Here are some very depressing stories showing that bloated welfare states funnel money to some rather disreputable characters – even when governments uncharacteristically try to do the right thing.
The Daily Mail reports that a European Court has ruled that the U.K. no longer can impose restrictions on welfare payments to women married to suspected terrorists:
A European court has instructed Britain to drop restrictions which limit social security benefits paid to the wives of terror suspects. Ministers imposed tight rules on payouts to stop the money falling into the hands of alleged Al Qaeda fanatics. Under the restrictions, cash payments were strictly limited and families had to show receipts to justify every penny of spending. But yesterday the European Court of Justice said there was no danger of the handouts being used to fund terror and branded the measures unlawful.
Unfortunately, this story is not an isolated incident. Here’s a report from the Express about a Muslim cleric who collected welfare from the Brits while (to put it mildly) being a reprehensible slug: “The twisted cleric provoked outrage by comparing British troops to Nazi stormtroopers and telling parents of dead soldiers that their children had died in vain. …Choudary, a former lawyer…rakes in more than £25,000 a year in welfare handouts.” And CNN reports that, “Since the mid-90s, London has been a haven for foreign jihadi preachers, organizers, agitators and propagandists, many of them recipients of generous welfare benefits.
And here’s a BBC report noting that: “In November 2000, Mr Kaplan was convicted for incitement to murder and sentenced to four years in jail. Since then, intelligence reports say his followers have become even more devoted to Mr Kaplan, considering him a martyr for the cause of Allah. …Mr Kaplan is believed to have a fortune worth millions. Nonetheless, he claimed social benefits in Cologne for many years until 2m Deutschmarks (1m euros, £700,000) in cash was found in his flat. This Mickey Kaus blog post has more nauseating details.
The most amazing story comes from Australia. Here’s a Youtube copy of a report showing that Aussie taxpayers gave $1 million of welfare over 19 years to an Islamic extremist who planned to kill thousands of innocent people.
May 8: In this handout photo released by Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations, a Ghaznavi missile is launched from an undisclosed location in Pakistan.
Associated Press
The Shaheen-1 missile has range of about 400 miles, while the second Ghaznavi missile could hit target at a distance of 180 miles.
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan successfully test-fired two ballistic missiles Saturday capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the military said, as the Islamic nation’s leader urged the world to recognize it as a legitimate nuclear power.
The Shaheen-1 missile has a range of about 400 miles, while the second Ghaznavi missile could hit targets at a distance of 180 miles, an army statement said. Both can carry conventional and nuclear warheads.
Pakistan’s missiles are mostly intended for any confrontation with archrival India, and the range of the Shaheen-1 would include the Indian capital of New Delhi. Saturday’s tests — which featured the rare launch of two missiles — are unlikely to aggravate tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors, since they both routinely conduct missile tests.
The latest Pakistani missile test came more than a week after the leaders of two sides met in Bhutan on the sidelines of a regional conference, hoping to improve relations that have been strained since the deadly 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and other senior army and civil officials witnessed the launches at an undisclosed location, and the missiles “successfully hit the target areas,” the statement said.
Gilani also urged world powers “to recognize Pakistan as a dejure nuclear power with equal rights and responsibilities,” the army statement said. The prime minister called for cooperation on civilian nuclear power, which would help relieve Pakistan’s chronic energy shortages.
Pakistan has refused to sign nonproliferation accords and faces a nuclear trade ban.
“Energy is a vital economic security need of Pakistan and nuclear energy is a clean way forward,” the statement said.
Pakistan became a declared nuclear power in 1998 by conducting nuclear tests in response to those carried out by India. Islamabad test-fired its first missile that same year.
The safety of its nuclear arsenals has been a matter of concern since 2004 when the architect of Pakistan’s nuclear program, A.Q. Khan, confessed to spreading sensitive technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. Pakistan has since set up strict controls to prevent any such repeat and the retired Khan is living under virtual house arrest.
But a recent report, commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and released by Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, found that Pakistan faces formidable risks in safeguarding its nuclear warheads. Danger persists from “nuclear insiders with extremist sympathies, Al Qaeda or Taliban outsider attacks, and a weak state.”
My guess is that the only pause Ebert gave this Tweet was to worry about whether it was insulting to the Commies to equate the American flag with theirs.
The Internet really has been the gift that keeps on giving with the Roger Eberts of our world. With no editors or producers, no one intelligent between them and their moral illiteracy, they just can’t help but expose their true nature to the whole world.
God bless the SEND button.
Gee, why is Hollywood’s approval rating in the toilet again?
The incident the once universally respected Ebert is referring to involves students in America who dared to wear t-shirts emblazoned with American flags on Cinco de Mayo. For this offense the students were kicked off campus by school administrators.
Whether the students were openly protesting or merely looking to quietly enjoy their God-given right to free expression, it appears as though Ebert agrees with the administrators: Some people’s speech is more free than other’s.
An image from the trailer for 'Machete,' a revenge flick that centers on an assassination plot against an anti-immigration U.S. senator.
FOXNews.com
A violent new film from cult director Robert Rodriguez is declaring war on Arizona with a “special Cinco De Mayo message” in the wake of the state’s controversial illegal immigration law.
That message is: “They just f—ed with the wrong Mexican.”
“Machete,” which features a knife-wielding Mexican assassin out for revenge against double-crossing gringos, won’t be in theaters until September, but it is already sparking a political melee over Wednesday’s stab at the Grand Canyon State.
In the trailer for the film, the title character is hired to assassinate an anti-immigration U.S. senator played by Robert De Niro. Protesters are seen waving nationalist signs as the senator speaks to a charged-up rally: “We are at war,” he booms. “Every time an illegal dances across our border, it is an act of aggression against this sovereign state — an overt act of terrorism.”
But before the trailer even begins, the battle-scarred title character stares out from the screen as he tells viewers that what’s about to unfold — an immigration-laced slasher grindhouse flick — is about the current border battle in Arizona.
Click here to see the video.
The trailer was released Wednesday, just 24 hours after an envelope filled with a still-undetermined white powder was sent to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, temporarily closing the State Capitol in Phoenix. The powder spilled out when a staffer opened it Tuesday morning, sending Hazmat teams scrambling through the governor’s offices. No one was sickened, but state police and the FBI are investigating the incident.
It was just the latest development in a debate that is growing more rancorous by the minute.
Some outspoken critics of illegal immigration took umbrage at the movie trailer and its swipe at Arizona, which is the entry point for one-third of all illegal immigrants in the U.S.
“It’s pretty ugly out there,” said former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, a staunch advocate of tougher immigration laws. “Half the time that’s the way all of us are depicted: corrupt, no good, racist.”
Tancredo, who served in the House from 1999-2009, said he received “tons of death threats” while in office and frequently wore a bulletproof vest during public speeches. Though the language of the film is nothing new to him, he said he still finds it offensive.
“The racists who made that trailer, they are as racist as anything I have ever seen” from either side of the immigration debate, Tancredo said.
But, he added, “these guys are ‘politically correct’ racists, so you cannot heap indignities upon them.”
In “Machete,” the protagonist, played by Danny Trejo, is a former Mexican Federale now looking for work as a day laborer in Texas. He charges $70 a day for yard work, but an oily businessman makes him an offer he can’t refuse: $150,000 to take out a senator bent on deporting illegal immigrants.
“As you know, illegal Americans are being forced out of our country at an alarming rate,” says the contractor. “For the good of both our people, the senator must die.”
The film, which is set to be released Sept. 3, is produced by 20th Century Fox, a production company owned by Fox News’ parent company, News Corp.
20th Century Fox said that Rodriguez speaks for himself on political issues. The studio was comfortable with the release of the movie trailer on Cinco De Mayo, but says it has no political stake in the immigration debate.
Representatives for Rodriguez did not return requests for comment. But the head of the production studio handling the international release of the film said “Machete” is a classic grindhouse picture typical of the man who made “Desperado” and “Sin City.”
“‘Machete’ is a Robert Rodriguez movie through and through, wild and wonderful, exactly the kind of exciting and irreverent genre movie that his fans dream about,” Ashok Amritraj, CEO of Hyde Park Entertainment, said in an interview with Variety Magazine.
De Niro, playing the senator, fits many familiar tropes about the Southwest: he’s a gun-toting, Stetson hat-wearing, flag pin-blazing cowboy from Texas.
He and Trejo are joined by a number of stars: Cheech Marin plays a shotgun-shooting warrior priest, Lindsay Lohan plays the senator’s Patty Hearst-like daughter and Don Johnson, as a sheriff, growls that “there’s nothing I’d like more than to see more than that Mexican dance the bolero at the end of a rope.”
Jessica Alba, a border patrol agent, rallies a group of laborers while crying, “We didn’t cross the border — the border crossed us!”
Tancredo, who argued that the film should not be distributed at all, said he wasn’t worried the movie would incite any violence, but that its political message was clear.
“I think it is a true reflection of exactly who these people are and what they think about America,” he said.
Why would the O Force give up America’s security secrets?
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Obama administration has revealed – for the first time ever – the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal in detail. This information was a closely guarded secret for more than 60 years. By unloading such sensitive information, President Obama is responsible for deliberately exposing a chink in America’s defensive armor. The Land of the Free is less secure for it.
On orders from the White House, the Pentagon on Monday released the exact number of nuclear warheads as the 189-nation nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference got under way in New York. The U.S. nuclear stockpile now stands at 5,113 warheads, down from a high of 31,255 in 1967.
Never before has the United States allowed either friend or foe access to such precise information about our nuclear assets – and for good reason. A healthy dread of these awesome weapons has deterred aggression against the American homeland and kept the nation safe.
Disarmament officials and purported peace activists claim the frank U.S. disclosure will elicit similar openness on the part of other nuclear powers, leading them to follow suit. We’re not so sure that neighborhood bullies will decide that giving away state secrets is the cool thing to do on the nuclear playground. While revealing the size of the stockpile might earn some diplomatic plaudits for an approval-seeking Mr. Obama, surrendering such information constitutes shortsighted defense policy.
Contrary to Team Obama’s pipe dream of a nuclear-free world, the unfolding international trend is toward uncontrollable nuclear proliferation, not reduction – especially in the Third World. It’s hardly breaking news that nations that wish us ill profess platitudes of peace while quietly developing their own nuclear capabilities. Foremost among them is the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday called on treaty signatories to punish nations that threaten other countries with nuclear weapons. This was a thinly veiled snipe at the United States.
The Iranian despot has perfected his role as puppet master on the world stage. Relentless denunciations of America’s nuclear posture played into the U.S. decision to release its long-guarded nuclear secrets as American treaty negotiators sought to pre-empt Iran’s demand that existing nuclear nations provide more accountability for their nuclear materials. Mr. Ahmadinejad has pulled Mr. Obama’s strings, goading the United States along the path of disarmament, all the while moving his Islamic regime inexorably toward possession of the mullahs’ own nuclear weapons. In the game of power politics, Mr. Obama is clearly out of his depth.
This is not a minor issue. As former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John R. Bolton has warned in this paper, “If Washington will not continue to hold the nuclear umbrella that has provided strategic stability for so long, other countries will begin making divergent decisions about how to protect themselves, including, for some, the possibility of seeking their own nuclear weapons.”
In an ideal world, a nuclear umbrella wouldn’t be necessary, but ours is hardly an ideal world. Nature abhors a vacuum, and as America surrenders its mantle as the world’s foremost superpower, other nations will rush forward to pick it up. Providing America’s adversaries with precise information about our military capabilities only assists their strategy against us. If he had any useful experience, Mr. Obama would know that – assuming he’s not weakening America on purpose.
U.S. Constitutional Free Press 