Video: Dr. Ben Carson Criticizes Obama's Divisive Policies at National Prayer Breakfast

In case you haven't seen it already, check out Dr. Ben Carson's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last week.  It's very inspiring, he grew up in a single parent home in Detroit and now is Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins.  Around the 16:00 mark it gets interesting and he essentially criticizes Obama's divisive, class-warfare oriented policies, with Obama sitting 6 feet away.




Here are some of the choice excerpts (full transcript is here):

One of our big problems right now, and like I said, I'm not politically correct, so I'm sorry, but you know - our deficit is a big problem. Think about it. And our National Debt - $16.5 Trillion dollars - you think that's not a lot of money? I'll tell you what! Count one number per second, which you can't even do because once you get to a thousand it will take you longer than a second, but...one number per second. You know how long it would take you to count to 16 Trillion? 507,000 years - more than a half a million years to get there. We have to deal with this.

Here's a parable: A family falls on hard times. Dad loses his job or is demoted to part time work. He has 5 children. He comes to the 5 children, he says we're going to have to reduce your allowance. Well, they're not happy about it but - he says, except for John and Susan. They're, they're special. They get to keep their allowance. In fact, we'll give them more. How do you think that's going to go down? Not too well. Same thing happens. Enough said.

What about our taxation system? So complex there is no one who can possibly comply with every jot and tittle of our tax system. If I wanted to get you, I could get you on a tax issue. That doesn't make any sense. What we need to do is come up with something that is simple.

When I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the Universe, God, and he's given us a system. It's called tithe. Now we don't necessarily have to do it 10% but it's principle. He didn't say, if your crops fail, don't give me any tithes. He didn't say, if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithes. So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10 Billion dollars you put in a Billion. You make $10 you put in $1 - of course, you gotta get rid of the loopholes, but now now some people say, that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 Billion dollars as much as the guy who made $10. Where does it say you have to hurt the guy. He's just put in a billion in the pot. We don't need to hurt him.

It's that kind of thinking - it's that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here, building our infrastructure and creating jobs - and we're smart enough - we're smart enough to figure out how to do that.

These Are the People the Government Does Give Guns To

Gun control advocates want to take away the guns of ordinary citizens and make them 100% dependent on the police for protection.  Based on what is going on in California where there were two incidents where innocent people have been shot by the police looking to find one of their own (Christopher Dorner) who just recently went on a killing spree, I don't think that is a good idea:

David Perdue was on his way to sneak in some surfing before work Thursday morning when police flagged him down. They asked who he was and where he was headed, then sent him on his way.

Seconds later, Perdue's attorney said, a Torrance police cruiser slammed into his pickup and officers opened fire; none of the bullets struck Perdue.

His pickup, police later explained, matched the description of the one belonging to Christopher Jordan Dorner — the ex-cop who has evaded authorities after allegedly killing three and wounding two more. But the pickups were different makes and colors. And Perdue looks nothing like Dorner: He's several inches shorter and about a hundred pounds lighter. And Perdue is white; Dorner is black.

...

In the first incident, LAPD officers opened fire on another pickup they feared was being driven by Dorner. The mother and daughter inside the truck were delivering Los Angeles Times newspapers. The older woman was shot twice in the back and the other was wounded by broken glass.

In Perdue's case, his attorney said he wasn't struck by bullets or glass but was injured in the car wreck, suffering a concussion and an injury to his shoulder. The LAX baggage handler hasn't been able to work since, and his car is totaled, Sheahen said.

As usual, the DiploMad puts it succinctly:

Increasingly cops in America are out of control. They are poorly trained, brutish, cowardly, and overpaid bureaucratic bullies to whom we have ceded extraordinary power and give exaggerated deference. I am not saying that all cops are this way, but most, yes, most are or will become that way after a couple of years of service in the Gang of Blue.

...

It is no surprise that this loser Chris Dorner was an ardent Obama supporter and a believer in gun control. He is also a lesson in why we need an armed citizenry.

I  hereby make a gun control proposal. It should appeal to liberals who have long lectured us all on "freedom of choice" when it comes to killing unborn babies: Anybody who doesn't like guns, and doesn't want any guns, should not buy any guns. The rest of us need to be ready for the Chris Dorners of the world.

Obamacare is Already Under-delivering

According to this, insurance will be more expensive and less people will be covered than thought.  I'll try to withhold by shock:

The latest news from four federal agencies is that 1) insurance will be a lot less affordable than Americans were led to expect, 2) fewer people than promised will get insurance and 3) millions of people who have coverage through a job now will lose it, thanks to the president's "reforms." Oh, and children are the biggest victims.

The Affordable Care Act is looking less and less affordable.

Start with the IRS's new estimate for what the cheapest family plan will cost by 2016: $20,000 a year to cover two adults and three kids. And that will only cover 60 percent of medical bills, so add hefty out-of-pocket costs, too.

The next surprise is for parents who thought their kids would be covered by an employer. Sloppy wording in the law left that unclear until last week, when the IRS ruled that kids won't be covered.

Starting in 2014, the law will require employers with 50 or more full-time employees to offer coverage or pay a penalty. "Affordable" coverage, that is — meaning the employee can't be told to contribute more than 9.5 percent of his salary. For example, a worker earning $40,000 a year cannot be required to pay more than $3.800.

But the law doesn't specifically mandate family coverage — and now the administration says that won't be required.

You can see why: If the lowest-cost family plan (again, two adults and three kids) is to run a whopping $20,000, and if the employee's contribution is limited to $3,800, the employer's tab would be $16,200 — adding about $7.40 an hour to the cost of that employee. Wisely, the IRS announced on Jan. 30 that employers won't have to pay for dependents.

But the Congressional Budget Office's much-cited prediction that ObamaCare would leave only 30 million people uninsured by 2016 was based on the assumption that kids would be covered by employers. At the very least, employers insuring their workers for the first time to avoid the penalty are unlikely to do that.

So how will the kids be covered? They won't. The IRS shocked the law's advocates by announcing that the insurance exchanges won't provide subsidies for a child whose parent is covered at work.

Hagel's Ties to Iran

Looks like Hagel is responsible for funding a group with deep ties to the Iranian regime.  What a great guy to have as Secretary of Defense.  From Andrew McCarthy:

Hagel sits on the board of the Soros-supported Ploughshares Fund, a left-wing group that allegedly funds various organizations sympathetic to the mullahs' regime and, as night follows day, hostile to Israel. One such group is the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which is basically the Iranian regime's lobbyist in the U.S.

A few years back, the NIAC — channeling its inner Lance Armstrong — filed a bogus defamation suit against Seid Hassan Daioleslam, editor of an anti-regime group, for having the audacity to expose NIAC's coziness with the mullahs. This was a bonehead move because it gave Mr. Daioleslam's lawyers (including the Legal Project) the opportunity to exploit the searching civil discovery procedures available under federal law. Consequently, NIAC began to channel its inner Chuck Hagel by stonewalling the defendants and the court.

That evidently did not sit well with Judge John Bates of the district court in Washington, who threw out the defamation suit against NIAC and ordered sanctions for its failure to comply with discovery orders. The case was especially embarrassing for the Obama administration since, in emails that actually were disclosed, it became clear not only that NIAC had deep ties to the Iranian regime but that it is also an Obama fave — one whose top official, Trita Parsi, visits the White House, consults with Valerie Jarrett, briefs Secretary of State Clinton, lectures the CIA, and so on. (See Eli Lake'sreport for the Washington Times, here.) 

Besides sitting on the board of a foundation that funds the NIAC, Hagel has had an ongoing relationship with the NIAC (and its precursor organization, the American-Iranian Council). As Ken Timmerman notes in the Washington Times, this has included giving speeches that rail against sanctions imposed to pressure Iran on its nuclear program, call for unconditional negotiations with the mullahs, etc. The NIAC, in kind, avidly supports Hagel's nomination.

Hagel's friends of the mullahs, especially if they turn out to be coupled with Friends of Hamas, may be too much for even senate Democrats to bear. Obviously, if there were not grave concerns about Hagel's nomination, senate armed services chairman Carl Levin would not have postponed the committee's vote. If he can't get Hagel approved by the committee now, it doesn't look like things are going to get better for the nominee as new information emerges in the coming days. Looks like the president better have a Plan B.

Panetta: Obama Never Even Checked In During the Benghazi Attack

Quite shocking, according to Leon Panetta's testimony it sounds like the entire leadership of this country was asleep at the wheel during the Benghazi attack.  It would be one thing if this was just a quick attack that was over in minutes, but it lasted for 7 hours.  No follow-up from either Obama or anyone at the White House.  I guess they just didn't care:

Chuck Hagel Received Funding from "Friends of Hamas"?

I wonder if this is true or is just an attempt to force him to disclose who he has received funding from these last few years (he has refused so far).  From Breitbart:

On Thursday, Senate sources told Breitbart News exclusively that they have been informed that one of the reasons that President Barack Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, has not turned over requested documents on his sources of foreign funding is that one of the names listed is a group purportedly called "Friends of Hamas."

...

Called for comment and reached via telephone, Associate Communications Director at the White House Eric Schultz identified himself, heard the question, was silent for several seconds, and then hung up the phone immediately without comment. Called back via the White House switchboard, Schultz's phone rang through to his answering machine. Called on his cell phone, Schultz's phone rang through to his answering machine.

Text of Rand Paul's Speech on "Containment and Radical Islam"

Reason has the transcript of Rand Paul's speech today at the Heritage Foundation.  Key excerpts are below.  Obviously, with a moniker like "libertarian neocon" I tend to be on the more hawkish side but I have to say a lot of what he says makes sense.  Also, a lot of the Senators who are at least theoretically more in line with my foreign policy views also voted to give Egypt M1A1 tanks and F-16 fighter jets, while Rand Paul fought tooth and nail to withhold those advanced weapons systems.  Anyway, it probably is time we had a President who believed in a more intelligent use of American power overseas.  One based on interests and not "well that is what we have always done".  That's how you end up giving billions to anti-american, anti-semitic regimes like the ones in Egypt and Pakistan and still have 900 American bases overseas.  Anyway, here are the key excerpts from today's thought-provoking speech:

As many are quick to note, the war is not with Islam but with a radical element of Islam  -- the problem is that this element is no small minority but a vibrant, often mainstream, vocal and numerous minority.  Whole countries, such as Saudi Arabia, adhere to at least certain radical concepts such as the death penalty for blasphemy, conversion, or apostasy.  A survey in Britain after the subway bombings showed 20% of the Muslim population in Britain approved of the violence.

Some libertarians argue that western occupation fans the flames of radical Islam – I agree.  But I don't agree that absent western occupation that radical Islam "goes quietly into that good night."  I don't agree with FDR's VP Henry Wallace that the Soviets (or Radical Islam in today's case) can be discouraged by "the glad hand and the winning smile."

...

Understandably no one wants to imagine what happens if Iran develops a nuclear weapon.  But if we don't have at least some of that discussion now, then the danger exists that war is the only remedy.

No one, myself included,  wants to see a nuclear Iran.   Iran does need to know that all options are on the table.  But we should not pre-emptively announce that diplomacy or containment will never be an option. 

In a recent Senate resolution, the bipartisan consensus stated that we will never contain Iran should they get a nuclear weapon.  In the debate, I made the point that while I think it unwise to declare that we will contain a nuclear Iran, I think it equally unwise to say we will never contain a nuclear Iran.  War should never be our only option. 

Let me be clear.  I don't want Iran to develop nuclear weapons but I also don't want to decide with certainty that war is the only option.

...

What the United States needs now is a policy that finds a middle path.  A policy that is not rash or reckless.  A foreign policy that is reluctant, restrained by Constitutional checks and balances but does not appease.  A foreign policy that recognizes the danger of radical Islam but also the inherent weaknesses of radical Islam.  A foreign policy that recognizes the danger of bombing countries on what they might someday do. A foreign  policy that requires, as Kennan put it, "a long term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of . . .  expansive tendencies." [3] A policy that understands the "distinction between vital and peripheral interests."

No one believes that Kennan was an isolationist but Kennan did advise that non-interference in the internal affairs of another country was, after all, a long standing principle of American diplomacy . . . [that should be excepted only when: A) " there is a sufficiently powerful national interest"  and B) when "we have the means to conduct such intervention successfully  AND can afford the cost."

In Kennan's famous 'X' article he argues that containment meant the "application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvres of Soviet policy." He later clarified, though, that did not necessarily mean that the application of counter-force had to mean a military response.  He argued that containment was not a strategy to counter "entirely by military means."  "But containment was not diplomacy [alone] either."

Like communism, radical Islam is an ideology with worldwide reach.  Containing radical Islam requires a worldwide strategy like containment.   It requires counterforce at a series of constantly shifting worldwide

points.  But counterforce does not necessarily mean large-scale land wars with hundreds of thousands of troops nor does it always mean a military action at all.

Kennan objected to the Truman doctrine's "implied obligation to act wherever Soviet aggression or intimidation occurred, without regard to whether American interests were at state or the means existed with which to defend them."  He was also concerned that the Truman doctrine was "a blank check to give economic and military aid to any area in the world."

Likewise, today's "Truman" caucus wants boots on the ground and weapons in the hands of freedom fighters everywhere, including Syrian rebels.  Perhaps, we might want to ask the opinion of the one million Syrian Christians, many of whom fled Iraq when our Shiite allies were installed.  Perhaps, we might want to ask:   will the Syrian rebels respect the rights of Christians, women, and other ethnic minorities?

...

Everybody now loves Ronald Reagan.  Even President Obama tries to toady up and vainly try to resemble some Reaganism.  Reagan's foreign policy was robust but also restrained.  He pulled no punches in telling Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down that wall."  He did not shy from labeling the Soviet Union an evil empire.  But he also sat down with Gorbachev and negotiated meaningful reductions in nuclear weapons.

Many of today's neoconservatives want to wrap themselves up in Reagan's mantle but the truth is that Reagan used clear messages of communism's evil and clear exposition of America's strength to contain and ultimately transcend the Soviet Union.

The cold war ended because the engine of capitalism defeated the engine of socialism.  Reagan aided and abetted this end not by "liberation" of captive people but by a combination of don't mess with us language and diplomacy, not inconsistent with Kennan's approach.

Jack Matlock, one of Reagan's national security advisors, wrote "Reagan's Soviet policy had more in common with Kennan's thinking than the policy of any of Reagan's predecessors."

...

Reagan's foreign policy was much closer to what I am advocating than what we have today.   The former Chairman of the American Conservative Union David Keene noted that Reagan's policy was much less interventionist than the presidents of both parties who came right before him and after him. 

I'd argue that a more restrained foreign policy is the true conservative foreign policy, as it includes two basic tenets of true conservatism: respect for the constitution, and fiscal discipline.

I am convinced that what we need is a foreign policy that works within these two constraints, a foreign policy that works within the confines of the Constitution the realities of our fiscal crisis Today in Congress there is no such nuance, no such moderation of dollars or executive power.

Last year I introduced a non-binding sense of the Senate resolution reiterating the President's words when he was a candidate that no president should go to war unilaterally without the approval of Congress unless an imminent threat to our national security exists.

Not one Democrat voted to support candidate Obama's words and only ten Republican senators voted to support the notion that Congressional authority is needed to begin war.

Some well-meaning senators came up to me and said, Congress has the power of the purse strings and can simply cut off funds.  The problem is that there is occasionally a will to avoid war in the beginning but rarely, if ever, is there the resolve to cut off funding once troops are in the field.  No historic example exists of Congress cutting off funds to a war in progress.  Even during Vietnam, arguably our most unpopular war, funds were never voted down.

Madison wrote, "The Constitution supposes what history demonstrates,   that the Executive is the branch most prone to war and most interested in it, therefore the Constitution has with studied care vested that power in the Legislature

Since the Korean War, Congress has ignored its responsibility to restrain the President. Congress has abdicated its role in declaring war. 

What would a foreign policy look like that tried to strike a balance?  first, it would have less soldiers stationed overseas and less bases.  Instead of large, limitless land wars in multiple theaters, we would target our enemy; strike with lethal force.

...

It is time for all Americans, and especially conservatives, to become as critical and reflective when examining foreign policy as we are with domestic policy. Should our military be defending this nation or constantly building other nations? What constitutes our actual "national defense" and what parts of our foreign policy are more like an irrational offense? It is the soldier's job to do his duty—but it is the citizen's job to question their government—particularly when it comes to putting our soldiers in harm's way

And of course, the question we are forced to ask today is—can we afford this?

I hope such questions begin to be asked and we see some sort of return to a Constitutional foreign policy. I hope this occurs before the debt crisis occurs and not amidst a crisis. To that end, I will fight to have a voice for those who wish who wish to see a saner, more balanced approach to foreign policy.

And here is the video of the speech:

 

Viva la Reagan Revolucion

Happy Birthday Gipper, you are sorely missed:

Evidence of Racial Discrimination in the Ivy League Against Asian Applicants

Too bad Asians aren't a politically protected ethnicity, otherwise their children would probably have a much easier time getting into good schools.  We seem to have a system in which students with the right skin color, even if they come from upper class backgrounds, have an advantage over immigrants of the "wrong" skin color who probably had a lot more adversity in their lives.  Anyway, check this out from the National Review:

Over the last 20 years, America’s population of college-age Asian Americans has roughly doubled; but during this same period, the number admitted to Harvard and most other Ivy League schools has held steady or even declined, despite significant improvement in Asian academic performance. Furthermore, the Asian percentages at all Ivy League schools have recently converged to a very narrow range and remained static over time, which seems quite suspicious. 

Meanwhile, the Californian Institute of Technology (Caltech) follows a highly selective but strictly race-neutral admissions policy, and its enrollment of Asian Americans has grown almost exactly in line with the growth of the Asian-American population. 

The stark difference between these two admissions policies is evident in this graph of comparative enrollment:

Top officials at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton today strenuously deny the existence of Asian-American quotas, but their predecessors had similarly denied the existence of Jewish quotas in the 1920s, now universally acknowledged to have existed. In fact, the large growth in the Asian-American population means that the fraction attending Harvard has fallen by more than 50 percent since the early 1990s, a decline considerably greater than the decline Jews experienced after the implementation of secret quotas in 1925.

This reminds me of a friend of mine who was taking the GMAT, she scored a 720 (out of 800) and was despondent.  She said "I'm South Asian, there is no way a good B-school will take me with that score!"  In order to avoid being racist, the Ivy League has become horribly racist, punishing hard working kids for the color of their skin.

It's Time to Audit the Fed

The Federal Reserve has enormous power over our financial system with very little oversight.  It's definitely time to audit them, kudos to Senator Rand Paul for reintroducing his legislation.  A previous version had passed the House by 327-98 with massive amounts of bipartisan support, Harry Reid is the reason it never came up for a vote in the Senate, where it likely would have passed as well:

 Sen. Rand Paul has introduced the bipartisan Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2013. Known widely as "Audit the Fed," the bill calls to eliminate restrictions on Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits of the Federal Reserve and mandating the Fed's credit facilities, securities purchases, and quantitative easing activities would be subject to Congressional oversight.

"The Fed's operations under a cloak of secrecy have gone on too long and the American people have a right to know what the Federal Reserve is doing with our nation's money supply," Sen. Paul said. "Audit the Fed has significant bipartisan support in Congress and across the country and the time to act on this is now."

During the 112^th Congress, Audit the Fed legislation (H.R. 459) passed the House of Representatives handily, 327-98.

Sen. Paul's version, S. 209, currently has 19 bipartisan co-sponsors in the Senate and companion legislation was introduced earlier this year in the House of Representatives and currently has over 100 co-sponsors.

 

Below is text of Sen. Paul's legislation:

S.209

A BILL to require a full audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve banks by the Comptroller General of the United States, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ''Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2013''.

 

SEC. 2. AUDIT REFORM AND TRANSPARENCY FOR THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM.

(a) IN GENERAL.-Notwithstanding section 714 of title 31, United States Code, or any other provision of law, an audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks under subsection (b) of such section 714 shall be completed within 12 months of the date of enactment of this Act.

(b) REPORT.-

(1) IN GENERAL.-A report on the audit required under subsection (a) shall be submitted by the Comptroller General to the Congress before the end of the 90-day period beginning on the date on which such audit is completed and made available to the Speaker of the House, the majority and minority leaders of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the committee and each subcommittee of jurisdiction in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and any other Member of Congress who requests it.

(2) CONTENTS.-The report under paragraph (1) shall include a detailed description of the findings and conclusion of the Comptroller General with respect to the audit that is the subject of the report, together with such recommendations for legislative or administrative action as the Comptroller General may determine to be appropriate.

(c) REPEAL OF CERTAIN LIMITATIONS.-Subsection (b) of section 714 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking all after ''in writing.''.

(d) TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENT.- Section 714 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking subsection (f).

 

SEC. 3. AUDIT OF LOAN FILE REVIEWS REQUIRED BY ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS.

(a) IN GENERAL.-The Comptroller General of the United States shall conduct an audit of the review of loan files of homeowners in foreclosure in 2009 or 2010, required as part of the enforcement actions taken by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System against supervised financial institutions.

(b) CONTENT OF AUDIT.-The audit carried out pursuant to subsection (a) shall consider, at a minimum-

(1) the guidance given by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to independent consultants retained by the supervised financial institutions regarding the procedures to be followed in conducting the file reviews;

(2) the factors considered by independent consultants when evaluating loan files;

(3) the results obtained by the independent consultants pursuant to those reviews;

(4) the determinations made by the independent consultants regarding the nature and extent of financial injury sustained by each homeowner as well as the level and type of remediation offered to each homeowner; and

(5) the specific measures taken by the independent consultants to verify, confirm, or rebut the assertions and representations made by supervised financial institutions regarding the contents of loan files and the extent of financial injury to homeowners.

(c) REPORT.-Not later than the end of the 6-month period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General shall issue a report to the Congress containing all findings and determinations made in carrying out the audit required under subsection (a).

Syrian Rebels Denounce Assad for NOT Attacking Israel

Another stark reminder of who is the alternative in Syria and why we should not send any aid to the Syrian rebels.  It might actually be in America's and Israel's best interests to keep Assad in power as the rebels seem to be insistent on confronting Israel militarily:

Syrian opposition leaders and rebels on Friday slammed President Bashar Assad for not responding to a rare Israeli airstrike near Damascus, calling it proof of his weakness and acquiescence to the Jewish State.

The opposition's sharp reaction underlines how those seeking to topple the Syrian leader might be more prepared to tangle withIsrael if they came to power.

...

"Assad never once in his life stood up to Israel," said Kamal Labwani, a prominent Syrian dissident and member of the Syrian National Coalition, an umbrella group of those trying to oust Assad. "All he ever did is 'reserve the right to retaliate' but he never retaliated against anyone other than the Syrian people and the Free Syrian Army."

...

On Friday, Syria's opposition coalition criticized the government for not defending the country against the latest Israeli air raid, saying the Syrian army is too busy shelling civilian areas in Syria.

"This is not the first time that Israeli warplanes violated Syrian sovereignty under the eyes and ears of those who are supposed to protect it," the coalition said in its statement. "Israelis have gotten used to condemnations and strong words that turn out to be nothing more than media bubbles."

It is a real tragedy, the statement said, that while the regime's warplanes and helicopters bombed civilian homes in one part of Syria, Israeli jets attacked targets in another.

The opposition group promised the Syrian people it would use political and diplomatic means to halt such attacks and said it would establish a "deterrent force" to guard against any such future attacks.

Those comments raised the question about how those seeking to topple Assad would handle the thorny issue of relations with Israel if they came to power.

Many among Syria's disparate opposition leaders are Syrian and Arab nationalists fiercely opposed to the Jewish State.

Mouaz al-Khatib, a 52-year-old preacher-turned-activist, has been criticized by some for calling Zionism a "cancerous movement" and praising Iraq's late dictator Saddam Hussein for "terrorizing the Jews."

The umbrella group is dominated by members of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, which is known for its enmity to Israel. And among the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels who are fighting to end Assad's rule, the Islamic extremists are gaining dominance.

Labwani, the Syrian dissident, told the AP that "unlike Assad, we know who the real enemy is."

"The first thing we would do is ask U.N. peacekeepers on the Golan to leave, and we will free occupied Syrian territory. We want all our rights."

Karl Rove Wants to Apply Romney's Strategy of Lambasting Conservatives to Senate Races

In the GOP primaries, Mitt Romney spent gobs of money attacking his fellow Republicans with negative ads which carpet bombed key markets and took out the stops in having his surrogates from the GOP establishment personally attack his opponents as well.  Then when the general election came around he moved to the center and even had a foreign policy debate with the President in which he spent much of his time agreeing with him.  This strategy both upset conservatives, leading many to stay home, and made it unclear what exactly people would be voting for in voting for Mitt Romney.  And this is the strategy that Karl Rove seems to want to take into Senate races.  Check this out from the New York Times:

The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party's efforts to win control of the Senate.

The group, the Conservative Victory Project, is intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles. It is the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party, particularly in primary races.

...

The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely vetting prospective contenders for Congressional races to try to weed out candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections.

The group's plans, which were outlined for the first time last week in an interview with Mr. Law, call for hard-edge campaign tactics, including television advertising, against candidates whom party leaders see as unelectable and a drag on the efforts to win the Senate. Mr. Law cited Iowa as an example and said Republicans could no longer be squeamish about intervening in primary fights.

...

Grover Norquist, who leads Americans for Tax Reform, a fiscally conservative advocacy group that plays a role in Republican primary races, said he welcomed a pragmatic sense of discipline in recruiting candidates. But he said it was incorrect to suggest that candidates backed by Tea Party groups were the only ones to lose, pointing to establishment Republicans in North Dakota and Montana who also lost their races last year.

I also would like to point out that Mitt Romney was someone that was forced upon us because of his "electability" and yet he still blew the election.  And the brilliant Karl Rove wasted as much as $160 million trying to get that mushy moderate elected.  Then he embarrassed himself on Fox News by having a meltdown when they called Ohio.  This is the person who is supposedly going to "save the Republican Party" from the actual Republicans who  are its most loyal voters?  Does Karl Rove even believe in anything other than getting his buddies elected? 

Karl Rove is really a gifted individual, not many people in politics can be so reviled by both the left AND the right at the same time.

Andrew McCarthy Lauds Rand Paul and Lambasts the Republicans Who Voted to Give the Muslim Brotherhood Advanced Weaponry

Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the World Trade Center bombing, has a great piece in the National Review lauding Senator Rand Paul's efforts to cut off American military support for the Muslim Brotherhood:

I'm done grumbling about how President Obama is empowering America's enemies. After all, it is not just Obama. When it comes to abetting the Muslim Brotherhood, Republicans are right there with him.

Not all of them, of course. This week, for example, Senator Rand Paul proposed an amendment that would have prohibited our government from transferring F-16 aircraft and Abrams tanks to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood–dominated government. This lunatic plan is not just an Obama initiative. It is also a GOP brainstorm — of a piece with 2011's Libya debacle, in which Republican leaders cheered as Obama, upon consulting with the Arab League, ignored Congress and levied war on behalf of the very jihadists who, quite predictably, have since raided Qaddafi's arsenal, besieged northern Africa, and massacred Americans in Benghazi.

...

So the GOP brain trust now brings this Midas touch to Egypt, rallying behind Obama's cozy relations with the new "Islamic democracy." That would be the Brotherhood's rapidly unraveling sharia basket case, into which our own bankrupt government has so far sunk nearly 3 billion U.S.-taxpayer dollars, with more billions soon to come through U.S.-backed IMF loans and, yes, sophisticated U.S. weaponry. Any moment now, as it was in turbulent Libya, the ground in Egypt is certain to shift, or crater. When it does, who knows whose side the senators will have us on . . . and who knows what American enemies may be wielding that U.S. weaponry?

Senator Paul, by contrast, has three ideas that seem positively batty to the McCain gang. First, he thinks that American foreign policy ought to be premised on American national interests, not on the shifting notions of "global stability" popular at the Wilson School and the Council on Foreign Relations. Second, he suggests that when we give aid and arms to anti-American Islamists, bad things tend to happen to America. Finally, Paul believes the foundation of American foreign policy is, of all quaint things, the United States Constitution. The Framers gave Congress not merely the authority but the duty to thwart executive excess. On the international stage, that primarily means the power of the purse, which enables the people's representatives to defund such madness as the arming of Islamic supremacists.

So Senator Paul tried to stop weapons transfer. His amendment, however, was defeated79–19, because 23 Republican senators opted to follow the lead of McCain, Graham, and Ayotte. They joined all Senate Democrats (and a couple of nominal "independents" who are, in effect, Democrats) in voting to "table" the Paul Amendment. "Tabling" is a bit of procedural chicanery, allowing senators to defeat Paul's amendment yet pretend to the folks back home that they didn't actually vote "against" it.

Don't be fooled. The choice here was simple: Stand with the Muslim Brotherhood or stand with the American people. Nearly two-thirds of Senate Republicans went with the Brothers.

Let's be clear about whom Republicans have voted to arm. In late 2010, as I detail in Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, Mohammed Badi, head of the Muslim Brotherhood, called for violent jihad against the United States and Israel. The "Supreme Guide" gleefully added, "The United States is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise." The Brotherhood took pains to post this speech on its Arabic-language website, reflecting its official position.

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I could go on, but as Beltway supporters of America-hating Islamists like to say, "What difference does it make?" Still, just in case it makes any difference to you, here are the Republican senators who shamefully voted to provide Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood government with F-16s and Abrams tanks: Alexander, Ayotte, Barasso, Blunt, Burr, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Collins, Corker, Enzi, Flake, Graham, Hatch, Hoeven, Inhofe, Isakson, Johanns, Johnson, Kirk, McCain, McConnell, Murkowski, Portman, Toomey, and Wicker.

Kudos to the 18 Republicans who joined Senator Paul in trying to stop the arming of America's enemies: Boozman, Coats, Cornyn, Crapo, Cruz, Fischer, Grassley, Heller, Lee, Moran, Risch, Roberts, Rubio, Scott, Sessions, Shelby, Thune, and Vitter. Common sense is on their side. Sadly, history is sure to follow, and probably soon.

The State Department was Recruiting at a Muslim Brotherhood Affiliated Conference

I guess anything goes in the name of "diversity":

The Obama administration is covertly recruiting Muslims to work at the State Department as Foreign Service officers representing the United States in one of 265 American embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions worldwide. 

It appears to be part of the administration’s Muslim outreach effort, which includes a variety of controversial moves. Among them Homeland Security meetings with extremist Islamic organizations, sending an America-bashing mosque leader (Feisal Abdul Rauf) who blames U.S. foreign policy for the 9/11 attacks on a Middle Eastern outreach mission and revamping the way federal agents are trained to combat terrorism by eliminating all materials that shed a negative light on Muslims.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even signed a special order to allow the reentry of two radical Islamic academics whose terrorist ties long banned them from the U.S. 

Now comes news of a secretive State Department campaign, discovered in the course of a Judicial Watch investigation, to add Muslims to its roster. Presumably, the new recruits will be deployed around the globe to help the agency fulfill its mission of promoting the country’s international relations. The campaign seems to be headed by Mark Ward, the Deputy Special Coordinator in the State Department’s Office of Middle East Transition. 

Ward held a 90-minute seminar at a recent convention sponsored by two groups—Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)—with known ties to radical Islam. Both nonprofits are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is known as the parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda. In fact, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reports that MAS was founded as the U.S. chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood which strives to indoctrinate the world with Islamic Sharia law.     

 
Yet there was a U.S. State Department official, side by side at a radical Islamic powwow in Chicago with a number of speakers who advocate violent jihad. Among them was Kifah Mustapha, a fundraiser at terrorist organization (Holy Land Foundation) convicted of funneling millions to Hamas and Jamal Badawi, a MAS founder who praised the jihad of Gaza terrorists during a speech titled “Understanding Jihad and Martyrdom.”

Mark Levin: The Muslim Brotherhood has Infiltrated Our Government - It's Called Barack Obama

Mark Steyn Mocks Chuck Hagel

Mark Steyn at his best:

This week, an over-sedated Elmer Fudd showed up at the Senate claiming to be the president's nominee for secretary of defense, and even the kindliest interrogators on the committee couldn't prevent the poor chap shooting himself in the foot.

Twenty minutes in, Chuck Hagel was all out of appendages.

He warmed up with a little light "misspeaking" on Iran. "I support the president's strong position on containment," he declared. Breaking news!

...

Unfortunately, as Hillary said the other day, "our policy is prevention, not containment." So five minutes later the handlers discreetly swung into action to "contain" Hagel. "I was just handed a note that I misspoke," he announced, "that I said I supported the president's position on containment. If I said that, I meant to say that we don't have a position on containment." Hagel's revised position is that there is no position on containment for him to have a position on.

Carl Levin, the Democrat chair, stepped in to contain further damage. "We do have a position on containment, and that is we do not favor containment," he clarified. "I just wanted to clarify the clarify."

Containment? Prevention? What difference does it make? Could happen to anyone. I well remember when Neville Chamberlain landed at Heston Aerodrome in 1938 and announced the latest breakthrough in appeasement: "I have here a piece of paper from Herr Hitler." Two minutes later, he announced, "I have here a second piece of paper from my staffer saying that I misspoke." Who can forget Churchill's stirring words in the House of Commons? "If, indeed, it is the case that I said, 'We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall never surrender!' then I misspoke. I meant to say that we're keeping the situation under review and remain committed to exploring all options."

It's easy to make mistakes when you're as expert in all the nuances of Iranian affairs as Chuck Hagel. After he'd hailed Iran's "elected, legitimate government," it fell to another Democrat, Kirsten Gillibrand, to prompt Hagel to walk it back. Okay, delete "elected" and "legitimate":

"What I meant to say, should have said, is that it's recognizable."

"Recognizable"? In the sense that, if you wake up one morning to a big mushroom cloud on the horizon, you'd recognize it as the work of the Iranian government? No, by "recognizable," he meant that the Iranian government is "recognized" as the government of Iran.

"I don't understand Iranian politics," he announced in perhaps his least misspoken statement of the day. But the Iranians understand ours, which is why, in an amusing touch, the foreign ministry in Tehran has enthusiastically endorsed Hagel.

Fortunately, Iran is entirely peripheral to global affairs — it's not like Chad or the Solomon Islands or the other burning questions the great powers are currently wrestling with — so it would be entirely unreasonable to expect Hagel to understand anything much about what's going on over there. So what of his other, non-Iranian interests?

"There are a lot of things I don't know about," said Hagel. "If confirmed, I intend to know a lot more than I do."

He then denied that "I will be running anything." Don't let the fact that the secretary of defense presides over 40 percent of the entire planet's military spending confuse you. He's not really "running" a thing — or, as he was anxious to assure us, "I won't be in a policy-making position."

Really? So what's the job for then? Just showing up at the office and the occasional black-tie NATO banquet? Most misspeakers loose off one round and then have to reload, but Chuck Hagel is a big scary "military-style assault weapon" of a misspeaker, effortlessly peppering the Senate wainscoting for hours on end. Late in the day, after five o'clock, he pronounced definitively: "It doesn't matter what I think."

"It does matter what you think," insisted New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte.

Seriously, Obama thinks Hagel is the best choice for SecDef?  I think he has just proven himself to be unqualified to be Commander-in-Chief

Morsi: We Must Nurse Our Children and Grandchildren on Hatred of Jews

Another great find by MEMRI.  You have to love it when the President of a nation of 80 million people who receives billions of US taxpayer funds says "Dear brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all those who support them. They must be nursed on hatred. The hatred must continue.":




As I wrote yesterday, it is shocking to me that 79 Senators voted yesterday to send this man F-16 fighters and M1A1 tanks.  The argument amongst the pro-Israel set in those 79 is that we can use our aid and our weapons systems to influence and control the behavior of Morsi and Egypt.  That if we prohibit the sale of these weapons, we lose that lever.  I think they are deluded if they think they can control someone as viciously anti-semitic as Morsi is with some weapons systems and spare parts of weapons systems he already has.  He is going to bide his time, stock up and without much warning attack Israel when the time is right.  At that point any cutoff of aid from the US won't matter.