Wheels up on the Crowded Obama Plane to Kenya

Posted on July 23, 2015July 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

On Africa trip, Air Force One will be crowded for once

Twenty House and Senate members will accompany President Obama on this week’s trip to Africa, according to White House officials, the latest sign of the White House’s effort to build a closer rapport with Congress.

The group — which includes 19 Democrats and one Republican, Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) — will be evenly divided between the outbound and return flight. Flake and two of his colleagues on the Senate Foreign Affairs subcommittee on African affairs, Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), will join seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Thursday night’s flight to Nairobi. The Democratic House members include Karen Bass (Calif.), G.K. Butterfield (N.C.), Eddie Bernice Johnson (Tex.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.) and Terri Sewell (Ala.)

[READ: Why Sen. Jeff Flake is the one Republican journeying to Africa with Obama]

On the return flight from Ethiopia, the president will host 10 CBC members: Democratic Reps. Emanuel Cleaver (Mo.), John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), Marcia Fudge (Ohio), Al Green (Tex.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Tex.), Robin Kelly (Ill.), Gwen Moore (Wis.), Donald Payne (N.J.), Cedric Richmond (La.) and Bennie Thompson (Miss.).

Asked Wednesday about why the president was bringing along such a large congressional contingent to Kenya and Ethiopia, his national security adviser Susan Rice told reporters, “Well, obviously we want to strengthen and sustain what I’ve referred to repeatedly as a strong bipartisan consensus around support for Africa, Africa’s development, peace and security there.”

Rice added that last month the administration was focused on renewing the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a trade bill that received overwhelming support in the House and Senate. “But obviously we have many, many issues that are important that we need Congress’s support on — legislation that will support and codify some of the most significant initiatives, including in the health and agriculture and power sectors, as well as we have a nominee on the Hill that very much needs to be confirmed for USAID administrator,” she said.

***

He will become the first sitting president to be hosted by Kenya or Ethiopia, his second stop on a four-day trip beginning on Friday.

Though the visit aims to boost US security and economic ties, many Kenyans view his arrival as a native son’s homecoming.

Mr Obama will spend private time with family members, say White House officials.

But his itinerary does not include travel to the village of Kogelo where his father is buried, despite a local witchdoctor’s predictions otherwise.

Mr Obama last visited Kenya – an important US ally against Somali Islamist group al Shabaab – while serving as a US senator in 2006.

In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, he will preside over the Global Entrepreneurship Summit and pay tribute to the victims and survivors of the 1998 US embassy bombing.

He will also dine with President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Those charges were dropped in March, but the case prevented Mr Obama from going to Kenya.

Mr Obama will also give a speech to the Kenyan people in Nairobi.

Valerie Jarrett, an Obama aide, said: “Just as anybody is curious about their heritage, visiting Kenya provides him an opportunity to make that personal connection.”

The Kenyan authorities have filled potholes, repaired pavements and planted greenery along the route where the presidential motorcade will pass.

Street vendors’ stalls are creaking with Obama memorabilia such as T-shirts, portraits and DVDs.

In the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa he will become the first US president to address the African Union.

Activists have raised concerns in a letter to Mr Obama about his trip to East Africa because of alleged human rights violations.

US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the US President wouldn’t hesitate to raise human rights concerns during the trip.

Mr Obama has chided African countries over gay rights, but Mr Kenyatta says it is a “non-issue” that won’t be on the agenda for the visit.

Mr Obama’s critics say he has done less for Africa than his predecessor, George W Bush, whose Aids relief programme made him a hero on the continent.

But Mr Obama’s advisers point to his own initiatives on electricity, agriculture and trade.

The US President wrote about his Kenyan roots in his best-selling 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father.

Debunked “birther” conspiracy theories once held he was actually born there, and ineligible to be US President.

Mr Obama will spend private time with family members, say White House officials, per Sky News

But his itinerary does not include travel to the village of Kogelo where his father is buried, despite a local witchdoctor’s predictions otherwise.

Mr Obama last visited Kenya – an important US ally against Somali Islamist group al Shabaab – while serving as a US senator in 2006.

In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, he will preside over the Global Entrepreneurship Summit and pay tribute to the victims and survivors of the 1998 US embassy bombing.

He will also dine with President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Those charges were dropped in March, but the case prevented Mr Obama from going to Kenya.

Mr Obama will also give a speech to the Kenyan people in Nairobi.

The Rest of the Terror Story on Domestic Mosques

Posted on July 22, 2015July 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

America does have a mosque problem and some moderate Muslims are assisting with law enforcement and FBI officials. Not so much however in Boston or maybe Portland, Oregon.

Oregon Live: The FBI acknowledged Monday that a joint investigation by its agents and those of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement prompted the government’s move on Monday to revoke the citizenship of the imam of Portland’s biggest mosque.

“The U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing Mr. (Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman) Kariye’s denaturalization based on his illegal procurement of naturalization; specifically, Mr. Kariye obtained his U.S. citizenship by providing false information and willful misrepresentation and concealment of material facts including his criminal history and failed to establish that he was a person of good moral character during the requisite statutory period,” the FBI wrote in a news statement. “Due to the ongoing legal proceedings, no further information is available at this time.”
Court papers filed Monday in Portland show that Justice Department officials hope to win denaturalization of the Somali-born imam’s citizenship because he allegedly tried to conceal past associations with Islamic groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Associated Press broke the story, based on a 34-page civil petition, which accuses Kariye of failing to tell immigration officials that he raised money, recruited fighters and provided training for insurgents battling the Soviet military in its 1980s war in Afghanistan.

The U.S. backed those mujahideen fighters in a proxy war against the Soviet Union, helping to topple the financially crippled superpower and end the Cold War.

Monday’s petition suggests that Kariye for a time had direct dealings with Osama bin Laden, who later came to head al-Qaida, along with a precursor terrorist organization known as Maktab Al-Khidamat. The government alleges that Kariye did not list those affiliations in his application for citizenship.

***

In 2014, the beginning of the ISIS beheading propaganda videos hit the internet resulting in shock and horror. Intelligence officials pointed to at least one man suspected to be at the core of the Islamic State media campaign, Ahmad Abousamra, from Boston.

It comes down to the deeper investigation details and the dots in connections and relationships. Now so real facts are known.

The case against Aafia Siddiqui currently in prison in Texas. The FBI 2010 summary.

Lady al Qaeda

Moderate imam reveals how radicals won battle for soul of Boston mosques

FNC: A moderate imam who raised alarms more than a decade ago about a radical shift at two controversial Boston mosques he led for decades says he was ousted for his efforts by a local doctor whose son joined ISIS and replaced by a man now with the infamous Pakistani terrorist group behind the 2008 Mumbai bombings.

Imam Talal Eid told FoxNews.com that creeping radicalism put him increasingly at odds in the late 1990s with the board of directors of the Islamic Center of New England, where he served from 1982 until 2005. But when Eid, nominally in charge of the religious teaching at the center’s mosques in Sharon and Quincy, resisted, he was left in fear for his safety and eventually driven out by Dr. Abdul-badi Abousamra, at the time a prominent endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and president of the 1,500-member Center.

“At times, I was fearful for my safety,” said Eid, a former member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom who now runs a mosque in Toledo, Ohio. “When I would stand up for what I believed in, and there was a clash, you see how I could be scared.”

“I was pushing for one thing, and the board was pushing for something else, and I was alone facing them.”

– Imam Talal Eid

Abousamra, who has since moved to Doha and could not be reached for comment, was one of the Boston Muslim community’s most powerful and prominent figures in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In addition to being the center’s president, he was vice president of the Muslim American Society of Boston, which ran the Islamic Society of Boston, a Cambridge mosque that shared many members with those run by the Islamic Center of New England.

All three mosques have ties to a host of known and suspected terrorists, including Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the brothers behind the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; Aafia Siddiqui, aka “Lady Al Qaeda,” the Pakistani woman and Usama bin Laden associate now serving an 86-year federal sentence; and, more recently, Usaama Rahim, the 26-year-old man killed by police last month after brandishing a knife and allegedly plotting to behead Boston cops.

Even as Abousamra was exerting a radical influence on the leadership of mosques he helped run, law enforcement authorities say his son, a Northeastern University graduate raised in the Boston suburb of Stoughton, was training in Middle Eastern terror camps, aiding Al Qaeda and plotting attacks on U.S. soil. Ahamad Abousamra left Boston for Syria in 2006 while under investigation for terror-related charges that would later lead to an indictment, and is now believed to be running ISIS’ social media operation.

While mosques around the nation have disavowed terrorism, with many leaders working with law enforcement authorities to report suspicious activity, the infighting at the Boston mosque described by Eid shows that behind the scenes, mosque leaders are not always on the same page.

When Eid was ousted from the center, it soon became clear which direction leaders wanted to go. He was replaced by Muhammad Hafiz Masood, an assistant imam who had been forced on him in 1998 by Abousamra and who was known for fiery sermons easily interpreted as promoting violence.

“This is when I started to fear for my safety,” Eid said. “I was pushing for one thing, and the board was pushing for something else, and I was alone facing them.”

A year after Eid left, Masood fled the U.S. after being arrested for visa fraud. He resurfaced in Pakistan, where he is now spokesman for the Pakistani terrorist organization Jamaat-ud-Dawah, a group founded by his brother, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. Saeed also founded Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani terrorist group behind the 2008 coordinated bombings in Mumbai that killed 164 and wounded hundreds more. Law enforcement sources say the two groups are one and the same.

Eid said he was not aware at the time of the radicalization of the younger Abousamra, which included a 2002 trip to Yemen where he trained at a terrorist camp with Massachusetts pal Tarek Mehanna. Abousamra fled to Syria in 2006, but in 2009 he and Mehanna were indicted on federal terrorism charges, including providing material support to Al Qaeda in Iraq – the precursor of ISIS – and an aborted plot to attack a suburban Massachusetts mall. Mehanna is serving a 17-year federal prison sentence.

Abousamra, a graduate of Northeastern University who grew up in the affluent suburb of Stoughton, is said to be a computer whiz who has risen to the top of ISIS’ media operation. He is rumored to have been killed in a recent airstrike in Syria, but the FBI, which has a $50,000 bounty on him, could not confirm that.

“Although aware of the reports, the United States government has not yet confirmed any change in the status of Ahmad Abousamra,” the FBI said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “He will remain on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List until the time a confirmation in change of status is made.”

No one from the center’s current administration returned repeated requests for comment from FoxNews.com. While it is unclear whether the radicalizing impact of Masood and the senior Abousamra on the three Boston-area mosques lingers today, the non-profit organization Americans for Peace and Tolerance believes many of Masood’s supporters remain in leadership roles in the Boston Muslim community.

“There are many dots connecting Masood and his associates to terrorist activity in the city, past and present,” Americans for Peace and Tolerance Director of Research Ilya Feoktistov said. “With two ISIS-inspired terrorist plots thwarted in the Boston area in the past two months, the threat of radical Islamic terrorism to the city continues to grow.”

Eid stressed that the vast majority of Muslims at the Center’s mosques and at houses of worship throughout the nation attend for any other reason than to pray and reflect on the message of the Koran. It is up to leaders to ensure that moderate voices like his are not drowned out by the shrill calls to radicalism, he said.

“Do we need to wait for a tragedy to happen?” Eid said. “We need to allow more moderate Muslim voices so that life can go smoothly in our society.”

Naturalized Citizens can Omit the Pledge to America Per Obama

Posted on July 22, 2015July 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

What say you America? No requirement of loyalty to the United States of America. ‘We the People OF the United States’ has no meaning anymore.

Under this edict by Barack Obama, El Chapo Guzman and Osama bin Ladin would be accepted as a U.S. citizen. Under this scenario, how does anyone take the oath to join the military?

Obama: New citizens can skip pledge to take up arms and defend the U.S.

Washington Examiner:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Tuesday said it will no longer require incoming U.S. citizens to pledge that they will “bear arms on behalf of the United States” or “perform noncombatant service” in the Armed Forces as part of the naturalization process.

Those lines are in the Oath of Allegiance that people recite as they become U.S. citizens. But USCIS said people “may” be able to exclude those phrases for reasons related to religion or if they have a conscientious objection.

USCIS said people with certain religious training or with a “deeply held moral or ethical code” may not have to say the phrases as they are naturalized.

The agency said people don’t have to belong to a specific church or religion to use this exemption, and may attest to U.S. officials administering the oath that they have these beliefs.

USCIS said it would take “feedback” on this policy change through August 4, 2015.

The current naturalization oath reads as follows:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

Obama’s Either OR on Immigration, Senate Hearing

Posted on July 22, 2015July 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

President Obama’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director tells lawmakers that no consequences are planned for sanctuary cities until Congress first passes “comprehensive immigration reform.” Sarah Saldaña testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on criminal alien violence.

by Julia Hahn:

After hearing emotional testimony from families torn apart by illegal immigrant murderers, Republican members of Congress grilled two administration witnesses: Leon Rodriquez, Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Sarah Saldaña, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Both Rodriquez and Saldaña have been tasked with carrying out President Obama’s executive amnesty for so-called DREAMers, which includes work permits and medical benefits for low-income illegal aliens funded by citizen taxpayers.

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) repeatedly pressed Saldaña on why the Administration was taking no action against sanctuary jurisdictions that refuse to turn over dangerous criminal aliens from their prisons and jails to federal law officers. Saldaña replied that Congress would first have to pass “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Vitter: “This has been going on for years and you still are not prepared to say that there is ever going to be any negative consequence to those [sanctuary] jurisdictions. When is that going to change?”

Saldaña: “I presume when you all address comprehensive immigration reform; perhaps it can be addressed there.”

Vitter described Saldaña’s answer as “ridiculous” and kept pressing: “And absent Congress passing that [Senate immigration] bill, that you and the Obama Administration prefer, you don’t think right now we can stop sanctuary cities from flaunting federal law? You don’t think right now there can be any negative consequences when they do not properly cooperate under existing federal law with immigration enforcement?”

Saldaña gave a muddled reply: “That’s what I understand that all of you are working on.”

Ironically, an immigration bill pushed by Senators Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) would have given amnesty to many of the criminal aliens the families who testified today wish to see deported. As Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council, noted at the time:

Senator Rubio left unchanged legislative provisions that he himself admitted to us in private were detrimental, flawed and must be changed. Legislation written behind closed doors by handpicked special interest groups which put their political agendas and financial gains before sound and effective law and the welfare and safety of the American public. As a result, the 1,200 page substitute bill before the Senate will provide instant legalization and a path to citizenship to gang members and other dangerous criminal aliens, and handcuff ICE officers from enforcing immigration laws in the future. It provides no means of effectively enforcing visa overstays which account for almost half of the nation’s illegal immigration crisis.

Senator Grassley offered an amendment that would that would have barred gang members, such as the notorious MS-13 gang members who have wreaked havoc across the country, from getting amnesty but that amendment was defeated in the Judiciary Committee. The final bill 68 senators voted for therefore expressly made amnesty available to gang members – an amnesty that included access to green cards, welfare and the prize of U.S. citizenship.

As The Washington Post reported at the time, this was part of a coordinated effort by members of the Gang of Eight to quash amendments that might have damaged the likelihood of the bill’s speedy passage:

The eight met in private before each committee hearing, hashing out which amendments they would support and which oppose as a united coalition. Senate aides said amendments were rejected if either side felt they would shatter the deal.

Politico confirmed this report:

During the Judiciary Committee markup in May, the Gang routinely met to decide which amendments they would support or oppose. In one meeting, the senators thought they had all agreed to defeat a proposal from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

The day the bill passed the Senate, National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council president Ken Palinkas and president of the National ICE Council Chris Crane, who together represent more than 20,000 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees on the front line of immigration enforcement, issued this joint statement:

ICE officers and USCIS adjudications officers have pleaded with lawmakers not to adopt this bill,” they wrote, “The Schumer-Rubio-Corker-Hoeven proposal will make Americans less safe and it will ensure more illegal immigration—especially visa overstays—in the future. It provides legalization for thousands of dangerous criminals while making it more difficult for our officers to identity public safety and national security threats. The legislation was guided from the beginning by anti-enforcement special interests and, should it become law, will have the desired effect of these groups: blocking immigration enforcement.

This is anti-public safety bill and an anti-law enforcement bill.

Immigration and the transformation of America is shaping up to be the most passionate issue of the 2016 race.

When Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) was question by a DREAMer during a recent campaign stop and said illegal aliens seeking to become Americans needed to return home. He also suggested at the same stop that foreign worker visas should be limited when American jobs and wages are in danger, a position that polls well with liberals and conservatives alike.

Sanctuary City Legislation, and More deaths

Posted on July 21, 2015July 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

There were assigned to be deported, but that did not happen and a grandmother was killed in her bed while sleeping by a bullet from the apartment from upstairs. Ask Barack Obama and Jeh Johnson to explain the reason why this happened.

FNC: A Massachusetts woman killed as she slept in her bed by a bullet fired through her ceiling would be alive today, if the men accused of shooting her had been deported, according to anti-illegal immigration activists.

Mirta Rivera, 41, a nurse and grandmother from Lawrence, was shot July 4 from an upstairs apartment where two illegal immigrants lived despite being under federal deportation orders, according to the Boston Herald. Dominican Republic nationals Wilton Lara-Calmona and Jose M. Lara-Mejia both had long histories of sneaking into the U.S. More on the story here.

Washington Times: The House will vote this week on legislation to punish sanctuary cities such as San Francisco, moving quickly to force the Obama administration to take action as victims of crime linked to illegal immigrants come forward to tell their stories.

Cities and counties that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities would lose federal funding from several Justice Department grant programs, including one that pays to hire police officers and another that pays local jails for housing illegal immigrants.

“There’s one way and one way only to get sanctuary cities to comply with federal law, and that’s to withhold some of the federal funds they actually want,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who wrote the bill. “Plain and simple, if they want the federal money, then they need to comply with federal law.” More on this here.

Senator Chuck Grassley is being quite assertive when it comes to illegals and immigration. The Senator is working diligently to stop ‘sanctuary cities’. Senator Sessions is doing the same thing and he refers to 121 illegal immigrants working on avoiding deportation there were charged with murder.

Click the links below to see Senator’s Grassley’s work on H-1B visa reform

Click here to view Senator Grassley’s June 21, 2010 letter to President Obama.

The Patch: Family members of a woman shot to death on San Francisco’s waterfront earlier this month allegedly at the hands of a Mexican national with multiple deportations will speak at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.

The hearing, requested by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was scheduled to identify potential public safety issues stemming from the county’s immigration policies and comes three weeks after the death of 32-year-old Pleasanton native Kathryn “Kate” Steinle, who was fatally shot on July 1 while walking on Pier 14 with family members in broad daylight.

Grassley has invited the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to testify Tuesday after members of the Steinle family have had a chance to address the senators.

Within an hour of the shooting, police arrested Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an undocumented immigrant who had been deported five times and has seven prior felony convictions, including four involving narcotics. Lopez-Sanchez was released from San Francisco County Jail in April despite a request from ICE personnel asking the sheriff’s department to detain him so that ICE field agents could take him into custody and carry out Lopez-Sanchez’ sixth deportation.