Sen. Ted Cruz WASHINGTON – "This is why we keep losing," the man who would be president told WND. And then he sighed. That was the response of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to Mitt Romney's personal attack on him Thursday, and, although it was a searing observation, he said it softly, almost sounding as though it…
From the Time 2 Escape EditorOn March 26 and May 8 authorities searched shipping containers connected to a company called Herz Enterprises, finding 152 guns and thousands of rounds of ammo hidden inside shipments of Bobcat skid loaders.
Law enforcement officials at Midamar, 1105 60th Avenue SW, during a federal investigation in southwest Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday, May 12, 2015.
(Photo: Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
The hearing shed new light on the DHS investigation into the family, revealing that Ali Herz reportedly confessed after his arrest Tuesday to organizing two shipments of guns to Lebanon in 2014 and another in 2015.
Special agent Daniel Tigges testified that Herz said in an interview that he expected after the third shipment that the group would have netted $380,000 from the smuggling operation.
Tigges said Herz claimed he took half the profits and split the rest with his son, Adam, and brother, Bassem.
"He admitted that he knew it was wrong to ship guns out of the country," he said.
By Grant Rogers, The Des Moines Register
May 15, 2015, 10:39 p.m. EDT
From USATODAYcom
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The eldest of four Cedar Rapids family members accused of smuggling firearms into Lebanon is a Hezbollah sympathizer who met with reported members of the terrorist group during a trip abroad, federal agents testified Friday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Murphy called six witnesses to paint Ali Afif Al Herz as loyal to the Lebanese-based Shiite militant and political organization. The United States has classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Murphy intended the testimony from agents with the Department of Homeland Security and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to persuade Chief Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles to keep Herz, 50, in county jail while awaiting trial on charges that he and three other family members tried to smuggle hundreds of guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition into Lebanon, hiding it in storage containers.
Clockwise from top left, Adam Ben Ali Al Herz, 22; Ali Afif Al Herz, 50; Sarah Majid Zeaiter, 24 ; and Bassem Afif Herz, 29.
(Photo: Special to the Register)
Defense lawyer Anne Laverty accused Murphy of using "distraction and fear tactics" with no supporting evidence that ties Herz to any terrorist group. Herz came to the United States in 1984 for college and gave up on religion after watching decades of strife in Lebanon and the Middle East, she said.
~~~ READ MORE at USATODAY.com ~~~
By Nicholas Contompasis Friday, December 25, 2009 Today, Al Qaeda, from Yemen authorized an attack on America by attempting to blow up a US air carrier. A 23 year old Abdul Mutallab also known as Umar Farouk Abdulmutalib was apprehended by a passenger while he was attempting to ignite a liquid explosive. He is now with U.S. authorities being questioned. The White House finally has admitted that this is a terrorist attack. Of course this can’t be, since we no longer have a war on terror and any actions such as today’s is called something more mundane. This seems to be a retaliatory strike against America, after last week’s attacks on Al Qaeda training camps in Yemen killing dozens of terrorists. I feel that this is just the beginning of many smaller attacks against American interests. It is general knowledge that there are thousands of Muslim terrorists out there that will sacrifice their lives for this distorted religion. This person was on a terror watch list but did get through by boarding at a foreign airport destine for Detroit. READ FULL STORY >
By Jerome Corsi Posted: December 16, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 In a reference to my book "Why Israel Cant Wait: The Coming War Between Israel and Iran," Meir Javedanfar wrote on the Huffington Post, "Dr. Corsi, together with former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, belongs to a cadre of American Republicans who have taken it upon themselves to champion an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear installation as the only viable solution to the Iranian nuclear conundrum." "Why Israel Can't Wait" predicts that a war between Iran and Israel is imminent, but it does not recommend a war. Clearly, Javedanfar fails to appreciate the distinction between predicting a war and advocating a war. He suggests that marginalized and frustrated right-wingers "want to desperately see" a failure of President Obama's policies, at home and abroad, "as a vindication for their own policies and worldview." Again, Javedarfur fails to appreciate the difference between predicting President Obama's policies at home and abroad will fail and wanting those policies to fail. In "Why Israel Can't Wait," I predicted President Obama's policy of negotiating directly with the Ahmadinejad regime would fail because Iran would game the negotiations, just as Iran has done for years, if not decades. I further predicted in "Why Israel Can't Wait" that President Obama would not obtain meaningful additional sanctions through the United Nations because of Russia and China's support for Iran. Now that Lebanon has been voted onto the Security Council, the reality is that Hezbollah will block any adverse action that body contemplates in the form of more onerous sanctions applied against Iran. In authoring two books on Iran during the Bush administration and in scores of radio and television interviews, I have argued consistently that peaceful regime change from within is by far the best solution to stopping Iran's nuclear-weapons program. In June, when thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Tehran to protest the fraudulent re-election of President Ahmadinejad, President Obama once again failed to act in a way that produced positive policy results. Never did Obama demand new presidential elections in Iran to be held under meaningful international inspection. READ FULL STORY >
Jewish state can't afford to stand by while D.C. talks about talkingBy Jerome R. Corsi Posted: October 10, 2009 ~ 12:30 am Eastern © 2009 WorldNetDaily This is the seventh excerpt exclusive to WND from WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi's new book "Why Israel Can't Wait: The Coming War Between Israel and Iran," available from WND Books. Ironically, Obama's weakness in supporting the Iranian post-election street demonstrators makes it more likely Israel will now seriously consider launching a preemptive strike on Iran. U.S. negotiations with Iran could now easily take years; the Iranians could easily take a year simply to talk about talking. With the rapid progress Iran is making on its nuclear program, Israel does not have an indefinite time for the United States to resolve the nuclear conflict with Iran. On Tuesday, June 2, 2009, air-raid sirens rang out throughout Israel in Israel's largest-ever civil-defense exercise, code-named "Turning Point 3." On a cloudless day along the Mediterranean beaches in Tel-Aviv, a drill was conducted in which school children were instructed to "duck and cover" under their desks. "Clearly, the drill stimulated the most extreme scenario facing Israel at this point in time – a war on multiple fronts, with Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah projectiles, some of them unconventional, raining down on the state," the Jerusalem Post wrote. Yet, the paper quoted an unnamed "senior defense official" who denied the test had anything to do with a planned Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran and the missile retaliation Iran and her surrogate allies would hurl at Israel in return. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]
Alarm grows as recruiting rises, operatives smuggled in Posted: October 09, 2009 ~ 12:00 am Eastern By Michael Carl © 2009 WorldNetDaily The next al-Qaida attack on the United States could come from within, with recruiting for jihadists on the rise and the terror organization continuing to smuggle operatives across international borders, experts confirm. The recent arrests of terror suspects in Denver, where Najibullah Zazi is suspected of trying to orchestrate an attack on New York City, reveals just how imminent is the danger. In another new case, Hosam Smadi was arrested for allegedly trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper. Authorities allege he planted a bomb and tried to ignite it, but there was no damage because the device was faked by undercover FBI agents posing as members of an al-Qaida sleeper cell. Terror analyst and scholar Brigitte Gabriel reports that al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood actively are recruiting operatives in the United States and Canada. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]
By Ellis Washington Posted: September 26, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009
President Obama gave the worst anti-Israel speech of any American president I can remember. ~ John Bolton, Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. The speech was good and positive for Israel and for moving the peace process forward. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of IsraelHow can Bolton and Netanyahu, two seemingly rational, educated and intellectual men hear President Obama's U.N. speech Wednesday and come to such diametrical opposite conclusions? Both men proudly claim that they are conservatives; both men claim that they believe in a strong, independent, defensible Israel with an indivisible capital at Jerusalem. Answer: One man is a statesman like Sir Winston Churchill; the other is a politician, an appeaser like Neville Chamberlain. Obama's speech was delivered with the dispassionate indifference of a man who was handed a speech others wrote for him and loaded into his teleprompter for him to read like a robot, yet the devil is always in the details. Here are some of the highlights of Obama's U.N. speech:The time has come to relaunch negotiations – without preconditions – that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem. …This paragraph could just as easily been written by Col. Moammar Gadhafi who ranted and raved for 100 minutes before the U.N. assembly and affectionately called President Obama "my brother." Obama's U.N. speech could have been written by a whole host of enemies of Israel – Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinians; Khaled Mashal, the Gaza leader of the terrorist organization Hamas; Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah terrorist group occupying Lebanon. What does Obama mean by "the time has come to relaunch negotiations"? This guy is such a narcissist that he thinks whenever he does something, like trying to broker a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians, that he is the first leader to attempt it. Every U.S. president since Harry Truman in the late 1940s have in one way or another tried and failed to "relaunch" peace in the Middle East. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]
By Frank DeMartini President Obama has left the United States for a foreign trip that includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France and Germany. Unfortunately, a stop in Israel is not included. Why? With increasing rhetoric, Mr. Obama and his administration seem to be leaving Israel in the cold and partnering up with Israel’s Arab enemies at the same time that he is not taking the threats of North Korea seriously.In the past few weeks, President Obama has told Israel that it must now accept a two state solution to the Palestinian problem, and just yesterday, he told Ehud Barak that Israel must stop all growth in the West Bank settlements. Further, the President has taken the position that Iran may continue its nuclear programs provided that it intends only to pursue nuclear energy and not nuclear weapons, in contravention of Israeli wishes. What is going on here? Does the President believe that by kissing up to our enemies; i.e. Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Radical Islam, that he is going to make all of the problems of the world go away? Does he believe that by allowing Israeli/US relations to go by the wayside, he is going to make Al Qaeda disappear? I think not. In fact, yesterday another tape of Osama bin Laden appeared condemning the United States for backing the Pakistani military in taking on the Taliban. The tape made it clear that President Obama was no different from President Bush in bin Laden’s eyes and that the blood of Muslims and retribution for their deaths would be on Obama’s hands. The War on Terror is not over regardless of what President Obama wants to call it, and based upon the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is about to escalate. And, the Israel/Arab situation will not get any better as a result. [Continue reading]
Threatens to wipe out leadership in Syria, Gaza if rockets continue By Aaron Klein © 2009 WorldNetDailydigg story, submitted by dmzrnTEL AVIV, Israel – Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu – leading by a wide margin ahead of next week's prime ministerial elections – has secretly issued a stern warning to Hamas that if its rocket campaign continues once he's in power, he will not hesitate to eliminate the terror group's leadership in both the Gaza Strip and Syria, WND has learned. The warning is particularly strong, since Hamas' leadership in Syria is protected by the Damascus regime. Israel traditionally shies away from threatening attacks on Syrian soil. The Jewish state took great care during its 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon to not strike targets too close to the Syrian border for fear of bringing Damascus into the conflict. One year later, though, Israel targeted a nascent Syrian nuclear reactor being built with aid from North Korea. According to both Israeli and Palestinian sources intimately familiar with the threats, Netanyahu this week conveyed a secret message to Hamas through a third Arab party in which he stated he will undoubtedly be Israel's prime minister next week. Netanyahu's message warned if Hamas' terrorist attacks continue from Gaza, he could target its top leaders in both Gaza and Syria even if such actions would result in a confrontation with Syria. [Continue reading]
digg story, submitted by WiIlKernFor those interested in seeing Iran’s coverage of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s demand for an apology from the Obama Administration for past American policy toward his nation, we have packaged the text from the state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting along with the video and translation of his comments. [Continue reading at WorldMeets.us]
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