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But will it reverse decades of entrenched indoctrination?

FrontPage Mag
by Raymond Ibrahim
12/20/2017

Excerpt:

President Trump’s new national security strategy is set to return words relevant to understanding Islamic terrorism—such as “jihad”—that had been expunged from the Intelligence and Defense communities’ lexicon, most notably under the Obama administration.   According to the new strategy document, “The primary transnational threats Americans face are from jihadist terrorists and transnational criminal organizations”; the document also vows to “pursue threats to their source, so that jihadist terrorists are stopped before they ever reach our borders.”

This is significant on several levels—the first being as basic as “knowing one’s enemy,” which President Obama had refused to do.  In 2011 it was reported that “the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive.” One Obama official explained the logic:  “I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong, they are offensive, and they are contrary to everything that this president, this attorney general and Department of Justice stands for. They will not be tolerated.”  

It should be noted, however, that the politically correct induced paralysis that Obama championed was already well entrenched before him.  Speaking in 2006 during the George W. Bush administration, William Gawthrop, a former Pentagon official, said “the senior Service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader. As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered.”

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https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268781/trump-returns-jihad-intelligence-raymond-ibrahim

Mark Zuckerberg.

Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Some of unit’s clients stifle opposition, stoke extremism.

Bloomberg

by Lauren Etter, Vernon Silver and Sarah Frier
12/21/2017

Excerpt:

Under fire for Facebook Inc.’s role as a platform for political propaganda, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has punched back, saying his mission is above partisanship. “We hope to give all people a voice and create a platform for all ideas,” Zuckerberg wrote in September after President Donald Trump accused Facebook of bias.

Zuckerberg’s social network is a politically agnostic tool for its more than 2 billion users, he has said. But Facebook, it turns out, is no bystander in global politics. What he hasn’t said is that his company actively works with political parties and leaders including those who use the platform to stifle opposition—sometimes with the aid of “troll armies” that spread misinformation and extremist ideologies. 

The initiative is run by a little-known Facebook global government and politics team that’s neutral in that it works with nearly anyone seeking or securing power. The unit is led from Washington by Katie Harbath, a former Republican digital strategist who worked on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign. Since Facebook hired Harbath three years later, her team has traveled the globe helping political clients use the company’s powerful digital tools.

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View the complete article including images and links at:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-21/inside-the-facebook-team-helping-regimes-that-reach-out-and-crack-down

Gateway Pundit

by Cristina Laila
12/20/2017

Excerpt:

In a bombshell report by POLITICO‘s Josh Meyer, the Obama administration is accused of protecting Hezbollah drug and human trafficking rings to help ensure a nuclear deal with Iran was achieved.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and other lawmakers are examining ‘potentially criminal’ evidence that could implicate former top Obama officials, including NatSec official Ben Rhodes.

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View the complete article including image, links and comments at:

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/12/breaking-congress-investigate-potentially-criminal-obama-scheme-protect-hezbollah-drug-human-trafficking-rings-appease-iran/

© Camille Fine

The Hill

by Sharyl Attkisson, Opinion Contributor
12/15/2017

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

Excerpts:

I caught my breath when I heard FBI Director Christopher Wray testify to Congress that there’s been no abuse of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the law under which our intelligence communities electronically spy on possible terrorists and sometimes capture private communications of innocent U.S. citizens. Section 702 and related components expire Dec. 31, and Congress must decide whether to renew them.

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As a backdrop, recall that spying on U.S. citizens by our Intel agencies is considered so contrary to our basic constitutional protections, that it’s generally prohibited, and is only permitted under strict limits set forth under the law.

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View the complete article including image, links and comments at:

http://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/365131-fbi-chiefs-claim-on-surveillance-abuse-doesnt-fit-the-evidence

ZULLO: HOSPITAL “NEVER HAD ANY BIRTH INFORMATION ON HIM”

The Post & Email

by Sharon Rondeau
12/17/2017

Excerpts:

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He then revealed that when he viewed Montgomery’s data, it “set [off] alarm bells” because the subjects could not have qualified for the loans and investments which the documentation indicated they obtained.  After consulting with a “whistleblower” of the HSBC fraud case which became public in 2011, Zullo said he was told that the “bank accounts” Montgomery’s records contained represented none other than money-laundering transactions.

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Zullo said that the “bank accounts” used for illegal purposes are “layered” so that the “trail of money” will be impossible to follow.  “Every one of them had the same replication of holdings,” he said of the “accounts” in Montgomery’s records.  He then revealed that he viewed details of investment transactions, including brokers’ notes, in Montgomery’s records representing “a breach” with far-reaching implications and victimization.

Zullo added that a “highly-encrypted” password of a Microsoft executive appearing in Montgomery’s documentation was verified with its owner, demonstrating that the government had breached the servers of the internet/software giant through multiple layers.

“He ended up turning over 600 million records to the FBI,” Zullo said of Montgomery.

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View the complete article including image, links and comments at:

https://www.thepostemail.com/2017/12/17/conclusion-obama-birth-certificate-investigators-interview-carl-gallups/

Image via The Bradford File

Gateway Pundit
by Jim Hoft
12/15/2017

Excerpt:

It’s an industry.

Thanks to Lisa Bloom, spawn of Gloria Allred, we now know that Trump accusers are paid $750,000 by top Democrat donors to accuse the billionaire president of sexual abuse.

With Democrats it’s all about power by any means necessary.

Democrats paraded out three Trump accusers this week.
Someone needs to check their bank accounts.

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View the complete article including images, links and comments at:

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/12/industry-thanks-lisa-bloom-now-know-trump-accusers-paid-750000-dem-donors-say-trump-abused/

American Thinker

by Thomas Lifson
12/14/2017

Excerpt:

A lot of frustration has been expressed – on these pages and elsewhere – over the slow pace of progress in unraveling the Deep State coup against Trump.  But “the process of uncovering the worst political scandal in American history,” as I called it a couple of days ago, needs to be done the right way, or else it will founder under the waves of abuse that will pour from the media and political branches of the establishment.  Not only must legal niceties be observed, but the rollout of information must be undertaken with a strategy in mind.  Each step builds on the previous and addresses the probable response.

When Rod Rosenstein evaded the answers being sought in a congressional hearing and deferred to the inspector general investigation underway, I thought it a reasonable response, even though Rosenstein is now a hate-object for having appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel.  The I.G., Michael E. Horowitz, is no political stooge.  (For background on the inspectors general, see Ed Lasky here and here.  There are unsung heroes of our constitutional republic among them, hero-federal bureaucrats.)

And letting any of the I.G.’s cats out of the bag early could have serious consequences.

View the complete article including image, links and comments at:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/12/coming_attractions_how_the_biggest_political_scandal_in_history_will_play_out_in_2018.html

Photo: AP Images

The New American

by Bob Adelmann
11/22/2017

Excerpt:

It took 41,000 bolivars of the Venezuelan currency to purchase a single American dollar on November 1. Three weeks later it took 84,000 bolivars. Back on January 1 Venezuelans could trade just 3,100 bolivars to purchase a dollar. Patrick Gillespie, writing for CNNMoney, did the calculation: Inflation in Venezuela is running at a rate of 4,000 percent a year.

Which explains why Venezuelans are increasingly turning to barter in order to survive. A loaf of bread can be traded for a handful of beans because each has intrinsic value and can’t be degraded through a printing press.

It’s also symptomatic of the end stages of every socialist enterprise which is allowed to run its course. First is the desire on the part of politicians to buy votes and support of the people by promising to give them things they didn’t earn. In Hugo Chávez’s case it was easy: the country’s massive oil reserves were being sold on the world market at great profit to PdVSA, the once privately-held oil company. It was nationalized in 1976 and its workers replaced by Chávez in 2006. Those workers were given a choice: support Chávez or lose their jobs. Chávez’s energy minister was explicit: “PdVSA’s workers are with this revolution, and those who aren’t should go somewhere else. Go to Miami!”

PdVSA became the primary funding source for Chavez’s red revolution: the huge expansion of the welfare state without requiring the people themselves to pay for it.

When oil prices headed south, so did PdVSA’s revenues. Off by 40 percent, Chávez had two choices: cut back on the welfare state, or print the money to continue to pay for it.

When Chávez died of colon cancer in 2013 at age 59, his protégé Nicolas Maduro took over and continued Chavez’s socialist experiment. He borrowed against the country’s oil reserves — some $150 billion against an economy that generated just $250 billion a year — and expanded the money supply to continue to fund it.

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View the complete article including image, links and comments at:

https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/south-america/item/27440-tracking-socialist-venezuela-s-death-spiral-4-000-percent-inflation

Warrior for law and order shares the good and bad news from the Trump DOJ at Restoration Weekend.

FrontPage Mag

12/13/2017

Excerpt:

Editor’s note: Below are the video and transcript of remarks given by J. Christian Adams at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 2017 Restoration Weekend. The event was held Nov. 16th-19th at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida.

J. Christian Adams: I’m going to talk to you today about what’s going on at the Justice Department, is the topic of my talk, and of course, if you tune into Fox News on any given day, that seems to be the lead story.  So I’m going to talk a little bit about that.  Many of you have been asking me this weekend what’s going on at the Justice Department, and I told you, wait until Sunday and we’ll cover it in great detail. 

When I was at the Justice Department, I learned that the Justice Department has so much power over so many things.  If you’ve been to the pool, you’ve seen the chair that goes in and out of the pool, that’s a Justice Department mandate.  Civil rights, elections, on and on.  It is the fulcrum upon which Obama and Holder initiated a radical transformation of the country.  Everything went through the Justice Department, and that’s why it’s so important.  

When Holder dismissed my New Black Panther case in 2009, a few months after they were sworn in, those of us working at the Department began to see this radical transformation taking place, just starting at the time.  And you didn’t think it was possible, right?  You didn’t think that, okay, the men with billy clubs in front of a poll, and you bring a case and the case is dismissed, but you also didn’t think they would keep going.  And frankly, the New Black Panther case, with the benefit of hindsight, was just the beginning of a radicalized transformation of, frankly, the United States.  

Holder and Obama institutionalized this radicalism at the Justice Department.  They made it not radicalism to the people who work there.  To the people who worked there, my colleagues, this was simply this new, enlightened way of thinking.  It was progressivism meets power, and that’s what you saw over the course of 8 years.  They turned the law into a relativist, racialist, radicalism, and that’s what we saw time after time after time.  Now, I’m here to tell you about what’s happening now.  What has happened the last 10 months since the inauguration, and it’s a mixed bag, and we’ll go over some mixed things that are going on and some bad things that are going on still.  But first the good news.  I put at the top of the list the fact that Eric Holder’s war on cops is over.  It’s done.  Those of you who have read my book, it’s like listening to a Louie Gohmert talk though, which is very hard to follow by the way.  There are so many fanciful, farcical things that are totally true that you can’t believe it’s actually happening, and it gives you an insight into how nuts some of these people were.  For example, when I was at the Justice Department under Obama, they actually hired an organization, Northeastern University, to do police sensitivity training.  Now I’m not done with this.  One of the consultants working for this organization to do police sensitivity training — and by the way, they charged you, the taxpayers, a million dollars to produce these materials.  One of the women who worked for this organization was Angela Davis.  Do you remember this?  And of course Angela Davis is the communist who probably was involved in the murder of a judge in California, but this is the sort of world we lived in under Eric Holder, where federal tax money was moving to an organization, that has as part of its staff Angela Davis, to train police officers.  That’s the world we’ve left under President Obama. 

Another good thing that has happened since the inauguration, “sue and settle” is over.  What do I mean by “sue and settle”?  You guys got to give the progressives credit, they’re geniuses when it comes to leveraging power.  What Obama instituted was a series of lawsuits at DOJ against, for example, financial services companies, for redline mortgaging, or other housing firms for discrimination in mortgage lending.  And they would extract these gigantic settlements out of these corporations, and they would require the corporations to set aside millions of dollars for a slush fund that would then be used by progressive organizations.  Just think about that.  They would leverage federal power to fuel their far-left allies, and that’s what they did for 8 years and Jeff Sessions ended it.  Immediately terminated the program, so “sue and settle” is over, good. 

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View the complete article including image, video and comments at:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268707/j-christian-adams-whats-happening-justice-frontpagemagcom

People with tight connections to Facebook are going public with a critique of the company and social media more broadly. They say Facebook and social media systems undermine democracy and exploit the human psychology to get people addicted to their platforms.

Associated Press

POSTBULLETIN

by Barbara Ortutay, Associated Press
12/12/2017

Excerpt:

NEW YORK — Some of Facebook’s former friends are starting to express some serious doubts about the social network they helped create.

Facebook exploits a “vulnerability in human psychology” to addict its users, Sean Parker, the company’s first president, said in a public forum last month. Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook vice president who joined the company in 2007, recently told an audience at Stanford that the company is “ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”

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View the complete article including image and comments at:

http://www.postbulletin.com/business/some-of-facebook-s-early-friends-now-its-sharpest-critics/article_0461a02c-19c6-5e5f-ba66-82b35ffd9b9f.html