RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS

Tomorrow, September 24th, from 2 to 4pm EST on RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS on CPR Worldwide Media, Craig and Diane welcome JILL TAHMOORISSI, the mother of ANDREW TAHMOORISSI, our Marine still languishing in a Mexican jail for simply making a wrong turn. Also on our show will be whistle blower CHRISTINE LAKATOS, of THE GREEN CORRUPTION FILES, who has been following the money trail for 6 years now, and what she has uncovered leads directly back to the Obama White House.

This is one jam-packed show you do NOT want to miss!

Hope you can tune in: http://cprworldwidemedia.com/live-radio/
and chat with us live at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cprworldwidemedia/

US Census Data: Uninsured Rate…Increased in 2014?

Guy Benson / Townhall Tipsheet

Wait, what? We've expressed a healthy skepticism of the administration's "official" enrollment numbers, and for good reason -- but even I must admit to being a bit flummoxed by the United States Census Bureau's new findings that America's uninsured population increased in 2014 over 2013.  That data, via Phil Kerpen:

A separate government metric indicated that the uninsured population has decreased by 3.8 million overall, which falls far short of the administration's alleged numbers, but is at least an uptick.  Writing at Forbes, policy analyst Joseph Antos delves into the numbers:

This week’s double-barreled release of government statistics on health insurance coverage leaves us with only one question: How many Americans are insured because of Obamacare? Remarkably, the two highly regarded government surveys released this week do not even agree whether the number of uninsured increased or decreased. The survey that received a great deal of attention said there were 3.8 million fewer uninsured. The other, which was hardly noticed, found that there were 1.3 million more uninsured…The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported preliminary results on the expansion of health insurance coverage. Its National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) interviewed 27,000 people in the first three months of this year. The survey estimates that the number of uninsured dropped by 3.8 million since 2013. That represents a 1.3 percentage point decline in the uninsured rate, from 14.4 percent last year to 13.1 percent early this year. Estimates from an even larger survey of the uninsured from the nation’s premier statistical agency, the Census Bureau, were released a few hours later. The Census Bureau has been collecting information on health insurance for decades based on the Current Population Survey (CPS).

Mr. President, CO2 is not Pollution, it’s the Elixir of Life

Craig Idso  / Townhall Columnist

President Obama will attend a United Nations climate summit in New York this week where he will try to gather support for an international agreement to curb emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂),which he labels as carbon pollution. This could not be further from the truth. Talk with most any biologist or botanist and you will find an opposite perspective, one in which CO₂ is the elixir of life.

 

We all learned in primary school that atmospheric CO₂ is the building block of plant life, the primary raw material that they utilize during the process of photosynthesis. As demonstrated in literally thousands of laboratory and field studies, the more of that food there is, the better they grow.

In general, rising atmospheric CO₂ endows plants with three major benefits, the most recognized of which is enhanced plant productivity. Typically, a 300 parts per million (ppm) increase in the air’s CO₂ content (such an increase over pre-industrial values is expected to occur by the end of this century) will raise the productivity of most herbaceous plants by about one-third and most woody plants by about one-half. This is manifested by more branches, leaves, roots, flowers and fruit.

A second major benefit is increased water use efficiency. Plants exposed to elevated levels of CO₂ need less water to produce the same, or an even greater mass, than they do at lower concentrations.

Finally, higher levels of CO₂ reduce detrimental growth effects of certain environmental stresses and resource limitations, including high and low air temperature, ozone pollution, low levels of soil fertility, and pest attacks.

These three features of rising atmospheric CO₂ greatly benefit the biosphere and show that the world’s vegetation will reap a tremendous advantage in the years and decades to come. And based on a multitude of observations, the future is now! Data unequivocally show that the biosphere is experiencing a great surge in growth, likely due in large measure to the approximate 40 percent increase in atmospheric CO₂ that has occurred since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Why Beheading?

Jeff Jacoby / Townhall Columnist

ISLAMIC STATE has made the beheading of victims a key element in its campaign of terror and conquest. Most conspicuous in recent weeks have been the murders of Westerners James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haines, whose severed heads and decapitated bodies have been shown in threatening videos produced by the jihadists. In the years since 9/11, other Islamist terrorist groups have circulated equally ghastly beheading videos. Among the earlier victims were journalist Daniel Pearl, businessman Nicholas Berg, and construction contractors Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong — all Americans beheaded by Al Qaeda.

Last week, meanwhile, Australian police arrested 15 suspects allegedly linked to Islamic State; they are accused of plotting to publicly behead a victim abducted at random.

Why this obsession with cutting off people's heads?

Clearly the terrorists relish the horror beheading evokes in America and other Western democracies, as well as the fear it inspires among Kurds, Shiites, or other local forces standing in the path of their juggernaut. Psychological warfare is an essential element in Islamic State's military strategy, writes Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. Even when heavily outnumbered, Islamic State has been able to leverage its reputation for implacable brutality "to dissuade Iraqi forces from ever seeking battle." And by killing American and British hostages with such sadistic relish, it aims to intensify the desire of many in the West to wash their hands of involvement in Iraq once and for all.

But there are other ways to terrorize, other gruesome means of mass murder — suicide bombings, poison gas, hijackings. Why the emphasis on beheading?

No doubt part of the explanation is that beheadings tend to draw more attention than suicide bombings and exploding cars. Deadly though they are, car bombs and shootings have lost much of their shock value in Western eyes. It takes an unusually high death toll for a bombing in Iraq to attract as much media attention as the decapitation of a single hostage by an English-speaking Islamist wielding a knife. Terrorists crave attention, more now in the digital age, perhaps, than ever before.

Islamic State and other jihadist groups have many ways to commit mass murder. But for generating a spectacle that will be noticed — and shuddered at — the world over, sawing off the head of an American journalist or a European relief worker, then uploading the video to the Internet, is hard to beat.

Yet beheadings, too, can lose their shock value. It wasn't all that long ago that decapitation was a familiar punishment in Western culture. As late as 1977, the guillotine was still being used for executions in France. In the colonial era, severed heads of criminals were sometimes displayed on Boston Common. Plus, modern video games and ultrarealistic computer graphics make it easier than ever to grow inured to almost any image or scene, no matter how grisly or intense or intimate.

But the beheadings aren't just a fashion.

US reportedly providing indirect military aid to Hizballah

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

 

“Afif blamed Americans for causing ISIS by supporting Syrian rebels, saying ‘this beast which you raised up, as in past cases, you find it’s dangerous for you.'” Indeed, and the same thing can be said for Hizballah, if this report is true. The U.S. should not be aiding any avowed enemies of the United States. There are Kurdish groups that we could aid with a clear conscience. Other than that, we should stay out of this thing and try to contain it as much as possible. But that would require a realistic assessment of what this threat involves, and that is not forthcoming.

“US Reportedly Providing Indirect Military Aid to Hezbollah,” by Ari Yashar, Arutz Sheva, September 22, 2014:

Mohammed Afif, the new head of public relations for the Lebanese-based Iranian-backed terror organization Hezbollah, gave a rare New York Times interview as Lebanese experts reveal his group is indirectly receiving American intelligence aid in its fight against Islamic State (ISIS).

Following ISIS’s temporary conquest of Arsal last month on the Lebanese side of the Syrian border, the US sent new weapons to the Lebanese army, which coordinates with Hezbollah. Likewise, US intelligence has found its way to Hezbollah according to Lebanese experts.

That leaked intelligence may explain some recent impressive achievements against ISIS, including the first known Hezbollah drone strike.

It is worth noting by contrast to the blasé indirect provision of intelligence and weapons to a terror group in Lebanon, during Operation Protective Edge US President Barack Obama blocked a routine Hellfire missile shipment to Israel and ordered strict supervision on future transfers.

Afif told the American newspaper “we need to open up a new page with the world media, with the Arabs and internationally,” hinting at the international legitimacy he hopes to achieve for the terror group under his role as media adviser to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Nasrallah recently expressed his fears of the ISIS “monster,” calling the fight with the group “a battle of life and death no less important than fighting the Israeli enemy, as (ISIS) actions and objectives only serve Israel.” Indeed Hezbollah has called to wipe out Israel numerous times, and fought terror wars against the Jewish state.

Ali Rizk, a Lebanese analyst at the pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen news channel, told the New York Times that while the US cannot publicly ally with the terrorist organization Hezbollah, “what happens underneath is something totally different.”

Justifying the aid, Rizk said “Hezbollah is not representing an imminent threat against the world. It represents a threat against Israel, as Israel represents a threat against Lebanon. But Hezbollah is not going to threaten the US and Europe. Nobody said Hezbollah is cutting off heads.”

Hizballah is responsible for the massacre of over 200 American soldiers at a military barracks in Lebanon. And Israel presents no threat to Lebanon, if Lebanon leaves it in peace.

While Hezbollah may be benefiting indirectly from the US, it remains antagonistic to America over Syria, where it has joined Iran in supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad against the very rebels the US is arming. However, the ISIS threat has indeed raised talk that the US may even join forces with Hezbollah’s sponsor Iran.

Afif blamed Americans for causing ISIS by supporting Syrian rebels, saying “this beast which you raised up, as in past cases, you find it’s dangerous for you.”

Hamas Jihadists Who Murdered Three Jewish Schoolboys Have Been Eliminated

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

The savages have been dealt with killed during capture attempt. No prisoner exchanges for these slaughterers.

BREAKING: Killers of Naftali, Eyal and Gilad Eliminated
By Jewish Press News Briefs, September 23rd, 2014

It has been released for publication that the two terrorists, Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Aisha have been killed in a joint Shabak and IDF operation overnight in Hebron.

The two were the terrorists who had had kidnapped and murdered Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frankel, and Eyal Yifrach.

     

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US, Partners Start Airstrikes in Syria

NEWSMAX

The U.S. and five Arab countries launched airstrikes Monday night on Islamic State group targets in Syria, expanding a military campaign into a country whose three-year civil war has given the brutal militant group a safe haven. 

  

Using a mix of manned aircraft — fighter jets and bombers — plus Tomahawk cruise missiles, the strikes were part of the expanded military campaign that President Barack Obama authorized nearly two weeks ago in order to disrupt and destroy the Islamic State militants, who have slaughtered thousands of people, beheaded Westerners — including two American journalists — and captured large swaths of Syria and northern and western Iraq.

U.S. officials said the airstrikes began around 8:30 p.m. EDT, and were conducted by the U.S., Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. The first wave of strikes finished about 90 minutes later, but the operation was expected to continue for several more hours, according to one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly by name about an ongoing mission.

Because the military operation was ongoing, no details could be provided yet, said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon's press secretary. He said the military made the decision to strike early Monday.

A White House official said Obama was being updated.
 
The strikes were carried out by manned Air Force and Navy aircraft, and the Tomahawk missiles were launched from U.S. ships in the northern Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. The aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush is in the Gulf.

Some of the airstrikes were against Islamic State group headquarters in Raqqa in eastern Syria.

Military officials have said the U.S. would target militants' command and control centers, re-supply facilities, training camps and other key logistical sites.

"We will be prepared to strike ISIL targets in Syria that degrade ISIL's capabilities," Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators last week, using one of the acronyms for the Islamic State group. "This won't look like a shock-and-awe campaign, because that's simply not how ISIL is organized, but it will be a persistent and sustainable campaign.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that the plan "includes targeted actions against ISIL safe havens in Syria, including its command and control logistics capabilities and infrastructure." He said he and Dempsey approved the plan.

The U.S. has also been increasing its surveillance flights over Syria, getting better intelligence on potential targets and militant movements. None of Monday's airstrikes were from drones.

Military leaders have said about two-thirds of the estimated 31,000 Islamic State militants were in Syria.

Some officials have expressed concern that going after Islamic State militants in Syria could inadvertently help Syrian President Bashar Assad, since the militants are fighting in part to overthrow Assad.

In a speech Sept. 10, Obama vowed to go after the Islamic State militants wherever they may be. And his military and defense leaders told Congress last week that airstrikes within Syria are meant to disrupt the group's momentum and provide time for the U.S. and allies to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels.

The U.S. military has been launching targeted airstrikes in Iraq since August, focusing specifically on attacks to protect U.S. interests and personnel, assist Iraqi refugees and secure critical infrastructure.

Last week, as part of the newly expanded campaign, the U.S. began going after militant targets across Iraq, including enemy fighters, outposts, equipment and weapons.

To date U.S. fighter aircraft, bombers and drones have launched about 190 airstrikes within Iraq.

Urged on by the White House and U.S. defense and military officials, Congress passed legislation late last week authorizing the military to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels. Obama signed the bill into law Friday, providing $500 million for the U.S. to train about 5,000 rebels over the next year.

U.S. leaders have also been crisscrossing the globe trying to build a broad international coalition of nations, including Arab countries, to go after the Islamic State group and help train and equip the Iraqi security forces and the Syrian rebels.

The militant group, meanwhile, has threatened retribution. Its spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, said in a 42-minute audio statement released Sunday that the fighters were ready to battle the U.S.-led military coalition and called for attacks at home and abroad.