The Front Page Cover
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
Featuring:
America's Military Power in a Steep Decline
"Rise up together as one voice"
"Be careful where you stand"
~~~lll~~~
Lee-Rubio Tax Reform: Pro-Growth, Pro-Family
Republican Senators Mike Lee and Marco Rubio have put forward version 2.0 of their tax reform proposal first released last September. The two men offer a bit more detail to their sweeping plan this time around, and it's still a strong, pro-growth proposal. The broad strokes of the Lee-Rubio plan focus on making significant changes to the tax code to right the wrongs that have grown and multiplied over the last several decades. One of the most attractive elements of the plan is that it addresses both the business and the individual side of the tax structure from top to bottom. As National Review's Yuval Levin points out, "Successful conservative tax reforms have always provided both broad-based relief and better incentives at the margins -- not one or the other." The current tax code, as Lee and Rubio point out in their latest Wall Street Journal op-ed, has manifold failures -- "impeding growth, discouraging investment, and restricting freedom on the business and the individual side -- [and) they are all rooted in the same fundamental unfairness and inequity of a government that picks winners and losers." It's one of the reasons recovery from the Great Recession has been more of a long, slow crawl toward a new mediocrity. -The Patriot Post 
HILLY LETS DEMS TWIST ON HER EMAIL SCANDAL
Democrats are having plenty of Ralph Kramden moments when asked about Hilly Clinton’s email scandal. If anything frightens lawmakers more than 4 inches of snow, it is the prospect of getting crossways with Clinton’s communications cutthroats. But they’re not giving Democrats much to work with here. Lashing out at the NYT and trying to shift the blame to the nObama administration is not exactly putting Hill Democrats in their sweet spot. And when the subject – lack of transparency and ethical concerns – goes to the heart of the party’s misgivings about its presumptive nominee, it’s that much tougher.
[Literally? – “I literally don’t know anything about her home internet system.” – Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., when asked about the scandal by National Journal.]
While the party will eventually unite (mostly) behind Clinton, seeking to defend her from the “vast right wing conspiracy” she will blame for this debacle, this will leave a stain. The subtle shift in thinking that may be the most consequential is this: Once Democrats wondered if they needed a primary challenger to Hilly to get her to move left and to tune her up for the general. Now they wonder if one won’t be necessary in case Hilly blows up like the Death Star. That shift opens the door for potential challengers, particularly loose lips Biden and O’Malley to make a case for their candidacies that is not explicitly ideological, but a practical consideration for the party. For Liz Warren, meanwhile, the moment may be growing nearer when she could deliver what is the single gravest threat to the Clintons’ effort to return to power. -Fox News
Just in case you ever need them… - Vice President loose lips Joe Biden will address gay rights activists tonight in Washington D.C. and Former Gov. Martin O’Malley, D-Md., is set to spend the weekend in New Hampshire, delivering a keynote address tonight at a fundraiser for the Merrimack County Democratic Committee and the Concord City Democrats. On Saturday, he will appear at a fundraiser for the New Hampshire Democratic Party and later will deliver the keynote address at the Washington Days banquet in Topeka, Kansas. -Fox News
Use discredit to discredit - Jackie Kucinich and Tim Mak report on how Democrats are using the new revelations about Clinton’s secret email server to attack the House committee charged with unraveling the causes and cover-up of the 2012 Islamist raid on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
[NYT: “‘It’s a ball of wool that won’t go away until the questions are answered,’ said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Mr. nObama.”] -Fox News
CLINTONS COUNT ON COWED, COMPLICIT PRESS
How does Hilly Clinton think that she will get away with blowing off reporters even as she attends public events that are part of her still-unregistered presidential campaign, including a weekend shindig for her controversial family foundation? Or even more overtly political events and not answer for a mounting list of questions about her decision to evade federal rules about her emails as Secretary of State? She is counting on a complicit press. And she is likely to be largely obliged. -Fox News
1.
Palestinian anti-Israel activists dump out Israeli-made dairy products that they confiscated from local merchants in Ramallah, March 2. (Image source: Wattan TV video screenshot)
The Palestinians Want... Peace?
(Khaled Abu Toameh) - The latest PLO and Fatah campaign is not directed only against settlement products. Rather, it is targeting anything made in Israel, as a part of an "anti-normalization" movement, whose goal is to thwart any encounters between Israelis and Palestinians, including peace conferences...The Palestinian Authority's strategy now is to intensify its campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel in the international community, and promote all forms of boycotts of Israelis and Israeli goods; to force Israel to make concessions through international pressure and through campaigns of boycott and divestment. These campaigns are further radicalizing Palestinians, driving many of them into the open arms of radical groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5347/palestinians-want-peace 2.
nObama's Not-So-Secret Immigration Operational Center
(Josh Siegel and Kelsey Harris) - A federal judge may have temporarily halted President nObama’s executive actions on immigration, but the White House is still proceeding as if it expects the programs to stand. In this video, The Daily Signal explores one reason why...The nObama administration, or more specifically a government agency called Citizenship and Immigration Services, has set up an “operational center” just outside Washington, D.C., as the hub that will process thousands of applications expected to come from Obama’s immigration actions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR6_zCKFT-s 3.
Supreme Court Rules Against ObamaCare HHS Mandate
4. US Backed Islamist Reportedly Now Leads ISIS in Libya
(nicedeb.wordpress.com) - Major news out of Libya as the former head of the Al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and a major player in theU.S.-backed overthrow of Mummar Gaddafi, has reportedly joined the Islamic State and is leading its forces there...This according to The Blaze National Security journalist Sara Carter on twitter, and Fox News’ Catherine Herridge in a Fox News report. Belhadj’s ties to Al Qaeda were controversial during the run up to U.S. airstrikes in support of the Libyan rebels, but this did not prevent him from maintaining a high profile at the time, including being made head of the Tripoli Military Council, a position he held until resigning to run for office in May 2012. Belhadj has a reputation for involvement in the international jihad has well, playing a role in the 2004 Madrid training bombings, and accused by investigators of being involved in the murder of two Tunisian politicians at behest of the Muslim Brotherhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB_XX1oEKDo 5. 47 Senators Could Throw A HUGE Wrench Into nObama’s Big Plan
(Norvell Rose) - Pushing back hard against the nObama administration, forty-seven GOP senators have signed an open letter to the Iranian regime offering a lesson in how the U.S. system of government functions under the Constitution...The letter advises Iran that any deal concerning Tehran’s nuclear program that President nObama agrees to without Senate consent could die when nObama leaves office. As The Hill reports, the letter that was spearheaded by freshman Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas advises the Iranians that “anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement” — an agreement that could well be changed or voided altogether when there’s a new executive in the White House.
6. US Military To Be Absorbed Into UN Peacekeepers, Disbanded
(rickwells.us) - For most Americans, the fact that the United States has filed with the United Nations a document pledging to submit to UN military authority and to dismantle our own military capability in the process would seem unbelievable...The “progressives” have set us down that path and while it won’t happen overnight, they fully intend for it to happen. The United Nations is far more than an international money skimming operation disguised as an aid organization. It was established as the foundation for a world government, one in which the United States ultimately assumes a subordinate position as just another of many member nations, to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. It will be modeled along the lines of a worldwide EU, only more austere, oppressive and authoritarian.
http://www.rickwells.us/traitorous-but-true-un-framework-document-for-us-subjugation-us-military-to-be-absorbed-into-un-peacekeepers-disbanded/ 7. It's Not Too Late to Stop Net Neutrality
8. Russia Warns Against Planned U.S. Training Mission in Ukraine
9. Iran's Growing Role in Iraq Worries U.S., Saudi Officials
(Jack Kenny) - As Iranian-sponsored Shiite militias take an increasing role in the fight against the Islamic State, Iran’s growing influence in Iraq is setting off alarm bells from Washington to Riyadh, the Associated Press reported...At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that about two-thirds of the Iraqi forces now fighting for Tikrit are Shiite militias supported by Iran, which also has provided artillery and other resources. The rest are Iraqi regular forces, he said. At the same hearing, committee chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked Defense Secretary Ashton Carter if it alarms him that Iran “has basically taken over the fight.” "It does. It does," Carter replied, adding, "We're watching it very closely."
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/20317-iran-s-role-in-iraq-worries-u-s-saudi-officials?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=25c8509dd1-The_Editors_Top_Picks_3_12_143_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ca494f2d2-25c8509dd1-289778381 10. WH Revised nObama's Misleading Question on Clinton's Email
America's Military Power in a Steep Decline
Alan Caruba
(factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com) - “Eliminating the terrorists of today with force will not guarantee protection from the terrorists of tomorrow. We have to transform the environments that give birth to these movements…It may be training young people so they can get jobs…it may be working to eliminate corruption and promote the rule of law…”
The nObama administration proposal that a jobs program be created for the militants in the Middle East was met with appropriate derision because what the jihadists need is killing. That’s what they are doing to Christians, Jews and others in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The quote above is by Hanoi John Kerry, the Secretary of State, and to be fair, his February 18 Wall Street Journal commentary began by saying “The rise of violent extremism represents the pre-eminent challenge of the young 21st Century. Military force is a rational and often necessary response to the wanton slaughters of children, mass kidnappings of schoolgirls, and beheading of innocents. But military force along won’t achieve victory.”
Hanoi Kerry is wrong. History as recent as the mid-20th century is proof enough that the military defeat of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan was the only thing that ended the threat they represented. He was also wrong when he told a congressional committee that the world is a safer place these days when it is clear to anyone it is not.
We are being led by people who live in some alternative universe where pixie dust and unicorns exist.
The real question the nObama administration has to answer is why, since he took office in 2009, has he been systematically reducing the military power of the United States? By pulling our troops out of Iraq he created a vacuum filled by the Islamic State (ISIS) that now threatens the entire Middle East and parts of North Africa. He has since curtailed plans to pull most of our troops out of Afghanistan.
Out of sight of Americans, however, the key personnel, the leaders on which our military depends, have been subject to a purge. General Paul Vallely (Ret) has warned that “Since Barack nObama has been in the White House, high ranking military officers have been removed from their positions at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented,” adding that “He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”
In late February, 84 former U.S. government officials, retired U.S. military leaders, and national security experts sent an open letter to the House and Senate leadership asking them to work together to end the harm that the Budget Control Act and sequestration is inflicting on our Armed Forces.
They deemed the trillion dollars of required defense spending cuts “a grave and growing danger to our national security…as threats intensify across the globe.” The cuts “are undermining the readiness of our forces today and investment in the critical capabilities they will need tomorrow.”
“In the last three years, the Army’s strength has been cut by nearly 100,000 soldiers. The Navy’s contingency response force is at one-third the level of what it should be. Less than half of the Air Force’s combat squadrons are fully ready. Approximately half of the Marine Corps non-deployed units lack sufficient personnel, equipment, and training.”
These were facts set forth in the National Defense Panel’s July 2014 report. It warned that if sequestration takes effect in fiscal year 2016, the U.S. would be facing an “immediate readiness crisis.”
This lack of readiness was the subject of a Wall Street Journal commentary, “Europe’s Defense Wanes as the Putin Threat Grows” by Ian Birrell, so it is not just the United States that lacks sufficient troops and weapons in the event of a war. Birrell noted that “With fewer than 100,000 full-time troops, Great Britain now has a smaller army than during the mid-19th-century Crimean War.” Other members of NATO have cut their defense budgets in recent years. He warned that “As we fight this new Cold War, Western leaders need to relearn the old lessons of crisis management and deterrence that defeated Mr. Putin’s Soviet predecessors—and relearn them quickly.”
Recall that Secretary Hanoi Kerry has gone on record saying that “climate change” is the greatest threat the U.S. and the world faces. Little wonder that Chuck Hegel resigned as the former Secretary of Defense given the pressure he was under from a White House indifferent to the real problems and threats the U.S. faces.
In 2014 the Pentagon released a “Climate Change Adaptation Forecast” and any defense funds diverted to this plan were just that much less than needed for our troops in the field and the real needs of the U.S. military. Are they supposed to be fighting melting ice bergs or staying ready for potential military threats from China or Russia?
An example of the idiotic political correctness, scarce Pentagon resources are being diverted to a plan to generate 50% of the Navy’s energy needs from “alternative sources” by 2020, including $3.5 billion for biofuels. You cannot fight a global war if the Navy cannot swiftly and easily acquire oil to run its ships that are not nuclear-powered and fly its aircraft.
At the same time, the U.S. has been reducing its stockpile of nuclear arms. The State Department’s Rose Gottemoeller, under-secretary for arms control and international security, recently told a group “The U.S. commitment to achieving the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons is unassailable.” She noted that the nation’s stockpile of active weapons is down 85% from maximum cold war levels, falling to 4,804 in 2013 from a high of 31,255, adding that “We still have more work to do.”
This completely ignores nuclear nations like North Korea who have bad intentions toward the U.S. and their neighbors and it runs completely contrary to the U.S. negotiations with Iran that would permit it to become a nuclear armed nation.
This is worse than diplomatic schizophrenia; it is a plan for national suicide.
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, recently told Congress that Russia and China have placed their highest priority on building up and maintaining strategic nuclear forces.
If you want to know what is wrong about the entire approach to our nation’s military needs, consider that since 2009 when nObama took office, the Pentagon’s civilian workforce has grown about 7% to almost 750,000, while active-duty military personnel have been cut by approximately 8%.
At the same time, dozens of military-equipment and weapons programs have been canceled, including a new Navy cruiser, a new search-and-rescue helicopter, the F-22 first-generation fighter, the C-17 transport aircraft, missile defense and the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.
We are not prepared to fight a war and now you know why.
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