Written by Robert Spencer

Here is my weekly column at PJ Lifestyle today:

Last Friday, an Afghan journalist named Mustafa Kazemi posted on Facebook a harrowing story about an eight-year-old girl in the Khashrood district of Nimruz province in Afghanistan, who was sold off into marriage to a mullah in his late 50s, and who bled to death on their wedding night.
It was one of many such tragedies in a land that little notes nor long remembers such deaths. An eight-year-old girl sold into marriage and dead after a brutal sexual assault that her body could not withstand is no more noteworthy than a pack animal that collapses under a too-heavy weight. It’s time and money wasted, that’s all. Forget about it. Get another one.

Indeed, the day... http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/robert-spencer-the-silent-tragedy-of-c...

Written by Robert Spencer

Every day brings new confirmation of how compromised the U.S. government, military, and intelligence apparatus really is. After the Obama Administration purged counterterror training materials of all truth about Islam and jihad, this is what they replaced it with.

"FEATURED STORY: US Naval Academy Instructor Teaching On Behalf Of US Muslim Brotherhood," from the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch, May 14 (thanks to Jeff):

According to promotional material, a United States Naval Academy professor is teaching on behalf of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and where global Brotherhood... http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/us-naval-academy-instructor-teaching-o...

Written by Ed Meese

Experts can’t always predict exactly how public policy will affect the nation, despite our best efforts. But when it comes to immigration policy, we have tried many of the types of reforms advocated by today’s Gang of Eight—so we should consider the effects these reforms had in the past.

In the mid-’80s, many Members of Congress advocated amnesty for long-settled illegal immigrants. President Reagan considered it reasonable to adjust the status of what was then a relatively small population, and as his attorney general, I supported his decision.

The path to citizenship was not automatic. Immigrants had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam, and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible.

This should sound familiar, as it’s quite close to the path and provisions set forth by the Gang of Eight.

Today they call it a “roadmap to citizenship.” Ronald Reagan called it “amnesty.” And he was right.

The 1986 reform did not solve our immigration problem—in fact, the population of illegal immigrants has nearly quadrupled since that “comprehensive” bill.

Why didn’t it work? Well,... http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/17/morning-bell-weve-seen-the-effect-of...

In PJ Lifestyle today I consider what goes on in jihad families like the Tsarnaevs:

“Peace will come,” Golda Meir once famously remarked, “when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate us.” The obstacle to peace was not actually Arabs as such, but Muslims who had imbibed Islam’s doctrine of jihad and hatred of non-believers and primarily Jews — a hatred so intense that it drives people to prefer death (and murder) to life. And as we have seen recently with the monstrous grandstanding of Mama Tsarnaeva, this hatred is passed on in some Muslim families – and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is by no means the only mother from hell.

Islamic supremacists avowedly... http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/robert-spencer-how-mothers-from-hell-r...

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/06/inhofe-obama-administration-trying-to-...

Written by Kelsey Harris

Senators return to Washington next week to debate the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration bill. Heritage President Jim DeMint has said the bill is “unfair, it costs too much, and it’s going to make the problem worse.” We’ve put together an infographic that explains some of the major problems with a “comprehensive” approach to immigration reform.

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/03/morning-bell-the-gang-of-eight-immig...

Written By C.D. Michel

When it comes to tracking crime guns, California is immune to scientific infection.

Knowledge should precede policy. Yet California gun policy is often made in engineered ignorance. Despite pleas from law enforcement and assistance from the National Rifle Association, California’s most basic crime gun research processes wouldn’t receive a passing grade for a Research Methodologies 101 class.

Nowhere has the dearth of data on crime guns been more profound than on so-called “assault weapons” and felons with firearms.

California’s Department of... http://www.calgunlaws.com/institutionalized-ignorance-how-california-enc...

Written by Pamela Geller

Freedom is more embattled in America today than ever. My group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), has begun tracking the activities of numerous active groups that are threats to freedom in the United States today on our Threats to Freedom Index. We plan to augment it periodically and publish it annually.

All Threat to Freedom... http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2011/08/15/The-AFDI-Threats-to-F...

Written by James Carafano

The good news is Congress cares about trying to fix our flawed immigration system and broken borders.

The bad news is they want to do it with a solution that looks a lot like Obamacare—the “Gang of Eight” 844-page-plus “comprehensive” bill.

The sad news is that such an “easy button” solution will not improve our immigration system.

History shows that big bills designed to solve everything wind up creating as many problems as they address. They become loaded with payoffs for special interests and often introduce measures that work at cross purposes.

The “comprehensive” bill fails at the start. Here are the top five reasons it cannot be fixed.

1. Amnesty. This bill grants amnesty. It creates a framework for legalization for the estimated 11 million people unlawfully present in the United States. Anyone who was present in the U.S. before 2012 qualifies, but there is too much opportunity for fraud—since there is no proof required that applicants have been here for several years.

2. Fiscal Costs to the Taxpayer. This plan does not... http://blog.heritage.org/2013/04/23/morning-bell-top-5-problems-with-the...

In 2010, the Obama Administration banned the term "Islamic Extremism" from the central document outlining American national security strategy. This decision may explain why the F.B.I. failed to monitor the Boston bomber, even after receiving a tip that he was radicalized. If they had followed up after he returned from Russia, the Boston Marathon plot probably would not have materialized.

While the American people instinctively know... http://www.secureamericanow.org/index.php?option=com_acymailing&ctrl=arc...

Written by David Kupelian

Terrorism. Chaos. Fear of the future. In the age of Obama, America is undergoing a “fundamental transformation” – that much everyone knows.

But what few seem to realize about this transformation is that the sheer stress of living in today’s America is driving tens of millions to the point of illness, depression and self-destruction. Consider the following trends:

Suicide has surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of injury death for Americans. Even more disturbing, in the world’s greatest military, more U.S. soldiers died last year by suicide than in combat;

•Fully one-third of the nation’s employees suffer chronic debilitating stress, and more than half of all “millennials” (18 to 33 year olds) experience a level of stress that keeps them awake at night, including large numbers diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorder.

•Shocking new research... http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/americans-snapping-by-the-millions/

Written By cdmichel
In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, America’s gun control movement was momentarily reenergized. Many reasoned voices sought solutions for such events, which unimpassioned analysis showed to mainly be a mental health issue. Gun control groups also concurred on the mental health aspect, then squandered that brief moment of collaboration by tossing their dusty legislative wish list into the political maelstrom. Knowing that their more extreme measures had little or no chance of passage – such as Dianne Feinstein’s now stalled “assault weapons” ban – they include seemingly benign and popular measures including “universal” background checks.

As with assault weapons, the public self-educated on the topic, and is now rejecting the plan. And for good reasons.

There are three basic... http://www.calgunlaws.com/universal-background-checks-arent/

Written By Gregory Gwyn-Williams, Jr.

A recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) reveals that the agency is seeking a "massive" online database capable of pulling up individuals' personal information, connections and associates.

On March 28, ATF posted the notice on FedBizOpps.gov, entitled "Investigative System." The solicitation was updated on April 5 with a few minor changes.

The document says that the system will be utilized by staff "to provide rapid searches on various entities for example; names, telephone numbers, utility data and reverse phone look-ups, as a means to assist with investigations, and background research on people, assets and businesses."

The system is... http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/atf-seeks-massive-datab...

Since President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared “war on poverty,” U.S. taxpayers have spent $15 trillion on so-called anti-poverty programs—a figure slightly less than the national debt.

Sean Hannity, Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer, and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon explored the explosive growth of the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in a one-hour Fox News special tonight titled “Boomtown 2: The Business of Food Stamps.”

In 1969, just 2.8 million Americans received food stamps. Today, over 47 million Americans are on food stamps. The Fox News special explained that one contributing factor to the massive expansion of the food stamp program is the crony capitalism that has cropped up around the anti-poverty program.

Soda makers, for example, bag... http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/05/BOOMTOWN-2-Taxpayers-...

Written By cdmichel

California State Sheriffs are now on record opposing more federal gun control.

The good news is that this isn’t news.

In response to Barack Obama’s recent gun ban proposals, the California State Sheriffs’ Association sent a letter to Obama’s gun control point man, Vice President Joe Biden. In it the sheriffs made their position clear, as many police and sheriffs across the country have recently done, that the Second Amendment is something they understand and intend to enforce – even against the feds.

Some police chiefs, being politically influenced, favor gun control. Since elected chiefs, especially in big cities with gang and drug violence, often resemble politicians more than working street cops, the reasons behind their different opinions become obvious.

Cops working the... http://www.calgunlaws.com/sheriff-sensibility/

Written By Charles Hurt

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Rage over the waste and injustice of agents sent by the federal government to bang on doors of law-abiding citizens to ask probing, creepy questions is normally something that bubbles up only every 10 years. But ever since the federal government became a cancerous leviathan, the outrage is now an annual occurrence.

The first census in 1790 asked a bare minimum of questions essential for establishing congressional districts of equal populations. Despite the abhorrent practice of slavery at the time — and the counting of blacks for purposes of their fractional apportionment — the whole endeavor was aimed at fairness.

In the 223 years since, the census has spawned an entire federal bureaucracy with tentacles reaching into the farthest hidden crannies of the country. It asks darkly invasive questions that are unnecessary at best.

At worst — which... http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/19/hurt-were-from-the-gover...

Written by Bryan Preston

Every year hundreds of thousands of Americans use firearms to defend themselves from attackers of one kind or another. Despite the state’s reputation as a frontier state, Colorado’s Democrats are hell-bent on disarming law-abiding citizens and, in particular, women, from being able to defend themselves with a firearm. The latest is state Sen. Evie Hudak who, at a hearing on banning concealed carry on college campuses, told rape survivor Amanda Collins that having a gun would not have done her any good. Collins had just shared her story of survival. Democrat Hudak berated her in response.

I just want to say, statistics are not on your side, even if you had had a gun. You said that you were a martial arts student, I mean person, experience in taekwondo, and yet because this individual was so large and was able to overcome you even with your skills, and chances are that if you had had a gun, then he would have been able to get than from you and possibly use it against you …

Or she could... http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/03/05/arrogant-co-dem-scolds-rape-survivo...

Written By HOWARD MINTZ

SAN FRANCISCO — On a May day in 2009, Vaughn Walker was going through one of his weekly routines as a federal judge, reviewing a stack of new lawsuits assigned to his San Francisco chambers, when one case caught his eye: Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

At the time, Walker had no inkling that history might rest in those pages, that one of the most important legal collisions in the nation over same-sex marriage might hang in the balance. In fact, at first, all Walker noticed was then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's name.

But it did not take long for the veteran chief judge, himself quietly but openly in a longtime gay relationship with a doctor, to realize that he had inherited the legal challenge to Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage. The silver-haired judge with the iconoclast's reputation would be center stage in the gay marriage controversy.

"That's when I... http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/02/21/183782/judge-who-struck-down-calif...