Monday, May 30, 2011

LIP SERVICE TO OUR TROOPS, OUR DISPOSSESSED BUT HOURS FOR GOLF!

Any wonder the troops have such little regard for Obama?

Token visit to Arlington then more golf.

Did anyone notice he was disgracefully chewing gum during the Joplin, Missouri

church service for those who had lost their lives and everything they owned?




Saturday, May 14, 2011

THE MALICIOUS Islamic PRETENDER/USURPER - WORTH REPEATING

According to this article no-one knew "Obama" at Columbia.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2365625/posts


"NOBODY REMEMBERS OBAMA AT COLUMBIA
(But heck, we're all just racist birthers...yea right! )

www.antimullah.com | 10/18/2009 | Alan Peters


Posted by kellynla


Looking for evidence of Obama's past, Fox News contacted 400 Columbia University students from the period when Obama claims to have been there, but none remembered him.


Wayne Allyn Root was, like Obama, a political science major at Columbia who also graduated in 1983. In 2008, Root says of Obama, "I don't know a single person at Columbia that knew him, and they all know me.


I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever! Nobody recalls him. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not kidding." Root adds that he was also, like Obama, "Class of '83 political science, pre-law" and says, "You don't get more exact or closer than that. Never met him in my life, don't know anyone who ever met him.


At the class reunion, our 20th reunion five years ago, who was asked to be the speaker of the class? Me.


No one ever heard of Barack! And five years ago, nobody even knew who he was. The guy who writes the class notes, who's kind of the, as we say in New York, the macha who knows everybody, has yet to find a person, a human who ever met him. Is that not strange?


It's very strange." Obama's photograph does not appear in the school's yearbook and Obama consistently declines requests to talk about his years at Columbia, provide school records, or provide the name of any former classmates or friends while at Columbia.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Allyn_Root#column-one  


NOTE: Root graduated as Valedictorian from his high school, Thornton-Donovan School, then graduated from Columbia University in 1983 as a Political Science major (in the same class as President Barack Obama WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN IN)"

Sunday, May 8, 2011

OBAMA BROTHER'S "CHARITY" COMING UNDER INVESTIGATION?

Another part of the Obama political and financial Criminal Enterprise being run out of the White House? To gather UNREPORTED election money? Pad their own pockets?


IRS Asked to Investigate Charity Run by Obama's Brother
NLPC  (National Legal and Policy Center) by Peter Flaherty


NLPC is asking the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate the Barack H. Obama Foundation [1], which is soliciting tax-deductible contributions from the public although it is not tax exempt. The Foundation is named for Obama's father and is apparently based in Kenya. Its founder and chairman is Abon'go Malik Obama (in photo), whose father is also the father of President Obama.


The Foundation has addresses in Kenya and in Arlington, Virginia [2] to which it asks that donations be sent. Two members of the NLPC staff went to the Arlington address on May 6. It is a commercial mail drop facility where the clerk touted the fact that the address "looked like a real office address" and the facility could arrange to forward mail to any location in the world.

Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein report today in the New York Post [3] that there are questions about what happens to the money:

A group of Missouri State college students who visited the Obama family village of Kogelo in 2009, and who met the president's half-brother, felt something was amiss. They sensed he was an "operator" and decided to give their donation of 400 pounds of medical supplies directly to a local clinic.


"We didn't know what he was going to do with them," said Ken Rutherford, a former Missouri State professor who led the trip and who shared in the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for his work to ban landmines.

The Foundation's original registered agent in the United States is an American named Alton Ray Baysden, who admitted to the Post that the group has not even applied for tax-exempt status.

As pointed out in our Complaint, federal law requires that organizations seeking to be 501(c)(3) tax-deductible charities must first make a successful application to the Internal Revenue Service and satisfy the standards ensuring the applicant would adhere to the requirements associated with operating a 501(c)(3).

Among the requirements following the certification of an applicant as a 501(c)(3), is the requirement that the group file an annual IRS Form 990 which sets forth income, expenditure, salary, consultant compensation and a host of other details which allow the public, the IRS and the media to assess whether the group is carrying out its obligations in an ethical and legal manner.

Since the Obama Foundation appears never to have applied for 501(c)(3) status and consequently never filed an IRS Form 990, these apparent violations of Federal tax law and regulations constitute grounds for an investigation and the application of sanctions, if appropriate.

Our Complaint asks the IRS to determine the following:

(1) How much money was raised since the Barack H. Obama Foundation began soliciting public donations?


(2) To what bank account(s) were such funds deposited?

(3) How many individuals relied upon the misrepresentations as to the tax-deductibility of donations to the Obama Foundation found on their web page and made improper deductions?

(4) Were the funds collected ever used for charitable purposes or were they diverted to personal use by anyone associated with the Obama Foundation?

(5) If there was such a diversion, was income tax paid by individuals for any such income received by the Obama Foundation through its mail drop operation in Arlington, Virginia?

(6) Were the representations of charitable activities made on the Obama Foundation web site just as false an inducement as the misrepresentations as to the groups 501(c)(3) status.


It is not known to what extent President Obama is approving, or is aware, of his half-brother's activities. In any case, the IRS must not give special treatment to the Obama Foundation.

•Abon'go Obama http://www.freerepublic.com/category/people/abongo-obama
•Barack H. Obama Foundation http://www.freerepublic.com/category/keywords/barack-h-obama-foundation
•Barack Obama http://www.freerepublic.com/category/people/barack-obama
•Government Integrity Project http://www.freerepublic.com/category/project-name/government-integrity-project

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Source URL: http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/05/08/irs-asked-investigate-charity-run-obamas-brother
Links:
[1] http://www.barackhobamafoundation.org/
[2] http://www.barackhobamafoundation.org/donate.html
[3] http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/prez_brother_has_trust_issues_8rW5Gm1Dl9DLb5bcLAhmLM#ixzz1LkrMnHkq





RARE PHOTO of  DAVID
 David Opiyo Obama (1968-1984), son of Barack H. Obama and baby brother of Abon'go Malik Obama.
---------------------------------------------------------------


 Barack Hussein Obama Sr., was killed in an automobile accident in 1982 leaving seven sons and one daughter, the mothers of whom are four.

All but one of his children live in Britain or the United States.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

OBAMA MAY HAVE UNLEASHED GHADDAFI ONTO THE USA

Alan Note: when President Reagan was in charge and bombed Ghaddafi, killling one of his CHILDREN, it pushed Ghaddafi into a conciliatory mind set. And he came out of the cold - as the spy expression indicates.


With Obama in charge it appears to be pointing into a different direction: REVENGE


 A whole bunch of embassies and foreign diplomatic missions were attacked and ransacked in retaliation.


Still to come: revenge by his TRIBE against the rebels and foreigners in general.


STILL TO COME on the horizon: terror and suicide bomb attacks on our malls and public places INSIDE THE USA and IED's on the sides of our freeways, if he is killed and there is no longer a restraining Libyan person in charge and his half dozen remaining sons or close relatives decide to wreak their vengeance.

PERHAPS starting with such attacks in European countries.


Let's see what the hawks like McCain and a mealy mouthed colleague, who are pushing for him to be assassinated will say when we get killed in our shopping centers or while driving on our highways.


The terrorists to do this are already in place all around the USA and Europe, so it is simply a matter or money being paid to them or their families in their countries of origin (which Ghaddafi still has in plentiful supply) and the contacts to put this into play.

==========================================

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Government forces pounded rebel-held cities and crowds ransacked empty embassies in Tripoli on Sunday after Libyan authorities reported a NATO airstrike killed one of longtime strongman Moammar Gadhafi's sons and three of his grandchildren.

The U.S. Embassy was attacked by what one U.S. official called an "organized mob," along with the British, French, Italian and Qatari embassies, British and Italian officials told CNN. Meanwhile, pro-Gadhafi forces stepped up their shelling of rebel positions in Misrata after Libya's government reported the deaths.

"It's going to be like revenge," one eyewitness in the embattled coastal city of Misrata said.

The eyewitness reported significant damage and some casualties in Misrata, the country's third-largest city. The city remains in rebel hands, with no forces aligned with Gadhafi remaining in the city itself, he said.

Another witness, who agreed to be identified only as Mohammed, said "very heavy shelling" targeted the coastal city's port.


"I have been here during all days of the conflict," he told CNN. "Last night was the worst."

And a third man, who wanted to be identified only as Abdsalam, said the port was heavily bombarded. Electricity is out in nearly the entire city, and food and fresh water are running scarce, he said.

"They are using every every possible type of weapon," he said.

The Libyan government said Sunday that Gadhafi's son, Saif al-Arab Gadhafi, and three grandchildren died in the strike that destroyed the son's home in Tripoli. The Libyan government identified the children as Saif al-Arab's sons Gartaj Hannibal Muammar al-Gadhafi, age 3, and 2-year-old Saif Mohammad al-Gadhafi, as well as Mastoura Hamid Abuzitaia, the daughter of the leader's daughter Aysha.

State TV aired video of two bodies, wrapped in white shrouds and draped with flags, one of which was reported to be the body of Gadhafi's son. A funeral procession and burial for the fallen "martyrs" will be held on Monday, state TV said.

The Libyan leader and his wife were in the house when it was targeted, but they are in good health, government spokesman Musa Ibrahim told journalists.

The building was in a residential area of Tripoli that houses several embassies. Ibrahim called the bombing a "war crime." The strike destroyed the two-bedroom, single-story house, leaving a massive crater in its place.

CNN could not independently confirm the reports, and NATO said in a statement Sunday that the alliance was "aware of unconfirmed media reports that some of Gadhafi's family members may have been killed."

"We regret all loss of life, especially the innocent civilians being harmed as a result of this ongoing conflict," said Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO's military operations. However, Bouchard said, all targets "are military in nature and have been clearly linked to the Gadhafi regime's systemic attacks on the Libyan population ... We do not target individuals."

But U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a leading supporter of the Libya campaign, called the elder Gadhafi a "murderer" and "a legitimate military target."

"He's not the legitimate leader of Libya, and the way to get this to end is to go after the people around him and his support system," Graham told "Fox News Sunday." The South Carolina Republican is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In Benghazi, a hub for rebel forces and their transitional government, the news triggered celebratory gunfire even as a rebel spokesman dismissed the reported death as "a desperate attempt to get sympathy."

"In all honesty, we never heard of Saif al-Arab until the start of the uprising," said Hafiz Ghoga, deputy chairman of the Transitional National Council in Benghazi, on Sunday.

"We don't believe this is true ... This regime constantly lies and keeps lying," he added.

Opposition members, citing witness reports, also warned that pro-Gadhafi troops in the town of Zintan, 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Misrata, and other nearby areas have been equipped with gas masks. The opposition figures say that suggests the government forces are preparing to use chemical weapons against rebel forces -- but the accounts lacked detail, and CNN could not independently confirm the reports.

Ibrahim dismissed the allegations as "all lies."

"Every time they come with a lie, they jump out to the next lie," he said. "The media cannot report from one side of reports. It is the same lie when they said we are using cluster bombs."

Human Rights Watch reported in mid-April that pro-Gadhafi troops were firing cluster munitions into Misrata and displayed a portion of a Spanish-made mortar shell that releases 21 smaller bombs across a wide area. The Libyan government denies the allegation.

Fighting also intensified Sunday near the rebel-held Djerba border crossing into Tunisia, witnesses and Tunisia's state news agency reported. The TAP news agency said the flow of refugees out of Libya had slowed, possibly as a result.

NATO began bombarding Libya on March 19, after the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution authorizing any means necessary to protect civilians demanding the end of Gadhafi's nearly 42-year rule. The alliance said it targeted a "command-and-control building" in Tripoli on Saturday, as well as hit seven ammunition depots around the capital.

According to a NATO military official, the airstrike that Libya says killed Gadhafi's son involved four precision-targeted bombs, one of which failed to detonate. The official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the alliance was certain the target was a command-and-control facility and said the building hit, although above ground, had reinforced portions.

The official said NATO had "no evidence" that Gadhafi's relatives had been killed.

A photograph of the site showed the unexploded bomb, a 2,000-pound weapon designed to penetrate reinforced concrete, but NATO would not confirm what other types of ordnance may have been dropped. Nor would it disclose which nation's aircraft carried out the strike, or what type of aircraft were used.

Libyan officials attacked the U.S. Embassy compound in Tripoli Sunday, as well as the British, French and Italian missions, according to a senior U.S. official in Washington. All four NATO nations are taking part in the airstrikes.

Mark Toner, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said he had seen reports of violence against the diplomatic facilities and that if true, "we condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms."

Italian officials told CNN that the embassy of Qatar, a Gulf Arab state that supports the campaign and is supplying arms to the rebels, was also targeted.

The senior U.S. official said Turkey, the protecting power for U.S. interests in Libya, is trying to keep an eye on the American compound -- but "there isn't much they can do when you have an organized mob, as this appeared to be."

In London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague expelled Libya's ambassador to the United Kingdom after the attacks. Hague said the Tripoli government is breaching its international obligation to protect diplomatic missions by allowing the vandalism.

"The attacks against diplomatic missions will not weaken our resolve to protect the civilian population in Libya," Hague said.

Ibrahim told CNN the attacks happened because "the people were upset" and that Libyan security forces stopped the attacks and prevented the embassies from being destroyed.

"There are embassies that have not been touched," he said.

Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said later the government deeply regrets the looting and violence at the embassies. Angry crowds simply overwhelmed police, he said.

In addition, 12 U.N. international staffers left Tripoli because of the unrest and are in Tunisia, the world body said Sunday. Spokeswoman Eri Kaneko said the United Nations would not identify the staffers or their agencies for safety reasons. U.N. national staffers are still in the country and international staffers remain in Benghazi.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen, Richard Roth, Barbara Starr, Elise Labott, Richard Allen Greene and Holly Yan contributed to this report.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

LIST OF INVITED TO OBAMA'S FUND RAISER (includes two Iranian names)

Obama’s $3 million S.F. dinner — the complete guest list.

TWO clearly Iranian names - both female - on the list. (Also "Shari" could be Iranian and short for Sharareh among some other possibilities)

Craig Newmark, Cissie Swig, Steve Westly and will.i.am each happily dropped $35,800 to dine with President Obama at billionaire Marc Benioff’s San Francisco home Wednesday evening. These are just some of the 85 famous names on the fundraiser’s guest list which was plainly visible to rubberneckers as attendees checked in. Combined, Obama’s take for the 90-minute event was a cool $3 million — or $3,043,000 to be exact (85 guests x $35,800 each).

The record-setting price tag for the dinner was part of Obama’s highly profitable fundraising swing through the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday, April 20.
A small cluster of onlookers — a few Obama fans, a few protesters, but mostly local residents who happened to pass by — watched and waited on the sidewalk at the intersection of Presidio and Pacific avenues for the President to arrive. While his motorcade was delayed for hours, a steady stream of well-dressed guests showed up and were let in one by one. Each name was checked on a master list of attendees held by a staffer who (unintentionally, one presumes) allowed nearby rubberneckers to get a glimpse of it as she flipped the pages.

The photographs below (use link at the end of the article) were taken of the fundraiser’s official guest list as the staffer checked the ID of each arrival. In total, 85 entries are visible on two different pages, though only about 50 of the names are fully legible.


Craig Newmark is the founder of craigslist and is a well-known internet entrepreneur. Cissie Swig is a wealthy philanthropist and a member of San Francisco’s famous Swig clan. Steve Westly is a California politician, candidate for governor, venture capitalist, and ardent Obama supporter. And will.i.am is a musician and producer, best known as the leader of the Black Eyed Peas.

Several other famous names are on the list. Readers interested in seeing who can afford to spend $35,800 for a 90-minute dinner can scan the photos below.

The full list of legible names is presented after the photos. (This short report will be followed by a more thorough photo essay soon.)

Here’s the only report I could find from a pool reporter allowed into the event. A snippet — yes, that really is the “Stevie Wonder” on the list!:

The press corps was ushered into a large tent set up in the courtyard in the middle of Benioff’s block-wide residence, to find Stevie Wonder entertaining the crowd; his final song was a new one composed for the occasion, entitled “Ten Billion Hearts,” about joining together to heal the world.

The President was seated at Benioff’s table; Wonder returned to sit at the President’s side as Benioff introduced POTUS, saying that in a time of many crises, “we have the right person to lead us here.” Recording artist Will.I.am was seated at the same table.


…and the rest seemed to be not much more than a boilerplate stump speech. But…will.i.am at the table of honor?



Denise Bauer
Russell Benioff
Joelle Benioff
Lynne Benioff
Marc Benioff
Jan Birenbaum
Larry Birenbaum
Zachary Bogue
Brian Buenneke
Kelly Bulkeley
Jon Burgstone
Lee Christensen
Ron Conway
Frank Currie
Stephen Davis
Quinn Delaney
Michelle Douglas
Alec Douglas
Jake Douglas
Becky Draper
Leni Eccles
Tawnie Farmer
Jerry Fiddler
Denise Foderaro
Rufus Gifford
Cindy Goldberg
Evan Goldberg
Lisa Goldman
Doug Goldman
Matthew [Goldman]
J… [Goldman]
M… Goldman
Jim Greenberg
Eric [Green]
Lee Greenberg
Bob Gregory
[Colleen Haas]
Doug [Haas]
Drew [Hickory]
Wayne Houston
Jon Jordan
Tony Kap…
John
Terry
Lee
Steve
Katherine

M…
M…
Craig Newmark

Lisa O…
Rafael O…
Renuka P…
Frank Q…
Azita R…(IRANIAN NAME)
Lorna R…
Andy R…
Deborah R…
Peter R…
Sandy R…
Jeanne R…
Mendel R…
Autumn S…
John [Scully]
Regina [Scully]
Steve Spinner
Garen Staglin

Noosheen Hashemi (IRANIAN NAME)

Shari Staglin
Jeremy Stoppelman
Jon Streeter
Cissie Swig
Ronald Taylor
Sandi Thompson
Ellen Thrower
Jeff Ubben
Raju Vegesna
Bala Vegesna
Steve Westly
Stevie Wonder
Pegi Young
will.i.am

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/04/21/obamas-3-million-s-f-dinner-the-complete-guest-list/ 

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

NOT SO "FAIR" WHEN "YOUR" EFFORT RESULT IS REDISTRIBUTED

Give up some of your GPA scores to less successful students! Just like taking away money from successful people to give away to those who are less so or just lazy.

See how different it seems to students when approached with that concept. Give away the fruit of THEIR studying and scores? NOT so fair!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

IRAQ IGNORES AMERICA, BOWS TO IRANIAN PRESSURE

By Rania Abouzeid

For years, Iraq’s increasingly pro-Iranian government has threatened to evict the 3,400 Iranian members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a fiercely anti-Tehran group, from its sprawling former military base at Camp Ashraf, some 40 miles (65 km) from Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and 50 miles (80 km) from the Iranian border. Despite the heated rhetoric, however, Baghdad has never fully articulated how it will uproot the exiles — who refuse to leave their decades-old enclave — beyond saying it will not forcibly do so. That has now been given the lie, after an Iraqi military raid on the base last week left some 34 people dead and dozens (some 300) wounded, according to the U.N.

The dead include at least seven women, according to Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Most of those killed appear to have been shot. However, several suffered other types of injuries that would suggest they were hit by vehicles,” he told TIME from Geneva. “It has been extremely difficult to gain access to the camp, and many details about the exact circumstances surrounding this tragedy remain unknown at this point. The Iraqi authorities and the [MEK] are giving wildly differing accounts.”

The Iraqi military, which rings the perimeter of the 19-sq.-mi. (49 sq km) camp, denies using firearms and says only three residents were killed — when they threw themselves in front of military vehicles. Major General Ali Ghaidan, commander of Iraqi ground forces, told a group of reporters briskly bused to the vicinity of (but not into) Camp Ashraf that violence broke out after security forces sought to give parts of the camp back to farmers who allegedly owned it before Iraq’s then dictator Saddam Hussein gave the land to the MEK in the 1980s. He insisted that only batons and water cannons were used. Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh sought to explain the shooting deaths by telling Agence France-Presse that “the dead were killed by their own guards because they were trying to escape.”

“The Iraqi military were well aware of the risks attached to launching an operation like this in Ashraf,” said Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement. “There is no possible excuse for this number of casualties. There must be a full, independent and transparent inquiry, and any person found responsible for use of excessive force should be prosecuted.”

Shahriar Kia, an MEK representative in Camp Ashraf, said the attack started before dawn and involved “armored vehicles, commando forces, motorized, engineering and antiriot forces, with the help of police and rapid-deployment forces.” “The attack lasted more than seven hours,” he told TIME from Iraq on Friday, April 15. The Iraqi forces continue to occupy the northern part of the camp, he said, adding that he fears they are preparing another attack. (See “Iraq’s Assault on Camp Ashraf: The Tenuous Life of a Fringe Iranian Faction.”)

The camp is a major irritant to Baghdad’s ties with Tehran and is perhaps one of the strangest holdovers from the dramatic shift in relations between Iraq, its once bitter foe Iran and their former and current mutual enemy the United States. The MEK, which is also known by the acronym MKO and by the name the People’s Mujahedin, was given Camp Ashraf by Hussein during his bitter eight-year war with neighboring Iran. He funded and armed the group, which launched attacks on Iran from Iraq.

Although the camp was disarmed in 2003 by the U.S. military, both Baghdad and Washington consider the MEK a terrorist organization. Washington has blacklisted the group for its attacks against U.S. interests in the 1970s and ‘80s. Iraqi officials have frequently said the Iranian exiles are “illegal aliens” with no legal right to remain in the country and that they must travel to either Iran or another country. They have repeatedly warned that they will close the camp, which was under U.S. military protection until 2009, when responsibility was transferred to Iraq under a comprehensive bilateral agreement. Deadlines for closing Camp Ashraf have come and gone. This week Iraq said the group must leave the country by the end of the year.

Camp Ashraf, with its gender-segregated dormitories, manicured lawns, flower beds and tree-lined streets, is the only home many of the residents have known. The MEK maintains firm control over its members, preventing them from marrying and restricting or preventing contact with family elsewhere. (See “Humanitarian Intervention: Whom to Protect, Whom to Abandon.”)

The standoff is unlikely to end well or soon, given that the MEK won’t even consider relocating within Iraq (the government wants to move the group away from the Iranian border), let alone overseas, unless strict (and some say unrealistic) conditions are met. Kia, the MEK representative, says the group will consider returning to Iran if “freedom of speech and political activities are guaranteed,” an impossibility for a group determined to bring down Tehran’s clerical leaders. “The second option is to transfer all of the residents to the U.S. or one of the E.U. member states,” he says.

In his statement, U.N. commissioner Pillay said, “I am well aware that this is a contentious group with a complicated history, but leaving them to fester in Camp Ashraf was never going to be a solution. Clearly, since they are unable to go back to Iran and are in danger in Iraq, the solution is most likely to involve moving them to third countries. I urge governments to take the necessary pragmatic and generous steps to resolve what is an untenable situation.”

The recent raid wasn’t the first instance of bloodshed between the Iraqi military and the camp’s residents since the U.S. handed over responsibility for it, but it was the most serious. In mid-2009, Iraqi security forces briefly tried to wrench control of the MEK base from its leaders after the Iraqis were denied a request to establish a police station inside the camp. At least six residents were killed and dozens wounded in the ensuing clashes. Things can rapidly devolve into violence once again, given growing Iraqi frustration with the organization, whose members exhibit a cultlike obedience and willingness to sacrifice themselves for their cause. (See pictures from the Fars News Agency in Iran.)

The MEK’s slick and efficient p.r. machine is well primed to exploit the situation. It has a ready list of European and American political figures eager to defend it (and who are looking for reasons to argue against its terrorist designation in the U.S.). These include former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former National Security Adviser General James Jones and former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. After a legal battle, the E.U. removed the organization from its terrorist list in 2009; the U.K. did so in 2008.

While the U.N. continues to try to determine the details of this most recent raid, the rhetoric continues to be ratcheted up by both sides. “The crime committed by [Iraqi Premier Nouri al-]Maliki and the Iranian regime clearly indicates Maliki’s filthy intention to satisfy Tehran’s mullahs, to whom he owes his renewed premiership,” Kia says. Things are unlikely to calm down anytime soon.