Trump Plans/Prepares for a 2 Ocean War

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Maybe new keels are soon to be laid and a draft could be in the future of the military.

As for the Army, the numbers are noted below but do not include the other branches of service.

ArmyTimes: Endstrength for March was 479,172 soldiers, which is 154 fewer troopers than were on active duty when the Army halted the post-Cold War drawdown in 1999 with 479,424 soldiers, the smallest force since 1940, when the active component numbered 269,023 soldiers.

Barring unexpected delays, the Army is well-positioned to achieve, or exceed, its budgeted end-strength of 475,000 soldiers by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2016.

Without congressional or Defense Department intervention, the drawdown will continue for two more years, with end strength hitting 460,000 soldiers in 2017, and 450,000 in 2018.

The United States Navy is a powerhouse. The fleet consists of roughly 430 ships in active service or reserve. The vessels run the gamut from the massive Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, which stretches more than 1,000 feet, to the Los Angeles-class submarine that slithers 900 feet below the ocean surface. The graphic below shows all the commissioned and noncommissioned ships of every size as of April 2015. The ships are organized by size, from the humongous aircraft carriers at the top to the smaller ships at the bottom.

2015-u-s-navy-fleet

 

Donald Trump wants to increase America’s military force in the Asia-Pacific

DONALD Trump’s administration has given its strongest indication yet that the United States will increase America’s military force against China.

Rudy Giuliani, the president-elect’s frontrunner for secretary of state, has revealed Mr Trump intends to prioritise building a “gigantic” military force to overthrow China’s ambitions in the Pacific.

Speaking to global business leaders in Washington yesterday, Mr Giuliani said the United States would raise its number of troops to 550,000, instead of shrinking it to 420,000.

He also said they intended to take their navy up to 350 ships, instead of going down to 247. It currently has around 280.

“At 350, China can’t match us in the Pacific. At 247 ships, we can’t fight a two-ocean war; we gave up the Pacific. If you face them with a military that is modern, gigantic, overwhelming and unbelievably good at conventional and asymmetric warfare, they may challenge it, but I doubt it.”

He said the expansion would allow the US to fight a “two-ocean war”.

This presents a more assertive foreign policy than the world ever heard from Mr Trump in the lead-up to election with regards to China.

While the South China Sea remains one of the world’s most tense geopolitical regions, the celebrity billionaire was careful to keep his remarks on it to a minimum in the lead-up to the US election.

Experts have told news.com.au Mr Trump has always been set on building the US’s military presence.

“It’s likely that America will have a lot more military muscle under his presidency,” said Macquarie University Security Studies analyst Adam Lockyer. “While we can’t get ahead of ourselves, much of that will likely go into the Asia-Pacific region, because China’s a major challenger.

“On one hand they’re paying less diplomatic and critical attention to the region, but on the other they’re building more military presence in the region.”

That said, Mr Giuliani’s remarks suggest Mr Trump’s administration will be more hawkish than expected.

It was expected that Mr Trump would retreat from the disputed region, in line with his pledge to prioritise domestic issues and retreat from foreign affairs.

“Trump has a far more isolationist outlook than Clinton or Obama, but at the same time, if he had his own way, he’d be far more focused on domestic policy and domestic security, including things like terrorism and immigration,” Dr Lockyer said.

Judging by this announcement, the Trump administration may take a more hawkish approach after all.

WILL THIS ACTUALLY HAPPEN?

The Trump administration will face significant financial hurdles if it does take on this ambitious military program.

Asia-Pacific security expert Jingdong Yuan from the Centre For International Security Studies told news.com.au said it was achievable. He said Mr Trump will be able to work with the Republican-controlled Congress to do away with the sequester process that automatically cut $500 billion in defence over a decade.

But it could be relatively difficult for the incoming government to direct too much of its financial focus to defence.

“US defence spending as a percentage of GDP and government spending is at a historical low, especially after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Dr Yuan.

“At the same time, entitlement spending, such as social security and medicare cannot be cut, and increase year by year, and federal government deficits of over $18-19 trillion make it difficult to spend more in discretionary areas such as defence.

“So Trump need to find the money to support his ambitious military programs. We will see.”

He also said that neither the United States nor China are being realistic when it comes down to it.

“Beijing and Washington will have to work on their differences while at the same time work together on things they both agree.

“This is a very complex relationship and neither America’s will to remain predominant nor China’s desire for a Sino-centric order in Asia are realistic.

“Indeed, if they both pursue these extreme goals, conflict will become more likely and it will be deeply destabilising for the region — Australia included.”

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN FOR AUSTRALIA?

Defence Industries Minister Christopher Pyne says the planned expansion would create “remarkable opportunities” for Australia’s defence industry.

In a speech to be given at a Submarine Institute of Australia conference today, Mr Pyne will announce that the US expansion could offer a historic opportunity for Australia’s defence industry.

“To give you an understanding of the scale of this increase, it ­includes 50,000 more army troops, 70 new naval warships, 100 air force planes and a dozen new marine battalions,” Mr Pyne will say. “This represents around half a trillion US dollar increase to the US defence budget over the next decade.

“This result could bring with it remarkable opportunities for the Australian defence industry and, thanks to the foresight of the Turnbull government, Australia is well positioned to grasp those opportunities.”

Yesterday, Mr Pyne told The Australian the country will take a “similar focus” to the United States in terms of its defence policy.

“At a time when the US is expanding capability, we are similarly focused. As we have demonstrated throughout the year, the government is putting defence at the very centre of our national policy agenda.”

Mr Giuliani acknowledged the Trump administration hopes to engage with China on economic issues, such as trade.

Yesterday, he told The Wall Street Journal the team wants to reset relations with both China and Russia.

But Mr Trump intends to label China a “currency manipulator” after taking office, which economic analysts say will likely contribute to rising tensions between the two countries.

Chinese media has taken a hostile response to Mr Trump’s more outlandish comments on the country during his campaign.

In May this year, the then-presidential candidate accused China of “raping” the United States economically, and vowed to impose a 45 per cent tariff on Chinese imports.

An article published in the country’s nationalistic newspaper The Global Times this week warned the Chinese government will be forced to “take a tit-for-tat approach” if the president-elect persisted with the trade war.

“If Trump wrecks Sino-US trade, a number of US industries will be impaired. Finally the new president will be condemned for his recklessness, ignorance and incompetence and bear all the consequences.”

This trade war may also present problems for Australia. China and the United States are our first and third largest trading partners respectively, and such an action could trigger a trade war if Beijing were to retaliate, which would directly impact these relationships.

All this said, Dr Yuan says it’s still too soon to panic over what the Trump administration may or may not do.

“The election fog is still here and we need time and information to get more realistic and accurate assessments,” he said.

“I remain cautiously optimistic.”

****

At issue with China is the waterway dispute instigated by China.

 CNN

NSA: All Signs Point to Russian Hacking

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Are all the right questions being asked regarding presidential candidates relationships with the Kremlin? What is the real relationship that Trump and his organization has with Russia? Further, what about what the Hillary camp did prior to the elections? Video and transcript from MEMRI on the Hillary Camp.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson: People from Clinton’s Elections Team Visited Moscow Many Times
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that meetings with various personnel on the elections teams of both U.S. presidential candidates was “normal diplomatic practice,” and implied that the American outrage regarding Russian contacts with President-elect Trump’s team in the buildup to the elections was groundless. Asked about contacts with Hillary Clinton’s team, Zakharova said: “They came to Moscow many times.” She was speaking on a Russia 1 post-elections talk show on November 13.

The NSA also announced it was inside Russia infrastructure.

 CyberWire: Many countries afford criminals a safe harbor, and the criminals are emboldened by this. Attackers continue to exploit human trust, Mandia said, and there activities will continue to reflect geopolitical conditions. He noted that the Syrian Electronic Army became active after the US declared a redline over the Assad regime’s anticipated use of chemical weapons. He doesn’t regard this as an accident. Looking at the two biggest competitors of the US in cyberspace, Mandia saw more capability in China, but more hacking from Russia. He thought that Chinese hacking has actually declined. But “Russia’s dialed it up a notch.” Beginning in 2014 Mandia saw a dip in Russian OPSEC as hacking tools were increasingly shared by government and criminals. He also saw less attention being paid to manual deletion of hackers’ tracks from victim systems. He concludes from this that “the Russians know what they’re looking for, and they’re operating at a scale where they don’t have manual resources available.” The large scale and high operational tempo of Russian hacking has led them to build capability at the cost of stealth and evasiveness. Turning to the cybercriminal underworld, he notes the rise in extortion. He sees this as in part a response to enhanced credit card security. As card security got better, criminals realized they had more lucrative options. It’s also not particularly risky, he said—it’s proving difficult to penetrate the anonymity of those who hold data for ransom. The attackers’ methods are indiscriminate: most attacks are what Mandia called “spray and pray” operations, not targeted work. A great deal of ransomware is being spread with automated spearphishing.

What about the matter of Russian war crimes in Syria, Crimea and Ukraine? Of note, Russia just terminated the membership of the International Criminal Court.

BusinessInsider: The leader of the National Security Agency says there shouldn’t be “any doubt in anybody’s mind” that there was “a conscious effort by a nation-state” to sway the result of the 2016 presidential election.

Adm. Michael Rogers, who leads both the NSA and US Cyber Command, made the comments during a conference presented by The Wall Street Journal in response to a question about WikiLeaks’ release of nearly 20,000 internal emails from the Democratic National Committee.

“There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s minds,” Rogers said. “This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily. This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”

Rogers did not specify the nation-state or the specific effect, though US intelligence officials say they suspect Russia provided the emails to WikiLeaks after hackers stole them from DNC servers and the personal email account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta.

At least two different hacker groups associated with the Russian government were found inside the networks of the DNC over the past year reading emails, chats, and downloading private documents. Many of those files were later released by WikiLeaks.

The hack of Podesta’s private Gmail address was traced by cybersecurity researchers to hackers with Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the GRU, because the group made an error during its campaign of “spear phishing” targets — tricking them into clicking on malicious links or give up their passwords. The researchers found that the group had targeted more than 100 email addresses that were associated with the Clinton campaign, according to The New York Times.

The Obama administration in October publicly accused Russia of being behind the hacks.

“The US intelligence community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails,” reads a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. “These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on Tuesday that he wants the Senate to open an investigation into whether the Russian government meddled in the US election. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied his country was behind the hacks.

Sanctuary City Mayors Fight Trump, Gauntlet is Cast

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Current law requires that states and localities must not “prohibit or in any way restrict” their local government officials or employees from sending to or receiving Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) information regarding citizenship or immigration status of any individual.  However, many states and localities across the country have implemented “sanctuary” policies that do exactly that.  In California, a “sanctuary” state, on July 1, 2015, Katie Steinle was shot and killed by Francisco Sanchez, an illegal immigrant with a criminal record who had been released by the San Francisco police prior to the shooting, despite Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) having issued a detainer request to hold Sanchez.

To discourage states and localities from adopting illegal “sanctuary” policies, the House passed the Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act (H.R. 3009), which would eliminate a violating state or locality’s eligibility for funding from the following three federal grant programs:

·         SCAAP program (State Criminal Alien Assistance Program): $185 million funded in FY2015

·         COPS program (Community Oriented Policing Services program): $208 million funded in FY2015

·         Byrne-JAG program (Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program): $376 million funded in FY2015

Sanctuary-City Mayors Gird for Fight as Trump Threatens Budgets

President-elect has $650 billion in federally funded leverage
  • ‘We will do everything we know how to do to resist that’

Bloomberg: Municipalities that protect undocumented immigrants from deportation stand to lose billions in federal aid if President-elect Donald Trump fulfills promises to starve them financially.

More than 200 U.S. ‘sanctuary cities’ won’t turn over people to federal officers seeking to deport them nor share information about them, saying that would rend the social fabric and impede policing. Since Trump’s election last week, mayors including San Francisco’s Ed Lee, New York’s Bill de Blasio and Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel have vowed not to back down.

“I would say to the president-elect, that the idea that you’re going to penalize Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia — these are the economic, cultural and intellectual energy of this country,” Emanuel said in a radio interview this week.

Many cities have calculated that dwindling populations and labor shortages can be ameliorated by immigrants, undocumented or not. The mayors must calculate the point at which resistance harms the communities they’re fighting to protect. The evolving confrontation exposes states’ and cities’ vulnerability to losing some of the $650 billion in federal funds they receive for everything from police to sidewalks as they confront pension obligations and shrinking budgets.

“There’s an economic benefit from being a sanctuary city, but it doesn’t appear to warrant giving up 5 to 10 percent of the city’s funding,” said Dan White, senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Congressional Republicans have been trying for years to use federal dollars as leverage.

A bill this year by Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania defines a “sanctuary jurisdiction” as any that restricts local officials from exchanging information about an individual’s immigration status or complying with Homeland Security requests. The measure would cut off funds including Economic Development Administration Grants, which totaled $238 million last year, and Community Development Block Grants, which amounted to $3 billion last year. Ten of the largest sanctuary jurisdictions were awarded a collective $700 million in block grants in 2016.

Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city after New York and Los Angeles, is particularly vulnerable. Public-employee retirement funds face a $34 billion shortfall, and Emanuel last month proposed a $9.3 billion budget for 2017 that would increase spending to hire and train more police. The spending plan anticipates $1.3 billion in federal grants this year.

“If Chicago were to lose all of its federal funding, that’s a game-changer,” White said.

Deep-Sixing Documents

In Los Angeles, the police chief said that he would continue a policy of not aiding federal deportation efforts, according to the Los Angeles Times. In New York, de Blasio said last week that he would consider destroying a database of undocumented immigrants with city identification cards before handing such records over to the Trump administration.

“We are not going to sacrifice a half-million people who live amongst us,” de Blasio said. “We will do everything we know how to do to resist that.”

New York City will receive $7.7 billion in federal grants in fiscal 2017, just under 10 percent of the city’s $82 billion budget.

In New Haven, Connecticut, the city of 130,000 that’s home to Yale University receives about a quarter of its $523 million budget from various federal grants, said Mayor Toni Harp.

“That would be really very difficult,” Harp said. “We would be willing to take that as far as it needed to go in our judicial system.”

Trump made attacks on sanctuary cities a campaign staple, often invoking the shooting death of Kathryn Steinle by an undocumented immigrant in San Francisco. The shooter had been released from a county jail even though federal officials had asked him to be held until they could deport him.

The incoming president has said he would deport more than 11 million people, beginning with gang members, drug dealers and other criminals. He’s also said he would create a special deportation task force within Immigration and Customs and Enforcement. If that’s the case, local jurisdictions might see even more requests for cooperation.

Many cities say that immigration is a federal responsibility and they should be left out of it. Others say that they simply don’t have the time or resources to address it.

Stretched Force

In New Orleans, which doesn’t consider itself a sanctuary city but whose officers don’t ask about immigration status, the specter of losing federal funds is daunting. Some money the city receives is enough to fund nine police officers, said Zach Butterworth, executive counsel for Mayor Mitch Landrieu and director of federal relations.

”The federal government’s support for local law enforcement has really been slashed significantly already,” Butterworth said. “For them to come down here and say you also need to be doing our job on immigration is a tough sell.”

Others say that singling out undocumented immigrants impedes law enforcement because large populations will shun any interaction with the authorities.

“Essentially, for the police, you’ve got a significant number of undocumented illegals in the country and they’re afraid of the police,” said Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

Lena Graber, special projects attorney at the San Francisco-based Immigrant Legal Resource Center believes Trump will run into legal challenges if he threatens municipal funding.

“The federal government can’t force state and local law enforcement to use their resources to enforce federal regulatory programs like immigration law,” she said. “He can try to offer incentives, but the more that those incentives look like coercion, the more it won’t be legal.”

In Denver, which has a policy of refusing to hold detainees solely on a request by immigration officials, Mayor Michael Hancock said he won’t be cowed.

“This is all legal what we are doing here,” he said. “The president doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally decide how we move forward.”

In Oakland, California, Mayor Libby Schaaf says she is proud to run a sanctuary city, and is planning to recruit even more towns for the movement.

“The best defense is offense,” she said. “There is strength in numbers.”

****

Sanctuary Cities Continue to Obstruct Enforcement, Threaten Public Safety

By Jessica Vaughan
Sanctuary jurisdictions remain a significant public safety problem throughout the country. About 300 jurisdictions have been identified by ICE as having a policy that is non-cooperative and obstructs immigration enforcement (as of September 2015). The number of cities has remained relatively unchanged since our last update in January 2016, as some new sanctuary jurisdictions have been added and few jurisdictions have reversed their sanctuary policies.

Over the 19-month period from January 1, 2014, to September 30, 2015, more than 17,000 detainers were rejected by these jurisdictions. Of these, about 11,800 detainers, or 68 percent, were issued for individuals with a prior criminal history.

According to ICE statistics, since the Obama administration implemented the new Priority Enforcement Program in July 2015 restricting ICE use of detainers, the number of rejected detainers has declined. However, the number of detainers issued by ICE also has declined in 2016, so it is not clear if the new policies are a factor. It is apparent that most of the sanctuary policies remain in place, raising concerns that the Priority Enforcement Program has failed as a response to the sanctuary problem, and has simply resulted in fewer criminal aliens being deported.

The Department of Justice’s Inspector General recently found that some of the sanctuary jurisdictions appear to be violating federal law, and may face debarment from certain federal funding or other consequences.

The sanctuary jurisdictions are listed below. These cities, counties, and states have laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.

A detainer is the primary tool used by ICE to gain custody of criminal aliens for deportation. It is a notice to another law enforcement agency that ICE intends to assume custody of an alien and includes information on the alien’s previous criminal history, immigration violations, and potential threat to public safety or security.

The Center’s last map update reflected listings in an ICE report that was originally published by the Texas Tribune, with a few additions and changes resulting from the Center’s research.

States
California, Connecticut, New Mexico, Colorado

Cities and Counties

Arizona
South Tucson

California (in addition to all counties)
Alameda County
Berkley
Contra Costa County
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles
Monterey County
Napa County
Orange County (Sheriff and Probation Department)
Riverside County
Sacramento County
San Bernardino County
San Diego County
San Francisco County
San Mateo County
Santa Clara County
Santa Cruz County
Sonoma County

Colorado (in addition to all counties)
Arapahoe County
Aurora Detention Center
Boulder County
Denver
Denver County
Fort Collins
Garfield County
Glenwood Springs
Grand County
Jefferson County
Larimer County
Mesa County
Pitkin County
Pueblo County
Routt County
San Miguel County

Connecticut (in addition to state LEAs)
Bridgeport
East Haven
Fairfield County
Hamden
Hartford County
Hartford
Manchester
Meriden
New Haven
New Haven County
New London County
Stamford
Stratford
Tolland County

Florida
Broward County
Hernando County
Hillsborough County
Miami-Dade County
Palm Beach County
Pasco County
Pinellas County

Georgia
Clayton County

Illinois
Champaign County
Chicago
Cook County
Des Plaines
Hanover Park
Hoffman Estates
Northbrook
Palatine

Iowa
Allamakee County
Benton County
Cass County
Clinton County
Delaware County
Dubuque County
Franklin County
Freemont County
Greene County
Ida County
Iowa County
Jefferson County
Johnson County
Linn County
Marion County
Monona County
Montgomery County
Polk County
Pottawattamie County
Sioux County
Story County
Wapello County
Winneshiek County

Kansas
Butler County
Finney County
Harvey County
Johnson County
Sedgwick County
Shawnee County

Kentucky
Campbell County
Franklin County
[Editor’s Note: According to new information provided to the Center by elected Kenton County Jailer Terry W. Carl, Kenton County complies with all ICE detainers and requests and is fully cooperative with ICE.]
Scott County
Woodford County

Louisiana
New Orleans
[Editor’s Note: According to new information provided to the Center, Lafayette Parish now complies with all ICE detainers and requests and is fully cooperative with ICE.]
Orleans Parish

Maine
Portland

Maryland
Baltimore City
Montgomery County
Prince George’s County

Massachusetts
Amherst
Boston
Cambridge
Hampden County
Holyoke
Lawrence
Northhampton
Somerville
Springfield

Minnesota
Bloomington
Brooklyn Park
Hennepin County
Ramsey County

Nebraska
Douglas County
Hall County
Lancaster County
Sarpy County

Nevada
Clark County
Washoe County

New Jersey
Linden
Middlesex County
Newark
Ocean County
Plainfield
Union County

New Mexico (in addition to all counties)
Bernalillo County
Dona Ana County
Luna County
Otero County
Rio Arriba County
San Miguel County
Santa Fe County
Taos County

New York
Franklin County
Nassau County
New York City
Onondaga County
Rensselaer County
Saratoga County
Suffolk County
St. Lawrence County
Wayne County

North Dakota
North Dakota State Penitentiary
South West Multiple County Corrections Center

Oregon
Baker County
Clackamas County
Clatsop, Oregon
Coos County
Crook County
Curry County
Deschutes County
Douglas County
Gilliam County
Grant County
Hood River County
Jackson County
Jefferson County
Josephine County
Lincoln County
Linn County
Malheur County
Marion County
Multnomah County
Oregon State Correctional Institution
Polk County
Sherman County
Springfield Police Department
Tillamook County
Umatilla County
Union County
Wallowa County
Wasco County
Washington County
Wheeler County
Yamhill County

Pennsylvania
Abington
Chester County
Delaware County
Lehigh County
Montgomery County
Philadelphia
Philadelphia County

Rhode Island
Rhode Island Department of Corrections

Texas
Dallas County
Travis County

Virginia
Arlington
Chesterfield County

Washington
Benton County
Chelan County
Clallam County
Clark County
Cowlitz County
Fife City
Franklin County
Jefferson County
Issaquah
Kent
King County
Kitsap County
Lynnwood City
Marysville
Pierce County
Puyallup
Skagit County
Snohomish County
South Correctional Entity (SCORE) Jail, King County
Spokane County
Sunnyside
Thurston County
Walla Walla County
Washington State Corrections
Whatcom County
Yakima County

Washington, DC

Wisconsin
Milwaukee County

Tax Reform on the Immediate Trump Agenda: Details

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So it is Flat Tax or Fair Tax? Uncertain at this point. Will it be a reform plank devised by Trump’s financial advisors? Humm, will it be a reform piece of legislation created by the House Republicans? Another humm…but lets look at the following for clues.

***

A Better Way Forward on Tax Reform

In June, Ways and Means Republicans led the effort to unveil a “Better Way for Tax Reform.” This bold Blueprint delivers a 21st century tax code built for growth – the growth of families’ paychecks, the growth of American businesses, and the growth of our nation’s economy.

The Blueprint also provides unprecedented simplicity and fairness for taxpayers, which means most Americans will be able to file their taxes on a form as simple as a postcard.

With a simpler, fairer tax code, Americans need a simpler, fairer tax collector. The Blueprint redesigns the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) into an agency with a singular focus: Service First.

 

 

Fact Sheets
CLICK HERE to read the full text of the Blueprint.
CLICK HERE to read a snapshot of the Blueprint.
CLICK HERE to read an overview of Blueprint Basics.
CLICK HERE to read the Blueprint’s Top 10 Wins for the American People.
CLICK HERE to learn how the Blueprint will Simplify Our Broken Tax Code.
CLICK HERE to learn how the Blueprint Helps Hardworking Taxpayers.
CLICK HERE to learn how the Blueprint Creates New Jobs on Main Street and Across America.
CLICK HERE to learn how the Blueprint Delivers a “Service First” IRS.
CLICK HERE to print the Tax Reform Blueprint Handout
Op-eds
Chairman Brady’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: “The GOP Plan for Tax Sanity“
Chairman Brady’s CNBC Op-Ed: “We want to make tax filing so simple that ‘it would fit on a postcard’“
Chairman Brady’s National Review Op-Ed: “It’s Time for Congress to Pass Reaganesque Tax Reforms“
Support for the Blueprint
CLICK HERE to read What They’re Saying (Part I)
CLICK HERE to read What They’re Saying (Part II)
CLICK HERE to read Praise from House Republicans
CLICK HERE to read the Tax Foundation’s findings on the Blueprint
CLICK HERE to read Chairman Brady’s Response to the Tax Foundation’s Blueprint Score

Preaching Jihad in U.S. Prisons, Radical and Militant

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BOSTON – Six inmates at MCI Norfolk are facing discipline after a probe into information that some convicts at the prison’s Muslim chapel were preaching jihad speeches by a former Al Qaeda recruiter, FOX25 Investigates has learned.

FOX25 confirmed a report that inmates used recordings from Al Qaeda recruiter and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed years ago in a drone strike, to preach jihad to others at the state prison.

The state Department of Correction has confirmed six inmates who attended the prison’s Muslim chapel are facing discipline for setting up a structure of power over other inmates, requiring uniforms and demanding contracts of allegiance.

Martin Horn, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who once led New York City’s prison system and set up an intelligence center on Rikers Island, said law enforcement officials need to look at more than just the jihad preaching.

“You want to begin to look at, for example, their phone calls. You want to look at the records of who’s sending money to their account,” Horn told FOX25 Investigative Reporter Eric Rasmussen via Skype. “If one were going to try to recruit individuals to engage in the kinds of terrorist activities that most concern us, what better place to look for recruits than inside a prison?”

In a statement to FOX25, the state Department of Correction said, “It was determined that the ‘jihad’ that was being preached was in the context of personal spiritual struggle with regard to oneself, as opposed to a war against non-believers.”

A DOC spokesman said there is “no evidence that their unauthorized activities were being used as a recruiting tool for any extremist ideology.”

But Horn also says there’s good reason to investigate.

“Well, look, first of all, prisoners come out. Eventually, they’re all coming out to the community,” Horn told FOX25 Investigates. “And we know from several experiences that, often times, they can influence activities that occur on the outside.”

The Department of Correction confirms it consulted with federal law enforcement on the investigation but told FOX25 Investigates it found nothing illegal.

The six medium-security inmates, who have not been identified, are still facing discipline because prison rules forbid setting up any kind of hierarchy – like a gang – regardless of religion.

****

It is not just an issue in the United States, related reading: About that Prison in the Heart of London

*** Boston Herald in part:

Correction stated that “jihad” was being preached, but it “was in the context of a personal spiritual struggle with regards to oneself, as opposed to a war against non-believers.”

DOC spokesman Chris Fallon said federal law enforcement authorities were consulted, and there is no active criminal investigation regarding the matter.

“No criminal charges have been brought against the members of this inmate group, as there is no evidence that their unauthorized activities were being used as a recruiting tool for any extremist ideology,” the statement from Department of Corrections read. “The inmates are facing administrative disciplinary charges as a result of their alleged misconduct.”

Possible punishments against the prisoners include loss of privileges, disciplinary detention, extra duty, room or unit restrictions, Correction said.

“To be clear, inmates are not allowed to create a hierarchical structure where they would have power over other inmates,” Correction’s statement reads.

**** So what role does CAIR have in the prison system? In part:

REHABILITATION PROGRAMS

As the prison population grows in religious diversity, administrators of correctional institutions must increase their multicultural awareness. Faith-based rehabilitation programs must be voluntary. Inmates should not be forced to participate in functions designated for adherents of other faith groups. Examples of such devotional practices include confession, singing and  playing music, and holding hands with a chaplain preaching or reciting religious material.

But…. a 2009 article in the New York Times has some factual items stating otherwise:

The Justice Department’s inspector general issued a report in 2004 faulting the prison system for failing to protect against “infiltration by religious extremists.” But it said the problems rested not so much with radical chaplains but unsupervised inmates leading their own worship services.

The fomenting of extremist ideas among Muslims is not a problem in the New York State prison system, said Erik Kriss, a spokesman for the Department of Correctional Services. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for any chaplain advocating violence or extremist beliefs,” he said. The department holds meetings with chaplains to remind them of that, monitors religious literature coming in, and videotapes, audiotapes or sends guards to services, he said. In the past several years, the department removed from prison libraries an English version of the Koran that had commentary advocating violence to spread Islam, he said.

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the prison system. About 30,000 to 40,000 conversions among federal prisoners take place each year, according to a study for the Justice Department by Mark S. Hamm, a criminologist at Indiana State University. About 6 percent of the nation’s 173,000 federal prisoners are Muslim.

Mr. Hamm’s study, published in December 2007, says that most inmates convert in prison for one of five main reasons: because they are in personal crisis, seek a spiritual dimension, are looking for a group to protect them, want to manipulate the system or are influenced by the outside world.

He concludes that generally, “there is no relationship between prisoner conversions to Islam and terrorism.” The danger lies, he said in an interview Friday, in “prison Islam,” which he identified as “small gang-like cliques that use cut-and-paste versions of the Koran” to give a religious overlay to their activities. The danger becomes acute when a member leaves prison and forms a radical cell.

Mr. Hamm said he has counted five examples of this since 2005, notably a plot hatched in a California state prison that year to attack synagogues, American military installations and Israeli officials. The four plotters belonged to a group called Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, or the Assembly of Authentic Islam.