Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

General Kelly Pegged to Head DHS

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This is going to take another waiver…. I hope that early on in the Trump administration there will be a final act to list and designate drug cartels as terror organizations. Fair warning however, the economies of Latin American countries could financially collapse.

 FreeBeacon

It is also notable that General Kelly lost a son to the enemy known as the Taliban in 2010 in Afghanistan.

WaPo: Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security, turning to a blunt-spoken border security hawk who clashed with the Obama administration over women in combat and plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to people familiar with the decision.

Kelly, who retired in February as chief of U.S. Southern Command, would inherit a massive and often troubled department responsible for overseeing perhaps the most controversial part of Trump’s agenda: his proposed crackdown on illegal immigration. DHS is the third-largest Cabinet department, with more than 240,000 employees who do everything from fight terrorism to protect the president and enforce immigration laws.

Kelly, 66, is a widely respected military officer who served for more than 40 years, and he is not expected to face difficulty winning Senate confirmation. Trump’s team was drawn to him because of his southwest border expertise, people familiar with the transition said. Like the president-elect Kelly has sounded the alarm about drugs, terrorism and other cross-border threats he seems as emanating from Mexico and Central and South America.

Yet Kelly’s nomination could raise questions about what critics see as Trump’s tendency to surround himself with too many military figures. Trump has also selected retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis for defense secretary and retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser, while retired Army Gen. David Petraeus is under consideration for secretary of state.

Kelly, a Boston native, was chosen over an array of other candidates who also met with Trump after his surprise election victory last month. Those in contention included Frances Townsend, a top homeland security and counterterrorism official in the George W. Bush administration; Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Clarke and Kobach are vocal Trump backers, with Kobach being nationally known for his strong views on restricting illegal immigration. More here.

 MilitaryTimes

**** Why is General Kelly a stellar choice for the Department of Homeland Security? In 2015, in part his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee gives us a huge clue:

Last year, almost half a million migrants1 from Central America and Mexico—including over 50,000 unaccompanied children (UAC) and families—were apprehended on our border, many fleeing violence, poverty, and the spreading influence of criminal networks and gangs. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson testified that the “UAC migration serves as a warning sign that the serious and longstanding challenges in Central America are worsening.”2 In my opinion, the relative ease with which human smugglers moved tens of thousands of people to our nation’s doorstep also serves as another warning sign: these smuggling routes are a potential vulnerability to our homeland. As I stated last year, terrorist organizations could seek to leverage those same smuggling routes to move operatives with intent to cause grave harm to our citizens or even bring weapons of mass destruction into the United States. Mr. Chairman, Members, addressing the root causes of insecurity and instability is not just in the region’s interests, but ours as well, which is why I support President Obama’s commitment to increase assistance to Central America.

These and other challenges underscore the enduring importance of U.S. Southern Command’s mission to protect our southern approaches. We do not and cannot do this mission alone. Our strong partnerships with the U.S. interagency—especially with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Departments of Treasury and State—are integral to our efforts to ensure the forward defense of the U.S. homeland. We are also fortunate to have strong, capable partners like Colombia, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, and Panama, regional

leaders and outstanding contributors to hemispheric and international security. Given our limited intelligence assets, interagency relationships and bilateral cooperation are critical to identifying and monitoring threats to U.S. national security and regional stability.

I am also troubled by the financial and operational overlap between criminal and terrorist networks in the region. Although the extent of criminal-terrorist cooperation is unclear, what is clear is that terrorists and militant organizations easily tap into the international illicit marketplace to underwrite their activities and obtain arms and funding to conduct operations.4 It’s easy to see why: illicit trafficking is estimated to be a $650 billion industry—larger than the GDP of all but 20 countries in the world—and less than 1 percent of global illicit financial flows is currently being seized or frozen.5 The terrorist group Lebanese Hezbollah—which has long viewed the region as a potential attack venue against Israeli or other Western targets—has supporters and sympathizers in Lebanese diaspora communities in Latin America, some of whom are involved in lucrative illicit activities like money laundering and trafficking in counterfeit goods and drugs. These clan-based criminal networks exploit corruption and lax law enforcement in places like the Tri-Border Area of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina and the Colon Free Trade Zone in Panama and generate revenue, an unknown amount of which is transferred to Lebanese Hezbollah. Unfortunately, our limited intelligence capabilities make it difficult to fully assess the amount of terrorist financing generated in Latin America, or understand the scope of possible criminal-terrorist collaboration. You can read his presentation and testimony here.

 

 

Obama Admin Illegally Raiding Funds to Pay for Refugees

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There is still time to begin impeachment hearings on these people, schedule Oversight hearings and refer to DoJ from criminal prosecution as it is Congress alone that designates exactly where money is to be allocated and spent.

Meanwhile it seems HHS and the Office of Refugee Resettlement does not think some of these agencies need all the dollars assigned to them, perhaps that too is yet another place to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse if those agencies can in fact due without the raided funds. In the end, the Obama administration along with Sylvia Burwell have violated standing law with twisted priorities to non-citizens…yup illegals.

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Feds cut $167 million in domestic programs to house, feed illegals for just 1 month

WT: The Department of Health and Human Services is raiding several of its accounts, including money for Medicare, the Ryan White AIDS/HIV program and those for cancer and flu research to cover a shortfall in housing illegal youths pouring over the border at a rate of 255 a day.

HHS is trying to come up with $167 million to fund the Office of Refugee Resettlement that is accepting the youths, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

Policy Director Jessica Vaughan said that insiders have told her that the funding crisis has forced the department to squeeze programs for money.

She just revealed on the CIS website:

“An average of 255 illegal alien youths were taken into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) every day this month, according to the latest figures the agency provided to Congress. This is the largest number of illegal alien children ever in the care of the federal government. To pay for it, the agency says it will need an additional one or two billion dollars for the next year – above and beyond the $1.2 billion spent in 2016 and proposed for 2017 – depending on how many more arrive. For now, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where ORR resides, is diverting $167 million from other programs to cover the cost of services for these new illegal arrivals through December 9, when the current continuing resolution expires.”

The money, she said, pays for “shelters, health care, schooling, recreation, and other services for the new illegal arrivals, who typically were brought to the border by smugglers paid by their parents, who often are living in the United States illegally.”

What’s more, it will pay for just one month.

Her sources said the following programs are being hit to pay for the illegals, about half of which the government will lose contact with.

— $14 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration, including $4.5 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and $2 million from the Maternal and Child Health program.

— $14 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for contagious disease prevention and treatment and other critical public health programs.

— $72 million from the National Institutes of Health, for research on cancer, diabetes, drug abuse, mental health, infectious diseases and much more.

— $8 million from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, for treatment and prevention programs.

— $8 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

— $39 million from the Children and Families Services Program.

— $4 million from the Aging and Disability Services Programs.

— $3 million from the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund, including more than $1 million from the Pandemic Influenza and BioShield Fund.

Rehab Program with Fun Activities in Saudi is Fake

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Europe is trying to install and measure effectiveness of rehab programs for convicted and known terrorists. Such is the case in the United States with the DHS/WH program on Countering Violent Extremism, a euphemism to terrorist and such is the case for the failed programs in Europe. So, have these tests been modeled after those of Saudi Arabia? Let’s find out from a terrorist himself. Not sure, but memory tells us that the Guantanamo detainees actually did all of these activities during detention including having a soccer field.

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Gitmo prisoner reveals that Saudi ‘terrorist rehab’ center is a scam

Gitmo prisoner reveals that Saudi ‘terrorist rehab’ center is a scam

Photo: Kate Brooks/Redux

NYPost: Counterterrorism experts have long suspected Saudi Arabia’s “rehabilitation” center for terrorists does a poor job of de-radicalizing jihadists. But a Saudi detainee at Guantanamo Bay now reveals it’s actually a recruiting and training factory for jihad.

According to recently declassified documents, senior al Qaeda operative Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi told a Gitmo parole board that the Saudi government has been encouraging previously released prisoners to rejoin the jihad at its terrorist reform school, officially known as the Prince Mohammed bin Naif Counseling and Care Center.

The Obama administration has praised the effectiveness of the Saudi rehab program — which uses “art therapy,” swimming, ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer to de-radicalize terrorists — and conditioned the release of dozens of Gitmo prisoners, including former Osama bin Laden bodyguards, on their enrollment in the controversial program.

To date, 134 Saudi detainees have been transferred to the Saudi reform camps in Riyadh and Jeddah. Last year, nine Yemeni detainees were sent there, as well, and more are expected to follow over the next two months, as President Obama strives to meet his campaign goal of closing Gitmo.

Photo: Kate Brooks/Redux

Al-Sharbi dropped a bombshell on the Gitmo parole board at his hearing earlier this year when he informed members that the Saudi kingdom was playing them for suckers. “You guys want to send me back to Saudi Arabia because you believe there is a de-radicalization program on the surface.

“True. You are 100 percent right, there is a strong — externally, a strong — de-radicalization program. But make no mistake, underneath there is a hidden radicalization program,” al-Sharbi added. “There is a very hidden strong — way stronger in magnitude — broader in financing, in all that.”

Al-Sharbi is one of the longest-serving, and most unrepentant, prisoners at Gitmo. A Saudi national with an electrical engineering degree from King Fahd University, he attended a US flight school associated with two of the 9/11 hijackers. He traveled to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001 and trained at an al Qaeda camp, building IEDs to use against allied forces.

Al-Sharbi was captured March 28, 2002, at an al Qaeda safehouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan, with senior al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. According to his US intel dossier, he told interrogators that “the US got what it deserved from the terrorist attacks on 9/11.”

Given a chance at parole after 14 years, however, al-Sharbi was surprisingly frank with the board.

He explained that Riyadh is actively recruiting and training fighters to battle Iranian elements in neighboring Yemen and Syria. Saudi views Shiite-controlled Iran as a regional threat to its security.

“They’re launching more wars and the [United] States is backing off from the region,” he said. “They’re poking their nose here and here and there and they’re recruiting more jihadists, and they’ll tell you, ‘Okay, go fight in Yemen. Go fight in Syria.’ ”

Al-Sharbi said the Saudis also are “encouraging” former detainees “to fight their jihad in the States.”

Photo: Getty Images

“It’s not like a past history,” he said. “It’s increasing.”

A growing body of evidence backs up his claims. Last month, for example, a WikiLeaked email from Hillary Clinton revealed, citing US intelligence sources, that Saudi Arabia has provided “clandestine financial and logistic support to” ISIS and other Sunni terrorist groups in the region.

Al-Sharbi said the kingdom is playing a double game.

“They will proudly tell you they will fight terrorism,” he said. “That means they will support it.”

Al-Sharbi told the Gitmo board he doesn’t want to enroll in the Saudi rehab program, because he would be used to “fight under the Saudi royal cloak.”

“This is in the cause of a king. This is not a true jihad,” he said. “And I’m not going to Saudi unless I am sure they’re not gonna be using me.”

The Saudi rehab ruse has carried a lot of weight with the Gitmo parole board. Earlier this year, it released “Saudi al Qaeda recruiter and fighter” Muhammed Al Shumrani after his lawyers insisted that repatriating him to Saudi Arabia and enrolling him in its “well-established reintegration program” would cure his admittedly “problematic behavior.”

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Photo: Kate Brooks/Redux

Last year, the defense team of longtime bin Laden bodyguard Abdul Rahman Shalabi insisted that the same Saudi rehab program would make sure he’s reformed. In approving his release, the board said that it was “confident about the efficacy of the Saudi program.”

In both cases, US intelligence warned the board that the hardened terrorists would more than likely “re-engage in terrorist activity.”

By Riyadh’s own numbers, some 20 percent of the terrorist enrollees at its rehab club — which features golf carts, palm trees and an Olympic-size pool — go back to the jihad, returning to the ranks of the Taliban or al Qaeda. US officials believe the recidivism rate is much higher, but Saudi Arabia does not disclose criteria for evaluation.

One high-profile failure was Said Ali al-Shihri. After his graduation from the Saudi program, he returned to Yemen, where he ran an al Qaeda branch and helped plan the deadly bombing of the US Embassy and mastermind the failed plot to blow up a 2009 Christmas flight over Detroit, before a drone-fired missile finally caught up to him.

The Saudi center is more holiday resort than halfway house for paroled inmates. Jihadists are rewarded with gourmet meals, video games, ping-pong, jacuzzis and newly furnished private apartments reserved for conjugal visits. They also are allowed unescorted visits to family members. In September, the center granted “beneficiaries” Eid al-Adha holiday vacation for 12 days.

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Photo: Getty Images

Graduates are further rewarded with young brides and new cars.

Lending credence to al-Sharbi’s charges, the three-month program includes a few hours a day of lessons in Islam from Saudi clerics and “Shariah specialists.”

“Beneficiaries spend 15 hours a week in the Shariah program,” according to a local Jeddah press report, which is triple the amount of time devoted to psychological counseling.

Al-Sharbi’s parole was declined; he is still in Gitmo, along with 60 detainees — down from the 241 who were there when Obama started his term.

But with the administration rushing to reduce that number even further before the end of Obama’s term, how many more jihadists will be released into this highly suspect program?

Congress has an obligation to ask hard questions: Is this a pre-emptive campaign to prevent terror attacks or more likely an incubator for facilitating more attacks?

Obama Classifies Numbers of Muslim Refugees, Terror

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Frontgpage: Obama is big on making up his own laws and rules. He rules by executive order and he’s gotten into the truly illegal habit of unilaterally signing treaties with foreign governments.

This is a very basic problem. And in the context of his deal to take in Muslim migrants rejected by Australia, he is being warned once again that his actions are grossly illegal and unconstitutional.

The U.S. government has agreed to accept refugees being held in Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Sunday. Mr. Turnbull didn’t disclose how many were likely to resettled by the U.S. or on what terms, but he stressed the arrangement wouldn’t be repeated or be extended to asylum seekers not already in the camps.

The conservative government has maintained a tough line on asylum seekers who have sought to cross the dangerous waters between Asia and Australia but has moved to empty the offshore immigration detention centers that critics have called Australia’s “Guantanamo Bay.” Negotiations in recent months with various countries to resettle the refugees became more urgent in April when Papua New Guinea’s highest court ordered the closure of Manus, ruling that hundreds of asylum seekers were being held there illegally on Australia’s behalf.

We’re not even being told the total numbers who will shortly be making their way to our shores, but the Journal notes that two of the camps located on Naru and Manus Islands currently hold a combined total of more than 1,300 of them. And where do these migrants come from? The majority are from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka.

Some Republicans are challenging the legality of the deal.

“This situation is concerning for many reasons,” the letter states. “First, your department s negotiated an international agreement regarding refugees without consulting or notifying Congress. Such information was not disclosed to Congress during the annual refugee consultation that occurred on September 13, 2016, even though your staff confirmed that the agreement had, at the time, been negotiated ‘for months.’ Second, the agreement and the number of refugees to be resettled has been deemed by your departments as classified, thus the American people are left in the dark as to the rationale for this agreement.”

Why exactly should it be classified? The only people the numbers need to be hidden from are the American people.

**** Meanwhile, a terror attack occurred at Ohio State University:

“Buckeye Alert: Active Shooter on campus. Run Hide Fight. Watts Hall. 19th and College.”

They continued to demand people to look for shelter with another message shortly following the first one.

“Buckeye Alert: Continue to shelter in place. Avoid area of College. More information to follow.”

***** The terrorists has been identified by officials as Abdul Razak Ali Artan as the now-deceased suspect. He was born in Somalia and living in the United States as a legal permanent resident., an 18 year old legal Somali refugee and student at the university who was shot dead by law enforcement. Ali was a student at Ohio State University and was a legal resident of the United States, reports NBC News. The network adds that Ali was a refugee from Somalia. According to NBC’s Pete Williams, Artan was admitted to the U.S. in 2014 having previously lived in Pakistan since 2007. He first lived in Dallas upon entering the United States.

It should be noted that ISIS posted instructions in a video published November 26th that made its way through social media. Additionally, 2 days later, ISIS also hit social media with instructions to use vehicles for attacks.

 

We also cannot forget the attack that took place earlier in February 2016 at the Nazareth restaurant in Columbus. The attacker was also Somalian.

To All those Paying Tribute to Fidel Castro

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In 2014: Fidel Castro has signed an international manifesto “supporting Palestine,” demanding that Israel respect UN resolutions and withdraw from Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Obama Directs Intelligence to be Shared with Cuba

Fidel Castro at the National Press Club, April 20, 1959

By the time Castro arrived in New York City in September 1960, relations between the United States and Cuba were rapidly deteriorating. Since taking power in January 1959, Castro had infuriated the American government with his policies of nationalizing U.S. companies and investments in Cuba. Some American officials, such as Vice President Richard Nixon, believed that Castro was leaning perilously toward communism. (Castro did not publicly proclaim his adherence to communism until late-1961, when he declared that he was a “Marxist-Leninist”.) More here.

Forbes: Founded by their wealthy landowner father in 1915, Fidel and younger brother Raul Castro’s childhood home in Birán burnt down in 1954 but a replica was erected in its place in 1974.

Cuban President Fidel Castro examines photos of his relatives at his native house in Birán, Cuba. (Photo by Pablo Pildain/AFP/Getty Images)

A picture of Cuban leader Fidel Castro in his ancestral home which is now a museum. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Fidel and Raul’s parents, Ángel Castro and Lina Ruz González, are laid to rest at the Birán plantation. Castro’s privileged background (although non-bourgeois) contradicted his message, so to give himself street cred, he touted his grandparent’s background as “exploited Galician peasants” from Spain.

The burial site of Cuban leaders Fidel and Raul Castro’s parents on the grounds of their childhood home in Birán, Cuba. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Like JFK, Castro’s father sent him to boarding school where he received a quality education (despite mediocre grades). Baseball, reading, and politics were among his interests. At 14, he even penned a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt congratulating him on his re-election while brazenly asking for $10 American cash (sounds like a secret capitalist).

As a 14-year old, Fidel Castro congratulated FDR on his re-election in 1940.

As a 14-year old, Fidel Castro congratulated FDR on his re-election in 1940. (National Archives document)

The Birán estate was more than a working sugar plantation. Prominent landowner Ángel Castro also established a primary school, hotel, pub, post office, a market store, and a ring for cockfighting (again, it sounds like a capitalist venture).

A building that served as a guest house on the Birán sugar plantation, founded by Fidel Castro’s father in 1915. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Castro ruled Cuba for 49 paranoid years. He moved frequently due to an estimated 600 assassination attempts by the CIA and other foes. The failed plots are infamous—exploding cigars and poison milkshakes included. Castro eventually ceded power to his brother Raul and retired to the gated community “Punto Cero” (Point Zero), his top-secret 75-acre suburban Havana home which resembled a vast military compound.

Fidel Castro meets with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his brother President Raul Castro at Punto Cero near Havana in 2010. (Photo by Ricardo Stuckert/AFP/Getty Images)

Fidel Castro, Cuba’s communist dictator, former president and divisive world figure, died on November 25 at 90 years old—53 years and three days after his nemesis U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Despite their adversarial status, both men were born into wealth via extremely ambitious fathers, both loved sports, both had a mistress weakness, and both fought for their country to oust dictators. That’s where the similarities end.

JFK died young and Castro lived a long, well-heeled life. Castro survived 10 U.S. presidents. Although he didn’t live in a palace and streets weren’t named for him, Castro still lived more extravagantly and hypocritically than he wanted the world to know. Cuba’s revolution leader wasn’t as modest as he led on. A decade ago, Forbes estimated Fidel Castro’s personal net worth at $900 million. That’s a lot of socialist rationing for one person. Luxurious living arrangements were especially appealing to Castro. But for security reasons (after hundreds of assassination attempts), Castro’s paranoid personal life and residences were top secret. Even Cuban citizens didn’t know where he resided.

Fidel Castro was born on his father Ángel Castro’s prosperous 25,000-acre, 400-employee sugar plantation (called Las Manacas farm) in small town Birán, Cuba—about 500 miles from Havana on the eastern end of the island. The property now serves as a Castro museum.

Punto Cero, a pre-revolution golf course property, was reportedly set up by Castro in the 1970s. According to Castro’s former bodyguard, the estate complex includes orange, lemon, mandarin, grapefruit and banana trees, as well as cows and six greenhouses to grow food.

Castro's compound is on the former grounds of the Havana Biltmore Yacht and Country Club.

Castro’s compound is reportedly on the former grounds of the Havana Biltmore Yacht and Country Club.

Punto Cero was far from the “fisherman’s cottage” Castro publicly claimed as his main asset. The luxurious complex in the Jaimanitas neighborhood (15 miles outside Havana proper) served as Castro’s summer residence near the capital city’s embassy district. According to Castro’s former bodyguard (as reported by InCuba Today), he also owned a residences in Cayo Piedra (a stones throw from the Bay of Pigs), La Caleta del Rosario, which featured a private marina; and La Deseada, a chalet in Pinar del Río—reportedly one of Castro’s favorite duck hunting spots.

Fidel Castro in Pinar del Río after the 1959 Cuban revolution. Castro frequently visited and took up residence in the area too.

Fidel Castro in Pinar del Río after the 1959 Cuban revolution. Castro frequently visited and took up residence in the area too.

Retired Fidel Castro met foreign leaders, dignitaries and Popes at Punto Cero, including Pope John Paul II in 1998, Pope Benedict in 2012, and Pope Francis in 2015. Despite his Jesuit background, Castro was an atheist. Yet he still reveled meeting Popes, even exchanging religious books with them.

Pope Francis meets Fidel Castro in Havana, Cuba in 2015. The Vatican described the meeting at Castro’s residence as informal and familial, with an exchange of books. (AP Photo/Alex Castro)