Obama Admin Refuses to Give Congress Info on Updated Treasury Guidelines That Eased Iran Sanctions

by Barney Breen-Portnoy

The Obama administration is refusing to give Congress information about updated Treasury Department guidelines issued earlier this month that allow greater Iranian access to the US dollar, The Weekly Standard reported on Wednesday.

The guidelines include a provision that lifts a ban on foreign transactions with Iranian companies controlled by sanctioned individuals or groups.

According to The Weekly Standard report, the Obama administration has responded to congressional inquiries about the matter with “blanket declarations that the guidelines contain nothing new.”

A Treasury Department letter sent to Senate Banking Committee chairman Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) — which was seen by The Weekly Standard — accused critics of having “mischaracterized” the guidelines. However, the report noted, the letter “did not address a range of specifics about the updates.”

“If [the letter’s] intent was to clarify and guide, it appears to have failed,” The Weekly Standard quoted Senator Shelby’s office as saying.

A source familiar with the issue was quoted as telling The Weekly Standard that “all the administration will do is keep repeating that there’s nothing new here. Meanwhile the Iranians have begun crowing that banks have to give them dollars and do business with them specifically because of the new Treasury language.”

As reported by The Algemeiner, a recent American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) memo said the Treasury Department’s move “opened the door to business with Iran’s leading terrorist group — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”

Furthermore, the AIPAC memo stated, the new guidelines were part of a “pattern of undeserved concessions to Tehran as it simultaneously escalates its terrorist activities, ballistic missile tests, and human rights violations.”

“Any long-term success of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) depends on Iran understanding that any violation will lead to swift, certain response,” AIPAC said. “Undeserved concessions going beyond the JCPOA only reinforce Tehran’s propensity to violate its international obligations and ultimately undermine the JCPOA itself.”

“Congress and the president must take corrective steps now and in January to stop undeserved concessions to Iran and hold Tehran accountable,” the memo emphasized.

Obama Admin Leaves Congress in Dark About Quiet Changes to Iran Sanctions Guidelines

 OCT 19, 2016 | By JENNA LIFHITS

The Obama administration won't provide Congress with a range of details about a recent announcement that cleared the way for doing business with Iran, including Iranian firms controlled by sanctioned military and terrorist groups, according to congressional sources and experts who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The new guidelines, which were issued by the Treasury Department on the Friday before Columbus Day, told foreign banks they could work with Iran in U.S. dollars, allowed foreign firms to do business with companies "controlled in whole or in part" by sanctioned Iranian entities, and loosened the responsibility of banks to avoid funding illegal transactions.

The timing of the announcement prompted criticism that the administration was trying to bury new concessions in response to renewed Iranian demands for more relief as part of last summer's nuclear deal. The U.S. had long warned against any business with companies controlled by sanctioned Iranian groups, and the Obama administration had broadly promised Congress last summer to maintain economic pressure on Iran.

Inquiries and criticism of the administration from Congress have been met with blanket declarations that the guidelines contain nothing new, according to multiple sources.

In a letter from the Treasury Department sent to Senate Banking Committee chairman Richard Shelby and obtained by TWS, the administration accused critics of having "mischaracterized" its efforts but did not address a range of specifics about the updates.

"If [the letter's] intent was to clarify and guide, it appears to have failed," Shelby's office told TWS.

The letter focused on two measures in particular, pertaining to offshore dollar transactions and foreign business with sanctioned entities, that it said did not diverge from previous practices or U.S. law.

"This guidance is fully consistent with the legislation Congress passed beginning in 2010 to impose secondary sanctions, and reflects the legal standard in place since long before these FAQ updates," the letter read, in reference to the latter measure.

A source who works closely with Congress on Iran sanctions issues disagreed with that assessment, noting that the U.S. government has had a longstanding precedent of "prohibiting work with sanctioned entities."

What Occupation?

EFRAIM KARSH  Commentary Magazine JULY 1, 2002

Few subjects have been falsified so thoroughly as the recent history of the West Bank and Gaza.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/what-occupation/

No term has dominated the discourse of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict more than “occupation.” For decades now, hardly a day has passed without some mention in the media of Israel’s supposedly illegitimate presence on Palestinian lands. This presence is invoked to explain the origins and persistence of the conflict between the parties, to show Israel’s allegedly brutal and repressive nature, and to justify the worst anti-Israel terrorist atrocities. The occupation, in short, has become a catchphrase, and like many catchphrases it means different things to different people.

For most Western observers, the term “occupation” describes Israel’s control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, areas that it conquered during the Six-Day war of June 1967. But for many Palestinians and Arabs, the Israeli presence in these territories represents only the latest chapter in an uninterrupted story of “occupations” dating back to the very creation of Israel on “stolen” land. If you go looking for a book about Israel in the foremost Arab bookstore on London’s Charing Cross Road, you will find it in the section labeled “Occupied Palestine.” That this is the prevailing view not only among Arab residents of the West Bank and Gaza but among Palestinians living within Israel itself as well as elsewhere around the world is shown by the routine insistence on a Palestinian “right of return” that is meant to reverse the effects of the “1948 occupation”—i.e., the establishment of the state of Israel itself.

Palestinian intellectuals routinely blur any distinction between Israel’s actions before and after 1967. Writing recently in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, the prominent Palestinian cultural figure Jacques Persiqian told his Jewish readers that today’s terrorist attacks were “what you have brought upon yourselves after 54 years of systematic oppression of another people”—a historical accounting that, going back to 1948, calls into question not Israel’s presence in the West Bank and Gaza but its very legitimacy as a state.

Hanan Ashrawi, the most articulate exponent of the Palestinian cause, has been even more forthright in erasing the line between post-1967 and pre-1967 “occupations.” “I come to you today with a heavy heart,” she told the now-infamous World Conference Against Racism in Durban last summer, “leaving behind a nation in captivity held hostage to an ongoing naqba [catastrophe]”:

In 1948, we became subject to a grave historical injustice manifested in a dual victimization: on the one hand, the injustice of dispossession, dispersion, and exile forcibly enacted on the population. . . . On the other hand, those who remained were subjected to the systematic oppression and brutality of an inhuman occupation that robbed them of all their rights and liberties.

This original “occupation”—that is, again, the creation and existence of the state of Israel—was later extended, in Ashrawi’s narrative, as a result of the Six-Day war:

Those of us who came under Israeli occupation in 1967 have languished in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip under a unique combination of military occupation, settler colonization, and systematic oppression. Rarely has the human mind devised such varied, diverse, and comprehensive means of wholesale brutalization and persecution.

Taken together, the charges against Israel’s various “occupations” represent—and are plainly intended to be—a damning indictment of the entire Zionist enterprise. In almost every particular, they are also grossly false.

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In 1948, no Palestinian state was invaded or destroyed to make way for the establishment of Israel. From biblical times, when this territory was the state of the Jews, to its occupation by the British army at the end of World War I, Palestine had never existed as a distinct political entity but was rather part of one empire after another, from the Romans, to the Arabs, to the Ottomans. When the British arrived in 1917, the immediate loyalties of the area’s inhabitants were parochial—to clan, tribe, village, town, or religious sect—and coexisted with their fealty to the Ottoman sultan-caliph as the religious and temporal head of the world Muslim community.

Under a League of Nations mandate explicitly meant to pave the way for the creation of a Jewish national home, the British established the notion of an independent Palestine for the first time and delineated its boundaries. In 1947, confronted with a determined Jewish struggle for independence, Britain returned the mandate to the League’s successor, the United Nations, which in turn decided on November 29, 1947, to partition mandatory Palestine into two states: one Jewish, the other Arab.

The state of Israel was thus created by an internationally recognized act of national self-determination—an act, moreover, undertaken by an ancient people in its own homeland. In accordance with common democratic practice, the Arab population in the new state’s midst was immediately recognized as a legitimate ethnic and religious minority. As for the prospective Arab state, its designated territory was slated to include, among other areas, the two regions under contest today—namely, Gaza and the West Bank (with the exception of Jerusalem, which was to be placed under international control).

As is well known, the implementation of the UN’s partition plan was aborted by the effort of the Palestinians and of the surrounding Arab states to destroy the Jewish state at birth. What is less well known is that even if the Jews had lost the war, their territory would not have been handed over to the Palestinians. Rather, it would have been divided among the invading Arab forces, for the simple reason that none of the region’s Arab regimes viewed the Palestinians as a distinct nation. As the eminent Arab-American historian Philip Hitti described the common Arab view to an Anglo-American commission of inquiry in 1946, “There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not.”

This fact was keenly recognized by the British authorities on the eve of their departure. As one official observed in mid-December 1947, “it does not appear that Arab Palestine will be an entity, but rather that the Arab countries will each claim a portion in return for their assistance [in the war against Israel], unless [Transjordan’s] King Abdallah takes rapid and firm action as soon as the British withdrawal is completed.” A couple of months later, the British high commissioner for Palestine, General Sir Alan Cunningham, informed the colonial secretary, Arthur Creech Jones, that “the most likely arrangement seems to be Eastern Galilee to Syria, Samaria and Hebron to Abdallah, and the south to Egypt.”

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The British proved to be prescient. Neither Egypt nor Jordan ever allowed Palestinian self-determination in Gaza and the West Bank—which were, respectively, the parts of Palestine conquered by them during the 1948-49 war. Indeed, even UN Security Council Resolution 242, which after the Six-Day war of 1967 established the principle of “land for peace” as the cornerstone of future Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, did not envisage the creation of a Palestinian state. To the contrary: since the Palestinians were still not viewed as a distinct nation, it was assumed that any territories evacuated by Israel would be returned to their pre-1967 Arab occupiers—Gaza to Egypt, and the West Bank to Jordan. The resolution did not even mention the Palestinians by name, affirming instead the necessity “for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem”—a clause that applied not just to the Palestinians but to the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from the Arab states following the 1948 war.

At this time—we are speaking of the late 1960’s—Palestinian nationhood was rejected by the entire international community, including the Western democracies, the Soviet Union (the foremost supporter of radical Arabism), and the Arab world itself. “Moderate” Arab rulers like the Hashemites in Jordan viewed an independent Palestinian state as a mortal threat to their own kingdom, while the Saudis saw it as a potential source of extremism and instability. Pan-Arab nationalists were no less adamantly opposed, having their own purposes in mind for the region. As late as 1974, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad openly referred to Palestine as “not only a part of the Arab homeland but a basic part of southern Syria”; there is no reason to think he had changed his mind by the time of his death in 2000.

Nor, for that matter, did the populace of the West Bank and Gaza regard itself as a distinct nation. The collapse and dispersion of Palestinian society following the 1948 defeat had shattered an always fragile communal fabric, and the subsequent physical separation of the various parts of the Palestinian diaspora prevented the crystallization of a national identity. Host Arab regimes actively colluded in discouraging any such sense from arising. Upon occupying the West Bank during the 1948 war, King Abdallah had moved quickly to erase all traces of corporate Palestinian identity. On April 4, 1950, the territory was formally annexed to Jordan, its residents became Jordanian citizens, and they were increasingly integrated into the kingdom’s economic, political, and social structures.

For its part, the Egyptian government showed no desire to annex the Gaza Strip but had instead ruled the newly acquired area as an occupied military zone. This did not imply support of Palestinian nationalism, however, or of any sort of collective political awareness among the Palestinians. The local population was kept under tight control, was denied Egyptian citizenship, and was subjected to severe restrictions on travel.

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What, then, of the period after 1967, when these territories passed into the hands of Israel? Is it the case that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been the victims of the most “varied, diverse, and comprehensive means of wholesale brutalization and persecution” ever devised by the human mind?

At the very least, such a characterization would require a rather drastic downgrading of certain other well-documented 20th-century phenomena, from the slaughter of Armenians during World War I and onward through a grisly chronicle of tens upon tens of millions murdered, driven out, crushed under the heels of despots. By stark contrast, during the three decades of Israel’s control, far fewer Palestinians were killed at Jewish hands than by King Hussein of Jordan in the single month of September 1970 when, fighting off an attempt by Yasir Arafat’s PLO to destroy his monarchy, he dispatched (according to the Palestinian scholar Yezid Sayigh) between 3,000 and 5,000 Palestinians, among them anywhere from 1,500 to 3,500 civilians. Similarly, the number of innocent Palestinians killed by their Kuwaiti hosts in the winter of 1991, in revenge for the PLO’s support for Saddam Hussein’s brutal occupation of Kuwait, far exceeds the number of Palestinian rioters and terrorists who lost their lives in the first intifada against Israel during the late 1980’s.

Such crude comparisons aside, to present the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as “systematic oppression” is itself the inverse of the truth. It should be recalled, first of all, that this occupation did not come about as a consequence of some grand expansionist design, but rather was incidental to Israel’s success against a pan-Arab attempt to destroy it. Upon the outbreak of Israeli-Egyptian hostilities on June 5, 1967, the Israeli government secretly pleaded with King Hussein of Jordan, the de-facto ruler of the West Bank, to forgo any military action; the plea was rebuffed by the Jordanian monarch, who was loathe to lose the anticipated spoils of what was to be the Arabs’ “final round” with Israel.

Thus it happened that, at the end of the conflict, Israel unexpectedly found itself in control of some one million Palestinians, with no definite idea about their future status and lacking any concrete policy for their administration. In the wake of the war, the only objective adopted by then-Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan was to preserve normalcy in the territories through a mixture of economic inducements and a minimum of Israeli intervention. The idea was that the local populace would be given the freedom to administer itself as it wished, and would be able to maintain regular contact with the Arab world via the Jordan River bridges. In sharp contrast with, for example, the U.S. occupation of postwar Japan, which saw a general censorship of all Japanese media and a comprehensive revision of school curricula, Israel made no attempt to reshape Palestinian culture. It limited its oversight of the Arabic press in the territories to military and security matters, and allowed the continued use in local schools of Jordanian textbooks filled with vile anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda.

Israel’s restraint in this sphere—which turned out to be desperately misguided—is only part of the story. The larger part, still untold in all its detail, is of the astounding social and economic progress made by the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli “oppression.” At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire. Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor. Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60 percent of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83 percent. Within a brief period after the war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors.

In the economic sphere, most of this progress was the result of access to the far larger and more advanced Israeli economy, the number of Palestinians working in Israel rose from zero in 1967 to 66,000 in 1975 and 109,000 by 1986, accounting for 35 percent of the employed population of the West Bank and 45 percent in Gaza. Close to 2,000 industrial plants, employing almost half of the work force, were established in the territories under Israeli rule.

During the 1970’s, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world—ahead of such “wonders” as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. Although GNP per capita grew somewhat more slowly, the rate was still high by international standards, with per-capita GNP expanding tenfold between 1968 and 1991 from $165 to $1,715 (compared with Jordan’s $1,050, Egypt’s $600, Turkey’s $1,630, and Tunisia’s $1,440). By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria’s, more than four times Yemen’s, and 10 percent higher than Jordan’s (one of the better-off Arab states). Only the oil-rich Gulf states and Lebanon were more affluent.

Under Israeli rule, the Palestinians also made vast progress in social welfare. Perhaps most significantly, mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 (compared with an average of 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000 (in Iraq the rate is 64, in Egypt 40, in Jordan 23, in Syria 22). And under a systematic program of inoculation, childhood diseases like polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles were eradicated.

No less remarkable were advances in the Palestinians’ standard of living. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on for refrigerators, televisions, and cars.

Finally, and perhaps most strikingly, during the two decades preceding the intifada of the late 1980’s, the number of schoolchildren in the territories grew by 102 percent, and the number of classes by 99 percent, though the population itself had grown by only 28 percent. Even more dramatic was the progress in higher education. At the time of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, not a single university existed in these territories. By the early 1990’s, there were seven such institutions, boasting some 16,500 students. Illiteracy rates dropped to 14 percent of adults over age 15, compared with 69 percent in Morocco, 61 percent in Egypt, 45 percent in Tunisia, and 44 percent in Syria.

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All this, as I have noted, took place against the backdrop of Israel’s hands-off policy in the political and administrative spheres. Indeed, even as the PLO (until 1982 headquartered in Lebanon and thereafter in Tunisia) proclaimed its ongoing commitment to the destruction of the Jewish state, the Israelis did surprisingly little to limit its political influence in the territories. The publication of pro-PLO editorials was permitted in the local press, and anti-Israel activities by PLO supporters were tolerated so long as they did not involve overt incitements to violence. Israel also allowed the free flow of PLO-controlled funds, a policy justified by Minister of Defense Ezer Weizmann in 1978 in these (deluded) words: “It does not matter that they get money from the PLO, as long as they don’t build arms factories with it.” Nor, with very few exceptions, did Israel encourage the formation of Palestinian political institutions that might serve as a counterweight to the PLO. As a result, the PLO gradually established itself as the predominant force in the territories, relegating the pragmatic traditional leadership to the fringes of the political system.

Given the extreme and even self-destructive leniency of Israel’s administrative policies, what seems remarkable is that it took as long as it did for the PLO to entice the residents of the West Bank and Gaza into a popular struggle against the Jewish state. Here Israel’s counterinsurgency measures must be given their due, as well as the low level of national consciousness among the Palestinians and the sheer rapidity and scope of the improvements in their standard of living. The fact remains, however, that during the two-and-a-half decades from the occupation of the territories to the onset of the Oslo peace process in 1993, there was very little “armed resistance,” and most terrorist attacks emanated from outside—from Jordan in the late 1960’s, then from Lebanon.

In an effort to cover up this embarrassing circumstance, Fatah, the PLO’s largest constituent organization, adopted the slogan that “there is no difference between inside and outside.” But there was a difference, and a rather fundamental one. By and large, the residents of the territories wished to get on with their lives and take advantage of the opportunities afforded by Israeli rule. Had the West Bank eventually been returned to Jordan, its residents, all of whom had been Jordanian citizens before 1967, might well have reverted to that status. Alternatively, had Israel prevented the spread of the PLO’s influence in the territories, a local leadership, better attuned to the real interests and desires of the people and more amenable to peaceful coexistence with Israel, might have emerged.

But these things were not to be. By the mid-1970’s, the PLO had made itself into the “sole representative of the Palestinian people,” and in short order Jordan and Egypt washed their hands of the West Bank and Gaza. Whatever the desires of the people living in the territories, the PLO had vowed from the moment of its founding in the mid-1960’s—well before the Six-Day war—to pursue its “revolution until victory,” that is, until the destruction of the Jewish state. Once its position was secure, it proceeded to do precisely that.

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By the mid-1990’s, thanks to Oslo, the PLO had achieved a firm foothold in the West Bank and Gaza. Its announced purpose was to lay the groundwork for Palestinian statehood but its real purpose was to do what it knew best—namely, create an extensive terrorist infrastructure and use it against its Israeli “peace partner.” At first it did this tacitly, giving a green light to other terrorist organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad; then it operated openly and directly.

But what did all this have to do with Israel’s “occupation”? The declaration signed on the White House lawn in 1993 by the PLO and the Israeli government provided for Palestinian self-rule in the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip for a transitional period not to exceed five years, during which Israel and the Palestinians would negotiate a permanent peace settlement. During this interim period the territories would be administered by a Palestinian Council, to be freely and democratically elected after the withdrawal of Israeli military forces both from the Gaza Strip and from the populated areas of the West Bank.

By May 1994, Israel had completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (apart from a small stretch of territory containing Israeli settlements) and the Jericho area of the West Bank. On July 1, Yasir Arafat made his triumphant entry into Gaza. On September 28, 1995, despite Arafat’s abysmal failure to clamp down on terrorist activities in the territories now under his control, the two parties signed an interim agreement, and by the end of the year Israeli forces had been withdrawn from the West Bank’s populated areas with the exception of Hebron (where redeployment was completed in early 1997). On January 20, 1996, elections to the Palestinian Council were held, and shortly afterward both the Israeli civil administration and military government were dissolved.

The geographical scope of these Israeli withdrawals was relatively limited; the surrendered land amounted to some 30 percent of the West Bank’s overall territory. But its impact on the Palestinian population was nothing short of revolutionary. At one fell swoop, Israel relinquished control over virtually all of the West Bank’s 1.4 million residents. Since that time, nearly 60 percent of them—in the Jericho area and in the seven main cities of Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron—have lived entirely under Palestinian jurisdiction. Another 40 percent live in towns, villages, refugee camps, and hamlets where the Palestinian Authority exercises civil authority but, in line with the Oslo accords, Israel has maintained “overriding responsibility for security.” Some two percent of the West Bank’s population—tens of thousands of Palestinians—continue to live in areas where Israel has complete control, but even there the Palestinian Authority maintains “functional jurisdiction.”

In short, since the beginning of 1996, and certainly following the completion of the redeployment from Hebron in January 1997, 99 percent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have not lived under Israeli occupation. By no conceivable stretching of words can the anti-Israel violence emanating from the territories during these years be made to qualify as resistance to foreign occupation. In these years there has been no such occupation.

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If the stubborn persistence of Palestinian terrorism is not attributable to the continuing occupation, many of the worst outrages against Israeli civilians likewise occurred—contrary to the mantra of Palestinian spokesmen and their apologists—not at moments of breakdown in the Oslo “peace process” but at its high points, when the prospect of Israeli withdrawal appeared brightest and most imminent.

Suicide bombings, for example, were introduced in the atmosphere of euphoria only a few months after the historic Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn: eight people were murdered in April 1994 while riding a bus in the town of Afula. Six months later, 21 Israelis were murdered on a bus in Tel Aviv. In the following year, five bombings took the lives of a further 38 Israelis. During the short-lived government of the dovish Shimon Peres (November 1995-May 1996), after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, 58 Israelis were murdered within the span of one week in three suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Further disproving the standard view is the fact that terrorism was largely curtailed following Benjamin Netanyahu’s election in May 1996 and the consequent slowdown in the Oslo process. During Netanyahu’s three years in power, some 50 Israelis were murdered in terrorist attacks—a third of the casualty rate during the Rabin government and a sixth of the casualty rate during Peres’s term.

There was a material side to this downturn in terrorism as well. Between 1994 and 1996, the Rabin and Peres governments had imposed repeated closures on the territories in order to stem the tidal wave of terrorism in the wake of the Oslo accords. This had led to a steep drop in the Palestinian economy. With workers unable to get into Israel, unemployment rose sharply, reaching as high as 50 percent in Gaza. The movement of goods between Israel and the territories, as well as between the West Bank and Gaza, was seriously disrupted, slowing exports and discouraging potential private investment.

The economic situation in the territories began to improve during the term of the Netanyahu government, as the steep fall in terrorist attacks led to a corresponding decrease in closures. Real GNP per capita grew by 3.5 percent in 1997, 7.7 percent in 1998, and 3.5 percent in 1999, while unemployment was more than halved. By the beginning of 1999, according to the World Bank, the West Bank and Gaza had fully recovered from the economic decline of the previous years.

Then, in still another turnabout, came Ehud Barak, who in the course of a dizzying six months in late 2000 and early 2001 offered Yasir Arafat a complete end to the Israeli presence, ceding virtually the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the nascent Palestinian state together with some Israeli territory, and making breathtaking concessions over Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem. To this, however, Arafat’s response was war. Since its launch, the Palestinian campaign has inflicted thousands of brutal attacks on Israeli civilians—suicide bombings, drive-by shootings, stabbings, lynching, stonings—murdering more than 500 and wounding some 4,000.

In the entire two decades of Israeli occupation preceding the Oslo accords, some 400 Israelis were murdered; since the conclusion of that “peace” agreement, twice as many have lost their lives in terrorist attacks. If the occupation was the cause of terrorism, why was terrorism sparse during the years of actual occupation, why did it increase dramatically with the prospect of the end of the occupation, and why did it escalate into open war upon Israel’s most far-reaching concessions ever? To the contrary, one might argue with far greater plausibility that the absence of occupation—that is, the withdrawal of close Israeli surveillance—is precisely what facilitated the launching of the terrorist war in the first place.

There are limits to Israel’s ability to transform a virulent enemy into a peace partner, and those limits have long since been reached. To borrow from Baruch Spinoza, peace is not the absence of war but rather a state of mind: a disposition to benevolence, confidence, and justice. From the birth of the Zionist movement until today, that disposition has remained conspicuously absent from the mind of the Palestinian leadership.

It is not the 1967 occupation that led to the Palestinians’ rejection of peaceful coexistence and their pursuit of violence. Palestinian terrorism started well before 1967, and continued—and intensified—after the occupation ended in all but name. Rather, what is at fault is the perduring Arab view that the creation of the Jewish state was itself an original act of “inhuman occupation” with which compromise of any final kind is beyond the realm of the possible. Until that disposition changes, which is to say until a different leadership arises, the idea of peace in the context of the Arab Middle East will continue to mean little more than the continuation of war by other means.

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For further details, see Menahem Milson, “How Not to Occupy the West Bank,” COMMENTARY, April 1986.

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Obama Quietly Empowers Iran’s Military

by Majid Rafizadeh, GATESTONE INSTITUTE

• This sanctions relief not only gives legitimacy to the Revolutionary Guards globally, but emboldens and empowers Iran’s elite military unit by allowing them legally to conduct business and transfer money.
• Many Iranian companies are owned by senior figures from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and judiciary who have been involved in crimes against humanity, violating international laws, breaching UN resolutions, money laundering and monstrous human rights violations. Nevertheless, the new sanctions relief allows foreign companies to do business with them without repercussions.
• Furthermore, the Obama administration secretly agreed to remove sanctions on several Iranian banks, including banks have long been sanctioned by the UN due to their illegal activities in missile financing and skirting UN security resolutions regarding the arms embargo.

Iranian leaders have become cognizant of the fact that their hardball political tactics pay off very well with President Obama. They continue to obtain concessions from President Obama even in his last few months in office. They see that intransigence works with the White House, and that threatening the U.S. will lead to Obama offering more concessions to Iran. For Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), giving concessions means weakness.

After a series of anti-American statements and lashing out at the U.S. by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif, the Obama administration eased more critical sanctions on Iran through new regulatory measures by the Treasury department.

The new measures, in loosening further sanctions against Iran, are critical, as they directly lift sanctions against powerful entities in Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The timing of the new sanctions reliefs is also intriguing: it was implemented quietly, right before the presidential debate and before the three-day holiday in Congress, probably in an attempt not to attract media attention or Congressional criticism.

Both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, have been extremely critical of the Obama administration’s continuing appeasement policies and loosening of sanctions against Iran.

According to the Treasury’s website, one of the new guidelines in easing crucial sanctions on Iran is:

“It is not necessarily sanctionable for a non-US person to engage in transactions with an entity that is not on the SDN (Specifically Designated Nations) List but that is minority owned, or that is controlled in whole or in part, by an Iranian or Iran-related person on the SDN List.”

This regulatory measure facilitates business dealings with government-owned companies in Iran, by assisting Iran in attracting foreign businesses, as well as further giving the IRGC access to the global financial system.

More fundamentally, this sanctions relief allows foreign companies to do business with Iranian firms even if those Iranian firms are owned by individuals who are listed on the US sanction list.

Many Iranian companies are owned by senior figures in the IRGC and Iran’s judiciary who have been involved in crimes against humanity, violating international laws, breaching UN resolutions, money laundering and monstrous human rights violations. Many senior members of the IRGC have long been blacklisted. Nevertheless, the new sanctions relief allows foreign companies to do business with them without repercussions.

The IRGC has significant control over Iran’s economic and political systems. The IRGC and its foreign branch, the Quds Force (which operates in foreign countries) have been involved in military adventurism across the region supporting, financing and arming terrorist-designated groups, Shiite proxies and Syria’s Assad’s regime, and have been determined to scuttle US foreign policy and national security for decades.

This sanctions relief not only gives legitimacy to the IRGC globally, but also emboldens and empowers Iran’s elite military unit by allowing them legally to conduct business and transfer money.

In addition, to further assist and appease Iranian leaders, the Obama administration has allowed Iran to use American dollars in its business dealings. According to the recently updated website of the Treasury Department:

“Foreign financial institutions, including foreign-incorporated subsidiaries of US financial institutions, may process transactions denominated in US dollars or maintain US dollar-denominated accounts that involve Iran or persons ordinarily resident in Iran, or in which there is an interest of a person whose property and interests in property are blocked solely pursuant to Executive Order 13599 and section 560.211 of the ITSR, including NIOC, the CBI, and other individuals and entities that meet the definition of the government of Iran or an Iranian financial institution, provided that such transactions or account activities do not involve, directly or indirectly, the United States financial system or any United States person, and do not involve any person on the SDN List…”

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of Iran’s Expediency Council, pointed out that the U.S. Treasury’s action will further facilitate Iran’s banking transactions. This new sanctions relief will in fact facilitate Iran’s money laundering and also help Iran’s ruling politicians to transfer their wealth offshore, secured in safe havens.

Furthermore, the Obama administration secretly agreed to remove sanctions on several Iranian banks, including Bank Sepah and Sepah International. These banks have long been sanctioned by the United Nations due to their illegal activities in missile financing and skirting UN security resolutions regarding the arms embargo.

This means that by lifting sanctions against Iranian banks and permitting IRGC leaders to conduct business, there exists no mechanism to check and stop Iran’s illegal activities when it comes to platforms such as advancement of its ballistic missile program.

Last month, the Treasury Department also granted licenses to aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing. This allows the IRGC to buy advanced aircraft.

The new sanctions reliefs and other measures by the Obama administration directly benefits and empowers the IRGC stranglehold regionally and globally. It appears that, even in his last few months in office, President Obama is determined to give as many concessions as he can to Iranian leaders, and to make sure that reversing such sanctions relief will be impossible.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, political scientists and Harvard University scholar is president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He can be reached atDr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu

THE CLINTON RECORD

October 14, 2016    Front Page Magazine  John Perazzo

A devastating exposé of the most unfit and undeserving individual ever to seek the American presidency.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/264499/clinton-record-john-perazzo

http://www.israpundit.org/archives/63618404

Never in American history has anyone as unfit and undeserving as Hillary Clinton run for U.S. President. While she stands on the threshold of being elected to the White House, she quite literally belongs in a prison cell. This article lays out the case against her, chapter and verse.

Clinton's Private Email Server & the Espionage Act

Throughout her entire four-year tenure as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton never acquired or used a government email account. Instead, she transmitted — in violation of government regulations — all of her official correspondences via a private email address that traced back to a secret, private, unsecured server that was housed at her New York residence.¹ And immediately after those emails were subpoenaed by Congress, Clinton instructed a team of her advisers to unilaterally delete, with no oversight, almost 32,000 of the roughly 60,000 emails in question.²

Clinton claimed that her reason for having used only a personal email account, rather than both a personal and a government account, was that she found it “easier,” “better,” “simpler” and more convenient to “carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two.”³ It was eventually learned, however, that Mrs. Clinton in fact had used no fewer than 13 mobile devices to access emails on her private server, but the FBI was unable to obtain any of those devices in its investigation, in some cases because Clinton aides had been instructed to smash them with a hammer.⁴

Clinton originally assured Americans that not even one piece of classified material had ever been transmitted via her unsecured, secret, personal server. But now it is known that at least 2,079 emails that she sent or received via that server, contained classified material.⁵ As the eminent broadcaster and legal scholar Mark Levin has made plain, each of those 2,079 offenses constituted a felonious violation of Section 793 of the Espionage Act.⁶ And each violation was punishable by a prison sentence of up to ten years.⁷

In January 2016, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said “the odds are pretty high” that Russia, China, and Iran had compromised Clinton's unsecured email server.⁸

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton, unlike Donald Trump, never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she of course respects women deeply. In fact, she respects all people, including the 315 million Americans whose personal and national security was compromised when Mrs. Clinton willfully allowed top-secret information to wind up in the possession of our country's most hostile enemies around the world.

The Clinton Foundation Scandals

In an effort to prevent foreign governments, organizations, and individuals from influencing the policy decisions of American national leaders, campaign-finance laws prohibit U.S. political figures from accepting money from foreign sources. But as the Washington Post noted in February 2015, the Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea Clinton Foundation “has given donors a way to potentially gain favor with the Clintons outside the traditional political [donation] limits.”⁹

As of February 2015, foreign sources accounted for about one-third of all donors who had given the Clinton Foundation more than $1 million, and over half of those who had contributed more than $5 million.¹⁰ Foreign donors that gave money to the Foundation included: Hezbollah supporter Issam Fares, who once served as deputy prime minister of Lebanon;¹¹ the Dubai Foundation, which also gave money to the families of Palestinian terrorists killed in action;¹² the royal family of the United Arab Emirates; a Dubai-based company that promotes Sharia Law;¹³ a privately-held Chinese construction and trade conglomerate headed by a delegate of the Chinese parliament;¹⁴ and the governments of Saudi Arabia, Brunei, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.¹⁵

Even during Clinton's tenure (2009-13) as secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation received millions of dollars in donations from seven foreign governments.

Bill Clinton earned a total of $48 million from foreign sources for his appearance and speaking fees during his wife’s term as secretary.¹⁶

In August 2016, the Associated Press reported that 85 of Hillary Clinton's 154 scheduled meetings and phone calls with non-governmental personnel during her time at the State Department were with donors who gave $156 million to the Clinton Foundation. The AP report also revealed that the Clinton Foundation had received $170 million in donations from at least 16 foreign governments whose representatives met personally with Mrs. Clinton.¹⁷

In May 2015, the International Business Times reported that the Clinton State Department had approved billions of dollars in arms deals with governments that donated to the Clinton Foundation, including governments that were infamous for their appalling human-rights records.¹⁸

But the Clinton Foundation certainly does many wonderful things for needy people around the world, doesn't it? Well, according to a review of IRS documents by The Federalist, between 2009-12 the Clinton Foundation raised over $500 million in total. A mere 15% of that went towards programmatic grants. The other $425 million went to travel expenses, employee salaries and benefits, and “other expenses.”¹⁹ In 2013, the Clinton Foundation allocated only 6% of its revenues to direct charitable aid.²⁰

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including the millions of women around the world who have never benefited from the charitable services that the Clinton Foundation purports to provide, because the Foundation only spends a tiny percentage of its funds on actual charity.

Clinton's Support for the Iran Nuclear Deal

Vowing that Mrs. Clinton will “preven[t] Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” the Clinton presidential campaign website assures Americans that “Hillary will vigorously enforce the nuclear agreement with Iran.” Is this a good thing? Consider that the agreement's key provisions were as follows:

• Iran was permitted to keep more than 5,000 centrifuges.
• Iran received $150 billion in sanctions relief.
• Russia and China were permitted to supply Iran with weapons.
• Iran was given the discretion to block international inspectors from its military installations, and was promised that it would receive 14 days’ notice for any request to visit a given site.
• Only inspectors from countries that had diplomatic relations with Iran would be given access to Iranian nuclear sites; thus there would be no American inspectors.
• An embargo on the sale of weapons to Iran would be officially lifted in 5 years.
• Iran's intercontinental ballistic missile program would remain intact.
• The U.S. pledged that it would provide technical assistance to help Iran develop its nuclear program and protect its nuclear facilities, supposedly for peaceful domestic purposes.
• Sanctions would be lifted on critical parts of Iran’s military.
• Iran was not required to release American prisoners whom it was holding on trumped-up charges.²¹

As a result of this nuclear deal that Mrs. Clinton so enthusiastically supports, Iran is guaranteed of having a near-zero breakout time to a nuclear bomb approximately a decade down the road.

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including the scores of millions of women in the U.S., Israel, and elsewhere, whose very lives have been placed in irreversible peril as a result of this deal.

Clinton Helps Russia Gain Control of 20% of All U.S. Uranium

In 2007-08, a Canadian named Ian Telfer, chairman of a South African uranium-mining company called Uranium One, funneled millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation. In June 2010, the Russian government made an extremely generous offer to Uranium One's shareholders. If the offer were to be accepted, Russia would gain a 51% controlling stake in the company.

But because Uranium One controlled one-fifth of all U.S. uranium reserves — and uranium, a key component in both nuclear energy and nuclear weaponry, is considered a strategic asset with implications for American national security — the deal with Russia could not be permitted without the approval of the American government. Specifically, that approval could be granted only by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which is composed of several of the most powerful members of the cabinet — the Attorney General as well as the Secretaries of Defense, Commerce, Treasury, Homeland Security, Energy, and State. (The latter, of course, was Hillary Clinton.)²²

Without the approval of these seven Obama administration officials, Russia's acquisition of Uranium One could not have taken place. All seven, including Hillary Clinton, gave their go-ahead for the deal. As a result, the Russian government took control of fully 20% of all uranium production capacity in the United States.²³

In June 2010 — the very month in which the Russian acquisition of Uranium One was approved by the CFIUS — Bill Clinton was invited to speak in Moscow for the astronomical sum of $500,000. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin personally thanked Mr. Clinton for speaking. And Mr. Clinton's speaking fee was paid by Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin.²⁴

But hey, who cares? At least Hillary Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including the countless millions whose safety has been placed in jeopardy by permitting American uranium to be gobbled up by a hostile, fascist Russia.

The Benghazi Debacle, and Clinton's Role in Arming Jihadists in Libya and Syria

Throughout 2012, violent jihadist activity became increasingly commonplace in the city of Benghazi and elsewhere throughout Libya and North Africa. American personnel at the U.S. mission in Benghazi repeatedly asked the Clinton State Department for increased security provisions during 2012, but all of these requests were either denied or ignored.²⁵

On the night of September 11, 2012, a large group of heavily armed Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi with great violence.²⁶ In the process, they killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans.

For weeks thereafter, Mrs. Clinton and the rest of the Obama administration continued to characterize what had occurred on September 11 in Benghazi not as a carefully orchestrated act of terrorism, but as a spontaneous uprising that evolved unexpectedly from what had begun as a low-level protest against an obscure YouTube video.

For the administration, it was vital to continue putting forth this false narrative because, with the presidential election only a few weeks away, nothing could be permitted to puncture the Obama-Clinton talking points: “Al Qaeda is on the run” and “Osama bin Laden is dead.”²⁷

In reality, however, within mere hours after the September 11 attack, U.S. intelligence agencies had already gained more than enough evidence to conclude unequivocally that it was a planned terrorist incident, and that the YouTube video had nothing whatsoever to do with it.²⁸

On January 23, 2013 — fully 134 days after the September 11 attack in Benghazi — Mrs. Clinton went before Congress to testify as to what she knew about the incident. At one point in the hearing, Senator Rand Paul asked her whether the United States had ever been involved in procuring weapons in Libya and transferring them to other countries including Syria. Clinton replied, “I do not know. I have no information on that.”²⁹

But a March 25, 2013 New York Times story subsequently indicated that the Obama administration had in fact been sending arms from Libya, through intermediary nations and ultimately to Syria, since early 2012. And another Times article described Mrs. Clinton as one of the driving forces who had called for arming the Syrian rebels (who were fighting Syrian President Assad) in precisely that manner.³⁰ In other words, Clinton had lied in her congressional testimony to Rand Paul.

It should be noted that the Syrian rebels whom Clinton and Obama were aiding consisted of Islamic jihadists, many of whom were affiliated with Al Qaeda. In July 2016, Julian Assange of Wikileaks revealed that a batch of hacked DNC emails contained information proving that Clinton, contrary to what she had said in her congressional testimony in 2013, knew as early as 2011 that the U.S. was sending arms from Libya to jihadists in Syria.³¹

And in October 2016, a Fox News report indicated that Obama and Clinton had also arranged for the provision of weapons to radical jihadists in Libya.³²

In September 2014, former Deputy Secretary of State Raymond Maxwell reported that in late 2012 he had witnessed — in the basement of the State Department’s headquarters — a Sunday meeting in which Cheryl Mills (Hillary  chief of staff) and Jake Sullivan (Clinton's deputy chief of staff) were overseeing and directing staffers who were busy purging documents that might implicate Clinton or her top people in the Benghazi attacks.³³

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including: (a) the Libyan and Syrian women whose lives were destroyed by the jihadists whom Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supported, and (b) the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of the four Americans who were slaughtered by jihadists in Benghazi.

The Radical Islamist Affiliations of Clinton's Closest Aide

Hillary Clinton's closest aide for many years has been Huma Abedin, whose late father, Syed Abedin, was affiliated with the Muslim Students Association (MSA). The MSA grew out of the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood, which Islam expert Robert Spencer has described as “the parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda.”³⁴

Huma's mother, Saleha Mahmood Abedin, is a prominent member of the Muslim Sisterhood — the Muslim Brotherhood's division for women. She is also a board member of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief, a pro-Hamas entity that is part of the “Union of Good,” which the U.S. government has formally designated as an international terrorist organization. Saleha once wrote an article blaming America for having provoked the Islamic “anger and hostility” that led to the 9/11 attacks.³⁵

From 1996-2008, Huma Abedin was employed by the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), a Saudi-based Islamic think tank founded by Abdullah Omar Naseef, a major Muslim Brotherhood figure who once served as secretary-general of the Muslim World League, a vehicle by which the Muslim Brotherhood promotes the ideology of Islamic supremacism. Naseef also had ties to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, with whom he communicated.³⁶ Abedin was the assistant editor of IMMA's in-house publication, the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA). At least the first seven of those years overlapped with Abdullah Omar Naseef's active presence in the IMMA.³⁷

It is vital to note that the IMMA's “Muslim Minority Affairs” agenda was, and remains to this day, a calculated foreign policy of the Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs. It is designed, as former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy explains, “to grow an unassimilated, aggressive population of Islamic supremacists who will gradually but dramatically alter the character of the West.”³⁸

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she respects women, including the hundreds of millions of women in Muslim nations who are oppressed by the very same Sharia Law that is promoted by the organization to which Huma Abedin devoted 12 years of her life.

The Deadly Consequences of Clinton's Absurd Fictions About Islam & Terrorism

In 2011 the Obama administration, in which Mrs. Clinton was obviously a major player, decided to purge, from the training materials and curricula of all federal intelligence and criminal investigators, every single item suggesting that “jihad” or “Islam” were in any way related to terrorism.³⁹ Instead, the new objective would be “countering violent extremism,” improving “cultural competency training across the United States Government,” and promoting “cultural awareness.”⁴⁰ All told, the FBI removed more than 1,000 presentations and curriculum items that were deemed “offensive” or “Islamophobic.”⁴¹

The FBI's decision to change its training materials and interrogation methods went on to have deadly serious, real-world consequences. A particularly noteworthy case involved jihadist Omar Mateen, who in June 2016 entered a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and murdered 49 people while wounding 53 others. The FBI had investigated Mateen extensively for 10 months in 2013 because he had family connections to Al Qaeda, he was a member of a Shi’a terrorist organization, and he had issued terroristic threats on a number of occasions. But eventually, the FBI canceled that investigation because, in accordance with the tenets of its revised training materials, it concluded that Mateen posed no threat to anyone; that his biggest problem was the psychic pain he was suffering as a result of “being marginalized because of his Muslim faith.” As a result of this absurd line of reasoning, 49 innocent people from Orlando are now lying in their graves.⁴²

Hillary Clinton agrees completely with the notion that it is both counterproductive and morally unjustified to suggest any connection between Islam and terrorism — the same delusional, preposterous mentality that enabled the Orlando mass murder to take place.

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women and homosexuals, including the 49 people who were slaughtered in the Orlando nightclub.

Clinton's Role in the Rise of ISIS and the Stratospheric Growth of Worldwide Terrorism

ISIS, which evolved out of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), grew into the most powerful, well-funded horde of bloodthirsty barbarians in world history, right under Mrs. Clinton's nose, and precisely during her watch as secretary of state. While ISIS launched its campaign of mass rapes, beheadings, slaughters, and tortures of unimaginable brutality — and gained control over enormous portions of Iraq and Syria — Clinton and President Obama did absolutely nothing to thwart it.⁴³

Moreover, the rise of ISIS coincided with the expansion of terrorism to unprecedented levels all over the world. According to the Global Terrorism Index, fatalities caused by terrorism increased from 3,361 in 2000, to 11,133 in 2012, to 18,111 in 2013, to 32,658 in 2014. More than half of the 2014 killings were carried out by ISIS and Boko Haram, the latter of which has pledged allegiance to ISIS.⁴⁴ In other words, worldwide terrorism has spiraled out of control under Obama, Clinton, and Clinton's successor, John Kerry.

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women everywhere, including the many thousands who are killed by terrorists across the globe each year.

Clinton's Role in Squandering America's Victory in the Iraq War

ISIS's meteoric ascent to power occurred as a direct result of President Obama's decision to rapidly withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq — against the advice of experienced military leaders — in 2011. Retired Army General John M. Keane, the last American commander in Iraq, had recommended that 23,000 U.S. troops be left in place to secure the U.S. war victory. But Obama, wanting to be remembered most of all as the president who ended wars rather than fought them, left no forces behind. Beaming with pride, he frequently took credit for bringing American military involvement in Iraq to a formal close.⁴⁵

Of course, when ISIS later grew into a genocidal monster, Obama tried to claim that his withdrawal from Iraq had been forced upon him by a December 2008 deal in which President Bush and Iraqi president Maliki signed a “status-of-forces” agreement stipulating that all U.S. troops must leave Iraq by December 2011.⁴⁶

But status-of-forces agreements are often amended and renegotiated, based on evolving security concerns. Obama left no U.S. forces in Iraq for one very simple and obvious reason: he didn't want to. As Obama himself stated during a 2012 debate with Republican challenger Mitt Romney: “What I would not have done is left 10,000 troops [a far cry from the 23,000 recommended by General Keane] in Iraq that would tie us down. That certainly would not help us in the Middle East.”⁴⁷

It is vital to remember, moreover, that Iraqi president Maliki would have been quite willing to accept a new status-of-forces agreement in 2011, had it stipulated that the U.S. would leave behind a contingent of troops large enough to effectively secure the peace. But when Obama and Clinton proposed to leave a mere 2,000 to 3,000 troops in Iraq, Maliki had no choice but to refuse. As National Review explains: “[T]he problem was that the Obama administration wanted a small force so that it could say it had ended the war. Having a very small American force wasn’t worth the domestic political price Maliki would have to pay for supporting their presence.”⁴⁸

When Obama was deciding to pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq, Hillary Clinton was in 100% agreement with him. As Fox News reports: “Clinton was a leading and outspoken supporter of the Obama administration’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.... Clinton touted the United States’ commitment to Iraq in 2011 and said the Obama administration has 'a plan in place' to ensure Iraq’s security.”⁴⁹

Instead, Iraq turned into a beehive of jihadism, terrorism, and mass murder.

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women everywhere, including the millions whose lives were destroyed when a stable Iraq descended once again into anarchy and terror.

Clinton's Horrible Judgment Regarding Another Terrorist Enemy

As a member of the U.S. Senate, Mrs. Clinton opposed President Bush's January 2007 decision to deploy an additional 21,500 troops in a military “surge” designed to turn the tide of the Iraq War — which had devolved into a bloody quagmire — back in America's favor:

• In December 2006, when Bush was still contemplating the surge, Clinton said: “Everyone knows there is no military solution to the difficulties we face in Iraq.”⁵⁰
• In January 2007, Clinton complained that the surge was “taking troops away from Afghanistan, where I think we need to be putting more troops, and sending them to Iraq on a mission that I think has a very limited, if any, chance for success.”⁵¹
• In August 2007, Clinton said: “The surge was designed to give the Iraqi government time to take steps to ensure a political solution to the situation. It has failed to do so.... It is abundantly clear that there is no military solution to the sectarian fighting in Iraq. We need to stop refereeing the war, and start getting out now.”⁵²
• When General David Petraeus issued a September 2007 report on the remarkably successful results that the surge was yielding, Clinton obstinately told Petraeus that his assertions required “a willing suspension of disbelief.”⁵³

Contrary to Clinton's erroneous predictions and dispiriting rhetoric, the troop surge proved to be a monumentally important strategy that finally enabled the U.S. to crush the Iraqi insurgency. Prior to the surge, it had not been uncommon for 3,000 or more Iraqi civilians and security-force members to die at the hands of terrorist violence during any given month. By May 2008, the monthly mortality figure stood at 19, and it fluctuated between 7 and 25 deaths per month over the ensuing 14 months.⁵⁴

In his 2014 memoir, Robert Gates — who had served as Secretary of Defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama — wrote that Hillary Clinton's opposition to the troop surge had been based on how she thought her own political fortunes would be affected by taking that position. For example, Gates described a “remarkable” exchange that he had witnessed, where Clinton, speaking retrospectively, “told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary” and could not afford to be perceived as pro-war.⁵⁵

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women everywhere, including the millions to whom she tried to deny the protection of American forces in the troop surge.

Clinton's Empty Talk Regarding Russia and China

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign website boasts that in 2010 Clinton “worked to ensure ratification of the New START treaty, which will make the world safer by reducing U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to their smallest size in 50 years.”⁵⁶

The New START agreement with Russia limited each country's long-range nuclear weapons stockpile to 1,500.⁵⁷ But while both the U.S. and Russia agreed to these limits, only America promised to freeze its technology.⁵⁸ As the late constitutional scholar Phyllis Schlafley wrote of the treaty:

“It reads like it was written by the Russians and has nothing good in it for the United States.... The treaty allows Russia to build new and modern weapons to reach New START limits, whereas the United States is locked into reducing its current number. That means Russia will have new and tested weapons, but the U.S. will be stuck with its current, out-of-date, untested warheads.... This treaty gives Russia a veto over all U.S. defenses against incoming missiles.... Russia explained that ... it will stick with New START 'only if the (U.S.) refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively.'”⁵⁹

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including the 150+ million women in the U.S. whose security was instantly and permanently compromised by the terms of the New Start Treaty.

Clinton's Reprehensible Treatment of Israel

In 2010, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren said that during the first two years of the Obama-Clinton administration, “Israel’s ties with the United States” had reached “their worst crisis since 1975 ... a crisis of historic proportions.”⁶⁰

Some may recall how Mrs. Clinton betrayed Israel in the aftermath of an infamous 2010 incident where terrorist members of a Turkish organization known as the IHH — which has ties to Hamas, Al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood — participated in a six-ship flotilla of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activists who sailed to Gaza for the purpose of breaking Israel's naval “blockade” there. (That “blockade” was, in reality, a policy whereby Israel insisted on examining all imports passing through Gaza, so as to prevent the ruling Hamas government, which has sworn its permanent allegiance to the destruction of Israel and the genocide of Jews, from importing weaponry from abroad). The flotilla's lead ship was owned and operated by IHH. When its crew refused to comply with repeated Israeli demands that it submit to an inspection of its cargo, Israeli commandos boarded the vessel and were violently attacked by IHH terrorists. In the melee that ensued, nine IHH members were killed, and seven Israeli soldiers were wounded. Thereafter, Clinton, by her own telling, “spent … literally years trying to get the Israelis to finally apologize to the Turks on the flotilla.”⁶¹

In the summer of 2014, Israel engaged in a massive military operation designed to weaken the destructive capacity of Hamas terrorists who were launching more than 100 potentially deadly missiles per day from Gaza, deep into Israel. Before long, Israel discovered that Hamas, in recent years, had constructed a massive network of at least 60 underground missile storage-and-transport tunnels throughout Gaza. A number of those tunnels extended, underground, into Israeli territory — for the purpose of facilitating terror attacks, murders, and kidnappings against unsuspecting Israeli citizens. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Hamas had spent between $1 million and $10 million to build each of those tunnels, using as many as 350 truckloads of cement and other supplies per tunnel.⁶²

Then, in a bombshell revelation in August 2014, Dennis Ross, who had served as Secretary of State Clinton's senior Mideast policy adviser, revealed that Clinton had personally assigned him the task of pressuring Israel to ease up on its military blockade of Gaza. “I argued with Israeli leaders and security officials, telling them they needed to allow more construction materials, including cement, into Gaza so that housing, schools and basic infrastructure could be built,” said Ross. “They countered that Hamas would misuse it, and they were right.” As one analysis aptly puts it, “Ross’s admission shows that it was [Clinton] who sent her personal envoy to push for a policy that ultimately enabled Hamas to build the terror tunnels.”⁶³

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including the millions of Israeli Jews whose lives were placed in peril by Hamas's underground tunnels and illegally imported weaponry.

Clinton Turns Libya into a Terrorist Hell Hole

During her tenure as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton pushed hard for the U.S. to take military action designed to drive Muammar Gaddafi from power in Libya.⁶⁴ According to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served under President Obama, Clinton played a major role in convincing Obama to lead a protracted NATO bombing campaign against Gaddafi in 2011 — a campaign that lent support to opposition rebels consisting of ISIS, Ansar al-Sharia, and other local militant groups. In other words, Clinton and Obama — in their quest to unseat Gaddafi — were aiding murderous jihadists in Libya.

What is remarkable about this, is the fact that Gaddafi at that time no longer posed any threat to American national security. Indeed, just prior to the Al Qaeda-led uprising that Clinton and Obama supported, Libya was providing the U.S. with important intelligence data. Moreover, it was a prospering, secular Islamic nation that had a national budget surplus of 8.7% and was producing 1.8 million barrels of oil per day.

By the time the Obama-Clinton bombing campaign was finished, Libya's economy had shrunk by 42% and was operating at an annual deficit of 17.1%; oil production was down by at least 80%.⁶⁵

According to Foreign Policy In Focus, the Obama-Clinton strategy “plunged” Libya “into chaotic unrest” and “turned [it] into a cauldron of anarchy.”⁶⁶ Today Libya is a nation teeming with jihadists, and ISIS is becoming increasingly powerful there.⁶⁷

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including the millions in Libya who are now drowning in a tsunami of terrorism.

Clinton's Plan to Import 65,000 Syrian Refugees into the U.S. As Quickly As Possible

“We have to stem the flow of jihadists from Europe and America to and from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan,” says the Clinton presidential campaign website.⁶⁸ While this sounds like a grand idea, it begs a very obvious question: Why has Hillary Clinton explicitly called for bringing at least 65,000 refugees from Syria into the United States as quickly as possible,⁶⁹ even though:

• ISIS has vowed to deploy terrorist operatives to infiltrate the flow of Syrian refugees heading to Western nations?⁷⁰
• more than 1,500 terror-linked refugees, asylees and migrants entered the U.S. in 2014 alone?⁷¹
• more than 30,000 illegal immigrants from “countries of terrorist concern” entered the United States through America's Southwestern border with Mexico in 2015?⁷²
• Michael Steinbach, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism unit, has made it clear that it is virtually impossible to screen out terrorists who could be posing as refugees and coming to America?⁷³
• FBI Director James Comey has said that the federal government does not have the ability to conduct reliable background checks on the Syrian refugees, and has warned that “there will be a terrorist diaspora [from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East] sometime in the next two to five years like we’ve never seen before”?⁷⁴
• Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has admitted that the U.S. will not “know a whole lot” about the refugees it accepts?⁷⁵
• CIA director John Brennan has said that ISIS “is probably exploring a variety of means for infiltrating operatives into the West, including in refugee flows ...”?⁷⁶

As a direct result of the policy that Mrs. Clinton herself has spelled out, scores of thousands of people from the very seat of ISIS's power will soon be streaming into the United States at a record pace.

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including the countless American women whose lives may be imperiled by an influx of Syrian terrorists posing as refugees.

Taking a long-range view of American migration and refugee policy, Mrs. Clinton understands that eventually, when these Syrian refugees and their relatives, and then their descendants, become registered voters, they will vote heavily Democrat, as the vast majority of immigrants from the Middle East have always done.⁷⁷

And if some Americans have to get murdered along the way by terrorist infiltrators, so be it. To Mrs. Clinton, that is simply one of the costs of doing (political) business.

Immigration: Clinton Explicitly Favors Amnesty, Sanctuary Cities, and “Open Borders” 

“Hillary will introduce comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to full and equal citizenship within her first 100 days in office,” says the Clinton presidential campaign website.⁷⁸ Mrs. Clinton pledges that if she is elected president, she will extend President Obama's two major executive orders on immigration, which protected millions of illegal aliens from deportation.⁷⁹ She vows to do this despite the fact that Obama himself, prior to issuing his executive orders, frequently acknowledged that such actions went far beyond the proper limits of presidential authority.⁸⁰ Speaking to a group of illegal immigrant high-school students in 2015, Clinton said: “I want to do everything we can to defend the president's executive orders ... As president I would do everything possible under the law to go even further.”⁸¹

Moreover, Mrs. Clinton unequivocally supports the “sanctuary” policies that bar police and other public-sector employees in some 340 U.S. cities from notifying the federal government about the presence of illegal aliens residing in their communities. As such, these policies defy the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that Congress passed twenty years ago to require that local governments cooperate with U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE).⁸²

Sanctuary policies have turned hundreds of U.S. cities into very dangerous places. Of the 9,295 deportable aliens who were released after their arrest in sanctuary jurisdictions during the first eight months of 2014 alone, some 2,320 were subsequently re-arrested, on new criminal charges, soon thereafter. And before their initial release, 58% of those 9,295 aliens already had felony charges or convictions on their records, while another 37% had serious prior misdemeanor charges.⁸³

But Mrs. Clinton's commitment to sanctuary policies is unshakable. As Xochitl Hinojosa, the Clinton presidential campaign's director of coalitions press, said in 2015: “Hillary Clinton believes that sanctuary cities can help further public safety, and she has defended those policies going back years.”⁸⁴

In a speech she delivered at Banco Itau, a Brazilian bank, on May 16, 2013, Mrs. Clinton stated: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders....”⁸⁵

You read that correctly: “open borders.”

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including the many whose lives and safety are imperiled by open borders and sanctuary policies.

Clinton's Opposition to Gun Rights

Lamenting that “too many families in America have suffered — and continue to suffer — from gun violence,” Mrs. Clinton has stated that crime victims should be allowed to sue firearm manufacturers and retailers who lawfully produced or sold a gun that was used in a crime.⁸⁶ This is a way to eliminate the Second Amendment “without firing a shot,” so to speak, as it would inevitably cause the firearms industry to disappear.⁸⁷

At a New Hampshire town hall in 2015, a man asked Mrs. Clinton whether she would consider supporting a gun buyback measure similar to the one that had been implemented in Australia: “Recently, Australia managed to get away, or take away tens of thousands, millions of handguns. In one year, they were all gone. Can we do that?” Clinton replied: “I think it would be worth considering doing it on the national level, if that could be arranged.”⁸⁸

In other words, Mrs. Clinton is eager to explore creative ways of eliminating the Second Amendment.

But hey, who cares? At least she never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women, including those who, in the absence of the Second Amendment, will no longer be able to defend themselves and their families against home invaders and other assailants. They will no longer be among the hundreds of thousands of individuals who, each year, use guns for defensive purposes to repel or frighten away would-be attackers.⁸⁹

Clinton's Plans to Expand Obamacare into a Government-Run, Single-Payer System

Stating unequivocally that she plans to “defend and expand the Affordable Care Act” (ACA),⁹⁰ Mrs. Clinton contends that Obamacare has thus far been a great success.

Let's look, for a moment, at how successfully Obamacare has helped to cut the cost of insurance premiums. When the law was being debated and formulated, President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that under his plan, the average family would save up to $2,500 per year in annual premiums.⁹¹ The reality has been somewhat different:

• A 2014 study by the Brookings Institution found that “premiums in the individual health insurance market increased by 24.4 percent beyond what they would have had they simply followed … [existing] trends.”⁹²
• The S&P Global Institute found that between 2013-15, the average market medical costs per individual increased by 69%.⁹³
• Premiums for ACA-compliant Qualified Health Plans that were sold to individuals on the Obamacare exchanges, were $2,300 more expensive than premiums for non-Qualified Health Plans, i.e., plans that were in existence before 2014 and did not comply with the mandates of the ACA.⁹⁴
• In 2015, premiums for the lowest-cost plans across all tiers — bronze, silver, gold and platinum — increased by a median of 10-13%.⁹⁵
• By September 2016, fully 16 of Obamacare's 23 state exchanges had gone bankrupt, with another one — the Tennessee exchange — “very near collapse.”⁹⁶
• It is expected that by the end of 2016, UnitedHealth Group will have exited 31 of the 34 Obamacare exchanges in which it has participated, while Aetna will have left 11 of its 15 state exchanges.⁹⁷

Meanwhile, Obamacare's insurance policy deductibles are skyrocketing in almost every state. As National Review reports: “Average deductibles for silver plans — which accounted for nearly 70 percent of the exchanges’ 9.3 million enrollees [in 2015] — now average $2,994. The second most popular Bronze plans have average deductibles of $5,629.... Paying $3,000 or $5,600 before their insurance kicks in simply isn’t an option for most families ...”⁹⁸

Hillary Clinton proposes to address the financial implosion of Obamacare by implementing a “public option”⁹⁹ — i.e., a government-run insurance plan that would “compete” with private insurers. Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes explains how disastrous such a measure would be: “By drawing on taxpayer dollars, this public option would be able to out-price almost every private insurer in the country. Unable to compete, private insurers would be 'crowded out,' leaving Americans with just one choice: a government-operated health care plan that brings the entire health sector under government control.”¹⁰⁰

But that, in a nutshell, is Mrs. Clinton's ultimate, long-range goal: to have a “single-payer,” “universal” healthcare system that is run entirely by the federal government. Her presidential campaign website candidly states that she “has never given up on the fight for universal coverage.”¹⁰¹

And what does the empirical evidence show, regarding the effectiveness of universal healthcare systems in countries around the world? It's actually quite clear. As the Cato Institute puts it, “In countries weighted heavily toward government control, people are most likely to face waiting lists, rationing, restrictions on physician choice, and other obstacles to care.” By contrast: “[T]hose countries with national health care systems that work better, such as France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, are successful to the degree that they incorporate market mechanisms such as competition, cost-consciousness, market prices, and consumer choice, and eschew centralized government control. In other words, socialized medicine works — as long as it isn’t socialized medicine.”¹⁰²

So Hillary Clinton wants to implement a healthcare system that has failed miserably in country after country, confident that she'll get better results because she'll put smarter bureaucrats in charge of it.

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she respects women and girls deeply — even the 150+ million females whose lives and health will be placed in peril by the expansion of Obamacare and the pursuit of a single-payer system.

Rejecting School Vouchers for Poor Minority Children in Failing Urban Schools

Professing to have spent her entire adult life “fighting for children,”¹⁰³ Hillary Clinton dogmatically opposes the implementation of school voucher programs¹⁰⁴ which would enable the parents of low-income, mostly-minority children who attend failing, inner-city public schools, to send their youngsters instead to private schools where they might actually have a chance of succeeding academically.

Why would anyone reject such programs, if he or she actually cared about poor minority kids?

As always, if you want to find out what motivates Mrs. Clinton, you have to follow the money. Together, the two largest teachers' unions in the United States — the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — have given tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to political candidates since the early 1990s, and more than 95% of that money has gone to Democrats. If we also count the massive expenditures that teachers' unions make on politically oriented initiatives like television ads and get-out-the-vote efforts, the numbers become almost unfathomable. From 2007-12, the NEA and AFT together spent more than $330 million to influence elections in favor of Democrats.¹⁰⁵

The leading objective of both the NEA and AFT is to maximize employment opportunities for dues-paying members of their unions. This is highly significant because mandatory dues constitute the very lifeblood of those unions. And voucher programs, which would siphon students as well as money away from the public schools, don't promote union membership or union dues.

So Hillary Clinton rejects voucher programs because her union benefactors oppose them.

But hey, who cares? At least she never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. And she deeply respects women — even impoverished, inner-city minority women who have no choice but to send their children to public schools that are beset by academic failure and violence of monumental proportions.

“Criminal Justice Reform”: Going Soft on Crime, and Filling America's Graveyards

Hillary Clinton tells us that Americans everywhere “are crying out for criminal justice reform” because “families are being torn apart by excessive incarceration,” and “children are growing up in homes shattered by prison and poverty.”¹⁰⁶

How does Mrs. Clinton know that our country's current levels of incarceration are excessive? What, exactly, would be the right number of people in prison? How would we arrive at that number?

Consider some highly noteworthy facts:

• In 1990, when there were about 1,149,000 prisoners in penitentiaries nationwide, there were 1,820,130 violent crimes committed that year, including 23,440 murders.¹⁰⁷
• In 2014, when there were 2,208,000 inmates in penitentiaries nationwide, a total of 1,197,987 violent crimes were committed that year, including 14,249 murders.¹⁰⁸
• So, even as the population of the United States grew by 28% between 1990 and 2014, the incidence of violent crimes declined by 46%, and the incidence of murders fell by 39%.

These numbers suggest that putting more criminals in prison has helped to spare at least a million people per year from being victimized by violent crimes, and to save at least 9,000 people per year from being murdered. If we look at the numbers from this perspective, incarceration suddenly doesn't look like such a bad thing, does it?

And indeed, Mrs. Clinton herself inadvertently admitted this when she recently said, while railing against “mass incarceration,” that “the numbers [of prisoners] today are much higher than they were 30, 40 years ago, despite the fact that crime is at historic lows.”¹⁰⁹

Poor Hillary Clinton. She opened her mouth in an unscripted moment and accidentally told the truth.

But hey, who cares if she supports policies that result in more death and destruction? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. Plus, she deeply respects women, including the ones who, under her criminal-justice “reform” policies, would face a far greater likelihood of being abused, violated, or slain by criminals who really belonged in prison.

Fighting Voter ID Laws As “Racist” Schemes to Disenfranchise Minorities

At an August 2013 meeting of the American Bar Association, Mrs. Clinton lamented that “more than 80 bills restricting voting rights” had been “introduced in 31 states” during the first eight months of that year. These were generally bills that sought to institute Voter ID requirements at polling places, shorten early-voting periods, eliminate same-day voter registration, prevent the arbitrary extension of voting hours, and carefully regulate the use of absentee voting. All of these proposed measures were designed to reduce the likelihood of voter fraud, but Mrs. Clinton called them “voter suppression” efforts that were part of a racist scheme to “disproportionately [disenfranchise] African-Americans, Latino[s] and young voters.”¹¹⁰ On another occasion, Clinton said that Voter ID laws are emblematic of a racist form of “fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud.”¹¹¹

Is Mrs. Clinton correct? Look at the evidence and decide for yourself:

• A 2012 report by the Pew Center on the States found that 24 million voter registrations — one-eighth of all registrations nationwide — were either invalid or inaccurate, including more than 1.8 million dead people who were still registered.¹¹²
• A 2014 study found that two years earlier, some 155,692 registered voters in North Carolina alone had first and last names, birth dates, and final-four Social Security Number digits that matched those of voters who were registered in other states.¹¹³
• The same study also found that 35,570 people who had actually voted in North Carolina, had first names, last names, and birth dates that matched those of voters who had cast ballots in other states.¹¹⁴
• In 2008, Democrat Al Franken won a highly controversial U.S. Senate race in Minnesota by just 312 votes. It was later discovered that 1,099 felons — all legally ineligible to vote — had cast ballots in the election, almost exclusively for Franken.¹¹⁵
• A 2006 study found that 77,000 dead people were listed on New York's statewide database of registered voters, and that as many as 2,600 of them had somehow managed to cast ballots from the grave.¹¹⁶
• In Milwaukee in 2004, approximately 5,300 more ballots were cast, than voters who were recorded as having shown up at the polls.¹¹⁷
• In 2008, election officials nationwide had to discard at least 400,000 bogus voter registrations submitted by ACORN,¹¹⁸ the now-defunct criminal operation masquerading as a “community organization.” (Speaking at ACORN’s 2006 national convention, Mrs. Clinton said: “I thank you for being part of that great movement, that progressive tradition that has rolled across our country.”)¹¹⁹
• In 2011, a Colorado study found that of the nearly 12,000 non-citizens who were illegally registered to vote in that state, about 5,000 had taken part in the 2010 general election.¹²⁰
• In ten Colorado counties in 2012, voter registrations outnumbered the total voting-age population by between 4% and 40%.¹²¹

The foregoing examples represent only the barest tip of a colossal election-fraud iceberg. And Hillary Clinton knows all about it. She really isn't dumb enough to believe what she says about election fraud and voter ID. She's just counting on voters being dumb enough to believe her.

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. Plus, she deeply respects women — even the ones whose votes are nullified by the ballots of people who are legally ineligible to participate in elections.

Clinton's Affiliation with Al Sharpton & Black Lives Matter

In April 2007, Mrs. Clinton spoke at an event held by Al Sharpton's National Action Network, where she stated that her own presidential bid was possible only because of the dedicated work of longtime civil-rights leaders who, like Sharpton, had fought on behalf of those traditionally excluded from power positions in American life. “I have enjoyed a long and positive relationship with Reverend Al Sharpton and National Action Network,” said Clinton, “and I don't ever remember saying 'no' to them, and I intend to remain their partner in civil rights as I clean the dirt from under the carpet in the Oval Office when I am elected President.”¹²²

And nothing whatsoever has changed in Mrs. Clinton's estimation of Sharpton, perhaps the most repugnant racial arsonist in contemporary America, in the years since then. In April 2016, for instance, Clinton again spoke at a National Action Network event where she lauded Sharpton and his organization for steadfastly working “on the frontlines of our nation’s continuing struggle for civil rights,” and “in a million ways lift[ing] up voices that too often go unheard.”¹²³

Speaking of repugnant racial arsonists, in August 2015 Mrs. Clinton held an impromptu, videotaped conversation with three Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists who were complaining about the “mass incarceration” of African Americans. In response to them, Clinton said: “This country has still not recovered from its original sin [slavery] ... Your analysis is totally fair. It's historically fair, it's psychologically fair, it's economically fair.... All I'm suggesting is, even for us sinners [white people], find some common ground on agendas that can make a difference right here and now in people's lives.”¹²⁴

A bit of background information about BLM is in order here. Founded by Marxist revolutionaries in 2013, BLM depicts the United States as a nation thoroughly awash in racism, sexism, and homophobia. Demonstrators at BLM events commonly smear white police as trigger-happy bigots who are intent upon killing innocent, unarmed black males. The protesters also taunt, and direct obscenities at, uniformed police officers who are on duty. Their principal hero is the Marxist icon, former Black Panther, convicted accomplice in a cop-killing, and longtime fugitive Assata Shakur. At all BLM events, demonstrators invoke a quote by Shakur that includes an excerpt from the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.¹²⁵

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. Plus, of course, it goes without saying that she respects women deeply. Oh, so deeply.

Clinton’s View of the Supreme Court and Its Purpose

When Mrs. Clinton was asked, in an October 2016 presidential debate, to articulate what would be her chief considerations when appointing Supreme Court Justices, she never once mentioned fidelity to the Constitution, which is in fact the principal duty of the Court. Instead, Clinton alluded to the idea that Justices should try to balance the proverbial scales of power in favor of people who lack wealth and influence: “I want to appoint Supreme Court Justices who understand the way the world really works … [and] actually understand what people are up against.” In other words, Clinton prefers Justices who seek to enforce her particular vision of “social justice,” rather than an ideal of blind, unbiased justice.

Mrs. Clinton then proceeded to explain that she would nominate only Justices who share her public-policy preferences vis-à-vis certain hot-button, litmus-test issues:

(1) “I would want to see the Supreme Court reverse Citizens United and get dark unaccountable money out of our politics.” (Citizens United was a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that left intact the federal law prohibiting corporations and unions from making campaign contributions to politicians, but nullified a provision barring such entities from paying for political ads made independently of candidate campaigns—on grounds that the First Amendment prohibits Congress from censoring any entity's right to engage in, or to fund, political speech.)

(2) “I would like the Supreme Court to understand that voting rights are a big problem in many parts of the country. That we don't do always do everything we can to make it possible for people of color and older people and young people to be able to exercise their franchise.” (In other words, Mrs. Clinton would appoint Justices who oppose Voter ID laws, favor extended early-voting periods, support voting rights for convicted felons, and endorse universal voter registration — all measures that would make it significantly easier to commit voter fraud.)

(3) “I want a Supreme Court that will stick with Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose.”

(4) “I want a Supreme Court that will stick with marriage equality” (i.e., same-sex marriage).

Clinton Supports Partial-Birth Abortion

On March 12, 2003, Hillary Clinton went to the Senate floor to speak out against legislation that proposed to ban the procedure commonly known as “partial-birth abortion” — where the abortionist maneuvers the baby into a breech (feet-first) delivery position, permits its entire body to exit the birth canal except for its head, and then uses scissors to puncture the baby's brain and kill it while the head is still inside the mother. Defending the legality of this procedure and condemning Republicans for trying to outlaw it, Clinton argued that any attempt “to criminalize a medical procedure” would compromise American liberty.¹²⁶

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. Plus, she respects not only women, but girls as well — even the female babies who are subjected to atrocities like the one described above.

For Hillary Clinton, abortion is a civil liberty that should be funded not by the biological mother herself, but by all taxpayers. Indeed, Planned Parenthood — to Clinton's delight — receives more than $520 billion per year in government funding, and much of that is used to pay for abortions.¹²⁷ Moreover, Mrs. Clinton has vowed to repeal what is known as the Hyde Amendment, a 1976 law that has traditionally prohibited federal funding for abortions.¹²⁸ Apparently, for Mrs. Clinton “it takes a village”¹²⁹ to produce enough cultural and moral rot to fully destroy a civilization.

Clinton's Personal Persecution of a Young Rape Victim

While the Clinton presidential campaign website touts “Hillary’s plan to end campus sexual assault,” it laments that “many who choose to report sexual assault in the criminal justice system fear that their voices will be dismissed instead of heard.”¹³⁰ But Mrs. Clinton herself took part in one of the most repulsive exhibitions of cruelty to a rape victim ever seen in an American courtroom.

The year was 1975, and attorney Hillary Clinton was defending Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old man accused of raping and beating a 12-year-old girl named Kathy Shelton. So brutal was Taylor's assault, that the victim spent five days in a coma immediately afterward; then several months recovering from the physical thrashing that accompanied the rape; plus, more than 10 years in psychotherapy.¹³¹

Mrs. Clinton knew for certain that Taylor was guilty of this crime, as she made clear years later when she discussed the case in a 1980s interview with Arkansas journalist Roy Reed. “He [Taylor] took a lie detector test!” Mrs. Clinton recalled. “I had him take a polygraph test, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs.”¹³²

Notwithstanding her certitude regarding the man's guilt, Clinton negotiated a plea bargain for Taylor by taking advantage of a prosecutorial error — the prosecutors had cut out and examined the blood-covered section of Taylor's underwear that proved his guilt, but then discarded the fabric, making it impossible for the defense to examine it. Because of this misstep, Clinton, confident that the prosecution would be unable to prove Taylor's guilt, pushed for a plea bargain.¹³³

In the aforementioned 1980s interview, Mrs. Clinton laughed as she recounted how the polygraph results were clearly erroneous, and how a forensic scientist from New York was prepared to testify that Taylor could not be convicted if the underwear fabric was no longer available. When Reed asked Clinton about the outcome of the case, she replied, nonchalantly, “Oh he plea bargained. Got him off with time served in the county jail, he’d been in the county jail about two months.”¹³⁴

Subsequent to the Taylor trial, a Newsday examination of court files and investigative files revealed that Mrs. Clinton had also attacked the young victim's character during the trial by calling into question her motives, her honesty, her temperament, and her ability to perceive reality — even though she knew with 100% certainty that her client was guilty.¹³⁵

In a highly emotional June 2014 interview, Kathy Shelton accused Mrs. Clinton of intentionally lying about her in court documents and going to extraordinary lengths to discredit evidence of the rape. “Hillary Clinton took me through Hell,” Shelton said. “She lied like a dog on me. I think she was trying to do whatever she could do to make herself look good at the time.... She wanted it to look good, she didn’t care if those guys [Taylor and an accomplice] did it or not. Them two guys should have got a lot longer time [in prison]. I do not think justice was served at all.”¹³⁶

But hey, who cares? At least Mrs. Clinton never engaged in crude, private trash talk that was recorded on tape. And all of her disparaging, condescending, hate-soaked, fiction-laced denunciations of her political rivals are delivered in measured, solemn, well-rehearsed tones. Plus, she deeply respects females, even young girls whose known rapists she defends in court, and whose trials she later recalls with self-satisfied bellows of laughter.

Conclusion

This, then, is Hillary Clinton: a woman who is wholly, unequivocally unfit to serve as anything more than an inmate in a federal penitentiary. She has demonstrated, time and again:

• that she cannot, under any circumstances, be trusted with national security or state secrets;
• that she treats the paper on which the Espionage Act is written, with no more reverence than she would give to a strip of toilet paper;
• that she treats with similar disregard the paper on which the U.S. Constitution is written;
• that her judgment in matters of international conflict, diplomacy, and terrorism is an abomination;
• that she routinely uses her “charitable foundation” as a money-laundering operation designed to enrich herself under the guise of helping the needy;
• that she will gladly sell out her country, and everyone in it, in exchange for material riches and political dominion;
• the she is intent upon using the most irresponsible refugee and immigration policies imaginable to import countless millions of people from hostile, impoverished nations across the globe for one core purpose: to permanently transform the American population into one that will vote reliably Democrat from now until the end of time;
• that she fully intends to purge the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights;
• that she unequivocally plans to expand the disastrous, failing Obamacare debacle into an even more monstrous, government-run, single-payer healthcare system;
• that she favors soft-on-crime policies that have repeatedly been shown to cause violent crime rates to skyrocket;
• that she is perfectly willing to institutionalize massive, ubiquitous voter fraud because she believes that it will ensure additional power for her political party;
• that she views white Americans as a whole, as inherently, “implicitly,”¹³⁷ and “irredeemably”¹³⁸ racist, and therefore in constant need of an all-powerful government to restrain their bigoted impulses;
• that despite her professed aversion to racism in general, she is quite happy to ally herself with “politically correct” racists like Al Sharpton and the Black Lives Matter movement; and
• that she opposes the imposition of any restrictions whatsoever on abortion rights, or on the government's power to force taxpayers to fund abortions.

In the final analysis, Hillary Clinton is a woman with a mindset that is totalitarian in every respect. To make matters worse, she is a lying, deceiving, manipulative, self-absorbed criminal without a shred of personal virtue. Truly it can be said that never before in American history has anyone so unfit and so undeserving, run for president. Never.

NOTES:

1 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2976803/Hillary-Clinton-used-unsecured-personal-email-account-four-years-Secretary-State-aides-decided-correspondence-hand-public-record.html; http://www.truthrevolt.org/commentary/hillary-cover-and-end-democracy; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2980005/What-Hillary-wants-Hillary-gets-former-Secretary-State-homebrew-email-server-set-amid-no-questions-asked-atmosphere.html

2Ibid.; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2976803/Hillary-Clinton-used-unsecured-personal-email-account-four-years-Secretary-State-aides-decided-correspondence-hand-public-record.html; https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/hillary-clinton-only-used-personal-email-while-secretary-of#.ju9JQN6YO; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2997193/Hillary-s-email-gate-linked-whistle-blower-s-description-State-Department-boiler-room-operation-set-hide-documents-Benghazi.html

3 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-phones-secretary-state-now/story?id=29535505

4 http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/cnn-anchor-visibly-deflated-when-networks-own-fact-checker-confirms-hillary-phones-destroyed; https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/09/03/fbi-files-clinton-aide-smashed-hillarys-old-phones-with-a-hammer/

5 http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/03/02/hillary-emails-final-score-n2126822

6 http://www.wsj.com/articles/clintons-email-evasions-1438902775

7 http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/margaret-knapp/levin-sect-793-penal-code-what-hillary-clinton-has-worry-about

8 http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/01/22/gates-odds-are-high-russia-china-iran-accessed-clintons-server-n2108570

9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html

10 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clintons-raised-nearly-2-billion-for-foundation-since-2001/2015/02/18/b8425d88-a7cd-11e4-a7c2-03d37af98440_story.html

11 http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=33486

12 Ibid.

13 http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/263747/bill-clinton-got-millions-sharia-education-network-daniel-greenfield

14 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-company-pledged-2-million-to-clinton-foundation-in-2013/

15 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html; http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/17/money-from-brunei-reached-clinton-foundation-coffers.html

16 http://nypost.com/2015/04/20/book-claims-foreign-cash-made-bill-and-hillary-filthy-rich/; http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2015/05/26/clintons-state-department-approved-weapons-deals-to-governments-who-made-donations-to-their-foundation-n2003917/print

17 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3756447/Hillary-camp-launches-desperate-cherry-picking-defense-calendars-reveal-Clinton-Foundation-donors-got-face-time-secretary-state.html

18 http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187

19 http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/02/the-u-s-constitution-actually-bans-hillarys-foreign-government-payola/

20 http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/04/27/report-only-6-clinton-foundation-expenditures-go-to-charity/

21 http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-will-teach-iran-to-thwart-nuke-threats/; http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/07/17/7-devastating-facts-about-obamas-iran-nuclear-deal/; http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/07/17/7-devastating-facts-about-obamas-iran-nuclear-deal/

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1755

26 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/12/riot-after-anti-islam-film-u-s-ambassador-to-libya-killed.html

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2013/01/rand-paul-hillary-clinton-benghazi-transcript-failure-of-leadership-inexcusable-i-would-have-relieved-you-of-duty-2565884.html

30 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/world/middleeast/arms-airlift-to-syrian-rebels-expands-with-cia-aid.html?_r=0; http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/rand-paul-hillarys-benghazi-story-unraveling/?cat_orig=politics

31 http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/07/julian-assange-hacked-emails-include-info-hillarys-arming-jihadists-including-isis-syria/

32 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/05/doj-abruptly-drops-case-against-gun-runner-who-threatened-to-reveal-clintons-libya-dealings.html

33 http://ijr.com/2014/09/178074-former-state-department-official-claims-benghazi-cover/

34 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6175; http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6386

35 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2557; http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7749; http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7750

36 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2556; http://www.shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Abedin_Affairs_with_Al_Saud_081312.pdf

37 https://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/08/09/our-government-and-the-muslim-brotherhood-my-speech-in-washington/?singlepage=true; https://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/07/27/huma-abedins-brotherhood-ties-are-not-just-a-family-affair/?print=1

38 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1615

39 http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2013/02/08/nov-3-2011-letter-from-john-brennan-capitulating-to-muslim-complaints-against-fbi/; http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-releases-new-special-report-u-s-government-purges-of-law-enforcement-training-material-deemed-offensive-to-muslims/; http://www.investigativeproject.org/3902/obama-cia-nominee-john-brennan-wrong-for-the-job

40 http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2013/02/08/nov-3-2011-letter-from-john-brennan-capitulating-to-muslim-complaints-against-fbi/

41 http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/291737/guess-who-decides-what-fbi-agents-get-learn-about-islam-andrew-c-mccarthy

42 http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/13/fbi-called-off-investigation-of-orlando-shooter-because-they-thought-his-coworkers-were-racist/

43 http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/08/12/fact-check-obama-hillary-founders-isis-bet/

44 http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/does-death-isis-2-man-mean-we%E2%80%99re-winning; https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/18/fivefold-increase-terrorism-fatalities-global-index; http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2015-global-terrorism-index-deaths-from-terrorism-increased-80-last-year-to-the-highest-level-ever-global-economic-cost-of-terrorism-reached-all-time-high-at-us529-billion-550766811.html

45 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/11/obama-adjusts-iraq-narrative-now-blames-george-w-b/; http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/15/obama-ignored-generals-pleas-to-keep-american-forc/

46 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/15/obama-ignored-generals-pleas-to-keep-american-forc/

47 http://www.weeklystandard.com/obamas-2012-debate-boast-i-didnt-want-to-leave-any-troops-in-iraq/article/802219

48 http://www.nationalreview.com/node/396097/print

49 http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/06/16/clinton-was-leading-champion-iraq-withdrawal

50 http://www.today.com/id/16267456/ns/today/t/sen-clinton-opposes-troop-surge-iraq/#.V_aVtOArKUl

51 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/17/usa.iraq1

52 http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/08/23/democrats-strategize-on-how-to-cast-us-troop-surge-in-iraq-as-failure.html

53 http://www.nysun.com/national/clinton-spars-with-petraeus-on-credibility/62426/

54 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/The%20Greatest%20Story%20Never%20Told.html

55 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535513/Former-defense-secretary-says-Hillary-Obama-admitted-staking-Iraq-policy-2008-presidential-campaign-based-election-politics.html

56 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/national-security/

57 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-nuclear-arsenal-is-ready-for-overhaul/2012/09/15/428237de-f830-11e1-8253-3f495ae70650_story.html

58 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/9/obamas-false-start/

59 http://townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/2010/05/25/obama_starts_to_disarm_america

60 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-usa-palestinians-envoy-idUSTRE62E11O20100315

61 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7457; http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/clinton-i-spent-years-urging-israel-to-apologize-to-turkey------.aspx?pageID=238&nID=88276&NewsCatID=358

62 http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/239433/hillarys-hand-hamas-terror-tunnels-moshe-phillips

63 Ibid.

64 https://www.rt.com/usa/334400-hillary-clinton-libya-role/

65 http://nationalinterest.org/feature/hillarys-huge-libya-disaster-16600

66 http://fpif.org/four-years-after-gaddafi-libya-is-a-failed-state/

67 https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/13493.19.0.0/world/terrorism/hundreds-of-islamic-state-terrorists-move-into-libya

68 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/combating-terrorism/

69 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-u-s-should-take-65000-syrian-refugees/

70 http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/isis-smuggler-we-will-use-refugee-crisis-to-infiltrate-west/

71 http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/30/obamas-deputies-invite-1500-foreigners-known-terror-links-u-s/

72 https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2016/08/22/report-30k-illegal-immigrants-came-from-countries-of-terrorist-concern/

73 http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/syrian-refugee-program-called-back-door-for-jihadists/

74 http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/21/fbi-director-admits-us-cant-vet-all-syrian-refugees-for-terror-ties-video/; http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/28/james-comey-warns-coming-terrorist-diaspora-democr/

75 http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/jeh-johnson-we-dont-know-whole-lot-about-syrian-refugees-coming-us-through

76 http://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2016/06/17/cia-director-warns-that-isis-is-intensifying-global-attacks-n2179920

77 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/study-finds-more-immigrants-equals-more-democrats-and-more-losses-for-gop/article/2547220

78 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/immigration-reform/

79 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3068468/Clinton-discuss-immigration-reform-Nevada.html

80 http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/15/flashback-obama-said-he-wouldnt-do-executive-order-on-deportations-weve-got-three-branches-of-government/

81 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-reveals-plans-immigration-reform/story?id=30812123

82 http://www.ojjpac.org/sanctuary.asp; http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/06/us/san-francisco-killing-sanctuary-cities/; http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/8/number-of-sanctuary-cities-grows-to-340-thousands-/

83 http://www.ojjpac.org/sanctuary.asp; http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/10/sanctuary-cities-ignore-ice-orders-to-free-9295-alien-criminals/

84 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/clinton-campaign-sanctuary-cities-can-help-public-safety-n389186

85 http://www.lifezette.com/polizette/wikileaks-dump-hillary-dreams-open-trade-open-borders/

86 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/gun-violence-prevention/; http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Gun_Control.htm; http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/26/most-americans-disagree-clinton-suing-gun-makers/

87 http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/05/hillary-clinton-plan-abolish-second-amendment/

88 http://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2015/10/16/hillary-clinton-gun-ban-confiscation-plot-worth-considering/

89 http://reason.com/blog/2015/03/09/how-to-count-the-defensive-use-of-guns; http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2003/04/10/duncan3/

90 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

91 https://www.youtube.com/embed/_o65vMUk5so

92 http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2016/07/28/overwhelming-evidence-that-obamacare-caused-premiums-to-increase-substantially/#400f015646e3

93 Ibid.

94 Ibid.

95 http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2015/12/08/obamacare-premiums-are-on-the-rise-but-dont-blame-insurers/#ae0a6ce8d5ee

96 http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/20/obamacare-imploding-clinton-pushes-for-complete-govt-take-over-of-health-care/

97 Ibid.

98 http://www.nationalreview.com/node/433940/print

99 http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/20/obamacare-imploding-clinton-pushes-for-complete-govt-take-over-of-health-care/; https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

100 Sally C. Pipes, The Truth About Obamacare (2010), Kindle Edition, Loc. 1731-33.

101 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

102 http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-613.pdf

103 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/hillary-clinton-has-spent-her-life-fighting-for-children-here-are-8-ways-shes-changed-their-lives/

104 http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Education.htm

105 http://www.aei.org/publication/turning-the-tides-president-obama-and-education-reform/

106 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/criminal-justice-reform/

107 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0903753.html; http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

108 http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2016.html; http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

109 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/its-time-end-era-mass-incarceration/

110 http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/201302/hillary-clinton-racial-demagogue-matthew-vadum

111 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/politics/hillary-clinton-says-republican-rivals-try-to-stop-young-and-minority-voters.html; http://www.nbcnews.com/video/now/52744828#52744828

112 http://www.npr.org/2012/02/14/146827471/study-1-8-million-dead-people-still-registered-to-vote

113 http://www.wral.com/state-elections-officials-seek-tighter-security/13533579/

114 http://ijr.com/2014/04/126263-think-theres-no-voter-fraud-dead-voters-in-nc/

115 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/york-when-1099-felons-vote-in-race-won-by-312-ballots/article/2504163; http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2010/07/20/al-franken-may-have-won-his-senate-seat-through-voter-fraud

116 https://ballotpedia.org/Dead_people_voting; http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/2006/10/30/boo-dead-voters-casting-ballots-from-the-grave-in-new-york/

117 http://sweetness-light.com/archive/fund-voter-fraud-in-milwaukee-in-2004

118 http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/12/acorn-leader-avoids-prison-for-voter-fraud-conspiracy/

119 http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/08/trumps_2nd_amendment_people_vs_hillarys_activists.html

120 http://thehill.com/homenews/house/153079-gop-says-5000-non-citizens-voting-in-colorado-a-wake-up-call-for-states

121 http://www.redstate.com/aarongardner/2012/09/04/colorado-counties-have-more-voters-than-people/

122 http://www.stentorian.com/MoveOn/sharpton.html

123 http://nypost.com/2016/04/14/hillary-clinton-sings-al-sharptons-praises/; https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/updates/2016/04/13/hillary-clinton-delivers-remarks-at-national-action-network/

124 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eCraUvIq-s

125 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7876

126 http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/hillary-clinton-partial-birth-ban

127 https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/09/a-comprehensive-guide-to-planned-parenthood-funding

128 http://www.lifenews.com/2016/09/30/hillary-clinton-vows-to-repeal-hyde-amendment-and-force-americans-to-fund-abortions/

129 https://www.amazon.com/Takes-Village-Tenth-Anniversary/dp/1416540644

130 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/campus-sexual-assault/

131 http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/16/tapes-reveal-hillary-clinton-discussing-her-defense-of-child-rapist-video/; http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/20/exclusive-hillary-clinton-took-me-through-hell-rape-victim-says.html; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3729466/Child-rape-victim-comes-forward-time-40-years-call-Hillary-Clinton-liar-defended-rapist-smearing-blocking-evidence-callously-laughing-knew-guilty.html;

132 Ibid.

133 Ibid.

134 Ibid.

135 Ibid.

136 Ibid.

137 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/3/hillary-clintons-implicit-bias/

138 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439985/hillary-clinton-deplorable-remark

139 Ibid.