Be informed--read today's political news

Found out what all the cop cars next door Monday were about. Our 40-year-old neighbor killed himself. Sad for his kids and his fiancé who tried to get the gun away from him.... The last week has been tough.

Had the computer tied up most of the day Thursday trying to clear advertising malware. Seems to have worked, but I had to zip through the email today. Sorry. ~Bob

Excerpt: The State Department announced Thursday that it would not review the 1,100 undisclosed donors to the Clinton Foundation that violated the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Hillary Clinton. “We’re not going to make a retroactive review on these cases and we will not make a retroactive judgment,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said.

The AP’s Matt Lee, however, would not allow the statement go unchallenged.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2015/05/07/hillary-2003-i-am-you-know-adamantly-against-illegal-immigrants-n1995826?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=

Excerpt: Yet, in 2003, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton sounded very much like a Republican on immigration, saying she was “adamantly against illegal immigrants.” Five years later, in her failed 2008 run for president, she backed a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. And now, she’s reiterating that position for her 2016 campaign.

Excerpt: Hillary Clinton, just three weeks after blasting "unaccountable money" and calling for a campaign finance overhaul, reportedly met with potential donors to a super PAC backing her White House campaign Wednesday -- the first such face-to-face meetings held by a Democratic presidential candidate. The Wall Street Journal reported that Clintonmet with a small group of potential donors to Priorities USA Action Wednesday in San Francisco. Campaign officials told the paper that she will take part in more such meetings, including one planned to take place in Los Angeles on Thursday. (The Clintons always go for the cash. The populist talking points are just for the rubes. ~Bob)

Excerpt: A Bloomberg reporter said that everyone knows that what Hillary Clinton did to avoid Freedom of Information Act intrusion into her communications is unacceptable one, in response to a State Department official’s admittance. John King said Clinton and her team made their own determinations of what they considered to be work-related emails and what they perceived to be personal. Her control over what can and, more importantly, cannot be seen from her time at the State Department has mired Clinton in scandal as she tries to roll out her presidential campaign. (Yes, everyone knows she is corrupt, but she has a vagina so many are going to support her anyway. ~Bob)

Excerpt: The Clinton Foundation was rocked this week by an announcement from Exxon Mobil that it will no longer be involved in the Clinton Global Initiative, the flagship of the Clinton Foundation, a sponsorship that has held steady since 2009. It is also being reported that other major corporations, such as Monsanto, are considering severing their ties with the Clintons going forward.

Excerpt: Currently, 15% of likely Republican primary voters support Bush, followed closely by Rubio (12%), Walker (11%), Paul (10%), Cruz (6%), Trump (5%), Perry (4%), Carson (4%), Fiorina (4%),Christie (3%), Huckabee (3%), Jindal (2%), Pataki (2%), Santorum (2%), Kasich (1%), and Graham (1%). All other potential candidates receive less than 1% support, and 14% say they are undecided.

Excerpt: Why did Rome and Byzantium fall apart after centuries of success? What causes civilizations to collapse, from a dysfunctional fourth-century-B.C. Athens to contemporary bankrupt Greece? The answer is usually not enemies at the gates, but the pathologies inside them. What ruins societies is well known: too much consumption and not enough production, a debased currency, and endemic corruption. Americans currently deal with all those symptoms. But two more fundamental causes for decline are even more frightening: an unwillingness to pay taxes and the end of the rule of law.

Excerpt: A conservative legal firm is claiming victory after government officials reportedly dropped their demand that a Virginiachurch remove two pro-life signs that were being displayed on its property. The Rutherford Institute, the legal firm that represented Valley Church of Christ in Harrisonburg, Virginia, said in a press release that zoning officials recently levied criminal charges against the house of worship over the signs. Church leaders received an April 20 letter informing them that someone had complained about the signs, which the city initially claimed were displayed in violation of an ordinance governing banners.

Excerpt: The Internal Revenue Service stunned a panel of D.C. Circuit Court judges on Monday by implying that it could discriminate against certain groups seeking nonprofit status for up to 270 days, according to the Wall Street Journal. The three-judge panel was hearing a case related to Z Street, a pro-Israel group that is suing the IRS for discrimination after its nonprofit application was held up by the agency. Last May, a federal judge tossed out the IRS’s motion to dismiss the suit, but the agency is appealing the decision.

Excerpt: Like their Democratic counterparts, Republican candidates chose to go after more secular — albeit more conservative — Jewish donors, many of whom were hawkish on Israel; a demographic embodied in the old-line Republican Jewish Coalition, founded in 1985.

But now, Republican hopefuls from the right end of their party’s spectrum are beginning to discover the potential of a separate new breed of Orthodox Jews — wealthy enough to make significant donations, secure enough to pronounce their conservative social preferences and fueled by their anger at the Democratic administration’s policy toward Israel.

Excerpt: Yes, some Internal Revenue Service employees don’t pay their taxes. But nearly two-thirds of IRS employees who were willfully tax noncompliant between 2004 and 2013 and were supposed to have lost their jobs received a reprieve from the IRS commissioner, according to a newly released report from the IRS’ auditor. Some of those employees received performance awards and promotions within a year after being disciplined, the report notes.

Excerpt: A new Defense Department audit found that Pentagon credit cards were misused for such things as gambling fees and escort services. The report also noted that the government might not be stuck with all the charges, and that the employees that incurred many of these expenditures will be required to pay back the costs.

Excerpt: China has warned Philippine air force and navy planes at least six times to leave areas around the disputed South China Sea, the Philippine military commander responsible for the region told a Senate hearing on Thursday. While Vice Admiral Alexander Lopez gave no timeframe, a senior Philippine air force official told Reuters the warnings had come in the past three months. China could be "testing the waters" to see if it can enforce an air exclusion zone above the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea, said the air force official, who declined to be identified.

Excerpt: Now for the hard part. Not only will the charges be difficult to prove but three of those charged are black. The claim of illegal “racial profiling” argues that white racist officers possess an unwarranted fear of young black men. But what happens to that analysis when the accused officers are black? If black cops are just as likely to engage in race-based misconduct, why did Fergusondemonstrators demand a “diverse” police force? If the Fergusonoutrage and riots were about “lack of representation” or “lack of voice,” this cannot be said about Baltimore. 

Excerpt: Appearing on CNN Wednesday morning, former Baltimore Deputy State’s Attorney Page Croyder blasted current State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby‘s charges against the six officers allegedly involved in Freddie Gray‘s mid-April death. “Any prosecutor interested in the truth and in justice would have used all the tools at her disposal to find them. Ms. Mosby ignored them,” Croyder wrote in a Tuesday op-ed for the Baltimore Sun. “

Excerpt: Officials say US is better prepared after last year, when 67,339 unaccompanied minors arrived – but ‘every day we’re getting more than the day before’

Excerpt: Security forces based at the country’s largest oil refinery in Baiji are in danger of losing control of the strategic facility, Iraqi officers and US officials have warned. The Islamic State controls large areas inside the refinery and have besieged the remaining Iraqi troops. The Iraqi military and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are moving towards Baiji in an effort to break the siege. Iraqi officers have painted a dire picture of the situation inside the refinery. A colonel said that the complex “had been completely surrounded after militants cut all remaining supply routes used by the security forces,” Reuters reported. The Islamic State has mounted several attacks, including suicide bombings, in order to gain significant ground at the facility. The colonel also said that “up to two thirds” of the refinery is under the jihadist group’s control.

Excerpt: Fawstin talked about his unique experience growing up in the Bronxas a Muslim, how his life changed after the 9/11 attacks, and he shared strategies to defeat the global jihadist movement. His artwork is featured throughout the interview.

Excerpt: The Senate gave overwhelming approval Thursday to legislation that would establish a congressional review for a proposed nuclear deal with Iran, as Republican leaders set aside efforts from their own rank and file to amend the carefully crafted bipartisan compromise.

On a 98-to-1 vote, the Senate lent a bipartisan boost to the measure — which the House is likely to approve next week — that would allow for a 30-day review of any final deal with Iran, giving what supporters said is a congressional voice to the process as President Obama finishes negotiations with the Islamic republic.

Excerpt: A few weeks ago, Barack Obama was announcing the rough draft of a nuclear agreement with Iran. It was supposed to prevent, or at least give the West and its Middle Eastern allies warning of, a nuclear breakout from Iran. In the coming week, it appears that Obama’s helping countries belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council run for the bunkers. CNN reports that the Obama administration will bring up the idea of creating a ballistic missile defense system that would protect the countries from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia to Oman— just in case Iran ever develops a nuclear warhead or two. The Obama administration’s policy has been to generally discourage the development of missile defense systems. In 2001, the then-State Senator Obama said, “I don’t agree with a missile defense system.” In 2009, his administration traded a missile defense system that protected Poland and the Czech Republic against an Iranian missile attack for an assurance by Russia that it would discourage Iran’s nuclear program. 

Excerpt: A former teen terrorist who killed a U.S. Army Delta Force medic in Afghanistanin 2002 was released on bail Thursday by a Canadian judge, a move that allows the former GuantanamoBay detainee to appeal his U.S. conviction while free.

Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was just 15 when he threw the grenade that killed U.S. Army medic Christopher Speer as Speer and four others cleared a building in the Khost province following an air raid. 

Excerpt: "This is not only freedom of speech, it’s also freedom of religion. And the nexus of freedom of speech and religion that stand together, and they’re wrapped up in the first amendment I think by design by our Founding Fathers comes into conflict with cultural relativism and hate crimes. And the PC, politically correct, police language."

Excerpt: Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) today released a letter he wrote to Kerry at the end of April about the release of those “accused of being hardened al-Qaeda fighters, having been involved in forging documents, trained as suicide bombers, and engaged in fighting at Tora Bora.” “After a first-hand assessment by Committee staff, this transfer appears to be inconsistent with U.S. law, as Uruguay has not taken steps to mitigate the risk that these detainees pose to the United States, including the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo,” Royce wrote.... The six detainees received Mercosur identity cards as part of their refugee status, which would allow them to travel to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia with ease. One of the detainees is known to have traveled to Argentina in February. (According to article, one detainee allowed to live six blocks from US embassy. Who cares? Anyone doubt who is on which side any more? --Barb)

Excerpt: ISIS' claim of responsibility for the shooting in Garland, Texas, was proof of its effectiveness at capitalizing on so-called lone wolf attacks — even when it has no hand in planning or paying for them, experts said Tuesday. ISIS provided no evidence to support its claim after the shooting on Sunday at a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest. But experts told NBC News that accepting responsibility was a cheap way for the militants to achieve their terrorist goals. (In the green room at Fox News last night, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina did an effective job of freaking the rest of us out. The short version: we’re likely to get hit by Islamist terrorists in the U.S. homeland again; it’s probably going to come from ISIS members operating out of Syria; the national-security community is intensely concerned, and the system designed to identify, track, monitor and interdict against these aspiring terrorists is getting overloaded. -- Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolthttp://www.nationalreview.com/newsletters)

Why not ask Obama--Yemen is his anti-terrorism success story. ~Bob)

Excerpt: The Marshall Islands-flagged vessel was intercepted by Iranian patrol boats on 28 April and taken to Bandar Abbas. Iran said the ship was detained because of a legal dispute between the Danish company chartering it, Maersk, and a private Iranian firm.

Ever wondered why there is only 0.2 percent non-Muslims in Turkey? Followers of Islam are believed to have killed 270 million non-Muslims.

Excerpt: British Muslims could have the decisive vote in a quarter of constituencies, analysis shows. In 159 of the 632 seats, the number of Muslims is greater than the margin of victory in 2010. And this is true among almost half the 193 marginal seats, according to the Henry Jackson Society, which has carried out the first study of the religious breakdown of each seat.

Excerpt: This is a very interesting interview with an exiled Iraqi, I.Q. al Rassooli, about Islam. It's the perfect clip for those people who are in denial about what Islam really is:. --NW

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304815980&sr=1-5For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s eleven books are listed here:

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html. His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com.