James L. Paris's Blog, page 149

In the Face of a Rising Terror Threat, U.S. Churches Increasingly on Guard

While the recent murder of a French priest by ISIS disciples struck many as particularly cold-blooded (although, when it comes to acts of terror committed by radical Islamists, I���m not sure how one distinguishes between more or less cold-blooded), the reality is that churches in these United States have been subject to increased threats in recent years, with experts suggesting it is just a matter of time before a U.S. church becomes victimized by a similar attack.

An article over at FoxNews.com by Hollie McKay, entitled, ���Churches take new security measures in face of terror threats,��� outlines the growing threat to churches in America.

McKay relates the worrisome event that beset St. Andrew Orthodox Church in Riverside, Calif., this past April, when a passenger in a car shouted, ���Allahu Akbar��� several times while passing slowly by the house of worship. According to witnesses, there were three occupants in the vehicle, one or more of whom were believed to have been taking pictures. According to parish priest Father Josiah Trenham, life at the church remains ���tense and tenuous,��� and there are now security officers in place for protection on behalf of all services.

The article further details other disturbing signs that ready threats to churches in America indeed exist. A Dearborn Heights, Mich., man was arrested back in February after telling an undercover FBI agent he was planning to ���shoot up��� an area church, and, last September, an adherent to Islam was charged after entering a Baptist church in Bullard, Tex., saying God had instructed him to murder Christians and ���other infidels.���

Security experts throughout the United States expect that threats to churches in this country will remain pronounced for some time. As Ryan Mauro, a security analyst and professor of Homeland Security at Liberty University puts it, ���Many churches are now hiring self-defense instructors for classes or security guards that include off-duty police. If you are an Islamist terrorist seeking self-glory, executing a priest will bring you more attention than executing an average civilian.���

Robert G. Yetman, Jr Editor At Large

Father of Orlando Pulse Nightclub Shooter Spotted as Prominent Attendee at Clinton Rally

Omar Mateen, a self-described disciple of ISIS, committed one of the worst terror attacks and mass murders in the nation���s history back on June 12 in Orlando, Fla., when he killed 49 people and wounded 53 more inside of Pulse, a gay nightclub. On Monday, his father, Seddique Mateen, was spotted in a prominent position in the crowd of a Hillary Clinton rally in Kissimmee, Fla., a suburb of Orlando. A keen-eyed reporter for WPTV, on-hand for the event, picked Mateen out, and was able to snag an interview with him at the conclusion of Mrs. Clinton���s appearance.

When asked by that reporter for details about his presence at the rally, Mateen responded, ���It���s a Democratic party so everybody can enjoy. Why should they be surprised, I love the United States.���

Adding to the perceived awkwardness of Mateen���s presence (you would think) is that the Democratic presidential nominee used the event, in part, to pay tribute to the Pulse shooting victims.

When reporters asked Mateen why he was a Clinton supporter, he responded by saying, ���Hillary Clinton is good for United States versus Donald Trump, who has no solutions.���

For their part, the Clinton campaign essentially disavowed Mateen���s appearance, saying, in a written statement, ���The rally was a 3,000-person, open-door event for the public. This individual wasn���t invited as a guest and the campaign was unaware of his attendance until after the event.���

Still, the image of Mateen at the event is being roundly criticized as horrendous optics, at the very least, for Clinton. Despite his efforts at distancing himself from his son���s actions, there is a fair bit of evidence that Seddique Mateen is himself strongly anti-gay and pro-radical Islam, and Hillary has been the subject of a great deal of criticism related to her disinclination to identify radical Islam as an overriding threat to the nation���s security.

 By Robert G. Yetman, Jr Editor At Large

Cokie Roberts of ABC News Says When Trump Calls Hillary ���Unhinged,��� He���s Using Sexist ���Code���

Have you noticed that one of the principal strategies of progressives now is to try to control language? Admittedly, it is a smart move. When you get to decide what words mean, even in contravention to what they apparently mean, then the principal mechanism by which thoughts and ideas are transmitted belongs to you.

 

The big thing in recent years is saying that one thing really means another, that when you use a particular word, it is ���code��� for something else. It is chiefly the province of the left, which breathlessly looks for any way that benign words can magically become ���code��� for expressions of racism, sexism, and assorted other ���isms and ���phobias.

As evidenced by ABC News��� Cokie Roberts this past weekend, many have simply gone ���full stupid��� with the concept.

In her appearance on ABC���s This Week on Sunday, Roberts actually said that when Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump publicly refers to Hillary Clinton as ���unhinged,��� his use of that word is code for the idea that a woman should not be elected President of the United States. As a matter of fact, Roberts is adamant that such is what Trump is saying; her exact words:

���About ���unhinged��� and ���she doesn���t look presidential,��� is totally code for we shouldn���t elect a woman. That is exactly what that is.���

I realize calling someone else ���stupid,��� which I did several sentences ago, is not the most charitable of things, but those who attempt to manipulate the national dialogue by disingenuously (Roberts knows darn well that such characterizations of Hillary���s demeanor are not code for anything beyond their most apparent meanings and references) playing race and gender cards are completely deserving of our ire.

 By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Actor James Woods Publicly Questions for How Much Longer Julian Assange Will Remain Alive

I have no idea if actor James Woods has been a lifelong conservative, or if he is one who came to the ideology later in life, perhaps after some sort of epiphany while mired in leftist Hollywood for decades, but he has certainly been an outspoken rightist for several years now. In particular, he���s never been shy about what he tweets out to the universe, and one of his latest Twitter communications is very much in keeping with that posture. How���s this for someone who does not partake of the Hollywood Kool-Aid:

���What���s the Vegas line on #JulianAssange actually staying alive until the election?���

An interesting question, and an awfully surprising one from a person who must rely at least a little on many of those same Hollywood leftists for steady work. Perhaps Woods has made so much money that he just doesn���t care anymore, and, if that���s the case, it is a great place to be.

Assange, of course, is the man in charge of Wikileaks, the site that makes it its business to publish secret and classified information, news leaks, and the like, and that published ���private��� emails that were sent both to and from members of the Democratic National Committee. The overriding reference in Woods��� tweet was to the litany of suspicious deaths of people known to have been close to the Clintons, deaths many believe are attributable somehow to Bill and/or Hillary. While, obviously, no concrete proof to that effect has ever surfaced, the number and nature of the deaths, along with the ���energy��� given the narrative by enthusiastic conspiracy theorists, have prompted many, both in jest and otherwise, to speculate that anyone who is seen as publicly pursuing Hillary might well be on borrowed time.
You don���t suppose that might include James Woods, now, do you?

 By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Hillary's Mysterious Health Issues Back In The News

A picture surfaced over the weekend of Hillary Clinton needing the assistance of three men to be able to walk up the stairs to her home. Does Hillary have serious health issues that she is hiding? Obama's $400 million dollar 'drug deal' style payment to Iran, NBC's Olympic ratings plummet, Senator Tom Cotton suggests that an Iranian scientist that was executed for helping the United States may have been outed on Hillary's private e mail server, more than $60 million stolen in Bitcoin heist, 10 year old boy dies on world's tallest water slide, and how a movie studio is raising capital $100 at a time through crowdfunding.

 

The Clintons And UFOs

According to author Grant Cameron, one of the first things that Bill Clinton did after taking office was to assign Webster Hubbell with the task of finding out what the U.S. government knew about UFOs and the JFK assassination. In the Clinton UFO Storybook, Cameron shares countless anecdotes of the Clinton's pursuit of information on the existence of UFOs, including the backstory of Bill Clinton's panic regarding the so called Phoenix lights event in 1997. Through Freedom Of Information Act requests, Cameron has assembled thousands of government documents backing up his claims. His book contains more than 300 pages of details on this compelling but little known story.

 

Harry Reid: CIA Should Give Trump Only ���Fake��� Intelligence Briefings

Did you hear about Harry Reid advising the CIA to give Donald Trump only fake intelligence briefings, because The Donald, in the opinion of Reid, is dangerous?

You will be forgiven if that is truly news to you, because it does not appear to be something that was reported much at all in the mainstream media.

Reid, who is the Democratic Senate Minority Leader, rhetorically asked in a recent interview with The Huffington Post, ���How would the CIA and the other intelligence agencies brief this guy? How could they do that?���

Reid added, ���I would suggest to the intelligence agencies, if you���re forced to brief this guy, don���t tell him anything, just fake it, because this man is dangerous.���

Senator Reid has been making the rounds on behalf of his party, saying basically the same thing to a variety of audiences. To a group of reporters assembled after an event involving the Nevada Democratic delegation at the recent DNC, Reid said, ���I would hope they would give him fake intelligence briefings, because they shouldn't give him anything that means anything because you can't trust him. He can have intelligence briefings, but I hope they're fake. I hope that they don't tell him anything.���

It���s important to note that there was no sign, in any of the things Reid said on this subject, that would lead anyone to believe that the senator was kidding when he was saying them.

As nominees of each of the U.S.���s principal parties, both Trump and Hillary Clinton are entitled to receive intelligence briefings. While Donald Trump is well-known for engaging in brash, off-the-cuff comments that no reasonable person would take literally, his style of communicating has admittedly given Democrats and the leftist media an ���in��� to say such ludicrous things as that which Reid has been saying recently. Still, anyone who would suggest that Trump should be given fake intelligence briefings while Clinton, of all people, would be getting real ones, may want to ���check themselves,��� as the kids say.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

Busload of Chinese Reporters Caught in Gunfight as Crime-Ridden Rio Olympics Just Beginning

While it is yet to be determined if these Rio Olympics are going to be the most violent in history���many of us probably remember the horror of the 1972 Munich Olympics when Black September kidnapped and slaughtered a group of Israeli athletes���it may be the case that these prove to be the most crime-ridden in the history of the modern games, at least in terms of exposure of athletes, visitors, reporters, and dignitaries to street crime.

The most recent incident of note involved reporters who were following the national basketball team of China, according to Shanghaiist.com. Reports say that a bus carrying the reporters happened upon a roadside gunfight between police and local criminals. Reportedly, six ���locals��� were killed in the violence. No one on the journalists��� bus was harmed.

As noted, even though the Rio Olympics are barely underway, violence has already come to characterize them in a way most atypical for Olympics Games. In the days leading up to the official start of the event, three Swedish travelers were kidnapped at gunpoint (later released), two Australian rowing coaches were robbed at knifepoint, and a Russian official was the victim of an attempted armed mugging ��� in his case, the official was able to wrest the gun from his assailant and kill him with it.

This, by the way, is not even close to a full list of the instances of violent crime that have already taken place in association with the Rio Olympics.

Brazil is known to be one of the most dangerous countries on the planet, with roughly 60,000 murders a year; the country is home to 21 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world.

Tell me again how they decided Rio was the best place for this year���s games?

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

Venezuelan Economy So Bad That Zoo Animals are Being Slaughtered & Eaten by a Starving People

The collapse of the Venezuelan economy is for real.

As conditions continue to drastically deteriorate in the country, and food shortages worsen every day, word is getting out that citizens are beginning to behave in just the way we imagine things might be in a ���Mad Max��� sort of apocalyptic environment, where it���s every man for himself in the most desperate of circumstances.

One of the more sobering signs of the ���apocalypse��� in Venezuela is the recent break-in by hungry intruders into Caracas��� Caricuao Zoo, who pulled a rare black stallion from its cage and killed it for food. All that was left behind for zoo officials to find the next day was the animal���s head and ribs.

While the slaughter of the horse is the most notable killing of an animal at the zoo for food, it is by no means the only one. Other, smaller animals, including Vietnamese pigs and sheep, have fallen prey, as well, to starving citizens scavenging for food.

Late president Hugo Chavez nationalized many of Venezuela���s industries when he was elected back in 1999, and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, continued on that path when he nationalized the food-supply system after assuming office in 2013. Since then, massive food shortages have become standard inside the once-thriving nation.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

AND���It Has Come to This: SF Police Union���s ���Black Labs Matter��� Dog Photo Under Fire

The August edition of the San Francisco Police Officers Association Journal, the official, monthly paper of the San Francisco police officers��� union, contains a photo of two dogs that has raised the ire of some who say that the image demeans the Black Lives Matter movement.

The photo at issue features two Labrador retrievers sitting side by side, one black and the other yellow. The black lab has a sign around its neck that reads, ���Black Labs Matter,��� while the sign around the yellow Lab���s neck reads, ���All Labs Matter.��� Accompanying the photo is the following caption: ���Maybe it's time we all just sit back and tone down the rhetoric.���

Seems harmless enough, but try telling that to Sergeant Yulanda Williams, president of Officers for Justice, a group within the SFPD that represents the interests of minority members of the department. Williams said that choosing to run the photo demonstrates a ���blatant unwillingness to speak up for black lives��� on the part of the department.

���It's so inflammatory, and they still don't get it. They still choose to inflame situations, and it's just really insulting.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large