US Navy scolds: Iran didn’t act “professionally and responsibly” after Iranians release video showing captured sailor crying
By Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

“Professional mariners understand that it is a duty and obligation to assist other mariners who suffer mechanical problems or who find themselves off track at sea,” Stephens said, according to Navy Times. “We are grateful diplomacy worked at the end of the day, but it would never have come to that had the Iranian maritime […]
 
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Obama Admin Rejects New Trade Bill Because It Is Too Pro-Israel

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Obama’s Islamic upbringing permeates everything he does.

“White House Rejects New Trade Bill Because It Is Too Pro-Israel,” By  Adam Kredo, February 11, 2016 7:00 pm

“Obama admin continues to fight against anti-BDS measures,”

The White House has announced its opposition to a new bipartisan trade bill because of a portion of the legislation that would strengthen the U.S.-Israel economic relationship, according to a statement issued late Thursday.

The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, which the White House says it mostly supports, overwhelmingly passed on a bipartisan vote.

“The president intends to sign H.R.644 into law to help strengthen enforcement of the rules and level the playing...

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Investigative Report:
Email Scandals and Cover-Ups...Part 2 of 2
By: Diane Sori and Craig Andresen / Right Side Patriots on http://www.americanpbn.com/

In Part 1 of our two part investigative report (see Part 1 here: http://thepatriotfactor.blogspot.com/2016/02/investigative-report-email-scandals-and.html), we, the Right Side Patriots, laid the groundwork for the further melding together of what were two independent investigations...one an investigation into Hillary’s emails and the other into Benghazi.

In Part 1, we focused on one key email, one out of many sent between Hillary Clinton and a former Ambassador to Israel, one which outlined a proposal to engage in covert activity to force “protests” within Gaza that would lead to escalating violence and even more Israeli deaths in order to blackmail, for lack of a better word, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into ceding even more land and security to Hamas.

We also reported that while the attacks in Benghazi were ongoing, Obama held a long phone conversation with Netanyahu (confirmed by the White House and others), and our belief is that at least a portion of that call revolved around Obama's attempt to try and pass off Ambassador Stevens as a scapegoat, making Steven's the 'bad guy' who masterminded the gun running operation between Libyan 'so-called' rebels and Syrian 'so-called' rebels, a ploy Netanyahu of course did not buy into. And why...because of knowledge already passed on to him by his own intel community...as in Mossad operatives already embedded in Benghazi.

But now is the time to name names and put the pieces of the puzzle together.

That email, the one authored on December 18, 2011...the one urging Hillary to engage in what mounted to covert actions as a way of starting “protests” in the West Bank... “protests” that could well lead to escalating violence as a way to blackmail Netanyahu and support Hamas was written by none other than former U.S. Ambassador to Israel...Thomas R. Pickering.

If that name sounds familiar...it should. Ambassador Pickering also headed up the Accountability Review Board investigation into Benghazi. And who choose Pickering for that job...none other than Hillary Clinton herself.

Imagine that...Pickering...who just 10-months prior to Benghazi had written an email to Hillary urging her to go covert and help initiate “protests” that could well turn violent...was then hired by Hillary to investigate Benghazi. Benghazi...the violent islamic terrorist attack against our Mission and its adjoining CIA annex that left four Americans dead just happened to occur in tandem with other protests breaking out all across the region...all of which were blamed on a YouTube video.

And lo and behold what did both Hillary and Obama blame for Benghazi...exactly...that very same YouTube video.

So, did Pickering look into Hillary’s emails to see what evidence might be there during his investigation? No...he already knew what he would find there and certainly did not want to shed the light of an investigation onto it. Did Pickering implicate Hillary in any covert activities such as having discussions regarding starting islamic protests that might turn violent? No. Did Pickering implicate Hillary in any way, shape, or form, in his investigation’s findings? Again, no, he did not.

We can now start to understand why Trey Gowdy, the man responsible for getting the ball rolling on the investigation of Hillary’s emails, made such a big deal of her emails in his investigation into Benghazi. And we suspect that this December 18th email from Pickering, with the results just 10-months later being Benghazi, may well have been discussed along with the YouTube video cover-up as part of the pack of 18-emails between Hillary and Obama that the public has no access to.

To be clear, we are speculating but it is educated speculation. We do not know what is contained in those emails because they contain, we are told, SAP or above 'top secret information' and the intel community will not even release the dates of those 18-emails due to what they and only they say is national security concerns.

However, there are some things we do know. We do know that Pickering sent the email we have drawn attention to on December 18, 2011...we do know what happened on September 11, 2012, in Benghazi...we do know that Obama disappeared from the Situation Room twice that night...we do know he had a long phone conversation with Netanyahu while the attacks in Benghazi were ongoing. Also, we do know that at one point Hillary spoke with Obama by phone and that Obama went to bed at 10:30pm for the night while the attacks were still ongoing, and that around that same time Hillary made her first announcement that it was all due to a YouTube video. And we also know that she and Obama both knew, even as that first announcement was made, that it was a lie and a cover story for what was really transpiring.

So, what else do we know now that would help put the pieces of this treasonous puzzle together?

We do know that there are now 150 FBI agents committed to the investigation of Hillary’s private email account and private server, and we do know that one of them is none other than, Charles H. Kable IV, a senior FBI agent responsible for counterintelligence matters. As though it wasn’t interesting enough that one of the FBI’s most seasoned counterintelligence agents is in on this investigation, it becomes even more interesting when one realizes that Charles H. Kable IV used to be the chief of the counterespionage section at FBI headquarters.

To fully understand the dire nature of having someone with the resume of Charles H. Kable IV involved in the investigation of Hillary Clinton, one must understand the nature of counterintelligence as it applies to the FBI in any investigation. The definition of counterintelligence is as follows: “Counterintelligence refers to information gathered and activities conducted to protect against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, or assassinations conducted for or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations or persons or international terrorist activities, but not including personnel, physical, document or communications security programs.”

Now if one looks at the individual pieces of the puzzle when they are locked in place together, it produces what we believe to be a clear picture of treason.

What Pickering wrote in that December 18, 2011 email, what he was suggesting to Hillary, was indeed espionage and it was on behalf of an international terrorist organization...Hamas...to be carried out against one of America's greatest allies...Israel.

Remember, Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, in fact the Muslim Brotherhood actually gave birth to Hamas, the very terrorist organization Obama tried to install as the new leadership in Egypt, and that both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are proxies of Iran. And let’s not forget just to whom Hillary’s closest minion Huma Abedin is tied to...the Muslim Brotherhood...or exactly who Obama’s closest minion Valerie Jarret is tied to...Iran.

The protests carried out supposedly as a response to that YouTube cover-up story closely mirror exactly what Pickering was proposing in his email to Hillary and were, we believe, meant to lend some credence to what then transpired in Benghazi.

As for Benghazi itself...the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, along with Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods, were not simply the tragic outcome of a terrorist attack when one looks at the surrounding evidence. Hillary 'drew down' our security forces and replaced them with the February 17 Brigade...an arm of al-Qaeda and our enemy in a time of war (and still our enemy today) and that Hillary along with Obama were engaged in a gun running covert operation between 'supposed' rebels from Libya to 'supposed' rebels in Syria, and we now know that those 'supposed' rebels from both ends of the transactions were indeed al-Qaeda.

When that light is brought into focus the deaths of those four Americans goes from being tragic deaths due to islamic terrorism to a targeted hit...an assassination...as per the definition of counterintelligence.

Now, if we look at the definition of counterintelligence again, this time focusing strictly on the last portion of it...“but not including personnel, physical, document or communications security programs,” what can be surmised? While the FBI is now by their own admission investigating Hillary’s emails and the scandal surrounding them, as in her private server and her private email account, most likely with regard to violations of U.S. Code 18, Sec. 793...felonies punishable by fines and up to 10 years in prison...one agent...Charles H. Kable IV...is apparently heading up something quite different...which falls under the description of “not including personnel, physical, document or communications security programs,” or in other words...not her emails but her actions.

Hillary Clinton's actions we believe are paramount to treason as in 'aiding and abetting' the enemy as far as the Benghazi gun running is concerned in addition to being an accessory to murder as she willingly and knowing refused Christopher Stevens' pleas for help, and in fact positioned not U.S. personnel to guard the compound but she positioned the enemy...February 17 Brigade (an al-Qaeda offshoot) to do so in an effort to assure that when the protests broke out that Steven's would not escape and expose her part in the gun running operation. And how do we surmise this...because first, Hillary knew would be happening as, we believe, she was one of those who were disseminating that ridiculous video and second, because until her announcement about the video only a few hundred people worldwide had even bothered to see it... remember it only got major viewers after her announcement and that in and of itself means the protests has not a thing to do with this ridiculous video.

And as for her plotting against Israel, what Hillary was doing via her emails with now, we believe to be fellow traitor, former Israeli Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, amounts to espionage as both were working with various terrorist organizations...Hamas and al-Qaeda included...against the better interests of the U.S. and our allies.

Also, now coming to light is the fact that at least a dozen accounts...possibly as many as 30...were involved in seeing and passing along SAP emails that they had no clearance to pass on let alone even read...a dozen+ accounts including not only Clinton’s but those of Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan, Philippe Reinesas and State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy.

And this shows how fast and loose Hillary was with our national security intelligence...especially intelligence passed along on unsecured servers. And unsecured servers means China, Russia, and anyone else can obtain those SAP...emails above 'top secret.'

And that's the thing about Hillary and even Obama, the very two who say they are the most transparent of all those in D.C...guess what they lie. And not only do they lie about what they are doing currently but they lie about what they did in the past no matter that proof exists as to their lies. And if they are not lying personally their minions are doing their lying for them...doing their lying and their 'dirty work' so to speak. And part of that dirty work is trying to stop the truth about their actions from reaching the public...and especially trying to stop people like Craig and Diane from doing just that.

And as we said from the very beginning, putting the pieces of this puzzle together would require a bit of speculation, educated speculation, and we believe we are spot on in our conclusions as during our research for 2-part of our investigative report, odd things were happening. As Diane attempted to send via email some info to Craig, his email service simply would not respond. At the same time Diane was unable to save anything on her computer and at that moment she received a phone call supposedly from Dell asking who, at her home, had reported internet issues. Diane told the woman (who sounded as though she were from India) several times that no one had reported any such issues to which the ‘tech” then stated that Diane was attempting to download things she was not supposed to be able to download.

And as Diane told her, one more time, that there were no issues, the woman at the other end of the call abruptly hung up. With that...Diane’s ability to save information suddenly returned and Craig’s email blockage cleared...all at the exact same time. And as Diane continued to do research for these articles she continued to receive several rather obtuse calls regarding computer issues whenever she tried to download information. However, when both Craig and Diane attempted to return those calls to the caller ID numbers shown, none of those numbers were in operation.

Obviously, we were being closely monitored while in the process of writing these articles... monitored to see from whom and where our information was coming from...just like we have been on off and on ever since our Benghazi series was first published.

It seems to us, that the proper time to have been closely monitoring possible mishandling of national security related classified, top secret, and SAP material, would have been throughout the reign of treason and espionage otherwise known as Hillary’s time at the Department of State, and the people to have been monitored would have been Hillary and her staff of minions and not us. Hillary’s world is closing in on her as more and more of the truth comes out. We also believe, at this point, that indictments are forthcoming not only because of what we have seen and know up to this point but because more and more is coming to the surface almost daily... things which even Hillary Clinton will not be able to lie her way out of.

They fall down, go boom! Obama economy killing businesses

Reports document thousands of stores closed, including entire malls

Bob Unruh / WND

 

  The impact of the “Obama economy,” those ups and downs attributed to the tax-and-spend policies implemented by the president’s administration, is moving further into negative territory with the announcement that dozens of additional retail stores across America are being closed down sooner than planned.

WND had reported only a few days ago on the effective retail apocalypse that was leaving stores closed and, in some places, entire malls shuttered because of the downward spiral of the nation’s economy.

At that time, Michael Snyder, a University of Florida law-school graduate, former Washington, D.C., attorney and publisher of the Economic Collapse Blog, wrote on “The End of the American Dream” blog: “Major retailers in the United States are shutting down hundreds of stores, and shoppers are reporting alarmingly bare shelves in many retail locations that are still open all over the country.”

He warned the 2015 retail lag was only worsening in 2016.

“In impoverished urban centers all over the nation, it is not uncommon to find entire malls that have now been completely abandoned,” he said. “It has been estimated that there is about a billion square feet of retail space sitting empty in this country, and this crisis is only going to get worse as the retail apocalypse accelerates.”

In Search of Fixes for a Fossilized Economy

Victor Davis Hanson / Townhall Columnist

 

The U.S. economy grew at an anemic rate of less than 1 percent in the last quarter of 2015.

While the unemployment rate has dipped below 5 percent, the all-important labor force participation rate is at a historic low of just 62.7 percent. More than 90 million able-bodied adults are either not currently in the labor force or have stopped looking for work altogether.

Average household incomes have been mostly stagnant in recent years relative to the rate of inflation. The Dow Jones industrial average fell by 2.2 percent in 2015 and has continued to plummet this year. Most people's retirement portfolios have been losing money.

Such economic sluggishness, more than seven years after the 2008 financial crisis, was not supposed to happen, given all the traditional economic stimuli.

When times are tough, politicians sometimes call for a reduction in energy taxes to help lower gas prices and bring down household heating and cooling costs. Such cutting usually puts more disposable income into the pockets of families.

Yet, largely because of Persian Gulf oil politics and private-sector fracking and horizontal drilling, U.S. gas prices have already plunged to a national average of less than $1.80. That is a huge drop from the average 2014 price of about $3.34 a gallon -- and it should provide an enormous economic stimulus.

Obama EPA "Clean Power" Rule Dealt Devastating Blow At SCOTUS

Kevin Glass/ Townhall Columnist

 

The Environmental Protection Agency's "Clean Power Plan," an enormous regulatory monster unilaterally cooked up by federal bureaucrats and attempted to be foisted on states, utility companies and consumers, was dealt a huge blow at the Supreme Court this week when the regulations were put on hold pending the numerous legal challenges that have been percolating through the court system.

The importance of this stay cannot be overstated. In the past, some EPA regulations that have been overturned in the court system were not put on hold and their damage was already done while other states and groups were challenging their legality. In Michigan v. EPA, for example, the Supreme Court overturned onerous EPA MATS regulations on power plants, but the rules were not suspended while the legal challenges were made. In that case, the MATS regulations were issued in 2012 and the Supreme Court didn't overturn them until 2015 - and by that time the damage had already been done.

Those regulations cost consumers almost $10 billion per year, and many power plants were shuttered in the years between when the EPA issued the rule and the Supreme Court overturned them. Since the regulations were in place for so long, the EPA already won by the time they were struck down: most power plants and utilities are now in compliance with the rules. And the specter of these MATS regulations will haunt businesses for years: what utility would open a new plant that wasn't in compliance with a rule that no longer exists if they're scared the EPA might try again? Indeed - the EPA has already re-issued the MATS regulations, claiming to now be in compliance with the Supreme Court ruling against them.

Robert Spencer in FP: Syrian Archbishop to West: “Why Are Your Bishops Silent?”
By Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

Silent about a threat that is theirs today as well. My column in FrontPage today: Jean-Clément Jeanbart, the Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo, gave a recent interview with a French reporter, in which he was highly critical of the mainstream media and even of his fellow bishops for ignoring the Muslim persecution of Middle […]
 
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