Reader’s links for Feb. 4 – 2016

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In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

This way, under the various posts of the day, conversation can take place without as much ‘noise’ on the various links and articles and ideas in the main posts and all the news links being submitted can be seen under these auto-posts by clicking on the comments-link right below these ones.

Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

119 Replies to “Reader’s links for Feb. 4 – 2016”

  1. German University President Floats Idea Of Mandatory Arabic In Primary Schools

    A German “education expert” proposed Wednesday that Arabic becomes a mandatory subject in German schools to enable refugees and Germans to coexist.

    Thomas Strothotte, president of Kühne Logistics University and a renowned voice in education issues, told Die Zeit that society as a whole would benefit and “keep up” with a new reality from becoming increasingly multicultural. Strothotte has served as president at several German universities and founded two private schools in the city of Magdeburg.

    “We would appreciate being a country of immigration and multiple languages,” Strothotte said. “Refugee children need to learn German and German children Arabic.”

    Strothotte believes increased understanding of Arabic will have positive effects on Germany culturally, economically and politically.

    Strothotte is not the first to call for Arabic classes in the German curriculum. Christian Wiesenhütter, deputy chief executive for the Berlin Camber of Commerce, called Arabic a new “world language” back in 2013, long before the Syrian refugee crisis was on the horizon. Strothotte primarily wanted to boost German business with the idea.

    “We must finally acknowledge that Arabic is a world language,” he said. “We have to stay on pace.”

    State-run broadcaster Deutsche Welle started an Arabic speaking radio channel in December. DW Chairwoman Karola Wille said it was “an important signal” during a “difficult phase” when the broadcaster announced the launch two months ago.

    http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/03/german-university-president-floats-idea-of-mandatory-arabic-in-primary-schools/

  2. RCMP’s portrayal of Islam in B.C. terror sting dubious, expert says

    An Islamic expert says police involved in an undercover terrorism sting were wrong in preventing a British Columbia man with radical Muslim views from reaching out to mainstream, moderate religious leaders.

    Duke University Islamic scholar Omid Safi testified in B.C. Supreme Court that the RCMP should have helped to rid John Nuttall of his radical ideas, instead of posing as religious authorities and offering what he describes as dubious and eyebrow-raising interpretations of Islam.

    Nuttall and his common-law partner Amanda Korody were found guilty last summer of plotting to blow up the B.C. legislature on Canada Day in 2013.

    Their convictions are on hold while lawyers argue the pair was coerced by the RCMP into committing the terrorist act.

    Safi says transcripts from undercover surveillance reveal Nuttall was searching for spiritual guidance and that he identified the main undercover RCMP officer as a religious authority and his one true Muslim brother.

    He says Nuttall had a rambling, incoherent view of Islam and he wanted to know where jihad, or holy war, fit into his beliefs.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/rcmps-portrayal-of-islam-in-bc-terror-sting-dubious-expert-says/article28553986/

    =====================================

    MSN – It’s time to change the way we talk about Islam

    […]It’s not just an American problem. Monawar Hussain, founder of The Oxford Foundation, found that British Muslims “found the portrayal of Muslims in the news as deeply inaccurate, Islamophobic, disempowering and leading to a feeling of alienation.

    There is a proportional problem when it comes to coverage of Islam in the news. Nearly two-thirds of all coverage of Islam focuses on conflictual topics such as terrorism, violence, and extremism.

    […]While it is important to cover the ways in which religion and violence are often linked, newswriters and analysts must be careful to balance this coverage with stories that undermine the narrative that religion and violence—or specifically Islam and violence—are inherently interwoven.

    […]This means telling stories that undermine the narrative that Islam’s story is either one of violence or countering violence. While it is important to cover the ways in which religion and violence are often linked, newswriters and analysts must be careful to balance this coverage with stories that undermine the narrative that religion and violence—or specifically Islam and violence—are inherently interwoven.

    […]We click on narratives of terror and violence. We participate in a dialectic of consumption that encourages news agencies to produce these stories and to neglect the narratives that matter to Muslims and reflect the religion as it is lived by the overwhelming majority of its adherents.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/it%E2%80%99s-time-to-change-the-way-we-talk-about-islam/

  3. Veteran eurosceptic MEP launches new party (yle, Feb 4, 2016)
    http://yle.fi/uutiset/veteran_eurosceptic_mep_launches_new_party/8648533

    “Centre Party grandee Paavo Väyrynen has announced his intention to found a new political party. The former minister says that the new organisation’s most important task will be to take Finland out of the eurozone.

    Veteran Centre Party politician Paavo Väyrynen is to found his own political party. He made the announcement on Thursday afternoon via his website.

    The new group, called the Citizens’ Party (Kansalaispuolue), will first have to gather 5,000 signatures before it can be officially registered.

    Väyrynen says that the party’s main goal will be to take Finland out of the single European currency. That is consistent with his long-standing euroscepticism, and his frustration at his own inability to influence the Centre Party or the government in recent years.

    In July 2015 he launched a citizens’ initiative to force a referendum on Finnish eurozone membership. It passed the 50,000 threshold for consideration by MPs and is now working its way through parliament.

    His credentials as an opponent of European integration are impeccable. He filibustered a debate on entry to the EU, delaying Finland’s referendum until after Sweden had voted, and has since urged Finns to take a sceptical line on all things European.

    That has not prevented him taking up roles as an MEP, a post in which he currently serves. He was also elected to the Finnish parliament but declined to take up the Brussels seat—he now says he will return to the domestic arena as well as serving as a Citizens’ Party MEP.

    Väyrynen said he encouraged Centre Party people to remain in the party and change the party’s policy lines, rather than defecting.

    The new party was first reported by Maaseudun Tulevaisuus.”

    • The EU is falling apart thanks to the Socialist refusing to live in the real world, but in the real world the EU would never have grown out of the Common Market.

  4. Pres Obama Visits Mosque W/Controversial Past – Glenn Beck – The Kelly File

    w Glenn Beck ——> 06:43 :

  5. Mass Stabbing in Chicago Leaves 6 Dead, Including 12-Year-Old Boy

    CHICAGO — Six people, including a 12-year-old boy, were found stabbed to death in their Gage Park home Thursday afternoon. It was the deadliest violent incident in Chicago since 2003.

    In what one officer reportedly called the most “gruesome” thing he’s seen on the job, officers discovered the bodies inside a home in the 5700 block of South California Avenue at 1:05 p.m. Thursday. Though police said there’s no immediate threat to the area, 8th District officers are increasing their presence as a precaution.[…]

    Police officials said they are considering it a death investigation, and not yet a homicide investigation, as medical examiners have not yet entered the home.[…]

    https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20160204/gage-park/six-people-found-dead-gage-park-home-officials-say

    USA: Mass stabbing leaves 6 dead in Chicago

    Six people, including one child, were found dead inside a home in Chicago’s South Side, Thursday. The victims – four men, one woman and a 12-year-old child, found bound and stabbed, have already been identified by a relative.

  6. Ex-Pentagon Official Rhode: Muslim World Must Undergo “Thought Revolution”

    There can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians until there is a “thought revolution” in the Muslim world, former longtime Pentagon official Harold Rhode told the Jerusalem Post Monday. Rhode cited the doctrine in Islam in which land conquered by Muslims must remain under Muslim rule forever. This includes present-day Israel, which the Muslims conquered in 637 CE. “There can only be final peace when the Muslims recognize Israel as a Jewish state and declare an end to the conflict,” he said.?   

    Rhode noted that independent and critical thinking were generally lacking in Sunni culture. “Could you imagine a lecture ends and the audience does not ask questions?” If someone from the audience asks a question, the speaker will often shame the questioner in front of everyone. That stifles future questions. “Personal honor is more important than truth,” he explained.?   

    “Blame is avoided at all costs in Muslim culture,” Rhode said. “Why is it no Palestinian leader ever admits making any mistakes? They can’t. Sunni Arab leaders need to say: ‘Our approach has failed and we must try another way.’ But culturally, they cannot do this.” No Sunni society has been able to undergo self-criticism because pride and honor are paramount values.

    http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Ex-Pentagon-official-Rhode-Muslim-world-must-undergo-thought-revolution-443554

  7. Iran Deploys New Forces in Syria

    ?The latest Iranian units deployed in Syria, to judge by a survey of Iranian nationals killed in combat there, are from the Saberin Brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

    Almost five years into Syr­ia’s civil war and facing rising combat fatalities, Iran is deploying more and more military units — and all from its most trusted military force, the Islamic Revolu­tionary Guards Corps (IRGC) — into the charnel-house combat zone to secure the survival of its key Arab ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad.

    The latest units deployed in Syria, to judge by a survey of Ira­nian nationals killed in combat in Syria, are from the IRGC’s Saberin Brigade, the corps’ special forces group of several battalions.

    Their commitment, along with the elite al-Quds Force, to keep As­sad in power underlines the mili­tary power Tehran’s Shia leader­ship is having to deploy to save the quasi-Shia Assad regime.

    Little is known about the Saberin Brigade, which as far as the out­side world is concerned has been overshadowed as Tehran’s external spearhead by the Quds Force, Iran’s secretive expeditionary force that has played a vital role in rescuing Assad’s regime from collapse.

    So what is the Saberin Brigade — the name means “Those with For­bearance” in Farsi — and its signifi­cance in the Syrian bloodbath?

    According to Brigadier-General Morteza Mirian, a former com­mander of the brigade, the Saberin was established in 2000 modelled on Britain’s famed and secretive Special Air Service.

    http://www.thearabweekly.com/?id=3573

    • Thank you for this article, this tells me a lot and at the same time worries me because the elite members of the Iranian military are getting combat experience. I can’t think of a good way to tell you how much this matters when you are talking about combat. “Blooded” troops will out perform unblooded troops the vast majority of the time and will inflect many more causalities on those they fight then unblooded troops. This is why the European and North American vets who are blooded troops are pearls without price as trainers and leaders of the forces that are due to be raised to fight the open warfare part of the Islamic Conquest. One of the major advantages is that in combat situations blood troops rarely hesitate to pull the trigger when threatened but unblooded troops have to make up their minds to fire. Unless of course they have been trained properly in which case in the majority of cases the training will take over and fire.

      The lack of willingness to fire is one reason that the worlds Armies now train on human silhouette targets, many more of the troops fire at the enemy then when the training was on bulls eye targets.

      • This Sabirin (spelling varies) will become a real piece of work. Iran’s been trying to gain purchase among the crazed Pal population. Hamas has played them, but now the Saudis have discouraged that. So Iran’s been positioning this little known IRGC battalion here and there.

        Here’s another report:

        Report: Palestinian Authority arrests 5 pro-Iran operatives in West Bank
        Palestinian Authority security forces recently arrested five members of the pro-Iranian a-Sabrin group in Bethlehem in the West Bank – who had previously been operating in Gaza – who were planning to carry out attacks against Israel, Israel Radio reported.

        http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran/Report-Palestinian-Authority-arrests-5-pro-Iran-operatives-in-West-Bank-443709

    • Iran wants to recreate the Persian Empire making it Islamic this time, they are playing for high stakes which includes bringing back the Mahdi. Never forget the apocalyptic portion of Iran’s plans, they really think their end times prophecies are coming true. This is why in many ways they are more dangerous then the MB.

      Also never forget that the various branches of Islam will kill each other gleefully but will also provide weapons and materials to the groups they are fighting if the weapons are to be used against the non Islamic world.

      I know this fact but forgot it when commenting on the rumor of nuclear weapons smuggled into the west. Don’t make the same mistake I did.

    • I love it! I use the ”Don’t Tread on Me” flag as an icon for related files. The rattlesnake alone is another fine icon.

      He sounds like Boston – wrong dialect, but still….Getting us psyched for Patriots’ Day. I’ll go polish my swords – they’re an heirloom treasure.

      We really detested the bloody British troops quartered in private homes. Pine needles were scattered around the house as a timid sign of protest but they never caught on.

      It took long, hard years before we finally threw them out. They weren’t convinced until the War of 1814. You know the song:

      In 1814 we took a little trip,
      Along the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mississip.
      We cooked a little bacon[*] and we cooked a little beans.
      And we fought the Bloody British at the Battle of New Orleans.
      ——————
      [*]So to speak –

      • We fired our guns but the British kept acomin
        but there weren’t neigh as many as there was a while ago
        We fired once more and they begin arunnin
        down the Missippi to the Gulf of Mexico
        They ran through the brambles and the briars
        and they ran through places a rabbit couldn’t go
        Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

        That is a famous battle that has one question that has never been answered. Why did the British General (a good General with a lot of experience in the Peninsular War) attack so stupidly? He was killed in the battle so that question can’t be answered.

              • These days there are a lot of revisionist historians and leftist that want to say the Brits didn’t sink the Bismark. It was battle damage inflicted by the Brits that cause the Germans to scuttle the Bismark, that counts as the Brits sinking it.

                • My naval history is weak. History with geography makes sense intuitively; navy always seemed sort of encapsulated. J.E. Dyer is somewhat of a revelation for me, though I need considerable time to understand the terms of reference.

            • “1814” – The Brit regulars blowing bugles, we’re there with our squirrel guns by the baled cotton, watching for the whites of their eyes. I’m still singing it!

              Homeschooling means Mum discovers history with a passion, and we figure it out together. We sang this song and others like it, walked around parks reading inscriptions below statues and took Longfellow as gospel.

              Are – or were – kids taught anything close to accurate in school? What was the objective at the time? To turn out a reasonably homogeneous cohort of patriotic little Americans, I suppose. Who would, if necessary, defend values shared from Boston to Austin.

              Did I miss something?

            • On the right side of this page there are a lot of Johnny Horton songs about battles and historical figures.

              • He’s hit all the high points. The pictures are terrific, from galleries everywhere. I’ll spend some quality time here. Thank-you, Richard.

                Don’t you wish you had this resource way back when?
                I don’t. I probably would've shriveled up in front of a screen and croaked.

  8. Obama pledges more than $450 million aid to help Colombia peace plan

    President Barack Obama said on Thursday he would ask the U.S. Congress for more than $450 million in aid to help Colombia end “half a century of wrenching conflict” and implement a peace accord aimed at ending Latin America’s longest war.

    If approved, the aid would help with security and fighting the drug trade, as well as educating and retraining members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the leftist rebel group at war with the government since 1964.

    “After half a century of wrenching conflict, the time has come for peace,” Obama said after meeting with Colombian President Juan Manual Santos.

    The U.S. government would also commit $33 million to a global program to help the country remove land mines in the next five years, and Obama said he would help mobilize more international aid if the peace deal is reached.

    Three previous attempts at an accord failed, but the government and FARC are on the verge of an agreement after four years of talks.

    Santos thanked the U.S. government for its long-standing bipartisan support for “Plan Colombia,” $10 billion in funding between 2000 and 2015 for military and social programs that he said helped keep Colombia from becoming a failed state.

    The new program, dubbed “Peace Colombia,” would provide about 25 percent more U.S. funding compared with 2016 levels.

    “Just as the United States has been Colombia’s partner in a time of war, I indicated to President Santos we will be your partner in waging peace,” Obama said at a White House reception.

    A jump in U.S. aid is “fundamental” to the success of the peace plan, particularly given a 20 percent hit to Colombia’s budget from the plunge in oil prices, said Douglass Cassel of the University of Notre Dame, who has been an adviser to Santos for the past year.

    “The government of Colombia will do everything it can, but it’s clear that it doesn’t have sufficient resources on its own to do the job the way it ought to be done without significant support from the United States and the European Union,” Cassel said in an interview.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-colombia-idUSKCN0VD2XM

    • Obama seeks $10-per-barrel oil tax to fund clean transport

      WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama wants oil companies to pay a $10 fee for every barrel of oil to help fund investments in clean transportation that fight climate change.

      Obama will formalize the proposal Tuesday when he releases his final budget request to Congress. The $10-per-barrel fee is expected face solid opposition from Republicans who control Congress and oppose new taxes and Obama’s energy policies.

      Still, the White House hopes the proposal will drive a debate about the need to get energy producers to help fund such efforts to promote clean transportation.

      The White House said the $10 fee would be phased in over five years. The revenue would provide $20 billion per year for traffic reduction, expanding investment in transit systems and new modes of transportation like high-speed rail. It would also revamp how regional transportation systems are funded, providing $10 billion to encourage investment that lead to cleaner transportation options.

      The White House said the tax would provide for the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund to ensure the nation maintains its infrastructure. The added cost of gasoline would create a clear incentive for the private sector to reduce the nation’s reliance on oil and drive investments in clear energy technology.

      House Speaker Paul Ryan called the plan “dead on arrival” and “an election-year distraction.”

      “The president should be proposing policies to grow our economy instead of sacrificing it to appease progressive climate activists,” the Wisconsin Republican said in a statement.

      The American Petroleum Institute projected that the fee would raise the cost of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon.

      “At a time when oil companies are going through the largest financial crisis in over 25 years, it makes little sense to raise costs on the industry,” added Neal Kirby, a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “This isn’t simply a tax on oil companies, it’s a tax on American consumers who are currently benefiting from low home heating and transportation costs.

      The administration said it recognized that oil companies would pass on some of the costs of the fee. However, it noted that Americans spend a lot of time and money as a result of an inadequate transportation system that also contributes to global warming.

      “Businesses waste tens of billions of dollars each year in freight costs due to inadequate infrastructure and Americans currently spend a total of 7 billion hours stuck in traffic each year, and traffic is getting worse year after year,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “This is the hidden tax.”

      http://www.bostonherald.com/business/business_markets/2016/02/obama_seeks_10_per_barrel_oil_tax_to_fund_clean_transport

    • S.O.B. is campaigning for that Sec-Gen of the UN job. To continue picking our pockets, engaging in espionage, and filtering money to leftists who hate us.

      • For him to become Sec Gen he would have to give up his American Citizenship, the UN Charter says that citizens of none of the nations with veto power in the Security Council can become Sec Gen.

        Not that international law means anymore to Obama then US law, besides he is hoping that Hillary will appoint him to the Supreme Court where he can keep on doing massive damage to the US.

        • Glad to hear about that UN snag. He’s likely to reveal he was never an American in the first place. Leavenworth candidate?

          Supreme Court – Oh my G-d, what a terrible thought!
          He had better make sure his Secret Service is tippy-top. He’d be a cute drone-splat or polonium tea imbiber.

  9. U.S. eyes ways to toughen fight against domestic extremists

    The U.S. Justice Department is considering legal changes to combat what it sees as a rising threat from domestic anti-government extremists, senior officials told Reuters, even as it steps up efforts to stop Islamic State-inspired attacks at home.

    Extremist groups motivated by a range of U.S.-born philosophies present a “clear and present danger,” John Carlin, the Justice Department’s chief of national security, told Reuters in an interview. “Based on recent reports and the cases we are seeing, it seems like we’re in a heightened environment.”

    Over the past year, the Justice Department has brought charges against domestic extremist suspects accused of attempting to bomb U.S. military bases, kill police officers and fire bomb a school and other buildings in a predominantly Muslim town in New York state.

    But federal prosecutors tackling domestic extremists still lack an important legal tool they have used extensively in dozens of prosecutions against Islamic State-inspired suspects: a law that prohibits supporting designated terrorist groups.

    Carlin and other Justice Department officials declined to say if they would ask Congress for a comparable domestic extremist statute, or comment on what other changes they might pursue to toughen the fight against anti-government extremists.

    The U.S. State Department designates international terrorist organizations to which it is illegal to provide “material support.” No domestic groups have that designation, helping to create a disparity in charges faced by international extremist suspects compared to domestic ones.

    A Reuters analysis of more than 100 federal cases found that domestic terrorism suspects collectively have faced less severe charges than those accused of acting on behalf of Islamic State since prosecutors began targeting that group in early 2014.

    Over the past two years, 27 defendants have been charged with plotting or inciting attacks within the United States in the name of Islamic State. They have faced charges that carried a median prison sentence of 53 years – half of the defendants faced more, and half faced less.

    In the same period, 27 adherents of U.S.-based anti-government ideologies have been charged with similar activity. They faced charges that carried a median prison sentence of 20 years.

    Carlin said his counter-terrorism team, including a recently hired counsel, is taking a “thoughtful look at the nature and scope of the domestic terrorism threat” and helping to analyze “potential legal improvements and enhancements to better combat those threats.”

    The counsel, who was appointed last October and has not been named publicly, will identify cases being prosecuted at the state level that “could arguably meet the federal definition of domestic terrorism,” a Justice Department official said.

    That would give the department a direct role in more domestic extremism cases.

    Recognizing that domestic threats were “rapidly evolving, and had the potential to grow,” the department in March 2015 rated disrupting such terrorists as a key component of its broader counter-terrorism efforts, officials said.

    THE THREAT PENDULUM

    The Justice Department aggressively pursued domestic extremists after Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.

    The government shifted its focus to international terrorism after al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.

    But in recent years anti-government activists, like those who occupied a wildlife preserve in eastern Oregon last month, have regained prominence.

    As law enforcement experts confront domestic militia groups, “sovereign citizens” who do not recognize government authority, and other anti-government extremists, they also face a heightened threat from Islamic extremists like the couple who carried out the Dec. 2 shootings in San Bernardino, California.

    “A new development we’re seeing is that when it comes to ISIL investigations, the flash-to-bang time from radicalization to action appears to be happening faster than with other types of terrorists,” said Michael Steinbach, the head of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division.

    As a result, government agents are quick to investigate people who appear sympathetic toward Islamic State, current and former officials say. But some say the government has been overzealous in its pursuit of Islamic State suspects.

    Similar actions by extremist suspects have yielded sharply disparate sentences.

    Eight Islamic State-related defendants have been sentenced so far, to prison terms that range from three to 20 years, the Reuters review found. Over the same period, 18 domestic extremists have been sentenced to terms from one day to 12 years.

    Prosecutors say Harlem Suarez, 23, of Key West, Florida, tried to buy a bomb last year from an undercover FBI agent as he plotted attacks on behalf of Islamic State. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison and has pleaded not guilty.

    Michael Sibley, 67, left two unexploded pipe bombs and a Koran in a park in Roswell, Georgia in 2014 in what he later told police was an attempt to highlight the danger of Islamic terrorism. He pleaded guilty and faces a maximum of five years in prison.

    “A different standard is being applied to Muslims than to other people,” said Daryl Johnson, a former counterterrorism expert at the Department of Homeland Security who now works as a law enforcement consultant.

    “SPRING-LOADED”

    Steinbach said that the FBI can never open up any type of investigation “just on the basis of race, creed, or religion,”

    But he added that federal agents are “spring-loaded” to open investigations into Americans who support groups on the State Department list of designated terrorist organizations.

    The maximum penalty for supporting one of these groups has been raised from 10 years to 20 years in prison since 2001.

    It has been applied in 58 of the government’s 79 Islamic State cases since 2014 against defendants who engaged in a wide range of activity, from traveling to Syria to fight alongside Islamic State to raising money for a friend who wished to do so.

    Judges usually issue sentences below the maximum, but some charges trigger sentencing “enhancements” that raise the baseline sentence a judge can issue – and the material support charge raises it more than most.

    Domestic groups enjoy greater constitutional protections because being a member of those groups, no matter how extreme their rhetoric, is not a crime.

    Prosecutors can bring “material support” terrorism charges against defendants who aren’t linked to groups on the State Department’s list, but they have only done so twice against non-jihadist suspects since the law was enacted in 1994. The law, which prohibits supporting people who have been deemed to be terrorists by their actions, carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

    Current and former federal prosecutors say they rarely consider that statute in domestic terrorism cases because it is often hard to convince a jury that someone who is not affiliated with a foreign group can be guilty of terrorism.

    William Wilmoth, a former federal prosecutor who invoked that law in a 1996 case against a West Virginia militia member, said he was surprised to hear that it isn’t used more often.

    “These guys have every right to have off-center political views,” he said. “But when they made affirmative steps to blow up an actual federal facility… we thought it was an important place for us to go and prosecute.”

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-militants-domestic-insight-idUSKCN0VD0FG

  10. In a shocking reversal of policy, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are being told to release illegal immigrants and no longer order them to appear at deportation hearings, essentially a license to stay in the United States, a key agent testified Thursday.

    What’s more, the stand down order includes a requirement that the whereabouts of illegals released are not to be tracked.

    “We might as well abolish our immigration laws altogether,” suggested agent Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council.
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/border-agent-we-might-as-well-abolish-our-immigration-laws-altogether/article/2582401