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.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Milwaukee scorecard: Why Trump, Carson and Fox Business won the night
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| Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, plus Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker |
Donald Trump didn’t dominate the Milwaukee debate. In fact, he disappeared for long stretches.
Ben Carson didn’t loom large over the debate either, though he was more energetic than in his previous low-key outings.
Yet they were the night’s winners, and here’s why.
In pure debating terms, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were the best orators on the stage. Rubio in particular had his second strong performance in a row. The two Cuban-American senators seem to be emerging as the top contenders of the “establishment” wing—though both would hate the phrase—to square off against Trump and Carson or fill the vacuum if they eventually fade.
But with such a sizable lead in the Republican contest, The Donald and the doctor did nothing to damage themselves—or change the dynamics of the race.
And the policy-laden questions from the moderators—Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, plus Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker—kept the two-hour session from veering out of control or turning into a night of media-bashing.
Trump was restrained and didn’t hurl any of his patented insults. He behaved more like a conventional candidate, and didn’t try to elbow his way into the discussion, as some of his rivals did. This was by design, as he later admitted to Cavuto. When you’re leading the polls, you don’t need to pick fights. And he was comfortable holding forth on such issues as trade and immigration.
Carson did what he had to do with one answer to Cavuto’s question about the wave of media attacks on his biography. He didn’t show his anger at the press, as he did last week in a news conference and combative CNN interview. Carson said he had no problem being vetted but did have a problem being lied about—and then pivoted to his view that the press has given Hillary Clinton a soft ride on Benghazi.
With that surgical precision, the neurosurgeon may have closed the book on the credibility questions, unless there are damaging new revelations. After flawed or overhyped stories by Politico, CNN and the Wall Street Journal, he has emerged largely intact—and is raising money against the media
Carly Fiorina was solid, and yet seems to have dissipated the momentum she gained after her breakout performance in the CNN debate. Rand Paul had his strongest debate of the year, but he is far back in the pack. John Kasich repeatedly interrupted--challenging Trump on immigration, for instance—but seemed to scold his party in a way that sounded a discordant note. Kasich’s brand is to be a truth-teller, but such folks aren’t always popular.
And what about Jeb Bush? He was more focused and forceful, and looked more comfortable, than in any of the three earlier debates. He undoubtedly reassured some nervous donors. But Bush still has to climb out of the deep hole he has dug for himself.
As for the moderators, they did exactly what they had advertised: ask substantive questions and not make it about them. It was a huge stylistic contrast from CNBC’s train-wreck debate.
The debate got wonky at times as they drilled down into tax plans, the Fed and the IMF. Some critics say it was a bit dull; so be it. But the media critics who say the anchors were tossing softballs miss the point.
Prodding politicians to flesh out their plans is not as exciting as asking confrontational questions or comparing them to comic-book characters. Cavuto and Bartiromo followed up at times, pressing for specifics, but they were hemmed in to some degree by the decision to allow 90-second answers and 60-second rebuttals, which gave the debate a weightier feel.
The audience seemed interested, with 13.5 million tuning in for the prime-time debate, just under CNBC’s 14 million (the 8-year-old FBN reaches 11 million fewer homes than its rival). The figure is, of course, the highest in the channel's history.
No debate is perfect. But there’s got to be a sweet spot between haranguing the candidates and rolling over for them.
Trump touts controversial Eisenhower program as deportation model
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| Bill O'Reilly |
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| Donald Trump |
The program, known as known as "Operation Wetback," was a complicated undertaking largely viewed by historians as a dark moment in America's past. It also coincided with a guest worker program that provided legal status to hundreds of thousands of largely Mexican farm workers.
Fox News' Bill O'Reilly confronted Trump about his support for the program Wednesday night on "The O'Reilly Factor."
"Believe me when I tell you, Mr. Trump, that was brutal what they did to those people to kick them back [across the border]," O'Reilly said. "I mean, the stuff they did was really brutal."
"I've heard it both ways. I've heard good reports, I've heard bad reports," Trump responded. "We would do it in a very humane way." The real estate billionaire also refused to refer to the program by its name, which is now widely considered a racial slur against Mexicans, saying "I don't like the term at all."
Trump touted the approach as a virtue of Eisenhower-era program in Tuesday night's debate.
"Moved 1.5 million illegal immigrants out of this country, moved them just beyond the border. They came back. Moved them again beyond the border, they came back. Didn't like it," Trump said. "Moved them way south. They never came back."
"He's only got part of the story," Mae Ngai, a professor of history at Columbia University, told the Associated Press.
The 1954 initiative was aimed at apprehending and deporting agricultural workers who had crossed the border illegally looking for work.
According to a summary of the project from the Texas State Historical Association, the United States Border Patrol "aided by municipal, county, state, and federal authorities, as well as the military, began a quasi-military operation of search and seizure of all unauthorized immigrants."
The project, Ngai said, began with 750 immigration officers and border control agents, who used jeeps, trucks, buses and airplanes to apprehend migrants nationwide, including in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. They apprehended 3,000 people a day and 170,000 during its first three months.
Critics of the program say the conditions for those the agents apprehended were anything but humane. Many of the apprehended migrants were transported in crowded buses and dumped on the other side of the border in a manner some at the time equated with the treatment of livestock.
In one incident, Ngai said, 88 apprehended Mexicans died of sunstroke after being subjected to 112-degree heat. The number would have been higher had the Red Cross not intervened.
Some of those apprehended were sent deep into the interior of Mexico to prevent re-entry by train or cargo ship, where conditions drew the attention of federal regulators.
One congressional investigation likened a transport ship that was the site of a riot to an "eighteenth century slave ship" and a "penal hell ship."
Trump also leaves out of his advocacy for the Eisenhower-era approach the fact the program was developed to complement a guest-worker program that began in the 1940s and was aimed at allowing Mexican farmworkers to enter the country and work in the U.S. legally.
Hundreds of thousands of farm workers did so, and the deportation effort was conceived as a way to pressure employers into using the guest worker program.
"It was like a carrot and a stick," Ngai said.
While Trump has put the number of deportations at 1.5 million, most accounts suggest the numbers are far fewer, because they included those who chose to leave the country voluntarily as well as people who returned after being deported and were deported again.
Trump has yet to lay out precisely how he would track down those living in the country illegally, or how he would determine who are "the good ones" that he would allow to return. Both John Kasich, Ohio's governor, and Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, rejected Trump's plan on Tuesday night as unrealistic and cruel.
"To send them back, 500,000 a month, is just not, not possible," Bush said. "And it's not embracing American values. And it would tear communities apart. And it would send a signal that we're not the kind of country that I know America is."
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