Ethics | Federalist Press | Defending Liberty

Violence in Navy Yard

September 16, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON — On the surface, Aaron Alexis’ four-year stint in the Navy appears to have been routine.

But as word spread Monday that Alexis is suspected of gunning down a dozen people at the Washington Navy Yard here, Navy officials who asked not to be identified said the 34-year-old veteran had a pattern of misconduct.

What may have caused Alexis to go on a shooting spree Monday morning remained a mystery to FBI and Navy officials, as well as acquaintances of the quiet man who split his most recent years between New York, Texas and Washington State.

Valerie Parlave, chief of the FBI’s D.C. field division, appealed for the public’s help to assist in providing information about the shooter’s actions and movements prior to the attack. The FBI posted his photographs on its website.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told CNN that Alexis was serving as an information technology contractor at the time of the shooting. He had enlisted in the Navy in 2007 and rose to the rank of Aviation Electrician’s Mate 3rd Class.

From 2008 to 2011, Alexis served with the Fleet Logistics Support Squadron in Fort Worth. He lived in that area and was arrested at least once in 2010 for firing a gun through the ceiling of his apartment. He told police it had been an accident.

Seattle police released details late Monday of another shooting incident from 2004 in which Alexis shot the rear tires of a vehicle owned by a construction worker doing work in his neighborhood. Alexis told police he had an anger-fueled “blackout” but added that he felt he had been “mocked” by the workers and “disrespected” by the workers.

Alexis also told police he was present during “the tragic events of September 11, 2001? and described “how those events had disturbed him.” Detectives later spoke with Alexis’ father in New York, who told police Alexis had anger-management problems associated with PTSD, and that he had been an active participant in rescue attempts on 9-11.

Alexis lived most recently in New York City, the Navy said. He had relatives in Georgia and Seattle, Wash., according to public reports. He last voted in Queens, N.Y., in 2000.

Two law enforcement agents checked on a third-floor walkup apartment in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn Monday night where some of Alexis’ relatives had lived. They would not answer questions.

A third-floor resident who gave his name only as “Barry” said the agents asked him about a 60-year-old woman related to the suspected gunman. An online address database showed that Cathleen Alexis, 60, and Naomi Alexis, 31, may once have resided in the adjacent apartment.

Shirley Johnson, a resident who said she had lived on the building’s second floor since 1984, said she believed the Alexis family had moved out at least several months ago.

The Forth Worth Star-Telegram located a self-described “best friend” of Alexis on Monday who expressed surprise at the news and said Alexis had been working for a computer contractor.

“He lived with me three years,” Nutpisit Suthamtewakul, owner of Happy Bowl Thai, told the newspaper. “I don’t think he’d do this. He has a gun. but I don’t think he’s that stupid. He didn’t seem aggressive to me.”

Gun Control Advocates Complain Colorado Recall Spreading Nationally

September 15, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Colorado’s historic recall of two state legislators who backed new gun restrictions may have national repercussions, as advocates say the effort will make it harder to revive stalled efforts in Congress to tighten firearm laws.

In April, federal legislation expanding background check requirements for gun buyers fell five votes short in the Senate, despite political momentum from last December’s massacre at a Connecticut elementary school.

Gun control backers say they have yet to win a single new Senate supporter, and many worry that the muscle shown by pro-gun groups and voters last week in Colorado will make it even harder to find converts.

“The NRA does its job better than our side does our job,” said Jim Kessler, a co-founder of Third Way, which advocates for centrist Democratic policies. “They know how to influence and intimidate elected people.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who was representing Newtown, where 20 first-graders and six school staffers were gunned down, in the House at the time of the shooting, said “the results of the recall were not good news.”

Minutes after the Senate rejected the new background checks on April 17, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pledged to continue the fight.

Democrats and gun control lobbyists, however, don’t expect Reid to bring the bill up again until next year at best, not until he has found enough additional votes to have a strong chance of prevailing.

That means the Dec. 14 anniversary of the school shootings probably will pass without a fresh Senate vote. Some gun curb advocates have hoped to use the widespread public attention that anniversary will receive to schedule a new vote by then.

“My advice to Reid is, if there’s any indication of change or movement in a positive direction, we should consider it. But so far I’ve not seen that,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., his party’s chief Senate vote-counter.

Colorado voters last Tuesday removed two Democratic state lawmakers from office — Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron — and replaced them with Republicans who are gun-rights supporters.

The two Democrats had supported expanded background checks and limits on ammunition magazines. Colorado enacted those measures following Newtown and a July 2012 rampage in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater that left 12 dead and 70 wounded.

The recall drew national attention and became a proxy fight between gun control and gun rights forces. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an advocate for stricter gun laws with his group Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns, contributed around $350,000 to the two Democrats. The NRA spent roughly the same amount opposing them.

Overall, reported contributions to Morse and Giron totaled around $3 million, giving them a 5-1 advantage over recall supporters. Yet foes of the two state senators found enough angry voters to prevail.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam played down his group’s role. He noted the overall spending disparity and saying his organization participated only after being asked to by local gun-rights advocates.

“It sends a strong message that grassroots still matters, and voters trump Bloomberg and his money,” he said of the vote, echoing a theme the NRA has used before against the wealthy New Yorker.

Mark Glaze, executive director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said the NRA “cherry-picked” two vulnerable legislators to target. He said his group’s spending in those races underscored its commitment.

“Legislators who take risks to keep the public safe are going to have every resource they’d ask for to defend themselves,” he said.

Former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, said his state’s recall votes meant little for U.S. senators pondering their stance on guns. He said the recall movement tapped into public unease with a broad Democratic agenda “that may have drifted too far to the left,” including enactment of civil unions for gay and lesbian couples and in-state tuition for college students in the U.S. illegally.

Murphy and other gun control supporters such as Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, say that with polls showing wide approval of background checks and groups like Bloomberg’s spending large sums, the NRA’s potency has been weakened.

Even so, Senate talks have proceeded intermittently as supporters of the background check language written by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., seek five more votes.

Background checks, aimed at weeding out criminals and the mentally unstable, are required for buyers obtaining firearms through licensed gun dealers. The defeated legislation would have expanded that to sales at commercial venues like gun shows and the Internet.

Participants say they have explored ways to keep the NRA neutral, including exempting gun show sales or letting buyers conduct their own background checks online. Gun control advocates objected that such concessions go too far. Participants spoke on condition of anonymity after agreeing their names wouldn’t be attached to discussions of private conversations.

Asked if such changes would keep the NRA on the sidelines, Arulanandam said, “The NRA remains opposed to expanding a broken system on background checks, period.” Four Democrats opposed broadening background checks: Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Others opponents wooded by advocates include GOP Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Arizona’s Jeff Flake.

Asked if the Colorado recalls made him less likely to switch, Flake said last week, “I was not prone to do so. I’m comfortable where I am.”

Published September 14, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report

Assad Continues to Bitch Slap Weak Obama

September 13, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Seeming to no longer fear a U.S. attack, an emboldened Bashar Assad is adding to his list of demands in exchange for handing over Syria’s chemical weapons, fueling concerns in Washington that — with Russia’s backing — he’s succeeding in turning the tables on Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiating effort in Geneva.

“They’re just kind of playing with us,” Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told Fox News on Friday.

Kerry was meeting for a second day Friday with Russian and Syrian diplomats to try and work out the framework for a deal to have Syria hand over its chemical weapons to international control, and avert military action by the U.S. Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he expects a soon-to-be-released report to show chemical weapons were used in Syria last month — though U.N. inspectors are not expected to say who used them.

Sensing perhaps that the threat of a U.S. military strike is no longer imminent, Assad is publicly trying to strengthen his hand. In an interview with Russian television, he not only demanded the U.S. drop the threat of military action — he also said the Obama administration must stop arming the opposition.

“When we see that the U.S. genuinely stands for stability in our region, stops threatening us with military intervention and stops supplying terrorists with weapons, then we will consider it possible to finalize all necessary procedures and they will become legitimate and acceptable for Syria,” Assad said, according to the translation by Russia’s RIA Novosti. “Terrorists” is the term Assad often applies to members of the Syrian opposition.

The Obama administration decided months ago to start arming the Syrian opposition, after prior evidence of chemical weapons use. Media reports this week said the CIA, after a significant delay, has started to deliver small arms to the rebels.

Assad made one other request that might be difficult to satisfy. He said that all countries in the area must honor anti-chemical weapons agreements, “and the first country to do so is Israel because it possesses nuclear, chemical and biological weapons — all types of weapons of mass destruction.”

Israel signed the Chemical Weapons Convention 20 years ago, but did not end up ratifying it.

The Assad government now claims effectively to be a party to that weapons agreement. But Syrian government officials say they need a month to submit data on their stockpiles.

Kerry objected to that time frame on Thursday, suggesting that was too long.

On Friday, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, made a demand of his own, writing a letter to Kerry saying that bioweapons should also be included in the disarmament talks with Syria.

“I remain highly skeptical of Russia’s true intentions, but I believe omitting Assad’s bioweapons from any agreement would represent a gaping hole in the plan and would not adequately protect U.S. national security interests,” he said.

Kerry, on Thursday, stressed that the negotiations are not a “game,” and that the U.S. must keep the threat of military action on the table in order to keep the pressure on Assad. The military build-up continues, as Russia reportedly dispatched several ships to the eastern Mediterranean, while the U.S. keeps its ships in position in the region.

Kerry said Friday that he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have had “constructive conversations.”

“I will say on behalf of the United States that President Obama is deeply committed to a negotiated solution with respect to Syria, and we know that Russia is likewise,” he said. “We are working hard to find the common ground to be able to make that happen and we discussed some of the homework that we both need to do.”

He said he and Lavrov agreed to meet again in New York later in the month.

Published September 13, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Colorado State Senators Recalled Over Gun Control

September 11, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Two Democratic lawmakers in Colorado, including the president of the state Senate, were recalled Tuesday in elections brought about by their support for tougher gun control laws.

According to unofficial results, voters in Colorado Springs favored recalling state Sen. John Morse, the body’s president, by 51 percent to 49 percent. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, state Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo was defeated in her recall election, 56 percent to 44 percent.

The Colorado Republican Party called the vote results “a loud and clear message to out-of-touch Democrats across the nation” in a statement released late Tuesday. Colorado’s Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper, said he was “disappointed by the outcome of the recall elections” before calling on state residents to “refocus again on what unites Coloradans — creating jobs, educating our children, creating a healthier state — and on finding ways to keep Colorado moving forward.”

“We as the Democratic Party will continue to fight,” Morse told supporters in Colorado Springs as he conceded the race. Republican Bernie Herpin, a former Colorado Springs city councilman, will replace him. Giron will be replaced by Republican George Rivera, a former deputy police chief in Pueblo.

“We will win in the end because we are on the right side,” Giron said in her concession speech.

The votes marked the first time in Colorado history that a state lawmaker faced a recall effort and the biggest backlash in states that passed tougher gun-control laws following two mass shootings last year – at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater and a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

Democratic-leaning Connecticut, Maryland, and New York also passed tougher gun laws without a recall effort making a state ballot.

The states’ effort came after President Obama’s unsuccessful attempt to get Congress to pass stricter federal laws – including tighter background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines.

In Colorado Springs, the majority of registered voters are Democrats, but many are conservative-leaning. 23 percent of them, in fact, signed the petition to recall Morse, according to The Denver Post.

The National Rifle Association and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lined up on opposite sides of the recall effort, led by gun-rights advocates upset over the legislation and how the hearings were conducted.

Both state legislators voted for 15-round limits on ammunition magazines and for expanded background checks on private gun sales.

The legislation passed Colorado’s Democrat-led legislature without any Republican support and was signed into law by Hickenlooper, who had initially rejected calls for stronger gun control laws.

Morse, a former police chief in suburban Colorado Springs, said Colorado’s gun laws were commonsense ideas to reduce fatalities in mass shootings. He was first elected to the Colorado Senate in 2006.

Reported contributions to Morse and Giron totaled about $3 million, dwarfing the reported amount raised by gun activists who petitioned for the recall, though some independent groups didn’t have to report spending. Both the NRA and Bloomberg contributed more than $300,000 to the pro- and anti-recall campaigns.

In addition, dozens of elected county sheriffs have sued to block the gun laws.

One of the Morse recall organizers, Timothy Knight, said supporters are upset that lawmakers limited debate on the gun legislation and seemed more inclined to take cues from the White House than their constituents.

“If the people had been listened to, these recalls wouldn’t be happening,” Knight said.

By Joseph Weber / Published September 11, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Benghazi, One Year After

September 11, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON – On the one-year anniversary of the brutal terror attacks in Benghazi, the families of the four murdered Americans are still no closer to the truth about what happened to their loved ones than they were 12 months ago.

Five House panels and an internal investigation later, no one has been arrested, no one has been fired or held accountable, and the communication between the families of the victims and the State Department and White House has become almost non-existent.

“When I was there in Washington, when this first started, the FBI had me in a room to tell me what they were doing,” Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, one of the Americans killed in the terror attacks, told Fox News.

Smith says President Obama, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the FBI promised her that finding out who killed her son Sean, an information specialist working in Benghazi, would be a top priority.

But it’s a commitment Smith says the president hasn’t kept.

“The government is not doing what they should do,” she said. “Everybody knows this. They lie to you. They tell you what they want you to know. It may or may not be correct. And in my case, it’s always been lies.”

One day after the 2012 attack, Obama told the country that “we will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act.”

Smith and the families of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, have said they were promised answers but so far, haven’t gotten many.

“It has been almost a year since my son Ty Woods sacrificed his life defending 30 Americans at the Benghazi consulate,” Charles Woods said in a written statement Monday. “After one year, we still do not have answers.”

Smith’s uncle Michael Ingmire also circulated a letter this week blasting Congress for not doing enough to seek the truth in what happened. He claimed House Speaker John Boehner “failed” in his leadership by bucking calls for an independent investigative panel.

In August, Secretary of State John Kerry reassigned four State officials who had been put on paid administrative leave following criticism of their conduct during and following the deadly attack.

The move angered many conservatives who have long called for the government to hold someone accountable.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, called Kerry’s actions “a charade that included false reports of firings and resignations and now ends in a game of musical chairs where no one misses a single day on the State Department payroll.”

Last month, federal prosecutors filed the first criminal charges related to the Benghazi attacks against Libyan leader Ahmed Abu Khattalah, but no arrests have been made.

The White House, State Department, CIA and FBI have been repeatedly pressed on why they haven’t been able to catch Khattalah, who has given multiple media interviews, including some that took place in open-air markets and coffee shops.

When asked on “Fox News Sunday” why authorities haven’t been able to catch a man who doesn’t really seem to be in hiding, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough seemed to be caught off guard.

“We’ve been very clear that we will hold those people who carried out this dastardly, heinous attack against our people to account,” he said. “You know what the United States does? We track every lead until we …can accomplish what we say we will do.”

But to Smith, it’s the same runaround she’s been hearing for months.

“When I was there in Washington, when this first started the FBI had me in a room over there to tell me what they were doing,” Smith said. “There were about 10 of them sitting around the table, with the attorney and everybody that was involved with the FBI. And they said they were going to follow this up until they finally got the guys that did this and they showed me pictures of three different guys that they suspected and wanted to question and bring them in.

“Those same three guys never were caught, never were questioned and I saw the same three pictures of them just the other day on TV. They are still looking for them. So I don’t have too much faith in that.”

The Justice Department said in a written statement on Tuesday that investigators have made “very significant progress in the investigation.”

Some military and law enforcement officials also say they’re frustrated with what they claim is the White House’s unwillingness to apply pressure to the Libyan government to arrest the people in connection with the attack or – as an alternative — to allow American authorities to come to Libya and do it themselves.

On Monday, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., suggested the trepidation over Benghazi could be linked to the situation in Syria.

“I firmly believe that whatever the State Department and CIA were doing in Benghazi had a direct connection to U.S. policy in Syria – a policy that to date has not been fully revealed to the American people or to Congress,” Wolf said during a panel discussion at Judicial Watch’s headquarters in Washington.

Wolf believes that the government had been stockpiling weapons for Syrian opposition fighters when they came under attack by terrorists in Benghazi.

“How can this conversation advance in a responsible manner without clarity about what transpired that night in Benghazi?” he said.

Wolf is using the accusation to launch his renewed calls for the creation of a House Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi incident. He argues that forming a select committee will give lawmakers the power they need to subpoena additional witnesses, whistleblowers and documents linked to the attack in Libya.

So far, more than 160 lawmakers have signed their names to the petition asking Boehner to green-light the formation of the bipartisan committee.

A subpoena would be a legally enforceable demand to produce information, whether it’s oral testimony, documents or electronic information. Calls to Boehner’s office were not returned.

By Barnini Chakraborty / Published September 11, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Obama’s Mojo Meter: 0

September 10, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

President Obama plans to call for a “pause” Tuesday night in the push for a congressional vote on military action in Syria, senior administration officials told Fox News, as the president waits to see if an emerging diplomatic option can work.

The early details of the president’s national address show he is continuing to back off his “red line” threat to take military action against President Bashar Assad’s regime for its use of chemical weapons. Though his Secretary of State, John Kerry, seemed to push for a congressional vote during testimony on Capitol Hill earlier in the day, officials said Obama is now hitting “pause” on that process.

The pause comes as Kerry plans to meet with his Russian counterpart in Geneva on Thursday to discuss a proposal to have Syria turn over its chemical weapons stockpile to international control.

The administration claims it wants to find out quickly whether this proposal is serious.

Administration officials clarified that Obama is not canceling the congressional votes; but rather, wants to slow them down. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid already has postponed a Wednesday test vote on whether to authorize military force.

One official described the administration’s current approach as a two-track plan – setting up potential votes for military force on the Hill, while also pursuing the diplomatic track.

Another official said that during Tuesday’s meetings on Capitol Hill Obama “indicated a desire to pursue the diplomatic option that was put forward yesterday by the Russians.”

He said the president said his administration would spend the days ahead “pursuing this diplomatic option with the Russians and our allies at the United Nations” while his administration worked with members of Congress on authorizing language.

Administration officials also claimed the White House has been working on the chemical weapons hand-over idea with the Russians for up to year. According to the officials, Kerry did accidentally let the news out on Monday – when he appeared to make an off-handed comment that Assad could avert a strike by turning over his weapons. Kerry immediately walked back the remark.

The officials said that because Russia then openly agreed to the idea, the president is willing to see if this will work. If not, officials said, the White House will still pursue a military course.

No matter what course the administration takes, the president was being challenged from all sides Tuesday — with Russia’s Vladimir Putin pressuring Obama to drop his call for a military strike and members of the Syrian opposition warning that a newly emerging diplomatic option would only play into Assad’s hands.

In Russia, Putin reportedly needled the Obama administration to abandon the military option. Putin said the only way diplomacy can work is if “we hear that the American side and all those who support the United States in this sense reject the use of force,” according to Reuters.

But the diplomatic option was running into early obstacles, as an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council was suddenly called off, after Russia withdrew its request.

And members of the Syrian opposition and others voiced concern that the chemical weapons plan is indeed turning into a “stall” tactic that will allow the Assad regime to escalate conventional warfare on its own people.

Among the most outspoken since the emergence Monday of a potential U.S.-Russia plan has been the Syrian Coalition — a leader in the nearly three-year-long effort to oust Assad.

“It is vital to remember that the Assad regime, notwithstanding its use of chemical weapons, continues to use all kinds of conventional weapons against innocent women and children,” said the group, formally known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces. “The Assad regime, which has butchered people with knives and burnt them alive, has exhausted all time limits over the past two-and-a-half years.”

More than 100,000 Syrians have been killed in the civil war, including an estimated 1,400 in the sarin-gas attack last month that prompted Obama to conclude on Aug. 31 that the United States should launch a punitive strike and ask for congressional support.

The diplomatic plan appeared to emerge Monday morning in London when Kerry said Assad has a long-shot possibility of avoiding a strike by surrendering the weapons. The plan was promptly endorsed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and by Monday night Obama appeared to make the idea part of his evolving foreign policy.

“I welcome the possibility of the development,” the president told Fox News. “And John Kerry will be talking to his Russian counterparts. I think we should explore and exhaust all avenues of diplomatic resolution of this. But I think it’s important for us to keep the pressure on.”

Syria’s foreign minister embraced the proposal to turn over chemical weapons, saying Tuesday that Syria would declare its chemical weapons arsenal and sign the chemical weapons convention. Kerry, though, said Syria should “go further.”

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain — among Capitol Hill’s most outspoken supporters of efforts to end the Assad regime — said Tuesday he was “very skeptical” about the proposed diplomatic solution, considering Assad had refused to acknowledge having chemical weapons.

Still, he said Congress should wait on deciding on a military strike until the possibility of a U.N. resolution on controlling Assad’s chemical weapons “plays out.”

“To not pursue this option would be a mistake,” McCain told CBS News before making clear he still thinks the best strategy is military support for Assad opposition forces to help overthrow the government.

Meanwhile, Kansas Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo, a member of the Select Intelligence Committee, told FoxNews.com LIVE’s “Power Play” on Tuesday the United States should still strike because the Syrian uprising is a national security concern.

“I don’t trust the president to execute this plan well,” he said. “It’s why I wanted to engage. I was over at the White House yesterday. We had a very direct conversation about what the president ought to say tonight. But more importantly, what the president ought to do if he were to engage militarily in Syria. It’s not enough to fire a couple missiles.”

Many in Congress, though, are against any U.S. military action in Syria. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday joined those opposing a strike. It’s not clear whether Congress will take up a resolution to authorize the use of force.

Earlier in the day, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi claimed there was no need for a congressional vote.

“It is not necessary for Congress to give the president this authority,” Pelosi said. “We are grateful that he has asked for it but if he sees an opportunity we don’t want the Russians to think that his leverage is diminished because of a vote (that) may or may not succeed within the Congress.”

The push-back from Washington and Moscow poses a challenge for Obama, as he finds himself caught between two very different paths on Syria — a missile strike that potentially drags the U.S. into a bloody civil war, and a diplomatic solution that would likely do little to end that war.

The momentum, at least temporarily, appeared to be running in favor of the diplomatic course.

On Capitol Hill, a bipartisan group of eight senators started writing an alternative resolution that would call on the United Nations to state that Syria used chemical weapons and require a U.N. team to remove the chemical weapons from Syria within a specific time period, possibly 60 days. If that can’t be done, then Obama would have the authority to launch military strikes, congressional aides said.

Published September 10, 2013 / FoxNews.com / Fox News’ Ed Henry and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Arctic Sea Ice Up 60 Percent in 2013

September 10, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

About a million more square miles of ocean are covered in ice in 2013 than in 2012, a whopping 60 percent increase — and a dramatic deviation from predictions of an “ice-free Arctic in 2013,” the Daily Mail noted.

Arctic sea ice averaged 2.35 million square miles in August 2013, as compared to the low point of 1.32 million square miles recorded on Sept. 16, 2012, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. A chart published Sept. 8 by NSIDC shows the dramatic rise this year, putting total ice cover within two standard deviations of the 30-year average.

Noting the year over year surge, one scientist even argued that “global cooling” was here.

“We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for the next 15 years at least. There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped,” Anastasios Tsonis of the University of Wisconsin told London’s Mail on Sunday.

The surge in Arctic ice is a dramatic change from last year’s record-setting lows, which fueled dire predictions of an imminent ice-free summer. A 2007 BBC report said the Arctic could be ice free in 2013 — a theory NASA still echoes today.

“[An ice-free Arctic is] definitely coming, and coming sooner than we previously expected,“ Walt Meier, a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md, told LiveScience last month. “We’re looking at when as opposed to if.”

Noting the growth in ice, the Snow and Ice Data Center said that coverage was still well below the 30-year average. And the year over year growth in ice is “largely irrelevant,” argued The Guardian, noting that more ice is to be expected after the record low a year ago.

“We should not often expect to observe records in consecutive years. 2012 shattered the previous record low sea ice extent; hence ‘regression towards the mean’ told us that 2013 would likely have a higher minimum extent,” wrote Dana Nuccitelli.

Meanwhile, global surface temperatures have been relatively flat over the past decade and a half, according to data from the U.K.’s weather-watching Met Office.

A leaked draft of the next major climate report from the U.N. cites numerous causes to explain the slowdown in warming: greater-than-expected ash from volcanoes, a decline in heat from the sun, more heat being absorbed by the deep oceans, and so on.

Climate skeptics have spent months debating the weather pattern, some citing it as evidence that global warming itself has decelerated or even stopped.

“The absence of any significant change in the global annual average temperature over the past 16 years has become one of the most discussed topics in climate science,” wrote David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in June. “It has certainly focused the debate about the relative importance of greenhouse gas forcing of the climate versus natural variability.”

Published September 09, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Al-Qaeda-Linked Fighters Seize Ancient Christian Village in Syria

September 9, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Rebels including al-Qaeda-linked fighters gained control of a Christian village northeast of the capital Damascus, Syrian activists said Sunday. Government media provided a dramatically different account of the battle suggesting regime forces were winning.

It was impossible to independently verify the reports from Maaloula, a scenic mountain community known for being one of the few places in the world where residents still speak the ancient Middle Eastern language of Aramaic. The village is on a UNESCO list of tentative world heritage sites.

The rebel advance into the area this week was spearheaded by the Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra Front, exacerbating fears among Syrians and religious minorities about the role played by Islamic extremists within the rebel ranks.

It was not immediately clear why the army couldn’t sufficiently reinforce its troops to prevent the rebel advance in the area only 43 kilometres from Damascus. Some activists say that Assad’s forces are stretched thin, fighting in other areas in the north and south of the country.

Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Nusra Front backed by another group, the Qalamon Liberation Front, moved into the village after heavy clashes with the army late Saturday.

“The army pulled back to the outskirts of the village and both (rebel groups) are in total control of Maaloula now,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

He said pro-government fighters remain inside the village, in hiding.

Initially, troops loyal to President Bashar Assad moved into Maaloula early Saturday, he said, “but they left when rebels started pouring into the village.” Now, Abdurrahman said, the army is surrounding the village and controlling its entrances and exits.

A Maaloula resident said the rebels, many of them sporting beards and shouting Allahu Akbar, or God is great, attacked Christian homes and churches shortly after moving into the village overnight.

“They shot and killed people. I heard gunshots and then I saw three bodies lying in the middle of a street in the old quarters of the village,” said the resident, reached by telephone from neighbouring Jordan. “So many people fled the village for safety.”

Now, Maaloula “is a ghost town. Where is President Obama to see what befallen on us?” asked the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal by the rebels.

Syria’s state SANA news agency said the army reported “progress” in its offensive against the rebels in Maaloula. “The army inflicted heavy losses in the ranks of the terrorists,” it said, using a government term to describe the rebels.

“Military operations are continuing in the vicinity of Maaloula and its entrances,” SANA said.

State-run TV reported that all churches in Maaloula were now safe and the army was chasing gunmen in the western hills.

The development came as President Barack Obama’s administration pressed ahead with efforts to win congressional backing and international support for military strikes against Syria over an alleged chemical attack in August outside Damascus.

The U.S. says Assad’s forces fired rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin on rebel-held areas near the capital before dawn on Aug. 21, killing at least 1,429 people. Other estimates put the death toll from the attack at more than 500.

Back in Washington after a trip to Europe that included a two-day visit to Russia to attend a Group of 20 summit, Obama will intensify his efforts to sell a skeptical Congress and a war-weary American public on a military strike against Syria.

A passionate debate is already underway in Congress and the administration’s lobbying campaign culminates Tuesday, as Obama gives an Oval Office speech the evening before a critical vote on the possible Syria action is expected in the Senate.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius questioned in a television interview Sunday Assad’s willingness for a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

“No one is for war,” Fabius told France 3 TV. “The question we ask is if we want to get to a political resolution, will Bashar Assad accept if nothing is done? My opinion is no. There has to be a firm response to push toward a political negotiation.”

Fabius said that a military intervention didn’t require every country to be behind it. He said: “We must be vigilant against barbarity.”

Jamal Halaby / AMMAN, Jordan — The Associated Press

Bloomberg Complains Top Dem Using Racism in Campaign

September 8, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Outgoing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is saying the leading Democratic candidate to replace him is running a “racist” campaign.

His comments were directed at public advocate Bill de Blasio, a come-from-behind candidate now leading in most polls ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

De Blasio is white, but he has been polling well among blacks since he began airing television ads featuring his interracial family. His wife is black and the couple has a son and a daughter.

De Blasio has said Bloomberg has not been doing enough for the poor, saying New York has become “two cities,” one for the rich and one for everyone else. And Bloomberg has been a supporter of early Democratic front-runner and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Bloomberg made his comment during an interview with New York magazine.

The interviewer calls de Blasio’s bid “in some ways … a class-warfare campaign.” Bloomberg interjects, “class-warfare and racist,” according to the magazine.

However, the mayor clarified his statement by saying de Blasio is “making an appeal using his family to gain support.

“I think it’s pretty obvious to anyone watching what he’s been doing. I do not think he himself is racist. It’s comparable to me pointing out I’m Jewish in attracting the Jewish vote.”

Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire, said he also found de Blasio’s “two cities” rhetoric divisive.

New York’s wealthiest residents, he said, contribute tremendously to the city and also deliver a huge amount of tax revenue that gives the city financial muscle that other municipalities lack.

“By most of the world’s standards, you ain’t poor,” said Bloomberg, noting that in some corners of the globe, people don’t have access to things like air conditioning or own their own cars.

At a campaign event on Saturday, de Blasio called the remarks “very unfortunate.”

A Quinnipiac University Poll released on Tuesday shows de Blasio has extended his lead and pushed past the 40 percent threshold, which would spare him a runoff with other candidates in the Democratic primary.

The poll released shows 43 percent of likely voters supporting de Blasio. Former City Comptroller William Thompson has 20 percent of the likely vote, Quinn has 18 percent and former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner has 7 percent, according to the poll.

De Blasio also leads in two key voting blocs — blacks (47 percent) and women (44 percent), according to the poll.

Quinn and Weiner were the early leaders. However, Weiner’s run faltered after revelations in July that he had continued to send women sexually explicit messages via social media after resigning from Congress over the issue in June 2011.

Quinn’s campaign has been hurt by critics who continue to point out that in 2008 she helped lead a City Council effort to successfully overturn term limits, allowing Blooombergl to win a third term.

The likely Republican primary winner will be former Metropolitan Transportation Authority CEO Joseph Lhota, with 48 percent of likely voters now supporting him, according to the Quinnipiac poll.

Published September 08, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Obama Praises Islam in America

September 7, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

President Barack Hussein Obama taped the following message to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) for its 50th Convention, praising Islamic efforts in this country to help him implement many of his policies.

“My Administration is proud to be your partner in our shared efforts to promote economic opportunity, accessible health care and affordable education in Muslim communities throughout our country,” he said.

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PUBLIUS

Drudge Rebukes GOP Over Syria, NSA

September 5, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Internet pioneer Matt Drudge may have had enough of the Republican Party.

Though known to needle the GOP and its leaders from time to time, the founder of Drudge Report let loose over the party’s direction on Twitter this week.

Asking why anyone would vote Republican, Drudge listed his grievances: “Raised taxes; marching us off to war again; approved more NSA snooping. WHO ARE THEY?!”

His tweets referred to Republican leaders, like House Speaker John Boehner, getting behind the president’s military-strike push in Syria and other positions. But Drudge’s comments also touched on the broader internal fight in the party.

Or as Drudge put it: “It’s now Authoritarian vs. Libertarian. Since Democrats vs. Republicans have been obliterated, no real differences between parties.”

But Drudge’s recent tweets are hardly the first time he’s gotten in the middle of Republican Party infighting.

In January 2012, conservative Republicans accused him of catering to the GOP establishment and said he used his influential site as a virtual soap box for presidential candidate Mitt Romney. They were upset that he had taken repeated swipes at candidate Newt Gingrich.

Some fans openly questioned whether Drudge, once the darling of the conservative right, had become an enemy to the “cause” and accused him of using his digital real estate to push a more mainstream message. Politico wrote at the time, “Newt Gingrich better hope voters who lapped up his delicious hits on the ‘elite media’ and liberals don’t read the Drudge Report this morning … If they do, Gingrich comes off looking like a dangerous, anti-Reagan, Clintonian fraud.”

Known for its never-changed spartan look, Drudge Report has become one of the most powerful drivers of political news in the country. The headlines trend toward news that interests conservative readers the most, but news outlets of all stripes relish a link on the heavily trafficked site — and check it regularly.

According to a May 2011 Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism study, Drudge is an “extremely important traffic driver.”

“In other words, the Drudge Report’s influence cuts across both traditional organizations such as ABC News to more tabloid style outlets such as the New York Post,” the study found. “What’s more, Drudge Report drove more links than Facebook or Twitter on all the sites to which it drove traffic.”

Drudge Report started off as an online news group in the ’90s. Its break-out moment came in 1998, when it out-scooped Newsweek on its own story. Drudge reported that the national magazine had information on the inappropriate relationship between then-President Clinton and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky but was sitting on it. Newsweek published the story after Drudge’s report came out.

Not known for his tact, Drudge has been repeatedly slammed by the left for sensationalizing news.

Yet earlier this year, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange hailed Drudge as a “news media innovator” who should be applauded.

Assange claimed that Drudge made his name by “publishing information that the establishment media would not. It is as a result of the self-censorship of the establishment press in the United States that gave Matt Drudge such a platform and so of course he should be applauded for breaking a lot of that censorship.”

Published September 05, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Critics Blast Fed Common Core Education Edicts

September 4, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

A full year before students around the nation submit to the new Common Core standardized tests, the federally-backed program is already causing chaos and confusion at local school board meetings, in the classroom and at the dinner table.

As critics fear Washington is poised to take control of what and how local districts teach kids, school administrators are adopting new curriculum in an effort to ensure their students outperform their peers and parents worry that their children are being used as academic guinea pigs. As the program gets closer to full implementation, a full-blown backlash is developing despite assurances from supporters that it is merely a test aimed at establishing a national standard.

“Common Core is forcing districts to re-think math curriculum. And in cases like ours, they are making poor decisions.” – Kelly Crisp, parent from Fairfield, Conn.

“It’s just now reaching their school districts and their children’s schools and they want to know, ‘What is this, and why is it being forced on us?’” said the Cato Institute’s Neil McCluskey.

When 90 percent of states signed on to subject K-12 students to the Common Core math and English standards being pushed by the federal government, the program looked like an unqualified success. Kids around the nation would be tested once a year in grades 3-8 in math and English language arts, and once in high school, either in the 10th or 11th grades. Finally, students throughout the country could be measured by the same yardstick, long before taking college entrance exams. Local districts that excelled at educating children could be singled out, and ones who lagged could also be identified in order to address problems.

But if what happened in New York and Kentucky, two of the 45 states that have signed on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, is any indication, the chaos has only just begun. Those states administered their own standardized tests aligned with Common Core, and the results were disastrous. Just 31 percent of New York students in the third through eighth grades were deemed proficient in math and English on the new tests, down about 50 percent from the traditional test given the year before. Kentucky, which also implemented its own Common Core-aligned tests, experienced similar declines in scores.

Other states are waiting until at least 2014-15 to implement Common Core tests that are still in development. But at the state and district level, educators are tinkering with the curriculum in the hopes of having students prepared for the new tests – sometimes with disastrous results. In the affluent town of Fairfield, Conn., the school district last year adopted a new math curriculum for eighth- and ninth-graders called College Preparatory Math, with an eye toward the looming Common Core tests. But a year later, standardized test scores dipped and, according to one parent, Kelly Crisp, kids who had always done well in math were left disillusioned with the subject.

Five parents filed a complaint with the state over use of the new Algebra 1 book, and, after a protracted battle, forced the district to establish an “instructional online interactive forum” for Algebra 1 students and adopt new regulations for pilot programs as part of a settlement on the controversy over use of a textbook. Crisp said she worries about some 800 students who spent a year studying from a textbook hastily adopted in the frenzy to align with Common Core. The district later disavowed the book.

“Common Core is forcing districts to re-think math curriculum,” Crisp said. “And in cases like ours, they are making poor decisions.”

McCluskey said school districts are “flailing to try to adopt curriculum that will prepare students for Common Core, but there is no real standard.

“What we’re seeing is the market flooded with curriculum that claims to be Common Core aligned,” McCluskey said.

While the Obama administration has embraced Common Core, the plan was actually drawn up by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Carissa Miller, deputy executive director of Council of Chief State School Officers, bristles at the suggestion that Common Core seeks to impose a Washington-based, politically correct curriculum on local districts.

“It’s a misperception,” Miller said. “States have had standards for a long time. This would just set common standards, and standards are not curriculum.”

As an example, Miller cites a third-grade writing standard in which students must be able to recall information from print or digital sources, write notes on it and then sort it into relevant categories. The process, Miller notes, is the same for all students. But the source materials used to prepare for it are up to the teacher or district.

David Coleman, whose nonprofit Student Achievement Partners was hired by the National Governors Association to design the Common Core standards, said parents should look at the standards set forth before deciding whether they are good or bad for their children.

“They are a set of standards that we expect kids to know,” said Coleman, now president of the College Board, where he is redesigning the SAT to reflect Common Core standards.. “It is not taking away any kind of state or district rights to say how or what kids are taught.

“Any time you do something new, there’s always concern. It is valid for parents to be concerned. But with more information, it will become apparent that this is simply setting a high bar and having a uniform standard across the nation.”

Proponents say that because Common Core only applies to math and reading, fears that revisionist history or agenda-driven social studies will find their way into K-12 textbooks are unfounded. But in McCluskey’s words, “standards are designed to set a box around curriculum,” meaning whatever is on the test will have to be taught.

Phyllis Schlafly of The Eagle Forum goes even further.

“Common Core means federal control of school curriculum, i.e., control by Obama administration left-wing bureaucrats,” wrote Schlafly. “The control mechanism is the tests (called assessments). Kids must pass the tests in order to get a high school diploma or admittance to college. If they haven’t studied a curriculum based on Common Core standards, they won’t score well on the tests.”

Published September 04, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Rubio Blasts $9M ObamaCare Advertising Campaign

September 4, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

A proposed $8.7 million TV advertising campaign to promote ObamaCare in the lead-up to a key launch date is being targeted by Sen. Marco Rubio, who calls the effort a “blatant misuse of federal dollars.”

The Florida Republican said Tuesday that such spending is “unconscionable,” considering the uncertainty of the law and urged the Department of Health and Human Services to halt the spending.

“Until critical questions can be answered regarding the availability and type of health insurance to be provided by ObamaCare, it is unconscionable to spend taxpayer dollars to promote and advertise ObamaCare plans that have yet to be finalized,” Rubio wrote in the Sept. 3 letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The agency did not return a request for comment late Tuesday.

Obama signed his signature health care proposal into law in March 2010.

However, the administration has more recently delayed implementing parts of the law, most notably the requirement for businesses to offer insurance to employers.

The administration has tried rigorously to promote the program over the past several months, knowing that its success depends largely on a large pool of customers. The start for people to sign up for insurance in so-called “exchanges” is Oct. 1.

This is not the first time such HHS-related efforts have been criticized.

In the spring, Sebelius asked charitable groups, businesses executives, churches and doctors to donate money to nonprofit organizations such as Enroll America to sign up uninsured Americans.

This raised questions about Sebelius asking for money from groups her agency might regulate and prompted a probe by the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The agency said a special section in the Public Health Services Act allows the secretary to solicit financial support for nonprofit organizations conducting public health work.

This summer, Sebelius purportedly asked the NFL to help promote insurance options under ObamaCare.

The most recent program would be administered through HHS’ Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The ads are expected to appear first in parts of Florida, Texas and Tennessee.

Published September 04, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Teen ‘Guilty’ in Murder of White Baby in Stroller

August 30, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

MARIETTA, Ga. – An 18-year-old man was convicted of murder in the shooting of a baby who was riding in a stroller alongside his mom in a town in coastal Georgia despite the defense’s attempt to cast guilt upon several others, including the child’s parents.

Jurors deliberated about two hours before finding De’Marquise Elkins guilty of 11 counts, including two counts of felony murder and one count of malice murder in the March 21 killing of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago in Brunswick. The man’s mother, Karimah Elkins, was on trial alongside him and was found guilty of tampering with evidence but acquitted of lying to police.

De’Marquise Elkins faces life in prison when he is sentenced at a later date. At the time of the shooting he was 17, too young to face the death penalty under Georgia law.

His lead defense attorney, public defender Kevin Gough, vowed to appeal the verdict. A judge denied his request for the teen to be out on bond during the appeal.

“Marky Elkins and his family are confident that he will receive another trial in which he will be able to present fully his defense,” Gough said. “Mr. Elkins will eventually be exonerated.”

Karimah Elkins’ attorney, Wrix McIlvaine, said he would talk to his client and that they would likely appeal.

Sherry West testified that she was walking home from the post office with her son the morning of the killing. A gunman demanding her purse, shot her in the leg and shot her baby in the face after she told him she had no money, she said.

Prosecutors, who declined comment after the verdict, said during two-week trial that De’Marquise Elkins and an accomplice, 15-year-old Dominique Lang, are the ones who stopped West. Prosecutors say the older teen pointed a small .22-caliber revolver at West and demanded money. When West refused several times to turn over the money, Elkins fired a warning shot, shot the woman in the leg and the baby between the eyes, prosecutors said.

The killing in the port city of Brunswick drew national attention, and the trial was moved to the Atlanta suburb of Marietta owing to extensive publicity locally.

Prosecutors have said information from Elkins’ mother and sister led investigators to a pond where they found the revolver. Elkins’ sister also was charged with evidence tampering.

Lang, who was a key prosecution witness in Elkins’ trial, is set to go to trial at a later date.

West told The Associated Press that she didn’t want to say too much following the verdict because there are still other trials pending in the case and she will be a witness and she will testify at Elkins’ sentencing.

“I knew why I was there and I knew that I didn’t have my baby anymore,” she said. “In the beginning I was in shock. Now things are kind of really setting in. But I’m hanging in there.”

West spent hours on the stand during the trial and was grilled by the defense on her personal and medical history.

“I was a little nervous up on the stand and just being asked so many personal questions by the defense attorney,” she said in a telephone interview. “It was embarrassing.”

The defense tried throughout the trial to prove that the investigation was flawed and that police refused to consider other leads or investigate further once they had Elkins in custody the day after the killing

“They finished their case in 25 hours. Everything else they did after that they just sugarcoated,” Lockwood said.

The prosecution’s witnesses — many with criminal histories and some drug users — lied repeatedly and changed their stories throughout the investigation, Lockwood said. The defense also said several law enforcement agents backtracked in their testimony to make sure what they were saying fit the state’s version of the story.

West made different identifications of the suspect and behaved strangely after the shooting, occasionally joking and laughing while being questioned by police and making other bizarre statements, Lockwood said. The baby’s father, Louis Santiago, was in the vicinity when the shooting happened and showed no warmth toward the child’s mother afterward, Lockwood said.

Lang testified that Elkins is the one who asked West for money and fired the shots, but admitted lying repeatedly, Lockwood said. And Lang’s cousin, Joe Lang, was in the area on the day of the shooting and fits the description of the shooter.

But police never really investigated the baby’s parents or the Lang cousins, Lockwood said.

The defense had strongly suggested in pretrial motions that the baby’s parents were the killers. Gough made several suggestions to the same effect during the trial. But much of his questioning that seemed to be heading in that direction — including attempts to bring up details about the backgrounds of both of the baby’s parents — was blocked by the judge after the prosecution objected.

Prosecutors said the defense presented a lot of theories and speculation but that the evidence and facts in the case proved Elkins’ guilt.

Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson showed jurors a string of still images pulled from video cameras around Brunswick during her closing argument. They all showed Elkins in specific locations at specific times the day of the shooting.

Johnson also reminded jurors of the testimony of two young women — one who said Elkins walked her to school at 8:45 the day of the shooting and another who said she spent the night before with Elkins and ate with him later that morning, which was backed up by video stills of them at a convenience store.

The only person whose story didn’t match the evidence in the case was Elkins, Johnson said.

Johnson also rejected the accusation that police stopped investigating once they arrested Elkins, noting that they pulled video from various cameras around town and went diving in a pond to recover the gun the following week.

Johnson also slammed the defense for picking on West and her behavior following the shooting: “Does anyone know what the protocol is for how you’re supposed to act when you’ve just watched your child get shot in the face?”

Published August 30, 2013 / Associated Press

Muslims Wiping Out Christians Across World

August 30, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Newly-surfaced video from Egypt shows a Muslim mob storming a Coptic church, setting cars on fire and then toppling a cross atop the steeple, in a shocking attack that Christians say has been played out dozens of times since the ouster of Mohammad Morsi.

The video, obtained by MidEast Christian News, was shot Aug. 14 from a nearby building overlooking the diocese in the southern Egyptian city of Sohag. In the six-minute video, a crowd, incensed by the eviction of pro-Morsi supporters from camps in Cairo, masses outside the church. Several members of the group scale a wall and attack vehicles in a courtyard, setting several ablaze. The video culminates in the crown exhorting a man high up on the steeple to take down a cross, which he does.

Dozens of Coptic churches were attacked by members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the military’s move against Morsi, who critics say was turning Egypt into an Islamist state. Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 80 million, but Morsi supporters blamed them for his ouster, according to Coptic leaders.

Bishop Makarious, a Coptic leader from Minya, accused Muslim Brotherhood leaders of planning attacks on Christian churches, homes and businesses in an effort to divide the embattled nation.

“We were expecting this scenario weeks before sit-ins were broken up; as it was evident of the incitement being made by Brotherhood leaders against Copts,” Makarious told MidEast Christian News. “We were then surprised by the systematic attacks on churches and Copts’ properties, many of them occurring at the same time in different places, in a series of attacks made under a plan they called ‘Plan B’”, which targeted all churches to be burned and destroyed.”

The provisional military government has pledged to rebuild Christian churches destroyed by mobs.

Published August 30, 2013 / FoxNews.com

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Strong Opponent of Bush Iraq Policy, Obama Faces Similar Path on Syria

August 30, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

President Obama, with Great Britain having rejected military action in Syria, finds himself on the verge of pursuing the very kind of go-it-alone approach that he accused his predecessor of using in Iraq.

Obama, though, may not even have a “coalition of the willing” at his back, as George W. Bush did, should he choose to pursue the military option in Syria. America’s most vital ally, Great Britain, effectively pulled out before the fireworks began, when the House of Commons voted against military action on Thursday evening.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was pushing for intervention in Syria, indicated he would not defy the will of Parliament.

“It is clear to me that the British parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that and the government will act accordingly,” he said.

The United Nations Security Council has also refused thus far to give its consent to intervention in Syria.

Yet the White House remained undeterred, escalating an argument that any potential action on Syria, to punish the Assad regime for a chemical weapons attack last week and deter future attacks, would be in the U.S. interest.

“The U.S. will continue to consult with the U.K. Government – one of our closest allies and friends. As we’ve said, President Obama’s decision-making will be guided by what is in the best interests of the United States,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

The approach is a far cry from then-candidate Obama’s campaign-trail appeals for international cooperation.

During an April 2007 speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Obama said the U.S. cannot try to “bully [the world] into submission.”

In a 2007 essay in Foreign Affairs, he specifically warned about breaking off from European allies: “In the case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq war.”

During his July 2008 campaign speech in Berlin, Obama told Europeans that “no one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone.” He warned that “on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny” and that neither America nor Europe can “turn inward.”

Bush, asked by Fox News on Friday about Obama’s current choice in Syria, declined to comment on what the current commander-in-chief should do.

“The president has to make a tough call,” Bush said, adding that “I was not a fan of Mr. Assad.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the U.S. is still pushing for an international effort on Syria despite the vote in London. French President Francois Hollande reportedly said overnight that the Parliament vote would not affect his country’s willingness to act. The German government, though, says it still is not considering military action.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Thursday rejected the notion that the current situation is in any way similar to the run-up to the Iraq war under the George W. Bush administration.

“I think that there are some very important differences. What we saw in that circumstance was an administration that was searching high and low to produce evidence to justify a military invasion, an open-ended military invasion of another country, with the final goal being regime change,” he said.

Yet from the press corps and from the halls of Congress, the administration is already hearing echoes of Iraq.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., among those in Congress criticizing a potential Syria mission, released a statement saying “we should have learned our lesson from the Iraq War.”

He said Obama “thinks he is the police chief of the world,” but “Americans have already paid too high a price for that grandiose notion.”

Still, after administration officials briefed top lawmakers on Thursday evening, some in Congress voiced a willingness to hear out the administration’s argument for intervention.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would support a “surgical, proportional military strikes” on Syria given the “strong evidence” that the regime used chemical weapons.

The administration is expected to release information from its intelligence reports on the alleged chemical weapons attack as early as Friday.

Published August 30, 2013 / FoxNews.com

STUNNING DEFEAT: UK Votes Against Obama’s Syria Strike

August 29, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

British lawmakers on Thursday voted against military intervention in Syria, in a major setback for both British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Obama administration in their push to punish the Assad regime for an alleged chemical weapons strike.

Cameron, who has been aligned with President Obama in advocating a tough response, indicated after the vote that he would abide by the outcome. The measure was narrowly defeated, by 285 votes to 272 votes.

The outcome raises serious questions for Obama, who has not yet made a decision on the way forward in Syria but had indicated his administration would need international support for any strike. After failing to win support for an anti-Assad resolution before the U.N. Security Council, U.S. officials were looking to allies like Britain and France to build a coalition for action in Syria.

The White House said after the vote that it would continue to assess its options on Syria.

“The U.S. will continue to consult with the U.K. Government – one of our closest Allies and friends. As we’ve said, President Obama’s decision-making will be guided by what is in the best interests of the United States,” said National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden.

The U.K. vote was on a preliminary measure and not technically binding. Even if the measure was approved, Cameron would likely have had to seek another round of approval in a matter of days. But Cameron now risks a political backlash if he proceeds at all; he said Thursday that he understand the British people do not want to see the U.K. involved in Syria.

“It is very clear tonight that, while the House has not passed a motion, it is clear to me that the British parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that and the government will act accordingly,” he said.

Polls in the United States have shown similar distaste among Americans for military action in Syria. But Obama and his top advisers, despite the vote in London, were trying to convince Congress on Thursday of the need to respond, holding a series of briefings as lawmakers increasingly voiced skepticism toward any military strike.

The president on Thursday afternoon personally briefed House Speaker John Boehner, who a day earlier wrote to the president urging him to provide a “clear, unambiguous explanation” on how military action would serve U.S. interests.

Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck reiterated those questions after the call. “Only the president can answer these questions, and it is clear that further dialogue and consultation with Congress, as well as communication with the American public, will be needed,” he said.

The White House planned a major briefing Thursday evening with key lawmakers. Many of those lawmakers are still in their districts and elsewhere for the summer recess, so most were dialing in for a conference call. One of the few lawmakers actually in the Capitol is Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Over the past 48 hours, dozens of lawmakers have spoken out on the potential for military action in Syria. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the policy “a big step in the wrong direction.”

Yet the White House is standing by its position that intervention in Syria, in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack last week, would serve U.S. interests. White House spokesman Josh Earnest also rejected the notion that the current situation was in any way similar to the run-up to the Iraq war under the George W. Bush administration.

“What we have seen here, tragically, is a preponderance of evidence available in the public domain that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against innocent civilians. And we don’t have to search high and low for that evidence.”

Meanwhile, the administration was continuing to face turbulence among its allies. Amid the vote in Britain, the five permanent members of the Security Council — including the U.S. and Britain — were meeting in New York. Russia has so far proved most resistant to any involvement in Syria.

In an interview with PBS on Wednesday, Obama bluntly declared that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack last week. He suggested a “shot across the bow” for Syria could be in the interest of U.S. national security.

Meanwhile, battle lines are being drawing in the international community. After Russia refused to sign on to a Britain-drafted resolution before the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, Reuters reports that Russia is sending two warships to the Mediterranean Sea, where the U.S. has also positioned ships. A fifth U.S. Navy Destroyer was sent into the eastern Mediterranean on Thursday.

The Navy has also boosted its presence in the Persian Gulf, adding one more aircraft carrier.

Published August 29, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Kim Jong-Un’s Ex-girlfriend Executed for Porno

August 29, 2013 By Editor 1 Comment

The ex-girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim-Jong-un was one of a dozen people reportedly executed by a firing squad last week.

The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reports that singer Hyon Song-wol and 11 others had been arrested on August 17 for violating North Korea’s laws against pornography and was executed three days later.

The paper reported that the condemned, all members of the performing groups Unhasu Orchestra and Wangjaesan Light Music Band, were accused of making videos of themselves having sex and selling the videos, which the paper reported were available in China.

“They were executed with machine guns while the key members of the Unhasu Orchestra, Wangjaesan Light Band and Moranbong Band as well as the families of the victims looked on,” a source told the paper. The source added that the victims’ families appear to have all been sent to prison camps.

Kim Jong-un reportedly met Hyon Song-wol approximately 10 years ago, before he was married. The relationship between the two is believed to have ended after interference from Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, though the two had been rumored to be having an affair. Kim Jong-un’s wife, Ri Sol-ju, was also a member of the Unhasu Orchestra before their marriage. It is not clear if she had any role in the executions.

Published August 29, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Israeli Intelligence Confirmed Assad Regime Behind Chemical Attack

August 28, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The initial confirmation that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad was responsible for a suspected chemical weapons attack Aug. 21 came from a tip from the Israeli intelligence service, western intelligence sources tell Fox News.

A special unit of the Israeli Defense Force — an intelligence unit that goes by the number 8200, which is a military intelligence listening unit — has been cooperating with the NSA, sources tell Fox News.

This Israeli intelligence unit helped provide the intelligence intercepts that allowed the White House last weekend to conclude that the Assad regime was behind the attack.

Initially, according to well-placed U.S. intelligence sources, there was apparent confusion over whether chemical weapons were used and who gave the orders, but the U.S. now has access to intercepted conversations.

The administration also has satellite images that suggested the Assad regime was in the process of covering up the chemical attack by shelling the area where most of the deaths from the alleged chemical attack had occurred.

“We believe that it’s too late for the U.N. inspection to be credible given the mass shelling that the regime has done in the affected areas,” State Department spokesman Marie Harf told reporters. “And we’re going to make our own decisions on our own timeline about our response. Obviously we will continue consultations with our international partners around the world but we are making decisions based on our own timeline.”

The Obama administration has not yet released intelligence on last week’s chemical weapons attack in Syria, in part because of concerns over what could be declassified.

The report is considered a key component in the administration’s public case for intervention – and a possible military strike – in Syria.

Officials originally suggested the report would be released as early as Tuesday, but now there are hints the release may not come until at least Thursday.

The intelligence community is working through concerns about which intelligence is de-classified, because it could reveal sources and methods.

The timing of the release is important, though, because the more the report is delayed, the longer it will be before the administration steps up its public case for military action — if they choose that route.

A senior administration official told Fox News on Wednesday that once the intelligence community finishes its formal assessment of the chemical attack, a larger and classified report will be sent to Congress that will have a lot more detail. Then the administration will publicly release a smaller declassified version.

“It is important to remember that the protection of sources and methods must be taken into account when the intelligence community determines what information can be declassified and released to the public,” the senior administration official said.

“While the Congress will receive a classified version of the assessment that includes the broad range of intelligence collected, the intelligence information we are able to provide publicly will be limited in scope.”

A senior U.S. official also confirmed a report that initially appeared in the Wall Street Journal that National Security Adviser Susan Rice wanted to get the U.N. inspectors out of Syria last weekend because the U.S. already believed it had the information it needed to confirm the Syrian government’s culpability.

A White House official would not comment on internal deliberations between Rice and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.

The Wall Street Journal quoted from an email that Rice reportedly sent Sunday to Power and others within the administration.

“The investigation is. . .too late, and will actually tell us what we already know: CW was used,” Ms. Rice wrote, using the abbreviation for chemical weapons. “It won’t even tell us by whom, which we already know.”

U.N. inspectors have permission to be in Syria until Sunday.

By Jennifer Griffin, Ed Henry, Bret Baier / Published August 28, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Fort Hood Islamic Terrorist Hasan Sentenced to Death

August 28, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in 2009 in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, was sentenced to death Wednesday by a military jury after just two hours of deliberation.

Hasan, who offered little defense, sat motionless as the jury president read the verdict. Hasan has said he acted to protect Islamic insurgents abroad from American aggression and never denied being the gunman. In opening statements, he acknowledged to the jury that he pulled the trigger in a crowded waiting room where troops were getting final medical checkups before deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hasan had one final chance Wednesday to give a closing argument before his case went to the jury, but he declined — continuing an absent defense that he has used since his trial began three weeks ago. The panel unanimously ruled that Hasan must forfeit all pay and allowances and be dismissed from the service.

The Army psychiatrist’s behavior has only stoked suspicion that his ultimate goal is martyrdom, in the form of a death sentence that would allow him to fulfill what prosecutors have described as a “jihad duty” under his Islamic faith.

The lead prosecutor, Col. Mike Mulligan, told jurors Wednesday morning that history was full of instances of death in the name of religion. But he said it would be “wrong and unsupportive” to tie Hasan’s actions to a wider cause

“You cannot offer what you don’t own; you cannot give away what is not yours. He can never be a martyr because he has nothing to give…..Do not be misled; do not be confused; do not be fooled. He is not giving his life. We are taking his life. This is not his gift to God, it’s his debt to society. He will not now and will not ever be a martyr. He is a criminal, a cold-blooded murderer. On 5 November he did not leave this earth, he remained to pay a price. To pay a debt. The debt he owes is his life,” Mulligan said.

Mulligan focused on the victims, insisting that Hasan deserved to be executed for the attack at the Texas military base that also wounded more than 30 people.

A few minutes after Mulligan finished, Hasan said he had no closing statement.

Hasan has been representing himself during the trial, and his lack of defense has caused problems with the military defense attorneys ordered to help him.

But legal experts say he has a nearly unshakable right under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to represent himself. The military judge, Col. Tara Osborn, has repeatedly warned him about the danger of being his own attorney, and the three lawyers assigned to help him have tried to step in at least twice.

Osborn denied their latest request Tuesday, and twice used the same metaphor.

“Maj. Hasan is the captain of his own ship,” she said.

Any lawyer trying to save Hasan would have a daunting task. In two days of sentencing, prosecutors called widows, parents and other loved ones of the people Hasan killed. They offered a picture of their overwhelming grief and struggle to move forward after his attack. At least one juror appeared visibly emotional during parts of testimony.

Osborn revealed some of what Hasan’s standby attorneys wanted to tell jurors as she reviewed and denied their motion. Among that evidence includes his good behavior in custody before trial and his offer before trial to plead guilty — which was rejected under military rules because prosecutors are seeking a death sentence.

But Hasan was dismissive of his standby attorneys’ attempts. He repeatedly objected, and as one of them asked to argue the motion, he commented that he had an “overzealous defense counsel.”

Hasan rested his case shortly after more than a dozen widows, mothers, fathers, children and other relatives of those killed testified about their lives since the attack. They talked of eerily quiet homes, lost futures, alcoholism and the unmatched fear of hearing a knock on the door.

The same jurors who convicted Hasan last week had just two options: either agree unanimously that Hasan should die or watch the 42-year-old get an automatic sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole.

Hasan could become the first American soldier executed in more than half a century. But because the military justice system requires a lengthy appeals process, years or even decades could pass before he is put to death.

For nearly four years, the federal government has sought to execute Hasan, believing that any sentence short of a lethal injection would deny justice to the families of the dead and the survivors who had believed they were safe behind the gates of the Texas base.

And for just as long, Hasan has seemed content to go to the death chamber for his beliefs. He fired his own attorneys to represent himself, barely put up a defense during a three-week trial and made almost no effort to have his life spared.

Mulligan reminded the jury that Hasan was a trained doctor yet opened fire on defenseless comrades. He “only dealt death,” the prosecutor said, so the only appropriate sentence is death.

He was never allowed to argue in front of the jury that the shooting was necessary to protect Islamic and Taliban leaders from American troops. During the trial, Hasan leaked documents to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers in 2010 that he could “still be a martyr” if executed.

When Hasan began shooting, the troops were standing in long lines to receive immunizations and doctors’ clearance.

Thirteen people were killed and more than were 30 wounded. All but one of the dead were soldiers, including a pregnant private who curled on the floor and pleaded for her baby’s life.

The attack ended only when Hasan was shot in the back by an officer responding to the shooting. Hasan is now paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair.

The military called nearly 90 witnesses at the trial and more during the sentencing phase. But Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Even with his life at stake during the sentencing hearing, he made no attempt to question witnesses and gave no final statement to jurors.

Death sentences are rare in the military, which has just five other prisoners on death row. The cases trigger a long appeals process. And the president must give final authorization before any service member is executed. No American soldier has been executed since 1961.

Hasan spent weeks planning the Nov. 5, 2009, attack, including buying the handgun and videotaping a sales clerk showing him how to change the magazine.

He later plunked down $10 at a gun range outside Austin and asked for pointers on how to reload with speed and precision. An instructor said he told Hasan to practice while watching TV or sitting on his couch with the lights off.

When the time came, Hasan stuffed paper towels in the pockets of his cargo pants to muffle the rattling of extra ammo and avoid arousing suspicion. Soldiers testified that Hasan’s rapid reloading made it all but impossible to stop him. Investigators recovered 146 shell casings in the medical building and dozens more outside, where Hasan shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

In court, Hasan never played the role of an angry extremist. He didn’t get agitated or raise his voice. He addressed the judge as “ma’am” and occasionally whispered “thank you” when prosecutors, in accordance with the rules of evidence, handed Hasan red pill bottles that rattled with bullet fragments removed from those who were shot.

Published August 28, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report

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