Wednesday Afternoon - The Front Page Cover

 The Front Page Cover 
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
 
Featuring:
Picture Power
Tom McLaughlin
 
"Rise up together as one voice"
"Be careful where you stand"
~~~lll~~~
 
 
 Projecting Weakness Won't Bring Peace  
For the first time since 2010, Barack nObama has released an updated National Security Strategy (NSS), an overview of threats to U.S. national security and establish a strategy for mitigating those threats. Not surprisingly, nObama's NSS fails to identify several real threats or set a good course for maintaining security. Anyone who has been remotely paying attention to world events knows there are several legitimate national security threats. One is the rise of the Islamic State, which continues to slaughter innocents and create major instability in the Middle East. While the NSS identifies the Islamic State as a threat, nObama still fails to identify Islamic extremism and Islamic terrorism as a threat to the United States and the rest of the free world. Instead, the word "Islamic" is replaced by the word "violent." Nowhere in the document can it be seen that violent extremism is perpetrated at the hands of Islamists.  -The Patriot Post 
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 DRAMA ERUPTS ON PLANET HILLY  
On the eve of one of the high holidays on Planet Hilly, the winter meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, the bitter feuding long rumored to be simmering within Democratic 2016 frontrunner’s campaign erupted. One of Hilly Clinton’s top lieutenants, David Brock, fired off a letter resigning from the board of Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC funding what is expected to be a more-than $2 billion effort to return the Clintons to the White House. WaPo reports that Brock quit in an angry letter denouncing “an orchestrated political hit job” by his rivals inside the campaign that came in the form of a brutal NYT story on Brock’s fundraising efforts and huge commissions paid to a professional buckraker. Hours later, though, Brock offered to rejoin the 12-member board and board members promised they were “working to address” Brock’s concerns. As the Clinton campaign ponders when to make it official, keeping the team together looks like a major concern.  -The Patriot Post 
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 More money, more problems -   The problem, of course, is the amount of money involved. While Hilly will not there today, her husband and daughter will be backscratching with leaders from big business and big labor in New York. And while the hundreds of millions of dollars the Clintons have raised for their foundation isn’t campaign cash, it’s all part of an empire built around the celebrity and potential return to power of the former first couple. And as the campaign prepares to file paperwork and the PACs prepare to start making larger payouts, the fight for control is evidently intensifying. Brock’s allegations read like he believes the many members of Team nObama and rival Clintonites were looking to elbow him out with allegations of impropriety right before the starting pistol fired. So ask yourself this: Do you expect these problems to get better or worse as time goes on? And here we see one of the major dangers to Clinton being without a real rival for her party’s nomination. If there is no common threat, the animosity will be directed inward.  -Fox News    
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 Feel the momentum! -   WashEx: “As Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., inches closer to a 2016 presidential bid, he is targeting key positions of Hilly Clinton that put him on the side of working-class Americans and anti-war advocates…‘I am giving thought to running for president of the United States,’ Sanders said at a Brookings Institution event. What’s more, he said, if he got in, he would be running ‘to win,’ not influence Clinton’s positions in a general election…”   -Fox News    
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 Hello, Governor -   Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “Monday to Friday, [Scott Walker, R-Wis.] and officials from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. will meet with British business executives about potential deals in this state over the next three years. The state's strategy focuses on seeking to interest foreign investors in Wisconsin industries such as energy, aviation, water technology, biotechnology, and farming and food processing…Tom Evenson, a spokesman for Walker's campaign, said that no political advisers are accompanying him on the trade mission. The trip is being paid for with tax dollars since it is considered an official trip, and the Journal Sentinel has requested the total cost from the Walker administration.”   -Fox News    
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 nObama's 'Secret Iran Strategy' Began in 2006 with Robert Gates  
(David P. Goldman) - Over at Mosaic Magazine, former Bush aide Michael Doran claims that the nObama administration has had a secret strategy to engage Iran from the time it took office...He's right, but he neglects to mention that George W. Bush and his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, adopted the same strategy from the same source in November 2006, after the Republicans got crushed in congressional elections. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got a pink slip, Vice President Dick Cheney got benched, and "realist" Robert Gates–the co-chairman of the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations task force that advocated a deal with Iran–took over at Defense. Michael Doran reports all of this, all, that is, except Gates' central role in the plan. That would place a good deal of the blame at Bush's doorstep.       http://www.meforum.org/5022/obama-iran-strategy
2.
 Europe on Edge One Month After Charlie Hebdo  
(Abigail R. Esman) - It didn't take long. Less than a month after the Charlie Hebdo murders and the slaughter of four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris, Islamic State (IS, or ISIS) has sent a warning now to Belgium... "This," they wrote in a letter to Het Laatste News (HLM), "is only the beginning." The letter, received by HLN's editors on Feb. 4, referred also to a series of attacks in France that pre-dated the Paris massacres: "What happened in France will happen, too, in Belgium," the typewritten letter stated in perfect French, "and from Belgium, IS will conquer all of Europe." According to HLN, counterterrorism officials are taking the letter seriously and believe it is the legitimate work of an IS jihadist. More, they claim that the writer is aware of current events in Belgium, down to small details. (The full text of the letter has not been released.)       http://www.investigativeproject.org/4771/europe-on-edge-one-month-after-charlie-hebdo
3.
 U.S. aid being used to reward anti-Israel carnage  
(onenewsnow.com) - In an interview with the Voice of Israel, reporter Edwin Black says the salaries to the families of the terrorists who are in Israeli jails represent more than 15 percent of the Palestinian Authority's budget... "They actually increased the salary based upon the number of months you serve or the number of years you serve in an Israeli prison, according to a published graduated scale," he explains. "And so the more carnage you commit, the more lives that are devastated, the [longer] is your prison term – and the longer your prison term, the higher is your compensation." Black says the practice of giving terrorist families this foreign aid money is approved at the highest level of the Palestinian Authority.       http://onenewsnow.com/national-security/2015/02/09/report-us-aid-being-used-to-reward-anti-israel-carnage?utm_source=OneNewsNow&utm_medium=email&utm_term=16780278&utm_content=565493864984
4.
 nObama “Shadow Govt” Opens Border and Grants Amnesty to Illegals  
(Dr. Jerome Corsi) – The Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies announced last week that government documents released in a FOIA request prove the nObama administration has given legitimate Social Security numbers and work permits...to 5.5 million illegal immigrants from 2009 to 2014, in addition to the number of new green cards and temporary worker admissions issued legally. In other words, the nObama administration since 2009 has run a “Shadow Government” with the purpose of opening the border and granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants in complete disregard of current immigration laws. “This is a huge parallel immigrant work authorization system outside the limits set by Congress that inevitably impacts opportunities for U.S. workers, damages the integrity of the immigration system, and encourages illegal immigration,” CIS researcher Jessica Vaughn said, making the shocking announcement.
5.
Al Qaeda's flag flies over the U.S. embassy in Tunisia.
 Al Qaeda Uses ISIS to Present Itself as Respectable, Even Moderate  
(THOMAS JOSCELYN) - In response to the Islamic State’s horrific burning of a pilot, the Jordanian government has released from prison one of the most influential al Qaeda-allied ideologues in the world. Sound strange? It is...And when you get into the specifics, it gets even more bizarre. Indeed, a disturbing pattern of behavior emerges: Al Qaeda, and like-minded jihadists, are triangulating off of the Islamic State’s brutality to present themselves in a respectable, even moderate light. Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi has been a staunch critic of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s Islamic State (or ISIS/ISIL, as it is commonly known). Maqdisi, like many al Qaeda-allied thinkers, objects to the Islamic State, especially its uncompromising approach to power politics within the jihadist world. But this does not make him the voice of reason. He is openly pro-al Qaeda and a vocal defender of Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s leader.       http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/al-qaeda-uses-isis-try-present-itself-respectable-even-moderate_845194.html?utm_campaign=Weekly%20Standard%3A%20Daily%20Digest&utm_source=Weekly%20Standard%3A%20Daily%20Digest%20-%2002%2F09%2F15&utm_medium=email
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 Islamic State selling sex slaves, crucifying, burying children alive  
(pamelageller.com) - Islamic State militants are selling abducted Iraqi children at markets as sex slaves, and killing other youth, including by crucifixion or burying them alive, a United Nations watchdog said on Wednesday...Iraqi boys aged under 18 are increasingly being used by the militant group as suicide bombers, bomb makers, informants or human shields to protect facilities against U.S.-led air strikes, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said. “We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”       http://pamelageller.com/2015/02/islamic-state-selling-as-sex-slaves-crucifying-burying-children-alive.html/
7.
 Ukraine Explosion  Reports of Massive Explosion in Ukraine   
(Restroing Liberty) - On Sunday night, a series of YouTube videos appear to show a large explosion in Donetsk, Ukraine. However, it wasn’t a “tactical nuclear weapon,” as some social media users claimed...
but just a big blast–reportedly Ukrainian army artillery fire hitting an ammunition depot held by the rebel Donetsk People’s Republic. Videos that were uploaded Feb. 8 show a massive explosion going off in the distance, with an orange-red fireball lighting up the night sky.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQ5EPnSE_4                                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lb1TAMTZv8                                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2jmOYih_a8                              
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8. 
 Turkish Leader Accuses "Jewish Lobby" of Plot to Topple Regime  
(investigativeproject.org) - Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that his government would not give into the "Jewish lobby" that he says is working against the ruling AKP Party... "I announce it from here: we have not and will not succumb to the Jewish lobby, the Armenian lobby or the Turkish-Greek minority's lobbies," Davutoglu said at a party gathering Sunday. Arbitrary references to the "Jewish lobby" in the Muslim world can be construed as anti-Semitic sentiment without factual evidence supporting such claims. Leaders in various countries have historically blamed Jews and Israel for internal woes to alleviate domestic pressure and propagate the concept of an external enemy in order to cultivate regime legitimacy.      http://www.investigativeproject.org/4772/turkish-leader-accuses-jewish-lobby-of-plot-to
9.
 Black Criminals, White Victims, and White Guilt  
(James Simpson) - The media have relentlessly fanned the flames of racial hatred, while engaging in a systematic pattern of misinformation and blatant suppression of facts surrounding the perpetrators and victims of crime...As a result, so-called “criminal justice reform” is now being proposed to release more criminals from jails, supposedly to make amends for the unjust “mass incarceration” of black men. The figures come quickly but are never subjected to the necessary scrutiny. Last fall, for example, the George Soros-funded ProPublica published a claim that black youths are killed by the police at a rate 21 times higher than white youths. Mass media parroted that claim, but the data are incomplete and biased. They represent just 1.2 percent of police departments nationwide, and most reports come from urban areas, where the population is disproportionately black.       http://noisyroom.net/blog/2015/02/09/black-criminals-white-victims-and-white-guilt/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Noisyroomnet+%28NoisyRoom.net%29
10.
 What Is the Islamic State Trying to Accomplish?  
(Andrew McCarthy) - The Islamic State’s barbaric murder of Lieutenant Mouath al-Kasaebeh, the Jordanian air-force pilot the jihadists captured late last year, has naturally given rise to questions about the group’s objectives...Charles Krauthammer argues  that the Islamic State is trying to draw Jordan into a land war in Syria. It is no doubt correct that the terrorist group would like to destabilize Jordan — indeed, it is destabilizing Jordan. Its immediate aim, however, is more modest and attainable. The Islamic State wants to break up President nObama’s much trumpeted Islamic-American coalition.As the administration proudly announced back in September, Jordan joined the U.S. coalition, along with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar. The only potential value of the coalition is symbolic: It has enabled the president to claim that Muslim countries were lining up with us against the Islamic State. Militarily, the coalition is of little use. These countries cannot defeat the Islamic State.Moreover, even the symbolism is insignificant. Symbolism, after all, cuts both ways...         http://www.aim.org/guest-column/what-is-the-islamic-state-trying-to-accomplish/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=email020915&utm_medium=email
   
Picture Power
Tom McLaughlin
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       (tommclaughlin.blogspot.com) - Images are powerful, stronger than words. It was video of ISIS beheading two Americans that spurred President nObama to finally take action he was doing his best to avoid. Video of ISIS burning a Jordanian pilot alive last week got King Abdullah angry enough to quote Clint Eastwood in his promise to strike back. His actions since prove it wasn’t an idle threat.
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     ISIS was holding a woman named Kayla Mueller from Prescott, Arizona who was captured while doing charity work for “Doctors Without Borders.” It claimed last week she was killed when Jordanian planes struck an ISIS building housing weapons, and the family confirmed today she’s dead. What would happen if ISIS had burned her alive and filmed it? Reaction would have been fierce. Would it have been enough for Congress to declare war on ISIS? It seems that’s what it’s going to take because President nObama isn’t likely to do much more on his own initiative, even if though he’s asked for the authority.
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     Pictures of mistreated puppies move millions to enact strict animal cruelty laws that have imprisoned hundreds. Brian Williams claims to have once rescued a puppy from a burning building. If he had a picture of the puppy, he might still be anchoring the NBC Nightly News.
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     Pictures have enormous political power. One shot of a little girl running away after being burned by napalm in Vietnam turned countless Americans against the war. Another of a Viet Cong soldier being executed, and then a video of a Buddhist monk immolating himself had enormous effect on millions of Americans back home.
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     Teaching about the Holocaust, I used to hold up a grainy, black and white photo of an SS soldier shooting a Jewish mother and her baby in Poland. I’d ask, “Is this soldier evil?” Then I’d moderate a forty-minute discussion on whether he was or wasn’t. Students wanted to keep talking about it after the bell rang. I’d have to end the discussion and kick them out. Images of bodies in liberated Nazi death camps shocked the world in 1945. Nobody could deny the Holocaust after that and those pictures led to UN recognition of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948. Try as it might, Iran cannot negate the power of those images in its effort to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist in the world’s eyes by denying the Holocaust ever took place.
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     When al Qaeda posted video of American journalist Daniel Pearl’s beheading in 2002, I told students that I chose not to watch it and advised them not to either “unless you want the image to stay in your head.” Pictures of Iraqi POWs being humiliated at Abu Ghraib turned many Americans against the war and led to Barack nObama’s election in 2008. I won’t watch video of ISIS burning the Jordanian pilot for the same reason. I saw one still photo and that was enough.
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He was charged with eight, but his staff said he murdered hundreds

   
Good liberals all, our liberal mainstream media wasn’t about to show any pictures of dead babies during the Kermit Gosnell murder trial in 2013. They refused to even cover it for three weeks. Then they gave weak excuses: “It’s a local story,” when they were finally smoked out and even then gave it scant mention. They certainly didn’t show any pictures — except of Gosnell’s building which he called the “Women’s Medical Society.” No dead babies. No emotional testimony by former employees who witnessed the slaughter either, though there was plenty of both. The old maxim “If it bleeds, it leads” doesn’t apply to abortion stories in the mainstream media.
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     Feminist Professor Lisa Wade at Occidental College commented on photographer Lennart Nilsson’s Life Magazine cover shot in 1965: “Nilsson’s images forever changed the way that people think about pregnancy, mothers, and fetuses. Before Nilsson, the visual of a fetus independent from a mother was not widespread. His pictures made it possible for people to visualize the contents of a woman’s womb independently of her body.  Suddenly, the fetus came to life. It was no longer just something inside of a woman, no longer even in relationship to a woman; it was an individual with a face, a sex, a desire to suck its thumb.”
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Sparing you another picture of an aborted baby, this is an ultrasound

     When my students debated abortion in the years before the internet, opposing sides would write away to organizations supporting the pro-life and pro-choice viewpoints. Pro-life students were appalled at images of aborted babies they received. When pro-choice students saw them, they were appalled too and said they could no longer defend the pro-choice side.
 
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