WH Declares that Iraq/ISIS is Iraq’s Problem

Posted on May 28, 2015May 28, 2015 by Denise Simon

If you wonder why there is no strategy to defeat ISIS, it is because the White House, meaning Barack Obama and Susan Rice have formally declared that the civil war in Iraq and Syria belong to others to handle. The United States will not be responsible for securing Iraq, PERIOD.

This has been known for quite some time at the Pentagon and military leaders including the SecDefs, both Hagel and Carter have written and voiced their immediate requests for a strategy. There are liaisons between the Pentagon and Congress that provide information to key lawmakers, there is no doubt that the Pentagon is reaching out for some real help from Congress. When Senator Dick Durbin, who is anti-war requests a strategy and safe zones of the military and the White House, the case is proven, Congress is current on the bumbling by the White House with regard to ISIS.

Earlier this month, Durbin asked Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Ash Carter about the feasibility of establishing the zones when they testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Durbin is the ranking member of the powerful subcommittee, which controls the Pentagon’s purse strings.

Carter added, “We would need to fight to create such a space, and then fight to keep such a space.” The Pentagon readily admits the Islamic State cannot be defeated without addressing the glaring Syria question, but it has adopted an “Iraq first” strategy toward the terrorist group, focusing U.S. airpower in a country where the government requested it. But after the fall of Ramadi last weekend, more lawmakers are renewing calls for deeper U.S. military involvement, including embedding American troops with Iraqi forces to call in airstrikes.

President Obama, after months of equivocation over how to respond to the takeover of parts of Iraq and Syria by radical militants, announced in September that the United States would “lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” the White House swung quickly into action, sending proposed legislation to train and equip Syrian rebels to Capitol Hill that same day.

Unfortunately, the White House failed to consult with the Pentagon—which would be doing most of the rolling back—on the timing or details of the announcement.
To be part of the U.S. coalition, members had to offer some assistance. That assistance could be any type of cooperation with such participation as MRE’s, a terrorism training class, publishing bulletins, fighter jets, approved air-space for refueling or just holding a conference call. Exactly, what kind of help is Estonia or Greece offering? Here is the document on the coalition members and requests for involvement.

While U.S. aircraft are flying a handful of sorties a day, 70% of the aircraft return to base without dropping ordnance because of lack of approval and no quality ground-controllers delivering coordinates. We are just wasting fuel and essentially practicing an air campaign.

Our military knows how to fight this fight as they have successfully performed the operations before. Today, on the ground in Iraq are Shiite militia, Iranian proxies coordinating ground operations for the sake of their future victory, Iraq will belong to Iran, as will Syria. In the case of Syria however, the forecast is it will be a split state between Iran and Russia. The same is likely for Libya.

Today, Bashir al Assad is running an aggressive campaign to defeat al Nusra and ISIS under the promise of future financial support from Iran. Assad’s success will be fleeting at best, even while Hezbollah is aiding in some measure to protect the regime. Once again, the U.S. air operations in Syria are in coordination with Assad, consider that both state’s aircraft have been in the air at the same time. That puts the U.S. siding with Hezbollah. Yes…real twisted conditions for sure.

WH Climate Change Mission and Terrorism

Posted on May 28, 2015May 28, 2015 by Denise Simon

Posted on the White House website is an 11 page summary of how climate change is the cause of comprehensive national security threats including terrorism.

With climate change, certain types of extreme weather events and their impacts, including extreme heat, heavy downpours, floods, and droughts, have become more frequent and/or intense. In addition, warming is causing sea level to rise and glaciers and Arctic sea ice to melt. These and other aspects of climate change are disrupting people’s lives and damaging certain sectors of the economy. The national security implications of climate change impacts are far-reaching, as they may exacerbate existing stressors, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and political instability, providing enabling environments for terrorist activity abroad. For example, the impacts of climate change on key economic sectors, such as agriculture and water, can have profound effects on food security, posing threats to overall stability.

The implications of climate change on national security are not all beyond U.S. borders – they pose risks here at home. According to the Third National Climate Assessment, sea level rise, coupled with storm surge, will continue to increase the risk of major coastal impacts on transportation infrastructure, including both temporary and permanent flooding of airports, ports and harbors, roads, rail lines, tunnels, and bridges. Extreme weather events are also affecting energy production and delivery facilities, causing supply disruptions of varying lengths and magnitudes and affecting other infrastructure that depends on energy supply. Increasing risk of flooding affects human safety and health, property, infrastructure, economies, and ecology in many basins across the United States.

These impacts increase the frequency, scale, and complexity of future defense missions, requiring higher costs of military base maintenance and impacting the effectiveness of troops and equipment in conflict. Assessments are currently underway by the Department of Defense (DOD) to determine the national resources necessary to respond to these growing threats to U.S. national security. Read the full report here.

The climate change activists are out in full measure, where even Catholic priests have embraced the climate change agenda facing off with Exxon Mobile. Cant make this up.

In part from The Hill: Michael Crosby, who sponsored the resolution for a climate expert on behalf of a group of Milwaukee Catholic priests, said the oil and natural gas giant needs to better embrace renewable energy and to fight climate change. So who are these priests and why take on corporations?

*** (spelling errors and editing omissions are directly part of their website) ***

Catholic Religious Leaders Call for Action on Climate Change

[Denver, CO] Leaders of US orders of Catholic priests, brothers, and sisters issued aresolution calling their members to work for action on climate change.The members of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM) and the LeadershipConference of Women Religious (LCWR), who represent more than 86,000 of thecountry’s Catholic sisters, brothers, and religious priests, met jointly in assembly inDenver, Colorado from August 1‐4. During the meeting, the two conferences resolved to“seek concrete ways to curb environmental degradation, mitigate its impact on thepoorest and most vulnerable people, and restore right relationships among all God’screation; and to foster a consciousness of care for God’s creation among all ourmembers, colleagues, institutions and those whom we serve.” The leaders noted that the increase in temperature on the earth will likely havewidespread consequences from mass extinctions to devastating impacts on the lives andlivelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable human beings.

Here is a memo in part from their global association.

Religions and Climate Change
Fr. Sean McDonagh, SSC

I have been at many meetings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) during the past decade. At almost all of these meetings religious groups have attempted to demonstrate that climate change has a serious ethical and religious dimension, mainly because it affects the poor and important ecosystems in a very negative way.

After visiting Nepal in May 2014, Ms Christiana Figueres the Secretary General of UNFCCC pointed out that, saving the Earth and its peoples from dangerous climate change is a moral and ethical issue, one that goes to the core of the world’s great faiths. She said that it was time for faith and religious institutions to find their voice and set their moral compass on one of the great humanitarian issues of our time.

At COP 20 in Lima, the Consejo Interreligiouso del Perú (the Council for Interreligious Dialogue) Religiones por la Paz (Religions for Peace) had a stand at the main venue and also sponsored a seminar at the NGO Centre at the Jockey Club of Peru. The title of the seminar was Climate Change and the Voice of the Faith Communities. The first speaker was Mons. Salvador Pineiro, the archbishop of Ayacucho and the President of the Episcopal Conference of Peru. He said that he was a city boy, born in Lima and had little understanding of rural life until he was appointed archbishop of Ayacucho. In conversation with a poor potato farmer he learned how climate changes was affecting the potato crop and making things more difficult for farmers during the past decade.

Raquel Cago, who is the executive director of the National Union of Evangelical Churches, said that the bible challenges Christians to take good care of God’s creation. Martin Kopp from the Federation of Lutheran Churches spoke very simply and succinctly about how the faith community should respond to climate change.
He made three suggestions:
The most important thing for Churches and Religions is to develop a credible theology of creation in each of their traditions:
His second recommendation was that the faith community must work together and lobby governments and industries to challenge them to take climate change seriously at local, national and global level. We need good laws and effective enforcement of these laws to protect the poor and the environment:
Finally, people need to do things however small to combat climate change. He gave an example of a choir in a Church in France. The members used to meet in the church for rehearsals even during the winter. This meant heating the large church, even through there were only a few people in the choir. Someone suggested they met in a smaller room and thus save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Poll Tested Social Engineering, Religion and Policy

Posted on May 27, 2015May 27, 2015 by Denise Simon

Do you ever wonder where social issues, legislating behavior, growing policy on you personally really comes from? Any why now? Take note, those ‘Millennials’ are the target.

Enter Public Religion Research Institute who is in partnership with liberal think tanks, academia and the United Nations for world affair affects. No longer can you think independently as you are provided issues with liberal socialist bents and the matters are poll tested that require upgrades and new definitions to ensure cooperation and re-tooled attitudes. This is especially the condition as they relate to sex, gender and education. Those three items actually are as old as man so why do we need to be taught something new? Simple answer is money.

There is was a working draft of this platform created in 2009 by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

Social Justice

America is becoming more religiously liberal with each generation, and religious conservatives, though more numerous now, will become dinosaurs. That’s the confident projection of a new poll from the liberal leaning Public Religion Research Institute. It’s predictably gotten good media play, as claims about irrelevance for religious conservatives often do. And it supplements other polls supposedly proving the rise of the religiously unaffiliated in America.

The Left, in its alternative cosmology, believes in its own nonreligious providential destiny. But history moves in more crooked, unpredictable paths. And religious traditionalists, most of them conservative, believe that history has a another ultimately inexorable direction, guided by The Lord of history. The Left’s own more secular faith is often buttressed by short term trends.

“Our new research shows a complex religious landscape, with religious conservatives holding an advantage over religious progressives in terms of size and homogeneity,” PPRI admitted when releasing its poll. “However, the percentage of religious conservatives shrinks in each successive generation, with religious progressives outnumbering religious conservatives in the Millennial generation.”

Nearly half of the older than age 66 crowd is religiously conservative, while less than 20 percent of the under 33 crowd is. Only 12 percent of oldsters are religiously liberal while almost a quarter of the young are. So — presto — the future belongs to the Religious Left. As the much vaunted Millennial Generation ages into leadership, the Religious Right’s doom supposedly will be sealed.

This determinism of course assumes that these Millennials will not change their views as they age. And it assumes subsequent generations will not react against previous generations, even though most generations, when young, assume they are wiser and therefore must be different from their immediate predecessors. In the future, a new crop of youngsters will look somewhat smugly on the by-then aging Millennials.

Transform America

Lisa Sharon Harper, director of mobilizing for Sojourners, a progressive Christian organization, says shifts are due to young people choosing to identify with Jesus and his teachings as opposed to a particular political party. Harper believes the GOP is being pulled to the far right by extremists on issues like abortion, thus forgetting and alienating those whom Jesus affirmed and advocated for: poor people, ethnic minorities, and women.

“I think the focus on the person of Jesus is birthing a younger generation inspired by [Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount],” she says. “Their political agenda is shaped by Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, make sure the thirsty have clean water, make sure all have access to healthcare, transform America into a welcoming place for immigrants, fix our inequitable penal system, and end abject poverty abroad and in the forgotten corners of our urban and rural communities.”

Lisa Sharon Harper, Sojourners’ senior director of mobilizing, was the founding executive director of New York Faith & Justice—an organization at the hub of a new ecumenical movement to end poverty in New York City. In that capacity, she helped establish Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, a citywide collaborative effort of faith leaders committed to leveraging the power of their constituencies and their moral authority in partnership with communities bearing the weight of environmental injustice. She also organized faith leaders to speak out for immigration reform and organized the South Bronx Conversations for Change, a dialogue-to-change project between police and the community.

She has written extensively on tax reform, comprehensive immigration reform, health-care reform, poverty, racial justice, and transformational civic engagement for publications and blogs including The National Civic Review, God’s Politics blog, The Huffington Post, Urban Faith, Prism, and Slant33.

There is more including a magazine. Topics include ‘Divest from Nuclear Weapons, Testing Jesus, Divest from Fossil Fuels and the Christian Nation vs. Secular Country.

5th Circuit Dealt Blow to WH Immigration Scheme

Posted on May 27, 2015May 27, 2015 by Denise Simon

Simply stated, on a 2-1 decision, the court ruled the ‘stay’ on Barack Obama’s executive action remains in place however, two options remain. The 5th Circuit Court sends the case back down to the lower court while the other option is for the administration to ‘rocket-docket’ the case to the Supreme Court. To advance the case to SCOTUS may not be a prudent decision as the next judge in line of rotation at the Supreme Court is Justice Scalia, who would likely rule adversely on Obama’s executive action. The Obama legal team as well as Hillary Clinton have pushed back hard on the court’s decision, so the showdown will likely continue or where the administration will alter terms used for immigration to redefine those here, as told are in the shadows to a refugee or under asylum status. Another nefarious plan B could be in place and about to be launched.

If you are under the notion that members of congress are not doing anything on the Obama executive action, mostly you would be correct. However, there are some that are taking an aggressive stance and they need our support. Senator Ron Johnson and Senator Sessions are two that are pushing back hard. Please note Senator Johnson’s position here.

Meanwhile, eyes should be also focused again on the insurgency season upon America for the 2015 incursion at the Southern border. The United States is a generous and benevolent country and such is the condition with those desperately needing to escape violence.

The only viable solution is to install solutions in home countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador such that safety and viability is restored. No politician speaks to that solution, demand those answers.

Deaths, gang activity surge as illegals flood border, 30,000 expected

A crackdown on children attempting to illegally enter the United States by Mexico and other Latin American nations has cut this year’s surge to a still-high 30,000, but proponents believe that has made the situation even more desperate for kids, leading to greater crime and deaths.

“Those that are fleeing and trying to get out of their countries are now using even more dangerous tactics with more criminal entities and costing them even more money to get through to safety,” said Kimberly Haynes, director of children’s services for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Baltimore-based LIRS is a key player in caring for unaccompanied children crossing into the United States and advocates for joining the kids with their parents already in the United States. Haynes told Secrets that those they have interviewed this year arrive with horrible stories of how smugglers got them through Mexico and into the United States.

Worse, she said, many arrive minus a brother or sister, believed to have died in the process.

“While riding the [illegal immigration freight] train was horrendous in its own right and the journey was already scary enough, being locked in the back of a truck for four days or being smuggled in other ways through the border has only created a heightened amount of risk,” Haynes said of how illegals now travel.

“There are several siblings that we know never made it. We don’t know what happened to them. One of their brothers made it, one sister made it, there’s something, but there’s no understanding, no knowledge. They left at the same time, smuggler’s separated them, nobody knows. So there’s a huge population of loss that’s happening out of these countries that can’t even try to immigrate back if things become stable enough because they’re just a lost generation,” she said.

“Nobody’s heard from them, nobody knows what’s happened, so whether they got exploited, killed, went into criminal entities or died in the process, it’s an unknown,” added Haynes.

What’s more, she said the smuggling prices has jumped from $1,000 to at least $1,600, and sometimes gangs demand more money before making the final delivery.

So far, the numbers of illegals crossing into the United States has been about half of last year’s numbers. Haynes said that while about 68,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border last year, current numbers suggest a total of about 30,000 this year.

But at 30,000, it is still very high and equal to fiscal 2013’s numbers.

She said that Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have cracked down on families and children trying to leave. And, she added, that some still try is a sign that the political and humanitarian situation in those countries has not improved.

“To know that families are risking that level of life means that there is something bigger going on down there,” said Haynes.

About Those Gangs Across America

Posted on May 26, 2015May 26, 2015 by Denise Simon

After the big shoot-out and arrests a few days ago in Waco, here is a detailed summary of the list of gangs and who are the members. Simply stated, no town is safe, hence we are not safe.

Featured photo - Exclusive: Leaked Report Profiles Military, Police Members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs

Exclusive: Leaked Report Profiles Military, Police Members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs

Nuclear power plant technicians, senior military officers, FBI contractors and an employee of “a highly-secretive Department of Defense agency” with a Top Secret clearance. Those are just a few of the more than 100 people with sensitive military and government connections that law enforcement is tracking because they are linked to “outlaw motorcycle gangs.”

A year before the deadly Texas shootout that killed nine people on May 17, a lengthy report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives detailed the involvement of U.S. military personnel and government employees in outlaw motorcycle gangs, or OMGs. A copy of the report was obtained by The Intercept.

The full report/presentation is here.

The report lays out, in almost obsessive detail, the extent to which OMG members are represented in nearly every part of the military, and in federal and local government, from police and fire departments to state utility agencies. Specific examples from the report include dozens of Defense Department contractors with Secret or Top Secret clearances; multiple FBI contractors; radiological technicians with security clearances; U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees; Army, Navy and Air Force active-duty personnel, including from the special operations force community; and police officers.

“The OMG community continues to spread its tentacles throughout all facets of government,” the report says.

The relationship between OMGs and law enforcement has come under scrutiny after it became known that law enforcement were on site in Waco bracing for conflict.

The 40-page report, “OMGs and the Military 2014,” issued by ATF’s Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information in July of last year, warned of the escalating violence of these gangs. “Their insatiable appetite for dominance has led to shootings, assaults and malicious attacks across the globe. OMGs continue to maim and murder over territory,” the report said. “As tensions escalate, brazen shootings are occurring in broad daylight.”

The ATF report is based on intelligence gathered by dozens of law enforcement and military intelligence agencies, and identifies about 100 alleged associates of the country’s most violent outlaw motorcycle gangs and support clubs who have worked in sensitive government or military positions.

Those gangs “continue to court active-duty military personnel and government workers, both civilians and contractors, for their knowledge, reliable income, tactical skills and dedication to a cause,” according to the report. “Through our extensive analysis, it has been revealed that a large number of support clubs are utilizing active-duty military personnel and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contractors and employees to spread their tentacles across the United States.”

The report predicted that six dominant OMGs — Mongols, Hells Angels, Outlaws, Pagans, Bandidos and Vagos — would continue to expand, with escalating violence. The groups are known as “one-percenter” clubs, a moniker they proudly use to denote their outlaw status. The report identifies the most violent as Bandidos and Hell’s Angels support clubs — the same groups involved in a deadly shootout in Waco, Texas on Sunday.

The deadly confrontation involved the Bandidos and a rival club, the Cossacks MC, who are backed by Bandidos’ arch rivals, the Hell’s Angels. The shootout was part of a ongoing turf battle: Without permission from the Bandidos, Cossacks members have begun wearing a patch on their vests that claims Texas as the club’s territory — a figurative thumb in the eye of the Bandidos, long the state’s dominant motorcycle club. Nine people were killed and more than 170 bikers were arrested in the noontime showdown.

On Wednesday, law enforcement in Texas confirmed to several media outlets that one of the bikers arrested in the massive post-shootout sweep was a former San Antonio police detective, who joined the Bandidos after retiring from the department after 32 years.

The ATF report identifies the Bandidos as the dominant and most violent of the motorcycle gangs in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and identifies a staff sergeant instructor in the United States Air Force, currently stationed at Keesler Air Force Base, as the president of the local Pistoleros chapter, a Bandidos support club. According to the report, he routinely hosts parties for active duty military personnel.

In response to questions about the report, an ATF spokesperson said, “This was supposed to be solely a law enforcement tool to help fight violent crime. It was not supposed to be out there in the ether for general consumption.” The Intercept, after consulting with ATF, has redacted some portions of the report.

In an interview, Edward Winterhalder, a former high-ranking member of the Bandidos who left the club in 2003, said that while military veterans have long been involved in motorcycle clubs — many of the current outlaw clubs were formed in the wake of World War II — current-duty military or law enforcement members are not generally involved in the most violent gangs.

According to Winterhalder, biker clubs not associated with the violent one-percenters have many government employees — current military, law enforcement and firefighters — as members. Indeed, some clubs have emerged that pointedly disavow any connections to violence or lawlessness, or that specifically bill themselves as a LEMC — law enforcement motorcycle club.

Among those are the Iron Circle LEMC, a Texas club formed in 2006; the Arizona-founded Roughnecks Country MC — for the “99 percent … that gives a shit about society and the laws that govern the world we live in”; the Iron Order MC, a fiercely independent club that strongly rejects the ethos of the one-percenters; and the Protectors LEMC, which requires a criminal background check for prospective members.

Nonetheless, the report documents extensive involvement of current-duty military and government personnel in the outlaw groups, and does not mention LEMCs.

The report is a testament to how seriously law enforcement takes the issue of outlaw motorcycle gangs, detailing extensive surveillance; the document includes copies of military or government identification photos, some gained from traffic stops, and information from what appears to be close monitoring of military and government officials who attend the groups’ gatherings and activities across the country.