Displaying posts categorized under

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Fort Pierce Islamic Center’s Terror-Related Past and Present A suicide bomber, a mass murderer, a Taliban supporter, and a Hamas-related spokesman.Joe Kaufman

yed Shafeeq Ur Rahman, imam of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce (ICFP), claims that his mosque – the same mosque where Orlando terrorist shooter Omar Mateen regularly prayed at – condemns radical Islam. But if that is so, then why, following the shooting, would the mosque retain a spokesman who is a leader from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group that has numerous associations with the terrorist organization Hamas?

The Islamic Center of Fort Pierce or Masjid Subul-as-Salam was incorporated in September 2003. Its founder was Shafeeq Rahman. Today, Rahman is the mosque’s imam and president. The mosque is a converted church, located at 1104 West Midway Road and owned by Azaan, Inc., a Florida business run by the mosque’s Secretary and Treasurer, Imtiaz Jehan Khan.

Weeks ago, the mosque made the news, following the murders of 49 innocent people at Orlando’s Pulse LGBT nightclub by one of the mosque’s congregants. This had been the second large scale terrorist attack linked to the mosque in as many years.

The first was a suicide attack carried out in Syria by then 22-year-old Palestinian-American Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, aka Abu Hurayra al-Amriki. Abu-Salha was a follower of deceased Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda leader who died via a US drone strike in September 2011. Abu-Salha had flown from the US to Turkey and made his way over the border into Syria, soon to join up with al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front.

In May 2014, Abu-Salha, as a member of al-Nusra, drove a massive truck bomb into a restaurant in Jabal al-Arbaeen filled with Syrian government soldiers. This was said to be the first suicide bombing performed by an American within Syria.

The second attack associated with ICFP took place on June 12th, when Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, also an admirer of al-Awlaki, entered the Pulse in Orlando and shot and killed 49 people and injured 53 more. During the attack, Mateen placed a call to 911 to claim responsibility for the attack and pledge his allegiance to the leader of ISIS. He stated, “I pledge… allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State.” He, as well, expressed his solidarity with those who carried out the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and Abu-Salha, who perpetrated the Syria suicide attack.

Released Gitmo Detainee Goes Missing in Latin America How Obama’s dash to release terror suspects from Guantanamo threatens U.S. national security. Michael Cutler

The Obama administration has played politics with virtually every issue, including issues that endanger national security and the safety and well-being of Americans.

Through the issuance of executive orders on immigration that make a mockery of our nation’s borders and immigration laws and that contradict commonsense and the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission millions of illegal aliens whose true identities cannot be determined now live in towns and cities across the United States.

Nearly every terror attack carried out in the United States has a connection to a failure of the immigration system. Most of the terrorists who have been identified were admitted into the United States, proving that our immigration system lacks integrity. But failures of the immigration system also include failures to physically secure our nation’s northern and southern borders.

Our borders have become little more than “speed bumps” to smugglers with record quantities of narcotics, including heroin, flowing freely into the United States, along with transnational criminals and gang members.

The immigration policy of “Catch and Release” that has turned hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who have been convicted of committing serious crimes loose on towns and cities across the United States has been the focus of a series of Congressional hearings, yet nothing has convinced the administration to stop this lunacy.

Catch and Release is not, however, limited to the way that illegal aliens are apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents are released, with the vast majority failing to appear for immigration hearings. In order to keep his promise to close the U.S. facility at Guantanamo, Mr. Obama has ordered ordered terror suspects to be released from custody at Guantanamo. Some have returned to the battlefield where they threaten innocent civilians as well as members of the armed forces of a number of nations including the United States.

It has been reported that 80 radical Islamist terrorists remain in custody in Guantanamo. They must not be released from that important U.S. facility.

Undoubtedly many of these former detainees would love nothing better than make their way to the United States to launch deadly terror attacks inside our borders. ISIS has made it clear that the United States is their prime target.

On July 5, 2016, Fox News reported, “Mystery surrounds whereabouts of former Gitmo detainee in South America.”

Why Hillary Clinton Must Go To Jail No one can be above the law. Daniel Greenfield

In 1994, Hillary Clinton took questions under a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Wearing a pink pantsuit, she offered what would become her customary mix of lies and defensiveness, admitting to something and then trying to shift the blame, denying that she had broken the law and then claiming ignorance.

It was an act that we would see over and over again for the next few decades, but back then it was still new when Hillary Clinton claimed that she couldn’t remember anything, that the whole Whitewater affair was an invasion of her privacy and that she had never meant to do anything wrong.

Some twenty years later, we have spent the past few months witnessing the same performance.

She blamed sexism for Whitewater. “It’s a little difficult for us as a country, maybe, to make the transition of having a woman like many of the women in this room, sitting in this house.” Her supporters claim that her email scandal is caused by sexism rather than her blatant violation of the law.

“I do feel like I’ve always been a fairly private person leading a public life,” Hillary Clinton whined about the examination of her shady investments. This time around she claimed that her whole rogue email server filled with classified documents was an attempt at protecting her classified yoga routines.

The truth, then and now, is that Hillary Clinton is a public figure who claims that her private life is being invaded whenever she gets caught violating the law.

Then there are the vague statements that almost sound like apologies, but aren’t. “I’m not in any way excusing any confusion that we have created,” she said of Whitewater. But the only confusion was Hillary’s efforts to make her critics appear to be confused. On her emails, she said that she was “sorry that it has raised all these questions.” Which is another way of saying that she was sorry she got caught.

Finally there is the politician who would be president playing dumb. Hillary Clinton didn’t understand how investments worked back then. She doesn’t understand how emails work now. When all else fails, Hillary Clinton will plead incompetence and then claim that she wants to focus on fixing health care.

Investments are confusing. Email accounts are confusing. Someone please put her in charge of something simple. Like health care for the entire country. Or maybe just the entire country.

No one trusts her and no one believes that she will ever be held accountable.

What About the Clinton Foundation Investigation? By Debra Heine

The investigation into the Clinton Foundation didn’t come up at all during FBI Director James Comey’s press conference Tuesday, prompting pundits like Fox News national security analyst K.T. McFarland to ask why.

“Isn’t there a second FBI investigation? A criminal FBI investigation into the Clinton foundation? What is status of that?”

Fox News reported Tuesday evening that despite the FBI’s ruling on her emails, “Hillary Clinton may not be completely in the clear. ”

“The Clinton Foundation may still be the subject of its own investigation,” Megyn Kelly reported Tuesday evening on The Kelly File. “Director Comey made no mention of the foundation today or whether the FBI is investigating it, at all.”

According to Chief Intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge, Republican Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Jason Chaffetz pressed Comey after his statement at FBI headquarters about whether there would be charges against Clinton’s aides, and whether the entire investigation was closed.

“I specifically asked him what about the other people — what about the IT guy, what about the inner circle, what about the other things. And he quickly said, ‘I can’t tell you about that yet.'” Chaffetz explained on Special Report.

As Fox News reported back in January, the FBI expanded its investigation into Clinton’s emails to include the possible intersection of State Department business and the Clinton Foundation and whether public corruption laws were violated (as chronicled in Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash”).

Herridge noted that it wasn’t typical for Comey to not take questions after making a statement. “He seemed to anticipate the backlash,” she said.

James Comey, Loretta Lynch Called To Testify Before Congress Over Clinton Investigation By Debra Heine

Republicans in Congress have called for Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey to answer questions regarding the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Comey will appear before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday to defend his decision not to recommend criminal charges against Clinton for her use of a private email server while secretary of State. Lynch, who recently faced heavy criticism over her secret meeting with former President Bill Clinton in Phoenix, was called by Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) to appear before the House Judiciary Committee next week.

Via the Wall Street Journal:

On Tuesday, Mr. Comey said Mrs. Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of emails containing classified material, but that the FBI was not recommending pressing charges against her. Many Republicans were critical of the decision and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) had called for a hearing on the issue.

“The FBI’s recommendation is surprising and confusing. The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law,” Mr. Chaffetz said in a statement Wednesday. “Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI’s investigation.”

Mr. Ryan has also said Mrs. Clinton should not receive classified information in briefings given to her as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Ms. Lynch is also set to testify before Congress regarding the Clinton email investigation, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) in a Wednesday statement. A Justice Department spokesman affirmed Ms. Lynch plans to testify next week but said that the appearance had been confirmed since May. CONTINUE AT SITE

It was a heck of an indictment until he got to the indictment part By Silvio Canto, Jr.

On Tuesday, I listened to FBI director James Comey on the radio. They broke with the flash that Director Comey would address the media, and I did not want to miss it. I even waited for him to finish before going into my appointment. (I was early, so I had the luxury of 10 minutes.)

My initial reaction to the director’s words was to say to myself: “She’s in bigger trouble than I thought…”

Then came the finish, and I got mad. Yes, I am angry, because the country deserves better. I found this editorial at the Wall Street Journal just right:

So there it is in the political raw: One standard exists for a Democratic candidate for President and another for the hoi polloi.

We’re not sure if Mr. Comey, the erstwhile Eliot Ness, intended to be so obvious, but what a depressing moment this is for the American rule of law.
No wonder so many voters think Washington is rigged for the powerful.

No wonder, indeed! No wonder people feel that some can get away with something and some can’t.

Some Democrats may cheer and say that the whole thing is over, but it is not. In fact, it is just beginning.

It does not take a partisan person to understand that people have suffered serious consequences for doing a lot less. Can you say General Petraeus?

Furthermore, how is the federal government going to prosecute the next person who decides to be sloppy with communications or emails? Will that person claim the Hillary Exemption? I’d bet that there are some defense lawyers out there thinking about new defense strategies.

Of course, it is now up to Mr. Trump to lead the political prosecution of Hillary Clinton. He will have to make the case that Mrs. Clinton cannot be trusted, and Director Comey gave him all the material he needs to put in the teleprompter.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump wasted the opportunity yesterday by getting into another explanation of how he opposed the Iraq War and Saddam Hussein killed terrorists.

Someone needs to hold a sign at the Trump rallies with a simple message: “The jobs report, FBI, and mess in Middle East, and say nothing else”!

Sorry, but it’s time for Trump to get message discipline or let the delegates choose someone else!

Firepower for the feds? Congress should question the militarization of the bureaucracy By Adam Andrzejewski

Women’s sanitary pads purchased for the federal prison system and coded as body armor? Cable television purchased by the Coast Guard and $179,418 spent by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on copiers, both of which were coded as guns? Veteran’s Affairs procurement of $31,600 in “assorted bread” coded as “Guns, Through 30MM”?

On Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform convenes a hearing with the Bureau of Prisons and other agencies regarding their inventory and accounting practices for firearms and ammunition. We salute their efforts. Here are some questions the committee may want to ask:

Why are there $173,433 in women’s jumpers, sanitary pads, sheets, pillowcases, inmate clothes and shoes, and various beauty supplies tagged as body armor in the prison checkbook?

Did the federal prisons really purchase $1.4 million in “military chemical weapons” since 2006? Or how about $541,351 in purchases under the federal uniform accounting code of “1310: Ammunition, over 30MM up to 75MM”? It’s doubtful that the prison system is buying bunker-busting missiles, so who is auditing the auditors?

Just how many errors have the federal administrative agencies made in the reporting of their guns, ammunition and military-style equipment?

Despite the dirty data and accounting mistakes, our organization at OpenTheBooks.com recently released an oversight report titled “The Militarization of America.” It quantified the escalating size, scope and power of 67 nonmilitary federal agencies, which spent $1.48 billion on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment since 2006. We also found that there are now more federal officers with arrest and firearms power (200,000-plus) than U.S. Marines (182,000).

Here are some of the public policy issues that have come to light because of our oversight report:

Meet the man James Comey indicted over a 21-word email By Jonathan Haggerty

In April, 2003, investment banker Frank Quattrone was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice by then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York James Comey for one email sent to employees.

Quattrone voiced his discontent with Comey’s recent announcement regarding Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s personal email server. Comey is now the director of the FBI.

Quattrone was the subject of an U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe into his dealings at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he allegedly “doled out hot stock offerings” to his friends. Quattrone hosted initial public offerings for companies like Amazon and Cisco in the late 90s, and his activity led to investigation at the height of the tech bubble.

Leading the charge of the investigation was Comey, then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Comey charged Quattrone for a one sentence email in which he “advised colleagues in late 2000 to destroy documents while regulators were investigating Wall Street investment banks” for the way they shared their “lucrative initial public offerings.”

The email that got Quattrone in trouble was “having been a key witness in a securities litigation case in south Texas, I strongly advise you to follow these procedures.”

The procedures Quattrone referred to involved a suggestion from a coworker in an email chain that employees save subpoenaed documents.

On Hillary, Let the Voters Decide The court of public opinion will make the final judgment. By John Yoo & Robert Delahunty

The people, not the prosecutors, should decide whether Hillary broke the law.

That is the real takeaway from FBI director James Comey’s decision not to refer Hillary Clinton and her aides to the Justice Department for prosecution. According to Comey, Clinton was “extremely careless” by diverting classified information through a home-brewed computer network that deliberately avoided the official system of the State Department — even though the FBI found that Clinton had sent 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains contained classified information, that she had not turned over all relevant e-mails, that she had used her private e-mail system while visiting our adversaries, and that her system had probably been hacked by them.

But Comey found that no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges because the FBI could find no “clearly intentional or willful mishandling of classified information or vast quantities of information exposed in such a way to support an inference of intentional misconduct or indications of disloyalty to the United States or an obstruction of justice.” This makes no sense because the law at issue, Section 793(f) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, does not require such a high level of intent, but only “gross negligence.” It also makes no sense of the facts, as they are known: Why, after all, create a private e-mail system other than to evade the secure, classified system? We agree with Andy McCarthy’s excellent dissection of the interpretation of Section 793(f) and why the case against Hillary is strong.

Comey’s decision also makes no sense as a matter of past prosecutorial practice. John Deutch, director of the CIA under Bill Clinton, was prosecuted for keeping classified material on unclassified laptops. Clinton national-security adviser Sandy Berger was prosecuted for removing classified documents from the National Archives. And of course David Petraeus was prosecuted for sharing classified information with his girlfriend and biographer. And we should not forget the witch hunt for the leaker of Valerie Plame’s covert identity by independent counsel Pat Fitzgerald, which Comey ultimately oversaw. Comey allowed Fitzgerald to bring charges against Scooter Libby, even though Fitzgerald knew that the leaker was another official.

Hence our takeaway: All of them should have gotten out of their prosecutions by running for president, because that is the only significant difference between Clinton’s case and theirs. In fact, the Clinton case exposed far more of U.S. operations to far more dangerous readers, since our global rivals, who have shown no reluctance to hack U.S. government systems, would have easily broken into her system and read the communications of our top diplomatic officials.

Dictatorship of the Clintontariat by: Diana West

Of course, “FBI Director” Comey will not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. But that is not what is worst about this latest wretched day in American history.

What child, what babe, what fuzzy bunny ever expected that he would? Who among us examined the facts of the case as they emerged and rested assured that Justice would be done — that is, done blindly, with no special-case, extra-stretchy, wink-wink regard for the Clintons?

One law for thee and me and one law for the Clintons and ilk, and who doesn’t know it. That is the greatest offense, and it’s nothing new. Just think “Banana Republic.” Just think Soviet regime — but please, spare us the “American exceptionalism.” Even if the strong man who comes to mind wears a uniform, not a blinding pants suit, much is the same.

Once upon a time this was shocking — I do remember being devastated nearly twenty years ago by the perfidy of Trent Lott’s Senate when they show-trialed Bill Clinton’s impeachment charges. “Henry, you’re not going to dump this garbage on us,” Lott, we later found out, told House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde on meeting with the 13 House Managers to discuss the Senate “trial.” Then, as now, the establishment (party i.d. irrelevant) was fighting for what it prizes most — its prerogatives. It won.

It always does (another reason the anti-estabishment advent of Trump so electrifies us masses).

Another milestone of note (there are so many) came in 2009 when Hillary Clinton came before the Senate in confirmation hearings on her appointment as Secretary of State. She was already encumbered with the heavy baggage (tens of millions in Islamic dictators’ money, etc.) that instantly and emphatically disqualified her for the position. The Senate closed its eyes and voted 94-2 (thanks again, Sens. DeMint and Vitter).

Yesterday was no different. The Dictatorship of the Clintonariat rules.