US Senate panel votes 15-3 to arm brutal Syrian “rebels”

US Army chief slams Russia for arming, emboldening Assad as U.S. Senate panel votes to provide weapons to Syrian rebels battling Assad regime.

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel voted on Tuesday to provide weapons to rebels battling the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the first time lawmakers have endorsed the aggressive U.S. military step of arming the opposition in the 2-year-old civil war.

With a degree of trepidation, the Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 for a bill that would provide lethal assistance and military training to vetted rebel groups, and would slap sanctions on anyone who sells oil or transfers arms to the Assad regime such as Iran and Russia. The measure also establishes a $250 million fund to aid in the transition if and when Assad falls.

Opposing the legislation were Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a potential presidential candidate in 2016, and Democratic Sens. Tom Udall of New Mexico and Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Udall questioned whether the United States would know what rebel groups it was arming as it introduced more lethal weapons into a chaotic situation while Murphy argued that the U.S. hasn’t learned from history.

“We have failed over and over again in our attempts to pull the strings of Middle Eastern politics,” he said.

Paul said the U.S. is war weary and reluctant to get involved in a murky conflict with so many factions. He said there is no assurance that the weapons would end up in the hands of “liberty-loving, Jeffersonian-type of democrats.”

“It’s impossible to know who are friends are,” he said.

His arguments put him at odds with another potential White House candidate — Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who backed the legislation and insisted that it was critical to help groups battling the well-armed, pro-Assad forces and radical jihadists.

Elected officials want to waste U.S. taxpayer money funding Islamic terrorists. And don’t forget an initial $250 million of your tax dollars for nation building.

 And from the ‘you can’t make this stuff up’ department:

Obama, according to Suleiman’s office, also renewed his appreciation for the role the Lebanese leader was playing in “preserving stability and the policy Lebanon was adopting in not interfering in the affairs of other countries, particularly Syria…

FT reports Qatar (now establishing a media foothold in the U.S.) has spent more than $3B funding the overthrow of Assad. Why?

Qatar along with the Turks would like to remove Al-Assad and install the Syrian chapter of the Moslem Brotherhood.

Below the fold are a few more examples of the rebels that McCain, Rubio, and despicable Bob Menendez are so desperate to arm.

Muslim who killed 14 Americans at Fort Hood paid $278,000 awaiting trial

via Accused Fort Hood Shooter Paid $278,000 While Awaiting Trial | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.

The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead and 32 injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty.

If Hasan had been a civilian defense department employee, NBC 5 Investigates has learned, the Army could have suspended his pay after just seven days.

Personnel rules for most civilian government workers allow for “indefinite suspensions” in cases “when the agency has reasonable cause to believe that the employee has committed a crime for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed.”

Meanwhile, more than three years later soldiers wounded in the mass shooting are fighting to receive the same pay and medical benefits given to those wounded in combat.

Retired Army Spc. Logan Burnett, a reservist who, in 2009, was soon to be deployed to Iraq, was shot three times when a gunman opened fire inside the Army Deployment Center.

As that fight continues, Burnett was stunned to see a letter detailing the more $278,000 Hasan has been paid since his arrest. NBC 5 Investigates received the letter from the Department of Defense in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

“There have been times when my wife and I cannot afford groceries. We cannot afford gas in our car,” Burnett said. “Literally, times where we ate Ramen noodles for weeks on end. This [that Hasan is still earning a paycheck] makes me sick to my stomach,” said Burnett.

Burnett isn’t alone in his outrage.

“We’re giving the defendant in this case every benefit of the doubt. But yet we’re not giving the benefits to the victims,” said Rep. Thomas Rooney (R) Florida

Rooney, a former prosecutor at Fort Hood, recently signed a bi-partisan letter urging defense secretary Chuck Hagel to “…reclassify the victims’ deaths and injuries as ‘combat related’…”

…

“What happened here is not a case of workplace violence. What happened here was an attack on our military by a terrorist element specifically targeting our military, which just so happened to be in the United States of America,” said Rooney.

Reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed Hasan was communicating with a member of Al Qaida prior to the shooting. Additionally, the government’s National Counterterrorism Center lists the shooting at Fort Hood as a “high fatality terrorist attack.”

Rooney said he’s also willing to consider whether Congress should change the rules, so the Army could suspend the pay of soldiers arrested for crimes against fellow soldiers.

NBC 5 Investigates wanted to ask Pentagon officials about Hasan’s pay and the decision to classify the shooting as workplace violence, but the Army turned down requests for an interview. However, the Army’s Chief of Media Relations told NBC 5 Investigates: “The Department of Defense is committed to the integrity of the ongoing court martial proceedings of Major Nidal Hasan and for that reason will not further characterize, at this time, the incident that occurred at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009.”

Burnett, who recently retired from the Army and moved to Arkansas to live with family and save some money, has joined dozens of other Fort Hood victims in a lawsuit against the Army demanding the benefits they believe they’ve been unfairly denied.

“I refuse to continue letting Nidal Hasan win. And I leave the “Major” part out, because even though, unfortunately, he’s still being paid better than I am, he doesn’t deserve that rank,” said Burnett.

A lawyer who once represented Hasan previously claimed his client couldn’t find a bank that would deposit his Army paychecks, but a spokesman at Fort Hood told NBC 5 Investigates that that issue has since been resolved; meaning Hasan or his family can access the money.

The Army could get some money back from Hasan by demanding re-payment for the cost of treating the wounds he sustained when a police officer shot him during the incident. However, military officials would not tell NBC 5 Investigates if they plan to do that.

The Dallas Morning News reported on the pay issue back in 2010, Fort Hood jihadist still gets Army paycheck but has nowhere to put it.

It was also reported that Soldier Ordered to Delete Fort Hood Video Evidence.

And pandering to Islam is deadly serious, Senate report: Army, FBI should have prevented Fort Hood jihad. Of course they didn’t use the word jihad.

Outright betrayal. Video: Obama, Military Break Promises to Soldiers in Fort Hood Attack

State Dept. Spokeswoman Refuses to Criticize Iran for Excl Women from Election

Obama would never criticize Islamic sharia law. Apparently his former spokeswoman won’t either. via Daniel Harper @ The Weekly Standard.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki refused to criticize Iran for excluding women candidates from the upcoming “election” there. The remarkable exchange, which concludes with Psaki saying this (“We want this [election] to be free and fair. There’s a lot of ways to, of course, define that.”) happened at Friday’s press briefing.

QUESTION:Jen, can I change the subject? It would seem that in Iran the Guardians Council, which is vetting the candidates for the upcoming elections next month, have decided and have ruled that women cannot contest, they cannot stand as candidates. I wondered what the United States reaction is to that, considering that 50 person of the population in Iran is women – are women.

MS. PSAKI:Well, we don’t take positions on any candidates, as you know, and we hope that the upcoming elections will be free, fair, and transparent and will represent the will of the Iranian people. So we wouldn’t weight into decisions made by the government. Of course, broadly, we hope that women around the world participate in politics and elected office, but beyond that I don’t think I have anything specific for you.

QUESTION:Taking the word “fair” – if you’re being fair, it would seem to exclude 50 percent of the population from an election, would already mean that it is not a fair election.

MS. PSAKI: Well, we don’t weigh in on to the candidates and the candidates that are chosen through the process in Iran. Of course, of course, broadly speaking we do want women to participate in elections around the world and rise up in elected office.

QUESTION:Just not in Iran?

MS. PSAKI:

I’m not suggesting that, Arshad. I’m just suggesting that we leave it to the process that happens in Iran for them to pick their candidates.

No problem picking the candidates by funding coups in Libya, Egypt and Syria. Hypocrites.

DC-area Muslim: “wont stop until the Islamic flag waves over the white house”

Twitter follower of the day @HAveTheAudacity

#islamicTakeover #jihadist #ShariaLaw #Islamornothing wont stop until the Islamic flag waves over the white house

DHS guidelines advise deference to pro-shariah Muslim supremacists

Just like the IRS.

via The Daily Caller, Homeland Security: Respect pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists. (as if there were anti-sharia Muslim supremacists)

The Department of Homeland Security, which under Secretary Janet Napolitano has shown a keen interest in monitoring and warning about outspoken conservatives, takes a very different approach in monitoring political Islamists, according to a 2011 memo on protecting the free speech rights of pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists.

Political Islamists? Are there non-political Islamists? More redundancy and linguistic gymnastics to describe followers of Islam.

In a checklist obtained by The Daily Caller entitled “Countering Violent Extremism Dos and Don’ts” the DHS’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties notifies local and national law enforcement officials that it is Obama administration policy to consider specifically Islamic criticism of the American system of government legitimate.

This policy stands in stark contrast to the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis’ 2009 memo “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” [pdf], which warned of the dangers posed by pro-life advocates, critics of same-sex marriage and groups concerned with abiding by the U.S. Constitution, among others.

DHS CRCL CVE Training – Dos and Donts

…

The checklist also advised against using moderate Muslim “trainers who are self-professed ‘Muslim reformers’” because they “may further an interest group agenda instead of delivering generally accepted, unbiased information.”

The Homeland Security document also seems to discount evidence unearthed by the Justice Department about the aims of some mainstream Muslim organizations, warning law enforcement not to rely on “unsubstantiated theories” and “conspiracies,” such as the belief that “many mainstream Muslim organizations have terrorist ties” or are “fronts for Islamic political organizations whose true desire is to establish Sharia law in America.”

The manual advises trainees not to assume Muslim Americans are “using democratic processes, like litigation and free speech, to subvert democracy and install Sharia law.”

In fact, the Justice Department proved that some very prominent Muslim organizations do have terror ties in a 2009 case and that they share the Muslim Brotherhood’s goal of Shariah law. “The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations], ISNA [Islamic Society of North America], NAIT [North American Islamic Trust], with the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas,” U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis said in the July 1, 2009 ruling.

Tim Clemente, a former FBI agent who hunted Anwar Al-Awlaki and who has worked with Muslims to help stop terrorist plots, told The Daily Caller the government overdoes its sensitivity. Clemente says that the Muslim community “needs a realization, not necessarily a reformation,” that only it can stop terrorist attacks.

Read it all and closely examine the DHS memo linked at Daily Caller.

Keen eyes will immediately note some of the absurd recommendations, particularly the don’ts such as:

Of course not, why would anyone who wants to counter violent extremism want to “venture too deep into the weeds of religious doctrine and history” particularly when Muslim jihadists – the impetus for creating DHS – cite religious doctrine as their justification.

And agree with him or not, Zudhi Jasser seems to be on to something when he tweets:

Maybe he looked at the links at the bottom of the memo:

The LA Sheriff’s Dept (if anyone, TrentoVision?, can get that video we’d love to see and post it). See LA Sheriff Lee Baca’s multiple Muslim Outreach programs

The MPAC. See Salam Al- Marayati Head Of Terror Supporting MPAC To Be Panelist At DHS Conference

The Homeland Security Advisory Council. See DHS: Napolitano Swears in Freedom and Justice Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer Mohamed Elibiary to Homeland Security Advisory Council. The Muslim Brotherhood also uses the Freedom and Justice name.

It becomes quite clear why the government cannot protect its citizens: it doesn’t want to.

Idaho: Muslim refugee from Uzbekistan charged in terror plot

via Idaho man charged in Uzbekistan terrorism plot.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — He was a Russian-speaking truck driver who came to Idaho nearly four years ago to join hundreds of other Uzbekistan refugees for whom the state has become a sanctuary from violence in their home country.

But federal officials say in an indictment that Fazliddin Kurbanov also was teaching people to build bombs that would target public transportation.

It’s unclear whether those alleged targets were domestic or abroad — or how far Kurbanov would have gone. Prosecutors said Friday only that they believe he no longer is a threat.

Kurbanov, 30, was arrested Thursday during a raid of his small apartment south of Boise’s downtown.

Prosecutors charged him with felonies in Idaho and Utah after an extensive investigation into his activities late last year and this year. They allege those activities included assisting a militant group in his native Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country with a southern border with Afghanistan.

“Given his arrest, we believe any potential threat he posed has been contained,” U.S Attorney Wendy Olson said. She noted the investigation is ongoing but declined to say whether federal agents are pursuing additional arrests.

Kurbanov said little Friday during his first court appearance, where he pleaded not guilty with help from an interpreter and a federally appointed defense attorney. Kurbanov wore a jail jumpsuit and had dark hair and a beard that was much shorter than the one pictured in his Idaho driver’s license.

Kurbanov lists Uzbek as his first language and Russian as his second in court documents. Federal officials said they will enlist the help of an interpreter again Tuesday when he appears for his detention hearing.

Until then, Kurbanov will be held in the Ada County Jail. His trial on the three counts filed in Idaho is scheduled for July 2.

His lawyer, Richard Rubin, declined to comment.

Kurbanov is among about 650 Uzbeks living in Idaho. He was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee in August 2009, the same month he moved to Boise, said Jan Reeves, director of the Idaho Office for Refugees, citing immigration records. Kurbanov was here legally, federal officials said.

Uzbeks began coming to Idaho’s two refugee settlement centers, in Boise and Twin Falls, in 2003, Reeves said. The centers connect refugees with services such as language classes and help finding work.

About 90 percent of Uzbeks in their home country are Muslim.

Video: Obama, Military Break Promises to Soldiers in Fort Hood Attack

FortHoodHeroes first video, He Said Allahu Akbar, Obama Called it Workplace Violence

The victims of the jihad attack at Fort Hood:

1. Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, 55, Havre de Grace, Md.
2. Maj. Libardo Caraveo, 52, Woodbridge, Va.
3. Cpt. John P. Gaffaney, 54, San Diego, Calif.
4. Cpt. Russell Seager, 41, Racine, Wis.
5. Staff Sgt. Justin Decrow, 32, Plymouth, Ind.
6. Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, Kiel, Wis.
7. Spc. Jason Hunt, 22, Tillman, Okla.
8. Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, Mountain City, Tenn.
9. PFC Aaron Nemelka, 19, West Jordan, Utah
10. PFC Michael Pearson, 22, Bolingbrook, Ill.
11. PFC Kham Xiong, 23, St. Paul, Minn.
12. Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, Chicago, Ill. and
13. Pvt. Francheska Velez’s unborn baby
14. Michael G. Cahill, Cameron, Texas [civilian]

*If anyone has a list of the injured we’ll post that too.

Witness Protection Program lost two ‘known or suspected terrorists’

Muslim terrorists. via First on CNN: Witness Protection Program lost two ‘known or suspected terrorists’ – CNN.com Blogs. h/t Atlas

By Jake Tapper, CNN Chief Washington Correspondent

The U.S. Marshals Service lost two former participants in the federal Witness Security Program “identified as known or suspected terrorists,” according to the public summary of an interim Justice Department Inspector General’s report obtained by CNN.

The Marshals Service has concluded that “one individual was and the other individual was believed to be residing outside of the United States,” according to the summary.

A Justice Department official said in response to follow up questions about the matter by reporters that the pair had left the program years ago and had been accounted for.

It was not clear when or for how long the Marshals Service lost track of them.

Read the public summary here.

The report notes that while in the middle of an audit of the WITSEC program, also referred to as “WitSec,” the IG notified the Justice Department of national security vulnerabilities, and the IG’s office “developed the interim report to help ensure that the Department promptly and sufficiently addressed the deficiencies we found.”

After its audit, the IG’s office reported “the department did not definitively know how many known or suspected terrorists were admitted into the WITSEC program,” among other “significant issues concerning national security.”

As of March 2013, the Justice Department was reviewing more than 18,000 Witness Protection Program case files to determine whether more known or suspected terrorists have been admitted to the program, the summary notes. As such, the number of terrorists lost or unaccounted for “may not be complete and may continue to evolve.”

The IG summary said that although the Marshals Service was giving known or suspected terrorists who participated in the WITSEC program and their dependents new names and identity documentation, the Justice Department “was not authorizing the disclosure to the Terrorist Screening Center,” which operates the terrorist watch list that helps provide information to the Transportation Security Administration’s No-Fly and Selectee lists. “Therefore it was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions,” the summary said.

The IG’s office notified the Justice Department of these problems and in the middle of remedying them, marshals discovered they could not account for the two missing people.

Muslim terrorists are among us – only their names have change. Maybe some investigative journalist can follow up on these previous posts:

1. Muslim terrorist convicted in 2009 Times Square jihad plot nowhere to be found

2. U. S. gives half of Lackawanna Six jihadis new identities

Attorney: “Every single application of a Muslim nonprofit has flown through the IRS, with less scrutiny”

Including terror-linked CAIR (see links below). via ILLUME reporter, a corporate and tax attorney, Maryam Khan Ansari.

Do Muslim Nonprofits Have it Easier Than Tea Party Groups?

Has the Internal Revenue Service been tacitly cracking down on the Tea Party? Quite possibly, according to CNN, in what’s being called “The IRS Tea-Party Scandal.”

In fact, it may be easier to become a Muslim nonprofit these days than it would be to become a Tea Party affiliated nonprofit.

Having spent most of my legal career working with tax exempt entities, the IRS scrutiny on the Tea Party isn’t news to me. In my days at large law firms, I handled a portfolio of nonprofit Tea Party organizations and saw firsthand how the IRS treated them when it came to granting exemptions.

In many cases, the organizations fight tooth-and-nail to get through IRS scrutiny, often facing pages of questions from the IRS on their activities.

And she said and did nothing. If it were a Muslim group would she remain silent?

On the flip side, I’ve worked with numerous Muslim organizations as well. And every single application of a Muslim nonprofit has gone through the IRS, with less scrutiny. Of course, they still did get scrutiny– after all, Islamophobia is still pretty rampant everywhere and it’s inaccurate to say that they got a free pass. But truth be told, they never got a 10-page questionnaire on each and every one of their grantees.

What does this say about the way that the IRS is handling applications from Muslim nonprofits? For one, in the application phase, Muslim nonprofits seem to have an upper hand over Tea Party groups. Of course, the Muslim groups face their struggles post-determination, when they’re suddenly placed under investigation. And the IRS isn’t the agency that tends to target Muslim nonprofits, even though the Treasury has a list of “scary Muslims” (ever heard of the OFAC list?).  It’s usually  the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security who run Muslim nonprofits to the ground and put their founders in jail. But going back to the IRS Tea Party scandal, the IRS certainly makes it hard for Tea Party groups to make it through the door.

…

For now, nonprofits should learn from this debacle and be very careful when chosing a name. Their name could lead to their application falling into a “special” pile.

That’s the advice you get from a lawyer who whines about Islamophobia and Treasury/FBI scrutiny of Islamic charities – many shut down or convicted for funding jihadists? If a non-profit has to be very careful in choosing a name then the Constitution is DOA. But the awake know it has been for some time and is only selectively referenced.

The IRS also granted Hamas-linked CAIR tax-exempt status once again despite their foreign-funding and numerous failures to report.

1. Hamas-linked CAIR loses IRS tax deductible status

2. Why is CAIR withholding tax records from the IRS?

3. Muslim group won’t disclose tax information as required by law

4. U.S. Congressman Asks IRS To Investigate CAIR

Seal Team 6 parents outraged over imam cursing son at funeral (video)

A follow-up to TrentoVisions blockbuster expose (here and here) that the media has ignored amongst the Benghazi hearings, IRS illegalities and other White House distractions.  h/t GroundZeroMosque

They are equally outraged at VP Joe Biden outing Seal Team 6 for he and Obama’s political gain.

Karen and Billy Vaughn, the parents of deceased Aaron Vaughn, joined America Live Friday. They’ve uncovered startling facts that they believe show incompetence on the part of the government, including that the forces were flying in outdated aviation equipment from the 1960s and that they flew unescorted, which is not standard protocol.

More than that, they believe that Vice President Biden’s announcement that it was a SEAL team that took down Bin Laden, put a target on the backs of the SEALs.

The Vaughns heard from their son shortly after Biden’s revelation, who said that there was chatter that their lives were in danger. Karen said, “As soon as Joe Biden announced that it was a SEAL Team who took out Bin Laden, within 24 hours, my son called me and I rarely ever heard him sound afraid in his adult life […] And he said, ‘Mom, you need to wipe your social media clean.’” She continued, “The community was very unnerved by that unveiling, so yes, a target got put on their back.”

Billy Vaughn blasted Biden, saying, “The media has let [Joe Biden] get away with saying ‘Uncle Joe’s gaffes.’ This is not Uncle Joe and he’s not some senile old grandfather. He is the second in command of the most powerful country in the world and he needs to take responsibility for the comments he makes and quit being given a pass.”

Off topic but related: Michael Savage interviews father of slain marine – Looking for justice from the Gov’t

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IRS building “largest personal information database the government has ever attempted”

Off the general topic here but absolutely critical for all Americans to know about and start demanding answers as our privacy and rights are stolen by a corrupt government. The targeting has just begun.  via Your Next IRS Political Audit – WSJ.com.

To monitor compliance with these [Obamacare] rules, the IRS and HHS are now building the largest personal information database the government has ever attempted. Known as the Federal Data Services Hub, the project is taking the IRS’s own records (for income and employment status) and centralizing them with information from Social Security (identity), Homeland Security (citizenship), Justice (criminal history), HHS (enrollment in entitlement programs and certain medical claims data) and state governments (residency).

The data hub will be used as the verification system for ObamaCare’s complex subsidy formula. All insurers, self-insured businesses and government health programs must submit reports to the IRS about the individuals they cover, which the IRS will cross-check against tax returns.

Good luck in advance to anyone who gets caught in this system’s gears, assuming it even works. Centralizing so much personal information in one place is another invitation for the IRS wigglers in some regional office—or maybe higher up—to make political decisions about enforcement.

The original 61-page application for ObamaCare subsidies (since junked) asked about voter registration and invited beneficiaries to sign up then and there. What does that have to do with affordable health care?

And how long before voter registration is slipped backed in? Will they have a category for patriots? Islamophobes? Will they audit them or deny services and care or charge higher premiums? Repeal it.

Reread “They Thought They Were Free” and send it to any American who tells you we live in the Land of the Free.

Updates:

For those who might be fooled into thinking Obama fired the acting chief of the IRS so things are now fixed, the targeting has just begun: IRS official in charge during Tea Party targeting now runs IRS Obamacare office.

So, Yes, Your Private Health Information Will Be Used Against You.

And apparently Obama didn’t actually fire anyone at the IRS, Chief Steven Miller told IRS employees via email, he would only be leaving next month because his assignment would be over.