Red-carpet treatment for detained illegals
From The US Report:
Officers and agents have issued a ‘no confidence’ vote in assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE John Morton and Office of Detention Policy and Planning assistant director Phyllis Coven.
Janice Kephart at the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies wrote, “In an unprecedented move within the Department of Homeland Security, the detention and removal officers and agents responsible for and sworn to enforcing our nation’s immigration laws issued an exhaustive, scathing letter simply titled “‘VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN ICE DIRECTOR JOHN MORTON AND ODPP ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PHYLLIS COVEN’ on June 11, 2010.”
The letter from the American Federation of Government Employees came after ICE issued new requirements in May for detention centers, part of Morton’s new approach to treatment of detainees. Among those requirements:
• Increase availability of legal supplies and postage to indigent detainees for legal correspondence.
• Add research resources at the law libraries.
• Play the “Know Your Rights” legal orientation video in each housing unit every day (not in lieu of in person legal programs but in addition to them).
• Eliminate lock downs and lights out for appropriate classification.
• Reduce the frequency of and, as reasonable, wholly eliminate pat down searches (noncriminal Level l’s in facilities where non-criminal Level l’s can be separated into a discreet housing unit).
• Soften the look for the facility with hanging plants, flower baskets, new paint colors, different bedding and furniture, wall graphics and framed pictures on the walls, and enhance the aesthetics of the living areas.
• Expand programming for detainees to include movie nights, bingo, arts and crafts, dance, walk and exercise classes, health and welfare classes, basic cooking classes, tutoring and self-paced computer training on portable computer stations.
• Provide celebrations of special occasions and allowing a detainee to receive outside, packaged food for celebrations.
• Offer continental breakfasts that are completely self serve on holidays and weekends.
Email and free phone service are also included.
In essence, the federal government is creating a welfare state on the US border.
What will our country look like when this administration is finished transforming this country?
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: illegal immigration, Obama administration
al Qaeda to Obama admin: ‘You lie!’
Even al Qaeda is fed up with the lies coming from the White House:
“[The Obama] administration, tried to portray the operation of brother Nidal Hassan, as an individual act of violence from an estranged individual. The administration practiced a control on the leak of information concerning the operation in order to cushion the reaction of the American public. Until this moment the administration is refusing to release the emails exchanged between myself and Nidal. And after the operation of our brother Umar al-Faruq the initial comments coming from the administration were looking the same: another attempt at covering up the truth.”
- Anwar al-Awlaki, U.S.-born al Qaeda leader
In: In Their Own Words · Tagged with: al Qaeda, Anwar al-Awlaki, Obama administration
Major changes needed in Afghanistan
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney writes that if we are to win in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal isn’t the only official worthy of firing, and President Obama must abandon his denial that we are at war with “radical Islam.” (HT Kenny B.)
First to the State Department: Ambassadors Eikenberry and Holbrooke have long outlived their effectiveness. They are a drag on success in this difficult war. They must go.
Next, to the Department of Defense: This a war is not an “Overseas Contigency Operation (OCO)” as President Obama’s administration calls it. We have lost 89 ISAF soldiers and 53 US soldiers this month with 2 days left to go.Mr. President, we are in a violent war against radical Islam and your denial of this fact will ensure our defeat.
You and your administration cannot even define the ideology we are fighting against. John Brennan, your National Security adviser for counterterrorism, thinks “jihad” means “holy struggle” not a war against infidels.
Your Secretary of Defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have accepted these ridiculous new definitions of the threat.
This means you, and your national security leadership team are clueless about how to defeat this violent threat against America.
They must all go and you must change your senseless strategy.
It is unfortunate that nearly all of the flag officers that make sense have retired.
I have seen no indications that this administration desires victory in Afghanistan. We can debate who should be sacked and who shouldn’t be, but regardless of whether McChrystal, Petraeus, or Sun Tzu is commanding ISAF, the result will look pretty much the same as they must follow the Commander-in-Chief. So rather than simply sacking commanders and ambassadors (treating the symptoms and not the disease), I would like to take things one step further: Let’s go back to the drawing board.
The president must answer these questions (truthfully):
- Who is our enemy in Afghanistan and what are their intentions?
- What are our intentions in Afghanistan?
- How do you define victory in Afghanistan?
- What are you doing to achieve victory in Afghanistan?
America deserves clear and concise answers, not lies and distractions. If his answers stink, then “We the People” must remind him that the government ultimately works for us. We must fight in Afghanistan – that’s not the debate we should have. It should be who we are fighting and how we should fight them. Worry about firing commanders and diplomats after we have a solid and just foundation.
In: Military, Politics · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Obama administration
Obama administration surpassing Bush as most secretive in history
From the LA Times:
One of the exemptions allowed to deny Freedom of Information requests has been used by the Obama administration 70,779 times in its first year; the same exemption was used 47,395 times in Bush’s final budget year.
An Associated Press examination of 17 major agencies’ handling of FOIA requests found denials 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2008 fiscal year under Bush.
A 50% increase in secrecy? And Obama campaigned on becoming the most open and transparent White House in history! But the truth doesn’t stop Obama:
On March 16 to mark annual Sunshine Week, designed to promote openness in government, Obama applauded himself by issuing a statement:
“As Sunshine Week begins, I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever.”
Remember what Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels said: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
You lie, Mr. President!
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: Obama administration, transparency
Obama admin ignores Arizona governor’s repeated requests to secure the border
The Obama administration claims to be committed to securing our borders, but has ignored multiple requests by a governor to use troops to secure the border.
Since Obama became president, Arizona governor Jan Brewer has sent five separate requests to deploy the state’s National Guard to the border – four last year and another on March 29.
Shockingly, none of the governor’s letters has elicited a response from the White House.
A reporter from the Tuscon television news station KGUN attempted to determine why the government isn’t listening. Instead of getting answers however, he found obstacles.
According to KGU’s website, the reporter first contacted the White House Media Affairs office, who then replied that they required copies of the governor’s letters. Once copies were sent, KGUN’s follow-up call was not answered.
Another call to the Department of Homeland Security pointed the reporter to the Department of Defense, stating the Pentagon is responsible for deploying the National Guard.
The Department of Defense representative in charge of the National Guard was not in the office, and an email was sent.
KGUN reporter Steve Nunez writes: “So, here’s the trail……6 phone calls, 4 emails, no answers. Just a couple of statements including one by Napolitano’s office that was released March 26th which states ‘the Secretary shares the Governor’s concern about the safety of U.S. border communities.’”
In: National Security · Tagged with: illegal immigration, Obama administration
Missile Defense logo or Obama/Islam logo
Screen shot from Missile Defense Agency (24 Feb. 2010)
Is the Obama administration actively trying to incite anti-government violence from ‘We the People?’
The screen shot from the Missile Defense Agency’s website shows the new logo that appears to be a combination of the Islamic crescent moon and star – and Barack Obama’s campaign logo (see images below).
But what was wrong with the old logo? When our government is running up trillions of dollars in debt, the last thing on the priority list should be commissioning new logos for government agencies. And didn’t Obama campaign on de-funding the so-called “unproven missile defense programs?” Michelle Malkin has more on the ad agency who created the new MDA logo.
Coincidence? Barack Obama's presidential campaign logo / the flag of Turkey
The Missile Defense Agency's old logo
In: Politics · Tagged with: missile defense, Obama administration
More cell phone legal issues
Police arrested a man in Daly City, Calif. when he tried to buy 30 cell phones for his business. The salesman from Sprint alerted the police when he became suspicious. From cnetnews.com:
[The suspect] was arrested on charges of felony identity fraud, his car was impounded, and his iPhone was confiscated and searched by police without a warrant.
Although U.S. citizens are innocent until proven guilty, it would appear that the man buying cell phones was up to no good. Police don’t generally go to all that work for nothing. But his iPhone was searched without a warrant, which the Obama administration maintains is Constitutional.
“There are very, very few cases involving smartphones,” Chris Feasel, deputy district attorney for San Mateo County, said in an interview on Wednesday. “The law has not necessarily caught up to the technology.”
I totally agree – the law needs to catch up with cell phones. While law enforcement should be able to search laptops and cell phones if there is probable cause, they should also be held in check by their Constitutional boundaries provided by the Fourth Amendment protections.
I have seen cases where terrorist groups purchase cell phones in similar manners, so perhaps this heads-up Sprint employee and the Daly City P.D. dealt the bad guys a blow. But if that is the case – or if he was just an ordinary citizen breaking the law – couldn’t the police easily obtain a search warrant?
Unless it turns out that he is in fact a foreign national committing acts of war against the U.S., I don’t think that’s asking too much.
In: Politics · Tagged with: Obama administration, warrantless wiretaps
Justice Department, Appeals Court argue warrantless wiretap
Do you think that you a right to privacy when it comes to the location of your cell phone? The Holder Justice Department say you don’t. A Justice Department attorney told the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that there is “no Constitutional bar” to the government accessing your cell phone’s location through your cell phone company’s records.
Should law enforcement be permitted to track our cell phones? Certainly, but they should only do if they have probable cause.
From Declan McCullagh’s cnet news article (which contains excerpts from the court transcript):
Judge Dolores Sloviter sharply questioned Eckenwiler, saying that location data can reveal whether people “have been at a protest, or at a meeting, or at a political meeting” and that rogue governments could misuse that information.
And our Constitution is there to protect us against “rogue governments.” While we are nowhere near Iran’s level of crackdown on political opponents and protesters, we are certainly not headed in a good direction with our current leadership. If the Justice Department can prevent crime while preserving our rights, by all means they should do so. But those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.
In: Politics · Tagged with: Constitution, Justice Department, Obama administration
National Debt by the numbers: What does 12 trillion mean?
On Friday afternoon with no media present, President Barack Obama signed a bill which raises our public debt from $12 .394 trillion to $14.294 trillion.
That is an incredible amount of money, but do Americans even grasp how much money $1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is, let alone more than 14 trillion?
A million seconds ago, it was only twelve days ago. But a trillion seconds ago – it was 29678 B.C.. Woolly mammoths still roamed the earth, and the Great Lakes won’t be formed for another 20,000 years. Scientists estimate that there aren’t even one trillion stars in our galaxy (only 200 to 400 billion). Lined up end to end, one trillion dollar bills would circle the earth an incredible 380 times.
But our debt has already surpassed $12 trillion. That’s 13 million tons of one-dollar bills. In order to haul off all that cash, you would need more than 100,000 semi trucks. If we laid $12 trillion one-dollar bills side-by-side and end-to-end, we could pave all U.S. highways, streets, and county roads more than twice.
The website Defeat the Debt provides figures like those that put debt levels in understandable perspectives.
If I spent $1 billion a day, it would take just under 34 years of spending to reach the level of our national debt. Yet our federal government takes in trillions of dollars in revenue each year, and they still managed to run up a deficit this massive.
Our national debt wasn’t always so spectacular: only in 1982 did government break the $1 trillion mark. By 1990, the debt was $3.2 trillion. By 2000, it was $5.6. On Sept. 30, 2008, White House documents show that our public debt was $9.9 trillion. But in a matter of just a few months under the Obama administration, our debt has climbed by three trillion dollars. Bear in mind that it took over 200 years for the U.S. to accumulate one trillion dollars of debt. During that time we paid for one revolution, the Louisiana Purchase, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, the Marshall Plan, numerous other conflicts, the space program, and so on. But in a matter of months, our federal government – despite trillions of dollars in tax revenue each year – has accumulated almost three trillion more?
And all of this money being spent by government will have to be paid back by the American taxpayer. According to USDebtClock.org, as this column went to press, the current share for each taxpayer was over $113,000. The bill signed on Friday by Obama states that any new spending must be paid for either through spending cuts or tax hikes. And which do you think the Obama administration and Congress will choose?
Our society simply cannot endure federal spending of this magnitude. Rather than argue over which political party or administration is to blame, we must work together to reverse this trend immediately, before it’s too late.
[Originally published at The US Report]
In: Economics · Tagged with: national debt, Obama administration
Sen. Sessions on Brennan’s Outrageous Claims
(For background, refer to my previous article)
In: National Security · Tagged with: John Brennan, Obama administration
