Conservative Blogger
Friday, November 13, 2015
Administration takes heat for downgrading religious freedom post
The Obama administration is facing new questions on Capitol Hill over its commitment to religious freedom posts, after the State Department -- in defiance of Congress -- appeared to downgrade a diplomatic position created to help persecuted minorities.
The Near East and South Central Asia Religious Freedom Act, passed on a bipartisan vote last year, authorized the creation of a "special envoy" to advocate for the protection of at-risk religious minorities in the region. It came amid mounting reports of ISIS terrorists beheading Christians and religious minorities being abused throughout the Middle East.
But the appointment was delayed more than a year. And when Secretary of State John Kerry finally and quietly named Knox Thames to the post, the title was changed to "special adviser."
The distinction matters because special envoys would report to Kerry, while Thames' "adviser" position reports to the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom David Saperstein.
"The administration said that persecution of religious minorities was a priority, but they waited over a year to pick a person to fill the role of special envoy and when they finally selected someone, they appointed them to a much lower position that limits the engagement with the secretary," Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said in an interview with FoxNews.com.
Within the U.S. State Department, there already are 49 special envoys appointed to address a range of "key foreign policy objectives," including climate change, the closure of Guantanamo Bay, protecting LGBT rights and fostering Muslim cooperation.
Why Thames, who previously worked at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, was not also installed as a special envoy is unclear.
The State Department did not return a request for comment.
Concerned about the level of commitment to international religious freedom, Lankford last month sent a letter to Kerry asking him to explain why bipartisan calls for a special envoy were ignored. To date, no response has been received.
The decision not to appoint a special envoy may have implications that are more than symbolic.
"The practical implication is that [Thames] does not have the ear of the secretary of state or the president. Instead of having a direct line to Kerry or the president, the position is lost in the bureaucracy, which limits any ability he has to respond to emergency situations in the Middle East -- an area where it is becoming clear that you are seeing genocide occurring," said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute.
Shea says not having the authority and prominence afforded by the special envoy designation makes it difficult to trigger a higher-level response to critical issues, including ongoing discrimination against Syrian Christians seeking refugee status in the U.S.
Shea worked with Thames when both were at the USCIRF, which was created to monitor religious freedom violations globally and make policy recommendations to the president, the secretary of state, and Congress.
According to Shea, in the five years since the beginning of the war in Syria, only 53 Syrian Christian refugees, or 2.6 percent of a total 2,003 Syrian refugees, have been allowed to enter the U.S.
Lankford also is seeking an explanation for why even Saperstein's position "is buried in layers of bureaucracy" and he does not report directly to the secretary like other ambassadors-at-large.
In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in October, Robert George, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, likewise urged the administration to furnish Saperstein's office with "resources and staff similar to other offices with global mandates, as well as with increased programmatic funds for religious freedom promotion and protection."
In addition to bucking Congress on the special envoy appointment, Lankford says, the administration did not include Saperstein in negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, as required after the Senate unanimously approved an amendment stipulating religious freedom be taken into account whenever trade pacts are negotiated.
Further, USCIRF's George called on the Obama administration to use authority granted to the president by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act to designate countries that have "engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom" as "countries of particular concern," or CPCs.
The State Department has declined to consider Syria for a CPC designation, as has been repeatedly recommended by the independent USCIRF.
'Don't be fools': Trump attacks Carson's biography in Iowa
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump launched an attack on rival Ben Carson's biographical claims at a rally in Iowa Thursday, at one point repeating a comparison between Carson's "pathological temper" and child molestation.
At one point, after questioning the retired neurosurgeon's story of how he nearly stabbed a friend during his adolescence, Trump bellowed, ""How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of this country to believe this crap?"
Earlier, in an interview with CNN, Trump pointed to Carson's own descriptions of his violent actions during his youth.
"That's a big problem because you don't cure that," Trump said. "That's like, you know, I could say, they say you don't cure — as an example, child molester. You don't cure these people. You don't cure the child molester." Trump also said that "pathological is a very serious disease."
When asked if he was satisfied with Carson's claims that his anger was in the past, Trump responded, "You'll have to ask him that question ... Look, I hope he's fine because I think it would be a shame."
Carson's ability to overcome his anger as well as an impoverished childhood to become a world-renowned neurosurgeon has been a central chapter in his personal story.
In his book "Gifted Hands," Carson described the uncontrollable anger he felt at times while growing up in inner-city Detroit. He wrote that on one occasion he nearly punched his mother and on another he attempted to stab a friend with a knife.
"I had what I only can label a pathological temper — a disease — and this sickness controlled me, making me totally irrational," Carson said in describing the incident with his mother. He referred to "pathological anger" again in telling about lunging at his friend, the knife blade breaking off when it hit the boy's belt buckle.
During the rally Thursday night in Fort Dodge, where he spoke for 93 minutes, Trump told the crowd that "Carson's an enigma to me" and questioned story after story in Carson's biography. He acted out the scene of Carson trying to stab his friend, lurching forward and shouting, "but, low and behold, it hit the belt!"
"He said he's pathological and got pathological disease," Trump said of Carson at the rally, "I don't want a person who's got pathological disease ... There's no cure for that, folks ... He's a pathological, damaged temper."
Carson describes in "Gifted Hands" racing to the bathroom in his house after the near-stabbing incident and in time began to pray for God's help in dealing with his temper. "During those hours alone in the bathroom, something happened to me," he wrote. "God heard my deep cries of anguish. A feeling of lightness flowed over me, and I knew a change of heart had taken place. I felt different. I was different."
In questioning Carson's religious awakening, Trump said in Fort Dodge that Carson went into the bathroom and came out and "now he's religious."
"And the people of Iowa believe him. Give me a break. Give me a break. It doesn't happen that way," he said. "Don't be fools."
Clinton unveils coal country plan, firing up critics of energy stance
Hillary Clinton's campaign on Thursday unveiled a $30 billion plan to help coal communities rebound as the "clean energy economy" develops -- drawing a rebuke from Republicans who accuse her of backing policies that are "crippling" coal country in the first place.
The Democratic presidential front-runner's plan is aimed at protecting health benefits for coal miners and their families and helping them retrain for new jobs. The plan also would use a combination of tax incentives and grants to help coal communities repurpose old mine sites and attract new investment.
"Building a 21st century clean energy economy in the United States will create new jobs and industries, deliver important health benefits, and reduce carbon pollution. But we can't ignore the impact this transition is already having on mining communities, or the threat it poses to the healthcare and retirement security of coalfield workers and their families," the campaign plan says.
But Republicans fired back, noting that Clinton is backing the highly controversial EPA plan requiring states to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants -- a regulatory plan that coal-state representatives are fighting. The sweeping new environmental regulation may result in the closure of hundreds of coal-fired plants and freeze construction of new coal plants.
"Hillary Clinton is Public Enemy No. 1 for coal miners and their communities because she wholeheartedly supports President Obama's EPA agenda that is crippling their way of life," Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short said in a statement.
Eight years ago, Clinton ran as a champion of coal, beating then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries with support from working-class white Democrats.
"But we're going to use coal, there's no doubt about it," said Clinton at a 2008 campaign event in Indiana. "It's just that we've got to figure out how to make it as clean as coal can be."
Her rhetoric has since shifted.
In recent months, Clinton has moved left on environmental issues, pledging to make combating climate change a major goal of her presidency and opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, which was rejected by the Obama administration on Friday.
She, along with the other Democratic presidential candidates, backed the EPA's Clean Power Plan over the summer -- and vowed to defend and build on it if elected.
But she's also vowed to protect coal workers, who she says helped power much of the country's economic growth.
"We have to move away from coal," she said in New Hampshire on Monday. "But that does not and should not mean we move away from coal miners, their families, and their communities. They kept the lights on."
Her plan says Clinton will not allow coal communities "to be left behind."
The plan calls for boosting support for education and training programs for these communities, and boosting funding for "technical assistance for entrepreneurs and small businesses in impacted coal communities."
Beyond providing new economic incentives for revitalizing coal county, Clinton's plan would expand broadband Internet access, invest in new infrastructure projects and find ways to replace local revenue for schools that's lost when coal production plants disappear.
The coal industry has suffered as governments have pushed new policies to curb climate change and promote more renewable fuels. A 2015 study by Duke University found the coal industry lost nearly 50,000 jobs since 2008. Coal now accounts for one-third of U.S. power generation, with consumption falling 25 percent over the past decade.
US airstrike targets notorious ISIS militant 'Jihadi John'
DEVELOPING – The Pentagon said late Thursday it had launched an airstrike in Syria targeting "Jihadi John", a British national seen in videos depicting the beheading of hostages held by ISIS.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook confirmed that the airstrike in Raqqa was directed at the notorious militant, also known as Mohamed Emwazi. It was not immediately clear whether Emwazi died in the airstrike, but a senior U.S. military official told Fox News, "we are 99 percent sure we got him." The Pentagon was monitoring the aftermath of the strike before making a definitive announcement.
A senior U.S. defense official told Fox News that a drone was used in the airstrike. According to a senior military source, the drone had been tracking Emwazi for most of the day Thursday while he met with other people. The source said the strike took place shortly after Emwazi came out of a building in Raqqa, when he was "ID'd and engaged."
Emwazi is seen in videos showing the beheading of journalists Steve Sotloff and James Foley, American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and a number of other hostages.
In the videos, a tall masked figure clad in black and speaking in a British accent typically began one of the gruesome videos with a political rant and a kneeling hostage before him, then ended it holding an oversize knife in his hand with the headless victim lying before him in the sand.
Emwazi was identified as "Jihadi John" last February, although a lawyer who once represented Emwazi's father told reporters that there was no evidence supporting the accusation. Experts and others later confirmed the identification.
British Prime Minister David Cameron's office said he will make a statement later Friday. The statement said, "We have been working hand in glove with the Americans to defeat ISIL and to hunt down those murdering hostages. The Prime Minister has said before that tracking down these brutal murderers was a top priority."
Emwazi was born in Kuwait and spent part of his childhood in the poor Taima area of Jahra before moving to Britain while still a boy, according to news reports quoting Syrian activists who knew the family. He attended state schools in London, then studied computer science at the University of Westminster before leaving for Syria in 2013. The woman who had been the principal at London's Quintin Kynaston Academy told the BBC earlier this year that Emwazi had been quiet and "reasonably hard-working."
Officials said Britain's intelligence community had Emwazi on its list of potential terror suspects for years but was unable to prevent him from traveling to Syria. He had been known to the nation's intelligence services since at least 2009, when he was connected with investigations into terrorism in Somalia.
The beheading of Foley, 40, of Rochester, New Hampshire, was deemed by IS to be its response to U.S. airstrikes. The release of the video, on Aug. 19, 2014, horrified and outraged the civilized world but was followed the next month by videos showing the beheadings of Sotloff and Haines and, in October, of Henning.
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