No one nearby to help

h/t Bookworm

Dick Morris analyzes the Cruz pick of Carly Fiorina.

He doubts it will help Cruz much in Indiana, but believes it is good for the country. He also has a warning about a United Nations end run around Congress to bring to America 200,000 Syrian refugees.
Read, watch and listen to more here.

Islamic State terrorists entering Europe

Bill Gertz writes at the Free Beacon,

The Pentagon’s Joint Staff warned in a recent intelligence briefing that Islamic State terrorists are entering Europe “mostly unimpeded,” according to defense officials.

...According to the International Organization for Migration, a Geneva group, a total of 868,282 migrants have reached Europe since January, most of them through Greece from Turkey.

On Sunday, European and Turkish leaders concluded an agreement that seeks to reduce the refugee flow. Europe will provide $3.2 billion in aid in return for tightening its borders from the refugee outflow. Some 2 million Syrians fled to Turkey as a result of the conflict.

Turkish authorities detained 1,300 migrants on Monday, a sign of the new policy, Agence France Presse reported from Istanbul.

President Obama has accused Republicans of Islamophobia and charged them with being “scared” of refugees from Syria. He also said anti-immigration sentiment was fueling terrorism.

...Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has introduced legislation that would bar any refugee from a country with territory controlled in substantial part by the Islamic State, al Qaeda, or other designated terrorists.

...The military intelligence assessment follows the Nov. 13 terrorist attack in Paris that investigators say involved one Islamic State terrorist who infiltrated Europe through Greece by posing as a refugee.

...According to European authorities, the Islamic State also obtained passport-production machinery and stamps used to validate them. The passports have been sold to smugglers in Turkey, who have sold them to Syrian refugees.

Read more here.
H/t David Adams

"They want to go back home."

Jose A. DelReal reports in the Washington Post,

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson — fresh from a recent visit to two Syrian refugee camps in Jordan — called Sunday for the United States and its international allies to focus on supporting existing facilities that shelter those who have fled the Syrian civil war.

“We're hearing that they all want to come here to the United States. And that's not what they want. They want to go back home,” Carson said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week," live from Amman, the Jordanian capital. “But they said the United States and other nations could be much more supportive of the herculean efforts manifested by the Jordanians in taking in people at a lot of expense to themselves.”

...He added that other countries in the region also should be asked to step in and accept a greater number of refugees, which would keep them near their home country.

...When pressed on how he would combat the Islamic State, Carson indicated that he was in favor of continuing to work with Kurdish forces in the region.

“What we've discovered that works is, you know, for instance, when we took Sinjar back. The Kurds were able to cut off the supply routes. and that softened the target,” Carson said, referring to the Iraqi city that was recently recaptured from the Islamic State. “And then, our special ops people were able to work with the Kurds very effectively, along with our air power, to take it back. That's a model that works. And that can be applied to other places, you know. Why reinvent the wheel? Just take the things that work.”

Read more here.

How many so far?

h/t Mike's America

The Trump wall needs to be just as solid along the Canadian border as the one on the Mexican border

That wall? Don't forget the northern border! Daniel Chaitin reports in the Washington Examiner that Canada is going to be taking in over 6000 Syrian refugees a week starting December 1!

The refugees will fly out of Jordan as early as Dec. 1, and will land in Toronto and Montreal, after which they will be relocated to sites across the country.

The United Nations will identify the Syrians to be transferred, and they will be subject to a screening process by Canadian officials upon landing. Syrians who pass security and health checks will immediately become permanent citizens.

A government document leaked to local media last week revealed the details about "Operation Syrian Refugees."

...Last week more than 30 governors challenged President Obama's plan to take in refugees. On Thursday the House passed a bill that would install strict background checks on all Syrian refugees entering the country, which could make it more difficult for many to qualify.

The State Department said in September it would accept 10,000 Syrian refugees next year.

Read more here.

Conceptual Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys.

Jonah Goldberg continues to be amazed at the many ways the Left deceives itself and those who fall for their lies. He writes at National Review,

...This is why so many liberals are far, far, far more comfortable calling tea-partiers “terrorists” than they are talking about actual, you know, terrorists. This is why in the wake of the Paris attacks we hear so much about “Christian terrorism” and why so many lefties have raced to arguments about gun control. That is why the supposedly smartest argument among the supposedly smart set these days is to build a time machine and stop Bush from invading Iraq.

Barack Obama is so eager to respond to the Paris attacks with a rhetorical fusillade against Republican bigotry. It is a ploy as brilliant as it is disgustingly cynical. Obama is a co-author of this refugee crisis. As Walter Russell Mead writes, “No one, other than the Butcher Assad and the unspeakable al-Baghdadi, is as responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria as is President Obama.” Somewhere deep inside Obama’s supposedly Niebuhrian conscience even he must suspect there is some truth to this. And even if his denial is total, he must understand that a great many historians will side with Mead in this appraisal.

Rather than face this unthinkable truth, Obama seeks to change the story line so that he is the noble and besieged martyr fighting the forces of reaction at home, rather than the hapless and bumbling nutty professor who let the world go to Hell on his watch. “Sanctimony over refugees is Obama’s way of restoring his own moral superiority over people who’ve been complaining for years, entirely correctly, that his Syria policy is FUBAR and has contributed to the disaster,” as Allahpundit writes.

But it goes further than that. Obama never tires of telling us that he was elected to end wars, not start them (how’s that going?). His real ambition was transformation at home, and that was only possible if foreign policy stayed out of the headlines. His entire foreign policy has been geared towards that goal -- not safety, and certainly not what he considered to be the risible concepts of “American leadership” and “American strength.” That’s why he announced a withdrawal date the same day he announced the Afghan surge. That’s why whenever there’s a terror attack, the White House works assiduously to deny it was a terror attack for as long as possible. That’s why were are drenched in the Orwellian sludge of terrorism euphemisms -- “overseas contingency operations,” “man-caused disasters,” “workplace violence,” etc.

When Obama does talk about terrorism, he’s only comfortable when he frames the issue in a way that puts the blame on America. That’s why we are constantly hearing that ISIS is inspired by Gitmo. I wonder: Is there a jihadist anywhere in the world who will pause in his desire to behead an infidel, never mind drop his scimitar mid-swing, upon the glorious news that a prison in Cuba has been closed? When John Ashcroft warned Americans that conjuring false fears of lost liberties helped the enemy, the entire New York Times editorial board got its dress over its head. But when Obama and his fans routinely say that “Republican rhetoric” is a recruiting tool for ISIS, they all nod like a crate of bobbleheads in an earthquake.

Acknowledging that the threat is still real only empowers those bitter-clingers who don’t want to transform our country. (They don’t want to transform our country, by the way, because they actually like our country the way it is -- or was. And it is now a given among most of the Left that this is a racist and bigoted desire.) Obama subscribes to the mainstream liberal view that there’s nothing wrong with America that making us more like Europe won’t fix. That’s why terror attacks in Europe are so cruelly inconvenient.

I should say that I am perfectly willing to concede that Obama has some good points on his side in the debate over Syrian refugees. Tourism rules, visa waivers, and homegrown radicalism will likely deliver more terror attacks to our shores than the refugees currently in the pipeline. But that doesn’t make the concerns about refugees unserious, illegitimate, or bigoted. Obama has complete confidence in the screening procedures. Well, okay. He also had complete confidence in the IRS, the VA, and the team building Healthcare.gov. When Obama declares complete confidence in a government agency, that’s a good time to buy gold.

But his remarks this week should remove all doubt that he’s not interested in persuading anybody. He’s interested instead in propping up the walls of his comfortable ideological bunker, where he’s a hero beset by irrational, cowardly, and evil men. I for one am sick of seeing this country go down the tubes just to salve the ego of this vain and cynical man.

Who are they?

Updated figures of Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. since the Syrian civil war began. Only 53, or 2.4 percent, of the 2,194 total are Christians. (Data: State Department Refugee Processing Center)