Man Told to Remove American Flag Because ‘It’s a Threat to Muslims’

By Jennifer Burke
Since when did it become offensive to display the American flag in America? According to Webster, TX resident Duy Tran, that is precisely what he has been told by his apartment complex management. They have told him that he must remove the flag because it was a “ threat to the Muslim community.” (Watch Video Below)
KHOU, the CBS affiliate in Houston, reports on this demand by the Lodge on El Dorado. After moving into the community, Tran proudly hung an American flag from his balcony. He says the flag means a lot to him because he has had a lot of friends who have died defending it.
Tran says he was shocked when the apartment manager told him the American flag had to be taken down. He said, “What really stunned me is that she said it’s a threat towards the Muslim community. I’m not a threat to anybody.”
The station reports that, upon asked for the manager’s account of what happened, the property had an officer escort them off of the property and only provided the following statement.

While the Lodge on El Dorado admires our resident’s patriotism, we must enforce our property rules and guidelines. Such guidelines maintain the aesthetics of our apartment community and provide for the safety of all residents. The apartment community already proudly displays our country’s flag in a safe and appropriate manner at the entrances to our community.

KHOU indicates that there were numerous other patriotic symbols that could been seen on balconies throughout the property. Tran insists that he will not remove his American flag stating, “I’m gonna leave my flag there, as an American, until she shows me proof that I don’t have the right to leave my flag there.

Redskins Decision Symbolizes Government That Fiddles While Iraq Burns

By Matt Towery
Let's make this clear: Barack Obama is not responsible for the Federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board's decision to cancel certain trademark protections related to the NFL's Washington Redskins, due to the "disparaging" nature of the word 'Redskins.' But is symbolic of a government so off course that it defies belief.
The last five years are quickly becoming the plot to a movie that, just a few years ago, no one would have believed plausible.
We now have a government that targets folks both in taxation and private communications. One that "wags the dog" with the capture of one lone perpetrator of a Benghazi crime, but never admits the crime should have never occurred in the first place. And we have a leader, who until forced to do otherwise, sat by while whole portions of Iraq fell into enemy hands. This stuff has passed from the merely unbelievable to the outright bizarre.

Relax, Obama is in charge

By Cliff Thier
The world is on fire. Russia invading and conquering a democratic neighbor. Libya descending into chaos. More chemical weapons slaughter of innocents in Syria. Iraq disintegrating into civil war. Al Qaeda carving out a country for itself. Iran ascendant in Iraq. Iran getting closer and closer to nuclear weapons. China more aggressive, more war-threatening than at any time in 40 years.
IRS corruption. Justice Department corruption. AFT corruption. Veterans Administration corruption.
All this and the leader of the free world, when he's not golfing and attending fund-raisers, finds time to officially (officially!) declare June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month."
Jeryl Bier writes in The Weekly Standard:

In line with President Obama's official proclamation of June as "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month," the banner headlining the website of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Wednesday proclaims the agency's celebration of the same, noting, "It’s also about what the IC is about: integration":

The graphic contains a quote from a March speech given by director James Clapper at the Intelligence Community (IC) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Allies (LGBTA) Summit which was held this year at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland:

[T]his isn’t just about what’s altruistically right. It’s also about what the IC is about: integration. It means having and using a widely diverse workforce, and taking advantage of all those great intellects we have, while removing as many frustrations and distractions as possible. So – it’s not just about what’s right. It’s about good business in our profession.

Medicaid Made $14.4 Billion Improper Payments Last Year

GAO: problem will worsen under Obamacare

By Elizabeth Harrington
The federal government paid out $14.4 billion in fraudulent reimbursements through Medicaid last year, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) highlighted a recent GAO report on the lack of oversight within Medicaid’s managed care organizations (MCOs) delivery system, which accounts for roughly $4 billion in waste each year.
“Today’s report is particularly troubling given Obamacare expands this broken program without substantial reforms to protect patients and taxpayers,” Hatch said in a statement Wednesday. “CMS is responsible for safeguarding the billions of dollars it receives from hard-working American taxpayers, and I strongly urge [CMS] Administrator [Marilyn] Tavenner to implement the changes recommended by GAO to improve CMS oversight of MCO payments.”
“This report underscores the need for Medicaid reform in order to ensure that scarce tax dollars are used properly,” he said.
Managed care organizations, in which Medicaid beneficiaries get the majority of their care through an organization under contract with their state, are especially vulnerable to fraud since neither federal nor state governments are “well positioned to identify improper payments,” the GAO said.

PK'S NOTE: Read this analysis on how a campaign article was skewed. It's good.

Hillary Clinton Asked To Inscribe “Hard Choices” To Ambassador Stevens

By Matt Fox

Jason Mattera caught up with Hillary Clinton at one of the DC stops on her book tour this week, and asked the former Secretary of State if she would mind signing a copy of Hard Choices… but with a twist. “If you could make it out to Christopher Stevens,” Mattera queried. “I think you knew him.”
Christopher Stevens, of course, was the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was murdered along with three other Americans on Clinton’s watch, when Jihadists attacked two U.S. outposts in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.
Hillary, surprised by the request, replied, “Yeah, I’m not gonna make it out to Chris Stevens.” Mattera followed-up with, “What difference does it make?” a reference to Clinton’s infamous 2013 Senate testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee.
Mattera, the publisher of Daily Surge, also noted during their exchange that Hillary’s security detail appears to be larger than what Ambassador Stevens was provided in Benghazi. Clinton’s entourage filled up a town car, two SUVs, and consisted of security personnel from the building she had just exited.

Obama’s Benghazi Terrorist Scam

Wayne Allyn Root
....This is the greatest foreign policy embarrassment in U.S. history. Under Obama’s leadership, the nation is in crisis and free fall.
So what does the greatest scam artist to ever occupy the White House do? He pulls out the WMD – Weapon of Mass Distraction. He “wags the dog” to distract the masses. He finally gives permission for U.S. Special Forces to capture the architect of Benghazi – a terrorist hiding in plain sight for the past 20 months.
Presto. The Kool-Aid drinking mainstream media call Obama “a hero.” Amazing.
No one can be this dumb, can they?
But the scam is much deeper than it appears. The capture of Benghazi terrorist mastermind Ahmed Abu Khattala isn’t just a cover-up for the public relations mess Obama is in. The capture itself is the biggest scam of all.
First we let this Benghazi butcher enjoy life in plain view for 20 months.
Suddenly Obama decides the time is right to capture him – right at the exact moment Obama needed to change the headlines. Pure bread and circus. I’m surprised he didn’t just call for the start of the “Hunger Games.”
But the second part of Obama’s scam is far more dastardly. Obama is sending the terrorist mastermind to the U.S. instead of Guantanamo Bay.
He will be read his Miranda rights, and like any other American citizen will be considered innocent until proven guilty. Why? Guantanamo Bay was built for exactly this kind of unique situation – to house “the worst of the worst” enemy combatants, to interrogate them without the need for Miranda Rights.
This scam was all planned out for months – 20 months to be exact. Obama wanted the perfect timing – to hide a country in disarray and decline. And he wanted the perfect circumstances – the man with the knowledge of what happened at Benghazi protected by Miranda rights.
Khattala is the definition of a “high value target.” He knows where the bodies of Benghazi are buried. He can destroy Obama. He can put Obama’s fingerprints at the scene of the crime. He can testify that Benghazi was a terrorist attack from day one, that no protest of a movie was ever involved. He can testify that his terrorists used weapons supplied to Libyan rebels by the Obama Administration to kill our own brave men.
He can testify that even the terrorists were shocked that Obama never sent a rescue mission. He can say “we all expected to die on a suicide mission, but your president was too weak to fight back. Because of Obama this was a great victory and we lived to brag about it.”
So how do you shut the terrorist mastermind up? You read him his Miranda rights.
You tell him he has the right to “lawyer up.” You protect him from enhanced interrogation. On American soil, we can’t touch him. No Jack Bauer-style creative interrogation. No loud music. No threats to his family. No nothing. Here it’s just nice questions asked by polite FBI agents who could lose their pensions if they don’t mind their manners.
Here in America a high-profile trial like this could take years to happen. Two, or three, or four years. Just enough time that Obama is safely out of office. So even if the terrorist talks at trial – which is unlikely – no one will hear about it until Obama is enjoying life as a billionaire author and global speaker at his Hawaii estate.
This is how you silence a dangerous witness for years. This is how you keep him from ever disclosing the secrets that can bring you down. You bring him to America and give him a team of lawyers. You can bet Obama’s top enforcer Attorney General Eric Holder will make sure Khattala has an O.J.-like “dream team.”
Game, set, match.

Cruz: Can't Defeat 'Radical Islamic Terrorism' If You Won't Utter Those Words

By Susan Jones
"You cannot win a battle against radical Islamic terrorism if you're unwilling to utter the words 'radical Islamic terrorism,'" Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on Tuesday.
Coincidentally, on the same day Cruz made that comment, Secretary of State John Kerry said that "extreme poverty" breeds terrorism.
Cruz was talking about the Benghazi attack with CNN's Erin Burnett on Tuesday evening. He noted that the Obama administration, in explaining the attack to the American people, "edited out every reference to al Qaeda and radical Islamic terrorism."
"And the most consistent error of the Clinton/Obama foreign policy is a failure to understand the nature of the people we're dealing with, of our enemies."

America’s Middle East Dilemma

By Victor Davis Hanson
....There is a common theme to the repeated messes in the Middle East. Invading countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq to topple genocidal anti-American tyrants doesn’t result in long-term advantages unless there are years of American postwar occupation — which is costly and deeply unpopular with voters.
Letting Middle East factions kill each other off — and kill tens of thousands of innocents in their way — poses a humanitarian disaster and can lead to the sort of chaotic badlands that allowed Osama bin Laden and his gangsters to plan attacks on the U.S.
Just bombing and leaving is not always that much better. A chaotic Libya is now worse than under Qaddafi.
...Airbrushing the Middle East or the War on Terror also leads nowhere. The administration can create mythologies about Islamic history, as in Obama’s unfortunate Cairo speech. It can bow to sheiks, commit NASA to Muslim outreach, emphasize the Muslim roots of Obama’s father’s family, invent euphemisms for the war against radical Islam, and dub the Muslim Brotherhood “largely secular.”
The result will still be that Middle Eastern factions hate us. Polls reveal that Obama is as unpopular in the Middle East as George W. Bush was.
The Middle East is the Middle East not because America intervenes or does not intervene, or reaches out or stays out, or imports oil or cuts back its purchases.
Instead, Middle Eastern violence and instability are homegrown. They result from a complex brew of tribalism, religious fundamentalism and intolerance, sexual apartheid, anti-Semitism, authoritarianism, and statism — all made worse by huge oil revenues and its key strategic location.
Americans have a choice. They can learn to keep clear of these quagmires and accept that hundreds of thousands will frequently die in the Middle East — and occasionally some Americans as well. Or, if we tire of watching the violence and intervene after a 9/11-like attack, we should brace for a bloody mess that will take years of unpopular occupation.

This One Word on a Syrian Mural Says All You Need to Know About ISIS Insurgents’ Ultimate Goal

By Sharona Schwartz
If a picture tells a thousand words, this one speaks volumes.

A widely followed Syria watcher shared on Twitter a photo said to have been taken in Syria that shows a mural which in one large word declares the aspiration of the Sunni jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, an Oxford University student and a fellow at the U.S.-based Middle East Forum, who tracks and provides commentary on the insurgent groups, shared the image on Twitter Thursday.
“Khilafa,” reads the word painted in large blue letters, referring to an Islamic caliphate to which the ISIS fighters who have descended on Syria and Iraq from east and west dream of achieving one day. Thousands of volunteers have traveled to join the ranks of jihadi fighters trying to unseat Alawite President Bashar Assad and Iraq’s Shiite-led regime and establish in their place a territory guided by their strict interpretation of Shariah, or Islamic, law.

Many of the fighters and their supporters have stated a desire to spread their hardline rule beyond Iraq and Syria to the greater Levant — an area also including Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories — as suggested in the Arabic name of the group, which refers to “al-Sham.” ISIS volunteers have expressed a hope to spread the caliphate to Europe once they have achieved their goals in Syria and Iraq.

Is America Over?

We’re getting used to the idea of national decline.

By Myra Adams
Recently, my 91-year-old father-in-law and I were talking about the dire state of our nation, and he said, “I am sure glad I will not be around to see the end.”
My father-in-law is a great American patriot, who, as an Albanian immigrant, was processed through Ellis Island at the age of six. He often says the greatest gifts of his life were his family, his Catholic faith, and the opportunity to be American. In World War II, he was an engineer stationed at the Washington Navy Yard, where he worked on electronic circuitry for mines and torpedoes. After the war, he was recruited by the CIA. During several tumultuous decades he was a field operative fighting the Cold War in Europe, and then Vietnam and Laos. At his 90th-birthday party, he expressed utter astonishment that he had reached that milestone, given how many times he had cheated death during his career.
Considering his life experience, I was shaken to the core by his gratitude at the prospect of “not seeing the end” of America — not because I was surprised he said it, but because I totally agree that “the end” is coming and that my husband and I probably will be around to see it.