Al Qaeda posts photo of 45 UN peacekeepers captured in Syria, 8/31/14, NY Times

.
8/31/14, " بيان حول احتجاز 45 من قوات الأمم المتحدة لمراقبة فض الاشتباك "#UNDOF" http://jpst.it/sogw  pic.twitter.com/MCZigXRIpb"

8/31/14, "Al Qaeda Affiliate Claims Capture of U.N. Peacekeepers in Syria," NY Times, Ben Hubbard, Istanbul
.

"The Syrian branch of Al Qaeda has acknowledged that it captured 45 United Nations peacekeepers in southern Syria, saying that they were being held in retaliation for what the group called the United Nations’ failure to help the people of Syria during the country’s civil war.

The group, the Nusra Front, also accused the peacekeeping force, which has monitored the demarcation line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 1974, of protecting Israeli-controlled territory while doing nothing to stop the killing on the Syrian side.

The statement, released late Saturday, contained a group photo of the captured peacekeepers, who are from Fiji, as well as a photograph of their identification cards. The statement said they were being treated well and were given food and medical care, but it issued no demands for their release."...

.

Archbishop of York pleads with UK Prime Minister to accept many more refugees from Iraq and Syria, conditions still leading to genocide. UK has only taken 50 victims of ISIS-BBC

.
8/31/14, "UK must offer asylum to terror refugees - Archbishop of York," BBC

"The Archbishop of York has urged the government to do more to offer asylum to Christians and others being persecuted by Islamic State terrorists.

He warned the "bloodthirsty" extremists could end up committing genocide as the conflict in Iraq and Syria intensifies...

Archbishop Sentamu told BBC One's Sunday Morning Live programme that he did not want to embarrass the prime minister, but he thought the UK needed to follow the lead of other countries and do more about asylum.

"Please act quickly, because we may end up with a Rwanda… where people are really killed in huge, huge numbers," he said. 
 
"They've already shown their capacity to be bloodthirsty. The beheading should tell us that they are a ruthless group of people, and somehow they've got to be stopped. And if you don't stop them, you may end up with a genocide."

Archbishop Sentamu said the world needed to show it would not stand for the IS extremists' butchery, bullets and beheading, which he said was doomed to failure. 

He has been holding a week-long prayer vigil, praying on the hour every hour, from 06:00 to 18:00 BST. 

The government has said it judges asylum on a case-by-case basis. 

The UK has so far granted asylum to over 3,000 Syrians already in the UK, and to at least 50 of the refugees currently in camps in the Middle East after fleeing areas taken over by IS."....

Image: "The Archbishop of York has urged the government to do more to offer asylum to Christians and others being persecuted by Islamic State terrorists." ap

.

Not to worry, Obama admin. does have definite 'strategy,' has been apparent since at least 2008 but not well publicized because many wouldn't like it. It's to make Iran dominant in Middle East and North Africa, in part to punish US for its historically mean role in the Middle East

.
8/29/14, "Latest Big Lie: ‘We Have No Strategy’," Michael Ledeen, PJ Media

"They DO have a strategy, but they prefer to appear indecisive.  That’s because the strategy would likely provoke even greater criticism than the false confession of endless dithering.

The actual strategy is detente first, and then a full alliance with Iran throughout the Middle East and North Africa.  It has been on display since before the beginning of the Obama administration.  During his first presidential campaign in 2008, Mr. Obama used a secret back channel to Tehran to assure the mullahs that he was a friend of the Islamic Republic, and that they would be very happy with his policies.  The secret channel was Ambassador William G. Miller, who served in Iran during the shah’s rule, as chief of staff for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and as ambassador to Ukraine.  Ambassador Miller has confirmed to me his conversations with Iranian leaders during the 2008 campaign.

Ever since, President Obama’s quest for an alliance with Iran has been conducted through at least four channels:  Iraq, Switzerland (the official U.S. representative to Tehran), Oman and a variety of American intermediaries, the most notable of whom is probably Valerie Jarrett, his closest adviser.  In recent months, Middle Eastern leaders reported personal visits from Ms. Jarrett, who briefed them on her efforts to manage the Iranian relationship.  This was confirmed to me by a former high-ranking American official who says he was so informed by several Middle Eastern leaders.

The central theme in Obama’s outreach to Iran is his conviction that the United States has historically played a wicked role in the Middle East, and that the best things he can do for that part of the world is to limit and withdraw American military might, and empower our self-declared enemies, whose hostility to traditional American policies he largely shares.

If we look at the current crisis through an Iranian lens, our apparent indecisiveness is easier to understand, for it systematically favors Iran’s interests. Tehran’s closest ally is Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. If Assad were to be overthrown by opposition forces hostile to Iran, it would be a devastating blow to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has committed tens of thousands of fighters (from Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij) to shore up the Damascus regime. 

Everything Iran does in the region revolves around the necessity of preserving Assad’s tyranny.

Obama surely understands this. It therefore made no sense to bomb Syria in the otherwise baffling about-face on the “red line” a year ago. In like manner, the refusal to take decisive action today against the Islamic State caters to Iranian and Syrian concerns. Remember that ISIS was supported by Iran and Syria as a weapon against anti-Assad and anti-Iranian forces (from the Kurds to the FSA), none of whom is receiving serious American support.

It is exceedingly unlikely that Mr. Obama will do anything that would threaten Assad’s rule or Iran’s power.  To do so would be tantamount to abandoning his core strategy of creating a U.S.-Iranian alliance that would make Tehran the major regional power and Washington a friendly kibbitzer and adviser.

It is even more unlikely that Mr. Obama and his spokespeople will confess to actually having a strategy, because of the political firestorm that would result. Better to be thought a fool than to remove all doubt, after all." via Instapundit

===========================

Two among comments to this article at PJ:

=============================

"cfbleachers

 

Obama/Jarrett/Malley/Hagel/Kerry

If you cobble together the secret meetings with Hamas, the attempt to take out Mubarak and Gaddafi and install the Muslim Brotherhood, the behind the backs of Congress secret deal with Iran to get nukes, the resupply of masterminds in exchange for a traitor, the abandonment of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the utterly contemptuous attitude toward Israel...and weave them through the atrocities in Benghazi, throwing open our borders and calling terrorism workplace violence and police matters...you indeed see the clear outlines of a strategy.

By a traitor class.

And Jarrett and Malley are much more involved than many originally believed.

Surrounded by pompous white buffoons...Kerry, Hagel, Biden and protected by the clown prince Reid...the assault on Judeo-Christians goes on unabated.

There is a strategy. And Ayers, Soros, Radhid Khalidi, Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, Don Warden and Michael Moore are cheering it on.

There is an overthrow in the works. The Bogey Man has a plan."
.

17 hours ago Like (19) Link To Comment
.

================================= 

zxnrbl

.
I have thought pretty much the same thing since obama gutted the sanctions against Iran. He has ignored and isolated the Saudis, Jordan and increasingly Egypt in order to favor Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. Valerie Jarret has wielded an enormous influence over our feckless pres. And the country will pay dearly for this mis-guidance down the road."
.

17 hours ago Like (8) Link To Comment

============================

Added: The idea to destroy the US from within has been around a long time, Obama's just doing a better job of it. It's accepted that he supports Islam but there are a variety of individuals and entities that comprise the Muslim world. For the above article to be 100% true, you'd have to believe Obama was faking a bunch of big things. You'd have to believe his "red line" about Syria was just for show, and that he was all along faking his support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar. In any case, punishing the US can be done from many angles.

The Green movement is another way to punish Americans today for alleged injustices that occurred before they were born. Greens say Americans must pay reparations for starting the Industrial Revolution. Obama's Green friend Van Jones is on the board of 'Green For All' a group closely tied with the EPA which agrees with "Green for All' that minority groups are unjustly  impacted by (alleged) global warming so extra money must be transferred to them. (Even if global warming existed, China is the only country who could stop it, but has no desire or reason to do so. Much preferable is to watch the US destroy itself with self-hatred). 'Green For All's' website clearly states its goal is to "disrupt the current economy," ie. under the guise of 'CO2 danger' punish millions of innocent Americans for alleged injustices that occurred before they were born:

"Green For All acknowledges the need to disrupt the current economy, because we understand that our

current economy was based upon human trafficking,

the exploitation of labor, and

violent racism." 

The "disruption" couldn't have happened without cooperation of the political class over several decades.

8/27/14, "EPA Chief: CO2 Regulations Are About ‘Justice’ For ‘Communities Of Color’," Daily Caller, M. Bastasch



.

Mr. Hensarling, you've known for the 12 years you've been in the Beltway that we wanted a fence on the US southern border. What sane person wouldn't? It's not something you found out "30 seconds" ago. Nor is it complicated. Build a fence. Period. If that's too hard for you, quit.

.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling was first elected in Nov. 2002, is currently in his 6th term, was in office during George Bush's amnesty push. We remember if Hensarling doesn't

8/28/14, "In town halls, U.S. lawmakers hear voter anger over illegal migrants," Reuters, by Gabriel Debenedetti, Dallas

Hensarling, 2013

"When Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling sat down with colleagues and constituents at a recent Chamber of Commerce lunch in Dallas, the first question he faced was whether Congress planned to address immigration policy and a burgeoning border crisis.

"I'm supposed to do this in 30 seconds?" he joked, noting the issue's complexity. While he was optimistic about long-term prospects for dealing with border security and immigration, he said, "between now and the end of this Congress, I'm a little less sanguine about it."

It has been a question heard repeatedly by lawmakers this month in "town hall" district meetings punctuated - and sometimes dominated - by concerns and angry outbursts over immigration policy and the crisis caused by a flood of child migrants at the southwestern border in recent months.

Those summer town halls have provided lawmakers a first-hand glimpse of growing discontent among Americans over U.S. immigration policy. Seventy percent of Americans - including 86 percent of Republicans - believe undocumented immigrants threaten traditional U.S. beliefs and customs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in mid-July.

Those fears have been exacerbated by the recent wave of illegal child migrants from Central America. An issue that had been simmering is now hotting up as voters prepare to go to the polls in congressional elections due in November.

The anger and frustration expressed in the town halls suggests there will be a fierce debate when U.S. lawmakers return to Washington on Sept. 8 and take up proposals to address a flood of child migrants crossing the southwestern U.S. border.

While conservative anger has not approached the levels seen during the healthcare debate in August 2009, when town halls across the country were frequently disrupted, members of both parties have been confronted on the issue.

From border states like Texas to less likely hot spots like Oregon, Colorado, and New York, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have heard a steady stream of questions and complaints from voters - most pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration and some worried about what they see as Washington's inaction.
 
"ANGER IS PALPABLE"

"I hear it everywhere I go," said Oregon Republican Greg Walden, who travels the country in his role as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"The anger is palpable," Hensarling, a six-term conservative congressman who is often identified by colleagues as a possible next Speaker of the House, told Reuters.

Local media reported police were called to a meeting in Hollister, California hosted by Democratic Rep. Sam Farr after an audience member shouted at Farr and the crowd about the dangers posed by the child migrants. 

A town hall hosted by Democrat Jared Polis of Colorado featured constituents shouting at Polis and each other, and applauding those who contradicted him, on a range of issues, most prominently immigration, a local newspaper said.

"We've had seven town halls, and immigration is the number one issue that comes up," Polis told Reuters.

A series of executive actions on immigration that President Barack Obama plans to unveil next month could further intensify the debate. The policy changes are likely to fuel Republican accusations that Obama is overstepping his authority.

"THERE'S A LOT OF FEAR"

Conservative concerns over immigration have been merging with Republican worries about Obama's healthcare, economic and foreign policies, Oregon lawmaker Walden said.

"It's morphed into something bigger than a debate over fixing our broken immigration system - it's a piece of the overall sense that things are on the wrong track in this country," he said.

Hensarling said "there's a lot of fear about that, about a president who has a pen and a phone, but doesn't seem to have a copy of the Constitution." 

But Polis said even left-leaning voters are growing frustrated by the lack of progress in Congress on a long-term policy fix. A bipartisan June 2013 immigration reform bill that passed the Senate has been stalled in the House.

Opinion polls show concerns about immigration extend to every region of the country, although they are most acutely felt in the southwestern states near the Mexican border....

Only three Republican Senate contenders - New Hampshire's Scott Brown, Michigan's Terri Lynn Land, and Arkansas' Tom Cotton - have run advertisements about immigration. Vulnerable incumbents have largely avoided potentially controversial town halls that could force them to answer tough questions on the topic.

National Democrats believe roughly two dozen House districts could see immigration play a role in November’s result, and pundits frequently point to Colorado’s competitive Senate race as the likeliest immigration battleground.

But the candidates in that contest have sparred over other issues, and Republican Cory Gardner earlier this month voted with a mostly Democratic bloc not to repeal Obama’s 2012 measure providing a stay of deportations to young undocumented migrants."

Image: House Financial Services Committee Chairman Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Sept. 12, 2013, Reuters

=========================
========================= 

Both George Bush and Obama attempted to change US immigration laws in their second term. Both were completely detached from ordinary Americans:

6/2/2007, "Too Bad," WSJ, Peggy Noonan 

"What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker -- "At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic -- they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement.

I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they're defensive, and they're defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill -- one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions -- this is, always and on every issue, the administration's default position -- but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate.

They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true!

If they'd really wanted to help, as opposed to braying about their own wonderfulness, they would have created not one big bill but a series of smaller bills, each of which would do one big clear thing, the first being to close the border. Once that was done -- actually and believably done-- the country could relax in the knowledge that the situation was finally not day by day getting worse. They could feel some confidence.

And in that confidence real progress could begin.

The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me. For others the beginning of distance might have been Katrina and the incompetence it revealed, or the depth of the mishandling and misjudgments of Iraq.

What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom.  

Just wisdom -- a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks.

One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time."

.

John Kerry NY Times op-ed: US wants to arm 'moderate Syrian' fighters v ISIS. Commenter: ISIS terror never bothered US. ISIS threat to become a state gets US attention

.
8/29/14, "To Defeat Terror, We Need the World’s Help," NY Times Op-Ed, "John Kerry: The Threat of ISIS Demands a Global Coalition" (8/30 print ed.)

"Airstrikes alone won’t defeat this enemy. A much fuller response is demanded from the world. We need to support Iraqi forces and the moderate Syrian opposition, who are facing ISIS on the front lines. We need to disrupt and degrade ISIS’ capabilities and counter its extremist message in the media."...(parag. 7)

====================

Among NY Times commenters:

---------------------------------

"Mark Thomason is a trusted commenter Clawson, MI 1 hour ago

"We need to support Iraqi forces and the moderate Syrian opposition, who are facing ISIS on the front lines."

No, the moderate Syrian opposition is NOT fighting ISIS "on the frontlines." It is fighting Assad. Mostly Assad is physically between the "moderates" and the ISIS.

The only one fighting the ISIS in Syria is Assad. He is minimizing that fight just now because the West using the "moderates" is a more immediate threat to his heartland. The one way to increase Syrians fighting the ISIS is to CUT BACK support to those who are only distracting Assad without hope of winning, in a long slow losing fight.

Furthermore, we are not "fighting terror":

1) Our moderate friends use terror against Assad's state.

2) The ISIS used terror more before it had territory and advanced weapons. We are more worried about ISIS because it is moved beyond terror. When it was just terror, we did not have these conniption fits over it. We are fighing it now because it is no longer JUST terror. It is now a state-like threat, using state-like methods.

Finally, fundraising methods of kidnapping and extortion supported the ISIS when it was only a terror organization. However, it also had large outside support from some of our Gulf friends. NOW it also has taxation, of the territory it controls. The outrage over its fund raising methods was misplaced, and now more so."

====================================

"I'm shocked! is a trusted commenter America 4 hours ago 

America should help itself. Don't let terrorists into America."

=========================

Sen. Mitch McConnell campaign manager Benton resigns as bribery scandal deepens. Go Lundergan Grimes!

.
"Benton also ran U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's 2010 Senate campaign."

8/29/14, "Mitch McConnell's campaign manager resigns after Iowa bribery scandal deepens," Lexington Herald-Leader, Sam Youngman

"Jesse Benton, the campaign manager for U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, will resign his post as a bribery scandal from the 2012 presidential campaign threatens to envelop Benton and become a major distraction for McConnell's campaign. 

Benton told the Herald-Leader that he met with McConnell Friday afternoon and offered his resignation, which McConnell "reluctantly accepted." 

Benton said he offered his resignation, effective Saturday, with a "heavy heart." 

He maintained his innocence, faulting "inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors."

"This decision breaks my heart, but I know it is the right thing for Mitch, for Kentucky and for the country," Benton said. 

Benton's name has surfaced in connection to a bribery scandal dating to his time as former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's political director during the 2012 presidential election. 

On Wednesday, former Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson pleaded guilty to accepting $73,000 from Paul's campaign in exchange for his endorsement and to obstruction of justice for lying about his involvement. 

Sorenson's guilty plea included two sealed documents, which could threaten to involve Benton. 

In a statement provided first to the Herald-Leader, Benton said there "is no more important cause for both Kentucky, my new home I have come to love, and our country than electing Mitch McConnell Majority Leader of the United States Senate."... 

Benton said in his statement that "there have been inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns that are politically motivated, unfair and, most importantly, untrue." 

But Benton said he found it more "troubling" that the rumors "risk unfairly undermining and becoming a distraction to this re-election campaign." 

"Working for Mitch McConnell is one of the great honors of my life," Benton said. "He is a friend a mentor and a great man this commonwealth desperately needs."...

It was unclear Friday evening what effect Benton's resignation and the circumstances surrounding it might have on McConnell's battle against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is Kentucky's secretary of state. 

Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, said the resignation probably won't have any immediate impact on McConnell's campaign organization since Benton has played a less visible role than McConnell's senior adviser, Josh Holmes, in recent months. 

"Benton already served his role of helping McConnell appeal to the conservative base during the party primary, and a lot of campaign responsibilities had already passed from his shoulders," Voss said. 

"The problem with the scandal is the negative attention it brings to the McConnell campaign, which will come regardless of whether it turns out Benton really did anything wrong," Voss said. "Any whiff of scandal within a campaign organization can bring criticism, because opponents suggest that it reflects on the judgment of the candidate who appointed the individual." 

The Grimes campaign did not immediately issue a statement on Benton's resignation Friday evening. The Kentucky AFL-CIO, which has endorsed Grimes, said Benton's resignation is proof that McConnell's campaign is "self-destructing from within." 

"McConnell owes the voters of Kentucky an explanation for hiring Benton and paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars while knowing about his tainted past," AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan said in a statement. 

Benton's role with the McConnell campaign was viewed as a surprise within the political arena given his close ties to the Paul family. In addition to running Paul's presidential campaign, Benton also ran U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's 2010 Senate campaign in Kentucky, and he is married to the older Paul's granddaughter. 

When Benton joined the McConnell camp, observers viewed it as a ploy by McConnell to quiet a restless Tea Party and win favor with Rand Paul. 

That view was reinforced last year when a secret recording of Benton was released in which he said he was "holding my nose" working for McConnell in an effort to better position Rand Paul for a 2016 White House run. 

When the tape became public, Benton expressed his regret for letting down McConnell, who is vying for a sixth term against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky's Secretary of State.

Earlier Friday, the McConnell campaign said it would be inappropriate for it to comment on the ongoing Iowa investigation. 

"Sen. McConnell obviously has nothing to do with the Iowa Presidential Caucus or this investigation so it would be inappropriate for his campaign to comment on this situation," McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore said in a statement. 

Benton's abrupt departure comes just days after McConnell was heard in a secret recording, reported first by the liberal-leaning publication The Nation, telling an audience of major Republican donors that he would block a vote on the minimum wage and other issues pushed by Democrats if he becomes Senate majority leader. 

The resignation and secret recording could provide the Grimes campaign with a one-two punch, Voss said. 

"Both revolve around big money in campaigns, so they threaten to reinforce each other," Voss said.

"Even worse, both events reinforce a longstanding Grimes campaign theme that McConnell is too tied into the world of lavish election spending to represent Kentucky. This week has been a gift, falling into the lap of Grimes just when she had a bus-rental scandal dogging her own campaign."

On the plus side for McConnell, Voss noted that Benton is not known as a "McConnell man." 

"His presence in the McConnell camp was more of a bridge to Rand Paul's wing of the party* than a reflection of the minority leader's long-time political organization," Voss said. "The photo of Benton holding his nose as he stands next to McConnell, a joke that nonetheless illustrated the distance between them, has gone from being a liability to being a defense for Team Mitch."" via Free Rep.

=========================

*Comment: "Rand Paul's wing of the party"??? It doesn't exist unless you mean the GOP Establishment. As soon as Paul's former campaign manager Jesse Benton went to work for McConnell it was over for him. Rand then flipped for the Establishment himself by endorsing McConnell, cavalierly trashing time, energy, and hopes of volunteers in Kentucky who worked so hard to elect him in 2010. His 'bait and switch' cut the Tea Party off at the knees. Obviously he wouldn't endorse a Tea Party candidate against McConnell in the 2014 primary. These days he keeps busy lecturing us on how we must be different. Why would anyone in their right mind listen to a 'bait and switch' artist?

 







Rand Paul was still ripping off the Tea Party with his 2011 book. The Tea Party label has made millions for plenty of phonies.






 
.

GOP House Armed Services Committee member Duncan Hunter says ISIS can only hurt us if they come over our border. We don't need to ramp up military in Middle East, just need to secure our southern border and stop issuing visas to people from the Middle East

.
8/28/14, "Rep. Hunter: Islamic State just 'guys in pajamas,' not an 'existential threat'," John T. Bennett, militarytimes.com

"A GOP House member who served in Iraq says the Islamic State is not an “existential threat” to the United States, striking a different tone than other Republicans.

As the violent Sunni extremist group continues to slaughter minority populations in northern Iraq and hold a large amount of territory, some American Republican lawmakers want the White House to unleash more U.S. military power on it....

But GOP House Armed Services Committee member Duncan Hunter of California, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine, had a different take Tuesday evening on Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File” program.

“But a bunch of guys wearing pajamas pushing up logs, they are not an existential threat to U.S. like North Korea is, like Iran is, like Pakistan is,” he said, appearing to refer video of State fighters training in baggy black tops that reach their shins. “They are not like that.”

Hunter said “the only” threat the Islamic States poses directly to the U.S. is if they can get their operatives inside the United States to carry out attacks.

Rather than a ramped-up military operation against the group, Hunter is pushing mostly defensive measures — while also suggesting Washington should help certain minority populations in the Islamic State’s brutal path.

“That’s why it’s so important that you secure the southern border... and start denying visas in totality to people from the Middle East, from this area unless they’re persecuted Christians,” Hunter said. “And then we have to allow them in.”" via Pamela Geller
.
=================================

Comment: We're not going to change the culture of barbarism nor kill its countless adherents. If the US had stopped giving visas to people from Muslim majority countries in 1993 after the first WTC bombing, 9/11/2001 would never have happened. It's more than the Middle East, if we'd also stopped giving visas to Chechen Muslims, the Boston bombing wouldn't have happened. US universities make a fortune on students from the Middle East. The whole Ruling Class structure would crumble without its ability to create global chaos and mob rule. Imagine how wonderful life could've been in the US if the Bush family hadn't sold the country out.

The publication carrying the above article is called Military Times. Perhaps they weren't happy to hear a US elected representative say we don't need a ramped up military operation in the Middle East. Perhaps they agreed with him.


.

UK officials feared being called 'racist' so didn't object to 1400 girls being raped or beaten by Pakistani men while the girls were wards of government-UK Telegraph

.
"Staff were reluctant to intervene in some cases for fear of being classed as "racist"."..."The woman who presided over the last five years...is the same executive who removed three children from their foster parents because they were UKIP voters."

=============================
8/27/14, "Rotherham: the council leaders who presided over child abuse scandal," UK Telegraph, by G. Rayner, M. Evans, J. Bingham

Joyce Thacker

"The author of the Rotherham child abuse report said that by 2005 'nobody could say "I didn't know"' about child sexual exploitation in the town. But who was in charge?"

"The woman who presided over the last five years of failure as the boss of children’s services at Rotherham Council is the same executive who removed three children from their foster parents because they were Ukip voters. 

Joyce Thacker, the £130,000-a-year Strategic Director of Children’s Services at the scandal-hit council, is among the senior managers who are now under pressure to resign following the “excoriating” report into child sexual exploitation in the town.
.

Although she is not named as being culpable for the failure to protect 1,400 abused children in the report, as the head of children’s services since 2008 Mrs Thacker is among those whose positions now appear to be under threat....Mrs Thacker, who joined the Council as deputy head of children’s services in 2006, is already a controversial figure following her decision two years ago to remove three ethnic minority children from their foster parents because of their affiliation to Ukip. 

After The Telegraph drew attention to the foster parents’ plight, Mrs Thacker refused to back down, saying the children’s “cultural and ethnic needs” did not fit in with the parents’ “strong views”. She said their support for Ukip meant they opposed "multiculturalism.""...

Image BBC, from UK Telegraph. via Instapundit

==================================

"Staff were reluctant to intervene in some cases for fear of being classed as "racist"."

8/29/14,  "Rotherham: 'Brazen' sex abusers sent taxis to collect girls from children's home," UK Telegraph

"Rotherham's sex abusers "brazenly" picked up girls as young as 11 from their children's home and in some cases sent taxis to collect them, a former worker has disclosed.

The unnamed male care worker told the BBC that the abusers made "absolutely no attempts to disguise what they were doing."
.

He claimed staff were reluctant to intervene in some cases for fear of being classed as "racist".

His allegations follow claims in The Times that senior staff at Rotherham council ordered a raid on one of their offices to remove case files and wipe computer records detailing the scale and severity of the town's sex-grooming crisis.

A report has found that at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the town by men predominantly of Pakistani heritage between 1997 and 2013.

The abuse they suffered included beatings, rape and trafficking to various towns and cities in England, Prof Alexis Jay's report revealed on Tuesday....

He said he confronted some of the men, despite warnings from his colleagues some carried knives....

"They would sometimes say that they would have you stabbed or shot by one of their associates."

Each time a girl went missing police were called, but officers usually only arrived when the child got back to the home, sometimes "high on drugs" or "incredibly drunk", he said.

"And we documented every single night, and we spoke to social workers. The social workers were passing that on. "Everything we passed on, nothing seemed to go further in any way shape or form."

He said he eventually left the home over his frustrations he was failing the children in his care and said he was not surprised at the revelations in Prof Jay's report."...

===============================

Aug. 2014 defection to UKIP stuns the comfortable UK Conservative Party:

8/28/14, "Tory MP Douglas Carswell defects to UKIP and forces by-election,"  BBC

"Tory Douglas Carswell has defected to UKIP and quit as MP for Clacton, saying he will contest the subsequent by-election for Nigel Farage's party.

If he wins the support of voters he will be the first elected UK Independence Party MP in the Commons. The maverick Eurosceptic backbencher said he did not believe Prime Minister David Cameron was "serious about the change we need" in Europe.

The PM described his defection as "regrettable" and "counterproductive"....Mr. Carswell said..."My local Conservative Association in Clacton is thriving. It brims with those I'm honoured to call my friends.

"The problem is that many of those at the top of the Conservative Party are simply not on our side."...

[Ed. note: We hear you: "Again and again, the American people are forced to confront the fact that its ruling class is not on its side." Angelo Codevilla, 2011, "The Lost Decade," subhead, "Public Safety," 3rd parag.]

(continuing, BBC): "They aren't serious about the change that Britain so desperately needs.

"Of course they talk the talk before elections. They say what they feel they must say to get our support... but on so many issues - on modernising our politics, on the recall of MPs, on controlling our borders on less government, on bank reform, on cutting public debt, on an EU referendum - they never actually make it happen."

He said only UKIP could "shake up that cosy little clique called Westminster".

On Mr Cameron's pledge of an in/out EU referendum in 2017, after renegotiating powers back from Brussels, he said the prime minister's advisers had "made it clear that they're looking to cut a deal that gives them just enough to persuade enough voters to vote to stay in".

He added: "Once I realised that, my position in the Conservative Party became untenable."
 
Mr Cameron - who was not warned by Mr Carswell about his plan to defect - said: "It's obviously deeply regrettable when things happen like this, when people behave in this way.""...


.

ISIS beheads Kurdish man in Iraq-BBC

.
Live Leak video

8/28/14, "Islamic State militants 'behead Kurdish man' in Iraq," BBC

Kurd beheading by Islam

"Analysis by BBC Arab Affairs Editor Sebastian Usher"

"Entitled "A Message in Blood", the latest video produced by the skilled propagandists of Islamic State is clearly aimed at the Kurds fighting them in northern Iraq. 

It parades a group of Kurdish men who are said to be captured peshmerga fighters and who have all been put in orange jumpsuits. That detail is not the only way in which this video is reminiscent of the IS staging of their murder of the US journalist, James Foley. 

The beheading of one of the Kurdish hostages is shown filmed from two angles - both to add extra documentary proof and to make it a slicker production. But the backdrop this time is not made as neutral as possible. Instead, the main mosque in Mosul looms behind - a provocation, trying to show that IS control of the city is assured. 

The screen is then split showing the hostage and his captor on one side and photos of Kurdish leaders meeting President Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry on the other. The jihadists threaten more such killings if the Kurds continue to ally themselves with the US. In a choreography of murder again very similar to the killing of James Foley, the kneeling man is then beheaded with a knife."
.
Image: "The IS video uses a mosque in Mosul as a backdrop for the execution." BBC

==============

Comment: The Live Leak video shows the split screen with beheading on one side and Obama and Kerry on the other. It's a few minutes into it, near the end. Most of the video is singing. I guess the weapons the Kurds begged for didn't get to them.

US taxpayer dollars being used by federal government to advocate for Muslim worship spaces across the country including small Minnesota town-Powerline

.
8/27/14, "Across the Country, the Federal Government Fights For Muslim Worship Spaces," Powerline, John Hinderaker

"The government of the United States is suing the town of St. Anthony, Minnesota, a Twin Cities suburb with a population a little over 8,000, to force the town to allow development of an Islamic center in an area reserved for industrial development. It is a minor news story, but one that sheds light on broader legal and cultural trends. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:

The federal government on Wednesday sued the small north-metro city of St. Anthony, contending that its City Council violated federal law in 2012 by rejecting a proposed Islamic center. …
“An injustice has been done,” U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said at a news conference in Minneapolis. “I will not stand by

while any religious group is subject to unconstitutional treatment that violates federal civil rights laws.” Actually, DOJ happily stood by when the city previously denied a Christian group the use of the same space. Mr. Luger didn’t mention that in his pretentious announcement.

The lawsuit alleges that the council’s decision to deny the Abu Huraira Islamic Center the right to establish a worship center in the basement of the St. Anthony Business Center violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act passed by Congress in 2000.

Like me, you probably have never heard of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. 

I haven’t studied it, but, according to the DOJ’s web site, it prohibits zoning laws that “treat churches or other religious assemblies or institutions on less than equal terms with nonreligious institutions.” 

So it may actually apply here. Although, of course, no one worried about that when a Christian group was being turned down.

Apparently the Religious Land Use statute is being used by the federal government around the country to force acceptance of Islamic centers, contrary to local zoning regulations:

It marks the first time federal prosecutors have sued a Minnesota city citing the law, although the Justice Department has filed similar suits elsewhere in the country on behalf of Islamic centers, according to a U.S. attorney’s office spokesman.

So what is going on here? Why did St. Anthony turn down the application to use the property in question as an Islamic center?

In June 2012, the council rejected Abu Huraira’s proposal, concluding that a religious and cultural center was incompatible with the site’s light-industrial zoning. …
On Wednesday, St. Anthony officials continued to defend the council’s action, saying that the rejection was based purely on zoning issues. It “was not based on discrimination at all,” said City Attorney Jay Lindgren.
“Religious uses of any type are allowed in the vast majority of the city,” he said. “They are just not allowed in the roughly five percent of the city reserved for industrial uses. … An industrial zone is designed to create jobs and be an economic engine.”

Once upon a time, that would have been considered a reasonable zoning decision. But now, the full weight of the federal government–that is, the Obama administration--has come down on the side of Islam. And Islam only:

Lindgren said that the city denied another Christian organization’s request in the past few years that was similar to that of the Islamic center.

It isn’t hard to understand what is going on here. While I wish the town of St. Anthony well, it is pretty obvious that they will be ground underfoot by the powers that be, i.e., Eric Holder’s Department of Justice. Not because the administration has any particular regard for religion in general, as Christians and Jews can readily attest–just look at the Obamacare regulations. Rather, because the administration wants to display favoritism toward Islam.

If an administration could be shown to consistently favor one religion over others, would that constitute a violation of the First Amendment? Of course. But, as with so many other Obama administration scandals, long before the judicial system could even begin to address the issue on its merits, the malefactors will be long gone." via Free Rep.

==============================

Above mentioned attorney was "unanimously" approved by the pathetic US Senate in Feb. 2014:

2/12/14, "Senate confirms Andy Luger as U.S. attorney for Minnesota," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Randy Furst

"The vote in the Senate was unanimous, but Klobuchar said there were only six or seven senators present. That is because the nomination had been “hotlined,” that is, cleared with all senators ahead of time."...

Attorney Andy Luger, Star-Tribune photo

"Luger has strong ties to the DFL Party." (DFL is Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party)




.

'Green For All' group that hosted EPA teleconference aims "to disrupt the current economy, because we understand that our current economy was based on human trafficking...and violent racism"

.
8/27/14, "The (EPA) teleconference was hosted by the environmental group Green For All."

"Green For All acknowledges the need to disrupt the current economy, because we understand that our

current economy was based upon human trafficking,

the exploitation of labor, and

violent racism." 

------------------------

8/27/14, "EPA Chief: CO2 Regulations Are About ‘Justice’ For ‘Communities Of Color’," Daily Caller, M. Bastasch

"The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed global warming regulations aren’t just about stemming global temperature rises — according to agency’s chief, they are also about “justice” for “communities of color.”

“Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a teleconference call with environmental activists. “If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change.”

McCarthy is referring to the EPA’s proposed rule that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The agency says the rule will not only help fight global warming, but will also improve public health as coal-fired power plants are shuttered. McCarthy, however, put special emphasis on how the rule would reduce asthma rates, which affect African-American children.
.
“Asthma disproportionately affects African-American kids,” McCarthy added. “In just the first year these standards go into effect, we’ll avoid up to 100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks — and those numbers go up from there.”

“These standards are also doing more than to just address public health. By the time these standards are fully in place in 2030, the average household will also save $8 a month on electricity and create thousands of jobs that can’t be shipped overseas,” McCarthy said.

The teleconference was hosted by the environmental group Green For All. The group bills itself as an outreach organization seeking to educate “communities of color” about fighting global warming. But Green For All also describes itself as “radical enough to push a deeply justice-based agenda.”

“Green For All acknowledges the need to disrupt the current economy, because we understand that our current economy was based upon human trafficking, the exploitation of labor, and violent racism,” according to the group’s website. ["Our Philosophy"] “We are safe enough to be invited into spaces where power-building groups are not, and radical enough to push a deeply justice-based agenda in those spaces. We are radical enough to partner with grassroots organizations when other national groups are turned away, and enough of an ally to offer resources and support in those spaces.”

“As a black woman who suffers from asthma, I know first-hand how climate change can affect communities of color,” said Nikki Silvestri, Green For All’s executive director. “We are more susceptible to extreme weather, storms and heat-related deaths. But, I also know that we want climate action now.”

On the call, McCarthy and Green For All activists asked attendees to file regulatory comments in the support of the EPA’s carbon dioxide rule.

The rule has been heavily supported by environmental groups, who have also been using global warming as a way to extend their activist base into minority communities. The group 350.org recently published a piece trying to connect the crisis in Ferguson, Missouri to global warming.

“It was not hard for me to make the connection between the tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri, and the catalyst for my work to stop the climate crisis,” writes Deirdre Smith, strategic partnership coordinator for the environmental group 350.org.

“To me, the connection between militarized state violence, racism, and climate change was common-sense and intuitive,” she said.

But not everyone in the African-American community has gotten behind the EPA’s proposed power plant regulations.

“African-American businesses, entrepreneurs and workers need to better understand this rule because the potential impact may hit them more directly, and more severely, than any other group,” wrote Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

“Higher energy costs could be devastating to small businesses, for which energy costs are often the highest, or one of the highest, operating expenses,” Alford wrote. “Thousands of jobs by definition will be eliminated by this rule, but the same certainty does not exist in the promise of creating new jobs.”" via Lucianne
 
========================

Among Green for All Board Members:

"Van Jones, President"
 
"Wendy Fields-Jacobs, Executive Administrative Assistant To The President, UAW"

.