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Mark Caserta: American lives overrule political correctness

17 Jun

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot editor

6.17.16

San Bern

Simply put, political correctness and a liberal misrepresentation of Islamophobia in our nation are costing lives.

Last week we sustained the worst mass shooting in our nation’s history. An Islamic gunman, wielding an assault-style weapon and handgun, reportedly opened fire on hundreds of innocent people killing dozens and injuring many more.

While authorities are investigating whether the attack was an act of domestic or international terror, there is little doubt the shooter was influenced by his radical Islamic roots. CNN reported the afternoon following the attack that the attacker called 911 to pledge allegiance to ISIS and mentioned the Boston Marathon bombers, according to a U.S. official.

Shortly following the attack, a friend asked me, “Mark, what do you think Obama will call this attack?”

Of course, my friend was alluding to Obama’s prior shameful reference to “workplace violence” as in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, or an act of violence committed by a “lone gunman,” as in the shooting deaths of four Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 2015.

“Anything but an attack from radical Islam,” I replied.

And true to form, following the attack, multiple news agencies including USA Today, reported President Obama calling the mass shooting in Orlando “an act of terror” and “an act of hate.”

No mention of Islam.

Interestingly, however, while the president made no mention of the shooter’s Islamic background, he was sure to identify the victims as being part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender culture.

I wonder how long before he blames the assault rifle and/or conservative “homophobe mentality” for the brutal attack.

But liberal libel and intellectual dishonesty aren’t going to protect our families from the threat of Islamic terrorism. Obama’s persistent refusal to admit innocent blood is being shed in the name of Allah should be troubling to all Americans.

And we all should be reminded, Hillary Clinton plans to carry on Obama’s failed Islamic foreign policy if elected.

It’s naive and otherwise blatantly ignorant to believe that simply refusing to call these extremists “Islamic terrorists” is going to save lives or in any way help fortify our relationship with Muslims around the world.

In fact, quite the opposite is happening. Our enemy is emboldened and prepared to bring the fight within the borders of the United States, as it was in Orlando.

To make matters worse, the president seems determined to exacerbate the problem by bringing thousands of un-vetted Syrian refuges to the U.S. Obama’s own FBI director James Comey told a House Committee on Homeland Security in 2015 that the federal government simply does not have the resources to conduct thorough background checks on all of the 10,000 Syrian refugees and exclude ISIS penetration.

America needs leadership willing to deliver a message of “shock and awe” to radical Islamic extremists around the world. Obama has proven he isn’t even willing to rattle his saber against Islamic terrorists, much less defeat them.

And we have no need of a president who values protecting the tenets of Islam over protecting the lives of Americans.

American lives matter.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: America is primary target for jihadists

1 Apr

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot Editor

4.1.16

More than once last week, I heard the analogy “Nero played while Rome burned” to describe the antics of President Obama in the wake of the brutal Islamic terrorist attack in Brussels, Belgium.

Following the attack, despite promptings to return from Cuba to the United States in a presidential display of leadership and support for the Belgium people, Obama chose to stay and attend an exhibition baseball game hours after the attack. The following evening he chose to dance the tango and sip champagne at a state dinner with his wife, Michelle.

Reportedly, at least 31 people were killed and hundreds injured in the attack.

In January 2014, Obama likened ISIS to the “J.V.” team.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a J.V. team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama told David Remnick of The New Yorker.

In a February 2015 interview with Vox’s Exra Klein and Matthew Yglesias, Obama charged the media with “absolutely” overstating the threat of “terrorism” compared to the threat of “climate change.”

During the exchange, Obama was asked “if the media sometimes overstates the level of alarm people should have about terrorism” as opposed to the problem of climate change.

“What’s the famous saying about local newscasts, right? If it bleeds, it leads, right?” Obama said. “You show crime stories and you show fires, because that’s what folks watch, and it’s all about ratings.”

Obama said stories relative to climate change just aren’t “sexy” enough for the media.

Nearly a year-and-a-half after the United States and its allies began confronting the Islamic State, Obama still didn’t have a strategy to defeat them. A June 2015 New York Times column written by Julie Davis and Michael Shear reported Obama acknowledging the fact at a news conference following the G7 Summit in Germany.

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“We don’t have, yet, a complete strategy, because it requires commitments on the part of Iraqis as well,” Mr. Obama said. “The details are not worked out.”

In February 2015, FBI Director James Comey warned that his agency was investigating suspected supporters of ISIS “in various stages of radicalizing” in every state across the U.S.

Failed leadership and an anemic response to the threat are enabling the return of the Islamic Caliphate and the rise of ISIS. Innocent people around the world are paying the price with their lives.

We know America is a primary target for radical jihadists. One has to wonder when a coordinated array of ISIS attacks will begin in the U.S.

And what our president is doing to prevent it.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: Americans just don’t feel safe any more

19 Dec

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Mark Caserta:  Free State Patriot Editor

 Dec 18, 2015

The irony of the liberal push for gun control is that the longer Barack Obama is president, the more Americans buy guns.

 

A recent column in the New York Times by Katie Rogers reported that gun bargains on Black Friday were a “big draw.” According to the column, the FBI was busy processing about two firearm background checks per second! It went on to say there have been a record number of background checks of people wanting to buy a firearm thus far in 2015, with more than 1.9 million background checks processed in the month of October alone.

Americans simply don’t feel safe anymore. On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I observed that the area was inundated with billboards and signs saying, “If you see something, say something!” I can’t recall our nation ever being so afraid of the threat of Islamic terrorism – even after 911. And they just don’t trust this administration to keep them safe.

 

Frankly, it’s the result of failed leadership. Barack Obama’s acumen as commander-in-chief truly pales in comparison to his predecessor.

Following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush had our nation on the offense within hours. He successfully rallied all Americans, regardless of political persuasion, in the war on terror. On the evening following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush wasted no time quickly identifying the attacks as acts of terror.

 

“Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature, and we responded with the best of America” Bush said. “Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government’s emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it’s prepared.”

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The president’s words were filled with hope and resolve. There was clarity in his determination to protect Americans and our way of life.

 

“Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest building, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.”

 

And he didn’t flinch when taking action to identify the enemy and execute a military plan.

 

“The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”

Many refuse to remember that President Bush had even garnered the support of Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Harry Reid in voting to authorize the use of military force in the war in Afghanistan, and all shared the same intelligence information.

 

But the only resolve and determination Barack Obama seems to have involve protecting his legacy. Every move is tainted by liberal ideology and no serious crisis is ever allowed to go to waste in propagating the progressive plan.

 

So just keep looking over your shoulder and indeed “say something” if you “see something.” And then hope there’s a good guy available with a gun.

 

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: Americans must be prepared for ISIS attack

11 Dec

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot Editor

  • 20 hrs ago

Not only have the feigned strategies of Barack Obama been ineffectual in deteriorating the might of the Islamic State, they have emboldened radical jihadists in bringing their savagery to the United States.

The recent attack in California where 14 people were heinously murdered at an office Christmas party was just a preview of what I believe is to come as a result of the failed policies of this administration. And it’s simply a slap in the face to all Americans that this president wallows in intellectual dishonesty by not even being able to admit we are at war with radical Islam.

San Bern

Americans must now begin preparing for threats against our citizens that we heretofore had primarily associated with Middle Eastern nations. FBI Director James Comey has already revealed he has ISIS-related investigations in all 50 states. I share the belief of many that this formidable presence is busy readying sleeper cells for a coordinated attack on the United States, perhaps at an even greater magnitude than we witnessed in Paris.

I recently received a social media “terror alert” with this warning about the Islamic State. “They will use your laws to get inside your country and then use your freedoms against you.” The nature of this alert, and the fact that it was urgently sent by an individual who has studied the intricacies of Islam for decades, was quite disturbing. Even more disturbing is that our own government appears lackadaisical in providing timely, truthful information to its citizens.

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Barack Obama seemingly places being an apologist for the Muslim faith above the safety of Americans. And he appears to value protecting the narrative that he has “ISIS on the run” beyond being truthful with the American people. His words lead one to believe he is either grossly negligent or dangerously incompetent in understanding the true nature of the threat we all now face.

 

Just one day before the brutal coordinated attacks in Paris, where at least 120 people were killed, President Obama said in an interview that ISIS was not growing stronger and was, in his words, “contained.”

 

“I don’t think they’re gaining strength,” Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “What is true, from the start our goal has been first to contain and we have contained them.”

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But just last week, the nation’s top military officer, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing a very conflicting report to that of President Obama.

“We have not contained ISIS,” reported General Dunford. In a column in “The Hill,” written by Kristina Wong, Dunford went on to say that ISIS has been “tactically” contained in areas but “strategically they have spread since 2010.”

 

And spread they have. The conversation about the tactics for fighting terrorism is no longer solely about “boots on the ground” or “the number of air attacks.”

 

It’s now about how do we prepare ourselves and local law enforcement for being able to proactively deal with an ISIS attack here at home.

 

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: Lone wolf attacks in US will escalate

23 Jul

We’re giving the enemy no reason to be afraid

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot Editor

Jul. 23, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

Last Thursday, five members of our military were viciously attacked by yet another Islamic extremist, this time on American soil. It should never have been allowed to happen.

The death toll climbed to five on Saturday as the Navy announced Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith, 24, died from his injuries. Smith was one of three people injured when Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez opened fire on two military recruitment centers, also killing four marines. Abdulazeez was later shot and killed by police.

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Remarkably, considering the times in which we live, none of these men was permitted to carry a firearm. But as the attack raises fresh concerns about vulnerability in “soft target” areas, the governors of several states could soon be arming military personnel in National Guard facilities to protect themselves and civilians if they are targeted.

And more Americans will be targeted. President Obama’s lack of will to acknowledge the enemy and respond with extreme prejudice has been duly noted by the Islamic State.

Yes, our walls have been scaled and the gates lowered.

I’m incensed at how this administration consistently has downplayed the threat of Islamic terrorism around the globe. In doing so, it has emboldened the Islamic State in the recruitment of lone wolf terrorists within the U.S. Obama’s methodology of telegraphing his impotent punches, migrant deadlines and lily-livered military strategies ostensively have changed the way America is viewed around the world.

Our enemies no longer fear us; our allies no longer trust us.

It’s indefensible that President Obama, our “commander-in-chief,” stood idly by and watched terrorist activity re-engage throughout the Mideast without surmising its ultimate impact on the U.S. The fact that he still doesn’t have a strategy to defeat ISIS is exacerbated by his “promise” to our enemies that he will never put American boots on the ground.

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Barack Obama’s notion that he could apologize and appease our enemies into “liking us” is naive beyond words. And his negotiation incompetence has conceded positions of strength that are prerequisite to success. Any negotiator will tell you that you must be willing to walk away from the table – perhaps many times. But Obama keeps bartering with movable lines in the sand and perpetually changing deadlines to the point no true leader, foreign or domestic, will ever take him seriously.

Now, as America wavers in the winds of liberal ideology, young, impressionable individuals are falling prey to the sinister tenets of radical Islam. While President Obama, whom I believe is sympathetic to the Muslim religion, refuses to concede the fact that we are engaged in a holy war, these evil, inspirited individuals will seek to bring America to her knees by spreading fear in the streets of U.S. cities.

There’s something uncommonly ominous about U.S. military being gunned down on American soil. It reeks of vulnerability anomalous to our country. And as this president propagates the narrative that these are random acts of domestic violence, we will most assuredly see more.

As Obama continues to protect his legacy, Americans are dying.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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