ISIS CARTOON

Mitch McConnell's campaign manager resigns

Senator Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager resigned Friday in the wake of a scandal involving former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign, where he had been a top aide.
Jesse Benton said the decision to leave the staff of McConnell, R-Ky., “breaks my heart” but “inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns” were becoming a distraction in McConnell’s efforts to win re-election in November.
His announcement stems from a political scandal in Iowa. Earlier this week, a former Iowa lawmaker pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from his switch of support from one Republican presidential candidate to another before the 2012 Iowa caucuses.
Former state Sen. Kent Sorenson received thousands of dollars in "under the table payments" before switching loyalties from Michele Bachmann, whose Iowa campaign he headed, to Paul, then lied to federal investigators about the money, the Justice Department said. Prosecutors refused to say which campaign paid Sorenson.
Benton, a Tea Party insider, worked as a top aide to Paul.
In a separate statement Friday, McConnell's campaign said the senator "obviously has nothing to do with the Iowa presidential caucus or this investigation, so it would be inappropriate for his campaign to comment on this situation."
Benton was mentioned in documents gathered during an Iowa state ethics probe of Sorenson, a complaint to the Federal Election Commission and e-mails purported to be from the Ron Paul campaign obtained by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors federal campaign finance issues, The Courier-Journal of Louisville reported.
McConnell, the Senate minority leader, is in a tight race for a sixth term against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state.
Charly Norton, a spokeswoman for the Grimes campaign, said in a statement, "Sen. McConnell owes the people of Kentucky a full account of what he knew and when he knew it."
In his resignation statement, Benton said, “recently, there have been inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns that are politically motivated, unfair and, most importantly, untrue... the press accounts and rumors are particularly hurtful because they are false.
“However, what is most troubling to me is that they risk unfairly undermining and becoming a distraction to this reelection campaign.”
He said his resignation would take effect Saturday.

Online posts show ISIS eyeing Mexican border, says law enforcement bulletin

EXCLUSIVE: Social media chatter shows Islamic State militants are keenly aware of the porous U.S.-Mexico border, and are “expressing an increased interest” in crossing over to carry out a terrorist attack, according to a Texas law enforcement bulletin sent out this week.
“A review of ISIS social media messaging during the week ending August 26 shows that militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of US, for terror attack,” warns the Texas Department of Public Safety "situational awareness" bulletin, obtained by FoxNews.com.
The three-page bulletin, entitled “ISIS Interest on the US Southwest Border” and dated Aug. 28 was released to law enforcement on Thursday.
“Social media account holders believed to be ISIS militants and propagandists have called for unspecified border operations, or they have sought to raise awareness that illegal entry through Mexico is a viable option,” states the law enforcement bulletin, which is not classified.
It notes no known credible homeland threats or specific homeland attack plot has been identified. That assertion was underscored by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who said Friday that DHS and the FBI are "unaware of any specific, credible threat to the U.S. homeland" from Islamic State.
Despite assurances that no threat to American soil is imminent, the watchdog group Judicial Watch said Friday that Islamic State operatives are in Juarez, just across the border from Texas, and are planning to attack the United States with car bombs.
"Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat," Judicial Watch stated on its website.
The Texas law enforcement bulletin cites suspected fighters from the terrorist group previously known as ISIS and based in Syria and Iraq as eyeing a border crossing.
“The identities of persons operating these accounts cannot be independently verified; however the accounts were selected for monitoring based on several indications that they have been used by actual ISIS militants for propaganda purposes and collectively reach tens of thousands of followers,” states the bulletin. “One account was verified as belonging to an individual located in Mosul, Iraq.”
Some 32 Twitter and Facebook posts monitored by law enforcement over one recent week reflected interest in the southern border, according to the bulletin. The messages, which were forwarded thousands of times, included calls for jihadists to cross over from Mexico to carry out attacks and even alluded to a recent video by U.S. activist James O’Keefe, who was recorded coming across the Rio Grande valley in an Usama bin Laden costume.
The bulletin details numerous “calls for border infiltration” on social media, including one from a militant confirmed to be in Mosul, Iraq who explicitly beckons the “Islamic State to send a special force to America across the border with Mexico.”
“This Twitter account holder, who is the administrator of an ISIS propaganda trading group, stated that the time was right for such an action because ‘the US-Mexican border is now open large numbers of people crossing,’” the bulletin said.
Another message sent out via Twitter suggested that Islamic State fighters have already entered the U.S. via the border, warning that, as a result, “Americans in for ruin (sic).”
The Texas DPS bulletin comes on the heels of a federal Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice Joint Intelligence bulletin dated August 22, a copy of which was also obtained by FoxNews.com.That bulletin, entitled “Online Reaction but No Known Credible Homeland Threats from ISIL and Its Supporters Following US Air Strikes,”addresses potential threats to the Homeland in response to recent US air strikes on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets in Iraq and the murder of journalist James Foley.
This bulletin notes that while the FBI and DHS are unaware of specific credible threats against the U.S. from homegrown violent extremists, ISIL or other violent extremist groups overseas “we continue to assess that violent extremists who support ISIL have demonstrated the capability to attempt attacks on US targets overseas with little-to-no warning.”
The report also says that “because of the individualized nature of the radicalization process—it is difficult to predict triggers that will contribute to [homegrown violent extremists] attempting acts of violence…lone offenders present law enforcement with limited opportunities to detect and disrupt plots, which frequently involve simple plotting against targets of opportunity.”
“FBI and DHS assess that civilian deaths reportedly associated with these US military air strikes will almost certainly be used as further examples of a perceived Western war against Islam in English-language violent extremist messaging that could contribute to [homegrown violent extremist] radicalization to violence,” the report notes.
The FBI and DHS bulletin includes a section titled "ISIL Supporters Increasingly Using Social Media to Encourage Violent Acts against US Interests."
"ISIL and its online supporters have employed—and will almost certainly continue—Twitter “hashtag” campaigns that have gained mainstream media attention and been able to quickly reach a global audience of potential violent extremists, highlighting ISIL’s supporter message and encouraging individuals to commit acts of violence, in Iraq or in the West," the bulletin states.
"Several of the Tweets in response to the air strikes featured original and creative use of graphics—including a photo of the ISIL flag in front of the White House—and graphically rendered images depicting desecration of US monuments and landmarks."

Qatar's role as US ally at odds with claims it sponsors terror

The man in the above photo on the right thinks man on left is a dumb ass.                                                                                                                                            

If the Middle East were one big room, Qatar would be the elephant, according to a growing number of regional experts who believe the oil rich emirate is propping up violent jihadists around the globe even as it poses as a U.S. ally and would-be broker of peace.
Israel has long complained of Qatar's alleged duplicity, accusing it of meddling, bankrolling Hamas in Gaza, exporting radical Islamic terrorism through its tight links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Nusra. And a German official recently suggested that Qatar may also play a role in funding Islamic State, the savage extremist group behind the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley.
"You have to ask who is arming, who is financing ISIS troops? The key word there is Qatar - and how do we deal with these people and states politically?" German Development Minister Gerd Muller said last week.
In response, Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah unequivocally denied funding the Islamic State group.
"Qatar does not support extremist groups, including ISIS, in any way," he said in an emailed statement. "We are repelled by their views, their violent methods and their ambitions. The vision of extremist groups for the region is one that we have not, nor will ever, support in any way."
Indeed, Qatar was one of the first Middle Eastern countries to condemn Foley's murder, saying it was "a heinous crime that goes against all Islamic and humanitarian principles, as well as international laws and conventions."
Qatar hosts a U.S. military base, helped broker U.S.-backed peace talks between Israel and Hamas, helped free U.S. journalist Peter Theo Curtis from Al Nusra earlier this week and even played a role in the U.S. swap of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Guantanamo Bay detainees earlier this year.
Yet previous statements from U.S. officials indicate that they know Qatar has a multi-faceted role in the region.
“Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally, has for many years openly financed Hamas, a group that continues to undermine regional stability,” Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen told the Center for New American Security on "Confronting New Threats in Terrorist Financing" in March. “Press reports indicate that the Qatari government is also supporting extremist groups operating in Syria. To say the least, this threatens to aggravate an already volatile situation in a particularly dangerous and unwelcome manner.”
Qatar is a U.S. “frenemy,” according to Jonathan Schanzer, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. On one hand, it hosts the biggest U.S. military base in the Middle East at Al Udeid; invests tens of billions of dollars in the U.S and across the globe in a bid to make itself indispensable and acts as the ‘white knight’ intermediary in hostage negotiations.
On the other hand, Qatar is arming and funding Hamas in Gaza, brazenly fueling violent Arab uprisings including the brief and bloody reign in Egypt of the Muslim Brotherhood and is long alleged to be arming vicious rebel groups in Libya, Mali, Syria, Iraq, and Tunisia.
“Qatar is trying to cozy up to everyone," Meir Dagan, former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, warned the U.S. in a 2010 cable revealed by Wikileaks. "I think that you should remove your bases from [Qatar]. [The Qataris] owe their security to the presence of the Americans.”
Noting that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have all recalled their ambassadors from Qatar, Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, called for Qatar to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism.
"If we can get that done, then we can stop [the sale of U.S.] defense equipment and arms to Qatar.," Klein said. "There is an $11 billion deal to Qatar right now to sell them Apache helicopters, Patriot missiles, anti-tank rockets and such. This [designation] would enable both Israeli and Arab victims of Hamas attacks to sue Qatar in the United States.”
Klein is also working to try to suspend the FAA license for Qatar government-owned airline Qatar Airways to operate in the United States, but admits that getting enough U.S. politicians to speak out is a challenge.
Qatar’s policy of involving itself in so many different spheres on the world stage might finally be catching up with the tiny Gulf state that has a native population of just 250,000. The more Qatar seeks the limelight, the more scrutiny it attracts, and a growing number of informed observers around the world appear to increasingly believe that Qatar's two-faced foreign policy posture is being exposed.
“There are simply too many links, this network is too great, for us to pretend these are isolated instances of misguided individuals operating independently of government policy; or that this is merely part of talking to all sides in an argument,” Martin Samuel of Britain’s Daily Mail noted earlier this year. “Qatar has systematic and long-standing associations with some extremely dangerous people and information to support these allegations are established and in the public domain.”