Young Man Rescues Hundreds Of People From Being Killed By Jihadist Suicide Bomber

A schoolboy has been hailed a hero after sacrificing his own life to save classmates from a Pakistan suicide bomber.

Aitzaz Hassan, aged around 14, died in hospital after stopping the bomber, who blew himself up, at the gates of his school in the northwestern district of Hangu on Monday.

His father Mujahid Ali Bangash, 55, said he felt not sadness but pride at his son’s death.

‘Aitzaz has made us proud by valiantly intercepting the bomber and saving the lives of hundreds of his fellow students,’ he said.

‘I am happy that my son has become a martyr by sacrificing his life for a noble cause.’

Bangash works in the UAE and was only able to reach Ibrahimzai village, which lies in an area of Hangu dominated by minority Shiite Muslims, the day after his son’s funeral.

‘Many people are coming to see me but if they try to express sympathy, I tell them to congratulate me instead on becoming the father of a martyr,’ he said.

‘I will be even more than happy if my second son also sacrifices his life for the country.’

Police official Shakirullah Bangash told AFP that Aitzaz intercepted the bomber some 150 metres (490 feet) away from the main gate of the school, which has around 1,000 students, most of them Shiite.

The schoolchildren were the target of the attack, he added.

News of Hassan’s bravery also led to an outpouring of tributes on social media.

[H/T Mail Online]

Ted Cruz: Obama ‘Dangerous and Terrifying’

(WND) — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, charged President Obama with a pattern of “lawlessness on a breathtaking scale” that he said even liberal Democrats will come to regret when a future president seeks to exercise similar unbridled power.

Cruz said Friday morning at the last day of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Policy Orientation for the Texas Legislature that, from giving relief from departation to some young unauthorized immigrants to enforcement of drug laws to waiving rules for Obamacare, the president has acted by executive fiat in defiance of the rule of law.

“We are a nation of laws and not men,” said Cruz. “If we had a system where a president can pick and choose what laws to follow at utter whim … that is seriously dangerous.”

Cruz said the liberal media refuses to accurately report the threat to liberty of the Obama presidency, and makes excuses for the president’s overreaches.

But, he said, “If you’re a liberal, if you’re a Democrat, if you’re a reporter for the New York Times, maybe you’re saying, `he’s my guy. I root for my guy. I don’t like some of the things he’s doing but he’s basically my guy so he’s OK.’”

But Cruz warned those with that mindset that they ought to contemplate that their “guy ain’t gonna be there forever. If this president has that power so does the next one and the next one and the next one, and my message to all the Democrats and all the liberals is, what do you think about the next president, maybe a Republican, having the power Barack Obama has as a president who is not bound by the law?”

“If you love liberty, that should concern you greatly,” said Cruz.

[H/T WND]

Neighbors Inconvenienced By Michelle Obama’s Extended Vacation

(Western Journalism) — Apparently unsatisfied with wasting as much as $100,000 in taxpayer money to extend her Hawaiian trip without her family, Michelle Obama is reportedly uprooting the local community in the process.

After Barack and the kids left earlier this month, the White House explained Michelle stayed behind as a birthday present from her husband, albeit funded by his subjects. She has taken temporary residency at media mogul Oprah Winfrey’s sprawling vacation home in Maui, according to reports.

Neighbors and local shop owners say the surrounding neighborhood has been effectively closed to traffic.

The Obamas have routinely cordoned off entire streets in anticipation of a personal celebration; however, the current roadblocks are reportedly causing widespread and persistent inconveniences.

One business owner explained potential patrons were unable to reach the location due to a number of police checkpoints set up in the vicinity. Other shops have complained employees are arriving late – or not at all – because of the shutdown.

Furthermore, even those simply trying to enjoy the breathtaking beauty of the Hawaiian landscape are being thwarted by the intrusive security measures. In areas near Winfrey’s mansion, a number of recreational sites have reportedly been closed.

Perhaps it is not surprising that a woman who believes her perpetually vacationing lifestyle should be bankrolled by working citizens also feels her mere presence warrants the gridlock of an entire tourist destination. For those who call the island home, not to mention those who spent their hard-earned money to visit, her departure won’t come soon enough.

So Many Intolerable Lies From Barack Hussein Obama, Even the U.S. Marines Have Been Corrupted

(Spectator) — Two events last week — one an announcement by the Marine Corps, the other speeches at the inauguration of New York City’s new mayor — illustrated vividly how President Obama and his media cohort have so narrowed  the boundaries of political speech that we no longer believe we can challenge outright lies.

Among the lies we’ve become inured to is that women can perform every job a man can, including those of combat infantryman and special operators. We’ve also been told the lie that the injection of women into combat arms has no effect on the warrior culture. The liberals insist that the culture isn’t of any value to combat effectiveness regardless of what the warriors themselves say.

And we have relied on the promises made by all of the military leaders, including the Marines, that they’d never diminish the physical standards that any prospective warrior had to meet simply to allow women into combat arms.

That virtually all women can’t meet the standards to do these jobs is so well-established a fact that only the liberal idiots who control Obama’s Pentagon could deny it. Twelve years ago, I reported on this page that the Clinton administration’s efforts to “gender-neutralize” combat arms depended upon its ability to significantly diminish the physical standards demanded of male warriors. By that means, it was creating the fiction that women “passed” the tests. The Clinton administration went on from there to declare women fit for jobs such as that of a combat infantryman.

Last week, the Marines — who had promised that they’d be the last bastion of objective performance standards — announced that they’d “delay” the imposition of male physical standards on the girls because more than half of them failed to make the grade. (The Marines had already broken their promise. This was just a renewal notice.)

For at least another year, instead of having to do at least three pullups (the men’s minimum) the girls will continue to pass by performing a “bent-arm hang” for fifteen seconds, which is the equivalent of zero pullups. (Both of the ladies who tried to pass the combat infantry officer’s course in 2013 failed.)

The reason the Marines did this was, of course, was pressure from the White House. But that’s an excuse, not a reason. Had the commandant of the Marines threatened to resign over this, he’d have received so much support that the White House would have backed down. But he didn’t.

The “glass ceiling” that had kept women out of combat jobs is smeared with blood. The lies that enable women to break through it will cost the lives of many of them and the men fighting next to them. Marines — like every infantry force — have to do a lot of things that require physical strength. They have to lug heavy ammunition boxes, scale obstacles, and carry wounded comrades out of the line of fire. The Marines’ announcement compels me to say something I’ve never said before to any Marine in my life: for shame, gentlemen.

The gender inequality in combat arms is the necessary result of the tasks warriors must perform in order to win the fight. When you pretend that women are capable of those tasks, you condemn the nation to losing wars. The conclusion has to be that women shouldn’t be permitted into combat arms on falsified standards any more than the NFL lets women play. Not all gender discrimination is invidious.

The diminishing of standards for physical fitness on which the “gender-neutralization” of combat arms depends is the implementation of a lie. But to say that is to stand outside the “mainstream” of political thought. It’s not permitted to debate that topic, even though our national security is directly affected by it. For that, shame not on the Marines, but on all of us.

The inauguration of ϋberliberal Bill de Blasio is another example of why states need not follow Colorado’s example and legalize marijuana. We’ve already lulled ourselves into a drug-like stupor.

As part of the invocation, Rev. Fred Lucas, Jr. called for a new Emancipation Proclamation in New York City, where he evidently believes slavery is a commonplace.

If that weren’t enough, former entertainer Harry Belafonte said New York’s system of justice was based on racial injustice and, he rambled, “Changing the stop-and-frisk law is — as important as it is, the change of the law is only the tip of the iceberg in fixing our deeply Dickensian justice system.” That slavery is rampant and law enforcement “Dickensian” in New York will surely be news to former Mayor Gloomberg who, before the advent of de Blasio’s tenure, had set the record for nanny state liberalism.

These risible remarks brought nary a whimper from the Republican side of the equation. Why? Are the Republicans afraid of saying that racism is un-American and what little there is left of it should be stamped out? Or have they accepted these absurdities as the political truths because their foundation is in what Obama said last month?

Among other slanders of America in his “economic” speech on December 4, Obama said that “increasing” income inequality is most pronounced in the United States. Never mind those dozens of nations whose elites revel in wealth while the poor literally starve (see, e.g., North Korea, Somalia and other places which actually allow slavery).

While he repeatedly “pivots to jobs,” Obama’s economic policy is one that aims at income equality — everyone makes the same amount — which is quasi-Marxism. (Remember “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”?) And he believes that citizens of Canada, Germany, and France have more upward mobility than we do. Any decline in American upward mobility is a direct result of his economic policies.

What Obama said about America in that speech was a lie, what Rev. Lucas and Harry Belafonte said in the de Blasio inauguration were lies, and what the Marines did in renewing their diminution of physical standards for combat arms was the renewal of a broken promise.

There are so many lies coming out of the White House that we have become numb to them. But to concede that is to concede the debate. That is what is happening now across our political spectrum.

We are told by the New York Times that there was no terrorist involvement in the Benghazi attack and that Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker, should be pardoned. The former is an outright lie — see the statements of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers — and the latter is a judgment based on another lie.

The Times would have us believe that the “good” that Snowden did in releasing many of our most closely-held secrets outweighs the enormous damage he did to our intelligence community’s ability to gather information and protect secrets that need to be protected. In both cases, the Times is helping Obama — and his possible successor, Hillary Clinton — set boundaries for permissible discussion of the subject.

Perhaps the biggest lie of all is the idea that we are not supposed to say we are at war with Islamic terrorism. The term “act of war” is defined as an act of such impact and importance that it is the equivalent of a declaration of war. The attacks on the Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, the 9/11 attacks themselves and many more all fit that definition, but our “leaders” insist that we aren’t at war.

Now Obama is peddling the idea that extending unemployment benefits — again — is going to stimulate the economy. That, and the rest of the bunkum coming out of the White House, is positively Orwellian.

There are many certainties, many facts that have to be defended. And there used to be American institutions that could be relied on to defend those truths at all costs. How far has America fallen that the Marine Corps is breaking promises and implementing lies?

Too far.  No nation can long survive if it bases its continuation on lies.

It’s long past time for conservative leaders to decide that they won’t confine themselves to the narrow borders of debate that Obama and his ilk have worked so hard to establish. If we have one New Year’s resolution, let it be that no lie will pass without direct challenge and vigorous debate.

[H/T Spectator]

Incredible New Footage Shows Plane Crash That Killed Woman Who Released Obama’s Birth Certificate

(The Blaze) — Footage of the December plane crash that killed the Hawaii official who verified and released President Barack Obama’s birth certificate was aired this week, showing the terrifying moments as the small plane approached the water and hit.

Ferdinand Puentes, a passenger on the plane, told KHON-TV he turned on his GoPro camera as the 2002 Cessna Grand Caravan was going down.

The plane carried nine people, including Loretta Fuddy, director of Hawaii’s Department of Health. She was the only person to die after the crash off the coast of Kalaupapa, Molokai, on Dec. 11.

“It just bit into me like ‘am I dreaming?’” Puentes told KHON of the water landing.

Watch the footage taken by Puentes, which he provided to ABC News:

http://cdnapi.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/1_d6fa5iur/uiconf_id/5590821

In the water with a life vest and seat cushion as aids, Puentes said staying afloat was “hard and exhausting” because he was wearing steel-toed boots, work jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, all of which were weighing him down.

Ferdinand Puentes managed to stay afloat while waiting for rescue after the plane went down on Dec. 11. (Image source: Ferdinand Puentes/Facebook)

All passengers had exited the plane and were later reached by rescue swimmers and helicopters. When a swimmer reached Fuddy in the water, he found she was not responsive and didn’t have a pulse.

In the final moments of her life, Fuddy clung to the hand of her deputy, Keith Yamamoto, while floating in the water. Fuddy, who gained notoriety in 2011 for her role in making Obama’s birth certificate public, held hands with Yamamoto as he tried to help her relax, said the Rev. Patrick Killilea, who consoled Yamamoto after the ordeal.

This undated image from video provided by the Hawaii Department of Health shows Hawaii Health Department Director Loretta Fuddy. Fudday was killed after a small plane with nine people aboard crashed into the water off the Hawaiian island of Molokai Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013 according to Tom Matsuda, the interim executive director of Hawaii’s health insurance exchange. Fuddy was 65. (AP/Hawaii Deaprtment of Health)

“He recounted how he said he helped Loretta into her life jacket and he held her hand for some time,” the priest told the Associated Press. “They were all floating together, and she let go and there was no response from her.”

Fuddy and Yamamoto were on the flight after an annual visit to Kalaupapa, where the state exiled leprosy patients until 1969. The area is accessible only by plane or mule.

An image snapped by Puentes showing the plane under water. (Image source: Ferdinand Puentes via KHOU-TV)

Since the crash, Puentes told the news station he has a fear of flying, but it has changed his life perspective to not take anything for granted. Thursday, Puentes boarded a flight to help overcome his fear.

“It hurts, but you have to heal, my way of healing, and move forward,” he told KHON.

Watch KHON-TV’s report:

 

The crash was deemed the result of the plane’s single engine failing shortly after it had taken off.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

(H/T: Daily Mail)

Ronald Reagan: Great Humor from The Great Communicator

One of the things I liked best about Reagan was his sense of humor.

He poked as much fun at himself as he did others, and never got butt-hurt when someone criticized or made fun of him. I decided to put together this video (in his honor) to capture some of his finest moments.

The Cold War era was a spooky time; thank God we had a President that kept things lighthearted enough to get us through it! Arguments

[H/T YouTube]

A Man Walked 30 Miles to Court In Freezing Cold Temperatures — But What an Officer Did Next Is What Will Send This Story Viral

(The Blaze) — A Georgia police officer is being commended for a favor he did Tuesday morning for a man that walked nearly 30 miles over eight hours to court in freezing temperatures.

According to WSB-TV, a Fulton County man, only identified as “James,” walked 29 miles to court on the coldest day of the year in two decades for a traffic citation.

Temperatures plunged to just 6 degrees, with a wind chill making the air feel like minus 10, but James, reportedly afraid that if he did not show up a warrant would be issued for his arrest, still made the long trek — leaving his house at 1 a.m. to be on time.

“No way to get up there, so I walked,” James told WSB-TV, adding that his car was totaled in an accident and saying he didn’t have the money for a bus or cab.

“As soon as the air hit my lungs it took my breath away because of the wind.”

Share:

“As soon as the air hit my lungs it took my breath away because of the wind,” he added. “That was the major thing, the wind.”

After James had settled his ticket, the man started walking back home.

That’s when officer Andy Blimine  stepped in with a simple gesture: to pay his cab fare.

At first, the man refused, but Blimine insisted and him and a few other officers chipped in to cover James’ $80 cab fare.

Now, Blimine is being praised for his selfless actions.

“You could see in the man’s eyes that he was genuinely touched, as I was,” Lt. Chris Dusik said. “I’m truly proud of how Officer Blimline represented the city.”

James thanked the officers, holding back tears.

“Thank God for those officers,” he said.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1

[H/T The Blaze]

SHOCKING: Muslim Brotherhood in The Obama Administration Is Immense and Growing

(WND) — Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Tom McInerney, who served as both assistant vice chief of staff and commander in chief of U.S. Air Forces Europe, has surprised interviewers on a radio program by confirming the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood inside the U.S. government.

The Islamic supremacist movement’s influence on Washington was reported in “Impeachable Offenses: The Case to Remove Barack Obama from Office” by New York Times bestselling authors Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott.

The book documents that Obama aided the rise to power of Islamic extremist groups in the Middle East as members served on important national security advisory boards.

The book confirms the Obama administration may have exposed national security informationthrough Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, who has deep personal and family associations with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another key figure with Muslim Brotherhood ties is Mohamed Elibiary, a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council.

McInerney was being interviewed Thursday by WMAL in Washington about a tell-all book by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates that strongly criticizes President Obama and Vice President Biden for making politically motivated decisions regarding national security.

McInerney said Gates was doing the nation a service by exposing decision-making in the Oval Office but said he should have done it sooner. He also noted that the Muslim Brotherhood influences have been causing major problems throughout the Middle East.

Then he added, “We’ve got Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. government today.”

Asked by the talk-show hosts for their names, he said, “I haven’t got their names exactly but there’s a list of them, at least 10 or 15 of them in the U.S. government.”

He cited the organization’s influence in Homeland Security and the secretary of state’s office under Clinton, where Abedin has worked.

“Her parents are Muslim Brotherhood. And her intuitions are in that direction,” he said.

“There are a whole host of people in this government.”

He said Islam experts Frank Gaffney or Claire Lopez would have the details.

Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, has created a publication called “The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration,” which addresses the issue that was brought to the attention of Congress in July 2012 by Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Tom Rooney and Lynn Westmoreland.

The lawmakers asked the inspector generals at the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State to investigate, prompting Democrats and Republicans to rush to Abedin’s defense.

However, as WND reported, Abedin worked for an organization founded by her family that is effectively at the forefront of a grand Saudi plan to mobilize U.S. Muslim minorities to transform America into a strict Wahhabi-style Islamic state, according to an Arabic-language manifesto issued by the Saudi monarchy. Abedin also was a member of the executive board of the Muslim Student Association, which was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front group in a 1991 document introduced into evidence during the terror-financing trial of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation trial.

The internal memo said Muslim Brotherhood members “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and by the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Lopez, a CSP senior fellow, wrote at The Gatestone Institute: “The careful insinuation of Muslim Brothers into positions from which they can exercise influence on U.S. policy began long before the attacks of 9/11, although their success has accelerated dramatically under the administration of President Barack Obama.”

She said the “massive Muslim Brotherhood organization network in the U.S., so patiently built up over the decades since that first Oval Office meeting in 1953 [with President Dwight D. Eisenhower], eventually gave it a prominence and (false) reputation of credibility that was unmatched by any other Islamic groups, moderate or otherwise.”

She said the Brotherhood achieved “information dominance” during the George W. Bush administration that only intensified in the following years.

“Not only did figures associated and identified with the Muslim Brotherhood achieve broad penetration at senior levels of U.S. policy making, but voices that warned of their true agenda (such as Stephen Coughlin’s) were actively excluded,” she said.

That information dominance has contributed to startling consequences, most evident in the U.S. policy toward the al-Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood-dominated revolutions that many call the ‘Arab Spring,’ but which in fact are more accurately termed an ‘Islamic Awakening,’” she said.

Under the Muslim Brotherhood-influenced Obama administration, U.S. policy has undergone such a drastic shift in the direction of outright support for these jihadist movements – from al-Qaida militias in Libya, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and both al-Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood-linked rebels in Syria — that it is scarcely recognizable as American anymore.”

See Gaffney discussing the issue with Glenn Beck:

In the WMAL interview, McInerney said Gates’ book should alert Americans about what should be done to protect national security.

“The Middle East is coming apart with this administration’s policies. Look at Libya. We should never have gone into Libya. … We’ve got Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. government.”

WND columnist Diana West wrote it likely wasn’t by chance that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, “reading from prepared notes, absurdly described the Muslim Brotherhood to the House Intelligence Committee last year as a ‘largely secular’ organization.”

“Is it an accident that in June the State Department issued a visa to Hani Nour Eldin of Egypt to meet with senior White House officials? Eldin is a member of Gama’a al-Islamiyya, a terrorist organization once led by Omar Abdel Rahman, ‘the blind sheikh’ convicted of the first attack on the World Trade Center. In the person of Rahman’s successor, Refai Ahmed Taha, the group is one of the five signatories of Osama bin Laden’s February 1998 ‘World Islamic Front Statement Urging Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.’ Isn’t it imperative to review the policy mechanism that permitted a member of bin Laden’s jihad front into the White House?”

“Impeachable Offenses” also reported that then-CIA director John Brennan announced the Obama administration was calibrating policies in the fight against terrorism to ensure Americans are never “profiled.”

His speech was arranged by a Muslim Brotherhood-tied group that has deep relations not only with other Brotherhood fronts but to the White House and national security agencies.

Brennan’s NYU session was organized by the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA. ISNA, whose members asked Brennan scores of questions during the event, stated the meeting was intended to initiate a “dialogue between government officials and Muslim American leaders to explore issues of national security.”

ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Saudi-funded Muslim Students Association, which itself was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood. The two groups are still partners.

ISNA is known for its promotion of strict Saudi-style Islam in mosques throughout the U.S.

Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz describes ISNA as “one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States.”

According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, ISNA “is a radical group hiding under a false veneer of moderation.”

[H/T WND]