On Thursday, President Trump signed the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act (S.1595), sponsored by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). The bill increases sanctions on the U.S.-designated terrorist organization known as Hezbollah by restricting the activity of their external financial support systems.
The President shall, on or after the date of the enactment of [the bill], impose the sanctions described in subsection (b) with respect to any foreign person that the President determines knowingly provides significant financial, material, or technological support for or to—
(1) Bayt al-Mal, Jihad al-Bina, the Islamic Resistance Support Association, the Foreign Relations Department of Hizballah, the External Security Organization of Hizballah, or any successor or affiliate thereof as designated by the President;
(2) al-Manar TV, al Nour Radio, or the Lebanese Media Group, or any successor or affiliate thereof as designated by the President;
(3) a foreign person determined by the President to be engaged in fundraising or recruitment activities for Hizballah; or
(4) a foreign person owned or controlled by a person described in paragraph (1), (2), or (3).
The sanctions include asset blocking, and denying visas and admissions to aliens "who the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security .. .determines is subject to subsection (a) ..."
Additionally, the president must report on "foreign financial institution[s]" that are:
(I) organized under the laws of a state sponsor of terrorism or any jurisdiction within a state sponsor of terrorism;
(II) owned or controlled by the government of a state sponsor of terrorism;
(III) located in the territory of a state sponsor of terrorism; or
(IV) owned or controlled by a foreign financial institution described in subclause (I), (II), or (III); and
(ii) the capitalization of which exceeds $10,000,000.
After signing the legislation, Trump spoke before a large gathering to mark the 35th anniversary of the October 1983 bombing that took the lives of 241 service personnel at a Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.
Regarding Hezbollah, the president said:
The attack was carried out by Hezbollah, which Iran was instrumental in founding a year earlier to advance its radical agenda, and remain its main patron today – and we are doing a big number on Iran today ...
Over the past year we have levied the highest sanctions ever imposed on Hezbollah in a single year, by far. Just a few moments ago, I signed legislation imposing even more hard-hitting sanctions on Hezbollah to further starve them of their funds – and they are starving of funds.
We will target, disrupt, and dismantle their operational and financing efforts, of which they have plenty – they don’t have plenty now – and we will never forget what they did to our great Marines in Beirut. We will never forget.
Here’s the video (pertinent portion begins at the 7:11 mark):
In response to the president signing the legislation, Senator Rubio issued a statement that reads in part:
I thank President Trump for signing my Hizballah sanctions bill into law, and for welcoming relatives of the Beirut Marines to the White House today to honor the ultimate sacrifice that these U.S. servicemembers made 35 years ago.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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