Sep 22, 2017
Jeopardy! Season 2017 - Episode 160: TBA, Lauren Cusitello, Ivan Plis AirDate: September 22nd, 2017, 07:00 PM
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Jeopardy! Season 2017 - Episode 160: TBA, Lauren Cusitello, Ivan Plis AirDate: September 22nd, 2017, 07:00 PM
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Pope Francis Gave An Amazing Unscripted Speech On The Gift Of Family
By Ivan Plis
With the energy and heart of a spry grandfather, Pope Francis declared family “the most beautiful thing that God made” in Philadelphia Saturday evening.
Though he came to the World Meeting of Families with a prepared script, he did not read more than a few sentences of his planned remarks. Instead, he spent some 15 minutes speaking “from the heart,” as his his preference in lower-pressure, friendlier surroundings — only this time, the in-person audience numbered somewhere around 1 million. (RELATED: Pope Francis Talks Jesus, The Devil And Immigration At A Harlem School)
Francis’ message was the pinnacle of the weeklong Meeting, an international conference promoting the Catholic Church’s vision of the family that is held every three years. After hearing testimonies from families in different situations from around the world, and watching performances by musicians and dancers, the pope began by thanking them for the beauty of what they had done.
“Beauty is good,” he told those in attendance. Speaking through his ever-present translator Msgr. Mark Miles, he explained: “All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful leads us to God. Because God is good, God is beautiful, God is true.” (RELATED: Pope Francis Met Little Sisters Of The Poor In Quiet Protest Of Obamacare)
He went on to tell the story of a child who once asked him (“you know how kids ask difficult questions”) what God did when he existed before the creation of the world. His response, after some thought, was, “before creating the world, God loved! Because God is love.”
Francis went on to eloquently summarize Catholic teaching on creation and the family: God’s love “was so big” that he created the world “to share that love with something outside of himself.” In his view, “the most beautiful thing that God made … was the family.”
After all, he asked, “where did [God] send his son? To a palace? To a city? To a company? No, he sent him to a family!” (RELATED: At Lunch With Homeless (Not Congress), Pope Francis Highlights Jesus’ Poverty)
The pope recognized that some could consider his optimism about the family groundless, since he is celibate. So he was quick to acknowledge the difficulties that can emerge in family life. “We can get in fights. Sometimes plates go flying. Children bring headaches.” He cracked a broad smile as he quipped, “and I won’t speak about mother-in-laws!”
Despite these difficulties, Francis hailed the family as an integral element of any society, especially from generation to generation. “A people that doesn’t know how to look after children or grandparents is a people that has no future,” he said, “because it doesn’t have strength or the memory to go forward.”
Likewise his final message to the assembled faithful: “Let’s look after the family, let’s protect the family, because it’s there that our future is!”
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Republished with permission–The Daily Caller Foundation: http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/
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Pope Francis Simplifies Rules For Ending Church Marriages
By Ivan Plis
The Vatican Tuesday announced changes to the Catholic Church’s rules for obtaining a marriage annulment, citing “concern for the salvation of souls.”
The Church does not recognize divorce under any circumstances. But Catholics can obtain an annulment, a Church ruling that their marriage was not valid, after a church court considers traditional criteria such as fraud or “defect of intent.” Without an annulment, Catholics who divorce and remarry are considered unfaithful to their first marriage, and therefore prohibited from receiving Communion.
In many places, the Catholic process for obtaining an annulment can be complex, difficult and expensive. So Tuesday’s new church laws governing the annulment process allow for the fast-tracking of separations in which both spouses agree to the conditions.
Pope Francis said Tuesday that streamlining the annulment process was a major concern for many Catholic bishops at the Synod on the Family, a gathering which took place last October. The changes will go into effect Dec. 8, the start of a yearlong commemorative period called the “Year of Mercy.” (RELATED: What Pope Francis Did And Didn’t Say About Forgiving Abortion)
The new rules no longer require an automatic appeal. That is, for a couple to bring their annulment before two separate church courts, in what Pope Francis called “cases of moral certainty” — just one court ruling will do. And if there is an appeal, rather than taking their case all the way to the Vatican, the couple must simply approach the nearest archdiocese.
Catholic dioceses in the U.S. today can charge up to $1,000 dollars for an annulment. To avoid the obstacle of cost, the Vatican has also said annulments will be free of charge. Pope Francis said the change was to emphasize that “the Church is a generous mother,” echoing the theme of divine mercy within the boundaries of the Church that has been consistent in his papacy. (RELATED: Contraception, Gays, Fornication: Polls Show Shift In US Catholic Pop)
Pope Francis technically unveiled two separate laws Tuesday, one for the Roman Rite which governs the vast majority of Catholics, and another for the various Eastern Catholic churches which recognize the pope’s authority. At the press conference announcing the changes, Greek Catholic bishop Dimitrios Salachas said the move was inspired by the comparatively simpler rules for divorce in the Orthodox Church.
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The 5 Biggest Winners Of Obama’s Big Nuke Deal — Aside From Iran
By Ivan Plis
Critics of the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, announced Tuesday, say that lifted sanctions will open dangerous new sources of funding for Iran’s government.
But the Iranian government won’t be alone in benefiting from the newly released funds — at least $150 billion — which were previously quarantined by international sanctions. Here are some of the other nasty actors who will be strengthened by the influx of cash to Iran.
Republished with permission–The Daily Caller Foundation: http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/
1. Russia
Among the six international powers that negotiated this week’s agreement with Iran, Russia was Iran’s staunchest ally. For years, President Vladimir Putin has enjoyed friendly relations with Iran as a relatively exclusive partner for trade and defense. The two countries share a tough rhetorical stance against Islamic State, are aggressive energy exporters, and are resistant to what they see as hostility from the United States. (RELATED: How Obama Paved The Way To Russian Missiles In Iran)
As a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Russia was always the gatekeeper to a final western deal with Iran. And with Iran newly open to certain world markets, Russia will be uniquely positioned to gain from the influx of Western investment in the country.
2. Syria
President Bashar Assad sent a congratulatory telegram to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hours after the deal was announced on Tuesday. Iran has poured billions of dollars into propping up Assad’s government, which continues to torture and kill civilians in attempts to outlast the increasingly radicalized opposition.
Recent reports claimed that four years into the Syrian civil war, Iran’s support for Assad was flagging. The injection of previously withheld Iranian assets back into the economy may lead to a reinvigorated Iranian push in support of Assad. Which leads to the next big winner…
3. Hezbollah
The Iranian-backed Lebanese militia has continued to exert force across Lebanon’s border with Syria. Hezbollah — which also controls seats in the Lebanese parliament continues to attempt attacks on Israeli territory — has openly participated in the Syrian civil war on the side of Assad’s government. (RELATED: Iraq’s Anti-ISIS Campaign’s Name Is Also A Hezbollah Slogan)
And Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s covert general who enjoys a larger-than-life reputation in the Western media, has been linked to other Iranian proxies in Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. With fewer restrictions on Iranian officials’ travel, Soleimani and less high-profile security agents will likely attempt to increase Iran’s profile in the region.
4. Hamas
Though it has faced threats by ISIS’ upstart jihadi brand, Hamas is still the predominant force in the Palestinian terrorist cause. It has also received direct and indirect Iranian support over the years. As the Hamas-run Gaza Strip stagnates under Israeli embargoes and blockades, and its rivalry with the Palestine Liberation Organization is the worst it’s been in years, Hamas may find itself continuing to turn to Iran for support.
5. European energy companies
Wait, what? As some restrictions on trade and investment in Iran are lifted, German and French firms are seeking to return some of their business to the long-isolated country. Iran’s sizable oil reserves will requires significant outside help to reach their full potential, and plenty of companies will race to profit from the sudden market gap.
Iran is reportedly looking for energy-sector investment from East Asia as well. With American companies slower to jump into the fray, a fresh Iranian business environment may give European firms an edge in the global oil market.
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Did Nigeria Just #BringBackOurGirls?
By Ivan Plis
Nigeria’s military announced Tuesday that it had rescued a group of 200 girls and 93 women from territory controlled by Boko Haram in the country’s northeast.
Republished with permission–The Daily Caller Foundation: http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/
It did not confirm whether they included the girls from Chibok village who captured global attention in April 2014, of whom 219 are still missing. The Nigerian Armed Forces’ official Twitter account merely posted that “the freed persons are now being screened and profiled.” (RELATED: Boko Haram’s ISIS Pledge Brings Jihadi Power Struggle To Africa)
The women were rescued in the Sambisa Forest, an 23,000-square-mile territory that has been a Boko Haram refuge for years. The operation that liberated them also “captured and destroyed 3 terrorists [sic] camps,” according to Nigeria’s military.
Though the Chibok kidnapping was especially high-profile, it has been a small portion of the violence visited on Nigeria by Boko Haram. The group has also (RELATED: Boko Haram Carries Out Second-Bloodiest Terror Attack In Modern History)
Tuesday’s news also came among reports of a freshly discovered mass grave near the edge of Boko Haram’s domain, where hundreds of bodies were left to rot after the jihadi group rampaged through the town of Damasak. Boko Haram had kidnapped 400 women and children from Damasak last month.
The Islamists’ continuing stronghold on Nigeria’s northeastern corner is far removed from the majority of the country’s 173 million inhabitants. But its threat loomed over Nigeria’s recent election, in which incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan turned over power to Muhammadu Buhari, a former general who was the country’s head of state in the 1980s. Buhari campaigned in opposition to Jonathan’s underwhelming record in routing out Boko Haram.
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*Featured image: Boko Haram
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Christians, Atheists Still Under Blasphemy Threat In New Egypt
By Ivan Plis
Despite Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s insistence that Islam must undergo a “revolution” and resist extremism, his government continues to prosecute blasphemy cases at roughly the same rates as his predecessors.
Republished with permission–The Daily Caller Foundation: http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/
Recent reports have noted that prosecutions have especially increased in the last half-year against atheists, who often face accusations of apostasy from Islam or of associated moral offenses. Just weeks before Sisi gave his January 2015 speech on the political role of Islam, a government-endorsed religious organization announced that there were exactly 866 atheists in Egypt, a claim that many actual unbelievers dismissed as unimaginably specific and far too low. (RELATED: Atheism On The Rise In The Arab World)
Egypt’s constitution recognizes Islam as the state religion. But Sisi has made a point of distancing himself from unstable and potentially violent Muslims, echoing the country’s pre-revolutionary authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak. And just like presidents who preceded the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Sisi has sidelined the Muslim Brotherhood and other unfavorable groups by trying to beat them at their own game.
Foreign Policy this week quoted Ishak Ibrahim, an Egyptian researcher who noted that while cases against blasphemy declined briefly after Sisi’s summer 2014 ouster of Brotherhood-backed president Mohamed Morsi, “by the second half of 2014 they were at the same level as before.” (RELATED: Egypt Sentences Deposed President Morsi To 20 Years)
Meanwhile, rumors in rural Egypt that a Christian insulted Islam or Muhammad often turn into lawsuits. These cases have also held steady, and sometimes accumulated additional charges against the defendant. Demiana Abdel-Nour, a Christian schoolteacher who fled Egypt after paying a fine during Morsi’s rule, saw her verdict under Sisi increase to a jail sentence. The allegation was that she defamed Islam during a lesson, a charge that her own students denied.
Other Egyptian Christians, atheists and Shiite Muslims have been ostracized from public life for actions as simple as making a post on Facebook about their beliefs. Ibrahim, the human rights researcher, described in an article Thursday how an elderly Shiite, Mahmoud Dahroug, is confined to his home lest he be arrested for the crime of belonging to his sect, which earned him a 5-year prison sentence.
In another case, Christian Michael Mounir Beshay remains in government custody for sharing a video online — not about Christianity, but showing a Muslim cleric discussing an unusual aspect of Islam. (RELATED: Egypt And US Christians Declare ISIS Victims ‘Martyrs’)
President Sisi has much to gain from claiming Islamic legitimacy, and from attempts to protect a Christian population that faces grave persecution elsewhere in the region. After twenty-one Egyptian Christians were beheaded on camera in neighboring Libya by Islamic State militants, he vowed to “punish these murderers.” But his government’s continuing record of excess against unconventional believers means that his credibility still has a way to go.
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*Featured Image: Jailed Atheist Alber Saber
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5 Ways The Iran Deal Could Go Sour, And One Sign Of Hope
By Ivan Plis
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As Americans and Iranians weigh the consequences of the draft nuclear agreement announced Thursday, a number of its provisions remain under close scrutiny. In the first full day since its announcement, Iranian and American authorities are already presenting conflicting interpretations of its rules.
Where could the tentative agreement fall through before its final deadline on June 30, and is there any chance of saving it before then?
Republished with permission–The Daily Caller Foundation: http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/
1. Nobody knows how or when sanctions will go away
One of the chief factors that kept Iranian officials at the table was the promise of relief from sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy since 1979. Ordinary Iranians are suffering economically and feel their country has been humiliated in front of the world.
In efforts to convince their respective citizens that an agreement is worthwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani have taken very different stances on the timeline for relief of these sanctions.
Sanction removal “will be phased as Iran takes steps to adhere to the deal,” Obama said in public remarks Thursday.
Meanwhile, Rouhani declared Friday that “on the day that the agreement comes to force, all economic, banking sanction and all resolutions against Iran will be lifted.” (RELATED: Negotiators Announce Plan For 10-Year Iranian Nuclear Restrictions)
Contrary to both, the European Union’s summary states that U.S. economic sanctions on Iran will be lifted once the International Atomic Energy Agency verifies Iran’s compliance with the deal’s initial terms. As the existing sketches of a deal become set in stone by late June, the two countries at its center must come to terms about when these sanctions roll back.
2. We also don’t know how sanctions return if violation of the agreement occurs
Obama has pledged that sanctions would automatically “snap back” into place if Iran is found violating the terms of the deal. But the process by which that would happen remains unclear. A variety of U.S. government bodies oversee the existing sanctions regime, and each would be required to carefully weigh the evidence of a violation before electing to put sanctions back in place.
Renewed sanctions by the U.N., meanwhile, would require votes from Russia and China, permanent UN Security Council members who have so far supported Iran’s bid for legitimacy. Having helped usher the deal to fruition thus far, the two Iranian allies are unlikely to help isolate the country again.
And on the practical level, foreign companies facing access to new markets in Iran may prove resistant to losing their new investments if sanctions on doing business with Iran fall back into place. Besides the merely procedural considerations, resistance from the business community has a chance of sinking the re-establishment of sanctions against the country.
3. International inspections might not go far enough…
While Iran will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency access to its three existing nuclear facilities (two of which will be restructured with international oversight), the extent and regularity of the IAEA’s inspections has yet to be determined.
Sen. John McCain has already expressed concerns that “international inspectors will not be permitted to go anywhere in Iran, at any time, to monitor Iranian compliance.” In other words, Iran will still control the level of independence with which those inspectors verify its compliance with the rules. (RELATED: Congress, US Allies Raise Concerns Over Draft Iran Deal)
4. … And Iran could simply cheat again
In the years preceding the start of nuclear negotiations with Iran, the U.S. caught Iran several times trying to expand weapons-grade nuclear activity, and sanctioned it accordingly.
The proposed deal operates by the logic that a supervised Iran with limited nuclear activity is safer to the international order than an unrestricted Iran operating in the dark. Echoing President Ronald Reagan’s fondness for the Russian proverb “trust but verify,” Obama insisted that “this deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification.”
But the nuclear facilities eligible for inspection today include Fordow, a site hidden inside a mountain that only came to light in 2009. Opponents of the deal say that if Iran successfully started building a hard water reactor without disclosure to the IAEA, nothing will prevent it from continuing to pursue other more concerted nuclear projects out of the public eye.
5. Iran is still misbehaving at home and abroad
A number of high-profile U.S. citizens are imprisoned in Iran, including former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, and evangelical pastor Saeed Abedini. Their release was not a part of the agreement.
Iran also faces pressure from many countries for human rights violations. In fact, a separate track of U.S. sanctions tied to its human rights record was deliberately taken off the table in the latest round of talks.
Meanwhile, Iran supports internationally sanctioned terrorist groups around the Middle East and continues to regularly agitate against Israel.
“Erasing Israel off the map” was “non-negotiable,” Mohammad Reza Naqdi, commander of Iran’s Basij militia, said on the Iranian state propaganda channel PressTv within days of officials coming to a nuclear agreement. Inflammatory comments aside, just the existence of the Basij – Iran’s version of the Gestapo – sends a disconcerting signal to Western negotiators.
Besides Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the Persian Gulf see Iran as a dangerous competitor for influence in the region, especially as it increasingly supports Iraq’s government in the struggle against Islamic State terrorists. As it wages a proxy war against Iranian-aligned rebels in Yemen, Saudi Arabia may see Iran’s ploy for power as a reason to step up aggression of its own. (RELATED: What Would A Middle East Nuclear Arms Race Look Like?)
6. But perhaps most importantly, Iran’s rivals in the region are tentatively supportive
In a heartening move, Sunni Arab officials in the Gulf have said that Thursday’s proposal is “a reassuring result” with reasonable protections against Iranian subterfuge. And the foreign ministry of Bahrain, which regularly accuses Iran of trying to foment a Shiite takeover in the Gulf, welcomed signs of “a qualitative change in Iranian policy toward non-interference in the internal affairs of countries in the region.”
Egypt, another major Sunni power which fears Iranian hegemony and supports the Arab campaign in Yemen, issued a statement Friday that a Western agreement with Iran could “help achieve stability in the Middle East.”
If the states that would feel the greatest threat from a rogue Iran think that the deal may be a good move, the Middle Eastern political landscape may yet be able to accommodate the consequences of a regulated, safeguarded Iran.
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Should Twitter Banish ISIS Fans, Or Track Them?
By Ivan Plis
A new study of online support for Islamic State terrorists contains surprising implications for stopping recruitment, as well as for using social media as an intelligence tool.
Republished with permission–The Daily Caller Foundation: http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/
The paper, published by the Brookings Institution on Thursday, tracks tens of thousands of Twitter accounts over the course of months, achieving the most detailed snapshot of Islamic State activity online to date. During the period covered by the study, Twitter began a new policy of suspending some jihadi accounts, allowing the researchers to study the consequences of extremist censorship in real time.
The lead researchers were J.M. Berger, an open-source terrorism analyst affiliated with Brookings, and Jonathon Morgan, a data scientist. Their findings about these suspensions’ effect on terrorist activity challenges a number of preconceptions about extremism and the internet. (RELATED: ISIS Gloats Over Hagel Resignation On Social Media)
Some terror analysts advocate that companies like Twitter exercise a hands-off approach to jihadi content, claiming that if deprived of a public platform, extremists would simply switch to using other tools, which may be more difficult to track. Others point to the futility of suspending accounts, saying that terrorists would simply start over with fresh usernames in an endless game of “Whac-A-Mole.”
But according to Berger and Morgan, cracking down on key ISIS supporters has a palpable effect on Twitter activity. Since Twitter’s crackdown on jihadi content in September 2014, they write, “more than 8 percent of online activity by ISIS supporters is now being dedicated to rebuilding the network,” devoting less time to recruitment, propaganda and other activities. And overall, supporters eventually slowed in creating new accounts to replace their suspended ones, showing that they “were wearying of the battle with Twitter.”
In other words, even minor pruning of terrorists’ access to online platforms can hamper the network’s effectiveness. It can also isolate the “base” which ISIS hopes to reach: “as suspensions contract the network, members increasingly talk to each other rather than to outsiders.”
Others object to censorship of extremist material on First Amendment grounds, claiming that a sloppy law to remove terrorists from the internet could also be used to restricting other forms of objectionable speech. Berger and Morgan acknowledge that nuanced lawmaking is “something [government] has not traditionally excelled at,” and that social media companies — which already have substantive policies of their own regarding inappropriate content — ought to take the lead in combating terrorist material.
The authors’ research includes substantial data on the sub-network structure of online supporters. They suggest platforms such as Twitter can use their technique to locate key nodes and break the network into smaller, less powerful “clusters.”
This way, the platform can remain a valuable intelligence analysis tool for government and private anti-terrorism efforts, while curtailing the group’s influence.
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