Video: Republican Congressman dodges question about Boehner's support for Contempt Citation

During an interview with Fox's Bill Hemmer, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who sits on the House Energy & Commerce Committee didn't just refuse to answer a question about Speaker John Boehner's support for a contempt citation against Attorney General Eric Holder over Fast and Furious. He answered a question that wasn't asked... twice. Hemmer wanted to know from Scalise if Boehner supported efforts by Darrell Issa and the Oversight Committee to issue that citation. Scalise twice responded with irrelevant references to Boehner wanting transparency from the administration.

Either these guys know that the second they say that Boehner supports the petition, issuance of the citation immediately becomes imminent OR Boehner doesn't support it.

Via Fox News:

Is there a Chechnya Spring coming?

As if the world needed to worry about another extremist Islamic hot spot, we might have one and it's in Russia's back yard. The Chechen rebels are known to be among the most savage of Jihadists on the globe. They were behind the Beslan school massacre in 2004. In 2006, Russia ultimately killed the Chechen leader behind it - Shamil Basayev in 2006.

Russian forces eventually suppressed Chechnya's Islamic uprising and put a man named Ramzan Kadyrov in power there to maintain control of the country while remaining in Russia's good graces for doing so. Kadyrov, a Chechen Muslim, was basically faced with two choices. Support the rebels and be on the wrong side of a Russian victory or run the country on Russia's behalf and reap the benefits. He chose the latter course but may be getting a little bolder these days.

Via Washington Times:

Chechnya's government is openly approving of families that kill female relatives who violate their sense of honor, as this Russian republic embraces a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam after decades of religious suppression under Soviet rule.

In the past five years, the bodies of dozens of young Chechen women have been found dumped in woods, abandoned in alleys and left along roads in the capital, Grozny, and neighboring villages.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov publicly announced that the dead women had “loose morals” and were rightfully shot by male relatives. He went on to describe women as the property of their husbands, and said their main role is to bear children.

“If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them should be killed,” said Mr. Kadyrov, who often has stated his goal of making Chechnya “more Islamic than the Islamists.”

In today’s Chechnya, alcohol is all but banned, Islamic dress codes are enforced and polygamous marriages are supported by the government.

No doubt, as Kadyrov looks around and sees the Arab Spring give rise to the Muslim Brotherhood, he may more emboldened to push an Islamic agenda. Perhaps he's banking on Russia having bigger fish to fry in Syria.

h/t Weasel Zippers

As the Sudan heats up, so does the Kony Distraction

No one uses misdirection more than the Obama administration and when it comes to an evil, evil man named Joseph Kony, misdirection is in full swing. However, in this case, Kony is the object of the administration's spotlight, not Sudan, where it should be.

As Omar al-Bashir, the Muslim Brotherhood-backed president of Sudan is beating the drums of war louder, almost by the day, against Christian South Sudan, reports about the search for Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), are distracting attention from them. By nearly all accounts, Kony is far less of a factor than he was years ago. Most suspect he's not even in Uganda anymore, the country where he perpetrated the most evil. Many wonder whether Kony is even alive.

Bashir's propaganda machine is in full gear; it is whipping the Muslim masses up into a frenzy by pointing to South Sudan's withdrawal from Heglig, an oil rich border region. South Sudan claims it took over that area because Bashir's forces were launching attacks from there. Bashir is pointing to South Sudan's exit as a major victory and is fanning the flames of hate against South Sudan.

The Arab League has publicly condemned South Sudan:

The Arab League on Thursday condemned South Sudan's "military aggression" against an oil-rich border region claimed by Sudan while also supporting Sudan's right to defend itself. The statement came as some fear growing disputes between the two countries may soon lead to an all-out war.

South Sudan seceded from Sudan last year after a referendum held as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than 20 years of civil war, but unresolved issues such as the sharing of oil revenues and demarcation of the border have led to tensions and clashes.

Earlier this month, South Sudanese troops attacked and captured the oil-rich Heglig area. Sudan says it has since recaptured it. Earlier this week, after South Sudan said it was withdrawing its troops from Heglig, Sudan dropped bombs on the South. The U.N. said the bombs killed 16 civilians.

Sudan is a member of the Arab League, whose foreign ministers were meeting in Cairo. Their statement called on South Sudan to respect the borders between the two nations and to stop supporting rebel movements in Sudan's western Darfur region, south Kordofan and Blue Nile.

More rhetoric that should be garnering the attention of the international community is coming from Sudan's governing party, the National Congress Party (NCP). The political secretary says that South Sudan's exit from Heglig is spawning a "Sudanese Spring."

Via Sudan Times:

State media broadcast footages of massive crowds pouring to the streets in celebration of Heglig takeover by the Sudanese army on Friday, 20 April.

According to the NCP’s political secretary, Hasabu Mohamed Abdel-Rahman, the scenes were evidence of a “Sudanese spring” that silenced voices of internal dissent.

Meanwhile, though Barack Obama has publicly encouraged Sudan and South Sudan to do everything possible to avoid war, he only seems to be using one of the Alinsky tactics on Kony, and not al-Bashir. That would be Rule #11:

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

Obama has obviously picked a target in Joseph Kony. He has chosen to shift and spread the blame when it comes to al-Bashir and South Sudan. Why?

Sam Childers, a man who has fought for the safety of Ugandan and South Sudanese children for nearly a decade and a half, argues that Kony has been funded by al-Bashir for years. Yet, Obama seems to be more interested in pursuing the path of moral equivalency between Sudan and South Sudan instead of identifying al-Bashir as the real problem.

Here is Childers in a video message that came out when Invisible Children's Kony 2012 went viral back in March: