By the Numbers: Muslim Opinions and Demographics

Posted on January 28, 2016January 28, 2016 by Denise Simon

By the Numbers is an honest and open discussion about Muslim opinions and demographics. Narrated by Raheel Raza, president of Muslims Facing Tomorrow, this short film is about the acceptance that radical Islam is a bigger problem than most politically correct governments and individuals are ready to admit. Is ISIS, the Islamic State, trying to penetrate the U.S. with the refugee influx? Are Muslims radicalized on U.S. soil? Are organizations such as CAIR, who purport to represent American Muslims accepting and liberal or radicalized with links to terror organizations?

The full document supporting the NUMBERS is found here.

• The main source of the numbers we used was the poll conducted by the Pew

Research center titled The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society. It is the

single largest and most reliable survey on Muslim attitudes around the world.

• The Pew Research Center did not survey the whole of the Muslim world. Muslims in

countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran, India and China were not surveyed.

According to their own numbers, Pew numerically surveyed only 67 percent of the

Muslim world. 1 Therefore, when we were computing averages and the like, we did

not use the number for the total Muslim population of the world (1.6 billion), but

rather the total population of the countries surveyed.

Confirmed Cases of Zika Virus in America

Posted on January 28, 2016January 28, 2016 by Denise Simon

InquisitR: Zika virus has been confirmed in Hawaii by United States health officials on January 16, 2016. The first case of the mosquito-borne virus in a birth on U.S. soil came with a newborn baby suffering from brain damage at a hospital in Oahu.

According to Reuters, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner cautioned against assuming that the Zika virus was circulating around Hawaii. He stressed, however, that the imported disease could make the jump to local transmission.

“But I think it’s important for us to understand that there are going to be imported cases of Zika to the United States and we won’t be surprised if we start to see some local transmission of the virus.”

The Zika virus, which is spread by mosquitoes, has been found in nearly two dozen Latin American countries. The virus is suspected of causing birth defects. Health officials are concerned it could spread to the US and Canada.

CNN: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged pregnant women to postpone travel to Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Saint Martin, Suriname, Samoa, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. The CDC also recommended that women who have recently traveled to these places during their pregnancy be screened and monitored for the virus.

That’s because the virus has been linked to an uptick in babies born with a neurological condition called microcephaly, which can cause abnormally small heads and serious, sometimes deadly, developmental delays.

The WHO attributed the virus’ rapid spread to the fact that people in the Americas lack immunity because they haven’t been exposed to it before.

***

USAToday: A Minnesota woman has tested positive for the Zika virus after traveling to Central America, state health officials announced Wednesday.

About a dozen Americans in a handful of states have been diagnosed with Zika after visiting outbreak zones, but there is no evidence the virus, which is linked to an outbreak of birth defects in Brazil, is spreading in the USA. The virus doesn’t spread from person to person, like the flu. It’s spread by mosquitoes, like malaria and West Nile Virus.

The mosquito species that is known to spread Zika, the Aedes, doesn’t live in Minnesota, making it unlikely the disease will spread in that state.

The new case was diagnosed in a woman in her 60s from Anoka County, Minn., according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Her symptoms began Jan. 1, after she returned from Honduras. She was not hospitalized and is expected to make a full recovery, health officials said.

About 80% of people infected with Zika virus have no symptoms at all, according to the World Health Organization. Those who do become ill tend to have mild symptoms, including a low fever, rash, joint pain, headache and pink eye.

Another Blackberry Lost, Cheryl Mills Worried

Posted on January 27, 2016January 27, 2016 by Denise Simon

Clinton Chief Of Staff Lost Her Personal Blackberry, Which Contained Classified Emails

Ross/DailyCaller: While working as Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, Cheryl Mills lost her personal Blackberry, on which she sent emails that the State Department has determined contain classified information. Records obtained by The Daily Caller through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show Mills revealed that she lost her Blackberry in a March 20, 2010 email she sent to Bryan Pagliano, the State Department IT staffer who managed Clinton’s private email server.

“Somewhere b/w my house and the plane to nyc yesterday my personal bb got misplaced; no on [sic] is answering it thought [sic] I have called,” Mills wrote from her personal email account to the address Pagliano used when he worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Other State Department records indicate that Mills’ personal Blackberry appears to have been synced with her Gmail account. Many of the emails she sent from the personal account include footers which show they were sent from a Blackberry powered by AT&T.

Some of the emails Mills sent and received on the account contain information that the State Department has retroactively determined to have classified information.

In one such email, from Dec. 24, 2009, Clinton forwarded Mills a message she had received from Johnnie Carson, then the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, who provided details from a conversation he had with French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner about a situation in Guinea.

“Pls review so we can discuss,” Clinton wrote to Mills and Jake Sullivan, her foreign policy aide.

In a Jan. 14, 2014 email, Rajiv Shah, who was in charge of U.S. Agency for International Development, emailed Clinton and Mills about Haiti. The email is heavily redacted because it contains now-classified information. The State Department has retroactively classified more than 1,300 emails housed on Clinton’s private server, though Clinton and the State Department maintain that the information was not considered classified when it was originated.

It is unclear if Mills recovered her Blackberry after first losing it. Her attorney did not return a request for comment. It is also unclear what other sensitive, government-related information Mills sent on her Blackberry and personal email account to other federal officials.

Blackberry usage by Clinton and her inner circle has been a growing area of focus in the ongoing scandal involving the Democratic presidential candidate’s use of a personal email account and a private server.

The Daily Caller reported earlier this month that in Aug. 2011, a top State Department official offered to provide Clinton with a government-issued Blackberry equipped with a state.gov email account after her personal Blackberry went on the blink. But Clinton aide Huma Abedin rejected the offer, claiming that the idea “doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

And on Monday, Fox News reported a video from 2013 in which Wendy Sherman, who served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under Clinton, admitted that Clinton and other State Department officials frequently used their Blackberries to send information that “would never be on an unclassified system.”

Clinton used only a personal Blackberry throughout her tenure at the State Department. Mills and Abedin used both personal and government-issued Blackberries.

There is some evidence that the State Department was concerned with the use of personal Blackberries separate and apart from the risk posed by losing them.

“I cannot stress too strongly… that any unclassified BlackBerry is highly vulnerable in any setting to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations, retrieving emails, and exploring calendars,” wrote Eric Boswell, then the head of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, in a March 2009 memo.

Boswell also warned that the bureau had intelligence concerning “vulnerability” to Clinton’s Blackberry during her Feb. 9, 2009 trip to China. He also issued a warning about using Blackberries on “Mahogany Row,” the floor that houses the offices of top State Department officials at headquarters in Foggy Bottom.

In Feb. 2014, well before the Clinton email scandal broke, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki spoke to the issue using personal digital assistants (PDA) — such as Blackberries — that were not government issued.

“Classified processing and classified conversation on a personal digital assisted device is prohibited,” she told reporters.

Cheryl Mills Loses Personal Blackberry

Militia, Burns, Oregon: Several Arrested, One Dead

Posted on January 27, 2016January 27, 2016 by Denise Simon

Embedded image permalink

LaVoy Finicum Dead: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Heavy: Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum was killed on the night of January 26 as the militia standoff near Burns, Oregon, appeared to come to an end. Famously, Finicum, 55, had told the media on January 6 that he would choose death over surrender in the case. His death was confirmed by Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore. She wrote on Twitter:

My heart & prays go out to LaVoy Finicum’s family he was just murdered with his hands up in Burns OR.Ryan Bundy has been shot in the arm

— Michele Fiore (@VoteFiore) January 27, 2016

Finicum was killed during a traffic stop, reports CNN. He died one day before his 56th birthday.

Oregon Public Radio reports that Finicum and some of his comrades were pulled over between the towns of Burns and John Day at around 4:30 p.m. local time.

Since January 2, activists have been occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Those armed protesters, led in-part by Ammon Bundy, were protesting the sentence of Dwight and Steve Hammond. They were found guilty of committing arson on federal land.

Here’s what you need to know:

1. Cliven Bundy Said Finicum Was Sacrificed ‘For a Good Purpose’

His full name was Robert LaVoy Finicum. He was a neighbor of Cliven Bundy’s ranch, where the infamous 2014 ranch standoff occurred. They were neighbors despite Finicum living in Arizona and Bundy living in Nevada. On January 5, 2016, Finicum told NBC News that he may want to go home to Arizona soon saying, “I need to get home. I got cows that are scattered and lost.”

When he heard about the arrests and death, Cliven Bundy told Los Angeles Times reporter Matt Pearce, “Isn’t this a wonderful country we live in?” He added, “We believe those federal people shouldn’t even be there in that state, and be in that county and have anything to do with This issue. … I have some sons and other people there trying to protect our rights and liberties and freedoms, and now we’ve got one killed, and I can say is, he’s sacrificed for a good purpose.”

(Getty)

Bundy later confirmed Finicum’s death to CBS Las Vegas reporter Patranya Bhoolsuwan. In a statement on his Facebook page, Bundy wrote:

The resolve for principled liberty must go on. It appears that America was fired upon by our government. One of liberty’s finest patriots is fallen. He will not go silent into eternity. Our appeal is to heaven.

2. During the Standoff in Oregon, He Had Become Known as ‘Tarp Man’

During his involvement in the Malheur standoff, the 11 foster children that were in the care of Finicum have been taken away. Finicum complained that those children were he and his wife’s major source of labor and money on their ranch, reported Time Magazine. An MSNBC report on the standoff dubbed Finicum “Tarp Man” as he could be seen covered in a blue tarp with a rocking chair during the incident.

When asked by NBC News why he chose to sit out in such a visible position, he said that he wanted officers to be able to find him. Finicum said, “I do not want the FBI federal agents to have to go running around in the dark, kicking in doors looking for me, OK? I want them to know exactly where I’m at.” He added, chillingly, “I’m telling them right now — don’t point guns at me.”

3. He Posted a Video of His Family Singing ‘Amazing Grace’ Just Hours Before His Death

On his Twitter page, Finicum goes by the moniker “@OneCowboysStand.” His bio on the page reads, “Rancher, Loves Freedom and willing to fight and die defending it.” His last post on the site was a video of a group of children singing “Amazing Grace.” His Twitter pseudonym is taken from his book title, One Cowboy’s Last Stand for Freedom. In an interview with NBC News, Finicum said that he would rather be killed than arrested saying, “I have no intention of spending any of my days in a concrete box. There are things more important than your life and freedom is one of them. I’m prepared to defend freedom.”

According to Mormon tradition, cremation is not encourage and a proper funeral burial is preferred.

4. He Was a Man Who Loved ‘Nothing More in Life Than God, Family & Freedom’

(Getty)

On his official website, Finicum wrote:

As he has watched the ever increasing encroachment of government into the lives of the American people he has felt to make a stand for freedom. He has drawn a line in the sand and that line is the Constitution in its original intent.

The Constitution of the United States of America is a charter to protect the freedom of man by putting strict limits on government. We are living in a day when that supreme law of the land has been shredded by the very government that took an oath to uphold it. By their actions the Federal Government has become lawless and stalks the liberties of this land under the guise of social justice.

Shown below are LaVoy and Jeanette’s 11 children. This is why freedom is so important!

He also describes himself as a rancher who “loves nothing more in life than God, family, and freedom.”

Meanwhile on his wife, Jeanette’s LinkedIn page, she lists foster care provider as her full time job.

One of the couple’s daughters, Arianna Finicum Brown, 26, told the Oregonian that she wasn’t worried for her father’s safety during the standoff. She said, “I talked to him, and he said they were telling people to go if they weren’t there for the right reasons, they didn’t want anyone there who could make everything go bad. He had no plans to be violent. My dad was a really good guy.”

5. Ammon Bundy Has Been Arrested in Oregon

Ammon Bundy pictured on his Facebook page.

KATU reports that Ammon Bundy and other members of the militia, including Ryan Payne, were arrested by the FBI and Oregon State Police on the night of January 26 during the traffic stop where Finicum was killed.

It’s unclear who shot first but one person was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Michele Fiore said that person was Ryan Bundy, another son of Cliven, who was shot in the arm.

ISIS has a New Industry, Stolen Passports

Posted on January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 by Denise Simon

ISIS Has Whole Fake Passport ‘Industry,’ Official Says

ABC: The terror group ISIS has created a whole “industry” out of the production of fake passports, a high-level French official said today.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters that through ISIS’s operations in Syria, Iraq and Libya, the group has acquired blank passports and has now set up a “real fake document industry.” Cazeneuve made the statement following a meeting with top European officials where he proposed setting up a new task force to help nab people attempting to come into the European Union with fake papers.

Last month ABC News reported that U.S. intelligence suspected ISIS had acquired thousands of blank Syrian passports and at least one passport printing machine after taking over government offices in Syria. Officials from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said in a 17-page report that the terror group has likely been able to print legitimate-looking Syrian passports since at least last summer – and raised the possibility that people using the forged documents have snuck into America.

“Since more than 17 months [have] passed since Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour fell to ISIS, it is possible that individuals from Syria with passports ‘issued’ in these ISIS-controlled cities or who had passport blanks, may have traveled to the U.S.,” the HSI report says.

The report notes that the primary source for the information was rated at “moderate confidence,” the second-highest rating given for source assessments. Testifying before lawmakers days after the HSI report was circulated to American authorities, FBI Director James Comey first publicly revealed the nation’s top security officials’ very real anxiety over the problem.

“The intelligence community is concerned that they [ISIS] have the ability, the capability to manufacture fraudulent passports, which is a concern in any setting,” Comey said.

Homeland Security Investigations Intelligence Report
A passport that law enforcement says was issued from ISIS-controlled territory in 2015, obtained in Istanbul.

Former Department of Homeland Security intelligence official and ABC News consultant John Cohen said in December, “If ISIS has been able to acquire legitimate passports or machines that create legitimate passports, this would represent a major security risk in the United States.”

Fake Syrian passports have already been discovered in Europe, most notably two used by suicide bombers in the horrific terrorist attack on Paris in November. The two men are believed to have slipped into Europe with a flood of Syrian refugees fleeing the violence in their homeland.

According to the source that provided the passport information to HSI, Syria is awash in fake documents.

“The source further stated that fake Syrian passports are so prevalent in Syria that Syrians do not even view possessing them as illegal,” the report says. “The source stated fake Syrian passports can be obtained in Syria for $200 to $400 and that backdated passport stamps to be placed in the passport cost the same.”

***

Meanwhile it is quite effective in Europe

ISIS ALREADY ESTABLISHED IN EU STATES, EUROPOL WARNS

Newsweek: Europe faces a greater militant threat from within its borders than from foreign fighters posing as refugees, the EU’s law enforcement agency has said.

“There is no concrete evidence that terrorist travelers systematically use the flow of refugees to enter Europe unnoticed,” according to research published on Monday by Europol, which also warned that domestic cells belonging to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS or IS) were operating within EU states and that the group has training camps within Europe in addition to its facilities in Syria.

The research says that “IS is preparing more terrorist attacks, including more ‘Mumbai-style’ attacks, to be executed in member states of the EU,” and adds that the group has developed an “external actions command” trained for “special forces-style” attacks worldwide. Speaking to reporters at the launch of the agency’s new European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC), Europol director Rob Wainwright said “the so-called Islamic State had developed a new combat-style capability to carry out a campaign of large-scale terrorist attacks on a global stage, with a particular focus in Europe,” AFP reports.

Europol also says that “IS-incited attacks do not necessarily have to be coordinated from Syria. Central command in Syria is believed to map out a general strategy, but leaves tactical freedom to local leaders to adapt their actions to circumstances on the spot.”

But it warns that the refugee crisis does bring new threats: “A real and imminent danger…is the possibility of elements of the (Sunni Muslim) Syrian refugee diaspora becoming vulnerable to radicalization once in Europe.”

The ECTC is designed to act as an information hub, helping EU states to share information on counter-terrorism and coordinate joint operations.

“The wide range of possible targets in combination with an opportunistic approach of locally based groups creates a huge variety of possible scenarios for future terrorist events,” Europol says. “A regular exchange of strategic intelligence is essential to any up-to-date assessment of the situation to be shared amongst Member States.”