The Front Page Cover
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
Featuring:
On the Matter of the Pictures
Peggy Noonan
"Rise up together as one voice"
"Be careful where you stand"
~~~lll~~~
RULE OF LAW QUESTIONS LOOM FOR HOLDER REPLACEMENT
The most important legacy Eric Holder will likely leave as attorney general seems to be his willingness to insulate President nObama from politically damaging issues. The main question today for Holder’s designated successor, U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, is whether she will reassert the often-vaunted but seldom-seen independence of the office. Lynch is not controversial, but the agency and its current leader certainly are. That’s where you can expect to see fireworks in her confirmation hearing today.
The most important legacy Eric Holder will likely leave as attorney general seems to be his willingness to insulate President nObama from politically damaging issues. The main question today for Holder’s designated successor, U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, is whether she will reassert the often-vaunted but seldom-seen independence of the office. Lynch is not controversial, but the agency and its current leader certainly are. That’s where you can expect to see fireworks in her confirmation hearing today.
As Holder leaves office, he leaves his all-but-certain successor with a host of unresolved controversies, including IRS targeting, Fast and Furious, reporter snooping and the legitimacy of the president's executive actions. Senate Republicans have once chance to pin down Lynch on these hot bottom issues and achieve what conservatives call a “restoration” of the office to its traditional role. What she says today will help define the parameters of the administration’s legal pioneering for the closing days of the nObama era. -Fox News
HOUSE PLANS NEW LAWSUIT AGAINST nOBAMA’S IMMIGRATION ORDERS
The Hill: “The House is taking action to sue President nObama over his executive actions that gave legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. Speaker backstabber John Boehner [R-Ohio] apprised House Republicans of the plan, which is still being finalized, during the weekly conference meeting Tuesday morning. ‘We are finalizing a plan to authorize litigation on this issue, one we believe gives us the best chance of success,’ backstabber Boehner told members, according to a source in the room. Under the emerging plan, members would vote on a resolution authorizing the House to take various legal actions. Options could include filing a new lawsuit against the president or joining the states' lawsuit against the executive action. Last year, the House voted to sue nObama over his use of executive actions delaying the healthcare law's employer mandate, which requires businesses with 50 or more full-time workers to provide insurance. backstabber Boehner's announcement comes a day after GOP leadership pulled a controversial border security bill from the floor.” -Fox News
The Hill: “The House is taking action to sue President nObama over his executive actions that gave legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. Speaker backstabber John Boehner [R-Ohio] apprised House Republicans of the plan, which is still being finalized, during the weekly conference meeting Tuesday morning. ‘We are finalizing a plan to authorize litigation on this issue, one we believe gives us the best chance of success,’ backstabber Boehner told members, according to a source in the room. Under the emerging plan, members would vote on a resolution authorizing the House to take various legal actions. Options could include filing a new lawsuit against the president or joining the states' lawsuit against the executive action. Last year, the House voted to sue nObama over his use of executive actions delaying the healthcare law's employer mandate, which requires businesses with 50 or more full-time workers to provide insurance. backstabber Boehner's announcement comes a day after GOP leadership pulled a controversial border security bill from the floor.” -Fox News
nObama backs off plan to tax college savings - Fox News: “President nObama has dropped his plan to end tax breaks for popular college savings accounts known as 529s, sources told Fox News on Tuesday. The decision comes in the wake of stern criticism from Republicans and pleas from top Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Peulosi, to drop the plan…Administration officials had claimed last week that they were going after the 529 accounts because they unfairly benefit high-income people. Under the proposed change, Americans eventually would have had to pay taxes on the earnings when they were withdrawn. A White House official told Fox News late Tuesday afternoon that the 529 provision was a ‘very small component’ of nObama's plan to cut taxes for the middle class. ‘Given it has become such a distraction, we’re not going to ask Congress to pass the 529 provision so that they can instead focus on delivering a larger package of education tax relief that has bipartisan support, as well as the President’s broader package of tax relief for childcare and working families,’ the official said.”
[Keystone cops - National Journal: “As a bill approving the Keystone XL pipeline creeps closer to the finish line, the Senate will consider language on liquefied natural gas exports, campaign finance reform and climate change as part of a massive vote series. The Senate will vote on 18 amendments [today] starting at 2:30 p.m. as party leaders push to finish up the bill -- which would approve the controversial Alberta-to-Gulf-Coast oil sands pipeline -- before the end of the week.”] -Fox News
[Keystone cops - National Journal: “As a bill approving the Keystone XL pipeline creeps closer to the finish line, the Senate will consider language on liquefied natural gas exports, campaign finance reform and climate change as part of a massive vote series. The Senate will vote on 18 amendments [today] starting at 2:30 p.m. as party leaders push to finish up the bill -- which would approve the controversial Alberta-to-Gulf-Coast oil sands pipeline -- before the end of the week.”] -Fox News
RNC REBOOTS DIGITAL TEAM
Politico: “Chuck DeFeo, the RNC deputy chief of staff who engineered a $100 million tech overhaul … is set to join i360, a data and analytical powerhouse that will receive part of an $889 million cash infusion from the Koch Brothers and other conservative megadonors to help elect Republicans in 2016. Also, former Facebook engineer Andrew Barkett is giving up his title as the RNC’s chief technology officer…. Replacing DeFeo and Barkett are a mix of veteran GOP tech specialists. Mindy Finn, a former Twitter consultant and top Mitt Romney and George W. Bush digital staffer, will return to the RNC as an interim senior digital adviser. Azarias Reda, currently the RNC’s chief digital officer, will take over Barkett’s job as CTO. And Jesse Kamzol is also being promoted to chief data officer from his current post as Reda’s deputy.” -Fox News
Politico: “Chuck DeFeo, the RNC deputy chief of staff who engineered a $100 million tech overhaul … is set to join i360, a data and analytical powerhouse that will receive part of an $889 million cash infusion from the Koch Brothers and other conservative megadonors to help elect Republicans in 2016. Also, former Facebook engineer Andrew Barkett is giving up his title as the RNC’s chief technology officer…. Replacing DeFeo and Barkett are a mix of veteran GOP tech specialists. Mindy Finn, a former Twitter consultant and top Mitt Romney and George W. Bush digital staffer, will return to the RNC as an interim senior digital adviser. Azarias Reda, currently the RNC’s chief digital officer, will take over Barkett’s job as CTO. And Jesse Kamzol is also being promoted to chief data officer from his current post as Reda’s deputy.” -Fox News
Game changer? - Working for Cochran, Stevens, with the help of a coalition of establishment GOP forces, delivered a surprise win for the embattled incumbent, who has held the seat since 1978. Notable was that rather than wooing the state’s GOP electorate, Cochran’s campaign altered it by bringing traditionally Democratic voters, especially African Americans, out to vote in the runoff. Could Romney, who is trying to shake his reputation as ideologically accommodating, follow a similar strategy? Thad Cochran ran and won as a moderate in a conservative state. Romney might be hoping to do the same in a conservative national party. It would be a long shot, perhaps. But in a crowded field, broad appeal will be less valuable than durable core support. -Fox News
1.
White House Says Taliban Not A Terrorist Organization
(Rick Wells) - ABC’s Jonathan Karl almost fell out of his chair in the Wednesday White House briefing when he asked for clarification on the contradictory statements being offered by the White House...regarding Jordanian efforts to free a captured pilot and the Bowe Bergdahl trade with the Taliban. Karl includes in his question a statement that the Taliban are clearly a terrorist organization, to which he gets the most unexpected correction. Karl asks if that isn’t the premise that the Jordanians are operating under and notes that the Taliban are still conducting terrorist attacks so he can’t really say that the war is over as far as their concerned. Schultz then drops the big one, saying “Well I’d also point out that the Taliban is an armed insurgency, ISIL is a terrorist group. So we don’t make concessions to terrorist groups. We feel…” This government is really sick. http://www.rickwells.us/white-house-says-taliban-not-a-terrorist-organization-parsing-definitions-to-justify-obamas-actions/
2.
Iran, nObama, backstabber Boehner and Netanyahu
(Caroline Glick) - Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe...On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM. On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before. The missile and the launch pad indicate that Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is moving forward at full throttle. The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States as well. http://www.aim.org/guest-column/iran-obama-boehner-and-netanyahu/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=email012915&utm_medium=email
3.
Ginsburg: Citizen’s United Was Court’s Worst Ruling
(leanrightamerica.org) - The Supreme Court decision on Citizen’s United was a shocking defense of American freedom, so it’s no surprise to see the Court’s most liberal justice reiterate her disgust with the verdict...Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in an interview with the New Republic, sees it as the current Supreme Court’s worst ruling. “I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be,” said the 81-year-old Ginsburg. “So that’s number one on my list.” Ginsburg’s view of the ruling is hardly an uncommon one. The decision, which struck down limits on the amount of money corporations and other groups could spend on independent campaign initiatives has been characterized as “disastrous” by liberals who want to see it overturned. And while their concerns about how big money can influence elections are well-placed, their rush to place limitations on the First Amendment is frightening. http://www.leanrightamerica.org/uncategorized/ginsburg-citizens-united-was-courts-worst-ruling/
4.
DHS Adviser Elibiary Goes on Hate-Filled Anti-Christian Rant
(Patrick Poole) - nObama administration Muslim adviser Mohamed Elibiary is no stranger to regular PJ Media readers. In September, Elibiary was unceremoniously removed from his fellowship position with the Department of Homeland Security...which he tried to spin as a “resignation,” but letters sent to members of Congress by DHS officials indicated he would not be reappointed. Undoubtedly, one of the chief reasons for DHS cutting ties with Elibiary was a long string of extremist statements he had been making on Twitter, including talking about the inevitability of the return of an ISIS-style caliphate — tweets that were subsequently used by ISIS supporters for recruiting purposes. http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/01/28/homeland-security-adviser-mohamed-elibiary-goes-on-hate-filled-anti-christian-rant-attacks-jindal-as-bottom-feeder/
5.
nObama Funding the Anti-Bibi Campaign
(Matthew Vadum) - The nObama administration is using taxpayer dollars to fund a radical anti-Israel group that aims to drive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office in March parliamentary elections...And the U.S.-based group receiving the U.S. government money, OneVoice International, in turn is working with V15, an “independent grassroots movement” in Israel, according to Ha’aretz. V15’s unofficial motto is said to be “anyone but Bibi,” a reference that includes the prime minister’s nickname. OneVoice development and grants officer Christina Taler told Washington Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman that her group is not using this taxpayer money to intervene in the Israeli election. That money has been used to “build public campaign support for the [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations” led last spring by Secretary of State Hanoi John Kerry, Taler said. “No government funding has gone toward any of the activities we’re doing right now whatsoever,” she said. Ya right, and we are suppose to believe Miss Taler. http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/matthew-vadum/obama-funding-the-anti-bibi-campaign/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=32eeee89ca-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag&utm_term=0_57e32c1dad-32eeee89ca-156799189
6.
U.S. passports on verge of elimination?
(Jerome R. Corsi) - A Soros-funded group arguing to replace the U.S. passport with a North American passport appears ready to take up the mantle of championing the concept of a European Union-style regional government to supersede...the sovereignty of the United States, Mexico and Canada, fulfilling the dream of the late American University professor Robert Pastor. The future of the U.S. lies in North America, not in the United States as a sovereign nation, contends the New America Foundation, a Washington-based leftist think-tank with ties to Jonathan Soros, son of famed leftist billionaire George Soros. Appropriately named “New America,” the foundation believes the U.S. passport should soon become obsolete and replaced with a European Union-style passport issued for all citizens of the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Citizens would be redefined by their regional identity as “North Americans,” echoing President nObama’s claim in Spanish in his Dec. 17, 2014, announcement of his executive actions to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, “Todos Somos Americanos,” or, “We are all Americans. http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/u-s-passports-on-verge-of-elimination/
7.
Trey Gowdy won't back down on Benghazi
(Sean Lengell) - Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel’s top Democrat, has accused Gowdy of operating a “partisan investigation” over the past eight months by holding secret meetings with witnesses and then withholding or downplaying information from those interviews... “that undermines allegations the committee is investigating.” In Wednesday letter to Gowdy, the committee’s five Democrats objected to his plan to go forward with 22 “unilateral and unnecessary” subpoenas to State Department officials without any committee debate or vote. But Gowdy said that Democrats have refused multiple times to accept a negotiated rules package over demands for veto power over subpoenas. He added he’s tried to work out a compromise but that Democrats have refused. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trey-gowdy-wont-back-down-on-benghazi/article/2559446?utm_content=buffer1efde&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
8.
The feds shot themselves in the foot
(Judge Andrew Napolitano) - Ali Saleh al-Marri is a convicted conspirator who entered the United States before 9/11 in order to create a dreaded sleeper cell here that might someday launch an attack on Americans similar to what we witnessed earlier this month in Paris...When the feds woke from their slumber on 9/11, they wisely began to search immigration records for persons who came here with no discernible purpose from places known to spawn terrorist groups and who had overstayed their visas. Al-Marri was one such person. The feds arrested him, originally on the visa violation, and then, after connecting the dots, on a series of conspiracies to aid terrorist organizations here and elsewhere. Al-Marri is in the news this week because he was recently released from a federal prison and returned to his native Qatar. He was involved in a prisoner swap for an innocent American couple wrongfully imprisoned there. The release of al-Marri has the neocons accusing President nObama of “letting free a known terrorist.” http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/the-feds-shot-themselves-in-the-foot/
(Judge Andrew Napolitano) - Ali Saleh al-Marri is a convicted conspirator who entered the United States before 9/11 in order to create a dreaded sleeper cell here that might someday launch an attack on Americans similar to what we witnessed earlier this month in Paris...When the feds woke from their slumber on 9/11, they wisely began to search immigration records for persons who came here with no discernible purpose from places known to spawn terrorist groups and who had overstayed their visas. Al-Marri was one such person. The feds arrested him, originally on the visa violation, and then, after connecting the dots, on a series of conspiracies to aid terrorist organizations here and elsewhere. Al-Marri is in the news this week because he was recently released from a federal prison and returned to his native Qatar. He was involved in a prisoner swap for an innocent American couple wrongfully imprisoned there. The release of al-Marri has the neocons accusing President nObama of “letting free a known terrorist.” http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/the-feds-shot-themselves-in-the-foot/
9.
nObama Props Up MB Leaders Who Hope to Topple El-Sisi
(Sara Noble) - The State Department hosted a delegation of Muslim Brotherhood aligned leaders who hope to topple President el-Sisi. President el-Sisi is fighting radical Islam at risk of his own life. The administration says they want to keep in touch with these radicals because the situation in Egypt is fluid...It looks like the administration and the Brotherhood are in collusion and the administration doesn’t care how it looks. This is more of Barack nObama’s strange and feckless foreign policy. One member of the delegation, a Brotherhood judge from Egypt, held up the four-finger Rabia symbol [The ‘Rabaa sign’ has become the symbol of protests against the military coup in Egypt and the center of the anti-coup protests, Rabaa al-Adawiya Square]. http://www.independentsentinel.com/obama-props-up-muslim-brotherhood-leaders-who-hope-to-topple-el-sisi/
10.
Official Tries to Block Trey Gowdy From Interviewing Witnesses
(conservativetribune.com) - The nObama administration is trying to play games with the Benghazi investigation… and Trey Gowdy is not amused. Key witnesses from the State Department were supposed to testify in front of Congressman Gowdy’s special committee...but they are now refusing to comply in the name of “personal safety.” “We understand the committee’s interest in interviewing these agents, and I’m sure the committee does not want to take any action that would create risks to their personal safety or their ability to do their jobs,” stated Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joel Rubin to the Benghazi Select Committee. That’s right: Administration officials are suddenly so concerned about the “risks” to Benghazi witnesses that they won’t even let them report what they saw. Incredibly, nObama’s staff didn’t seem particularly worried about “security” when it came to protecting Americans in Libya. Apparently that concern only comes out after the fact — when fingers begin to point at the administration’s incompetence and duplicity. http://conservativetribune.com/gowdy-benghazi-witness/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=936184&utm_campaign=0
On the Matter of the Pictures
Peggy Noonan
(peggynoonan.com) - The new issue of Charlie Hebdo is out. In Paris it sold out almost immediately and the print run has been upped to a reported five million. On the cover is a cartoon of Muhammad, a tear on his cheek. Tens of millions of people will see it.
It is almost enough but not quite.
This is the moment, a week after the shootings, on the day of the publication of the first issue of the magazine since the murders, to rob all the Muhammad cartoons of their mystique. Steal away their power. Make them banal, not secret, censored and powerful but common. Flood the zone, let everyone see them. Show that they are only cartoons, caricatures, playthings. Show that the murderers got exactly the opposite of what they wanted. “You kill to stop a cartoon? We flood the streets with cartoons. You can’t take it? We have freedom here. You don’t have to live in the midst of it, you can go to a place that does not put such an emphasis on this kind of freedom.”
If in the West you keep such things as the cartoons in a magic, censored vault you give them mystical power and luster. These stupid drawings should not be imbued with these qualities! The argument is for disseminating them.
Some great media outlets in the United States, in an excess of what I’m sure they see as prudence, which is a virtue, and not cowardice, which is a vice, have refused to show the cartoons or even today’s Charlie Hebdo cover. I am proud that The Wall Street Journal ran one of the cartoons with an editorial the day after the murders. The Fox News website has run some of them also. Here we give you the new Charlie Hebdo cover.
Today is a day, on all social media and in mainstream media, to show the cartoons. All their mystique should be taken away, definitively. And a message delivered: If you murder a group of people for wearing cats on their heads, you know what the murderer’s supporters will soon see? Streets full of people with cats on their heads.
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