the Washington Post adds more to the story:

Take, for example, Cynthia Murphy, the woman from Montclair, N.J., who worked for a Manhattan tax-advice firm, Morea Financial Services. One of the firm’s clients was New York financier Alan Patricof, a major supporter of former president Bill Clinton and a friend of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.In a Feb. 3, 2009, electronic message to Moscow Center, Murphy reported that she had “several work-related meetings” with a New York financier who was an active political fundraiser and “a personal friend of [current Cabinet member whose name was omitted],” according to the original indictment. In return, Moscow Center tasked Murphy before “Obama’s trip to Moscow” to find information on the U.S. strategic arms treaty, Afghanistan and Iran’s nuclear program. There is no indication she picked up any information from Patricof.

Then there is the ongoing quid pro quo scandal concerning the Clinton Foundation receiving money from investors of Canadian firm Uranium One at the same time that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which Hillary Clinton sat on, was deliberating approval of the sale of a majority stake in Uranium One to Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy agency.

The CFIUS fast-tracked the Uranium One approval in 52 days, despite a mandatory 75-day review process.

Uranium One’s chairman directed $2.35 million in contributions to the Clinton Foundation, a fact that was concealed by the Clinton Foundation despite Hillary Clinton’s promise to the Obama administration that all donations would be publicly identified.

And as the New York Times reported, former President Bill Clinton received $500,000 for a speech in Moscow from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

Despite Hillary’s media apologists saying there is no evidence of a quid pro quo, the Treasury Department has obstructed FOIA requests related to the CFIUS approval of the Uranium One sale, prompting government watchdog Judicial Watch to file a federal lawsuit last December to compel disclosure on the approval process and any documents by Hillary Clinton related to the matter.

So when Clinton’s defenders throw stones at Donald Trump over his Russia ties, they should be mindful of Hillary’s glass house.

Categories: 2016 elections, Democrat National Convention, Hillary Clinton and Russia
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Democrats in Disarray as Convention Begins

July 24, 2016

Democrats in Disarray as Convention Begins, Power Line, John Hinderaker, July 24, 2016

The Democratic convention begins tomorrow in Philadelphia, with the party’s leaders scrambling to fend off a series of negative stories and present a unified front.

The Wikileaks dump of 20,000 DNC emails has exacerbated divisions within the party. The emails show the DNC’s leadership plotting against Bernie Sanders, exactly as he alleged throughout the campaign. Sanders will have a lot of delegates inside the convention hall, and an unknown number of demonstrators outside. Will he go along with the unity theme? Will his supporters? We will see.

In order to placate the Sanders forces, the Democrats have announced that party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s speaking slot has been canceled. Wasserman-Schultz was the chief anti-Sanders schemer, so canceling her speech may not be enough: this morning, Sanders demanded that she resign as party chairwoman. My guess is that the Democrats will throw her all the way under the bus in a desperate attempt to look unified.

Meanwhile, another controversy has arisen over the convention speeches scheduled to be given by Lezley McSpadden and Gwen Carr, the mothers of Michael Brown and Eric Garner respectively. The Democrats evidently chose to come down firmly on the side of the anti-police movement. But their plan elicited a furious response from John McNesby, President of Philadelphia’s police union:

Phil cops

I like that last line: “Mrs. Clinton you should be ashamed of yourself if that is possible.” The DNC, scrambling once again, now says they will add a couple of policemen to the list of speakers. That’s big of them.

With the exception of Ted Cruz’s performance, the Republican convention came off without a hitch, was not disrupted by protests either inside the hall or in the streets, and presented a positive image of the party. Journalists had to struggle to find negativity, sinking so low as to make a major story out of the fact that Melania Trump’s speechwriter copied a couple of sentence fragments from a speech by Michelle Obama. The horror! It will be interesting to see whether the wheels come off for the Democrats over the next four days, and how the press covers it if they do.

It will also be interesting to see what television ratings the Democrats can muster, compared with the Republican convention. Around 35 million watched Donald Trump’s acceptance speech, a number that reportedly fell below expectations. But how many will tune in to see another speech by tired, old retread Hillary Clinton? That, too, will be something to watch for.

Categories: 2016 elections, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Democrat National Committee, Democrat National Convention, Law enforcement
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Wrong and rude on Iran and Israel

July 24, 2016

Wrong and rude on Iran and Israel, Israel Hayom Richard Baehr, July 24, 2016

(Please see also, Clinton VP Pick Tim Kaine’s Islamist Ties. — DM)

The Democrats are out selling Tim Kaine as a solid citizen, experienced politician, and a great choice for vice president on the Hillary Clinton ticket — someone who could step in quickly as president if needed. The traditional pro-Israel community, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, are undoubtedly preparing to signal their comfort with him as a Clinton running mate, much as they did with the supposedly pro-Israel Barack Obama, twice. Kaine has voted in favor of foreign aid; he has traveled to Israel; he voted in favor of funding some weapons systems for Israel; he has raised a lot of money from liberal Jews (running for governor, senator, and head of the Democratic National Committee). Therefore, he must be a great supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship. So great in fact, that he was happy to take money from the J Street political action committee and accept its endorsement when he ran for Senate. AIPAC, J Street, Kaine, all one big happy family in the pro-Israel club.

Of course, on the Iran nuclear deal, the single most important foreign policy decision since the vote on the Iraq war in 2002, Kaine was not only wrong, but extraordinarily disrespectful to Israel’s prime minister. He chose to boycott Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of Congress on the issue in early 2015, saying that he thought Netanyahu’s aim was mainly to help himself with his own domestic politics in the Israeli elections, held two weeks later.

“There is no reason to schedule this speech [on March 3] before Israeli voters go to the polls on March 17 and choose their own leadership,” Kaine said in a statement, after describing how he’d worked to delay the event. “I am disappointed that, as of now, the speech has not been postponed. For this reason, I will not attend the speech.”

Let us assume for a moment that Netanyahu had two goals in mind for his speech — to make the case for healthy skepticism and opposition within Congress toward the Iran nuclear deal, which was near completion at the time, and help himself politically. This must have come as a shock to Kaine. Imagine a leader concerned both about the security of his country and his own political future. Good thing such considerations never entered the mind of any American president. Certainly Obama must never have allowed domestic political considerations to influence his policymaking or the timing of his decisions. The attempt to bury the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012, presenting it as an event caused by some anti-Muslim message by some obscure American filmmaker was quickly adopted by all the administration spinners — from Susan Rice to then-Secretary of State Clinton. This spin was necessary for Obama to continue running for re-election on the campaign theme he had developed — the fact that he killed Osama bin Laden and saved General Motors. Blaming the filmmaker was of course complete and total nonsense.

And of course, Obama’s recent warning that Britain would be at “the back of the queue” to negotiate a trade agreement with the U.S. if it voted to leave the European Union, was not in any way an act of interference in another country’s politics — the kind of interference that might have drawn Kaine’s ire.

Kaine was one of only eight senators who boycotted Netanyahu’s speech. The others included both Vermont senators, Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders, two of the least supportive members of Congress when it comes to Israel. Sanders of course pushed for a new policy on Israel during his campaign for the Democratic nomination this year, and brought up the need for balance in terms of support for Israel and the Palestinians in the Brooklyn debate with Clinton, where his enthusiastic supporters went wild when he chastised Israel and its prime minister. At the moment, this sentiment is where the heart of the Democratic Party lies — on the hard left and hostile toward Israel. Two others who boycotted were Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island — two of the most passionate leftists in Congress.

One would not expect to find Kaine siding with Vermont’s two near Marxist senators and the most left-wing members of the House in boycotting Netanyahu. But then again, two Democratic senators who happen to be Jewish — Al Franken and Brian Schatz — also boycotted.

There must have been conversations between the administration and Democratic congressional leaders to ensure a decent sized boycott (in total about 20% of congressional Democrats boycotted the speech), and to provide enough names on the boycott list to protect possible future Democratic national figures, meaning, of course, Kaine.

Kaine is the very definition of a career politician. He served on the city council, then as mayor of Richmond, then as governor of Virginia, then as head of the Democratic National Committee and finally as senator. In 2008, he was on Obama’s short list for vice president. If he were to move up to the only positions he has not yet held — vice president and ultimately president, then his actions on Iran in 2015 might well be seen as a signal to movement Democrats — party activists — that he is not a predictable centrist but is capable of turning leftward on Israel.

This meant diverging from AIPAC, which at this point is a low-risk move since the organization seems never to lose the love regardless of members’ behavior or votes. Has AIPAC punished any Democrat for leading the charge, or applying pressure on other Democrats in the House or Senate, on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action?

In fact, for someone who started his political career as something of a social conservative on abortion and gay marriage, Kaine seems to have understood that he needed move leftward on these issues to have a chance at a national future. Republicans are attacked for their disunity, which is real. Democrats enforce their orthodoxy. Kaine’s voting record is 100% liberal on most scorecards, and despite this, some progressives consider him too moderate.

When the JCPOA came up for a vote in Congress, Kaine made up his mind quickly — in the first two weeks . One would have to be pretty gullible to think the senator had carefully weighed the pros and cons of the agreement before deciding.

Kaine’s announced support for the JCPOA likely made it easier for others to also buck AIPAC and support the president. Most remarkably, Kaine voted twice to support a filibuster in the Senate, so that a vote could not even be recorded on the JCPOA. It turns out that 58 senators opposed the agreement (all 54 Republicans, and 4 Democrats), but 60 votes were needed to force a vote in the Senate.

Obama did not want a vote, since he then would have been forced to veto the formal congressional opposition to the agreement since the House had already passed its opposition resolution. Kaine had been a co-sponsor of the Corker bill, therefore it is remarkable cynicism that he was not even willing to allow fellow senators to vote to formally express their opposition to the bill he co-sponsored.

If Kaine becomes vice president, he can be expected to do what is necessary to ensure he has a shot at the final step up the political ladder. Being pro-Israel won’t have much to do with it.

Categories: 2016 elections, AIPAC, Democrat Party, Hillary Clinton, Iran scam, Israel, Leftists, Tim Kaine
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Clinton VP Pick Tim Kaine’s Islamist Ties

July 23, 2016

Clinton VP Pick Tim Kaine’s Islamist Ties, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, July 23, 2016

VP islamistPresumptive Democratic candidate for president Hillary Clinton with her choice for vice-president Tim Kaine.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s newly-announced running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, has a history of embracing Islamists. He appointed a Hamas supporter to a state immigration commission; spoke at a dinner honoring a Muslim Brotherhood terror suspect and received donations from well-known Islamist groups.

 

Appointing a Muslim Brotherhood Front Leader Who Supports Hamas

In 2007, Kaine was the Governor of Virginia and, of all people chose Muslim American Society (MAS) President Esam Omeish to the state’s Immigration Commission. A Muslim organization against Islamism criticized the appointment and reckless lack of vetting.

Federal prosecutors said in a 2008 court filing that MAS was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” A Chicago Tribune investigation in 2004 confirmed this, as well as MAS’ crafty use of deceptive semantics to appear moderate. Convicted terrorist and admitted U.S. Muslim Brotherhood member Abdurrahman Alamoudi testified in 2012, “Everyone knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Read our fully-documented profile of MAS here.

According to Omeish’s website, he was also president of the National Muslim Students Association (click there to read our profile about its Muslim Brotherhood origins) and served for two years on the national board of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which the Justice Department also labeled as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial.

His website says he was the vice president of Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a radical mosque known for its history of terror ties, including having future Al-Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki as its imam and being frequented by two of the 9/11 hijackers and Nidal Hasan, the perpetrator of the Fort Hood shooting. Omeish’s website says he remains a board member.

Omeish’s website also says he was chairman of the board of Islamic American University, which had Hamas financier and Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef Al-Qaradawi chairman of its board until at least 2006.

Omeish was also chairman of the board for the Islamic Center of Passaic County, a New Jersey mosque with heavy terrorist ties and an imam that the Department of Homeland Security wants to deport for having links to Hamas.

Omeish directly expressed extremism before Kaine appointed him. He claimed the Brotherhood is “moderate” and admitted that he and MAS are influenced by the Islamist movement.

In 2004, Omeish praised the Hamas spiritual leader as “our belovedSheikh Ahmed Yassin.” Videotape from 2000 also surfaced where Omeish pledged to help Palestinians who understand “the jihad way is the way to liberate your land” (he denied this was an endorsement of violence).

When a state delegate wrote a letter to then-Governor Kaine warning him that the MAS has “questionable origins,” a Kaine spokesperson said the charge was bigotry.

Kaine obviously failed to do any kind of basic background checking in Omeish.

Omeish resigned under heavy pressure, and Kaine acknowledged that his statements “concerned” him. But, apparently, they didn’t concern him enough to actually learn about the Muslim Brotherhood network in his state and to take greater precautions in the future.

Speaking at a Dinner Honoring Muslim Brotherhood Terror Suspect

In September 2011, Kaine spoke at a “Candidates Night” dinner organized by the New Dominion PAC that presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for Jamal Barzinji, who the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch describes as a “founding father of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.”

He first came on to the FBI’s radar in 1987-1988 when an informant inside the Brotherhood identified Barzinji and his associated groups as being part of a network of Brotherhood fronts to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The source said Barzinji and his colleagues were “organizing political support which involves influencing both public opinion in the United States as well as the United States Government” using “political action front groups with no traceable ties.”

Barzinji had his home searched as part of a terrorism investigation in 2003. U.S. Customs Service Senior Special Agent David Kane said in a sworn affidavit that Barzinji and the network of entities he led were investigated because he “is not only closed associated with PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad]…but also with Hamas.”  Counter-terrorism reporter Patrick Poole broke the story that Barzinji was nearly prosecuted but the Obama Justice Department dropped plans for indictment.

Barzinji played a major role in nearly every Brotherhood front in the U.S. and was vice president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), which came under terrorism investigation also. Barzinji’s group was so close to Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian that IIIT’s President considered his group and Al-Arian’s to be essentially one entity.

The indictment of Al-Arian and his colleagues says that they “would and did seek to obtain support from influential individuals, in the United States under the guise of promoting and protecting Arab rights (emphasis mine).”

The quotes about Brotherhood operative Barzinji’s aspirations to use civil rights advocacy as a means to influence politicians are especially relevant when you consider that video from the event honoring Barzinji shows Kaine saying that it was his fourth time at the annual dinner and thanked his “friends” that organized it for helping him in his campaign for lieutenant-governor and governor and asked them to help his Senate campaign.

Islamist Financial Support

Barzinji’s organization, IIIT, donated $10,000 in 2011 to the New Dominion PAC, the organization that held the event honoring Barzinji that Kaine spoke at. The Barzinji-tied New Dominion PAC donated $43,050 to Kaine’s gubernatorial campaign between 2003 and 2005. That figure doesn’t even include other political recipients that assisted Kaine’s campaign.

The PAC has very strong ties to the Democratic Party in Virginia, with the Virginia Public Access Project tallying almost $257,000 in donations. This likely explains why Barzinji’s grandson served in Governor McAuliffe’s administration and then became the Obama Administration’s liaison to the Muslim-American community.

The Middle East Forum’s Islamist Money in Politics database shows another $4,300 donated to Kaine’s Senate campaign in 2011-2012 by officials from U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Another $3,500 came from Hisham Al-Talib, a leader from Barzinji’s IIIT organization.

It’s worth noting that Barzinji’s IIIT donated $3,500 to Esam Omeish’s 2009 campaign delegate campaign, tying together the cadre of Muslim Brotherhood-linked leaders who got into Kaine’s orbit.

Conclusion

Kaine has no excuse. If he has an Internet connection, then he and his staff should have known about their backgrounds. They were either extremely careless (something Kaine would have in common with the top of the ticket) or knew and looked the other way in the hopes of earning donations and votes.

Clinton’s choice of Kaine is widely seen as a way of strengthening her campaign’s national security credentials. Yet, Clinton is asking us to trust a candidate on national security who appoints a Hamas supporter to an immigration commission and speaks at a dinner honoring a Muslim Brotherhood terror suspect.

And she is asking us to trust her, who chose such a candidate.

Categories: 2016 elections, Hamas, Hillary Clinton and Islam, Hillary Clinton's VP pick, Islamist moral values, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, Senator Tim Kaine
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Emails Show Democratic National Committee Officials Actively Undermined Sanders And Sought To Guarantee Clinton’s Nomination

July 23, 2016

Emails Show Democratic National Committee Officials Actively Undermined Sanders And Sought To Guarantee Clinton’s Nomination, Jonathan Turley’s Blog, Jonathan Turley, July 23, 2016

(It must be just another vast right-wing conspiracy. — DM)

Wasserwoman

For months, critics and candidates have been publicly denouncing what they view as open favoritism of the Democratic National Committee (and particularly DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz) toward Hillary Clinton. Even DNC members have objected to the role of the DNC and the view that it is trying to guarantee that Clinton is the nominee. Despite fairly universal criticism of the favoritism showed Clinton (and opposition showed Sanders), Wasserman Shultz and DNC officials publicly denounced any such suggestions of working against Sanders. Now, with the Wikileaks postings, various emails prove that the DNC has been actively working to undermine Sanders and advance their chosen candidate of Hillary Clinton.

WikiLeaks posted an email from Mark Paustenbach, the Democratic Party’s national press secretary & deputy communications director, to other staffers discussing how they could create an anti-Sanders narrative that portrays his campaign in disarray and not an acceptable option for voters.

 

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“Wondering if there’s a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess. . .

“Specifically, DWS had to call Bernie directly in order to get the campaign to do things because they’d either ignored or forgotten to something critical. She had to call Bernie after the data breach to make his staff to respond to our concerns. Even then they didn’t get back to us, which is why we had to shut off their access in order to get them to finally let us know exactly how they snooped around HFA’s data.

“It’s not a DNC conspiracy, it’s because they never had their act together,” Paustenbach continued.

Other emails shows collusion with the Clinton campaign and even an effort to start an attack against Sanders on the basis of his religious beliefs.  For example, a May 2016 message from DNC CFO Brad Marshall suggested that the party should “get someone to ask” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about his religious beliefs.

From:MARSHALL@dnc.org
To: MirandaL@dnc.org, PaustenbachM@dnc.org, DaceyA@dnc.org
Date: 2016-05-05 03:31
Subject: No shit
It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.
The email was sent to DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda and Deputy Communications Director Mark Paustenbach. It’s unclear who the “someone” in this message could be — though a member of the press seems like a safe bet. A request for comment sent to Marshall was not immediately returned.

So here you have not only a high ranking DNC official actively working to discredit Sanders (while the DNC is expressing shock over suggestions of favoritism) but suggesting a despicable attack based on religious beliefs.  The emails show both an campaign against Sanders and the falsity of statements made to the public.

A reply to Marshall’s email from DNC CEO Amy Dacey read only “AMEN.”

So it appears that religion runs deep among the DNC staff . . .at least when it comes to destroying Sanders and rigging the election for Clinton.

At a minimum, in my opinion, Wasserman Schultz should resign in light of these emails and the now reaffirmed allegations of bias at the DNC.  Furthermore, these officials should be held accountable if the DNC wishes to regain any semblance of being an honest broker for democratic voters.

What do you think?

Categories: 2016 elections, Bernie Sanders, Democrat National Committee, Hillary Clinton
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Watch Ivanka Trump’s full speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention

July 22, 2016

Watch Ivanka Trump’s full speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, PBS News Hour via YouTube, July 21, 2016

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump acceptance speech, Ivanka Trump, Republican National Convention
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Trump Promises American Greatness

July 22, 2016

Trump Promises American Greatness, Front Page Magazine, Matthew Vadum, July 22, 2016

(Please see also, FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Accepts Republican Nomination for President. — DM)

trump flag

CLEVELAND — Republican presidential candidate Donald John Trump gave a masterful acceptance speech last night as he savaged Hillary Clinton for her seemingly congenital corruption, assailed Barack Obama’s failed policies and the civil unrest he has fomented, and optimistically laid out an ambitious roadmap to the future.

Trump did an admirable job staying on-message.

“Together, we will lead our party back to the White House, and we will lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace,” he said. “We will be a country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law and order.”

America is being overrun by “violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities,” he said. “Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.”

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty is up nearly 50 percent compared to this point last year, he said. Although 180,000 illegal aliens with criminal records have been ordered deported, they “are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.”

Border crossings by illegals are out of control and these aliens “are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.”

Some of these illegals have been murdering Americans and that’s fine with Hillary Clinton, he implied. Clinton supports lawless sanctuary cities and favors open borders, he said.

“I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and I mean very soon, come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored. The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.”

He said he would be “the law and order candidate.”

Americans need a straightforward assessment of the state of the nation, he said. “I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.”

Black unemployment rates are sky-high and Latino poverty rates are higher than when President Obama took the oath of office in 2009, he said, adding that “another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.”

Household incomes have fallen and bad trade policies are hurting Americans, he said.

“President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion and growing. Yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World conditions, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps.”

America is humiliated abroad all the time, he said. “We all remember the images of our sailors being forced to their knees by their Iranian captors at gunpoint.”

And the nuclear nonproliferation pact with Iran gave the mullahs $150 billion “and gave us nothing.” The agreement “will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever negotiated.”

When Trump referenced the Muslim terrorist attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, the crowd went wild. “America is far less safe — and the world is far less stable — than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy.”

As the crowd chanted “lock her up,” Trump responded, “let’s defeat her in November.”

Clinton set the Arab world on fire, he said. “This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction, terrorism, and weakness.”

Trump said he will “defeat the barbarians of ISIS and we’re going to defeat them fast.” He mourned the victims of Islamic terrorism in the U.S., saying the people murdered by a jihadist at a gay club in Orlando, Fla., were “49 wonderful Americans.” The terrorist targeted the “LGBTQ community … and we’re going to stop it.”

Trump said he would “protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology,” and delegates applauded him. He then said, “as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said. Thank you.”

America should not be importing refugees from Syria who cannot be properly screened, he said. “I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people.”

Clinton, Trump said, refuses to put America first. But if he becomes president “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo.” Those politicians who will not put America first ensure “that other nations will not treat America with respect, the respect that we deserve.”

Powerful special interests have rigged the system, he said. Clinton is the “puppet” of big business, elite media, and major donors, he said.

Clinton doesn’t want change, he said. “My message is that things have to change — and they have to change right now.”

Trump said he is determined to make life better for those who “have been ignored, neglected, and abandoned.” Laid-off factory workers hurt by bad trade deals “are the forgotten men and women of our country,” but “they’re not going to be forgotten long.”

“I am your voice,” Trump said to loud applause.

“When innocent people suffer because our political system lacks the will, or the courage, or the basic decency to enforce our laws — or still worse, has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash — I am not able to look the other way.”

When Clinton illegally operates private Internet servers, lies about it over and over again, and destroys 33,000 emails “so the authorities can’t see her crime,” and she gets away with it, “I know that corruption has reached a level like never ever before in our country.”

Trump modified his signature line, promising to make America “strong again,” “proud again,” “safe again,” and “great again.”

He ended his oration with “God bless you! I love you!”

Trump’s 76-minute speech was followed by the traditional dropping of thousands of balloons from the ceiling to the tune of “Alright Now” by the British band Free.

Before that Ivanka Trump introduced her father to delegates in a powerful speech. Her eloquence, intelligence, and charisma were impossible to ignore.

She said her father is the kind of leader who can transcend politics. He is “a political outsider” and “a fighter,” she said, adding “I have seen him fight for his employees. Now, I am seeing him fight for his country.”

“For more than a year Donald Trump has been the people’s champion,” she said. The fact he’s not a career politician is a great strength, she said. “Real change is only going to come from outside of the system.”

Trump is “famous but not well-known,” she said. The “hard-working men and women of this country identify with my father.”

He has spent his whole life doing what others have said could not be done, she said. “When my father says he will make America great again, he will deliver … he is incapable of thinking small.”

Other speakers earlier in the evening pumped up the crowd.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who is worth about $3 billion, said America needs a businessman like Trump. In his view, the country no longer leads the world in technology.

“Our nuclear bases still use floppy disks. Our newest fighter jets can’t even fly in the rain. And it would be kind to say the government’s software works poorly, because much of the time it doesn’t even work at all. That is a staggering decline for the country that completed the Manhattan Project. We don’t accept such incompetence in Silicon Valley and we must not accept it from our government.”

Thiel attacked the financial sector. “Wall Street bankers inflate bubbles in everything from government bonds to Hillary Clinton’s speaking fees,” he said caustically.

He criticized current foreign policy.

“Instead of going to Mars, we have invaded the Middle East. We don’t need to see Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails: her incompetence is in plain sight. She pushed for a war in Libya and today it’s a training ground for ISIS. On this most important issue, Donald Trump is right. It’s time to end the era of stupid wars and rebuild our country.”

Thiel then made history on the convention stage. “I am proud to be gay,” Thiel said to delegates who applauded him. Some even gave him a standing ovation, something unimaginable at a GOP convention 20 or even 10 years ago.

“I am proud to be a Republican,” he continued. “But most of all I am proud to be an American.”

“I don’t pretend to agree with every plank in our party’s platform,” he said. “But fake culture wars only distract us from economic decline, and nobody in this race is being honest about it except Donald Trump.”

Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio railed against current immigration policies.

“We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of ours,” he said. “We are more concerned about the rights of illegal aliens and criminals than we are with protecting our own country. That must change.”

Arpaio said the long-delayed wall along the Mexican border has to be constructed to secure America’s borders. “Donald Trump will build the wall,” he said to applause and chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” and “build that wall!”

NFL great Fran Tarkenton, who said he has known the nominee for years, said “Donald Trump knows how to get the best out of people.”

Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus assailed Hillary Clinton saying that during the investigation into her illegal, hacker-friendly email servers “she lied over and over and over.” Clinton “reads ethics rules as carefully as Americans read their junk mail.”

She used her post as secretary of state and her family foundation for her own enrichment, he said. For Clinton, the Oval Office is just another “cash cow.” Americans, he said, “have had enough.”

Also speaking were Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., televangelist Mark Burns, paralysis survivor Brock Mealer, Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, Colony Capital chairman Tom Barrack, and Korean Americans for Trump founder optometrist Lisa Shin, and actor Jon Voight appeared as narrator in a video about Trump’s business accomplishments that featured commentator Larry Kudlow, Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Looking back over the four days of the convention, it was calmer outside the Quicken Loans Arena than many had expected.

The riots and massive protests expected at the convention never materialized. There were relatively few arrests. At most demonstrations near the convention site the angry masses could be measured in hundreds, if that. The massive police presence, drawn from law enforcement agencies across the country, may have deterred some of the would-be troublemakers.

Well-armed bystanders may have also helped to scare the bad guys away.

Throughout the convention there were plenty of citizens with rifles wandering around Public Square and elsewhere in downtown Cleveland, exercising the open-carry rights people enjoy in the Buckeye State. Most, but not all, were pro-Trump. Some showed up to show their support for the nation’s embattled police officers. Firearms were not allowed in the relatively small security zone around the convention site, which was controlled by the U.S. Secret Service.

On Tuesday there was a shouting match and some pushing and shoving between anti-Trump demonstrators and radical libertarian radio host Alex Jones of Infowars.

Police broke up clashes between various activist groups. Members of Black Lives Matter, Ku Klux Klan, and Westboro Baptist Church reportedly threw urine at each other.

The anti-American so-called peace group Code Pink tried to swarm Sheriff Arpaio at one point and chanted “shame.” The Revolutionary Communist Party was also on-site.

On Wednesday a protester inadvertently set himself and others on fire while trying to burn an American flag. Firefighters promptly extinguished the flames. There were no serious injuries, according to Cleveland Police.

Leftist groups built a fake wall to protest Trump’s plans to enforce immigration laws and secure the border. Among the organizations participating in the “Wall Off Trump” action were the Ruckus Society, Mijente, Iraq Veterans Against the War, The Other 98 Percent, and the ACORN-affiliated Working Families Party, according to Democracy Now.

The New Black Panther Party and other radical groups took part in demonstrations.

Meanwhile, presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton has reportedly selected Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) as her running mate. Kaine is a Harvard-educated lawyer. He previously served as governor and lieutenant governor of Virginia and as mayor of Richmond. He is also a previous Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman.

Also rans reportedly included Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Labor Secretary Tom Perez, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

The four-day Democratic National Convention gets underway Monday in Philadelphia.

Trump said in his speech that some people really ought to attend the Democrats’ confab.

“If you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully-crafted lies, and the media myths the Democrats are holding their convention next week.”

“Go there,” Trump said.

Categories: 2016 elections, Democrats, Domestic policy, Donald Trump, Donald Trump acceptance speech, Foreign policy, Hillary Clinton, Obama and Middle East, Obama's America, Republican National Convention
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Lt. Gen. Flynn at GOP Convention

July 21, 2016

Lt. Gen. Flynn at GOP Convention via YouTube, July 21, 2016

(Please see also, Terrorism in The Therapeutic Age — DM)

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Islam, Islamic nations, Islamic terrorism, Islamists vs Islam, Michael T. Flynn, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic terrorism, radical Islam, Republican National Convention
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Critics of “Gays for Trump” Party Miss the Point

July 21, 2016

Critics of “Gays for Trump” Party Miss the Point, Clarion Project, Elliot Friedland, July 21, 2016

Trump-Milo-Geller-640-320The advert for the “WAKE UP” event, featuring Donald J. Trump as a superhero with Milo Yiannopoulus and Pamela Geller as sidekicks. (Photo: Screenshot from Twitter)

Rather than mocking and dismissing this event, those who oppose such rhetoric would do well to start addressing the issue at hand in a serious and committed way, beginning with naming it — Islamist extremism — and ending with destroying it.

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Gay rights activists have not traditionally found a political home on the right. Yet gay activist and alternative-right icon Milo Yiannopoulus wants to change that, arguing that while the Republican party may not love homosexuality, Islam wants gays dead, and therefore gay people should support Trump (who Milo calls “Daddy”).

This was the theme of “WAKE UP,” billed as “the most fab party at the RNC,” which brought Milo together with controversial activist Pamela Geller who has gained notoriety for her “Draw Mohammed”cartoon competition as well as billboards in New York which read: “In the war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”

The event was panned by media outlets such as Salon in a piece which shrugged off the event as a “virulently anti-Islam party at the RNC” and The Nation, which slammed it as “Islamophobes, White Supremacists, and Gays for Trump—the Alt-Right Arrives at the RNC.”

Teen Vogue said the event “perpetuates Islamophobia.” The Nation’s piece revealed the alarmingly open presence of white nationalists at the event and the seemingly small numbers of gay people who showed up.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who spoke at the event, referred to Europe as “Eurabia” and said, “Islam is the problem.”

But critics who were aghast at this flagrantly un-PC stance, completely missed why sections of the LGBT community are turning to Trump.

If they would have looked to France, they would have seen that gay support for the far right has already happened there. In 2015 a national scandal occurred when it emerged that the winner of France’s largest gay magazine’s beauty contest was an outspoken supporter of France’s right wing Front Nationale.

As early as 2012, 26% of the gay community in Paris supported the Front Nationale, as opposed to 16% of straight people.

The rationale is startlingly simple. Milo’s cult status as an online provocateur has been generated by making controversial statements and pushing the accepted boundaries of discussion. He has been able to tap into the large and growing alt-right movement — a disparate collection of mostly young white males who support socially liberal policies but who hold the left in contempt for their perceived abandonment of liberal values when it comes to human rights abuses committed in the name of Islam.

Because of this, Milo and others make the argument that only the right will stand up to defend gay people against Islamist extremism.

The movement also partially consists of white nationalists and racists, who are able to maintain their foothold because they have consistently spoken out against radical Islam (and indeed Islam in general.)

Put simply, people would rather be racist than dead.

“If you’re like us, the massacre in Orlando last month was a giant wake-up call,” the flier for the event read. “As gay Americans, we could no longer stay silent about a barbaric ideology that wants us dead and that actively threatens the freedoms of all Americans.”

So far, so good.

However the ideology in question is not Islam, as Geert Wilders would argue, but is Islamism, the theocratic political project which seeks to impose the religion of Islam over everyone in the world and implement sharia governance, complete with hudud punishments. This ideology does threaten the freedoms of all Americans.

Tarring all Muslims with the same brush is not only morally wrong, but also facilitates the very thinking propagated by the Islamic State and other Islamist groups –- by dividing the world into two camps, Muslims and non-Muslims.

However, the refusal of the elites around the world — with a few notable exceptions such as the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron — to correctly name and challenge the issue has created a vacuum.

People know there is a problem and know that it needs to be tackled.

When the Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) object to billboards calling on Muslims to talk to the FBI if they become suspicious of terrorism, when President Obama and Hillary Clinton point blank refuse to name the ideology at fault, people will start to draw their own conclusions about who is to blame and take action accordingly.

Therefore in the absence of leaders who are not afraid to name the problem as one of Islamist extremism,  people will be drawn to someone with a clear message offering simple solutions, like Trump’s proposed ban of Muslims entering the country, which was praised at the “WAKE UP” event.

“After what happened in Orlando, I can’t imagine not being for Donald Trump right now,” the founder of the LGBT group “Twinks4Trump” which was involved in the event said. “This election will not be about bathrooms or who’s going to bake our wedding cakes.”

Milo took to the stage wearing a T-shirt saying, “We shoot back” with a submachine gun in rainbow colors emblazoned on its front. This powerful image will be a sweet and soothing balm to a section of the LGBT community which is looking for answers.

The way in which the argument was put forward at “WAKE UP” was a simplistic misunderstanding, blaming the entire faith of Islam for the actions of a subset of its practitioners.

Rather than mocking and dismissing this event, those who oppose such rhetoric would do well to start addressing the issue at hand in a serious and committed way, beginning with naming it — Islamist extremism — and ending with destroying it.

Because in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Categories: 2016 elections, CAIR, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Homosexuals, Islam and homosexuals, Islamist moral values, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Media and Islam, Obama and Islam
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Ivanka Trump on growing up Trump, father’s campaign

July 21, 2016

Ivanka Trump on growing up Trump, father’s campaign, Fox News via YouTube, July 20, 2016

Categories: 2016 elections, Character, Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump
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