Category Archives: 2nd Amendment

Ted Cruz vs. Jeh Johnson on Scrubbing Materials, Jihad

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 Mr. Haney

 Jeh Johnson

  

Sen. Cruz Questions DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson About Administration’s Willful Blindness to Radical Islamic Terrorism

Highlights Obama administration’s dangerous practice of scrubbing anti-terror materials

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) continued pushing back against the Obama administration’s willful blindness to radical Islamic terrorism in a Judiciary Committee oversight hearing today.

While questioning Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson, Sen. Cruz said, “What concerns me, and I believe should concern the Department of Homeland Security, is that because of this effort – scrubbing your law enforcement materials of any acknowledgment of radical Islamic terrorism – when you see the red flags of radical Islamic terrorism, you do not follow up on them effectively. And we have terrorist attack, after terrorist attack, after terrorist attack that could have been prevented but for this Administration’s willful blindness.”

 

Maybe some one should check the records and see if Dick Durbin and Jeh Johnson have dinner together often. Why?

BizPac: Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has now admitted he was the one who ordered the FBI to remove words he deemed “offensive” to Muslims that were found in the Bureau’s training documents all at the behest of Muslim advocacy groups claiming to be offended by words such as “jihad” and other words linked to incessant Muslim terrorism.

Senator Durbin, the Democrats’ Senate Minority Whip, admitted he ordered the purge of nearly 900 pages of FBI training manuals because they contained the “offensive” words.

“I asked for it, because there were provisions in the training manual which were flat-out wrong and embarrassing and they didn’t characterize the threat to America properly and after the FBI re-visited the manual, they changed it and I’m glad they did,” Durbin told The Daily Caller.

Durbin also lambasted Texas Senator Ted Cruz for “badgering” a witness for what Cruz said was the government’s “lack of emphasis of radical Islam in combating terrorism.” The witness was testifying recently at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing.

Cruz maintained that the training document purge of words offensive to Muslims made America weaker by gutting the real-world reasons for terrorism in FBI terror training. But Farhana Khera, president and executive director of Muslim Advocates, disagreed saying that using “inflammatory” words in FBI training documents “makes us less safe.”

“Our organization’s position is that training materials as well as intelligence products that were produced by the FBI are not only offensive, inflammatory and alienating Muslims and American Muslims, but, more importantly, they make us less safe,” Khera said at the hearing.

Durbin also insisted Muslims have no problem informing on other Muslims when they are suspicious of terrorist activities.

The Illinois Senator next claimed that Orlando nightclub terrorist Omar Mateen wasn’t acting as a Muslim and said the claim that the killer was acting in the name of ISIS was nothing but “baloney.”

Durbin’s dismissal, though, flies in the face of Mateen’s own claims on 9-1-1 calls that he was acting in the name of ISIS. It is also hard to reconcile since the FBI had already been investigating the killer under suspicion of having ties to ISIS.

Does Dick really have this kind of power and influence all by himself? Not likely.

 

Politico: Ted Cruz and Jeh Johnson clashed Thursday during a Senate Judiciary oversight hearing, with the Texas senator and former Republican presidential candidate grilling the Homeland Security secretary on whether he had investigated the “systematic scrubbing” of law enforcement materials to remove references to terms like “jihad,” “Muslim” and “Islam.”

Cruz began his line of questioning by noting that the same committee conducted a hearing on Tuesday that explored the consequences of President Barack Obama’s unwillingness to use words like “radical Islamic terrorism” to describe threats facing the homeland.

Among those who testified was former Homeland Security officer Philip Haney — who, Cruz recalled, said that “in October 2009, more than 800 Customs and Border Patrol documents were ordered, modified, scrubbed or deleted to remove references to jihad or the Muslim Brotherhood or other similar references.”

“Was Mr. Haney’s testimony that the Department of Homeland Security had ordered over 800 documents altered or deleted in CBB, was that testimony accurate?” Cruz inquired.

Johnson responded, “I have no idea. I don’t know who Mr. Hanen is. I wouldn’t know him if he walked in the room,” he added, mispronouncing his name on multiple occasions.

“So you have not investigated whether your department ordered documents to be modified in 2009 to remove references to jihad, radical Islamic terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood, you have not investigated that question?” Cruz followed up.

“No I have not taken the time to investigate what Mr. Hanen says, no,” Johnson answered.

Cruz then asked, after noting that the department did not participate in Tuesday’s hearing, whether Johnson or anyone in his staff had looked into those issues.

“No, but you have me right here, right now, to ask questions of, so here I am,” Johnson shot back.

Cruz responded, “Your answer is you don’t know. I am asking you. In 2009 and again in 2012, Mr. Haney testified there were two “purges,” and that was the word he used, “purge” at the Department of Homeland Security to remove references to radical Islamic terrorism. Is it accurate that the records were changed—”

“Same answer I gave you before. I have no idea, sir,” Johnson said.

“You have no knowledge of any records being changed at the Department of Homeland Security?” Cruz asked, and Johnson repeated that he had “no idea.”

Asked if he would be concerned if Haney’s account was accurate, Johnson got defensive about Cruz’s line of questioning.

“Senator, I find this whole debate to be very interesting, but I have to tell you, when I was at the Department of Defense giving the legal signoff on a lot of drone strikes, I didn’t particularly care whether the baseball card said Islamic extremist or violent extremist,” Johnson said.

“I think this is very interesting,” he went on. “But it makes no difference to me in terms of who we need to go after, who is determined to attack our homeland. The other point I’d like to make, sir, is that, and I have to think in practical terms in Homeland Security. I think this is all very interesting, makes for good political debate. But in practical terms, if we in our efforts here in the homeland start giving the Islamic State the credence that they want to be referred to as part of Islam or some form of Islam, we will get nowhere in our efforts to build bridges with Muslim communities, which we need to do in this current environment right now that includes homegrown violent extremists.”

As Cruz noted that his time was running short, Johnson snapped, “Hold on just a second please,” adding that Muslims “all tell me that ISIL has hijacked my religion, and it’s critical that we bring these people to our side to do this.”

“You’re entitled to give speeches other times. My question was if you were aware the information has been scrubbed,” Cruz retorted. “I would note the title of the hearing Tuesday was ‘Willful Blindness,’ and your testimony to this full committee now is that you have no idea and apparently have no intention of finding out whether DHS materials had been scrubbed.”

Johnson remarked as Cruz spoke, “That’s not what I said.”

“And you suggested just a moment ago that it’s essentially a semantic difference,” Cruz said. “Well I don’t believe it is a semantic difference that when you erase references to radical jihad, it impacts the behavior of law enforcement and national security to respond to red flags and prevent terrorist attacks before they occur.”

Cruz then offered two separate examples of what he said were intelligence failures under Obama’s watch, in the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood and in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

“I disagree with your factual predicate,” Johnson said after Cruz broached the Fort Hood example. When asked to qualify, Johnson remarked, “in one minute, I couldn’t possibly answer your question.”

Asked point blank whether the “Obama administration” knew the shooter Nidal Malik Hassan was communicating with terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki, Johnson asked how Cruz was defining the term “administration.”

Cruz responded, “The Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“The entire Federal Bureau of Investigation? I can’t answer that question sitting here,” Johnson said.

“OK, the answer is yes, and it is in public record, sir,” Cruz remarked.

On the Boston Marathon bombing, Johnson remarked that as a result of lessons learned, the intelligence community is “doing a better job of connecting all the right dots.”

Cruz noted that the pattern of failing to connect the dots “keeps occurring over and over and over again,” bringing up what he said were lapses before attacks in San Bernardino, California, and Orlando Florida.

“First of all, virtually every day I read about the good work of our law enforcement personnel, our Homeland Security personnel and our intelligence community connecting the dots to identify potential terrorist plots, terrorist plots on our homeland, irrespective of the label you want to put on it,” Johnson responded. “I think our people are smart enough to identify somebody who is a violent extremist, who is self-radicalizing, who is moving toward violence when there are some warning signs, like somebody who see somebody buying a gun or training or buying weapons of explosive material. Every day I see people connecting the dots across our law enforcement, Homeland Security intelligence communities.”

“Are there lessons learned? Could we do a better job? The answer is probably yes,” the secretary continued. “But every day I see this happening, and I think we are doing a better job, and I think that our people are smart enough to identify potential terrorist behavior whether you call it Islamic or extremist or anything else. I think the labels, frankly, are less important except where we need to build bridges to American Muslim communities and not vilify them so that they will help us help them. That is my answer to your question, sir.”

 

 

Gun in Paris Attack Traced to Phoenix

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Cant make this up and ATF has some splain’n to do.

 

JW: One of the guns used in the November 13, 2015 Paris terrorist attacks came from Phoenix, Arizona where the Obama administration allowed criminals to buy thousands of weapons illegally in a deadly and futile “gun-walking” operation known as “Fast and Furious.”

A Report of Investigation (ROI) filed by a case agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) tracked the gun used in the Paris attacks to a Phoenix gun owner who sold it illegally, “off book,” Judicial Watch’s law enforcement sources confirm. Federal agents tracing the firearm also found the Phoenix gun owner to be in possession of an unregistered fully automatic weapon, according to law enforcement officials with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.

The investigative follow up of the Paris weapon consisted of tracking a paper trail using a 4473 form, which documents a gun’s ownership history by, among other things, using serial numbers. The Phoenix gun owner that the weapon was traced back to was found to have at least two federal firearms violations—for selling one weapon illegally and possessing an unregistered automatic—but no enforcement or prosecutorial action was taken against the individual. Instead, ATF leaders went out of their way to keep the information under the radar and ensure that the gun owner’s identity was “kept quiet,” according to law enforcement sources involved with the case. “Agents were told, in the process of taking the fully auto, not to anger the seller to prevent him from going public,” a veteran law enforcement official told Judicial Watch.

It’s not clear if the agency, which is responsible for cracking down on the illegal use and trafficking of firearms, did this because the individual was involved in the Fast and Furious gun-running scheme. An ATF spokesman, Corey Ray, at the agency’s Washington D.C. headquarters told Judicial Watch that “no firearms used in the Paris attacks have been traced” by the agency. When asked about the ROI report linking the weapon used in Paris to Phoenix, Ray said “I’m not familiar with the report you’re referencing.” Judicial Watch also tried contacting the Phoenix ATF office, but multiple calls were not returned.

The ATF ran the Fast and Furious experiment and actually allowed criminals, “straw purchasers,” working for Mexican drug cartels to buy weapons at federally licensed firearms dealers in Phoenix and allowed the guns to be “walked”—possessed without any knowledge of their whereabouts. The government lost track of most of the weapons and many have been used to murder hundreds of innocent people as well as a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, in Arizona. A mainstream newspaper reported that a Muslim terrorist who planned to murder attendees of a Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas last year bought a 9-millimeter pistol at a Phoenix gun shop that participated in the ATF’s Fast and Furious program despite drug and assault charges that should have raised red flags. Judicial Watch has thoroughly investigated Fast and Furious and has sued the Obama administration for information about the once-secret operation.

ISIS Kill List Targets American Civilians, But do They Know?

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Is anyone telling the civilians they are targets of Islamic State? Nope…Anyone explain why? The military? the FBI? The police? Is anyone collaborating, coordinating and protecting citizens?

 

ISIS ‘Kill Lists’ Increasingly Target U.S. Civilians

Report: Calls for random attacks by hacking groups illuminate ‘evolving terror threat’

FreeBeacon: Pro-ISIS hacking groups have started including American civilians along with military, government, and law enforcement personnel on “kill lists,” consistent with the terror group’s effort to expand attacks to random targets and instill fear in the public, according to a new report.

The SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that monitors jihadist propaganda, examined eight lists recently circulated online by pro-ISIS hacking groups, including some that name random civilian targets.

“These lists, with targets spanning drone operators to random civilians, appear to have achieved at least part of their presumed intentions: heightened alert by government workers, FBI visits to startled civilians, and significant media attention,” SITE wrote in its report.

Eight lists released over the course of two months this year have targeted federal government employees, military personnel, state and local government officials, and random residents of New York and Texas. While most of the kill lists have not been pushed through official ISIS channels, fighters and supporters of the terror group have promoted the targets through social media.

“This embrace of random targets, though new within the context of hackers’ kill lists, is nonetheless consistent with IS’ methodology, and demonstrates application of attack instructions from IS’ leadership and affiliates,” the report explained, using another name for the Islamic State, or ISIS.

ISIS has inspired self-radicalized terrorists who have launched attacks inside the United States. Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen, pledged allegiance to the terror group during conversations with 911 operators during a gun attack that killed 49 victims at an Orlando gay club earlier this month. The couple who opened fire on a San Bernardino, California, holiday party last December are also believed to have pledged support to ISIS.

The FBI declined to comment specifically on investigative matters related to the kill lists but said that the agency routinely notifies people and organizations of information collected during investigations that could be “perceived as potentially threatening in nature.”

“Potential threats may relate to individuals, institutions, or organizations, and are shared in order to sensitize potential victims to the observed threat, and to assist them in taking proper steps to ensure their safety,” Matthew Bertron, a representative for the FBI’s National Press Office, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Kill lists from pro-ISIS hacking groups have become increasingly abundant since the so-called Islamic State Hacking Division called for attacks on 100 military personnel in March of last year, and later released lists targeting 10 Italian Army officers and over 1,000 military and government personnel. While this particular hacking group—once headed by ISIS fighter Junaid Hussain before he was killed in an airstrike—has focused on military and government personnel, others have emerged to target civilians and local officials.

A pro-ISIS group called the United Cyber Caliphate, for example, released five different target lists between March and May of this year. The lists publicized personal information about 11 Tennessee state county board members; 3,600 New York citizens; and 1,543 Texas residents, according to SITE’s report. Two lists each separately included information about 50 federal government employees, including workers from the Departments of State, Defense, and Navy.

While the list of New York residents was removed from the hosting site where it was posted, the lists with information on individuals in Tennessee and Texas remained online.

Another group named the Caliphate Cyber Army also released two lists, one of which called for attacks on 56 New Jersey state police staff and another that targeted 36 Minnesota state police officers.

While inactive between September 2015 and May of this year, the Islamic State Hacking Division also recently released names and personal information of 76 U.S. military personnel who work with drones.

“In just over a year, kill lists from pro-IS hacking groups have not only become more abundant, but have also expanded in terms of target selection,” the SITE report stated. “Between March and May of this year, kill lists by these groups have expanded beyond conventional criteria to random civilian targets, instructing to ‘shoot them down.’”

The lists are consistent with ISIS ideology supporting attacks on all non-Muslims living in countries at war with the terror group, according to SITE.

“This shift in target selection shows a new method in serving a long-standing function of IS and other jihadi groups: instill widespread fear into governments and the public,” the report stated. “As IS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani stated in a September 2014 speech, Muslims should kill any non-Muslim living in countries warring with the group, with no distinction of ‘whether he is a civilian or military.’”

The promotion of the lists also highlights ISIS militants’ exploitation of social media to recruit and inspire attacks, regardless of the fact that the pro-ISIS hacking groups do not appear to be publicly coordinating with one another.

“Given the power and ease of social media, along with the increasing ubiquity of Internet access and smart phones, every IS supporter can act as their own online media group, recruitment office, or fundraising organization. Likewise, every IS-supporting hacker can use their skills to serve the group’s goals, whether they be a fighter or a supporter in non-combat zones,” the report stated.

The SITE Intelligence Group could not confirm that the groups obtained the information by hacking into government or other private systems but said that it was both possible and plausible. The report noted that some of the information on the lists is available through public channels though they “appear to be compiled via non-public sources, especially when factoring what would be immense labor and difficulty required to manually compile the information via those public sources.”

The Islamic State Hacking Division is believed to have obtained data for its list targeting over 1,000 U.S. military personnel from Ardit Ferizi, a Kosovo citizen who hacked into a U.S.-based company’s servers to harvest the information. The Justice Department charged Ferizi with computer hacking, identity theft, and providing material support to ISIS last October.

Oh, So Now the Justice Dept. is Mandating PC Training

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Any bets that the FBI does in fact make a criminal referral on Hillary and the Justice Department will not advance the case for prosecution? Anyone? Maybe they will use the ‘implicit bias’ against women as a reason….. Sheesh, read on, ensure your seat belt is securely buckled.

 

Exclusive: Justice Department mandates ‘implicit bias’ training for agents, lawyers

Reuters: The U.S. Justice Department will announce on Monday that more than 33,000 federal agents and prosecutors will receive training aimed at preventing unconscious bias from influencing their law enforcement decisions, department officials told Reuters.

The training will bring Justice Department employees in line with many local police departments across the country that have implemented bias prevention plans following a spate of shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers.

Nationwide protests following those shootings blamed police bias for unnecessary use of force against minorities.

The department had been criticized for not developing its own policies to combat bias after recommending local police do so at the direction of a task force created by President Barack Obama after riots in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.

In a memo to Justice Department employees obtained by Reuters, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said the program targets “implicit biases” – subtle, unconscious stereotypes or characterizations nearly everyone makes about certain groups of people.

“But implicit bias also presents unique challenges to effective law enforcement, because it can alter where investigators and prosecutors look for evidence and how they analyze it without their awareness or ability to compensate,” Yates said in the memo.

The training will be mandatory for all Justice Department agents and prosecutors and will be rolled out over the next year, Yates said.

Arrest data compiled by some police departments have shown that black and Hispanic men are more likely to be stopped by police than others, suggesting officers may be exerting implicit bias in deciding whom to question or apprehend.

The Justice Department will use a model developed by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit organization that provides expertise on policing issues, designed to make people aware of attitudes they may hold about certain races, genders, nationalities and other characteristics.

The Justice Department employs more than 5,800 attorneys and 28,000 law enforcement agents across four agencies: The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Police departments such as those in Baltimore, New York City, Seattle, New Orleans and Los Angeles have training programs in place that help officers recognize biases they may carry but not be aware of following a national outcry against police bias in minority communities.

Asked why the Justice Department only now has begun such training for its employees, Yates said success in local jurisdictions caused the federal government to consider it as well.

“This program has been so well-received by our state and local counterparts, we thought it was something we should be offering to our federal agents, frankly, to get our own house in order,” Yates said in an interview with Reuters.

Yates and the heads of other Justice Department components will begin their own implicit bias training course on Tuesday. Attorney General Loretta Lynch will announce the initiative in Phoenix on Tuesday when she travels there as part of her community policing tour, said a Justice Department official.

Department of Homeland Security employees, which include 60,000 border patrol officers and agents, will not be subject to the training.

Yates said the Justice Department hopes to serve as a model for other federal agencies that have not yet addressed implicit bias.

**** We already have a bias at Justice, and training for more to the left?

As a former lawyer at the Justice Department noted about Loretta Lynch in her confirmation hearing some factual details about the departments at Main Justice:

Bias in Hiring:
A devastating report by the Department of Justice inspector general in 2013 found deep polarization, mismanagement, and harassment of conservative employees as well as a litmus test imposed in hiring attorneys in the Civil Rights Division — namely, experience with liberal civil-rights organizations, which translates to experience working for the institutional Left. In short, only ideological allies need apply. As a result, the inspector general’s report found that the Civil Rights Division “passed over candidates who had stellar academic credentials and litigation experience with some of the best law firms in the country” and recommended that this litmus test be abolished. Former assistant attorney general Tom Perez specifically rejected reforms to end the biases in Civil Rights Division hiring. Will Lynch commit to implementing the recommendations made by the DOJ inspector general for more equitable and non-partisan attorney hiring? What will she do to stop the harassment of career employees not considered “liberal enough” that is outlined in the IG report? Free Speech Over the last six years, the Justice Department has brought a series of flimsy civil cases against peaceful abortion-clinic protesters under the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). Case after case has been thrown out by federal courts, often after a scolding by the judge that the case lacked merit. These cases squelched the First Amendment rights of anti-abortion protesters, who may have been the victims of political targeting. In one case, the court assessed sanctions that the DOJ didn’t even appeal. What will Lynch do to fix this problem? Will she commit to requiring higher evidentiary findings in any recommendation for new prosecutions against religiously motivated abortion protesters?
Department Misconduct:
Two individuals remain employed in important positions at the Justice Department despite findings that they engaged in gross prosecutorial misconduct or outright perjury. One is Karla Dobinski. Dobinski is a lawyer who was involved in a prosecution against New Orleans police officers for civil-rights violations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Dobinski was tasked with serving as head of the “taint team” to protect the defendant police officers’ constitutional rights. A scathing opinion by federal judge Kurt Engelhardt points out that a number of DOJ lawyers, including Dobinski, engaged in a secret blogging campaign during the course of the trial to leak evidence about the case, as well as to bolster or weaken the credibility of trial witnesses. Yet Dobinski still is employed by DOJ. She even works in the component currently investigating other police departments. Will Lynch agree to review the matter for possible disciplinary action against Dobinski? Another Justice Department employee, Stephanie Celandine Gyamfi, was found to have engaged in perjury during the course of the DOJ inspector general’s 2013 investigation. This wasn’t any ordinary perjury, since it involved the integrity of American elections. According to the IG report, Gyamfi, who works in the Voting Section, was asked about confidential internal legal memoranda leaked to the Washington Post. She denied any knowledge of the leaks until she was confronted with documents showing her participation. The IG report says she told IG investigators that she “did not regret posting comments online, except to the extent that it resulted in questioning from the OIG.” Yet she still works in the very same Voting Section and has been neither disciplined nor terminated. Will Lynch agree to review the matter for possible disciplinary action against Gyamfi? When judges accuse DOJ lawyers of prosecutorial abuse or other such misbehavior, as has happened in numerous cases over the past six years, what actions will Lynch take to discipline or terminate those employees?
Funding Democratic Political Databases:
The Justice Department has been moving tax money toward a voter database used by Democratic candidates. Catalist is a massive database containing voter files used by left-wing organizations that is so inaccurate that an organization using its database was the subject of numerous complaints in Virginia in 2012 for sending voter-registration applications to “dead relatives, children, family members in other states, non–U.S. citizens . . . and residents’ cats and dogs.” The Justice Department has been funding experts and political-science professors in its litigation who used Catalist in various ways. Will Lynch agree to stop using Catalist data? Racialist Assaults on Voter-ID Laws The Justice Department has hired expert witnesses to attack election-integrity laws who have testified that blacks are “less sophisticated” than whites and therefore less able to “figure out” how to register, comply with voter-ID requirements, or get to the polls to vote. The DOJ has paid these professors hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide this offensive testimony. Does Lynch agree with this testimony, or will she terminate the contracts of experts who have such a patronizing view of black voters? Does she believe, as Eric Holder does, that voter-ID laws are racist, and does she disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision upholding such laws in 2008 in Crawford v. Marion County? Most important, the 2013 IG report makes it clear that Eric Holder and others in the leadership of the Civil Rights Division demoted the head of the Voting Section, Christopher Coates, because Holder did not want Coates to pursue cases where whites were being discriminated against and because Coates was asking attorney applicants whether “they would be capable of enforcing the Voting Rights Act in a race-neutral manner.” In other words, it seems that Holder did not believe in the race-neutral enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws such as the Voting Rights Act. Lynch should be asked if she shares this view that the Voting Rights Act protects only blacks and other minority groups from discrimination. Such a view should disqualify anyone from being attorney general.
The Death Penalty and Racial Bias in the Justice System:
Lynch said in 2002 that the application of the death penalty against blacks and Hispanics evidenced a systematic disregard for minority citizens. Lynch would not apply the death penalty even if it could be applied perfectly, according to a 2002 Vera Institute of Justice report, simply because of its supposed disparate impact on minorities. “You can be as fair as possible in a particular case, but the reality is that the federal death penalty is going to hit harder on certain groups,” she said. Although the death penalty is less common in federal prosecutions, if Lynch is confirmed, she will likely face death-penalty decisions, particularly in terrorism prosecutions. Given her race-based opposition, Lynch should be asked whether she will refuse to authorize her prosecutors to seek the death penalty because of the race of the accused or whether she will recuse herself from such decisions.
In April 2014, Lynch participated in a conference in New York City organized by the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. The DOJ report on the conference had a list of “action items” that included the statement that “racial bias is pervasive” in our society, a claim that most Americans would disagree with and for which the evidence is, at best, equivocal. It is critical for members of the Senate to determine whether Lynch shares the view that racial bias is pervasive and, if so, how that will affect her decision-making as attorney general. Immigration Enforcement and Prosecutorial DiscretionEric Holder and President Obama have stretched the concept of prosecutorial discretion beyond recognition in order to avoid enforcing federal statutes they disagree with on policy grounds. Lynch must be asked whether she believes that the president’s immigration policy is constitutional and whether she believes that, as attorney general, she can refuse to enforce a federal statute against whole categories of offenders. This includes refusing to enforce federal drug laws in states that have decriminalized or legalized marijuana. This last question is particularly important, because it is also related to other issues, such as the refusal of DOJ to present the contempt citations of Eric Holder and Lois Lerner to a federal grand jury. Federal law (2 U.S.C. §194) requires the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, currently Ronald Machen, to bring such a contempt citation before a federal grand jury for action.
Machen has refused to do so. Does Lynch believe it is appropriate for the U.S. Attorney not to comply with this federal statute? Under Eric Holder’s leadership, the department where we formerly worked has been politicized to an unprecedented extent. These confirmation hearings are vital to finding out whether Loretta Lynch will continue policies that have damaged the administration of justice and the reputation of the Justice Department, or whether she will put the department back on the path toward being a highly professional, objective law-enforcement agency dedicated to the rule of law. Read the full article here from National Review. 

A Hotel in Texas for Immigrants?

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Immigration officials consider bid for new ‘hotel-like’ detention center

Stratton Oilfield Systems seeks to turn former Texas work camp into 500-bed facility with improved living conditions, which activists say would still be ‘prison’

 

Guardian: Federal immigration officials are moving forward with plans for a new 500-bed family detention center to house migrant women and children, even as many advocates and politicians have called for the closure of such facilities altogether.

Officials in Dimmit County, 45 miles from the Texas border with Mexico, say they’ll consider a bid on Monday from a firm who says their facility in a 27-acre former work camp for oil workers would provide dramatically better conditions than two other family detention centers in the state.

Those facilities have faced complaints of poor food, inadequate medical care and allegations of sexual abuse from detainees, activists and the US Civil Rights Commission.

“Our facility offers a community-based alternative that will allow children to live in a home setting, attend school, and access critical legal and social services,” Stratton Oilfield Systems said in a pitch to potential partners.

“They want to have it with no fence,” said Mike Uriegas, a commissioner in Dimmit County, who says he first met with Stratton Oilfield Systems two weeks ago. “They don’t want to appear like a prison or detention center.”

But Cristina Parker, Immigration Programs Director for Grassroots Leadership, said she and other advocates object inherently to the concept of a detention center for families fleeing violence, regardless of the purported conditions.

“If you are not free to leave, then it doesn’t matter how nice it is,” Parker said. “It’s a prison.”

The Obama administration’s use of family detention centers that hold children and mothers has become one of the most contested elements of America’s border protection program.

Advocates have called on the Obama administration to pursue alternatives for families who are waiting for courts to hear pending asylum and immigration claims.

“Our families have witnessed their loved ones killed before their eyes, they have been the victim of rapes and robberies simply because of who they are,” said Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. “Our refugee families need protection, not jail.”

Related reading: SERCO, Global Corruption

Related reading: Orlando Terrorist, Omar/G4S and SERCO

Earlier this month, a nearby Texas county had considered a bid with British firm Serco, which has a history of immigration detention center scandals in the UK and Australia. Jim Wells County voted not to bid on the contract, after some officials voiced concern over past abuse allegations against the firm.

Uriegas said he and other officials are undecided on the Stratton bid and will learn more at a meeting on Monday, which immigration advocates also plan to attend. One group had already heard of the company.

Last July, Stratton’s vice-president, Shannon A Stratton, tried to pitch the same idea for the closed worker housing in a letter to Grassroots Leadership, an Austin-based organization that opposes the prison industry.

A glossy proposal accompanying Stratton’s letter showed hotel-like two-bedroom studios with a living room, kitchenette and full bathroom. Stratton noted a federal judge has said women and children should be released from other detention centers where they are being held in “deplorable” conditions.

“The Studios in Carrizo Springs offers an excellent solution and is distinctly different from the facilities that are so highly criticized in the media and by human rights groups,” Stratton wrote. “Families could be free to come and go while they await immigration hearings, receive education about their rights and responsibilities, and pursue permanent relocation and employment.”

“It shows they don’t quite know what is going on,” said Cristina Parker, immigration programs director for Grassroots Leadership. “They’re confused about other things too, because it is blanketly untrue that the families will be free to come and go.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s other two family residential centers in Texas are surrounded by razor wire and high fences.

The proposal emerges just days after the US supreme court blocked Obama’s plan to spare millions of immigrants from deportation. He vowed afterward: “What was unaffected by today’s ruling, or lack of a ruling, is the enforcement priorities that we’ve put in place.”