John McLaughlin
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

What a rhinestone

I stumbled over this naive crud posted on the leftist Captain Comics site, by a man who may have fawned over the misogynist Identity Crisis, who's telling the following about Captain Britain and MI-13, which I once spoke about over here:

At the same time, [Paul] Cornell remembered to put a human face on the series. The relationships were as engaging and as varied as the epic invasions. The strongest relationship was the blossoming romance between the Black Night and Dr. Hussain. Hussain was a very naturalistic portrayal of a Muslim immigrant to England. She was cool and charming and it was interesting to meet her family through the eyes of the Black Knight.

On the one hand, his gushy take on the characterization of Hussain is quite annoying as it is gallingly sugarcoated. On the other hand, it does tell that Cornell may have made a big boo-boo in the eyes of some Muslims: a romance between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man! Which is considered taboo under the beliefs of the Koran. Yeah, I'll bet this is a VERY naturalistic meeting with her family alright.

It makes me very sad whenever today's comics are ever considered realistic, science-fantasy or not, and even offends me whenever realism is considered the most absolute importance for escapism. And with the way this beginning to sound, that's why the mere mention of realism is almost starting to leave a bad aftertaste for me.

STORM!

Good practice for that island we might be buying!

After nearly 16 hours without power as the result of a horrific storm, we have power right now. Phone service, mobile and landline, is unreliable.

Maybe you've heard about the storm that left over 1 million of us without power here in the D.C. area.

I've spent all day long scurrying around, including going out on a scouting mission for gasoline. I managed to find only one gas station open anywhere near me.

I've been running in high gear ever since 4:30 A.M., when I adjusted Mr. AOW's hospital bed via a power inverter.

My cousin's husband, an electrician and an inactive Marine, saved the day by bringing over a generator, thus allowing for brewed coffee and running the fridge. I'm also prepared to run the sump pump if necessary.

Water pressure is low and dropping.

More storms are expected later today and tomorrow.

Beware Of Those College Loans!

In all the uproar with the SCOTUS decision on ObamaCare, many interested and affected parties may have missed THIS:

...Starting Sunday [July 1], students hoping to earn the graduate degrees that have become mandatory for many white-collar jobs will become responsible for paying the interest on their federal loans while they are in school and immediately after they graduate. That means they’ll have to pay an extra $18 billion out of pocket over the next decade.

Meanwhile, the government will no longer cover the interest on undergraduate loans during the six months after students finish school. That’s expected to cost them more than $2 billion.

These changes have received little attention as lawmakers instead focus on preventing a spike in interest rates on federal student loans.

[...]

Students who take out these loans over the next year will receive the lower interest rate — but that amount will be charged to their bill as soon as they throw their graduation caps in the air. Students who apply for federal loans next year will be hit with a double whammy: a higher interest rate that begins after graduation.

[...]

As of Sunday [July 1], Uncle Sam will no longer pay the interest on new graduate loans while students are in school and for six months after they finish. The change comes as government data show that the average annual cost of a master’s degree and professional programs in law and medicine has jumped by double digits. Enrollment in graduate programs has risen by 33 percent since 2000, to 2.8 million students. ...

I'm The Firestarter

Obama Threatens to Veto Defense Bill Unless It Hikes Healthcare Fees for Service Members

Click on the title to read the story at Gateway Pundit.

'Unleash Hell': New Al Qaeda magazine describes in detail how to start huge forest fires across the U.S..with instructions on how to make 'ember bombs'

From the Daily Mail:

Al Qaeda has called upon its followers to unleash massive forest fires upon the United States this summer.

Published in the latest edition of the notorious terror magazine, 'Inspire', are graphic instructions for the creation and ignition of 'ember bombs'

Detailed in the memorably titled, 'It is of your Freedom to Ignite a Firebomb', the magazine encourages any would-be terrorist to target Montana, because of the rapid population growth in its wooded areas.

A fire burning out of control in a pine forest on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in New Mexico: Al Qaeda has issued instructions to its followers to start intentional fires in the United States

In other news:

Two Days Ago, Two Arab Arsonists Arrested in Jerusalem Blazes

From Arutz Sheva:

Two Arab youths from the village of Issawiya in eastern Jerusalem were arrested Thursday and charged with arson, for setting several fires in the area of their village. One of the fires was set next to an IDF base on Mount Scopus, and the other was set next to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. One of the youths confessed, incriminating his partner in crime.

Hilary Clinton's Assistant Huma Abedin is the Daughter of a Prominent Member of the Muslim Sisterhood

From Barrack Now:
Saleha and her now-deceased husband, Syed Z. Abedin, co-founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), established in both Great Britain and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is a group that once had close ties with a Saudi group known as the Muslim World League (MWL) through that group's General Secretary, Omar Abdullah Naseef. In Contemporary Discussions on Religious Minorities in Iran, Jorgen S. Nielsen, Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Copenhagen, writes of the relationship between the Abedins and Naseef on p. 366:

“Trained in social science and being of Indian origin, Professor Abedin (Syed Z.) was the founder of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, an institution that had the quiet but active support of the then General Secretary of the Muslim World League, Dr. Umar Abdallah Nasif.”

Interestingly, IMMA was founded at the urging of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Incidentally, the Obama administration's envoy to the OIC is Rashad Hussain, a man who found himself at the center of controversy when it was learned he spoke at a Muslim Students Association (MSA) event in 2004 and expressed support for convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian. MSA is also a Muslim Brotherhood group. Hussain was caught in a lie about the incident and was not fired.

Obama himself heaped praise on Hussain, saying he “has played a key role in developing the partnerships I called for in Cairo.”

Perhaps more foreboding are the connections Saleha Abedin has with the U.S. State Department. In addition to being a Vice Dean at Dar El-Hekma College in Saudi Arabia, Saleha was also one of the institution's founders, along with Yaseen Abdullah Kadi – a designated terrorist by the U.S. – and members of the bin Laden family.

In 2010, Huma arranged for the Secretary of State to visit Dar El-Hekma where Clinton spoke alongside both Saleha and another Sisterhood member named, Suheir Qureshi, who like so many of her colleagues, holds a Ph.D. The photo on the left is Hillary and Saleha at that Dar El-Hekma meeting; the photo on the right is of Huma and Hillary.


Though the IMMA Editorial Board currently lists both Huma's mother and her brother as editors, it does not list her. However, it once did. Thanks to a screenshot from the Anti-Mullah blog, we have proof that she was once a member.

IMMA website today:



IMMA website in 2008:



Speaking of covering internet tracks...

Although the MWL's (Muslim World League) financial arm in the United States – Rabita Trust – wasshut down for its terror ties, it still exists under the name Rabita al-Alam al-Islami; Saleha Abedin was once listed as a member of this organization, which makes her part of the MWL.

The Anti Defamation League says the following about the MWL:

“While the MWL has on several occasions condemned terrorism in general terms, it has a long history of providing financial support to terrorist groups or having organizational links to them, including to Hamas, Abu Sayyaf group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Jemaat al Islamiyya, and Al Qaeda.”

Rabita Trust was started by former General Secretary of the MWL and notorious al-Qaeda godfather, Abdullah Omar Naseef. Naseef plays an integral role in both al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

This reality makes Saleha Abedin and Abdullah Omar Naseef colleagues. Both are intimately involved with the MWL and, by extension, connected to al-Qaeda.

That's not Saleha's only al-Qaeda connection...

Her name currently appears on the main Al-Azhar University website (last name on the list) as a member of the High Council for Islamic Matters. Remember, the founder of al-Qaeda – Abdullah Azzam – is a graduate of Al-Azhar. Abedin is also a close colleague of Camellia Helmy, another Sisterhood leader. Helmy is the wife of Muslim Brotherhood leader Siraj Al-Din Allboudi. Allboudi was imprisoned for his role in establishing the modern day Sisterhood or International Women's Organization (IWO).

As a prestigious member of Al-Azhar University who participated in the 12th session of the Islamic Conference for the Islamic Uprising, Saleha has essentially endorsed the mission of the conference, which included representing the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC). The IICWS stood for the decriminalization of rape within marriage. This would mean that Saleha would support the rape of her daughter (Huma) by her son-in-law, Anthony Weiner, who also happens to be Jewish. How's that for a contradiction? While Saleha is, no doubt, a proponent ofMuruna, which allows Muslims to absolve themselves of all prohibitions to further the cause of Islam (to include marrying a Jew), she also must necessarily support the marital rape of her daughter at the hands of Weiner.

One has to wonder what Saleha thinks about the treatment received by the likes of Lara Logan at Tahrir Square last year.

Here is a screen shot from a website that once listed Saleha as a member of Rabita Trust and touted her work with the IICWC. A screen shot is the best we could do because this information is no longer posted. Relevant Arabic has been translated:



According to Al-Midina, the history of the Abedin name has a very real connection to Hitler, with only two degrees of separation through Haj Amin al-Husseini - the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during WWII - and and Hassan al-Banna - the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. The former was a colleague of Muhammad Sabri Abedin and the latter's secretary was Abdul Hakim Abedin. Both are confirmed relatives of Sisterhood member, Saleha.

It doesn't end there as Saleha's son, Hassan Abedin, also serves as a fellow (his name was removed after our work last year) on the board of the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies (OCIS) with Naseef, who is the chairman of the Board of Trustees there. Also serving as a trustee there was the aforementioned, Hitler-loving Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Let us consider Saleha's relationship with IMMA Vice Chairman, Abu Bakr Bakader. (Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs). Our government needs to look into the two who are colleagues because Bakader is seen with Saleh Al-Ghamdia relative of three 9/11 hijackers, to include Saleh Al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, and Hamza Saleh Al-Ghamdi.

At this point it's safe to say that our State Department has been infiltrated by enemies of this nation and those responsible for letting them in – either actively or passively – may be guilty of treason.

Rush Limbaugh, as usual, is right and Think Progress, as usual, is left (and wrong).

Now, if Think Progress would like to challenge us further about the new first lady of Egypt being aclose associate of Huma Abedin's mother, we recommend that they stop trying to catch our missiles with butterfly nets.

Steve Emerson on The Muslim Brotherhood and Stealth Jihad

CNSNews:

Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’
By Fred Lucas

(CNSNews.com) – Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama's transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.

“There’s clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing, and this is an office that is at the center of the issues of border enforcement,” said Burke.

Over the course of several days, CNSNews.com left multiple telephone messages with Burke for comment on this story. He did not respond.

Dennis K. Burke has had a long career working as an aide and political appointee to Democratic elected officials. From 1989 to 1994, he was a counsel for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working in that capacity for several years on an assault-weapons ban, which was finally enacted on Sept. 13, 1994 as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. That act expired on Sept. 13, 2004. (See NYT: Dennis Burke, Sen. DeConcini, Weapons Ban.pdf)

From 1994-95, Burke served in the Clinton Justice Department in the Office of Legislative Affairs, and in 1997-99, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona.

From 1999 to 2003, Burke was chief deputy and special assistant to Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano.

In 2003, when Napolitano became governor, Burke became her chief of staff. He stayed in that job until the fall of 2008, when he left to help Democratic political campaigns, including then-Sen. Obama’s presidential campaign.

Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that on Jan. 9, 2008, while working as Gov. Napolitano’s chief of staff, Burke contributed $2,000 to then-Sen Obama’s presidential primary campaign. Since 1997, according to FEC records, Burke has contributed a total of $16,350 to various Democratic candidates.

After Obama was elected in November 2008, Burke joined his presidential transition team, serving on the Immigration Policy Working Group.

Eight days before Obama’s inauguration, on Jan. 12, 2009--while Burke was working on the transition team--Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. At that meeting, Obama “pledged” to take action to stop the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico.

Obama also decided to put Burke’s old boss, incoming Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in a leadership role in making the gun-trafficking problem a top priority.

“President-elect Obama expressed support for efforts in the border states in both the United States and Mexico to eradicate drug-related violence and stop the flow of guns and cash,” incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement at the time. “He told President Calderón that he intends to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to lead an effort to increase information sharing to strengthen those efforts. He pledged to take more effective action from the United States to stem the flow of arms from the United States to Mexico.”

When Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary, Burke moved from the Obama transition team to become her senior adviser. On Feb. 25, 2009, a little more than a month after Obama had made his “pledge” to Calderon, Napolitano testified in the House Homeland Security Committee. She stressed that stopping the flow of guns to Mexico was a top priority of the Obama administration and key focus of her work.

Responding to a question about violence on the border, Napolitano said the administration was going to work with the Mexican government on the issue. Then she said: “Secondly, it is looking at, government-wide, at what we can do to stop the southbound export of weaponry, particularly assault-type weapons and grenades that are being used in that drug war.”

Jeff Beck
1999 Tokyo Concert

Daaaaaaamn

No new taxes my ass!

From Big Government

While we were all debating the cost to our liberty due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), we were ignoring the cost to our pockets.  If there ever was a reason for bipartisan rage about this law, it should be on the twenty - yes, twenty - hidden new taxes of this law.  Making matters even more relevant is that seven of these taxes are levied on all citizens regardless of income.  Hence, Mr. Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 is just another falsehood associated with this legislation.

The first, and best known, of these seven taxes that will hit all Americans as a result of Obamacare is the Individual Mandate Tax (no longer concealed as a penalty). This provision will require a couple to pay the higher of a base tax of $1,360 per year, or 2.5% of adjusted growth income starting with lower base tax and rising to this level by 2016.  Individuals will see a base tax of $695 and families a base tax of $2,085 per year by 2016. 

Next up is the Medicine Cabinet Tax that took effect in 2011.  This tax prohibits reimbursement of expenses for over-the-counter medicine, with the lone exception of insulin, from an employee’s pre-tax dollar funded Health Saving Account (HSA), Flexible Spending Account (FSA) or Health Reimbursement Account (HRA).  This provision hurts middle class earners particularly hard since they earn enough to actually pay federal taxes, but not enough to make this restriction negligible.

The Flexible Spending Account (FSA) Cap, which will begin in 2013, is perhaps the most hurtful provision to the middle class.  This part of the law imposes a cap of $2,500 per year (which is now unlimited) on the amount of pre-tax dollars that could be deposited into these accounts.  Why is this particularly hurtful to the middle class?  It is because funds in these accounts may be used to pay for special needs education for special needs children in the United States.  Tuition rates for this type of special education can easily exceed $14,000 per year and the use of pre-tax dollars has helped many middle income families.

Another direct hit to the middle class is the Medical Itemized Deduction Hurdle which is currently 7.5% of adjusted gross income.  This is the hurdle that must be met before medical expenses over that hurdle can be taken as a deduction on federal income taxes.  Obamacare raises this hurdle to 10% of adjusted gross income beginning in 2013.  Consider the middle class family with $80,000 of adjusted gross income and $8,000 of medical expenses.  Currently, that family can get some relief from being able to take a $2,000 deduction (7.5% X $80,000 = $6,000; $8,000 –$6,000 = $2,000).  An increase to 10% would eliminate the deduction in this example and if that family was paying a 25% federal tax rate, the real cost of that lost deduction would be $500.

The fifth new tax on the middle class, and all Americans, is the Health Savings Account (HSA) Withdrawal Tax Hike.  This provision increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10% currently to 20% beginning in 2013.  This provision actually sets these accounts apart from Investment Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and other tax advantaged accounts, all of which remain with a 10% early withdrawal tax.

Another regressive tax that is part of this law began in 2010 and that is the Indoor Tanning Services Tax, which places a 10% excise tax on people using tanning salons.  While some may regard this as insignificant, the broader implication is that this act of taxation is a blatant move by the federal government to control the behavior of citizens.  This provision, as does the Individual Mandate and as Justice Kennedy said during the oral arguments on the constitutionality of the law said, “….fundamentally changes the relationship between the federal government and the citizen.”

The seventh new tax that directly impacts the middle class, along with all citizens, is the Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans or the “Cadillac” Health Insurance Plan Tax.  These are plans that provide extensive coverage and that are generally fully paid for, or largely paid for, by employers.  This provision imposes a 40% excise tax on the employer-paid premium on taxpayers who are covered by such plans, beginning in 2018.  The reason it begins in 2018 is because most unionized workers are covered by plans that fall under this definition and a deferral was made to spare union members from this tax for at least a period of time.

Read the rest here.

Obamacare Individual Mandate for Dummies

from facebook.com/ImageBlitz

Roll Call:

Darrell Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record
By Jonathan Strong
Roll Call Staff
June 29, 2012, 12:06 p.m.

In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.

The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.

The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.

According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.

Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.

The wiretap applications were signed by senior DOJ officials in the department’s criminal division, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco and another official who is now deceased.

In Fast and Furious, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed assault guns bought by “straw purchasers” to “walk,” which meant ending surveillance on weapons suspected to be en route to Mexican drug cartels.

The tactic, which was intended to allow agents to track criminal networks by finding the guns at crime scenes, was condemned after two guns that were part of the operation were found at U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder scene.

Straw purchasers are individuals who buy guns on behalf of criminals, obscuring who is buying the weapons.

While Issa has since said he has obtained a number of wiretap applications, the letter only refers to one, from March 15, 2010. The full application is not included in what Issa entered into the Congressional Record, and names are obscured in Issa’s letter.

In the application, ATF agents included transcripts from a wiretap intercept from a previous Drug Enforcement Administration investigation that demonstrated the suspects were part of a gun-smuggling ring.

“The wiretap affidavit details that agents were well aware that large sums of money were being used to purchase a large number of firearms, many of which were flowing across the border,” the letter says.

The application included details such as how many guns specific suspects had purchased via straw purchasers and how many of those guns had been recovered in Mexico.

It also described how ATF officials watched guns bought by suspected straw purchasers but then ended their surveillance without interdicting the guns.

In at least one instance, the guns were recovered at a police stop at the U.S.-Mexico border the next day.

The application included financial details for four suspected straw purchasers showing they had purchased $373,000 worth of guns in cash but reported almost no income for the previous year, the letter says.

“Although ATF was aware of these facts, no one was arrested, and ATF failed to even approach the straw purchasers. Upon learning these details through its review of this wiretap affidavit, senior Justice Department officials had a duty to stop this operation. Further, failure to do so was a violation of Justice Department policy,” the letter says.

Holder declined to discuss the contents of the applications at a House Judiciary Committee hearing June 7 but said the applications were narrowly reviewed for whether there was probable cause to obtain a wiretap application.

Thousands of wiretap applications are reviewed each year by the DOJ’s criminal division. The applications are designed to obtain approval, so they tend to focus on the most suspicious information available.

A line attorney first creates a summary of the application, which is then usually reviewed by a deputy to Lanny Breuer, the head of the division, on his behalf. It is then reviewed and approved or denied by a judge.

Cummings has sided with the DOJ in the debate over the secret applications, but the full substance of his argument is unknown.

A June 5 letter from Cummings responding to Issa’s May 24 letter said Issa “omits the critical fact that [redacted].” The entire first section of the letter’s body is likewise blacked out.

"Sadly, it looks like Mr. Issa is continuing his string of desperate and unsubstantiated claims, while hiding key information from the very same documents," a Democratic committee staffer said. "His actions demonstrate a lack of concern for the facts, as well as a reckless disregard for our nation’s courts and federal prosecutors who are trying to bring criminals to justice. We’re not going to stoop to his level. Obviously, we are going to honor the court’s seal and the prosecutors’ requests. But if Mr. Issa won’t tell you what he is hiding from the wiretaps, you should ask him why."