Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Will Cruz Be The Ultimate Winner Or Will It Be Bush?

CNN/ORC Poll: Cruz Rises to Second Behind Trump

Image: CNN/ORC Poll: Cruz Rises to Second Behind Trump
By Sandy Fitzgerald   |   Friday, 04 Dec 2015 06:51 AM
Donald Trump remains the runaway front-runner in the latest CNN/ORC poll, coming in at 36 percent, 20 points higher than his nearest competitor Ted Cruz.

The poll of 930 registered voters, including 445 either Republicans or independents who lean Republican, found:
  • Trump: 36 percent;
  • Cruz, 16 percent;
  • Ben Carson, 14 percent
  • Marco Rubio, 12 percent;
  • Chris Christie, 4 percent;
  • Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina, 3 percent;
  • Mike Huckabee and John Kasich, 2 percent;
  • Rand Paul, 1 percent;
  • Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, Rick Santorum, less than one percent.
The poll showed Carson down 8 points since October, Bush down 5 points, and Paul down four points.
Meanwhile, Cruz rose by 12 points and Trump went up by nine points. Rubio gained four which fell within the poll's margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

The Republicans were deeply divided by education. Among voters with college degrees:
  • Cruz, 22 percent;
  • Carson and Rubio tied at 19 percent;
  • Trump, 18 percent;
Among those without degrees:
  • Trump, 46 percent;
  • Cruz, 12 percent;
  • Carson, 11 percent;
  • Rubio, 8 percent.
Trump also held huge leads over other Republicans on many issues, including the economy at 55 percent, giving a 46 percentage point lead over his nearest competitor. In other categories:
Latest News Update

  • The federal budget (51 percent, up 41 points);
  • Illegal immigration (48 percent, up 34 points);
  • ISIS (46 percent, up 31 points);
  • Foreign policy (30 percent, up 13 points).
In addition, about 4 in 10 Republicans say Trump is the candidate who would be most effective at solving the country's problems:
  • Trump, 42 percent;
  • Carson, 14 percent;
  • Cruz, 12 percent;
  • Rubio, 10 percent.
Trump was also chosen the one who could best handle the responsibilities of being commander in chief:
  • Trump, 37 percent;
  • Cruz, 16 percent;
  • Carson, 11 percent;
  • Rubio, 10 percent.
Most voters, at 52 percent, said they see Trump as having the best chance to win the general election. On immigration, 53 percent of Republicans said the government should try to deport all 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States, but 73 percent said that would not be possible.
But among Trump supporters, 67 percent called for total deportation, compared to 39 percent of voters backing other candidates. But even among Trump's supporters, 55 percent said his deportation plan is not possible.
© 2015 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


Russia Is Putting Turkey In Its Place While Starting To Control Syria.

  • Turkey shot down a Russian jet. No gain, but plenty of damage to its economy. Russia gave up one jet to Turkey and has made its military presence in Syria and the strategic eastern Mediterranean permanent.
  • Turkey can no longer speak to Russia about the possibility of ousting Assad.
  • Putin seems to be making sure that NATO will do nothing.
At this year's G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said that the radical jihadist Islamic State (IS) was being financed by donors from at least 40 countries, including some G-20 member states -- clearly pointing his finger, without naming names, at Saudi Arabia and Turkey. A few days later, two Turkish F-16 jets shot down a Russian SU-24 warplane, and claimed that the Russian jet had violated Turkish airspace for 17 seconds on the country's Syrian border -- a violation Russia denies. This was the first time a Soviet or Russian military aircraft was shot down by a NATO air force since the end of WWII.
Turkey and Russia have long been in a proxy war in Syria: Russia, together with its quieter partner, China, supports the Shi'ite Iran-backed Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad; and Turkey explicitly supports Assad's Sunni opponents ["moderate" jihadists] -- apparently in the hope of building a Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas-type of regime in Damascus that would be friendly to its own Islamist government. After the downing of the Russian jet, the Turco-Russian proxy war has become less proxy.

No more Mr. Nice Guy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin twice refused to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the Paris Climate Summit this week. Pictured: President Putin with then Prime Minister Erdogan, meeting in Istanbul on December 3, 2012. (Image source:kremlin.ru)

An angry Putin called the incident "a stab in the back." He declined Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's requests to discuss the issue. He twice refused to meet Erdogan on the sidelines of the Paris Climate Summit.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, quickly cancelled his official visit to Turkey -- a visit that had been scheduled for the day after the downing of the Russian jet. At the outset, NATO member Turkey had taught Russia a good lesson. In reality, judging from the consequences, it all looks like a Russian gambit, with Turkey shooting itself in the foot and risking a new NATO-Russia conflict.
Russia's ire seemingly is being expressed in economic terms:
  • Moscow said it will introduce visa restrictions for Turkish citizens, beginning Jan. 1, 2016.
  • Russian authorities detained a group of Turkish businessmen on charges of "false statements about their trip to the country."
  • Press reports noted that Russia was considering limiting or excluding Turkish construction companies from the country, a potentially multi-billion dollar loss for the Turkish economy.
  • Moscow warned its citizens against visiting Turkey -- a ban that could deal a big blow to Turkey's lucrative tourism industry. Last year 4.5 million Russians visited Turkey, mostly its Mediterranean coast. Russian tour operators were warned to suspend business with Turkey.
  • The fate of two huge Turco-Russian energy projects remains unknown, as Russia's energy minister, Alexei Ulyukayev, did not rule out sanctions hitting the Turkish Stream gas pipeline and a planned Russian nuclear energy plant in Turkey. Turkey buys about 55% of its natural gas from Russia. Its second largest gas supplier is Iran, Russia's ally -- and Turkey's rival -- in Syria.
  • Russia's Minister of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev, said that Russia would be replacing Turkish food imports with goods from Iran, Israel and Morocco.
  • Shipments of wheat to Turkey from key Russian ports were put on hold.
  • The Kremlin officially announced a wide range of sanctions on Turkey, including a ban on Turkish workers (with estimates that 90,000 will be fired by Jan. 1, 2016), restrictions on imported goods and services from Turkey and calls for "strengthening of port control and monitoring to ensure transport safety."
  • Around 1,250 trucks carrying Turkish exports were blocked from entering Russia on Nov. 30 and were stranded at border posts, awaiting clearance.
  • Russian soccer clubs will be banned from signing Turkish players during the upcoming winter break.
All of that is commercially punitive. There is a more serious side of the Turco-Russian conflict that concerns NATO and western interests in the Middle East.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced on Nov. 25 that Russia would deploy S-400 surface-to-air missile systems in its Hmeymim air base in Syria.
Turkey shot down a Russian jet. No gain, but plenty of damage to its economy. Russia gave up one jet and has made its military presence in Syria and the strategic eastern Mediterranean permanent. It has reinforced its bases in Syria and intends to build a new military base there. Turkey can no longer speak to Russia about the possibility of ousting Assad.
In a further move to escalate tensions, the Russian General Staff deployed one of its largest air defense ships at the edge of Turkish territorial waters in the Mediterranean. Russian military spokesman General Sergei Rudskoi said that Russian bomber aircraft would be "supported by chasers, and any kinds of threats will be responded to instantly." Accordingly, The Moscow, one of the Russian Navy's two largest warships and the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, will be deployed where Turkey-Syria territorial waters connect.
In addition, Putin issued orders to deploy nearly 7,000 troops, plus anti-aircraft missiles, rocket launchers, and artillery to the Turkish border, and asked them to be in readiness for full combat.
There have been other military repercussions, too. Since the shooting down of the Russian jet, the Russian military has been regularly pounding the Syrian villages near the Turkish border that populated by the Turkmen, a Turkish ethnicity that supports jihadists in Syria -- and is supported by Ankara. The Russians also have been hitting Turkish aid convoys bound for Turkmen villages. More than 500 Turks and Turkmen have been killed in Russian airstrikes. Meanwhile, the U.S.-led allied air strikes against IS have come to a halt. Neither Washington nor Ankara is keen for another conflict with Russia. So, IS and Russia keep on flourishing.
The Russian military has scrapped all contacts with the Turkish military, possibly waiting for the first Turkish military aircraft that violates foreign airspace to shoot.
Turkey has every liberty to challenge Russia and, inevitably, become the victim. But with its geostrategic, Islamist ambitions, it is exposing NATO allies to the risk of a fresh conflict with Russia -- and at a time when the wounds of previous conflicts remain unhealed.
Putin has accused Turkey's leaders of encouraging the Islamization of the Turkish society, which he said was a "problem." He was not wrong. In fact, Islamism and neo-Ottoman ambitions are the source of Turkey's (not-so) proxy war with Russia in the Syrian theater. Although Turkey, officially, is a NATO member and part of the allied campaign against IS, its Sunni Islamist ambitions over Syria hinder the global fight against jihadists. A Turco-Russian conflict is weakening the fight.
Putin seems to be making sure that NATO will do nothing.
Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 2015 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Thanks To Our Failed Immigration System, Farook Is Able To Get His Co-Conspirator Into The US


San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s ability to bring a Pakistani wife to the country through an online relationship exposes loopholes in the U.S. immigration system terrorist organizations can capitalize on.
Farook and Tashfeen Malik met on a dating website and maintained an online relationship prior to Malik coming to the U.S. in July, 2014. Malik, a Pakistani citizen, entered the country on a K-1 visa, commonly known as a fiance visa.
Numbers from the U.S. Department of State show the K-1 visa has a much higher admittance rate than practically any other type of visa, the Daily Caller News Foundation found.
David North, a fellow at The Center for Immigration Studies, warned about the outstanding acceptance rate years ago, and says it keeps climbing with very few cases being rejected.
“It is highly unlikely not to obtain a K-1 visa no matter what the procedure is,” North tells The Daily Caller News Foundation. “The State Department is much more likely to say no to practically and kind of visa that comes before them.”
Data on admittance rates for each visa category from the State Department show the K-1 visa only had 118 rejections out of 36,425 applications in 2014. This ratio of 1:308 can be compared to the most popular categories of the B-1 tourist and business visa (1:6.5) and the F-1 student visa (1:5.7). Even visa categories that apply to diplomats gaining entry to the U.S., such as the A-1 (1:74), have approval ratings far below the K-1.
“That suggests to me either that all these brides and grooms are really pure, or that the system is less vigorous,” North tells TheDCNF.
The only categories that had higher approval ratings in 2010 were the NATO-1 to 7 which are issued to NATO officials. Even this visa category is now behind the K-1 with about 293 approvals for every rejection last year.
The eligibility requirements for obtaining a K-1 visa are also much more relaxed compared to other visa categories. A checklist on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ website gives the following requirements for eligibility:
You (the petitioner) are a U.S. citizen.
You intend to marry within 90 days of your fiancé(e) entering the United States.
You and your fiancé(e) are both free to marry and any previous marriages must have been legally terminated by divorce, death, or annulment.
You met each other, in person, at least once within 2 years of filing your petition.
Even if the couple fails to meet the last criteria of having met in person, they can still file a waiver if they qualify for at least one of two exception.
1. If the requirement to meet would violate strict and long-established customs of your or your fiancé(e)’s foreign culture or social practice.
2. If you prove that the requirement to meet would result in extreme hardship to you.
An advantage K-1 applicants face is they are endorsed by a U.S. citizen, which may instill trust in the person handling the case.
“The image of somebody that is about to married to a U.S. citizen is a pretty high image,” he says.

Copyright 2015 WND

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/terror-couple-used-immigration-loophole-to-enter-u-s/#UyJrGx68DFSIdzHK.99