The Front Page Cover
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
Featuring:
Warring Factions
Threaten Clinton White House Bid
Roger Aronoff
"Know who you are standing with"
"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future"
~~~lll~~~
ATF Aims to Ban Popular AR-15 Ammo
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued a white paper to determine whether certain ammunition is "primarily intended for sporting purposes." At issue is 5.56mm M855 ammo, which is considered "armor piercing," and therefore the ATF says it's of questionable merit for the average citizen. The ATF hasn't made its decision yet and will accept comments until March 16, but if the bureau carries through the net effect would be a ban on one of the most common and affordable types of military surplus AR-15 ammo. It's no surprise that the ATF is way off target -- down and to the Left. The white paper begins: "To protect the lives and safety of law enforcement officers from the threat posed by ammunition capable of penetrating a protective vest when fired from a handgun, the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), as amended, prohibits the import, manufacture, and distribution of 'armor piercing ammunition' as defined by the statute. The GCA, however, allows for the exemption of ammunition that would otherwise be considered armor piercing if the Attorney General determines that the specific ammunition at issue is 'primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes.'"
-The Patriot Post
Big League Kids, Little League Adults
Little League Baseball revoked Chicago's Jackie Robinson West all-stars' United States championship last Wednesday. The reason was straight-forward: The team used players who lived outside the boundaries allowed by the rules. Team manager Donald Butler was suspended from Little League, and Illinois District 4 administrator Michael Kelly has been removed from his position. Little League International CEO Stephen D. Keener called it a "heartbreaking decision," but one necessary to "maintain the integrity of the Little League program." Enter those with no integrity at all: "Is this about boundaries or race?" wondered professional agitator Jessie Jackson. "This decision's untimely and inappropriate at this time," Jackson added. "It should not take six months after a team has played a championship game to determine eligibility to play the game in the first place." Is there the slightest doubt that if an investigation had taken half that time or less Jackson would be bemoaning a "rush to judgment" just as facilely? -The Patriot Post
LIBYA DEBACLE CASTS SHADOW ON nOBAMA WAR PLAN
President nObama had better leave some blank spaces in the next draft of his proposal to Congress for a “right-sized” war to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Key U.S. ally Egypt has now bombed ISIS targets in Libya, which is some 700 miles away from what we were are told is theater of war – a distance about the same as that between Pittsburgh and Savannah. (So at least now you know who not to ask for directions.) In the spirit of baseball spring training, maybe the updated version can just say “Iraq, Syria, Libya and nations to be named later…” But before we get to the issue of Egypt bombing an ISIS affiliate in Libya in reprisal for the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians, we might do well to consider how we ended up with an ISIS affiliate in Libya anyway.
[“The president is asking for less authority than he has today under previous authorizations. …And I don’t believe what the president sent here gives him the flexibility, or the authority, to take on this enemy and to win.” – Speaker backstabber John Boehner, R-Ohio, on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.” Watch here.] -Fox News
President nObama had better leave some blank spaces in the next draft of his proposal to Congress for a “right-sized” war to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Key U.S. ally Egypt has now bombed ISIS targets in Libya, which is some 700 miles away from what we were are told is theater of war – a distance about the same as that between Pittsburgh and Savannah. (So at least now you know who not to ask for directions.) In the spirit of baseball spring training, maybe the updated version can just say “Iraq, Syria, Libya and nations to be named later…” But before we get to the issue of Egypt bombing an ISIS affiliate in Libya in reprisal for the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians, we might do well to consider how we ended up with an ISIS affiliate in Libya anyway.
[“The president is asking for less authority than he has today under previous authorizations. …And I don’t believe what the president sent here gives him the flexibility, or the authority, to take on this enemy and to win.” – Speaker backstabber John Boehner, R-Ohio, on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.” Watch here.] -Fox News
What a difference - Four years ago today, the chatter was also all about Egypt and Libya, but the news was very different. In Egypt, the country was in turmoil in the wake of President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation five days earlier under intense pressure from nObama. But the big news was in Libya, where the rebellion against dictator Muammar Qaddafi had just gotten underway the night before in the city of Benghazi. Within 10 days, both nObama and then-Secretary of State Hilly Clinton would call for regime change in Libya. The U.S. would join the civil war on the side of the rebels about a month later. Eighteen months after that, Islamist militants would attack and destroy a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, the city where the rebellion began. Each passing month would bring worse news from Libya as the Islamists who fought in the rebellion took more control over and eventually suffocated the fledgling Western-backed government. -Fox News
Bad call - Things looked to be going in the same direction for a time in Egypt. The “moderate” Islamists who took control after Mubarak’s ouster proved to be not-so-moderate after all. As the largest Arab nation was careening toward disaster, U.S. allies in the region successfully pressured the nObama administration to back a restoration last year of the same kind of government nObama had helped unseat four years ago. Libya today is a nightmare state and Egypt is back under the control of the military. It may sound like madness, but don’t forget how deeply (and as it would turn out, wrongly) the world swooned at the idea of what was then known as the Arab Spring. The nObama administration took an aggressive stance on the unfolding revolutionary movement that has left the region in even deeper chaos. How real are the chances that the president will again be part of a coalition to strike Libya, but this time against some of the same factions he previously supported? Well, the U.S. is now coordinating with the regime in Syria it once threatened to attack, so never say never. -Fox News
WITH YOUR SECOND CUP OF COFFEE...
None of our 44 presidents was born on this day. But in deference to ease of scheduling and partly a desire to avoid political offense, today’s federal holiday has been widely known as President’s Day since 1971. It is still technically recorded as George Washington’s Birthday (which is actually Feb. 22), but the popular understanding is that today’s holiday honors all presidents. Any event that celebrates Franklin Peirce and Woodrow Wilson equally to Washington and Abraham Lincoln can truly be said to celebrate nothing. So what’s the point? Why, a day off, of course. And for decades, Americans have used the extra day to go car shopping. Auto sales surge by about 25 percent every President’s Day weekend. But before it was cars, it was bicycles. The Atlantic examines the largely lost, Gilded Age history of how bicycles helped make the holiday into a mercantile moment for the nation. -Fox News
None of our 44 presidents was born on this day. But in deference to ease of scheduling and partly a desire to avoid political offense, today’s federal holiday has been widely known as President’s Day since 1971. It is still technically recorded as George Washington’s Birthday (which is actually Feb. 22), but the popular understanding is that today’s holiday honors all presidents. Any event that celebrates Franklin Peirce and Woodrow Wilson equally to Washington and Abraham Lincoln can truly be said to celebrate nothing. So what’s the point? Why, a day off, of course. And for decades, Americans have used the extra day to go car shopping. Auto sales surge by about 25 percent every President’s Day weekend. But before it was cars, it was bicycles. The Atlantic examines the largely lost, Gilded Age history of how bicycles helped make the holiday into a mercantile moment for the nation. -Fox News
1.
Egypt launches air strikes in response to ISIS beheadings
(Jazz Shaw) - First it was Jordan, and now Egypt and Libya. Following yesterday’s breaking news about the beheadings on the beach in Libya, Egypt moved forward in less than a day to launch airstrikes on ISIS targets...And since the horror took place on their turf, Libya got in on the action as well. As far as Egypt goes, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi had promised yesterday that he was going to be taking action and obviously he got started immediately. But while we can certainly commend his forceful response, as spotters have already pointed out, it’s hard to say exactly how much damage they inflicted on ISIS forces. It remains to be seen if this was a significant blow against the terrorists or more of a public relations show for his own citizens who are no doubt spoiling for revenge. http://hotair.com/archives/2015/02/16/egypt-launches-air-strikes-in-response-to-isis-beheadings/?utm_source=hadaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
2.
Menendez and the Demise of American Liberalism
(Jeffrey Herf) - The current controversy over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposed speech to a Joint Session of Congress obscures a deeper issue about American politicians and U.S. policy toward Iran, namely that they are not lining up conveniently along party lines...It is true that most Republicans in the Congress do not agree with President nObama's approach to negotiations with Iran. I think they are right not to. Yet the President's life is complicated even more by a senator from his own party, Robert Menendez of New Jersey. He too disagrees with nObama's approach to Iran and has done so since nObama became President. From 2013 to last month, he did so as the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez, more than any other political figure in Washington, has prevented the Iran issue from displaying the familiar and convenient divide between Republican "hawks" and Democratic "doves." In numerous speeches on the floor of the Senate and in comments during many hearings of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he has criticized and carefully documented what he views as the steady erosion of the American negotiation position in the talks with Iran. He has led the push for deeper sanctions in the perhaps futile hope that economic pressure would lead theIranians to turn away from the bomb without the need to resort to force. http://www.meforum.org/5036/menendez-us-iran-liberalism
3.
Islam: Banned for Blasphemy?
(Raymond Ibrahim) - Soon after Muslim gunmen killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo offices, which published satirical caricatures of Muslim prophet Muhammad, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)...the “collective voice of the Muslim world” and second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations—is again renewing calls for the United Nations to criminalize “blasphemy” against Islam, or what it more ecumenically calls, the “defamation of religions.” Yet the OIC seems to miss one grand irony: if international laws would ban cartoons, books, and films on the basis that they defame Islam, they would also, by logical extension, have to ban the entire religion of Islam itself—the only religion whose core texts actively and unequivocally defame other religions, including by name. http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/raymond-ibrahim/islam-banned-for-blasphemy/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8c7653a99a-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag&utm_term=0_57e32c1dad-8c7653a99a-156509103
4.
nObama White House Partners with ISIS-Linked Group
(Matthew Vadum) - A Boston-based hub of terrorism associated with a top Islamic State propagandist and producer of hostage-beheading videos will receive the red carpet treatment at an anti-terrorism conference at the nObama White House this Wednesday...The so-called Summit on Countering Violent Extremism comes as President nObama seeks formal authorization from Congress to wage war against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). The terrorist-friendly Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), which is a known front for Islamist terrorist groups, operates mosques in and around Boston. Members of the anti-terrorist community are outraged that officials of ISB will participate in discussions of anti-terrorism best practices on Feb. 18. http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/matthew-vadum/obama-white-house-partners-with-isis-linked-group/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8c7653a99a-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag&utm_term=0_57e32c1dad-8c7653a99a-156509103
5.
HSBC Scandal Heightens Calls for Tougher Bank Oversight
(Jeffrey Young) - The latest black eye to the global banking industry, the British-based HSBC Holdings PLC secret account scandal, has heightened demands by activists and lawmakers in a number of nations for better transparency and accountability...And fingers are being pointed at some nations for not taking action sooner. Former HSBC Swiss private banking employee Herve Falciani handed the data about tens of thousands of that bank’s "private" accounts over to French authorities in 2008. That information eventually became the core of the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ HSBC report, released in early February, showing 106,000 hidden accounts at the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC. http://www.voanews.com/content/hsbc-scandal-heightens-calls-for-tougher-bank-oversight/2645707.html
6.
America's foreign policy will need rescuing from the nObama years
(washingtonexaminer.com) - The final collapse of Yemen's pro-American government at the hands of Iranian-backed rebels chanting “Death to America” marks another major failure of the nObama administration's antiterrorism policy...The extent of this failure was highlighted by the disorderly evacuation that civilian and military staff were forced to make from the American embassy in Sana'a. Despite reassurances from the State Department that it was all planned in advance, embassy staff appear to have fled in fear and without much notice. They destroyed classified documents and caught a civilian flight out of a country that once welcomed our military aircraft. The Marines on site took the last-ditch measure of destroying weapons so they wouldn't become useful to the enemy. Vehicles were left behind unguarded, which the Houthi rebels proceeded to expropriate. This failure was rather awkward for State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki to explain away in her recent appearance on Megyn Kelly's Fox News show. But who can fault her for flailing in justifying her boss's indefensibly weak position? http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/americas-foreign-policy-will-need-rescuing-from-the-obama-years/article/2560268?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI%20-%2002/16/15&utm_medium=email
7.
nObama's Iran Policy and Israel's Elections
(Efraim Inbar) - Unfortunately, there are many sources of tension between the nObama administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. The main issue of discord is, of course Iran...nObama seeks an agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran over its nuclear program that will allow President nObama to claim that he prevented Tehran from building the bomb. The fact that Iran will maintain the capability to enrich uranium, and will not dismantle any of its nuclear installations, is simply swept under the rug as insignificant. Strange as it sounds, it seems that nObama is prepared to brand Iran as a US strategic partner in the attempt to bring stability to a region beleaguered by chaos. Part of this realignment involves American capitulation on the nuclear issue, and an apparent carte blanche for stepped up Iranian activity and influence in the region. Iran is taking over Yemen (and throwing American diplomats out of the country); carving a sphere of influence in Iraq; continuing to support the brutal Assad regime in Damascus; strengthening Hizballah's grip over Lebanon; engaging in subversion in Central Asia; and developing its terrorist apparatus. In the context of nObama's "Grand Bargain" with Iran, all this seems to be okay. Tehran gets all it wants, while Washington gets an Iranian promise not to go nuclear as long as nObama is in the White House. Having made no foreign policy achievements throughout his presidency, nObama, perhaps obsessively, now wants the relationship with Iran to serve as his foreign policy legacy. http://www.meforum.org/5037/obama-iran-policy-and-israel-elections
8.
WH McDonough, “Not True nObama Doesn’t Care About Terrorism”
(Rick Wells) - What else could he say? Bob Schieffer asks White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough about the perception among many Americans that the regime doesn’t care about the horrific acts committed by ISIS or about the threat from Islamic terrorists in general...He describes the views as that of the ‘president’s’ critics that they are taking these things in stride. It doesn’t have to take as long as it is, the regime is slow-walking the war for some reason. The 2,400 strikes is little more than an average day during the previous administration when we were fighting a war intent on winning. McDonough’s definition of “dramatic impact” is likely quite different from that of others, including countless military experts and average, everyday Americans. McDonough is on defense, attempting to portray the shameful squandering of our military advantage and countless opportunities as achievements, a difficult task and just another of the daily administration failures. http://www.rickwells.us/wh-chief-of-staff-mcdonough-not-true-obama-doesnt-care-about-terrorism-he-just-doesnt-care-very-much/
9.
UN Plan for 2015 Climate Summit Would Shackle Planet
(William F. Jasper) - The draft text of the United Nations’ proposed global climate agreement was released Friday, February 13 in Geneva, Switzerland. The document, which proposes to impose draconian controls on all human activity and all energy production and consumption...has ballooned from the 38-page document that was negotiated last November-December at the UN climate circus in Lima, Peru, to 98 pages. “Although it has become longer, countries are now fully aware of each other’s positions,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), acknowledging that the more than doubling of the text’s length would make the next negotiating session “a little bit more difficult.” http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/20129-un-plan-for-2015-climate-summit-would-shackle-planet-with-energy-restrictions?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=3275c037aa-The_Editors_Top_Picks_3_12_143_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ca494f2d2-3275c037aa-289778381
10.
Brock is considering a return to Priorities USA, The Washington Post noted shortly thereafter. “People are starting to worry that Priorities could be a weak link,” one strategist told Vogel for his February 10 story about how this super PAC is “struggling in its early efforts to line up cash toward a fundraising goal of as much as $500 million.”
As I’ve reported in the past, The Washington Post—even amidst Mrs. Clinton’s “worst week in Washington” and her tone-deaf comments about being “dead broke” after leaving the White House—still gave her favorable coverage in order to ensure that a Democrat would retain the presidency. “The Post has issued wall-to-wall coverage of this subject, but most of it is about ensuring Hillary’s chances,” I wrote last July.
Sen Jeff Sessions Releases Detailed List Of nObama Amnesty Plot
(Rick Wells) - Arguably the chief defender of American sovereignty and the self-determination and rights of its citizens is Senator Jeff Sessions...He has earned that distinction largely through his aggressive posture against the deliberate erosion of our immigration laws and border enforcement by open borders government officials. As that battle continues to rage in the Congress, the DHS funding bill has now become the pivotal issue in whether or not we, as Americans, still have claim to the governing principles asserted by Abraham Lincoln. That “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.” The Democrats disagree with the Republican, Mr. Lincoln, as well as Senator Sessions, and are doing their best to ensure that our representative government fades from the face of the Earth. http://www.rickwells.us/sen-jeff-sessions-releases-detailed-list-of-obama-regimes-amnesty-plot-and-offenses-against-america/
Warring Factions
Threaten Clinton White House Bid
Roger Aronoff
(barbwire.com) - Ongoing rivalries and dissension among Clinton loyalists have percolated up through the mainstream media, even The New York Times—whose own investigative reporting may have set off the latest salvo. It seems despite the president-in-waiting status often accorded to Mrs. Clinton, there might not be enough money to go around, evoking harsh internal criticisms.
David Brock, founder of the far-left Media Matters, “is a cancer,” argued John Morgan, a Florida lawyer connected to both President Barack nObama and former President Bill Clinton, according to recent reporting by Nicholas Confessore and Amy Chozick at the Times. Brock made headlines earlier this week, when in response to their reporting, he sent out a letter that alleged “current and former Priorities officials were behind this specious and malicious attack on the integrity of these critical organizations” and “resigned from the board of the super PAC Priorities USA Action,” according to Politico’s Kenneth Vogel.
But one wonders whether the criticisms expressed in the media will sabotage Brock’s and other loyalists’ peacemaking. “If you care about your party and our country, you just do what you are asked,” said Morgan, according to Confessore and Chozick. “If you care about yourself, you take your toys and go home.” Morgan is apparently “close” to the co-chair of Priorities USA Action, Jim Messina. Messina served as President nObama’s campaign manager in 2012.
Confessore, a liberal writer/editor transplanted from Washington Monthly to The New York Times, seems to have access to a considerable circle of influential Democrats connected to the Clintons. After all, he sat down with John Podesta in 2003 and 2005. And his August 2013 exposé on mismanagement at the Clinton Foundation, co-authored with Chozick, included interviews with “more than two dozen former and current foundation employees, donors and advisers to the family”—most unwilling to speak on the record.
Like the 2013 piece, Confessore and Chozick report for the Times on February 10 that “most people interviewed for this article declined to speak on the record for fear of angering either the president or the woman who hopes to replace him.” But these persons are willing to speak to the Times about their frustrations.
“The Hilly people were more in it for themselves,” said Jonathan Alter, MSNBC political analyst, when he appeared on the February 10 Ed Schultz show on MSNBC. Alter was referring to the 2008 Democratic primary campaign against nObama. “If we get a repeat of that this time, she won`t have the passion and a genuine commitment that she needs to go the distance.”
“…what this is about is that is that there was a fundraiser who raised millions of dollars for these different groups including David Brock`s, but she was taking a 12.5 percent commission,” Alter said. Democratic strategist Bob Shrum described Mary Pat Bonner’s reported 12.5% commission as “way over the top.”
Confessore and Chozick cast this Democrat infighting differently. They describe the latest meltdown among Clinton movers and shakers as a conflict between two worlds: former nObama staffers who have been imported as strategists for Clinton, and long-time Clinton loyalists. But these writers aren’t the only ones with conflicted interests. The reality appears to be that many in the liberal media, including some reporters at The Washington Post and New York Times, want to tear Hilly and the Clintons down for being too close to Wall Street. But on the other hand, they realize that Mrs. Clinton is the overwhelming favorite to get the Democratic nomination, meaning they will undoubtedly support her when it comes down to her vying against any Republican candidate.
But when Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) launched her populist offensive in the Senate, hope sprang anew among die-hard liberals and some in the media that Mrs. Clinton, with all her baggage, might not be a shoo-in. The Post’s Paul Kane practically salivated over Sen. Warren’s presidential chances back during the December revolt. Sen. Warren has said she’s not running, but the Post continues to run articles like this: “Democrats suffering from Clinton fatigue say they’re ready for Warren.” Chozick recently described Sen. Warren as “an effective tool in moving Mrs. Clinton off message” whom Republicans favor as a candidate to create dissension within the Democratic primary.
Accuracy in Media has argued in the past that the Times’ David Kirkpatrick piece on Benghazi was a way of inoculating Mrs. Clinton while trying to make the definitive case supporting the nObama administration’s actions and justifications for Benghazi. But that obviously didn’t work, and revelations confirming the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi’s conclusions continue to break, implicating Mrs. Clinton not only for poor security preceding the 2012 Benghazi attacks, but her blind push to intervene in Libya in the first place. When Mrs. Clinton most likely appears before the Select Committee on Benghazi, an even greater spotlight will shine on her role in these attacks.
It looks like Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is very tempted to run against Mrs. Clinton from the left, and former Virginia Senator James Webb might run more or less from her right. The sharks are circling this establishment candidate; will Mrs. Clinton successfully fend them off?
And clearly others at the Times aren’t so interested in inoculating her. But in the meantime, the left is having a catfight, and it may be that some reporters are interested in stirring the pot for dramatic effect—and to cause some angst for Mrs. Clinton from their end.
Confessore’s bio from the Times states that he covers the “intersection of money, power and influence.” A visit to his Twitter page reveals that he, like many liberals, doesn’t like the Citizens United ruling very much. His twitter feed recently stated, “Thanks to Citizens United, we can now have campaign infighting without the campaign.” He also has tweeted about the Clinton Foundation’s $81 million received from “clients of HSBC’s controversial Swiss bank.”
He also wrote an article with Chozick in July of last year which stated, “Few political families are closer to Wall Street than the Clintons … And the Clintons often interact with the titans of finance on the Manhattan charity circuit and during their vacations in the Hamptons.”
Could it be that at least one New York Times staffer doesn’t favor Mrs. Clinton for her entrenched, big-money establishment ties much, either? Or perhaps it’s just that Confessore, Chozick, and the Times itself want to go around poking sleeping tigers before an election to see what they can stir up.
These aren’t Mrs. Clinton’s only problems. She also has what might become known as a “Brian Williams problem,” meaning she “misremembered” coming under sniper fire on a runway in Bosnia, and she repeated the story on more than one occasion, yet there were plenty of eyewitnesses who knew it was a complete fabrication. It cost Williams his esteemed position, and a lot of money. Will Hillary pay a similar price?
Plus, former President Bill Clinton is becoming a problem again based on his being linked in the media to a sex scandal involving a good friend of his who is a convicted pedophile. It’s certainly never dull when the Clintons are involved.
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