AM ~ The Front Page Cover

 The Front Page Cover 
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
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Featuring:
Unburdening My Mind
Burt Purlutsky
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"Know who you are standing with"
"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future"
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 DEMS FACE TEST ON RADICAL ISLAM 
We will get to take the measure of the Democratic field today in Iowa as to whether they can address the subject of Islamist terrorism in such a way as to reassure voters that they are trustworthy.
          Tonight in Iowais the party’s first candidate cattle call of the cycle (compared to 14 so far for the GOP.)
          And while President nObama was able to win re-election in 2012 waving the bloody tunic of Usama bin Laden, his ratings on national security have subsequently ranged from weak to abysmal.
          His administration’s reticence to speak directly to the issue of Islamist militancy in the homeland, whether it at Ft. Hood or at the Mohammed cartoon contest or, now, Chattanooga, has been part of that problem.
          This has consequences for his party, since many in the Democratic base are extremely worried about racial profiling, cultural sensitivity and ensuring that Islamists are treated the same way as other killers.
          One month ago today, Republicans were faced with a similar situation when a racist lunatic murdered congregants at a black church in South Carolina. Many in the Republican base are concerned about the rise of racial politics, political correctness run amok and the demonization of the South, the geographic base of the party.
          But to the disappointment of Democrats, and many on the media, Republicans dealt straight away with the issue and all (or almost all) acquitted themselves with compassion, mercy and clarity. It was a big test for the party’s huge field of candidates as well as the GOP in early-state South Carolina. It was a great success.
          Democrats face a similar test now. Can they respond with similar clear-eyed rhetoric?
          If Democrats are seen as sharing the president’s posture on Islamism, it will complicate things for Hilly Clinton in a big way. But other than former-Sen. Jim Webb, is any other candidate likely to say more today than express sympathy for the families of the victims? Will anyone else be willing to confront the party’s orthodoxy and talk about radical Islam? Clinton surely doesn’t want to antagonize her base just as cracks are beginning to deepen.  -Fox News  
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 Gun-free zones under fire -  The murder of unarmed U.S. Marines in Chattanooga drew swift calls to scrap federal policy establishing gun-free zones at military facilities. The ineffectiveness of the ban, enacted during the Clinton administration, was ironically underlined by pictures at one of the shooting scenes showing a bullet-ridden front entrance displaying a sign declaring it gun-free.  The attack, which tragically recalls the 2009 Fort Hood shooting of unarmed soldiers the nObama administration termed “workplace violence”, has critics of the ban are asking: If our troops are going to be serially targeted by terrorists, as it now appears, shouldn’t they at least be able to carry side arms to protect themselves?  Time for a change - “…[T]he policies that prohibited our military personnel from being armed at an establishment like this…are outdated. Containment was something that might have been good during the Cold War, but we’re facing an enemy in radical Islamic terrorism that's willing to take the fight to us and we need to make sure that our men and women in uniform not only have the resources to protect us and keep our country safe, but they need to have the resources to keep themselves safe.” – Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wisc., on “The Kelly File”  -Fox News  
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 Time for a change -  “…[T]he policies that prohibited our military personnel from being armed at an establishment like this…are outdated. Containment was something that might have been good during the Cold War, but we’re facing an enemy in radical Islamic terrorism that's willing to take the fight to us and we need to make sure that our men and women in uniform not only have the resources to protect us and keep our country safe, but they need to have the resources to keep themselves safe.” – Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wisc., on “The Kelly File”  -Fox News  
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SCHLAPPED: CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS ‘BROKE HIS WORD’ 
That’s what American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp stated in his op-ed in The Hill. On the heels of the two watershed decisions from the Supreme Court last month, Schlapp writes, “It 
was once unimaginable to most people to think that Chief Justice John Roberts would contradict so sharply the image he portrayed at his confirmation hearing. For example, under oath he explained, ‘You don’t look to legislative history to create ambiguity.  If the text is clear, that is what you follow, and that’s binding.  And you don’t look beyond it to say, well, if you look here, though, maybe this clear word should be interpreted a different way.’”  -Fox News  
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 A TIME TO CONFRONT OUR ENEMIES AT HOME  
{David Horowitz, Daniel Greenfield} ~ The killing of five unarmed military servicemen at two military recruiting centers is an omen and a warning: The “war on terror” has come home... Thanks to nObama’s retreat from Iraq and the Middle East, the jihad waged by Islamic terrorists is now being fought on American soil, instead of on a battlefront in Fallujah and Anbar. Thanks to the borders nObama has destroyed and the tens of thousands of legal immigrants the White House has decided to import from terrorist regions, the enemy is among us. Thanks to nObama’s denial that we are at war at all, the Islamic jihad is now being waged in Chattanooga and Fort Hood, the fly over country that liberals and progressives have always despised. This is not the first time that a military recruiting office in the South was attacked by a Muslim terrorist. In 2009 – nObama’s first year in office - Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad opened fire on a military recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, under orders from Al Qaeda in Yemen, and killed Private William Long.
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 Iran Deal Empowers Enemies of Peace  
{Khaled Abu Toameh} ~ Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has vowed to destroy Israel, is emerging as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the nuclear deal reached last week beween Iran and the world powers... Emboldened by the deal, Hamas is now seeking to reap the fruits by tightening its grip on the Gaza Strip with the help of Iran. This, of course, is bad news for Hamas's rivals in the Palestinian arena, namely the Palestinian Authority (PA), as well as all those who still believe in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. The nuclear deal has also driven Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim countries to restore their relations with Hamas. The goal is to entice Hamas and its patrons in the Muslim Brotherhood to become part of an anti-Iran Sunni coalition in the Arab world.
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 Iran Deal: nObama Just Sold Out an Ally, and It's Not Israel  
{Vijeta Uniyal} ~ India's Foreign Ministry and media welcomed the Iran deal, much as their counterparts in Western capitals did. But country's defence establishment and business community are raising their concerns... about the newly negotiated deal with Iran. Recent defence procurements show that India is preparing for a destabilizing Middle East. In the run-up to the Iran deal, India has been ramping up its missile defence capabilities, including building a comprehensive missile defence shield capable of intercepting a ballistic missile fired from a range of 5,000 km -- effectively covering the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf region. India has good reason to be concerned about an Iranian windfall from its oil trade financing Shia militancy across the Muslim world. The Iranian ascendancy could intensify the Shia-Sunni fight for the control of political Islam and spill over into India's Kashmir region and beyond. India's primary concern, however, remains neighbouring Pakistan. nObama has no idea what he has done and will blame the Republican party for anything that is against his legacy.
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 hanoi John Kerry thinks the UN is More Important than Congress!  
{Onan Coca} ~ It seems that Secretary of State hanoi John Kerry and his boss President Barack nObama have forgotten who it is they work for... This fact was made abundantly clear when, on ABC’s This Week, Secretary hanoi Kerry told ABC’s Jon Karl that it would be presumptuous for Congress to get to vote on the deal before the nations of Europe do. The ABC reporter, Jon Karl, asked, "But the bottom line, the UN is going to vote on this before Congress gets to vote on this?"  hanoi John Kerry thinks the UN is More Important than Congress!
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 24-Day Inspection Delay Will Boost Iranian Nuclear Cheating  
{Bill Gertz} ~ Allowing Iran to delay inspections of suspect nuclear sites for up to 24 days will facilitate cheating by Tehran on the nuclear deal reached in Vienna... according to the former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency who dealt with past Iranian nuclear cheating. Olli Heinonen, a 27-year veteran of the IAEA until 2009, also said in the past Iran had “sanitized” two suspected nuclear sites by refurbishing and repainting the locations in an effort to hide illegal uranium enrichment from inspectors. The former IAEA deputy director voiced skepticism about the inspection provisions for suspected nuclear sites contained in the deal reached with Iran, the United States, and five other nations on July 14.        http://freebeacon.com/national-security/ex-iaea-leader-24-day-inspection-delay-will-boost-iranian-nuclear-cheating/
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 McFarland on hanoi Kerry’s Iran Inspections Claim: ‘It’s A Lie’  
{Blake Seitz} ~ KT McFarland offered a blunt appraisal Monday of Secretary of State hanoi John Kerry’s claim that the United States had never sought “anytime, anywhere” inspections of Iran’s suspected nuclear sites...  “It’s a lie,” McFarland, a former State Department official for Ronald Reagan, said. “The reason anytime, anyplace inspections are crucial is because Iran in the past has cheated, so you really need ironclad inspections.” “You think he was lying?” Fox News host Bill Hemmer asked. “I think he wants this deal so badly he’s willing to stretch the truth around this,” McFarland responded.
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 Congress Can Pound Sand, The UN Has Spoken  
{rickwells.us} ~ The nObama regime’s circumvention of Congress in their giveaway deal to Iran sets a huge and ominous precedent. They have effectively told Congress, and the American people that Congress supposedly represents, that we and our Constitution are now irrelevant... This is obviously not the first time we’ve been delivered that message but it is arguably the first time that a replacement authority has been inserted and recognized by the tyrannical regime as being superior to our own founding document. That assertion carries with it the ability, if it is allowed to stand, to invalidate the Constitution as desired by the tyrant in the White House, including term limits or the requirement to hold elections. This comes on the heels of but prior to the rollout of a similar foreign power usurpation of our Constitution with nObamatrade as well as the December Paris Climate Summit which will attempt to establish the United Nations as the ultimate authority in the world, which includes the portions of it which we occupy in North America and elsewhere.        http://rickwells.us/congress-can-pound-sand-the-un-has-spoken-in-dictatorships-congress-is-a-rubber-stamp-john-kerry/
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 2.5 million illegal immigrants under nObama, 400,000 yearly  
{Paul Bedard} ~ Some 2.5 million illegal immigrants have flowed into the United States under President nObama, with 790,000 rushing in since 2013, according to a new analysis... Calculations from the Center for Migration Studies and the Pew Research Center indicate 1.5 to 1.7 million aliens joined the illegal population from 2009 to 2013 — either overstaying a temporary visa or sneaking into the country, according to a Center for Immigration Studies report out Monday morning. The immigration watchdog’s analysis of Census Bureau data also showed that an additional 790,000 illegals entered from the middle of 2013 to May of 2015, for a total of 2.5 million new illegal immigrants since nObama took office in January of 2009. That is a rate of 300,000 to 400,000 a year.
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 Environmental Disaster: The Renewable Fuel Standard  
{Mario Lewis} ~ The bipartisan disaster called the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has all the usual characteristics of bureaucratic central planning... It features unrealistic (actually, impossible) goals, hidden taxes and regulatory burdens, and costly “unintended” consequences, and it’s carried out by anonymous, unelected, unaccountable government officials. Meanwhile, RFS reduces the mileage of motor vehicles, funnels money from consumers to well-connected “crony capitalists,” raises the price of food for the world’s poor, destroys rain forest and wetlands, and expands a dead zone the size of Connecticut in the Gulf of Mexico. It was supposed to make us more energy independent. It was supposed to protect the environment, yet it is responsible for converting millions of acres of wetlands and wildlife habitat to corn plantations. Even the “greens” have turned against it. And, like many a horror-movie villain, it’s immortal. ... Or is it? 
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 Center for Public Integrity sues FEC for documents  
{publicintegrity.org} ~ The Center for Public Integrity today filed a federal lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission — an agency that exists to enforce and administer the nation’s campaign finance laws... for failing to release documents requested last year under the Freedom of Information Act. Last August, Center for Public Integrity senior political reporter Dave Levinthal filed a FOIA request asking the FEC to provide “any and all scheduling documents and/or records” for the FEC’s six commissioners covering a period from Oct. 21, 2013, to Aug. 14, 2014. The request specifically asked for “calendars, schedules, emails and itineraries that list or account for commissioners’ meetings, whereabouts or travels when conducting government business or traveling to/from engagements or duties involving government business.”
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Unburdening My Mind
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     {burtprelutsky.com} ~ In a way, I envy those pundits who write once a week about a single issue and are satisfied with themselves. I write three or four times a week, cover multiple topics every time out, and I still feel I’m falling behind.
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     For instance, I don’t feel strongly one way or another about the Confederate flag. I understand why good people would have strong feelings on both sides of the controversy. On the other hand, I don’t share the belief of most people that Abraham Lincoln was a great president or a great human being. As he made clear, he wasn’t waging a war to eliminate slavery, but to preserve the Union. Would it have mattered if the Union hadn’t survived? I don’t think so. What would have been so terrible about there being two separate nations? When it served their mutual interests, as with trade or waging war against a common foe, they could have easily worked together, just as we do with Canada.
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     The South would have soon enough eliminated slavery because, one, it would have become economically unsound and, two, their trading partners would have forced the issue.
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     I sincerely believe that the reason for Lincoln’s enduring popularity was the result of his being named Abraham and resembling a biblical prophet and having a gift for high-sounding oratory. Otherwise, the world would have looked at the 700,000 young dead Americans and, instead of Honest Abe, we would more appropriately refer to him as Bloody Abe.
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     Although he has come to be regarded as a poor country lawyer, he was in fact a highly successful attorney whose fees were often paid by railroad magnates.
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     Given that Lincoln not only suspended habeas corpus during the War, but encouraged General Sherman to burn down homes and farms in his march to the sea, and did nothing to prevent Union forces from using Southern homes as their own and to steal food from starving Southern women and children, the prevailing notion that he is one of our greatest and most compassionate presidents is as absurd as suggesting that the only ones greater have been Jimmy Carter and Barack nObama.
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♦ In addition to its other recent, more noteworthy, decisions, the Supreme Court has decided in a 5-4 decision, as reported by Investor’s Business Daily, “that housing and lending discrimination lawsuits based on no proof other than statistics showing different outcomes by minority groups are within the bounds of civil rights law. It agreed with housing rights advocates that zoning and underwriting policies that have a harmful effect – or disparate impact -- on minorities are illegal, even if that harm is unintentional.”
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     In other words, the Supremes have introduced a time bomb into an already shaky economy by deciding that if statistics suggest that even if the actual reason that blacks and Hispanics have a tougher time receiving home loans is because they lack the down payment or a credible credit history, lending institutions will be forced to provide the loans. Can we all say “housing bubble”?
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     Someone sent me an email showing an open container of Tylenol with a caption reading “CNN Breaking News: South Carolina to ban the sale of Tylenol because they fear picking the cotton out of the bottle may represent racism and slavery.” Silly of course, but, as I wrote back: “A joke today, an issue tomorrow.”
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♦ What I find fascinating is that it’s nearly always liberals who parrot Santayana’s line about those who refuse to learn from history being doomed to repeat it, but it’s always they who ignore the facts regarding the ultimate fate of every socialistic nation ranging from Soviet Russia to Nazi Germany, from Cuba to Greece.
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     These days, whether they’re arguing for the absolute right to abortions on demand or same-sex marriages, liberals insist they’re on the right side of history, and then point to young voters as proof of that silly claim. Among liberals, the only people who have a looser grasp of history than elderly pinheads like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton, are the young pinheads in our college classrooms.
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♦ I am proud to have among my most loyal readers` a pastor who worked for many years as a prison minister. Although he claims to have had great success in bringing prisoners to the Lord, I have always been a respectful Doubting Thomas. As I had occasion to write last week: “You would know better than I, but I am always extremely skeptical of prison conversions because most convicts are simply looking for a way to game parole boards. My own take on it is that God wasn’t hiding before they were caught and convicted. The only prison conversions I believe are sincere are those brought about by Islamic clerics. And that’s for the same reason that a certain segment of the population was attracted to the Gestapo and the KGB: a system that promises to reward, not punish, rape and murder will always have to beat off sadistic applicants with a stick.”
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     Although I intend to go down fighting, or at least writing, I don’t believe that the America the Founders visualized can be resuscitated. We are doomed by demographics, but that’s only a part of it. It’s not even just politics. While we can easily improve on Obama, just as Reagan improved on Carter, a difference worth noting is that Carter wasn’t re-elected; Obama was, and we are stuck with the same electorate.
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♦ I’m hardly a fuddy-duddy, but when so many people are in favor of legalizing narcotics; celebrating homosexuality; defending jury nullification; promoting abortions on demand, welfare for able-bodied men and women and dual-citizenship; while turning a blind eye to skyrocketing rates of illegitimate births; a pop culture that targets the lowest common denominator; a media and an education system that see their primary role as propagandists for the Left, I see very little worth salvaging.
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♦ That’s not to say I don’t have a few ideas that might improve things a little. For instance, those who were in favor of the Supreme Court’s legitimizing same-sex marriages like to compare it to the 1967 decision that struck down the laws prohibiting inter-racial marriages. What they choose to overlook is that the earlier decision was the result of a 9-0 vote; this time, the Court over-turned thousands of years of tradition and, I would suggest, common sense with a 5-4 vote.
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     However I personally feel about Court decisions, on issues that affect the entire country, I don’t believe a 5-4 decision should settle anything. Criminal cases require 12 people to reach a unanimous decision. Even civil cases require a two-thirds vote. So how is it that a mere 55% of the Supremes are allowed to make final life-changing decisions affecting 100% of 320,000,000 of us?
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     If even six or, better yet, seven of them can’t come to an agreement, I think they should keep their opinions to themselves.
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♦ I even know how to stop the state from compelling religious florists, bakers and photographers, to service same-sex weddings. We just need that guy who went into the offices of ACORN with a video camera, asking for government funding of a proposed brothel employing underage Latinas, to enter a bakery owned by a Muslim and demand he whip up a cake for a unisex marriage.
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♦ Speaking of which, one of the greatest propaganda campaigns ever waged in the U.S. was the one that turned homosexuality from a condition that the Psychiatric Association of America designated a mental disorder to being an alternative life style and, finally, a civil right, all within a few decades.
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     The way it was conducted was by always portraying homosexuals as sympathetically as possible in the media. They were rarely if ever depicted as criminal or even greedy. Instead, they were passed off as the best neighbors anyone could dream of and, most important of all, as asexual as stuffed toys. Lust was apparently the furthest thing from their thoughts, as they baked cookies and babysat for their friends, gossiped with their female chums and made witty, cutting, comments about straight men.
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     To blow that well-staged campaign out of the water, all you’d have to do is to devise a way to show sodomy in action.
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♦ Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The results of the latest Prelutsky Poll are in. Most of you, I’m happy to report, abided by my request that you vote for only one candidate and to place his or her name in the subject line. I blame myself, though, for merely assuming that people would vote for one of the Republicans who was actually pursuing the nomination. As a result, twelve non-contenders, including Mitt Romney, Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, Tim Scott and Trey Gowdy, received between one and seven votes. Because I’m the one who got the seven votes, I can certainly understand the temptation to vote with their hearts. Fortunately, I was able to persuade most of the 26 rebels to vote for one of the announced candidates.
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     So, without further ado, I can report that Scott Walker was the runaway favorite, scoring almost as many votes (116) as the next two, Ted Cruz (70) and Marco Rubio (52).
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     If I were conducting the debates and had to limit the speakers to 10, the other seven qualifiers would be Carly Fiorina (42), Donald Trump (36), Ben Carson (25), Rick Perry (12), Rand Paul (11), Bobby Jindal (8) and Jeb Bush (6). The also-rans were John Kasich (5), Mike Huckabee (2) and Chris Christie (1).
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     I wish to thank the nearly 400 of you who took part, and to let you know there will be additional polls as we draw nearer to the primaries.
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