Friday Morning - The Front Page Cover - ACTION

The Front Page Cover

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"

Featuring:

‘American Sniper’

Peggy Noonan

"Know who you are standing with"

"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future"

~~~lll~~~

'Whatever Ideology'?

Barack nObama refuses to acknowledge that basic tenets of Islam are the ideological foundation of the Islamic State and its army of terrorists. That ideology is metastasizing throughout the Middle East. nObama's premature withdrawal of our forces from Iraq prior to his 2012 re-election -- so he could claim "I ended the war" -- left a vacuum filled by ISIL, which has now largely negated all the blood and treasure we expended to establish democracy in Iraq. Yesterday, as King Abdullah II of Jordan, one or our most dependable allies in the region, met with nObama, ISIL released a professionally edited video of caged Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, being burned alive. According to nObama, "It's just one more indication of the viciousness and barbarity of this organization. ... It also indicates the degree to which whatever ideology they are operating off of, it's bankrupt." Memo to nObama: The "organization" has a name -- it's "The Islamic State," and the "ideology they're operating off of" is radical Islam. And the most prized target in their sites would be Americans -- on American soil. -The Patriot Post

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Senate Has Opportunity in Ashton Carter Hearing

Those worried about the White House's farce of a foreign policy may find some solace in Barack nObama's nominee for secretary of defense, Ashton Carter. In written testimony to Congress ahead of his nomination hearing today, Carter said he would question nObama's party line in situations like the drawdown from Afghanistan and the relationship with Iran. While the administration courts the state sponsor of terrorism, Carter wrote to Congress, "Countering Iranian destabilizing activities must be an important priority. Regardless of the outcome of nuclear negotiations, I firmly believe that the United States must also counter these destabilizing regional activities, including Iran's support to terrorists and militant groups." Instead of simply using today's hearing to vent frustration over nObama's failed foreign policy, senators should use this time to establish a working relationship with Carter. As national security expert Brian Slattery writes at The Daily Signal, senators need to know Carter's priorities and if he's willing to work with the current, sequestered budget. -The Patriot Post

nObama Hits 'Mindless' Sequester Again

Speaking about his 2016 budget proposal, Barack nObama offered an olive branch -- with which he whacked Republicans. "I want to work with Congress to replace mindless austerity with smart investments," he said, adding, "We can do so in a way that is fiscally responsible." He continued along this line: "I'm not going to accept a budget that locks in sequestration going forward. It would be bad for our security and bad for our growth. ... Part of the reason why we grew faster last year was [that] we were no longer being burdened by mindless across-the-board cuts." First, the sequester was nObama's idea. He used it to gain the upper hand against Republicans in 2011 budget negotiations. Second, when Congress passed it, he's the one who made it "mindless" in its implementation -- everything from scrapping White House tours to making painful military cuts. Rather than cut waste, he cut visible and popular things to make a political point. Finally, as for working with Congress, well, we know how he views that chore going into the fourth quarter of his presidency -- it ain't going to happen. -The Patriot Post

Since 2009, nObama Gave Away 5.5M Work Permits

For years, the nObama administration has skirted immigration laws, giving out hundreds of thousands of work permits to people who came into this nation with either no visa, or merely student or tourist visas. Since 2009, the nObama administration has handed out 5.46 million work permits, with 532,000 given to people with student visas, 470,000 on tourist visas and 156,000 for dependents of students or guest workers. Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, writes, "This should be a concern; work permits are gateway documents to driver's licenses and other benefits, and if the government agency issuing them does not know or will not disclose how the bearer arrived in the country how can others rely on the authenticity of an individual's identity? It is equally disconcerting if the government does know and chooses not to disclose it." nObama didn't wake up sometime last year and think: Gee, it would be fun to completely ignore the separation of powers and do some crazy stuff with immigration. No, he's been doing it from the very beginning. More… -The Patriot Post

Democrats Taunt GOP Over Immigration Response

The Democrat minority in the Senate was just enough to stall a GOP bill undoing Barack nObama's unconstitutional executive action on immigration. All 46 Democrats and two Republicans voted against the bill funding the Department of Homeland Security Tuesday. The last session of Congress passed a temporary measure to fund DHS until February, when the new, GOP-led Congress could confront nObama on his immigration actions. But now, the Democrats are reveling in the power they have to jam the legislative process. And nObama still continues to flaunt his executive actions. On Wednesday, he hosted six youths who are in this country due to his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. A White House official told The Hill nObama did this to "reiterate that his executive actions are lawful." Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader dinky Harry Reid cackled, "We all know this is going to end with a bill funding Homeland Security that goes to the president. We'll wind up passing a clean bill so why do we wait, why do we agonize?" The lines are drawn on the congressional floor. In the coming weeks, we'll see if Republicans have the grit to fight a lawless executive branch. -The Patriot Post

When Moderate Muslims Speak, They're Ignored

(Tarek Fatah) - Kenji Goto, a fellow journalist, died Saturday. Another innocent man beheaded by those among my co-religionists who wish to rule the world and to annihilate all non-Muslims...This in order to pave the way for an end-of-times apocalypse. Many Muslim heads hung in shame as Goto's head rolled into a barren desert ditch, while western politicians and media refused to call the Islamic State jihad what it is - a jihad. Similarly, the now-familiar masked man who kills for the camera and who beheaded Goto, was referred to by most media not as a "jihadi terrorist of the Islamic State" (which is who and what he is), but rather as "a militant with a British accent". http://www.meforum.org/5007/moderate-muslims-ignored

3 French Soldiers, 3 Sitting Ducks

(Daniel Pipes) - Comes the news that another Islamist immigrant from Mali named Coulibaly has attacked another Jewish institution in France. The first one, Amedy Coulibaly, murdered four Jews at a kosher store in Paris on Jan. 9...this second one injured three soldiers yesterday as they protected a Jewish community center in Nice. Police say Moussa Coulibaly, about 30 years old, with a record of theft and violence, and apparently not related to Amedy, pulled a knife about 8 inches long out of a bag, injuring one soldier in the chin, one in the cheek, and one in the forearm. Coincidentally, I left Nice about four hours before this attack and had passed by that Jewish center a few days earlier, in the course of a tour of Muslim-majority areas in ten cities across France and Belgium. Those travels brought me repeatedly in proximity to the heavily armed soldiers who protect Jewish institutions and prompted several skeptical conclusions on my part about their presence: http://www.danielpipes.org/15482/french-soldiers-sitting-ducks

Will Supreme Court’s Lethal Injection Kill the Death Penalty?

(Annie Waldman) - Last week, the Supreme Court put three executions in Oklahoma on hold as it reviews the constitutionality of the state's death penalty protocol...The court is assessing Oklahoma's use of the drug midazolam, a sedative used in its three-drug lethal injection protocol. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, five states have used midazolam for their executions, and at least five other states have proposed using it. In the wake of several botched executions in 2014 involving the drug, a group of death row inmates in Oklahoma filed a petition challenging the efficacy of midazolam to mitigate pain, which they claim would render the state's executions in violation of the Eighth Amendment's protection against "cruel and unusual" punishment. And yet those inmates don't recall why they're on death roll for cruel and unusual punishment. http://www.propublica.org/article/will-the-supreme-courts-lethal-injection-review-kill-the-death-penalty?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=&utm_name=

Terrorist Groups Rebuilding Militaries, Training Recruits for War

(investigativeproject.org) - Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist organizations are intensifying efforts to rebuild military capabilities damaged during last summer's war with Israel, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reports...In light of ongoing delays in civilian reconstruction, Hamas clearly is prioritizing re-arming its terrorist forces over the population's wellbeing. In 2009, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal admitted that most of the terrorist group's efforts would be devoted to a military build-up. "Outwardly the visible picture is talks about reconciliation…and construction; however, the hidden picture is that most of the money and effort is invested in the resistance and military preparations," Meshaal said. The term "resistance" is often used in reference to terrorist attacks targeting Israeli soldiers and civilians. http://www.investigativeproject.org/4769/gaza-terrorist-groups-rebuilding-militaries

The Insurers and nObamacare

(JAY COST) - I have just finished a new book on political corruption. The book takes a broad overview of corruption, across the whole history of the nation, explaining its typical patterns over time...The most pertinent revelation is how the government captures private interests, which in turn capture the government right back. Indeed, reciprocity is a real phenomenon in government. It leads inevitably to conflicts of interests, and thus corruption. James Madison was one of the first to notice this possibility. He and Thomas Jefferson were intense critics of the Alexander Hamilton’s Bank of the United States. The problem with the Bank, as Madison wrote to Jefferson, was that it “gives a moral certainty of gain to the Subscribers with scarce a physical possibility of loss.” Jefferson had reported to George Washington (on reasonably good authority) that the Bank was actually buying off members of Congress in order to rope them into the scheme. In fact, I’ve recently discovered a new “pretorian band of government,” if you will: the health care insurers working hard to protect their nObamacare subsidies. http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/insurers-and-obamacare_835108.html?utm_campaign=Weekly%20Standard%3A%20Daily%20Digest&utm_source=Weekly%20Standard%3A%20Daily%20Digest%20-%2002%2F04%2F15&utm_medium=email

‘The Very Integrity Of The Congress Is Under Assault’

(NoisyRoom.net) - “It is an untenable position to uphold the President’s executive amnesty— untenable constitutionally, untenable because it is contrary to the will of the Members of the House and Senate who oppose the President’s action...Republicans and Democrats. Perhaps most importantly, it is untenable politically because the American people strongly reject it. So why would any Senator, Democrat or Republican, when the very integrity of the Congress is under assault by an overreaching executive branch, not want to assert congressional authority at this point?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrMYLsqnJnU

nObamaCare Tax Penalties - Illegal Aliens Exempted

(Kurt Hyde) - An estimated three to six million taxpayers will get a nasty surprise when they fill out their federal income returns this year...They will be subject to the nObamaCare tax penalty, or as it is expressed in governmentese, a “shared responsibility payment.” Just calculating one’s “shared responsibility payment” can be quite a chore. There is an online worksheet posted here. It is remarkable that nObamaCare, a bill that was promoted by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pulosi as one that should be passed so that people could learn what's in it, would have a tax penalty that would require taxpayers to open a form and enter data so that they can then learn how much the penalty will be. The tax penalty is scheduled to be even worse next year. http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/20044-obamacare-tax-penalties-to-affect-millions-illegal-aliens-exempted?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=9de547640c-The_Editors_Top_Picks_3_12_143_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ca494f2d2-9de547640c-289778381

What Every Christian Needs to Know about Islam

(David Wood) - With more than 1.6 billion adherents globally, Islam is the second largest religion in history...Despite such impressive numbers, however, much of the world's population knows little about Islam. It's time for Christians everywhere to learn some basic information about the beliefs of Muslims. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISUq3zc6NU0

Gowdy Talks Tough On Immigration

(Rick Wells) - There is nobody in the Congress or the executive branch that can make a point as well as Rep Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and he makes several of them in this speech about America’s critical illegal immigration situation and government’s failure to properly act in our own interest...He points out the negative effect of select enforcement on the part of government officials in both political parties and how it has undercut the integrity of our immigration system and the rule of law. Gowdy makes note of the absurdity of the policies of the nObama regime in which law enforcement officers are instructed to not enforce the law in the course of their “duties.” http://www.rickwells.us/gowdy-talks-tough-on-immigration-america-shouldnt-apologize-for-enforcing-our-laws/

10.

Jordan Launches Airstrikes Against ISIS in Iraq killing 55

(nicedeb) - A day after the Islamic State released a video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive, Jordan launched airstrikes against the group in Iraq that killed 55 people...including a top commander known as the “Prince of Nineveh,” Iraqi media reported Wednesday. The airstrikes came just hours after Jordan’s King Abdullah II pledged a “severe” response. “The blood of martyr Maaz al-Kassasbeh [also spelled Muath al-Kaseasbeh] will not be in vain, and the response of Jordan and its army after what happened to our dear son will be severe,” the king said in a statement released by the royal court. Jordan also executed two jihadist prisoners by hanging Wednesday morning, government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani said. https://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/jordan-launches-airstrikes-against-isis-in-iraq-killing-55/

‘American Sniper’

Peggy Noonan

(peggynoonan.com) - I saw “American Sniper” last night. It is not a great movie but it is a powerful one. It had the power to leave a packed Manhattan movie house silent—really, completely silent—as they stared at the closing credits and tried to absorb the meaning of what they’d seen. They filed out silently, too. It’s not so hard to leave an audience in a good mood or hungry for dinner, but this silence spoke of a real thoughtfulness. It was a mixed crowd, young and old.

In the movie the sniper, Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, exists for one reason: to stop or kill belligerents who are in the act of attempting to take out American soldiers. If they are attempting to aim an armed rocket-propelled grenade, or they are themselves snipers or al Qaeda fighters, they are in his crosshairs. The American sniper does not shoot those who are not immediately aiming to harm someone. He uses discernment. If he doesn’t he’ll be in legal and military trouble. When he trains his weapon on a mother and son he does not want to shoot. When he sees the grenade the mother passes to her son as they advance toward a U.S. convoy, he shoots. When an Iraqi sniper kills one of his friends he sets himself to finding him and taking him out.

Kyle completely believes, and the viewer is persuaded, that his duty is protecting people, saving the lives of his troops. That’s his daily job and he does it with discipline, talent and professionalism. He’s so good at it he comes to be seen as and called a legend. He is celebrated for his kills; he’d rather someone kept a count of his saves. When after his last tour he sees a Navy psychiatrist who asks him about things he wishes he hadn’t done, he says, “Oh, that’s not me. No.”

“What’s not you?” the doctor asks, with the bland yet piercing look psychiatrists get in movies.

“I was just protecting my guys, they were trying to kill . . . our soldiers and I . . . I’m willing to meet my Creator and answer for every shot that I took.” He adds, “The thing that . . . haunts me are all the guys that I couldn’t save.” That is both the story he told himself and the story he thinks is true.

The movie seems to have pinged off something in the American psyche, with its huge box-office opening. (All hail Clint Eastwood, running the tables at age 84.) Some of the reasons would be obvious. It is based on a bestselling book, the essential facts of which are generally known. We are increasingly a nation of veterans. It is an action story, a war story, with Eastwood directing and Bradley Cooper as the star. But it is also a story about love of country, and what some of those who love it most sacrifice to show that love. Kyle, the movie makes clear, joined up to defend America after al Qaeda began making its moves. When he was a boy his father taught him not to be a sheep or a wolf but a sheepdog—a protector of others. The movie is a meditation on this. It is interesting that Americans want such a meditation.

On the Iraq war it takes no stand. While the film glorifies war—all battlefield heroics, by being admirable, glorify war—there is a persistent antiwar presence, and not only because depicting the damage and dislocation done to those visited by war is an antiwar statement. Chris Kyle’s brother, on leaving Iraq after his own tour, makes a statement suggestion the U.S. is in the wrong place. A heartbroken mother at a stateside funeral seems to cry out for peace. Kyle’s close friend shares his doubts. Kyle doesn’t share them but he hears them, and Eastwood lets them echo out. This is a fair-minded movie. It is not anyone’s propaganda.

It is not a great movie because it is formulaic. We see the scenes we’ve always seen. Boot camp is hell, Kyle and his wife meet cute in a bar near the base, etc. It is all done in a solid and serviceable way but often looks like the latest iteration of what’s been done before. It is being compared, favorably, to 2008’s “The Hurt Locker,” but that movie was a higher form of art, full of surprise and edgier, more confounding. It’s one thing to show Bradley Cooper clenching his jaw at a child’s backyard birthday party, but it was more powerful when Jeremy Renner mindlessly pushes a huge shopping cart through a huge food store with a thousand breakfast cereals and that’s his job now, two days out of Iraq, to choose the right cereal.

Here is one unanticipated cost of how we wage modern war. We ask a lot of our troops emotionally in terms of how we schedule their tours. If during World War II we had our soldiers serve nine or 10 months invading Europe, witnessing carnage and taking part in bloody battles . . . and then had them return for two or three months to banal, Benny Goodman-playing America . . . then sent them back to the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of the death camps . . . then back home for a few months—well, that would be asking rather a lot for U.S. troops to emotionally sustain and absorb. The modern, relatively short tour punctuated by home leave is meant to be compassionate and is wholly understandable as policy: Soldiers have families, including children who desperately need them. But you can’t expect people to go from horror—constant alert, fear, adrenaline, life-and-death choices—to common peace and ordinariness, and expect them to immediately act the part of the “normal person.” My father was a U.S. army private in Italy late in World War II, and the one thing he talked about was the long ship ride home when the war ended, with thousands of other GIs—decompressing with other guys in cots, reading, smoking, yakking, getting themselves ready for America again. They had time to acclimate. Now it’s defuse the bomb in Bagdad on Monday and go to the Lobster Shack in central Jersey on Wednesday. That is asking a lot, and we ask it over and over.

Connected to that, a problem with the film so egregious it must be noted. The part of the one central woman, the wife, is so poorly done. She is a pretty young woman who means nothing, who is neither impressive as a character nor poignant nor wholly fleshed out, and every time you see her she is whining at her husband and crying because he is here but not here, he is damaged, he’s got to get with it and be a better father. She weeps, she complains. The role is so poorly written, or directed, or edited, or conceived. The actress seems to have done her best with what she was given. It doesn’t seem to occur to the filmmakers that while the Chris Kyle character does not understand how spooked and detached from family life he has become, she never understands he’s been living inside a violent video game for nine months, only it wasn’t a game, and the things he saw would have changed him, changed anyone, forever.

And yes, everyone noticed the artificial baby, and it was a silly way to save money and eliminate takes, if that was the purpose. You can always hire someone who acts like an infant. Next time try Seth Rogen.

http://www.peggynoonan.com/american-sniper/

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