BREAKING: Assembly to Prepare for “Convention of the States” is Underway

BREAKING: Assembly to Prepare for “Convention of the States” is Underway

A growing number of states have been looking for a legal and Constitutional way for them to fight back against the overreach of the federal government and reestablish their sovereignty.
One of the ways to do this is by an Article V Convention of the States to propose new amendments to the Constitution designed to rein in the out of control centralized government in Washington DC, bypassing Congress.
Nearly 100 lawmakers from around the country met at Mt. Vernon last year to discuss plans and gauge support for a possible convention.

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Many of those same lawmakers, and other delegates from several states, are now joining together in Indianapolis to further discuss plans for a convention and set ground rules for how a convention would work. (H/T The Blaze)

No actual amendments will be discussed at the Assembly of State Legislatures meeting Thursday and Friday at the Indiana State House, Wisconsin state Rep. Chris Kapenga said, only setting the rules for how an Article Five convention would be handled. Lawmakers from 30 states are taking part.
“As a body we are not touching amendment subject matter and take no stance,” Kapenga, a Republican, told The Blaze. “We do not take a stance on amendment issues. This body is about process.”
In deciding on the rules, attendees to the meeting could consider such matters as how many delegates each state would have at a convention, who would appoint them and the process for considering a specific amendment.
The group of state lawmakers has no legal authority, but is putting forth a consensus blueprint for rules of the convention of the states, which would be ultimately decided by the convention or by state legislatures.

Kapenga also stressed that while the group would refrain from discussing specific amendments, they were also staying away from coordinating with any political or partisan activist groups.

“This is strictly currently elected state legislators,” Kapenga said. “There are no meetings, money or involvement with anyone. It must stay politically pure or it takes a political slant.”
“The only political leaning we have is state vs. federal power,” he continued.

Although the Convention could ultimately consider a number of ideas for amendments to the Constitution, like Congressional term limits, caps on spending and tax rates, increased transparency and oversight on Executive branch agencies, Congressional veto power over agency regulations, or even campaign finance reform, the majority of participants intend to focus on a balanced budget amendment, according to Indiana House Speaker Brian Bossma.

“The Constitution was an extremely well-thought out document. It gives the states – which created the federal government – the ability to reign in the federal government whenever it gets out of control,” Bossma said. “The biggest concerns many have about the conventions from people of all sides is this would be used to rewrite the Constitution. This would be for a balanced budget amendment only.”

This is good news.  While the process is arduous and slow, and there is a risk of liberal special interest groups getting involved, a Convention of the States increasingly appears to be one of the few legal recourses left to states trying to reassert their sovereignty against an overbearing and far-reaching federal government.
The movement is also gaining some momentum, as more and more pundits and lawmakers get on board in support of a convention.  The push originally began with conservative radio host Mark Levin’s book The Liberty Amendments, and now has the backing of people like Allen West, Sarah Palin, and George Will, among others.
Hopefully, the delegates will be successful in reaching a consensus on setting up the rules for a convention.  They are planning a third meeting later this year to finalize the rules and plans, and intend to get the actual convention underway sometime in 2015.
Please share this on Facebook and Twitter if you are pleased to see progress in the movement for an Article V Convention of the States.

Harvard Lawyer: Obama Could Be Charged with “Multiple” Criminal Acts

Harvard Lawyer: Obama Could Be Charged with “Multiple” Criminal Acts

The calls for the impeachment of President Obama have grown louder and more numerous as the scandals of his administration continue to mount.
There are ample reasons to impeach Obama, but Republican leadership is too timid to do it, and it would likely die in the Harry Reid-led Senate.  However, should the GOP take the Senate in the midterm election, impeachment becomes a more viable option.
But Ben Shapiro, editor-at-large of Breitbart News and Harvard lawyer, says we shouldn’t just impeach Obama, but criminally prosecute him as well.

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Shapiro, author of a new book called The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration, says the Obama administration is a criminal enterprise, and could be charged with multiple crimes under the RICO Act, which was originally intended to be used to take down the mafia and similar criminal organizations.
He appeared on Fox News with Sean Hannity to discuss his book. (H/T Truth Revolt)

There are multiple charges.  I mean, everything from Benghazi, which there are violations of the espionage act and the arms export control act to the IRS, in which there is violation of IRS law, to witness tampering on multiple counts. There are tons of charges that can be brought against the Obama administration but what I’m really arguing here is that this is a criminal enterprise. It’s like the mafia. Basically, President Obama never has to give a direct order.  All he has to do is sit atop the chain of command and then let all of his minions do whatever it is that he wants. This is why the Rico Act was created, was to wrap all of this kind of stuff in a bundle and allow for prosecution.

Hannity asked if Republicans are scared to start the impeachment process, to which Shapiro replied:

Yes. I mean this is — impeachment is not really on the table, which is why what I’m calling for really, is a revision of law to allow – under RICO, it’s not just that the DOJ can prosecute somebody. There are things called civil lawsuits and you can file a civil lawsuit. You are deemed under the Supreme Court’s law basically a private attorney general, we need to extend that to the executive branch so that people can sue the executive branch and go after members of the executive branch.

Ben Shapiro is absolutely right.  Obama and all of his cronies need to be criminally prosecuted for the crimes they have committed and the corruption that runs rampant through the administration.
Congress needs to appoint multiple special prosecutors, to investigate everything from the recent prisoner swap and Benghazi, to the IRS targeting scandal and the NSA wiretapping and datamining of innocent civilians.  Then they can continue to move on to the seemingly endless list of crimes, lies and scandalous corruption that this administration has become infamous for.
People need to be held accountable for their actions.  Nobody, from Obama on down, takes responsibility for what they have or haven’t done, and that needs to stop.  They have willfully violated statute after statute, have ignored Congress and the rule of law, and have behaved in a most unethical manner.
Please share this on Facebook and Twitter if you would like to see Obama and all of his cronies criminally prosecuted for their crimes.

12 Numbers About The Global Financial Ponzi Scheme That Should Be Burned Into Your Brain

12 Numbers About The Global Financial Ponzi Scheme That Should Be Burned Into Your Brain

by Michael Snyder | Economic Collapse | June 12, 2014

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The numbers that you are about to see are likely to shock you.  They prove that the global financial Ponzi scheme is far more extensive than most people would ever dare to imagine.  As you will see below, the total amount of debt in the world is now more than three times greater than global GDP.  In other words, you could take every single good and service produced on the entire planet this year, next year and the year after that and it still would not be enough to pay off all the debt.  But even that number pales in comparison to the exposure that big global banks have to derivatives contracts.  It is hard to put into words how reckless they have been.  At the low end of the estimates, the total exposure that global banks have to derivatives contracts is 710 trillion dollars.  That is an amount of money that is almost unimaginable.  And the reality of the matter is that there is really not all that much actual “money” in circulation today.  In fact, as you will read about below, there is only a little bit more than a trillion dollars of U.S. currency that you can actually hold in your hands in existence.  If we all went out and tried to close our bank accounts and investment portfolios all at once, that would create a major league crisis.  The truth is that our financial system is little more than a giant pyramid scheme that is based on debt and paper promises.  It is literally a miracle that it has survived for so long without collapsing already.
When Americans think about the financial crisis that we are facing, the largest number that they usually can think of is the size of the U.S. national debt.  And at over 17 trillion dollars, it truly is massive.  But it is actually the 2nd-smallest number on the list below.  The following are 12 numbers about the global financial Ponzi scheme that should be burned into your brain…
-$1,280,000,000,000 - Most people are really surprised when they hear this number.  Right now, there is only 1.28 trillion dollars worth of U.S. currency floating around out there.
-$17,555,165,805,212.27 - This is the size of the U.S. national debt.  It has grown by more than 10 trillion dollars over the past ten years.
-$32,000,000,000,000 - This is the total amount of money that the global elite have stashed in offshore banks (that we know about).
-$48,611,684,000,000 - This is the total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts.
-$59,398,590,000,000 - This is the total amount of debt (government, corporate, consumer, etc.) in the U.S. financial system.  40 years ago, this number was just a little bit above 2 trillion dollars.
-$70,088,625,000,000 - This is the total exposure that JPMorgan Chase has to derivatives contracts.
-$71,830,000,000,000 - This is the approximate size of the GDP of the entire world.
-$75,000,000,000,000 - This is approximately the total exposure that German banking giant Deutsche Bank has to derivatives contracts.
-$100,000,000,000,000 - This is the total amount of government debt in the entire world.  This amount has grown by $30 trillion just since mid-2007.
-$223,300,000,000,000 - This is the approximate size of the total amount of debt in the entire world.
-$236,637,271,000,000 - According to the U.S. government, this is the total exposure that the top 25 banks in the United States have to derivatives contracts.  But those banks only have total assets of about 9.4 trillion dollars combined.  In other words, the exposure of our largest banks to derivatives outweighs their total assets by a ratio of about 25 to 1.
-$710,000,000,000,000 to $1,500,000,000,000,000 - The estimates of the total notional value of all global derivatives contracts generally fall within this range.  At the high end of the range, the ratio of derivatives exposure to global GDP is about 21 to 1.
Most people tend to assume that the “authorities” have fixed whatever caused the financial world to almost end back in 2008, but that is not the case at all.
In fact, the total amount of government debt around the globe has grown by about 40 percent since then, and the “too big to fail banks” have collectively gotten 37 percent larger since then.
Our “authorities” didn’t fix anything.  All they did was reinflate the bubble and kick the can down the road for a little while.
I don’t know how anyone can take an honest look at the numbers and not come to the conclusion that this is completely and totally unsustainable.
How much debt can the global financial system take before it utterly collapses?
How recklessly can the big banks behave before the house of cards that they have constructed implodes underneath them?
For the moment, everything seems fine.  Stock markets around the world have been setting record highs and credit is flowing like wine.
But at some point a day of reckoning is coming, and when it arrives it is going to be the most painful financial crisis the world has ever seen.
If you plan on getting ready before it strikes, now is the time to do so.

MUST WATCH: US knew BENGHAZI was terrorist attack DURING ATTACK

Posted on Jun 11, 2014 at 10:55 PM in Politics | Leave a Comment

By The Right Scoop

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This is a very compelling interview from Special Report tonight where the pilot of a C-17 who was stationed in Germany tells that he could have gotten to Benghazi in 3-4 hours if he had been called upon to get in the air.
The pilot, Eric Stahl, who is a retired Major from the Air Force, tells what he knows from talking to the men on the ground that he flew out of Benghazi on Sept 12, 2012, men he calls heroes, a day after the Benghazi terrorist attack.
Among the most relevatory things we learn is that the terrorists were using stolen State Dept. cellphones from the consulate to call their higher ups after the consulate battle, and the US intercepted this in real time as it was happening. They not only knew they were terrorists, but they knew exactly who they were.
Stahl says that he believes little of the truth of what happened that night has come out and that is why he is talking now. He hopes more people will do the same.
There are many more details in the interview below, including how our guys tried to board a private plane to get the heck out of Benghazi but were unable to do so.
It’s also written up here, but I recommend the video.

BREAKING: Newspapers in Central America Advertising Obama's Open Borders For Illegals to US OBAMA THIS IS A CRIME YOU ARE NOW HUMAN TAFFING THIS IS A CRIME TRANSPORTING MINORS OVER STATE LINES IS A CRIME NOW ALL THESE WOMEN LOSE THEY KIDS FOR THIS IS ADONDMENT AND THE TRAINS AND TRUCK DRIVERS ALL NEED TO BE ARRESTED THIS IS A CRIME HUMAN TAFFING

BREAKING: Newspapers in Central America Advertising Obama's Open Borders For Illegals to US

Published: 10 June 2014.

JW_DISQUS_VIEW_COMMENTS

Every day, thousands of illegals are flooding our borders at a cost of $252 per illegal to US taxpayers. Just wait until we're paying for their housing, food and health care!  
Newspapers in El Salvador and Honduras are promoting policies by the Obama administration that defer deportation to minors brought to the United States as children by their parents — known as "Dreamers" — and those that are housing illegal children at military bases in the South and West.

"Almost all agree that a child who crossed the border illegally with their parents, or in search of a father or a better life, was not making an adult choice to break our laws, and should be treated differently than adult violators of the law," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is quoted in a story about a new two-year extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act published by Diario El Mundo in El Salvador.

Signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the law grants temporary legal status to many young illegal immigrants, ending the threat of deportation for at least two years.

The policy, however, does not entitle the immigrants to state services. The law was renewed for two more years.

"With the renewal of DACA, we act according to our values and code of this great nation," Johnson said. "But the biggest task of comprehensive immigration reform is yet to come."

Meanwhile, La Prensa of Honduras discusses in a report how as many as 500 illegal minors are being housed at the Naval Base Ventura County in Southern California.

"The children will be accommodated for between three and four months, while their parents or relatives are located in the United States," the report says.

"The administration of President Barack Obama has acknowledged he faces a serious crisis for the continuous arrival of children, mostly Central Americans, who are illegally entering the country on the border with Mexico."

Besides Mexico and Honduras, the report notes that many of the children are coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

"During their stay, in addition to accommodations and food, children receive English classes, play sports and participate in targeted programs while immigration authorities contact their families," the La Prensa report says.

On Monday, the Obama administration said that it would begin housing as many as 1,200 illegal minors at the Army base in Fort Sill in Oklahoma.

The plan was attacked last week by Oklahoma Republicans, who accused the administration of not giving them sufficient notice and that it would strain limited resources.

A similar shelter for that has accommodated about 1,820 minors over nearly four weeks has been operating at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

Housing the illegals cost American taxpayers $252 per child per day.

The deluge of illegal immigrants is causing a burden on the border states of Texas and Arizona, and officials have been transporting children from south Texas to Arizona and leaving them at various locations, including holding centers and bus stations.
Read entire story here: NewsMax

The Genocide Of The Canaanites Was Justified

By Ted on June 12, 2014 in Featured, General

SHOEBAT EXLCUSIVE
By Theodore Shoebat

The genocide of the Canaanites was justified. The objection against the Hebrews’ killing of them is a common one, and here is a way you can refute it.
Here is a video I made illustrating and explaining as to why the Canaanites needed to be destroyed:
A frequent objection against the killing is, “Why would the Canaanites be killed for being pagans if they never knew about God to begin with?”
The truth is that the Canaanites did know about God but later rejected Him. We know this from Genesis 14 where it speaks about a Canaanite ruler named Melchizedek, who was not only the king of Jerusalem (Salem), but a high priest of the Lord:

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. (Genesis 14:18)

Since a Canaanite king of such a major city as Jerusalem worshipped and served God, the other Canaanites would have definitely known about God.
Therefore, the Canaanites weren’t always pagans, but initially believers in God who gradually degenerated into paganism.
God knew of this degeneracy, and gave them over four hundred years to repent, for He declared to Abraham:

Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. (Genesis 15:13-15)

For the time during the life of Abraham, his immediate family, and the four hundred years of slavery for all of his descendants, God was awaiting patiently for the Canaanites to return to the true religion of Noah.
Not only this, But God used the plagues He inflicted against Egypt as away of evangelizing to the whole world, including the Canaanites.
Therefore, the Canaanites were not only given time to repent, but evidence for the truth of God. But by the time the Hebrews arrived to Canaan, only a few of the Canaanites were righteous enough to convert to the true Faith.
Rahab the Harlot and her family were amongst the small remnant of Canaanites who chose the correct path, while the rest rejected the miracles of God and remained in darkness. Rahab herself affirmed that her decision was done on account of the miracles of God against Egypt:

For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. (Joshua 2:10)

Rahab hides the two spies

After all of the miracles and all of the time given to them, there was no excuse for the Canaanites to reject God. The majority of the Canaanites were evil and hateful toward God enough that they were beyond correction, and needed to be killed.
Not only did they want to remain in their false religion, but in all of the demonic rituals that came along with it, and that included human sacrifice, cannibalism, homosexuality, and beastiality. The Book of Wisdom describes the cannibalistic and heathen rituals of the Canaanites, and deems them rightfully as what justified their extermination:

You hated the people who lived in your holy land long ago, because they did horrible things: they practiced magic and conducted unholy worship; they killed children without mercy and ate the flesh and blood of human beings. They were initiated into secret rituals in which parents murdered their own defenseless children. It was your will for our ancestors to destroy these people, so that the land which you consider the most precious of all lands would be a suitable home for your people. (Wisdom 12:3-7)

With such evils, and with such hatred toward God, the Canaanites merited their own destruction.
We find within the Israelites a just nature, for when they had already made their presence in Canaan, they would in time make a league with certain Hivites, a race of Canaanite, from Gibeon, which they vowed never to break. The princes of Israel made this declaration on their league with the Hivites:

We have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel: now therefore we may not touch them. This we will do to them; we will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath which we sware unto them. (Joshua 9:19-20)

The Hebrews had let them be “hewers of wood and drawers of water unto all the congregation”, (Joshua 9:21) but this did not stop Joshua, the leader of Israel, from protecting the Hivites from the same Canaanite tyrant, Adonizedek, after he declared to the kings of Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon (Joshua 10:3) to “smite Gibeon: for it hath made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel.” (Joshua 10:4)
The Hivites were instilled with fear by the tyrant Adonizedek and his confederacy, and called for Joshua to

Slack not thy hand from thy servants, come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together against us. (Joshua 10:6)

Did Joshua simply ignore the cry of the helpless Hivites, since they were but mere servants, or because they were Canaanites? Certainly not.
Joshua immediately marched with his army toward Adonizedek and his league of despots, and even God supported him, saying “Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee.” (Joshua 10:8)
The battle commenced in Gibeon where these Hivites lived, with Israel attaining the victory. When it was over, Joshua proclaimed before Israel, in one of the most profound moments in history

Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel. (Joshua 10:12-13)

Joshua commanding the sun to stand still

It must be stated, especially to those who see the conquest of Canaan as immoral, that this most memorable event happened not for Israel’s own defense, but for the defense of helpless Canaanites.
When Saul was king, he slaughtered numerous of the Hivites of Gibeon (or Gibeonites) in his zealotry for Israel. (II Samuel 21:2) But this zeal of Israelite superiority was not honored by God, but punished by the Lord, by a famine. David asked God for its reason, was told:

It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. (II Samuel 21:1)

The story of the Gibeonites not only shows the love of God, but His superiority over the despotic religion of the Canaanites. They worshipped the sun by sacrificing human life to it, and the moon as well, but God stopped both to illustrate His power, and to show His love for the Canaanites.
Israel was willing to make peace with any of the Canaanites, but it was only the Hivites of Gibeon who had done so, as Scripture witnesses:

There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle. (Joshua 11:19)

Besides Rahab and her family, and the Hivites, there were other Canaanites who went to God as a result of the miracles of God done through the Hebrews.
There was Araunah the Jebusite, on whose land David was commanded by God to build an altar and make a sacrifice to appease the anger of God.

Araunah bows down to David

As we read in Samuel:

 And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite.
And David spake unto the Lord when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly: but these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father’s house.
And Gad came that day to David, and said unto him, Go up, rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshingfloor of Araunah the Jebusite.
And David, according to the saying of Gad, went up as the Lord commanded.
And Araunah looked, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him: and Araunah went out, and bowed himself before the king on his face upon the ground.
And Araunah said, Wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To buy the threshingfloor of thee, to build an altar unto the Lord, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
And Araunah said unto David, Let my lord the king take and offer up what seemeth good unto him: behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments and other instruments of the oxen for wood.
All these things did Araunah, as a king, give unto the king. And Araunah said unto the king, The Lord thy God accept thee.
And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord was intreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel. (2 Samuel 24:16-25)

It was to a Canaanite that Christ said, “O woman, great is thy faith” (Matthew 15:28).
Most beautifully, Christ is a “high priest after the order of Melchisedec” (Hebrews 5:10), and therefore, the Church is of the order of a holy Canaanite.
The story of Joshua fighting the Canaanites is not one of brutality, but nobleness and the drive to fight evil. We as Christians must fight evil. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO GET OUR NEW 2-DISK DVD SPECIAL ON WHY WE MUST BECOME MILITANT AND COMBAT SATAN AND ISLAM.

Iran Deploys Forces to Fight al Qaeda-Inspired Militants in Iraq

Revolutionary Guard Forces Help Iraqi Troops Win Back Control of Most of Tikrit, Sources Say

By

Farnaz Fassihi

connect

June 12, 2014 1:05 p.m. ET

Kurdish military units known as peshmerga deployed armor at the provincial capital of Kirkuk on Thursday as Iraq edged closer to full-scale sectarian conflict following lightning strikes on major cities. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

BEIRUT—The threat of Sunni extremists eclipsing the power of its Shiite-dominated Arab ally presents Iran with the biggest security and strategic challenge it has faced since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Faced with an al Qaeda offshoot rapidly gaining support and territory, Iran sprang into action and deployed Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, according to Iranian security sources.

Iran has invested considerable financial, political and military resources over the past decade to ensure Iraq emerged from U.S. war as a strategic partner for the Islamic Republic and a strong Shiite-led state. The so-called Shiite crescent—stretching from Iran to Iraq, Lebanon and Syria—was forged largely as a result of this effort.

At least three battalions of the Quds Force, the elite overseas branch of the Revolutionary Guards, were dispatched to aid in the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an offshoot of al Qaeda rapidly gaining territory across Iraq, they said. One Guards unit that was already in Iraq fought alongside the Iraqi army, offering guerrilla warfare advice and tactics and helped reclaim most of the city of Tikrit on Thursday.

Two Guards' units, dispatched from Iran's western border provinces on Wednesday, were tasked with protecting Baghdad and the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, these security sources said.

Some U.S. military officials cast doubt on the report that battalions of Iranian Quds Force had deployed to Iraq, saying only militias controlled by or allied with Iran have been mobilized to fight with Iraqi forces.

The involvement of Iran would pose yet another security challenge for the White House. The U.S. opposes Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but is jointly supporting with Tehran Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. State Department officials on Thursday refused to outline what steps the Obama administration would take if Iranian forces entered Iraq.

Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said American diplomats who met with Iranian officials in Geneva this week to discuss Tehran's nuclear program didn't raise the issue of the Iraqi crisis.

"We've encouraged them to play a constructive role in Iraq," Ms. Psaki said about the Iranians.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, reached by phone in London, said of the report that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were entering the fight: "Frankly I have no idea about that. I am in London now."

Gen. Qasem Sulaimani, the commander of the Quds Force and one of the region's most powerful military figures, traveled to Baghdad this week to help manage the swelling crisis, said a member of the Revolutionary Guards, or IRGC.

Qassimm al-Araji, an Iraqi Shiite lawmaker who heads the Badr Brigade bloc in parliament, posted a picture with Mr. Sulaimani holding hands in a room in Baghdad on his social-networking site with the caption, "Haj Qasem is here," Iranian news sites affiliated with the IRGC reported on Wednesday. "Haj Qasem" is Mr. Sulaimani's nom de guerre.

Syria's conflict has turned Iraq into an important operational base for Iran to aid another ally, the Assad regime, which is dominated by an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Shiite militia trained by Iran, weapons and cash have flowed from Iran to Syria via Iraq.

"Iraq is viewed as a vital priority in Iran's foreign policy in the region and they go to any length to protect this interest," said Roozbeh Miribrahimi, an independent Iran expert based in New York.

Iran has also positioned troops on full alert along its border with Iraq and has given clearance to its air force to bomb ISIS rebel forces if they come within about 60 miles of Iran's border, according to an Iranian army general.

The two IRGC battalions that moved to Iraq on Wednesday were shifted from the Iranian border provinces of Urumieh and Lorestan, the Iranian security officials said.

Revolutionary Guards units that serve in Iran's border provinces are the most experienced fighters in guerrilla warfare because of separatist ethnic uprisings in those regions. IRGC commanders dispatched to Syria also often come from those provinces as well.

Iran was also considering the transfer to Iraq of Shiite volunteer troops in Syria, if the initial deployments fail to turn the tide of battle in favor of Mr. Maliki's government, the Iranian security officials said.

At stake for Iran in Iraq's current tumult isn't only the survival of a Shiite political ally in Baghdad, but the safety of Karbala and Najaf, which along with Mecca and Medina are sacred to Shiites world-wide.

"The more insecure and isolated Maliki becomes, the more he will need Iran. The growth of ISIS presents a serious threat to Iran. So it would not be surprising to see the Guards become more involved in Iraq," said Alireza Nader, a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corp.

A spokesman for the militant group ISIS, Abu Mohamad al-Adnani, urged the group's Sunni fighters to march toward the "filth-ridden" Karbala and "the city of polytheism" Najaf, where they would "settle their differences" with Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

That coarsely worded threat further vindicated Iran's view that the fight unfolding in Iraq is an existential sectarian battle between the two rival sects of Islam-Sunni and Shiite—and by default a proxy battle between their patrons Saudi Arabia and Iran.

"Until now we haven't received any requests for help from Iraq. Iraq's army is certainly capable in handling this," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afgham said Wednesday.

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani cut short a religious celebration on Thursday and said he had to attend an emergency meeting of the country's National Security Council about events in Iraq.

"We, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, won't tolerate this violence and terrorism…. We will fight and battle violence and extremism and terrorism in the region and the world," he said in a speech.

ISIS's rapid territorial gains in the past few days appeared to have caught Iranian officials by surprise and opened a debate within the regime over whether Iran should publicly enter the battle.

Iran's chief of police, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam said the National Security Council would consider intervening in Iraq to "protect Shiite shrines and cities," according to Iranian media.

In the short-term, analysts said the outcome of the crisis in Iraq will only strengthen and increase the influence of Iran and the Revolutionary Guards.

Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com

Surge of child illegals part of Obama's effort to 'fundamentally transform America'

(Washington Times Editorial) -- There’s a surge on the border. This is a surge far different from George W. Bush’s dispatch of armed might to win the day in Iraq. This is a mass movement of immigrants that threatens to transform the nation.

Children are walking hundreds of miles across a hostile environment with little more than the clothes on their backs, accompanied by neither a parent nor other responsible adult. The numbers of these children making the treacherous journey are much higher than the Obama administration has acknowledged, according to reporting by our Stephen Dinan. The deputy Border Patrol chief, Ronald Vitiello, said in an internal memo on May 30 that border agents caught 40,000 unaccompanied children last year. They expect to apprehend 90,000 children this year, and 142,000 in 2015.

Americans are a kind and generous people, and photographs of a sea of small, frightened and hungry faces in U.S. shelters along the southern border are enough to break a million hearts. President Obama, whatever he intended, is largely responsible. Lured by lax immigration enforcement and the promise of citizenship as “dreamers,” the Obama children’s hour is changing the mission at the border from ensuring security to providing emergency assistance. Last week, the president declared the border an “urgent humanitarian situation.” He assigned the handling of the influx of children to Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which customarily provides relief following natural disasters. This is a disaster, sure enough, but it’s a man-made disaster.
Untended children leaving their homes in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to head north is anything but natural. On June 2, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte pinned the blame squarely on Mr. Obama’s broken border policies. “Word has gotten out around the world about President Obama’s lax immigration-enforcement policies and it has encouraged more people to come to the United States illegally, many of whom are children from Central America.”
Coming to America now means getting free citizenship, free health care, welfare benefits and even an Obamaphone. Illegal aliens crossing the border into Texas say news reports in their Central American homelands encourage them to risk the journey northward with the promise that if they make it to the U.S. border, they won’t be turned away.

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BREAKING: Feds Threaten the Entire State of Oklahoma

BREAKING: Feds Threaten the Entire State of Oklahoma

When Oklahoma asserted its Tenth Amendment rights by signing legislation making it the third state to ditch Common Core education standards, it was only a matter of time before the federal government pushed back.
Common Core standards are an attempt by the Obama administration to push further into the education system and eventually create a nationalized curriculum designed to transform children into wards of the state.
Many states have recognized the danger these standards pose both to freedom and the quality of the education their children receive and have began creating legislation that allows them to come up with their own standards.

Indiana was the first state to give Common Core the boot, followed by South Carolina, and then Oklahoma.
Now U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has unleashed a veiled threat of punishment against the state during a press briefing delivered earlier this week.

via Daily Caller:

In a press briefing at the White House on Monday, though, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan struck back by vaguely suggesting that the federal government may now punish Oklahoma.

Duncan asserted that “40 percent of high school graduates” in Oklahoma “have to take remedial classes when they go to college” and only “25 percent of Oklahoma’s eighth-graders in math are proficient.”

The Obama administration education chief declared that the Common Core Standards Initiative is a panacea for this problem.

“We got a dropout problem we got to deal with,” Duncan said. “We want to make sure our high school graduates aren’t having to take remedial classes, burn up Pell grants, burn up student loans taking non-credit bearing. And right now, roughly 40 percent of those graduates in Oklahoma are having to do that. We don’t think that’s good for those young people, their families, or for the country.”

Duncan had ominous words for states that buck the Common Core trend.

“We partner with states whether they’re in Common Core or have their own high standards. But where we will challenge status quo is when states dummy down standards,” he warned.

It’s obvious that the federal government is licking its wounds at not being able to bully states into accepting their liberal education standards. The truth of the matter is that as long as Oklahoma stands its ground, there is little the White House can do.

The government needs to be reminded that it’s power is derived from the people, and the people have the constitutional right to take that power back, as they did so in this particular case. More states need to get on board in the fight against Common Core and send a strong message that states will not be bullied by the federal government.

Please share this article on Facebook and Twitter if you support Oklahoma’s decision to ditch Common Core standards.

Read more at http://conservativetribune.com/feds-threaten-oklahoma/#KkXljulZfL7Wvk5m.99

BREAKING -- US Spy Agencies Heard Benghazi Attackers Using State Dept. Cell Phones to Call Terrorist Leaders

By: Bret Baier & James Rosen

The terrorists who attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 used cell phones, seized from State Department personnel during the attacks, and U.S. spy agencies overheard them contacting more senior terrorist leaders to report on the success of the operation, multiple sources confirmed to Fox News.
The disclosure is important because it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry, as the administration claimed for several weeks after the attacks.
Eric Stahl, who recently retired as a major in the U.S. Air Force, served as commander and pilot of the C-17 aircraft that was used to transport the corpses of the four casualties from the Benghazi attacks – then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods – as well as the assault’s survivors from Tripoli to the safety of an American military base in Ramstein, Germany.

In an exclusive interview on Fox News’ “Special Report,” Stahl said members of a CIA-trained Global Response Staff who raced to the scene of the attacks were “confused” by the administration’s repeated implication of the video as a trigger for the attacks, because “they knew during the attack…who was doing the attacking.” Asked how, Stahl told anchor Bret Baier: “Right after they left the consulate in Benghazi and went to the [CIA] safehouse, they were getting reports that cell phones, consulate cell phones, were being used to make calls to the attackers' higher ups.”

A separate U.S. official, one with intimate details of the bloody events of that night, confirmed the major’s assertion. The second source, who requested anonymity to discuss classified data, told Fox News he had personally read the intelligence reports at the time that contained references to calls by terrorists – using State Department cell phones captured at the consulate during the battle – to their terrorist leaders. The second source also confirmed that the security teams on the ground received this intelligence in real time.
Major Stahl was never interviewed by the Accountability Review Board, the investigative panel convened, pursuant to statute, by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as the official body reviewing all the circumstances surrounding the attacks and their aftermath. Many lawmakers and independent experts have criticized the thoroughness of the ARB, which also never interviewed Clinton nor the under secretary of State for management, Patrick Kennedy, a key figure in the decisions about security at the consulate in the period preceding the attack there.
In his interview on “Special Report,” Stahl made still other disclosures that add to the vast body of literature on Benghazi – sure to grow in the months ahead, as a select House committee prepares for a comprehensive probe of the affair, complete with subpoena power. Stahl said that when he deposited the traumatized passengers at Ramstein, the first individual to question the CIA security officers was not an FBI officer but by the senior State Department diplomat on the ground.
“They were taken away from the airplane,” Stahl said. “The U.S. ambassador to Germany [Philip D. Murphy] met us when we landed and he took them away because he wanted to debfrief them that night.” Murphy stepped down as ambassador last year. A message left with Sky Blue FC, a private company in New Jersey with which Murphy is listed online as an executive officer, was not immediately returned.

Read the full story at FOXNews.com

Be Prepared: What You Need To Know About The Current Conflict In Iraq

Experts warn that if militants reach the capital city of Baghdad...

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B. Christopher Agee — June 12, 2014

The Iraqi military is fending off waves of Islamic fighters this week, with the city of Tikrit serving as the epicenter Thursday of a fierce battle between national forces and militants.

According to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, this is the most significant threat posed by rebels associated with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) since the current government took control of the country. He has requested an emergency response from parliament in an effort to mitigate the destruction.
With Shiite Muslims in charge, those areas dominated by Sunnis are hotspots for clashes between the two groups. According to reports, fighters took over the city of Mosul this week before they were targeted by a raid by the Iraqi air force.
Three years removed from the region, the U.S. military has yet to get involved in the current discord. While there is little open discussion on the matter, one anonymous source explained Barack Obama has little interest in assisting in a war he unilaterally declared was finished.
Bloomberg noted that a peripheral effect of the regional violence is a spike in crude oil prices worldwide. Iraq, which is the second-largest oil producer among OPEC nations, has seen output stall at a Baiji plant that typically puts out more than 300,000 barrels per day.
According to Reuters, ISIL forces surrounded the refinery Thursday in addition to the aggression in Tikrit.
As for U.S. oil prices, reports indicate the price of a barrel hit a recent high of $106.53, which is the highest in nearly nine months. Experts warn that if militants reach the capital city of Baghdad and continue south, the impact could be even more severe.
Economist Jason Tuvey of Capital Economics Ltd. issued a report Thursday indicating that the majority of Iraq’s oil output originates in that region.
“Most of Iraq’s major oilfields are located in the south of the country,” he wrote, “far from where the current turmoil is taking place.”

Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/islamist-attacks-surge-iraq-oil-prices-jump/#SYJs5CP1OP8vQPdf.99

The Obama Administration Has Been Quietly Telling Local Police Forces Not to Tell You About This

Jun. 12, 2014 6:32pm Jason Howerton

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Editor’s Note:

Story by the Associated Press; curated by Jason Howerton

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has been quietly advising local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology they are using to sweep up basic cellphone data from entire neighborhoods, The Associated Press has learned.
Citing security reasons, the U.S. has intervened in routine state public records cases and criminal trials regarding use of the technology. This has resulted in police departments withholding materials or heavily censoring documents in rare instances when they disclose any about the purchase and use of such powerful surveillance equipment.
Federal involvement in local open records proceedings is unusual. It comes at a time when President Barack Obama has said he welcomes a debate on government surveillance and called for more transparency about spying in the wake of disclosures about classified federal surveillance programs.

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

One well-known type of this surveillance equipment is known as a Stingray, an innovative way for law enforcement to track cellphones used by suspects and gather evidence. The equipment tricks cellphones into identifying some of their owners’ account information, like a unique subscriber number, and transmitting data to police as if it were a phone company’s tower. That allows police to obtain cellphone information without having to ask for help from service providers, such as Verizon or AT&T, and can locate a phone without the user even making a call or sending a text message.
But without more details about how the technology works and under what circumstances it’s used, it’s unclear whether the technology might violate a person’s constitutional rights or whether it’s a good investment of taxpayer dollars.
Interviews, court records and public-records requests show the Obama administration is asking agencies to withhold common information about the equipment, such as how the technology is used and how to turn it on. That pushback has come in the form of FBI affidavits and consultation in local criminal cases.
“These extreme secrecy efforts are in relation to very controversial, local government surveillance practices using highly invasive technology,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which has fought for the release of these types of records. “If public participation means anything, people should have the facts about what the government is doing to them.”
Harris Corp., a key manufacturer of this equipment, built a secrecy element into its authorization agreement with the Federal Communications Commission in 2011. That authorization has an unusual requirement: that local law enforcement “coordinate with the FBI the acquisition and use of the equipment.” Companies like Harris need FCC authorization in order to sell wireless equipment that could interfere with radio frequencies.

(Photo: Shutterstock.com)

A spokesman from Harris Corp. said the company will not discuss its products for the Defense Department and law enforcement agencies, although public filings showed government sales of communications systems such as the Stingray accounted for nearly one-third of its $5 billion in revenue. “As a government contractor, our solutions are regulated and their use is restricted,” spokesman Jim Burke said.
Local police agencies have been denying access to records about this surveillance equipment under state public records laws. Agencies in San Diego, Chicago and Oakland County, Michigan, for instance, declined to tell the AP what devices they purchased, how much they cost and with whom they shared information. San Diego police released a heavily censored purchasing document. Oakland officials said police-secrecy exemptions and attorney-client privilege keep their hands tied. It was unclear whether the Obama administration interfered in the AP requests.
“It’s troubling to think the FBI can just trump the state’s open records law,” said Ginger McCall, director of the open government project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. McCall suspects the surveillance would not pass constitutional muster.
“The vast amount of information it sweeps in is totally irrelevant to the investigation,” she said.
A court case challenging the public release of information from the Tucson Police Department includes an affidavit from an FBI special agent, Bradley Morrison, who said the disclosure would “result in the FBI’s inability to protect the public from terrorism and other criminal activity because through public disclosures, this technology has been rendered essentially useless for future investigations.”
Morrison said revealing any information about the technology would violate a federal homeland security law about information-sharing and arms-control laws – legal arguments that that outside lawyers and transparency experts said are specious and don’t comport with court cases on the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
The FBI did not answer questions about its role in states’ open records proceedings.
But a former Justice Department official said the federal government should be making this argument in federal court, not a state level where different public records laws apply.
“The federal government appears to be attempting to assert a federal interest in the information being sought, but it’s going about it the wrong way,” said Dan Metcalfe, the former director of the Justice Department’s office of information and privacy. Currently Metcalfe is the executive director of American University’s law school Collaboration on Government Secrecy project.
A criminal case in Tallahassee cites the same homeland security laws in Morrison’s affidavit, court records show, and prosecutors told the court they consulted with the FBI to keep portions of a transcript sealed. That transcript, released earlier this month, revealed that Stingrays “force” cellphones to register their location and identifying information with the police device and enables officers to track calls whenever the phone is on.
One law enforcement official familiar with the Tucson lawsuit, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak about internal discussions, said federal lawyers told Tucson police they couldn’t hand over a PowerPoint presentation made by local officers about how to operate the Stingray device. Federal officials forwarded Morrison’s affidavit for use in the Tucson police department’s reply to the lawsuit, rather than requesting the case be moved to federal court.
In Sarasota, Florida, the U.S. Marshals Service confiscated local records on the use of the surveillance equipment, removing the documents from the reach of Florida’s expansive open-records law after the ACLU asked under Florida law to see the documents. The ACLU has asked a judge to intervene. The Marshals Service said it deputized the officer as a federal agent and therefore the records weren’t accessible under Florida law.

Islamists unleash all-out assault on Iraqi cities with US weapons

Border Patrol Memo: Seeking Agents With Child Care Skills to Deal With Flood of Illegal Kids Crossing Alone BUSTED OBAMA BUSTED AGAIN THIS IS HUMAN TRAFFING

Border Patrol Memo: Seeking Agents With Child Care Skills to Deal With Flood of Illegal Kids Crossing Alone

June 12, 2014 9:59 am  

• Invasion U.S.A.

(The Blaze) – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials are trying to recruit Border Patrol agents with expertise in child care to volunteer for 30-day assignments at the Nogales, Ariz., border center to help manage the flood of unaccompanied children who have crossed illegally into the U.S.
A June 6 internal memo obtained by TheBlaze says the Nogales center is being mobilized to alleviate pressure on the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector, which has taken the brunt of the thousands of unaccompanied children crossing. The wave of children has been labeled a federal emergency crisis and has put significant pressure on housing and processing capabilities, the memo said.
“The primary demographic of the individuals being housed at the [Nogales processing center] are females and [unaccompanied alien children],” the memo said. “Therefore, agents that are best equipped to interact with the above demographic are being requested. Additionally, agents with experience in emergency medical care and non-emergency health care, child care, or juvenile teaching and/or counseling are encouraged to apply.”
FAX BLAST SPECIAL: NO AMNESTY for Illegals!
Most of the children coming in are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. It’s not known for certain what is driving the wave, but Obama administration opponents point to the White House’s positions on immigration reform, saying they are inspiring hope of obtaining amnesty in the U.S. Many of the children are searching for parents who have left them behind to work illegally in the United States, while others are fleeing growing gang violence and crime in their home countries.
Border Patrol agents who volunteer will be tasked with processing, feeding, monitoring, interacting with, and providing security for the children until they are placed in the care of social services, the memo said.
More than 60,000 children are expected to cross into the United States in 2014, according to Border Patrol officials. Between Oct. 1 and Sept. 30 2013, only 4,474 children apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley were accompanied by adults, compared to more than 21,000 children who crossed unaccompanied, according to internal Border Patrol figures obtained by TheBlaze. There were 128,426 adults apprehended in that same sector during the same time period, straining law enforcement resources.

A portion of the internal Border Patrol memo obtained by TheBlaze recruiting agents to handle the influx of unaccompanied children crossing into the U.S.
Border Patrol agents are not trained in child-rearing, nor do they specialize in social services, said Derek Hernandez, vice president of the western region for the National Border Patrol Council, the labor union representing Border Patrol agents.
“We’ve been getting reports that other Border Patrol stations are also receiving similar requests  and they’re asking for people who have medical skills and mainly females with child care skills,” Hernandez told TheBlaze. ”That’s not our primary role — our role is to enforce immigration and protect the border. There are other agencies, specifically nonprofits that would love to help out and frankly would be more capable of helping the children.”

A bus leaves the entrance of the U S. Border Patrol facility on Saturday, June 7, 2014 in Nogales, Ariz. (AP/Brian Skoloff)
A Border Patrol agent who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter said cell doors are being left open and unsecured at the various Border Patrol facilities housing the flood of undocumented migrants. The agent also said children’s toys have been scattered throughout the facility and that because of overcrowding, “people are being put in non-secured areas that were never designed for holding detainees.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/12/border-patrol-memo-seeking-agents-with-child-care-experience-to-deal-with-flood-of-illegal-kids-crossing-alone/

Americans being evacuated from Iraqi air base as militants advance

Published June 12, 2014

FoxNews.com

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Americans were being evacuated Thursday from a major Iraqi air base as Al Qaeda-aligned militants toppled cities in the country's north and threatened to advance toward Baghdad.
A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that Americans were being evacuated from a base in Balad, which had been one of the largest training missions in Iraq.
The three planeloads of Americans are mostly contractors and civilians. The State Department said Thursday that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is operating as usual.
But the evacuation means that the vital training mission at Balad, about an hour northwest of Baghdad, has been suspended indefinitely -- despite repeated administration statements that it would continue to support Iraq's military.
Regarding those assurances, one U.S. official clarified to Fox News: "At the same time, we are not going to do anything stupid."
The development signals the worsening security environment in the northern part of the country. One senior official told Fox News that the focus for evacuation at this point is on people outside of Baghdad.
Two senior intelligence sources, though, told Fox News there is serious concern about how to evacuate other Americans out of Iraq if the situation further deteriorates.
"We need places to land, we need safe and secure airfields," one source said, noting that the militants are "seizing airfields and they have surface-to-air missiles, which very clearly threatens our pilots and planes if we do go into evacuation mode."
Sources said "all western diplomats in Iraq are in trouble," and American allies are scrambling to put together an evacuation plan. Military officials said there are "not a lot of good options."
The Obama administration is still trying to determine how to assist the Nouri al-Maliki government, while making clear it does not want U.S. troops in the middle of the fight.
"We are not contemplating ground troops," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday.
According to the White House, Vice President Biden spoke Thursday with Maliki and expressed "solidarity" with the Iraqi government in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Obama promised Thursday to send more military aid, without saying what kind of new assistance would be given to Baghdad. Two U.S. officials who are familiar with ongoing negotiations told The Associated Press the White House is considering air strikes and increased surveillance, requested this week by the Iraqi defense minister, as the insurgency nears Baghdad.
The Iraqi government has been asking for more than a year for surveillance and armed drones to combat a Sunni insurgency that has gained strength from battlefield successes in neighboring Syria.
Republican lawmakers were harshly critical Thursday of the administration's response. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called for Obama to replace his national security team.
House Speaker John Boehner snapped: "What's the president doing? Taking a nap."
Obama commented on the violence shortly afterward.
"What we've seen over the last couple of days indicates the degree to which Iraq is going to need more help," Obama said. "It's going to need more help from us, and it's going to need more help from the international community."
Several thousand Americans remain in Iraq, mostly contractors who work at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on programs to train Iraqi forces on American military equipment like fighter jets and tanks. Those being evacuated from Balad on Thursday included 12 U.S. government officials and military personnel who have been training Iraqi forces to use fighter jets and surveillance drones.
Other U.S. contractors are at a tank training ground in the city of Taji, just north of the capital, that is still in operation for now.
In addition to the possible military assistance, State Department spokeswoman Psaki said the U.S. is sending about $12 million in humanitarian aid to help nearly a million Iraqis who have been forced from their homes by recent fighting in the nation's north and west.
Fox News' Justin Fishel and Adam Housley and The Associated Press contributed to this report.