Ring of Fire, PACOM

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Since the Department of Defense announced the Jade Helm operation scheduled for this summer, there have been theories all over the internet with regard to what Jade Helm really is. Personally, none of us is doing our jobs unless we in fact question all actions by government, we are suspicious with proven and historical reasons. There are many take-a-ways in this post, fair warning, go slow. Nothing is ever simple.

Let us take a real hard look at what our Americans in uniform are in fact asked to do and where. To be honest, it is really extraordinary what our soldiers are asked to do, where they are to do it and why. USSOCOM, which is hosting Jade Helm is led by General Kelly. He delivered a posture statement in March. Reading what our soldiers do is eye-popping.

Nepal Earthquake Happened Right On Schedule, Scientists Say

A devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal on Saturday was part of a pattern of major temblors that have become so predictable that many seismologists had been expecting this one — and at least one team of researchers warned just weeks ago that a major quake was due in the exact location where this one struck.

Nepal sits right where the Indo-Australian Plate is pushing itself beneath the Eurasian Plate, a collision that gave rise to the Himalayan Mountains. As the plates push, pressure builds, eventually resulting in a quake to relieve that pressure.

And according to Nature, the Indo-Australian Plate is still pushing itself under the Eurasian Plate at a rate of nearly 2 inches per year. So what does our Defense Department have to do with the earthquake?

Operation Pacific Endeavor tests no only civil and infrastructure drills of our soldiers, but it also tests hardware, signals intelligence, satellite systems and a whole host of platforms and skills. This has been an operation for several years and in cooperation with other participating countries. Here are some videos that will help explain just how integrated these types of operations are with civilians, local civic leaders and infrastructure.

A full operation explanation with regard to natural disasters is detailed below.

Pacom Exercise Program Integrates Disaster Response Preparation

CAMP SMITH, Hawaii, Sept. 5, 2012 – As they reach out to long-time allies and new partners alike to increase regional engagement through U.S. Pacific Command’s exercise program, officials are finding that one of the biggest enticements is a common threat: Mother Nature.

Click photo for screen-resolution image
Navy personnel react to a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief scenario during the Rim of the Pacific 2012 exercise at Joint Base Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, June 20, 2012. Twenty-two nations, more than 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel participated in the biennial exercise. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Anderson C. Bomjardim  
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

The Asia-Pacific region experiences more natural disasters than any other part of the globe. It sits squarely on the earthquake-prone “Ring of Fire” and also suffers frequent cyclones, hurricanes or typhoons, floods, and even volcanic eruptions.

“It’s not a matter of if they are going to have the next disaster. It is really when,” said Army Col. Phillip Mead, director of Pacom’s Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance.

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake rattled Indonesia on Sept. 3 and the Philippines experienced two earthquakes within the past week: one yesterday in the southern Philippines at magnitude 5.6 and a 7.6-magnitude quake in the east on Aug. 31.

Pacom works with regional nations to promote disaster preparedness and build resilience; and to respond quickly and effectively should disaster strike.

One of the best ways to do that is through the exercise program, Army Col. David Parker, chief of the command’s exercise division, told American Forces Press Service.

As the Defense Department’s largest combatant command in terms of territory – an area covering 52 percent of the Earth’s surface that includes 3.6 billion people in 36 nations – Pacom also conducts the U.S. military’s largest exercise program.

Eighteen of its exercises are joint exercises approved by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a designation that assigns them a specific name and increased priority for resources and people.

“And that doesn’t include a lot of the engagements we have that also fall under the joint exercise program,” Parker said.

The focus of Pacom’s exercise program runs the gamut. “We have exercises that test and then form our contingency plans,” Parker said. “We have exercises that strictly test our joint task force capabilities. Then others focus on engagements with our allies and partners.”

As it implements DOD’s new strategic guidance that focuses heavily on the Asia-Pacific region, Pacom is working to promote the exercise program, expanding the scope of existing exercises and getting more nations to participate.

“The trend is toward more multilateral engagement,” Parker said. “We still have a lot of bilateral relationships, and we are still evolving. But we’re making a concerted effort to encourage more multilateral exercises in the region.”

Parker pointed to Cobra Gold, the largest multilateral exercise in the Asia-Pacific, as the gold standard. Cobra Gold 2012 included participants from 20 nations, and next year’s exercise is expected to include at least as many.

Meanwhile, Pacom is reaching out to new partners with a goal of initiating new exercises. Parker reported promising developments with Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mongolia and other regional partners.

As Pacom strives to exercise with more partners and promote more multilateral engagements, officials are finding disaster preparedness to be a universal common ground.

“If there is something common across the [area of responsibility], it is the awareness that there is going to be another natural disaster. So nations are focusing on that,” Mead said. “And that is why, when you develop a multilateral exercise under the humanitarian assistance disaster relief umbrella, it helps bring everyone to the table.”

As nations come to the table to address crisis response, the conversation goes into the broader issues Pacom’s exercise program addresses. “You are working on issues of interoperability. You are working on isues of ‘How do you get your communications systems to talk to each other?’ You are working on the issue of ‘How do we share information?’” Mead said.

“And all those issues that you work through during the exercise will be leveraged during a regional response to a natural disaster,” he said.

So more Pacom-sponsored exercises – from staff-level table-top exercises and command post exercises to larger-scale field training exercises involving troops on the ground as well as aircraft and ships – are focusing on disasters or including disaster scenarios.

During the recent Khaan Quest 12 exercise in earthquake-plagued Mongolia, for example, Army Brig. Gen. Mike Bridges, commander of the Alaska Army National Guard, shared Alaska’s lessons in responding to natural disasters with officials from Mongolia’s National Emergency Management Agency. Bridges encouraged his Mongolian counterparts to participate in the Vigilant Guard exercise in Alaska in 2014, which will include a simulated earthquake and tsunami with mass casualties.

Pacific Endeavor 2012 in Singapore integrated high-frequency military communications into the amateur or ham radio community that could provide a vital communications link in the event that a natural disaster took out or overran existing systems.

This year’s Rim of the Pacific exercise, which wrapped up earlier this month in Hawaii and its surrounding waters, included the first humanitarian assistance and disaster relief event in the exercise’s 31 iterations, with participants from 22 nations rehearsing crisis scenarios.

“If you talk to anyone who lives within the rim of the Pacific they will tell you it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when the next natural disaster or crisis may affect one of the countries,” said Navy Adm. Gerald R. Beaman, commander of the U.S. 3rd Fleet.

“[RIMPAC participants] are forming a team,” he said. “In the event of the next crisis or disaster, this team will have worked with each other and understand the processes that a coalition will have to go through in order to form and be able to accomplish whatever mission we may be asked to do.”

To add realism during exercises, Pacom’s Center of Excellence staff, which offers a unique capability within the Defense Department, often serves as the “white cell.” Its members inject disaster scenarios into the play, Mead said, forcing staffs to go through a deliberate decision-making process they would use in a real-life humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mission.

As staffs respond, they’re encouraged to go by the book –specifically, the multinational standard operating procedures that 31 Asia-Pacific nations have agreed to — so they can provide a unified, coordinated response.

Parker called those SOPs, which the signatories review annually to ensure they are current, a big step toward in the right direction.

“That document is probably one of the biggest things we have to promote interoperability. It spells out the processes and procedures that these nations may use if we ever engage with each other in a humanitarian assistance disaster response situation or other operations other than war,” he said.

“So when we have a crisis situation, or nations have to come together and operate together, they have already established the processes they are going to use to tackle that crisis – whether it is [humanitarian assistance and disaster relief] or other small-scale events,” Parker said. “The procedures are already established, and that is going to jump-start the process.”

That, he said, will help reduce suffering and save lives.

As Pacom’s exercise program helps U.S. and partner nations prepare for future disasters, it also provides a forum for them to review lessons learned from past responses.

During Cobra Gold 12, for example, leaders from the participating nations shared expertise and lessons from Operation Tomadachi in Japan and flood relief conducted last year in Thailand.

“This is an ongoing learning process, but it’s a critical one,” Parker said. “As we work with many of our partners and friends in the region, humanitarian assistance and disaster response is the most likely scenario that we are going to execute.”

 

 

 

 

 

Moving Parts Behind the Garland, Texas Attack

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The FBI began investigation Elton Simpson, one of the 2 shooters in Garland, Texas. The other shooter is Nadir Soofi. They were roommates in Phoenix. Nadir Soofi graduated from the University of Utah and the International School of Islamic Studies in Pakistan. He was a Palestinian sympathizer and published anti-police propaganda.

The FBI paid an informant to gather information on Elton Simpson going back to 2006 and used wires to record conversations. The case was proven (trial memorandum here) as Simpson was well connected to al Shabaab and Simpson had purchased a ticket to travel to South Africa and had a visa to do so.

The case against Elton Simpson, nom de guerre, Ibrahim failed to gain any sentencing other than probation from an Arizona judge, Mary H. Murguia. She is a Clinton appointee and has a twin sister who is president of La Raza.

Hold on there is more. Not only is the Obama administration aggressively resettling refugees in America from Syria, Kenya, Iraq but the worst is Somalia. This speaks to real failed foreign policy. In fact Kenya just received $45 million for refugees. If you think there is a problem controlling the insurgency at the Southern border, this Refugee/Asylum problem is much bigger.

So, while the two dead Islamists from Arizona that were shot by a single officer in Garland, they were not refugees but lived with them in an apartment complex in Arizona, one of many across the country that are part of an approved contracted system by Health and Human Services in collaboration with the U.S. State Department. There is likely one in a town where you live.

Here is what you need to know.

The Garland shooters lived at Autumn Ridge Apartments in Phoenix, Arizona. That complex is owned by BH Management which holds properties across the country and works in tandem with HHS. There are several communities in Arizona, which is the same model as in Iowa, Idaho, S. Carolina, Maryland…all heck every state. These locations are all part of the Obama administration.

Contractors

RRP supports and advances successful refugee resettlement through the coordination of public and private resources.  Contractors are required to provide services in ways that respect the cultural and linguistic needs of clients.
Click here for a list of current contractors (47 KB PDF)

Federal Partners

Three federal agencies play key roles in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program.

Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is responsible for the domestic program of refugee resettlement services – including cash and medical assistance and a broad range of social services.
ORR State Letters

Information for asylees seeking services supported by ORR is now available on the ORR website.

The U.S. Department of State coordinates resettlement policy, overseas processing, cultural orientation, transportation to the U.S., and the Reception & Placement program for newly arrived refugees.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security determines which applicants meet the requirements for refugee status and are admissible to the United States under U.S. law

 

A “Refugee” is defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act as: 

“…any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”  

Asylees, Cuban / Haitian entrants, certain Amerasians, Special Immigrant Visa holders and victims of severe forms of human trafficking are among the other humanitarian immigrants eligible for assistance and services under the Refugee Act. 

Okay, sorry but there is more. You may need a seat belt for this.

Garland, Texas: There’s Some History Here

 

Last night a free speech event in Garland, Texas was attacked. As this is written, two suspects are dead. One security guard was shot and released from the hospital after treatment for a minor wound.

The event, the “Mohammed Art Exhibit and Contest,” was reported here by Breitbart and here by the Dallas Morning News. It was sponsored by Pamela Geller of the American Freedom Defense Initiative and featured keynote speaker Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician and free speech advocate. Both were safe, with Geller finally contacted by Fox News where she was interviewed by anchor Kelly Wright.

The AFDI event was proceeded by another gathering in the same venue — the Curtis Culwell Center — in January. That event? It was titled the “Stand with the Prophet” rally, and was reported here as follows by the Washington Free beacon. Wrote the Free Beacon:

Muslim leaders from across America will gather in Texas this weekend to hold the annual Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect conference, a weekend forum that is being billed as a “movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message,” according to event information.

The Saturday event, which seeks to combat “Islamophobes in America” who have turned the Islamic Prophet Muhammad “into an object of hate,” according to organizers, comes just a week after radicalized Islamists in France killed 17 people.

The victims died in events that began with the shooting attack on French newspaper Charlie Hebdo for its satirical cartoons that skewered the prophet.

Organizers of the event place the blame for Islam’s bad reputation on the media and so-called American Islamophobes who have “invested at least $160 million dollars to attack our Prophet and Islam,” according to the conference web page.

Keynote speakers at the event will include Georgetown University professor John Esposito, founding director of the school’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which has come under fire for, among other things, hosting 9/11 Truthers and a member of Egypt’s Nazi Party.

 

Also scheduled to attend the forum is controversial New York-based Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who was an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings trial. Wahhaj has called the FBI and CIA the “real terrorists” and expressed a desire for all Americans to become Muslim, according to the New York Post.

The “Stand With the Prophet” event was, in typical American style, protested by the AFDI free speech group, as announced here at the time on the Jihand Watch site of Robert Spencer. The site published a press release from AFDI that said in part of the protest:

NEW YORK, January 13: The human rights advocacy group the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) today announced that it will be holding a demonstration in defense of the freedom of speech on Saturday, January 17 in Garland, Texas, outside a conference on “Islamophobia” that seeks to stifle opposition to jihad terror and restrict the freedom of speech, working to further the same Islamic law that led to the Charlie Hebdo jihad massacre.

… AFDI President Pamela Geller said in a statement: “Saturday’s Stand With the Prophet event seeks to combat ‘Islamophobes in America’ — in line with Islamic supremacist groups’ longstanding objective of defaming, smearing and marginalizing anyone who opposes the jihad agenda. They say they want to defend Muhammad — which means to silence those who notice that defenders of Muhammad just murdered sixteen people in Paris, and tens of thousands worldwide since 9/11.”

“Our AFDI rally,” Geller added, “will stand for the freedom of speech against all attempts, violent and stealthy, to impose Islamic blasphemy laws on Americans and stifle criticism of Muhammad and Islam. As Muhammad’s followers kill more and more people, we need critics of him more than ever — and free people need to stand up against these underhanded attempts to stifle all criticism of Islam, including honest investigations of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify Jew-hatred, violence, supremacism and oppression.”

Sunday night, the AFDI counter-event was held. In the same place. The event was described as follows by Breitbart:

Pamela Geller is planning a “Draw the Prophet” event in Garland, Texas in the same location as a Muslim group held a “Stand with the Prophet” conference in January. The First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest will be hosted by the Curtis Caldwell Center, which is owned and operated by the Garland Independent School District.

And up pulled a vehicle with two gun-wielding men, both now dead at the hands of the Garland police. Police were investigating whether there was a bomb in their vehicle, thus far with none found.

Contacted amid the chaos by Fox News, among other things Geller noted what one would think is the obvious: “A free speech conference is not controversial, shooting people is controversial…” As she also pointed out, that when the image of Jesus Christ on the cross is immersed in a jar of urine and presented as “art” in America — no one seeks to kill the artist.

Exactly.

It is impossible to look at this shooting as anything else than an attempt on Ms. Geller’s life and that of Geert Wilders, the founder of the Dutch Party for Freedom that has won seats in the Dutch parliament. As the attack unfolded, Geller said, audience members stood and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Question? Is this America anymore? Or is this now to be government by lynch mob? Whether in Baltimore or Garland, Texas?

And what will President Obama say? Will he stand up for the free speech of Americans? Not with some mealy mouthed if-this-than-that attempt at moral relativity — but with flat out, stand-up support for the Constitution and the right of free speech? News reports say the Garland police were prepared in case this kind of thing happened — but the question really should be: Why should police or anyone else have to prepare for a murderous assault on a free speech event?

The “Stand With the Prophet” rally participants had a right to hold their rally — just as the people of Baltimore had a right to peacefully protest the death of Freddie Gray. But no one has the right to burn and loot private property, much less to attack a peaceful event with the intent of killing the participants — in this case targeting Pam Geller and Geert Wilders.

When reached last night by Fox Pam Gellers said something else: “This is our most basic right…. [Now] this is a war… it’s here. It’s not Paris, it’s not Copenhagen — it’s Texas.”

And so it is. The question now is whether the American people — and the President of the United States — will sit by quietly and not speak out. The Islamists don’t get to judge.

*** Free Speech Matters:

 

 

ISIS Sympathizers in U.S. Activated to Attack

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Geller threatMake Dua in Texas, 2 Muslim convert roommates armed with AK-47’s originating from Phoenix, Arizona. This ‘winning the hearts of minds of our known enemies is NOT a working or effective strategy.

No bombs were found, however Garland Police had to detonate some luggage found in their vehicle. But the threats continue in social media against Pam Geller.

The dead shooter, Elton Simpson:

The jihadis were well known to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security also continues to hold hearings on the circle of sympathizers in America and the threats they pose to our national security.

Garland, Texas ~ Police officers shot and killed the man, identified as Elton Simpson of Phoenix, and his companion Sunday evening, outside the Curtis Culwell Center, at an event organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a New York-based group that also uses the name Stop Islamization of America. The gunfire, which began shortly before 7 p.m., left a security guard wounded.

In 2010, federal prosecutors in Arizona charged Mr. Simpson with plotting to travel to Somalia “for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad,” and then lying to a federal agent about his plans. A judge found him guilty of lying to the agent, but said the government had not proved that his plan involved terrorism, and sentenced him to three years’ probation.

The police and F.B.I. agents in Phoenix searched an apartment believed to be connected to Mr. Simpson, with much of the Autumn Ridge apartment complex cordoned off through the night. At the same time, the F.B.I. office in Dallas confirmed that it was providing investigators and a bomb technician to aid the police in Garland, a city just outside Dallas.

Officials did not give a motive for the attack Sunday evening, but drawings of Muhammad, considered offensive by many Muslims, have drawn violent responses in the past. Shortly before the shooting, messages were posted on Twitter with the hashtag #texasattack, including one saying, “May Allah accept us as mujahideen.”

The hosts of the event include Robert Spencer and Pam Geller declared this attack a ‘war on free speech’ in America where the media has become Sharia compliant at the demands of Islam where Muslims declare only they have the ability to declare what is free speech and what is not.

The event in Garland had more than 200 attendees including Tom Trento of United West, Geert Wilders and Congressman Louis Gohmert (R-TX) who actually invited Wilders to the United States.

Geert Wilders had this message after the event:

Dear friends,

Thank you all for being here. It’s great to be in Texas, the Lone Star State. The one star in the Texan flag represents all the free Western world needs today: defiance, pride and independence.

It is no coincidence that we are in Garland, Texas, tonight. It is here that, three months ago, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Islamic activists convened to demand that free speech be curtailed. They want to prohibit cartoons, books and films which they find insulting.

Our answer is clear:
Don’t mess with Texas!
Don’t mess with the free West!
Don’t mess with our freedom of speech!

Friends, allow me to thank Pamela Geller for organizing this exhibition.
Pamela is an extraordinary woman. I only have a few heroes, but Pamela certainly is one of them. Let us give her a big applause!

My friends, you are all winners. Everybody present here tonight deserves respect, just for being here.
The cartoonists, the participants in this Muhammad contest all did fantastic work. All of you are not only talented but also very brave. For Islam has put a death sentence on depicting Muhammad. But this has not frightened you. And even if it did, it has not stopped you. Because you believe in freedom of speech.
I applaud you for that.

However, there can be only one winner of the contest. And that is, as you already know, Bosch Fawstin.
Bosch knows what he is talking and cartooning about, being a former – or in his own words recovered – Muslim.
I have known the fantastic work of Bosch – who also created the anti-jihad superhero Pigman – for many years already and I want to congratulate him for his bravery and excellent work and winning the contest today.

Your statement, my statement, the statement of every single person present in this room here tonight is clear: We will never allow barbarism, we will never allow Islam to rob us of our freedom of speech! Never!

I know from my own experience how dangerous it is to stand for this freedom. I know how dangerous it is to speak the truth about Islam.

I am on death lists of Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban and terrorists from ISIS because I tell people the truth about Islam. Islam has declared war on us, on our Judeo-Christian civilization. Islam wants to rob us of the freedoms and liberties. Islam and freedom are totally incompatible.

I am a politician, but cartoonists, like my good friends the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, are also on the death list. Both Kurt and Lars have already been the victims of murder attempts.

Another man on this list was the cartoonist Charb, editor of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. As we all know, he and 9 of his colleagues were murdered last January in Paris by followers of the religion of hate. According to Islamic Sharia law, they were all guilty of the same crime.
The crime of depicting Muhammad, the crime of defaming the so-called Prophet of Islam.
A crime punishable by death by the religion of death.

In order to show them that we will not have Islam dictate us the law, we are here with an exhibition of Muhammad cartoons.
We are here in defiance of Islam.
We are here to defend our rights and stand for freedom of speech.
That is our duty.
As Ronald Reagan, your greatest president ever, said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

I am happy to say that nobody died while watching these cartoons.
This proves that, unlike jihadis, cartoons do not kill people.
Cartoons do not kill jihadis, but jihadis kill cartoonists.
That is a huge difference which we should never forget.

Huntington was wrong. It is not a clash of civilizations, but a clash between civilization and barbarism.

Our Judeo-Christian culture is far superior to the Islamic one.
I can give you a million reasons. But here is an important one.
We have got humor and they don’t.

There is no humor in Islam.
In 1979, ayatollah Khomeini devoted an entire radio broadcast to this topic: “Allah did not create man so that he could have fun,” the ayatollah said. “There are no jokes in Islam,” he added. “There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam.”
For once, the ayatollah was right.

Islam does not allow free speech, because free speech shows how evil and wrong Islam is.
And Islam does not allow humor, because humor shows how foolish and ridiculous it is.

Friends,
You are extremely fortunate to live in America. Because you have a first amendment.
In Europe, it is not just the jihadis who go after you. The authorities do so, too.
In the Netherlands, I have been dragged to court on hate speech charges for speaking the truth about Islam. I was acquitted, but now the authorities are prosecuting me again.

We are harassed, but sympathizers of the Islamic State are left in peace. Last Summer, they took to the streets in The Hague. They carried swastikas and ISIS flags. They shouted “Death to the Jews.” And you know what? The authorities did nothing. We have weak leaders. Appeasers are ruling The Netherlands, Europe and the USA. We have to turn the tide and we will. New leadership is what we need to defend our freedom of speech and resist the ongoing Islamization of the West.

Today, many of our Western leaders want us to shut up.
When we tell the truth about Islam, they call it Islamophobia.
When cartoonists make drawings of Muhammad, they are accused of provoking people.
A few years ago, in my country, the Netherlands, the police even raided the house of a cartoonist.
In his address to the United Nations in 2012, President Obama said: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

But we say: The future must not belong to Islam!
Do you hear, Mr Obama? We say: No to Islam!!

Unlike President Obama and his European colleagues, we are not willing to sign away our freedom and independence.
The day we give away humor and freedom of speech is the day that we cease to exist as a free and independent people.
And that day will never come.
That is what this exhibition is all about!
From here we send a message to President Obama and all his colleagues: We will never submit!

We are not intimidated by Islam.
We will not be picking up swords and axes and breaking into people’s homes. But we will not remain silent either.
Moderation in the face of evil is evil. This is not what our age needs. We must uncap our pens; we must speak words of truth. We are facing a determined enemy who is striving through all means to destroy the West and snuff out our traditions of free thought, free speech, and our Judeo-Christian values. Make no mistake: if we fail, we will be enslaved. So the only option is to defend our freedom with all the energy we have. It’s time to be brave. It’s time to do our duty.

Instead of giving in to fear and adopt the Islamic taboo on depicting Muhammad, I propose that we draw another conclusion:
Lift the cause of the fear!
Let us de-islamize our societies!
No more Islam, no more mosques, no more Islamic schools. It is time for our own culture and heritage.

Let us liberate ourselves from tyranny.
That is another good reason why we are having this exhibition here today.
Depicting Muhammad is an act of liberation!

Let us hold similar exhibitions all over the United States and all over the free world. From Canada to Australia to Europe.
We need Pamela Geller everywhere in the world.
I invite you to come to the Netherlands with this exhibition. I will help you exhibit these cartoons in the Dutch parliament building.

We will never allow Islam to restrict freedom!
And we will never bow in the direction of Mecca!

I am not saying that there are no moderate Muslims. Fortunately, there are Muslims who do not live according to the Islamic commands. But there is no moderate Islam!
Not all Muslims are terrorists. But most terrorists today are Muslims.

That is why we say: The less Islam, the better!

The Islamic creed obliges one and a half billion people around the world to take Muhammad as their example.
He led a gang of robbers, who looted, raped and killed hundreds of people.
Historic sources describe orgies of inhumanity. An example is the genocide of the Jews of Medina in 627. One of the head choppers was Muhammad himself. Confronted with the lunacy of Islamic terrorists today, it is not hard to find out whom they get their inspiration from.
It is from Muhammad who – we have to tell the truth – was a warlord, a murderer and a pedophile

There is no turning back once one has become a Muslim. For even though article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to “change his religion or belief,” in Islam there is only a death penalty for leaving the faith.

So, let us expose Muhammad. Let us show the world what Islam truly is.
And let us support Muslims, like Bosch, who wish to leave Islam and liberate themselves from fear.
Apostates are heroes and more than ever they deserve the support of freedom loving people all over the world.

Muhammad fought and terrorized people with the sword.
We fight Muhammad and his followers with the pen.
And the pen will prove mightier than the sword.

Muhammad’s followers fight us with bloodbaths, but today here in Garland we fight them with humor.
Because bloodbaths enslave, while humor liberates.

Let me end by quoting Sam Houston, the founding father of this great state of Texas:
“Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.”

May his words inspire us all today never to submit to Islamic barbarism.

Thank you very much.

Is Jimmy Carter Still Relevant? Yes, for Iran

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Hamas was placed on the U.S. terror list in 1997. Since 2009, Jimmy Carter has been calling for Hamas to be removed. The European Union from Hamas from their terror list in late December of 2014. Does anyone remember the dead U.S. Marines?

Seems that this past March, Obama forced ODNI Chief James Clapper to either fully remove Hamas from the U.S. list of terror organizations or to re-classify them to some other status. Clapper presented an annual report titled the “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community’. This also includes Hezbollah.

The  2015 report only mentions Hezbollah once, and it’s in passing.

Still, we should note that the 2015 report hardly lets Iran off the hook. The report accuses Iran of:

• “Preserving (the) nuclear weapons option,”

• Remaining “an ongoing threat to US national interests because of its support to the Asad regime in Syria, promulgation of anti-Israeli policies, development of advanced military capabilities, and pursuit of its nuclear program,”

• “Pursuing policies with negative secondary consequences for regional stability and potentially for Iran,”

• And pursuing actions to protect and empower Shia communities that “are fueling growing fears and sectarian responses.”

Administration officials cautioned against over-reading the choices made in Clapper’s written report.

“There is no change in the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of the threat posed by Iran or Hezbollah,” said Brian P. Hale, the director of public affairs in the office of the director of national intelligence. The report, Hale said, “was written to be an overview of top threats. … There were a lot of topics to consider this year — ISIL, cyber, Ukraine-Russia, etc. Iran was included, too.”

Hale added that Clapper fleshed out the national-security concerns about Iran and Hezbollah during testimony at the Senate hearing. Responding to a question from Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., Clapper cited several entities linked to Iran, including Hezbollah, as methods for Iran to use as “a physical manifestation of their spreading their influence in the region.”

And Nick Rasmussen — director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the principal adviser to Clapper’s office on intelligence operations and counterterrorism analysis — testified on Feb. 12 that “beyond their role in Syria and Iraq, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah remain committed to conducting terrorist activities worldwide, and we are concerned their activities could either endanger or target U.S. and other Western interests.”

Iran is asking and graciously receiving gifts at the hands of the White House and from John Kerry, Secretary of State. The Iran talks over their nuclear program is producing nothing for the West but everything for Iran.

Former US President Jimmy Carter calls post-war situation in the Gaza Strip ‘intolerable’

JERUSALEM –  Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says eight months after a bloody war in the Gaza Strip that the situation there is “intolerable.”

Carter’s delegation called off a planned visit to Gaza earlier this week, giving no explanation. Speaking Saturday, Carter says he is still determined to work for a Palestinian state. But he lamented that “not one destroyed house has been rebuilt” in Gaza since the war.

Carter, 90, visited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas but was shunned by Israeli leaders who long have considered him hostile to the Jewish state.

Although he brokered the first Israeli-Arab peace treaty during his presidency, Carter outraged many Israelis with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” He’s also repeatedly reached out to Gaza’s Islamic Hamas leaders, considered terrorists by much of the West.

Jimmy Carter and Abbas Call for Fatah-Hamas Elections

Pro-Hamas ex-president calls for joint Hamas-Fatah elections in Ramallah after canceling Gaza stop, in bid to save floundering ‘unity.’

Jimmy Carter on Saturday urged Palestinian Arabs to hold elections to end the rapidly growing fierce enmity between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in Judea and Samaria.

He was speaking at a joint news conference with PA president Mahmoud Abbas in the PA’s governmental seat of Ramallah in Samaria, after cancelling his stop in Gaza where he was supposed to meet top Hamas terrorists such as Ismail Haniyeh.

“We hope that sometime we’ll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank,” said Carter, a member of the independent Elders Group of global leaders.

His reference to eastern Jerusalem comes despite the fact the area is part of Israel, having been annexed after the Jewish state liberated the eastern part of the ancient Jewish capital during the 1967 Six Day War.

No Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections have been held in over a decade, even though Abbas’s term in office expired in January 2009.

In 2006, a year after Abbas was elected, Hamas overwhelmingly won the most recent PLC elections. A year afterwards, Hamas violently ousted Abbas’s Fatah faction from Gaza and seized control.

Despite the rivals signing a reconciliation agreement a year ago, Hamas is reluctant to hand over power in Gaza to an independent PA unity government the two formed.

As noted Carter had also planned to go to Gaza, but the visit was cancelled at the last moment.

He said it would be “very important” for “full implementation of the agreement reached between Hamas and Fatah.”

Carter was accompanied by Norway’s former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.

She said that despite not being able to visit the Hamas terrorist stronghold of Gaza, “we have had a chance to discuss with people who know the issues in Gaza.”

The Elders Group said ahead of the trip by Carter and Brundtland that they were visiting “in a renewed push to promote the two-state solution and to address the root causes of the conflict.”

Ahead of Carter’s three-day visit, both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin said they will refuse to meet him due to his blatant anti-Israel and pro-Hamas stance.

During Operation Protective Edge last summer, a counter-terror operation undertaken after Hamas launched a terror war with thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilian centers and attacks via terror tunnels, Carter urged the US to remove Hamas from its terror list.

He said at the time there is “no justification in the world for what Israel is doing,” castigating the IDF for its defensive efforts while not offering any condemnation of Hamas’s countless terrorist attacks on civilian populations launched from civilian centers.

Hamas is currently rebuilding its capabilities to attack Israel, digging attack tunnels around the clock and developing new rockets, even as Israel ships in massive amounts of building materials being used to reconstruct the tunnels.

Court Case Reveals What Google Does to You

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There are countless companies across America that are harvesting your online data without your knowledge or permission. Once the data is collected, it is analyzed and it is sold. Institutions know more about you than you know about you as even predictions are made about your life and family. Hide the kids, well you cant do that either. Can you opt out? Kinda. Can you find alternatives for a search engine? Kinda. Is this legal? Kinda.

Courts docs show how Google slices users into “millions of buckets

Jeff Gould

Jeff Gould, CEO Peerstone Research

The online giant probably knows more about you than the NSA — including things you might not even tell your mother

The first law of selling is to know your customer. This simple maxim has made Google into the world’s largest purveyor of advertisements, bringing in more ad revenue this year than all the world’s newspapers combined. What makes Google so valuable to advertisers is that it knows more about their customers — that is to say, about you — than anyone else.

Where does Google get this knowledge? Simple. It watches most everything you do and say online — reads your email (paying special attention to purchase confirmations), peers over your shoulder while you browse, knows what you watch on YouTube, and — by tracking your devices — even knows where you are at this very moment. Then it assembles all these bits of information into a constantly updated profile that tells advertisers when, where and what you may hanker to buy.

Your Google profile contains far more than basic facts such as age, gender and product categories you might be interested in. It also makes statistically plausible guesses about things you didn’t voluntarily disclose. It estimates how much you earn by looking up IRS income data for your zip code. It knows if you have children at home — a trick it performs by surveying hundreds of thousands of parents, observing their online behavior, then extrapolating to millions of other users. Google also offers advertisers over 1,000 “interest-based advertising” categories to target users by their web browsing habits. When advertisers are ready to buy ads they can review all these attributes in a convenient browser interface and select exactly the users they want to target.

But these explicit attributes only scratch the surface. The online ad giant knows much more about you than it can put into a form easily understandable by humans. Just how much it knows came to light last year, when a Federal judge ordered the publication of some remarkable internal Google emails discussing how Gmail data mining works. Google’s lawyers fought the disclosure tooth and nail, but they were ultimately overruled. The emails reveal that Gmail can sort users not just into a few thousand demographic and interest categories, but into literally millions of distinct “buckets”. A “bucket” is just a cluster of users, however small, who share some feature in common that might interest advertisers.

Gmail profiling is performed by a mysterious device known as the Content OneBox, or COB for short. The COB’s inner workings are shrouded in mystery — the court documents describing it are heavily redacted. But we know that it deploys many distinct data mining methods to place users into these “buckets”. In addition to exploiting demographic or interest-based observables, the COB tries to understand the actual meaning of email messages with advanced “machine learning” algorithms.

The COB lets Google peer into the most intimate aspects of your life. To see why, think about the math. Gmail has a billion users who collectively receive several trillion messages per year (not counting spam). The COB analyzes every one of those messages, even the ones it classifies as spam and the ones you delete before opening. With such a vast sea of data pouring into its algorithms every day, Google can make incredibly fine-grained distinctions among users. Inevitably some of these distinctions will correspond to sensitive personal attributes that few of us would voluntarily disclose. Most “buckets” that Google creates have no names — they are just nodes in a vast network of associations. But Google can also sort advertising messages into the same buckets and then match them to similar users, without the need for overt labels. All it takes to connect an advertiser to the right customer is a fleeting pattern of affinity between some group of users and a particular sales pitch.

Google doesn’t allow advertisers to target explicitly on sensitive categories such as race, religion, health status or sexual preference. But nothing prevents the COB’s matching algorithms from performing such targeting implicitly. When you have millions of target buckets and can perform thousands of statistical experiments every day, you can achieve the same result. Want to attract young gay men of color in certain tough urban neighborhoods to your new line of expensive athletic shoes? Google won’t let you target those keywords directly, but millions of buckets can do it for you — implicitly. Want to offer fast food discount coupons to overweight single women with children, heart surgery to middle-aged men with chest pain and high incomes, or steroid pills to teenage body builders? Millions of buckets can do that too.

In the ten years since it was launched Gmail has morphed from a simple email service into a gigantic user profiling machine. The power of its profiling algorithms increases each year as new ideas from machine learning research are made operational. At the same time, the amount of data the algorithms have to work on swells constantly. Google execs say that Gmail will soon reach one billion users.

Today the market for such data-mined personal profiles is essentially unregulated. Neither Congress nor the FTC know what to do about it. A few state legislatures, notably California, have put stakes in the ground trying to protect consumers and especially vulnerable populations such as school children. The European Union is also debating new, stricter regulations. At the same time, surveys shows that consumers care about privacy but are easily lured into giving it up for free services.

This wild west of unrestrained online profiling can’t go on indefinitely. It is particularly ironic that the National Security Agency — despite all the recent controversy — is subject to far tighter legal oversight than online advertisers like Google or Facebook. Sooner or later regulation must come to online profiling. Europe is likely to lead the way, though not necessarily in a manner that meshes well with American views on innovation and freedom of expression. In the United States, considering Congressional gridlock and the risk of inconsistency among state legislatures, the best near-term hope for regulation that is both reasonable and effective may lie with the FTC or perhaps even the White House. Time will tell, but time is growing short in a world where machines grow more intelligent every day.